Your contextualisation should be an essay which examines theories and concepts of worldbuilding, using your artefact as a central case study. If you decided to expand upon an existing world, you might also discuss the previous worldbuilding texts and contributions, comparing them to your own. If you decided to create your own world, you might identify one or more fictional worlds which inspired you, comparing their approaches to your own. The contextualisation should not just be a description of what you did, and the challenges faced. Instead, it should be an analytical unpacking of your worldbuilding artefact(s) and the processes which formed it/them. You should discuss key terms and concepts from the module (referencing the set readings), showing how your understanding of them contributed to your worldbuilding practice. Positioning your own work within theories of worldbuilding, you should be able to provide a thorough analysis of your artefact(s), arguing for it/them as an example of subcreation.
FEEBACK
Artefact – ABD
Worldbuilding – 21
Unfortunately, the worldbuilding elements here are very limited. The first-floor plan is very basic, and why is the bedroom in colour with textures and detail while nothing else is? We have no real context for who Nick is or how this project relates to its source. The family tree is poorly designed, with the heraldic image stretched and pixellated. It also contains very little information, as half of the individuals are labelled as unknown. If you are engaging with this existing worldbuilding and attempting to trans medially grow it, these are the kind of gaps you should be filling.
I’m not really sure what’s being added here except for some elements of visualisation and possibly calculations of dates. The third element is again weak from a design perspective, as it is blurry and lacks detail. It should have been refined and made more informative and interesting using prompts. I’m afraid that these submission elements do not show good enough knowledge, and in fact show very minimal effort. You needed to develop this idea significantly for it to be an acceptable submission for this assessment.
Contextualisation – ABD
It’s good to see you engaging with a key text from the outset and defining the key concept. The quotation is a little long, and the citation needed a page number. You also need to work on your paragraphing, as you have multiple sentences on their own line within the first section, then a double space to create the next paragraph. You should not be setting sentences on new lines unless they are the beginning of a new paragraph. It’s good to see you engaging with a variety of research, both module recommendations and your own sources.
However, you are not using these effectively, as you are failing to write around them properly. Collecting the quotations together does not make for an effective essay paragraph, you need to be forming an argument by making connected points and using the research as evidence. The focus on maps is relevant, and it’s good that you are engaging with examples, but really you should be applying these ideas critically to your own work. Again, things remain rather fragmentary here without a real sense of application and analysis. You also need to proofread your work more effectively.
There is some useful material here at times, and you have done some effective research which is unpacked fairly well on occasion. I’m not sure why you are starting each paragraph with a line before a colon. This is an unusual formulaic approach which does give me a few concerns about the provenance of this information, though you are referencing other texts. I have to say that paragraphs like the last full one on p7 do not fit with your previous writing and read like they have been AI-generated or rewritten.
The subsequent sections on genealogy similarly read like they are either AI-produced or taken from an existing source. You need to clarify for me where this information is from and why you have presented it in this way. Some of the references are also extremely unusual – e.g. Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America. This is a very odd source to include, being a 900-page history work on the early colonisation of America, and it is the kind of obscure thing that Chat-GPT tends to reference. I’m afraid we need to talk, again, about your use of AI and sources.
Second marker:
Crypto cartography is certainly a potentially valuable way into certain forms of sub creation or can be used as a way of extending the range of fictional worlds into different forms of textual or non-textual media. As the first marker notes, however, the is a confusion of style and of focus in the contextualisation that makes it read like a jumble of ideas awaiting some kind of clear, structural organisation. There is certainly good idea here, but I’m afraid there is still much needs to be to bring into a coherent guide to process and product. Mark agreed.