1. Evaluation
For my extended project I chose to create a study into the sociological characteristics and motivations behind
body art. This was a very challenging project to completeas I had carry out a lot of extensive research to
prepare and complete theproject.
Now I have completedmy project I feel that I did an exceptional job on achieving what I set out to. After
researching about each chapter of my project I felt more and more confident that I understood the
motivations, relevance and also symbolic meanings of body art in many different cultures and societies.
Because I understood the research that I found I was able to then put it into my own words and concentrate
on the different chapters in detail. I was able to write about understanding addictions and motivations behind
tattoos, understanding the relevance of bodyart within tribes and also understand the symbolic messages of
body art in gang cultures.
I think throughout the different stages of the project I performed well. However there were a few things that I
struggled with when writing my dissertation. During the research stages I was able to find information on each
of my chapters easily, at the beginning though I struggled with what to research having not thought of titles
for my chapters. After I realised how in depth I wanted my research to be I was then able to easily find
websites and books that I could research from. Also books were very difficult to find, The library at my college
didn’t have very good books with factual information on body art, therefore I had to search the internet to find
books that I could use. Lastly I found it difficult to put an argument together, I found myself just writing about
facts and statistics rather than creating an argument either for or against body art in different cultures.
During the writing of the dissertation, I often confused myself as after saving the essay I found myself writing
the same things I already had said previously.
In addition I found that if I had of researched gang culture tattoos and tribal body art first, then I would have
had better questions to ask and answer in the perceptions of tattoos part of my dissertation, this could have
potentially made everything a lot easier.
Furthermore, having completed this project I have had time to think about what kinds of things I would do
differently. Firstly I would do much more research in the time I allocated myself to complete the research, I
had to do some extra research due to running out of aspects of each chapter to write about, which then gave
me less time to complete the dissertation itself. Also I would have referenced my dissertation as I wrote it. By
referencing everything at the end I had to go back and find where and when I found each piece of information.
This then gave me less time to work on my presentation. Another aspect I would do differently would be to
write and finish each chapter before I started the next. I found myself going back and adding things to each
chapter which slightly confused me at some points, as I didn’t know which part I was working on and which
part I had actually finished.
After finishing this project I have learnt many things about writing a dissertation. Firstly I have learnt that it
takes a lot of time and research to create one, researching is probably the most important part. Also primary
research is a very important part, as I need evidence of my own to back up my findings throughout.
In addition working out how to structure a dissertation has been very useful to me. Having to structure it
means that I am able to put extensive research into my own words and sum up everything I have learnt, which
will be useful for me in university due to the fact I will probably be researching and writing essays on a regular
basis. Furthermore I have also learnt that researching isn’t just about picking random bits of information from
a website or book. Researching should take up The most amount of time, and it should be extensive so that I

2. am able to get the right information that I need. Also I have learnt that researching from books is a lot more
reliable than researching from the internet. A lot of websites on the internet tend to have the wrong
information or the information could just be a Persons opinion, therefore it is also important to check how
reliable the sources are.