MBA Assignments Guide 2011

MBA Assignments Guide
Handbook University of Bedfordshire 2009 (Updated 2011)

Published by the University of Bedfordshire Business School Luton Campus, Vicarage Street, Luton LU1 3JU, United Kingdom
Welcome
On behalf of the University of Bedfordshire it is our pleasure to welcome you to this MBA programme. You will be following a growing worldwide band of University of Bedfordshire Alumni who have used the qualification gained to good effect.
We aim to make your time on this programme stimulating and challenging. You will be exposed to the latest thinking and developments in theories in the business sphere. As post experience students you will quickly learn that you too, must challenge theories and evidence that others feel to be true in order to come to a better understanding of the subjects you are studying.
This handbook is intended to give you much of the information that you need for successfully completing all your MBA assignments for all the different subjects that you are going to study while doing this MBA programme.
Best wishes and good luck to all of you!
The MBA team
_______________________________________________________________________________________________ University of Bedfordshire MBA Page 2 of 45 Unit Handbook: MBA Assignments guide 2011
Contents
Welcome ................................................................................................................................................. 2 Contents ................................................................................................................................................. 3 1 General assignment marking criteria for MBA............................................................................ 4 1.1 2 3 Assignment writing style specifications ..................................................................................... 5
Report Writing ................................................................................................................................ 6 Essay Writing ................................................................................................................................ 11 3.1 3.2 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 11 Writing an essay...................................................................................................................... 11
Presentations ................................................................................................................................ 16 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 What is presentation? ............................................................................................................ 16 Barriers to presenting .............................................................................................................. 16 Preparing and planning your presentation .............................................................................. 17 Giving your presentation ......................................................................................................... 20 Communication channels ........................................................................................................ 20 Your style ................................................................................................................................ 21 Your best chance to work a miracle ........................................................................................ 22 Sample presentation ............................................................................................................... 23 Twenty tips for a perfect presentation ..................................................................................... 28
Harvard referencing ..................................................................................................................... 31 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 The importance of referencing ................................................................................................ 31 Formatting styles: Harvard referencing ................................................................................... 31 In-text referencing ................................................................................................................... 32 Using Quotations..................................................................................................................... 34 References (Listed at the End of the Paper) .......................................................................... 35
Plagiarism ..................................................................................................................................... 41 6.1 6.2 6.3 University Regulations ............................................................................................................ 41 Penalties for Plagiarism .......................................................................................................... 42 Appeals ................................................................................................................................... 43
7 8
Assessment Submission Process.............................................................................................. 45 Group assignments...................................................................................................................... 45
General assignment marking criteria for MBA

appropriate range of secondary sources textbooks magazines and journals. This research should reflect in the assignment in terms of references and critical analysis.
1. Evidence of research and analysis: background reading that includes consideration of an
2. Understanding about the subject: Make use of concepts models and theories to demonstrate your subject understanding. Thought you will study wide range of study materials select relevant material for each assignment to support the arguments proposed, discussion and conclusion. 3. Presentation critical engagement in the subject: The arguments made and evidences provided for each assignment should indicate detailed investigations with theory and practice. Make sure that when ever you put forward or support a particular view you also indicate your knowledge about the opposing views. E.g. if you are doing Leadership project assignment about leader of your choice, in order to indicate your openness and unprejudiced views make sure that along with the positive aspects you also mention some negative aspects about that leader. You may not necessarily agree with all the negative views but it is critical to mention them. 4. Impressive presentation: A logical coherence and structured presentation would always make better impact on the examiner. Most of the times, your conclusion or critical reflection and evaluation are the most important elements of your assignment. They directly linked with your actual learning of that particular subject. 5. Standard format, style and structure: The assignment has to be written in the recommended format (essay, report, presentation: *please read the sections on Report Writing, Essay Writing and Presentations for further details. Full bibliography and appropriate referencing is essential. The University of Bedfordshire uses Harvard referencing system as standard referencing system. * Please read the sections on Harvard referencing for further details. Being correctly written in Standard English, numbered pages; clearly labelled diagrams with a clear and tidy appearance are also very important to make an impressive presentation. 6. Knowing what not to do: While doing any assignment it very important to know Donts in addition to Dos. o One of the top things to avoid is Plagiarism. *Please read the sections on Plagiarism for further detail.
Please make sure that you dont use the non- recommended format while doing your assignment. I.e. you should not write an essay when you have been asked to create a report.
If you are not sure about quality of your English make sure that you seek help before submitting the assignment. In order clearly convey you thoughts and understanding about the subject it is important to write assignments in good English and with minimum grammatical and spelling errors.
7. Go thoroughly though all the sample assignments section for various MBA subjects to get the clear vision about the marking criteria and to get a guide-line to understand the minimum standard expectation that will demonstrate your learning of that particular subject. 8. Group Assignments: Generally any group assignment would have to main parts o o Actual group work task Group presentation/ report
The groups will have 5-6 students and will be formed by consensus decision between students and teaching staff. Group members confirm their group name and group members to in writing (family name, first name, student number) to their course leader. The assignment should reflect that its a team effort and should look professional. * Please read the sections on Group assignments and tasks for further details.
1.1
Assignment writing style specifications
The guide below is not hard and fast but will give you general idea about what will make your assignment easy to read and print from any standard computer or printer Please make sure that for most of your assignments you use standard word document with standard page margins
To be readable the font face should be Arial regular font, font size: 11 and 1.5 line spacing in the paragraph settings.
Report Writing
Summary
This section will not take the place of a book on report writing. Its aim is to briefly set out some principles and priorities for writing reports, whether for a firm or another organisation, or in answer to the assignments set out in this course. Purpose
In writing a report, particular care should be given to the needs of the reader and the purpose - who and what is the report for? The recommended report structure places special emphasis on providing a summary and a conclusion, with key sentences at prominent points in the report. Construction of the text should be guided by conciseness, clarity, consideration to the reader, and a concern for accuracy and truth.
Reports can be a tiresome chore for the writer, and therefore also the reader, or they can be an opportunity. A report is an opportunity for the writer to communicate (not just put words on paper) and for the reader to become better informed (not merely to read the words on the paper).
There are two kinds of report that are of concern to me here: Assignment answers on this course which are specified to be in report form; Reports for use within organisations, or to go outside on its behalf.
Taking these two varieties of report in turn, I see the purposes of your work in preparing an assignment as being to extend your study of the course material and get good marks and useful comments from your tutor. These purposes require an answer which is a careful display, for both you and your tutor, of the knowledge that you have gained from that part of the course.
The purposes of a report within a firm or to go outside it are different. In an assignment answer the purposes are defined by what is of value to the writer (extended knowledge, grades, helpful feedback from the tutor). The prime purpose of a report in a firm is to serve the needs of the recipient and reader. While the act of writing will help to clarify the problems
at issue, the benefit to the writer comes mainly to him or her indirectly, if the report is to be valuable to its users. Method
Despite the differences in purpose referred to in the previous section, common questions can be used in the preparation of any report, and they from a good basis for a method of report writing. What has the future reader asked to be told about? What is the situation in which the need for the report is set? What is the starting point for the investigation behind the report, and any changes argued for in the report? How will the report be judged? Will the reader be looking for general areas for future investigations, clear avenues for development, or cut and dried and fully costed plans? How can information needed for the report be found and worked on? Analysis should yield answers that can be set alongside each other and against external data, for comparison and selection of the best options. How do I ensure a favourable reception? How long have I got, in terms of time, for the preparation of the report and word length that the reader will accept? How do I know that I am correct?
In writing a report these questions are not tackled one by one, with each one completed before the next. Rather, they are a checklist that can be referred to again and again, so that at the end you can look back at them and see that they have all been taken on board at some stage. Notice that these questions could well prompt a preliminary report and discussion which lead to a better main investigation and final report. Certainly, several of these questions might send the investigator back to those who asked for the report, to seek clarification.
Structure
A strong structure is vital to a report. Structure is not a boring chore; it is a feature that gives shape to the report; it tells the reader facts about the report and, incidentally, about the reporter. A clear structure helps the writer to set out the work behind the report. It gives the reader confidence in what has been done and said because a logically structured report cannot conceal an investigation which itself lacks order.
The number of elements of structure will depend on the length of the report, but structure should be based on the old advice: State what you are going to say, say it, say you have said it and stop. Think for a moment about the nine oclock news on the television. They follow this rule; they start with the main news headlines (Russia declares war in Chechnya; the Chancellor warns of interest rate increases, the drought claims its first victim) then deeper reporting of the individual headline items, and finally a summary of the main headlines. On this basis the shortest report or memorandum could use its title as a summary, followed by a main body of a sentence or two, and a conclusion. Although we are concerned with reports which are longer than this, the same principle holds and the same features appear, but in an extended form.
Below the title the report begins with a heading showing where the report comes from, rather like the writers address at the top of a letter. In similar vein the report is dated and the author is named, although these can come at the tail of a short report.
Next part is the most important section, the summary. A busy reader will read this first, and might read no further, so the summary should state the contents and the conclusions of the report briefly and firmly. The summary has to attract, hold and inform the busy reader; it prepares the ground for a more detailed study of the report by those who have the need and the time to read further. The summary is one of the opportunities for you to put your points; it must be concise and yet complete in the right particulars. It is rather as if you met the Managing Director in the lift on his or her way out of the building. Your only chance is to win an ear for a few seconds. If you have time to practise any aspect of report writing, do it by writing and rewriting summaries of your reports and other peoples reports. Not only will you get practice in summarising, you will find that searching for the key points for a summary reveals those that are missing in the report; you will soon learn to include them. After the summary there should be an explanation of the purpose of the report and the background to
it. These sections will set out the authors understanding of the points in the first three questions in the section on method above.
Reports vary in length and the greatest variation occurs in the main body of the report. For this reason general titles for sections cannot be given: they will be special to the firm and to the purpose. Instead the titles should point the reader to the particular section that he or she is interested in or should pay close attention to: Factory layout, New systems of communication, Need for retraining, Benefits and costs.
Besides the use of explanations in words your report may well need tables, graphs, pictures, plans, printouts and so on. Relegating these to the end of the document helps the printer to produce the printed item quickly and cheaply but it may be a false economy if it discourages the reader from consulting them and seeing them as part of the argument. Put at the end they are too easily ignored or taken out of context. The excuse that they are easy to find there can apply just as well to any piece of text, and in fact nontext items such as photos and diagrams stand out very well when the report is flipped open to look for them.
The last main section of a report will be the conclusions. These will have been outlined or introduced already in the summary, and also will have emerged in the main body of the report because the analysis given there led to the conclusions. This repetition is useful as it emphasises the final result of the work and presents it at more than one place. At the end of the report put the appendices detailing investigations of side issues or other matters which fit badly into the mainstream text, section of references or list of documents consulted would appear at the end too. Enough detail should be given to enable an interested reader to obtain the source material for themselves. The writing process From the welter of information on how to write, it is George Orwells six elementary rules that give the surest succinct advice: Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print; Never use a long word where a short one will do; If it is possible to cut out a word, always cut it out; Never use the passive where you can use the active;
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent; Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Orwell went on to suggest that, A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express this? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?
Writing is never easy and on bad days composing even the shortest memorandum can seem like a onesided wrestling match with an impossible language. In such circumstances, perseverance is the key: even the best writers have difficulties. Sheridan observed: You write with ease to show your breeding, But easy writings vile hard reading.
3
3.1
Essay Writing
Introduction
Essay writing involves expressing ones views and interpretations in relation to a specified subject area and this clearly cannot be done in accordance with a fixed or universally applicable formula. Yet we would, I think, all agree that an essay can be judged in terms of what an informed reader can get out of it and also that a good essay is one which such a reader will find interesting, informative and easy to understand. If this is accepted it becomes possible to articulate some general features of an essay which will make it more interesting, informative and accessible.
1. Address the question or title; 2. Follow a structured and signposted sequence; 3. Demonstrate a familiarity with relevant literature; 4. Present an analysis and evaluation of the ideas and theories discussed; 5. Reveal internal integration and coherence; 6. Use references and examples to support its claims and arguments; 7. Detail references and sources and bibliography/referencing sections.
3.2
3.2.1
Writing an essay
Addressing the Question/Title
An essay should address what is meant by the title/question to which it refers. It should, in other words inform the reader of the issues of which are to be considered and the manner in which they are to be related. This may, for example, be achieved by describing previous definitions of, or approaches to, a problem and/of by offering the writers own interpretation of the issue/s.
For Example, on approach to writing an essay entitled Is intelligence a valid concept for the educational psychologist could be introduced as follows: The concept of intelligence has been used differently by different psychologists, so that, the very meaning of the term has become a matter of debate. Most noticeable, perhaps, is the divergence of definitions and research programmes adopted by, on one hand,
psychometricians,
such
as
Spearman,
Burt
and
Eysenck,
and,
on
the
other
developmentalists such as Bruner and Piaget....
In this essay I shall consider the applicability of these alternative perspectives on Intelligence to the process of education.
Such an introduction serves to frame the issues for the reader so that she/he knows what the essay will be about. Having thus framed the content of the essay the writer must ensure that the arguments and evidence she/he presents are directly relevant to the issues as she/he has interpreted them. There would, for example, be little point in following the introduction given above the by a blow by blow account of the Cyril Burt controversy!
Briefly then, the essay must outline the issue which the writer sees as pertinent to the title and must then proceed to present material which can be clearly demonstrated to be relevant to those issues.
3.2.2
Following a Standard and Signposted Sequence
The material in an essay should be seen to be related to the unfolding of the central argument or discussion. The order in which material is presented will, therefore, depend upon the development of the overall structure with earlier sections preparing the ground for later connections and conclusions. This development should be signposted for while it may be obvious to the writer it may be far from clear to the reader. For example: Having discussed the two different notions of ability which underline the psychometric and developmental approach to intelligence, I shall now consider the implications of each for the organisation of an educational system. Such signposting informs the reader of the significance of what has just been said and prepares her/him for what is to come.
Of course the organisation of an essay in terms of such a structured sequence is made a lot easier if the writer begins by spelling out how she/he intends to address the question/title. It is essential, therefore, that before beginning the essayist considers the question/title in detail and constructs a plan of the points, connections and conclusions she/he wishes to make.
3.2.3
Demonstrating Familiarity with the Literature
An essay should aim to briefly review a number of the major works or positions which are directly relevant to the topic under discussion. This will serve to inform the reader of the previous research and analyses upon which the writer is basing her/his case. This should not take the form of endless quotations or listings of other peoples ideas, but rather concise descriptions (in the essayists own words) of the approaches adopted by other workers in the field. With regard to the essay on intelligence and educational psychology for example, it would seem almost inevitable that the contributions made by Binet, Burt and Bruner would be relevant at some stage or another. A knowledge of the relevant literature can, of course, only be acquired by reading that literature (!) and an essay will often reveal just how familiar the essayist is with her/his chosen topic. 3.2.4 Presenting and Analysis and Evaluation of the Ideas and Theories Discussed
An essay should, however, do more than report on previous work in the area. It should attempt to relate the various positions reviewed both to one another and to the writers own position on the issues under discussion. This involves articulating the similarities and differences between different writers perspectives and evaluating them in terms of a set of criteria arising out of the essayists own discussion. The essayist must, in other words, develop her/his own ideas as she/he explores the topic and judge other writers approaches in terms of developed arguments is often the distinguishing feature of a very good essay. An example of this kind of evaluation in terms of (previously) developed arguments is given below:
I have argued that where a conventional view of education (as knowledge transference) is adopted intelligence tests can be used as a convenient means of selection. It also follows, however, that within the alternative of education as a process of cognitive development, these tests are of little or no value.
3.2.5
Reveal Internal Coherence and Integration
Each part of the essay should relate to the overall theme being expounded. If the essay persistently addresses itself to the title and follows a structured sequence this should be virtually assured, but it is important that the essayist considers how the implications of what she/he says at any particular point reflect on her/his discussion as a whole. In other words, she/he should ensure that the implications of one piece of analysis are carried forward to later discussions and that there are not implicit, or explicit, contradictions or disjunctions between different parts of the essays. It would, for example, be confusing for the reader if an essayist were to conclude at one point that intelligence is too broad a concept to be of use to the psychologist and then go on to argue that the Welchler Adult Intelligence Scale is their most accurate measure of intelligence in individuals of sixteen years and above. Of course it would be consistent to argue that the W.A.I.S. subscales were accurate measures of specific abilities, but the earlier rejection of its assessment which take its existence for granted. 3.2.6 Use References and Examples to Support Arguments
It is important that where the essayist is not stating her/his own opinions or evaluations she/he should inform the reader of the source of his propositions by noting references. By referencing the essay in this way the writer reveals how her/his position relates to the work of other researchers in the field. For example: It has been argued that X is Y (Brown, 1974; Smith, 1982) Unreferenced statements such as psychologists generally think ....; evidence has shown that ....; most people accept that .... should be strictly avoided as they convey a sense of vagueness about the state of research and opinion within the discipline. It is also helpful if the essayist illustrates her/his general statement by means of particular examples. For example:
It has been pointed out that some of the items included in intelligence tests draw upon culturespecific knowledge. The following examples taken from the Welchsler Intelligence Scale for Children reveal how a knowledge of particular literature may be requested: Who wrote Hamlet?; Who wrote the Iliad? (Kagan and Lang, 1978). 3.2.7 Detail References and Sources
A reference section details the sources you have mentioned in your essay and allows the reader to follow up what you say. It is important to include all the references you use in the essay and to complete them so that someone less familiar with the literature than yourself can access your sources. A bibliography section will include books and papers you have found useful but not necessarily mentioned. This is not, however, necessary for most essays.
4
4.1

Presentations
What is presentation?
A communication event; A presenter makes a commitment to help the audience to do something they really want (e.g. solve a problem) the audience makes a simultaneous evaluation of the worth of that commitment; It is the audiences self-interest that is key (though most presentations drone on endlessly about the presenters interests, with a generous portion of ego); Your mission is to win all the audience; I need you, you need me; The audience needs help, counsel, wisdom, inspiration, a way of doing things differently, a fresh way that can be applied profitably, perhaps tomorrow; The presenter needs approval; A presentation is a partnership between audience and presenter, not a performance; it is a relationship, not confrontation; a pulling together, not pulling apart.
4.2
Barriers to presenting
Some studies show that fear of presenting is third only to fear of snakes and spiders! We are not afraid of flying, but we are afraid of crashing! We fear failure with our presentations. Pilots are in control of their planes and they are not afraid of crashing if we do the same with presentations we can tackle our fears and might even enjoy it! We need to take a planned, controlled approach, and timing is the key element of control.
The areas of control are:
Managing the audience; Managing the material; Managing the resources; Managing ourselves.
When you know which areas do your fears relate to, you can concentrate your efforts to ensure that you are in control.
4.3
Preparing and planning your presentation
An illprepared presenter sends the message to the audience I dont think you are very important; if I did, I would be better prepared. So, proper preparation is the difference between success and failure. Remember the 90:10 rule spend 90% time preparing, 10% presenting. Main areas of planning: 1. Establishing your Aims; 2. Introduction making a good start; 3. Key areas your presentation will cover; 4. Your conclusion; 5. How long? Establishing your Aims You must have a clear idea of what you want to achieve before deciding on the way to achieve it. For example is your presentation intended:
To inform ( e.g. sales campaign); To educate (e.g. a new form of lighting technique); To persuade (e.g. product presentation); To change opinions (e.g. new approach to design); To challenge.
Whatever your aims, they must focus on satisfying the needs of your audience. Establishing your aims helps to: Define what you want to achieve through the presentation; Decide what should/should not go into it; Keep the plan on track. It will also help you decide on: Content; Structure ( the way the ideas are developed and ordered); Style (e.g. formal or informal);
Making a good start Tell them what you are going to tell them
The audience will form their impression of the presenter and the presentation within the first 2 minutes, and this will colour all that the presenter says and does for the remainder. Therefore the first 2 minutes are absolutely crucial. Its time for drums and trumpets! Within the first 2 min your introduction needs to: Capture the audience interest e.g. ......the impact of .....on.....; Demonstrate they have a need to listen e.g. we are all experiencing ......... therefore we need to .......; Convince them of your sincerity and honesty Prove your credibility And inform them: What the aims of the presentation are; What key areas it is going to cover; How long it is going to take.
Then you will have a receptive and attentive audience, and you will have taken a big step towards a successful presentation. Key Areas your presentation will cover Tell them Identify and map related topic areas and key stages (e.g. use Fishbone diagram etc.) - 3 to 5 topics max.; Create a logical sequence; Work on each stage as a separate unit, and time them individually; this will help the audience to make sense of your presentation, and help you plan and time the delivery; Create a logical sequence to ensure: o o o o a logical development of ideas; a coherent argument; a smooth flow from one idea to the next; it tests well against Title and Aims.
Your Conclusion/Summary
Tell them what you told them The last words will be the ones your audience remembers most clearly - so ensure your conclusion is decisive and positive, and your talk will be remembered in the same way. A strong, positive ending will give the whole presentation a good effect whereas a poor anticlimax will weaken an overall good effect. This part of the presentation signals to the audience that they have been given all the information. Use the opportunity to remind and reinforce your key points. You can make recommendations or suggest action plans based on them in your conclusion if you wish. Make your thank yous, invite questions if appropriate, but give no new information in your ending. So, the role of your conclusion is to: Reinforce the main points; Bring the presentation to a recognisable conclusion; Create a lasting positive impression.
How Long? Think carefully about the needs of your audience and the aims of your presentation. Adjust the length of the presentation to suit. For example: A sales presentation; A demonstration of a sample to a contractor; A lecture seminar to a firm of architects; How to use the product catalogue.
Research shows that people can concentrate on one thing for no more than five to seven minutes. They also need some kind of break around every 30 minutes.
4.4
Giving your presentation
Warm up the Audience and yourself Make eye contact with each member of the audience let them know they are important. You should be building a relationship (not a case for your presentation!) with every person in the room.; Radiate energy, be enthused, dont plod, dont be afraid to let the audience know youre excited about them.; All audiences are wondering when is the presenter going to start talking about me? They need to feel good about themselves glad they are there! Scripts and notes Never read a presentation from notes! It will sound dull and boring, lack conviction; you cant maintain audience interaction, its too easy to lose your place and interruptions can completely throw you. Although they may be derived from a script, notes are a memory aid not a script. For convenience they can be small numbered cue cards, tied together.
4.5
Communication channels
A presentation is a form of communication, and 80% of a communicated message is received through non-verbal channels. And so, you need to use a combination of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell to ensure the audience understands and remembers your presentation and that their attention and interest is maintained. Focusing on one thing gets boring after a while and a presentation is largely one-way, from presenter to audience. By using channels other than sound, you can get the audience to take a more active role and provide more interest for the audience.
Sight Sound Touch Taste Smell
Body language, visual aids, the room Words, tone, music, sound effects Samples, where/how the audience sits
For example, imagine a presentation on a new lighting scheme for a prestige office block: What the lighting looks Show a sample or a picture like What it feels like What its like to touch What the Describe how the lighting effect feels to people Pass the sample around for the audience to touch
lighting Describe what satisfied customers have said about it
sounds like Smell
4.6
Your style
Are you Red, Blue or Grey?
There are three kinds of presenter Red, Blue or Grey. There are variations of Red from scarlet to pink, and of Blue from midnight to eggshell but Grey is one big blob.
What colour presenter are you? would you like to be and should be?
Blue presenters are analytical, logical, pragmatic, thoughtful, deliberate, rational, restrained, intellectual, insightful, and secure in knowledge, with an intensity that builds steadily. This requires sharpness of word and manner.
To be a Blue presenter, you need a ton of preparation and a nimble memory. Executives prefer blue presentations because they believe emotions have no place at work; audiences are tolerant of them, allowing them to build their case but ramblers are not tolerated. Blue presentations are generally more persuasive than Red ones, but logic is not as memorable as emotion.
Red presenters charge the atmosphere: you feel the presentation. It is emotionally driven, surprising, instinctive, charismatic, creative, impulsive, daring, disjointed, volatile. Red presenters elicit a feeling of emotional participation from the audience. Because their style is more outgoing and personal, they involve their audiences more quickly. Red speakers make things happen in a hurry and they are an important part of the message in addition to the content.
Grey presenters are safe. They lack the heat of the Reds and the incisive edge of the Blues. They are cautious, traditional, accommodating, compromising and predictable, non committal, ambivalent and boring.
Grey presenters are eminently forgettable. When were scared, we become neutral when we speak less of what we are more of something safe and conventional Grey and BORING! By emphasising your greatest strength, more of what you really are, youll be much less nervous and much more interesting to everybody.
4.7

Your best chance to work a miracle

Start thinking positively; Be enthusiastic even if you dont feel it! Put the words you and your into your presentation as often as possible; o o o o lets look at it from your perspective; heres what it means to you; whats in this example for you here are some things that you can do; lets relate that to you and your situation;
Always bring it back to the needs of the audience; Get audience participation wherever possible.
Handling Questions With any difficult question, there are three stages:
Quell any emotional response you may feel; Explore the question and ask the questioner to elaborate and refine it. Respond: o o o o o o o answer the question; admit you dont know and promise to find out; defer it to deal with privately at greater length afterwards; refer it to an expert colleague if you have brought one; refer it back to the person who asked it; refer it back to another member of the audience; put it up for general discussion.
With any important presentation, it is a good idea to brainstorm with colleagues potential audience questions and choose the most appropriate answers in case they arise.
4.8
Sample presentation
For those who are interested to see how some of these principles in this unit might be applied in practice. As you can see, the lefthand of the page indicates the principle being illustrated, and the righthand side is a (fictitious) presentation by a manager to the board of their company on the subject of a new company pension scheme. The pension presentation has been based on the needs of a small company employing mainly young staff.
Preface Opening courtesies
Presenter First of all I would like to thank the Board for giving me what has turned out to be a much more interesting project than I expected when I took it on.
Disclaim excessive authority
As you know Im not an expert on pension schemes although I have been administering the present scheme for the past 3 years.
Give relevant experience. State the intention of
You asked me to review our present staff arrangements the and make proposals. What I suggest if youre happy?
presentation in terms of the is that I give a brief rundown on the present scheme, listeners interest. then look at the various kinds of scheme we might move to, and then suggest two possible alternative schemes, If Outline the course of the only as a discussion starter. That should take about 15 presentation with timings: The minutes, and I do hope youll stop me if theres anything Route Map. you dont follow; but if its a general point it will probably save time to keep it for the discussion session. Is that all Give the Rules of the Road right? when you want to take
questions, interruptions are
whether permitted.
Get them nodding.
Position As you know enables you to So, if I might start with the present scheme, as you know tell those who dont without it dates back to when the company was fairly new and offending those who do If the quite a lot smaller. Its a very basic, minimum scheme: audience know more about the the company pays in five per cent of each employees present position than you do, salary each year into an accumulating fund which this is the place to ask provides insurance cover while they are at work and a
feedback questions to check pension when they retire. if youve got it right. Problem Something around and on The problem is that this only provides a pension of average enable you to omit a something around 17% of final salary on average, and lot of unnecessary detail and this is beginning to prove a stumbling block when we try tedious qualification. to recruit new staff. Its also causing an increasing amount of resentment amongst our existing staff, especially the more senior ones, when Attribute to your listeners the they find out the more generous pensions their friends in highest motives you can other companies are getting. But of course the principle reason for undertaking this review was the clear feeling of the board that they would like to do more for the staff now that the company is more firmly established and profitable. Show that you have reached So thats the present position: the Board is nor satisfied the end of the paragraph with the current level of pension it offers to its staff and wants to look at ways of improving it. Another place for an early Any questions so far anything Ive got wrong or left feedback check. Possibilities Show that you are starting a Right. So what are the options? You can get bogged new section. down in endless detail over this, and someone is going to have to in the end probably me. But as far as the Simplify the choices leave board is concerned, there are just three major policy the secondary class for later decisions.
manage without choking
out?
discussions.
A visual aid on the three 1. What type? decisions could help in Final salary or money purchase?
showing the listeners where they are going and later in 2. How funded? reminding them where they Contributory or noncontributory? are. 3. How large?
Premium Final salary Money purchase Fixed Variable Variable Pension Fixed
What % of total salaries should go into the fund?
Let me take them in turn. First, what type? A final salary scheme aims to provide the employee with a pension of usually 1/60th of his salary at or near retirement for each year with the company. So someone who as worked 30 years retires o half his final salary, 30/60ths. A money purchase scheme doesnt guarantee any specific income it builds an accumulating fund, and the employee gets a pension based on whatever size his fund has reached when he retires.
Visual Aid You can see the difference on this chart: the final salary scheme has a variable premium and a fixed formula for calculating the pension while the money purchase scheme has a fixed premium and a variable pension.
Note phrase
how
the
jargontype The drawback with a final salary scheme for our openended company at this stage of its development is that it
commitment
is
immediately is an openended commitment: the company cannot
translated in plain English and know in advance how much it may have to pay, to keep clarified with an example. up with inflation, say, especially in a bad year. On the other hand, as a small company, with a money purchase
scheme, you know where you are; Always put the alternatives its limited to a fixed percentage of the payroll. In you are proposing after the practice, more and more companies are going for money one you are rejecting. purchase schemes, and everyone Ive spoken to recommends that type for us because so many of out staff are under 30. Make it clear that you are Second, should it be contributory or noncontributory? moving to a new section: if you Again, it would be nice to guarantee everyone generous are using a visual aid, this is pensions without their having to make any personal where you change from 1 to 2. contribution, but that sort of commitment is usually beyond the reach of companies our size. In fact, eighty per cent of all schemes include an employee
contribution, and apart Chipping in is the sort of from giving them a very good taxfree method of saving, colloquialism that helps a a lot of companies find that it involves employees more
personal presentation but it in the scheme if they are chipping something in would be out of place in a themselves. written report. Starting a new section again. Finally, how much? This is really two questions how much in total, and then, what proportion of that total Simple visual aids should be the companys contribution? First, how much in total? Well taking 5% of the companys salary bill as the minimum and 20% as the most generous, this chart shows the estimated distribution for companies of under 50 employees. As you see, anything over 16% is fairly rare, and the broad mass of companies fall into the 8% 16% range. And second, what proportion? The other chart shows what percentage of the total those same companies contribute: again you see that most
companies fall into the 65% 75% range. Ill be distributing these charts in a moment.
Tell people that theyll be getting copies, or some will

draw it for themselves and miss what youre saying.
So the two decisions that really need to be taken are, Summarise where we have got first, what should be the total percentage of payroll to at the start of a new section, allotted to the pension scheme, and second, how and where we are now going. much of that should be paid by the company and how Make it clear you are not much by the employee? Of course, it is for the board telling your superiors what to to balance out its desire to be generous with its need to do. Re emphasise that you ensure that the company will not find itself, at some are looking at the question future date, short of the funds it needs to run the from their point of view and business. So what I have done is to prepare examples of addressing yourself to their two schemes at different levels, with a interests. Visual aids repeated calculation of how each of them would have affected the with new element. Note that its Companys accounts over each of the past 3 years, complexities are easy to follow making allowance for the tax savings, obviously. On because the audience has scheme A employees would receive something around already assimilated the basic X% of final salary average, on scheme B something charts. around Y% of final salary average. As you see, proposal A would put us about here on the chart of total contribution, and proposal B would put us here. And on the chart of employers share, proposal A puts us here and proposal B puts us here. But, of course, these are just examples, and State the next action and you might opt for a larger total plus a smaller employee target date, followed by a contribution, or vice versa. You may also wish to opt for benefit to them if these are further improvement in the pensions paid to senior staff. But if we could have that board decision by the end of met. the month, wed be able to work out a complete scheme for approval by Christmas, and that could be ready or introduction at the start of the next financial year.
Postscript Circulate details on separate Obviously Ive left out an enormous amount of detail typescript after the end of your transferability, widows pensions, death in service, presentation. benefits, indexation, voluntary extra contributions but youll find it all in the folders along side the financial calculations. Youll also find examples of other sample companies, and copies of the diagrams I was using. And theres some literature from the three insurance companies Ive been talking to the three our brokers recommended.
And thats really it. Thank you for listening so patiently, and if you have any questions Ill do my best to answer them. Thank you
Closing courtesies
4.9
Twenty tips for a perfect presentation
1. The rule of three The best presentations come in three parts. The introduction summarises your overall message, beginning with a title slide that succinctly states what the presentation is about (which isnt the same as telling the audience which company they work for, who you work for, or what the date is). The main part delivers the meat usually by making a point with a simple, powerful text slide and then by supporting that point with more detail from charts and subsidiary text slides. (For some reason, three items of supporting data for each main point seems to work best). The last bit is the summary that moves on to a conclusion and leaves the audience with a message that will persuade them to act to buy your scheme, for example, or to applaud your departments progress. Your final line is probably the only spoken bit of the presentation that you will need to memorise.
2. Keep it simple The single most common offence in presentations is putting too much information on each slide. The second is trying to get too much visual impact too many colours on slides, and too many text attributes and typefaces. 3. Choose the right template It makes sense to use one of the styles provided in the package, because templates ensure visual consistency and should enforce some basic principles of good design. But pick the right one, as it may be tricky to change your mind once youve built a presentation. Some templates are designed for slideshows with lots of automatic transitions, others are best for singleshot displays. 4. Be consistent If you dont use a template, or if you adapt one, make sure that you use the same background colour for each slide, and use the same size and style of type throughout (this makes it easier for the audience to distinguish between titles and body copy). 5. Title tips Slide titles which are all in upper case letters are hard to read and take up too much space; capitalise only the first word. 6. Four colours good If you have less than three colours on a slide (including text and background) it may look drab. More than five and the slide will probably just be confusing. 7. Contrast colours Stick with colour choices that provide clear contrasts and not just in the colours themselves, but also in brightness. Bright yellow on bright blue provides a clear colour contrast, for instance, but its hard to read; go for a darker blue. A white background will usually be too bright. Blue backgrounds work well, particularly with yellow or white text. The primary colours (yellow, red and blue) go well together. So, in general, do cool colours (green, blue and violet) and warm colours (red, orange and yellow). But clashing colours almost never work well green on purple anyone? and neither do colours that tend to blend too much, such as yellow on orange. 8. Unclever colours Before you go colour crazy, remember that colourblind people have difficulty distinguishing between blue, green and red. And dont forget that some colours have definite connotations for instance, red is indelibly associated with losses and black with profits. 9. Match your media For 35mm slides you need the lightest colour in front and the darkest colours in the background. But the reverse applies for overhead transparencies dark foreground, light background.
10. Better backgrounds If you dont have much information on your slide, try using a background that graduates from light at the top to dark at the bottom the light to dark sequence guides the eye down the slide through your points. With graphics and complicated charts its best to stick with a solid and dark background which wont distract. 11. Chart clutter confuses If the punters must have detail, give it to them in the handouts and in your speech. Use your slides to make strong, simple points. 12. Tight text You shouldnt really have more than six lines of text per slide, and preferably only three or four. You should only display one idea per line, consisting of no more than six or seven words. In particular, dont put complete sentences on your slide. 13. Typeface tamers Sans serif typefaces such as Helvetica are easier to read. The best size for title text is 36 or 24 point; subtitles work best at about 18 points; a good size for Helvetica body text is 14 points. 14. Fewest fonts You wont usually need more than one typeface; using two typefaces is acceptable, mixing three or more is rarely necessary. If you need to emphasise text, choose a bold or italic version of your main typeface, not a different typeface altogether, But use bold, italic, and underlined type as little as possible. 15. Tasteful text Special effects like gradient fills and drop shadows on text may look pretty, but they are frequently illegible. Use such effects only on title lines, and only with a heavy typeface. 16. Better bullets Heres an opportunity for imagination. You neednt stick with round blobs; try using symbols from dingbat fonts or cutdown clipart. 17. Use the right characters You dont have to use short hyphens when you really want long dashes: and it will probably look better to show proper typographic quote marks (the 66 to open 99 to close). The presentation package itself might have some of these features built in, and your chosen font will probably have some special characters (plus proper copyright signs, trademark symbols, foreign currency signs and more). 18. Beefy bar charts Dont clutter bar charts with too much data ideally you should have no more than eight bars; five to six is a better maximum. Dont clutter the surrounding space, either; use lines and grids sparingly. 19. Perfect pie charts Five slices is the absolute maximum. If you have more than that, group the smaller items into a slice named other you can still detail them if
you need to by pulling that slice away from the pie and linking it to another chart showing its contents. 20. Limit your lines Line graphs are great at showing change over a period of time, but never have more than four lines of data and if the lines cross, stick to three as the maximum.
5
5.1
Harvard referencing
The importance of referencing
There are three main reasons why accurate referencing is important:
it provides relevant background information, illustrations of ideas or theories, or evidence for an argument that you are making in your essay or report. Your ideas need to be based on prior reading, and referencing is a way of showing that you have done this and are familiar with the field.
it enables readers to find any source of information mentioned in the text, if they want to follow up on a point or examine a theory more closely. In other words, if you refer to someone's work in an essay or report, you have to give enough information to allow readers to find it for themselves, if they find it interesting or relevant.
it gives due credit to the person(s) from whom you acquired the information. Using those ideas and/or words as if they were your own, or without acknowledging where they came from, is equivalent to 'stealing' someone else's ideas and counts as an academic offence in Britain known as plagiarism.
5.2
Formatting styles: Harvard referencing
There are many different formatting styles for referencing, and each journal uses a specific style. So in that sense, there is no single, correct way in which to format your references. Nevertheless, it is inappropriate to mix styles (like it is inappropriate to mix using English and American spelling in a single paper), and it is best to get used to using a specific style. One of the most well known styles is known as Harvard referencing. This is the style used at this university, and is the one you are therefore expected to use in any written work here. To reference accurately, you need to do TWO main things: reference properly within your text
provide a reference list at the end of your essay/paper
5.3
In-text referencing
Identifying authors within the text of your essay/paper To identify an author or authors within the text of your essay, you should give the surname(s) followed by the year of publication. Do NOT give the name of the book this information is given in the reference list at the end of your essay/paper.
1. One author: Give the author's surname followed by the year of publication e.g. Hofstede (1991). 2. Two authors: Give both authors' surnames, in the order in which they appear on the book or the article e.g. Brown and Levinson (1987) 3. Three/four authors: Give all three/four authors' surnames, in the order in which they appear on the book or the article e.g. Wish, Deutsch, and Kaplan (1976) Coupland, Coupland, and Giles (1991 ). Subsequently, you can refer to them as Wish et al. and Coupland et al. in the same paragraph, and as Wish et al. (1976) and Coupland et al. (1991 ) in following paragraphs. 4. Initials: Do not add the initial of the author's given name, except in rather rare circumstances. It is only done when there could be some confusion as to who is being referred to for example, in politeness theory, the most well known 'Brown' is Penelope Brown, but one of two papers are written by Roger Brown. So if you have referred a lot to Penelope Brown's work and then mention Roger Brown's, it could be helpful to add initials to help make this clearer. 5. Brackets: If you want to identify one or more sources to back up an argument, but do not want to write specifically about them, put their surname(s) and date of publication in brackets for example, "Over the years, an extensive body of knowledge about conducting crosscultural research has been generated (e.g. Lonner and Berry, 1986 Triandis and Berry, 1980 van de Vijver and Leung, 1997)." 6. Unusual Author Names: Very occasionally, there seems to be no personal names for the authors, only the name of a group or organisation. Don't worry! Occasionally this happens. Use the first two or three names of the organisation or group of people responsible for the publication for example, Chinese Culture Connection, 1987.
7. Using Secondary Sources: Sometimes you want to refer to an author's work, but you
have only read about it in another person's book or article. Suppose, for example, that
you read about Brown and Yule's (1983) distinction between the interactional and the transactional functions of language in Spencer Oatey's book, but have not read Brown and Yule's original work. In this case you should not simply give the Brown and Yule reference, but add where this information was cited for example:
Brown and Yule (1983; cited in SpencerOatey, 2000, p.2) identify two main functions of language: the transactional (or information transferring) function, and the interactional (or maintenance of social relationships) function.
In your list of references at the end of your essay/paper, include both references i.e. give the full reference for the primary source (in this case, Brown and Yule), and for the secondary source (in this case, Spencer-Oatey). Here are some examples to illustrate these points. The numbers refer to the numbered paragraphs above. 1 An obvious issue for needs assessment should focus on the language skills of the sojourner and the role played by cultural differences in communication patterns. Fantini (1995) emphasized the importance of learning the host language as crucial to becoming competent in a cross cultural situation. Smalley (1963) points out that language learners may feel ridiculed, and may find language study tiring, boring and frustrating. Such problems can induce animosity or bitterness towards other people, and even cause genuine illness 5 (Moghrabi, 1972). They could also cause dissatisfaction with being in the US and with relationships with Americans (Morris, 1960). 2 Deutsch and Won (1963), studying 94 foreign trainees in the US, found that the trainees rated their own English skills, the more satisfaction they felt about the training they received and their social 3 experiences in the US. Lee, Abdella, and Burks (1981) revealed that self-evaluation of language ability is a better predictor of the level of adjustment than the score on the TOEFL. That is, the higher the students rated their own language proficiency, the better they felt 6 about adjustment. Research on culture related values (e.g. Chinese Culture Connection,
1987; Hofstede, 1980; Schwartz, 1994) has identified power as an important dimension on which cultures vary. However, interpersonal 4 relationships are not only affected by power. Research into the fundamental dimensions of interpersonal behavior (including linguistic behavior in different role relationships) has also identified distance/closeness as a significant variable, a dimension relating to friendliness and affect of degree of association (e.g. P. Brown and Levinson, 1987 ; R. Brown Triandis,1978). and Gilman, 1960; Leech, 1983 ;
5.4
Using Quotations
In an academic essay or paper, it is quite acceptable (and often good) to use other people's words. However, be careful not to include too much direct quotation. It is not acceptable to 'pad' your paper with quotations, and they should not usually make up more than 10% of the whole paper. People sometimes (wrongly) include quotations because they feel the need to refer to an authority, regardless of whether the quotation is apt or not. However, it is essential that the quotation actually contributes to your argument. It should follow on from what you have stated, or lead into what you are about to write. Frequently when a quotation is included, the writer comments upon it in some way. You MUST make it clear when you are using somebody else's words. 8. Page number: If you quote directly from an article or book, or refer to a specific argument or example that an author gives, you should always give the page number from which the material comes for example: Lewis (1995) observed that at schools in Japan, children "didn't just work in groups; they worked as groups" (p. 84). 9. Author and page number: If a Sentence does not start with the reference, then you should give the reference and page number, in brackets, after the quotation for example: Many Japanese children attend private school, called juku, after the regular school day mainly to prepare for the entrance examinations. "Education minded mothers are eager to place their children in the best of these schools, hoping this will lead their beloved children down the golden path of educational success" (Kumagai, 1996, p.67).
10. Short quotations: If the quotation you want to use is relatively short (about 25 words or fewer) then keep the quotation within the paragraph, as shown in the examples in paragraphs (8) and (9).
11. Longer quotations: If the quotation you want to use is relatively long (over 25 or so words), then it should be in a paragraph by itself, indented by about two spaces.
Here are some examples to illustrate (the numbers refer to the points above). 10 Power distance (PD) is "the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations accept that power is distributed unequally" (Hofstede and Bond, 1984, p.419). Individuals from high PD cultures accept power as part of society, and individuals from low PD cultures do not. 9 Cultural Masculinity Femininity (MF) focuses on the equality in gender roles in a culture, and the behaviours associated with these gender roles. 11 Masculinity pertains to societies in which social gender roles are clearly distinct (i.e. men are supposed to be assertive, tough, and focused on material success whereas women are supposed to be more modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of ;life) femininity pertains to societies in which social gender roles overlap (i.e. both men and women are supposed to be modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life). Hofstede 1991, pp.823)
5.5
References (Listed at the End of the Paper)
At the end of your essay/paper, you must provide a list labelled References that contains all the references you have identified during your paper.
List ALL the references that you have mentioned/cited in your essay Order them according to the surname of the first authors
Indent the second and subsequent line(s) of each reference Format them correctly (see below)
Do NOT
Do not number the references Do not divide the reference section into Books, Edited Books, Journals, etc. (The division below into 'books', 'edited books', and so on, is purely to demonstrate how to write individual references taken from those types of sources. It does not mean that you should order your references in this way!)
Books 1. Identify the author(s), giving their surname/family name first, followed by their initial(s). 2. Give the year of publication in brackets. To find this, look near the front of the book often opposite the contents page find the date given next to the . That is the date when the book was first published. 3. Give the title of the book, either underlined or in italics. Start each of the main words with a capital letter. 4. Give the place where the book was published, and then after a colon, give the name of the publisher.
EXAMPLES: Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. W. (1995) Intercultural Communication, Oxford: Blackwell. Thomas, J. (1995) Meaning in Interaction. An Introduction to Pragmatics. London: Longman. Edited books Edited books are formatted in the same way as authored books, except that "ed" is added in brackets before the date of publication to show that it is an edited book.
EXAMPLE Spencer-Oatey, H. (ed) (2000) Culturally Speaking. Managing Rapport through Talk across Cultures. London: Continuum.
5.5.1
Chapters from Edited Books
If one of your sources is a chapter in an edited book, you need to provide several extra pieces of information. You need to give the author information first:
the author(s) of the chapter, as usual giving the surname/family name first, followed by the initial(s) the year of publication the title of the chapter, using lower case letters for all except proper names
Then you need to give details about the edited book:
Write 'In' and then list the editor(s), giving their initial(s) first followed by their surname(s) Give the title of the book: either underlined or put it in italics, and start each of the main Words with a capital letter. Give the place where the book was published, and then after a colon, give the name of the publisher. Give the page numbers of the chapter, using the abbreviation 'pp'.
EXAMPLE Palmer, S. (1999) In search of effective counseling across cultures. In S. Palmer and P. Laungani (eds) Counselling in a Multicultural Society. London: Sage, pp.153173. Zegarac, V. & Pennington, M. (2000) Pragmatic transfer in intercultural
communication. In H. Spencer-Oatey (ed) Culturally Speaking. Managing Rapport through Talk across Cultures. London: Continuum, pp. 165190.
5.5.2
Journal Articles
As usual, give the author information first:
the name(s) of the author(s) first the year of publication in brackets the title of the article, using lower case letters
Then provide the following additional information: give the name of the journal, in italics or underlined, and with a capital letter at the start of each main word give the volume number of the journal, in italics or underlined give the issue number of the volume in brackets after the volume number (sometimes this information is missing for exam ple, the Journal of Pragmatics does not show an issue number) give the page numbers of the article (but there is no need to use 'pp')
EXAMPLES Coupland, J., Coupland, N., and Robinson, J. D. (1992)"How are you?": negotiating phatic communion. Language in Society, 21(2), 207230. Fraser, B. (1990) Perspectives on politeness. Journal of Pragmatics, 34(2), 219236.
5.5.3
Using Articles from Newspapers or Magazines
Sometimes you may wish to use material from newspapers or magazines. Often it is acceptable to incorporate the full reference into the text of your essay/report, without having to list it in the references section for example: Consider for example, the following extracts from the English speaking media: In fact, it is all too easy to say sorry in Japanese. The language, perhaps more than any other, has many forms of apology which present a bewildering pattern of complexity to anyone unfamiliar with Japan's culture. (The Times, 16th August, 1995) However, references from the popular press can also be listed using the Harvard system. Within the text of the essay, the reference will appear like any other (e.g. Monahan,
2001), but in the references list, it should appear as follows: Monahan, J. (2001) Australia's lost generation. The Guardian Education, 29th May, p. 66
5.5.4
Citing Sources from the World Wide Web
Citing material from Web pages can be tricky since the name of the author or the date it was either created or updated is not always plain. Most professional sites, however, will have such information. Where possible, put the author name followed by the copyright or 'last updated' date from the website. In some cases the title of the page may be all that is available. The use of angle brackets is becoming a general standard for citing URLs (Universal Resource Locator- a web address). The date following the URL should be the date that you looked at the website.
Professional Website: White, R. (1997) Going round in circles: English as an international language, and cross-cultural [2004, 10 Sept.] capability. http://www.rdq.ac.uk/AcaDepts/cl/slas/circlems.htm
5.5.5
Other Types of References
Conference Paper Spencer-Oatey, H. (2001) Disagreement in authentic Chinese-British business meetings: unpackaging the role of culture. Paper presented at the Regional Conference of the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology, July, Winchester, UK.
Unpublished Dissertation/PhD Thesis Tsuruta, Y. (1998). Politeness, the Japanese Style: An Investigation into the Use of
Honorific Forms and People's Attitudes towards such Use. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Luton, Luton.
Audiovisual Material BBC Radio 4. (2000). Why people hate: race [Radio programme, presented by Imran Kahn, broadcast on 22 May]. London: BBC. Film Four (2000) East is East. [Film. Directed by D. O'Donnell] London: Film Four
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is claiming someone else's work as your own and is an academic offence. It comes in a variety of forms. In order of seriousness, plagiarism includes:
Downloading an entire essay from the internet, and/or paying someone to produce your assignment Copying an entire essay word for word from books or journals (with or without mentioning sources) Copying or paraphrasing another students' essay Copying large sections of books or journals and inserting your own comments every now and again (with or without mentioning sources) Paraphrasing extended passages from a book or journal without mentioning sources
A certain amount of paraphrasing of descriptions of concepts or theories may sometimes be necessary, but you MUST identify your sources.
Examples of copying sources that do NOT count as plagiarism but that won't get you a very good mark includes:
Large amounts of properly quoted passages with sources so that your essay does not contain your own thoughts or interpretations Keeping rigidly to the structure or argument of a textbook instead of varying your argument to suit the essay question Quoting trivial passages with sources
6.1
University Regulations
Students are assessed on the basis that the work presented is their own (as indicated by the declaration on the assignment cover sheet), unless specifically indicated otherwise (such as group work).
Plagiarism is an Academic Offence A student commits an academic offence if it is demonstrated on a balance of probabilities that he or she has used unfair means to carry out an assessment or academic work through cheating, plagiarism or fabrication of information.
A Definition Wider Than You Think
This offence consists in copying work or attempting to copy from any other source, published or unpublished, including the work of a fellow student or another person and presenting the copied work as if it were the students own work. Work presented by a student in an assessment is expected to be the students own, and while quotations from published sources are usually acceptable, such cases must be clearly identified and the source fully acknowledged.
Forms of collusion are also not permitted and are classified as plagiarism, including knowingly supplying work with consent, in which case the supplier and receiver may be regarded as equally guilty. Intent to collude or plagiarise work will also qualify as plagiarism
6.2
Penalties for Plagiarism
The University of Bedfordshire takes plagiarism very seriously. For further information on the possible penalties for plagiarism please see your MBA Programme handbook, or the University of Bedfordshire regulations, and Academic Discipline Policy and Procedure which can be found on the following link: http://www.beds.ac.uk/aboutus/quality/regulations 6.2.3 Excuses That Do Not Work
When an academic member of staff is considering a possible case of plagiarism the following excuses will not work: I had intended to put it into my own words but did not have time. But they said exactly what I wanted to say. In my country it is considered disrespectful to change the words of respected scholars. My friends do it that way and they have never got into trouble. I thought the internet was free and so did not have to reference it.
6.2.4
Ways to Avoid Plagiarism Use your own words and ideas building on the works that you have read Always put in references to your sources often credit is given for wider reading on a topic Do not re-cycle references from other peoples articles if you have not read them yourself If you are using other peoples words put them in inverted commas - but do not use too many quotations Do not try to assemble text from various sources as your first draft this is more difficult than writing your own words
6.3
Appeals
For further information on Academic Appeals please visit the Academic Discipline Policy and Procedure which can be found on the following link: http://www.beds.ac.uk/aboutus/quality/regulations
Avoiding Plagiarism Plagiarism from other students
This tends to occur when people work together on a project such as an essay or report. There is nothing wrong with working together in this way. The problems arise when you end up with the same references, the same general outline, the same examples, and so on. You might end up with two essays that are very similar and crosses the border into plagiarism.
Don't lend your work to other students. Others have been known to photocopy a student's work and pass it off as their own. Bear in mind that both the person who copies the work and the person who wrote it in the first place are both regarded as guilty of plagiarism and both suffer the penalties outlined above. If someone is reading your work to help with organisation, coherence, grammatical accuracy etc., make sure it is someone who is not doing the same piece of work, and acknowledge that your work has been checked in this way. Plagiarism from other sources
Poor time management and poor note keeping and referencing can lead to keeping too closely to other texts. If you don't leave yourself time to think about and plan how to restructure information, then there is the danger of simply using the structure and information available from other sources.
Poor time management and last minute panic can also be due to sudden domestic or personal problems or illness. It is much wiser to let the relevant people know that you are having problems than to risk plagiarism in order to get something in on time.
Don't assume that you can get away with plagiarism because the marker is likely to be unfamiliar with the text being plagiarised or will not notice the change in writing style. Tutors are usually acquainted with a range of texts and it is often easy to spot a plagiarised essay or report.
You should bear in mind that if you are found guilty of plagiarism, not only will the offence be on your record, but also you will have to pay extra tuition fees if you have to repeat a unit.
Assessment Submission Process
For detailed instructions on how to submit your assignment please view the assessment submission process document on your BREO site.
Group assignments
During your MBA you will undertake various group assignments for various MBA units/ units. As an example we will discuss some of them in this section and they will also appear as part of sample assignments for each unit.
The groups will be formed by consensus decision between students and teaching staff. Group members confirm their group name and group members to in writing (family name, first name, student number) to their course leader.
The group assignment should reflect that its a team effort and should look professional. The group work lead to group presentation and presentation will be reviewed by the tutor and your peer groups. Generally there is a standard Peer review form that is made available to review and assess the assignment quality and presentation quality of your peer group.
The assignment submission procedure will be available in the Assignments section of your unit BREO site.

MBA Assignments Guide 2011

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MBA Assignments Guide

Handbook University of Bedfordshire 2009 (Updated 2011)

Best wishes and good luck to all of you!

The MBA team

Assessment Submission Process.............................................................................................. 45 Group assignments...................................................................................................................... 45

General assignment marking criteria for MBA

1. Evidence of research and analysis: background reading that includes consideration of an

Assignment writing style specifications

developmentalists such as Bruner and Piaget....

Following a Standard and Signposted Sequence

Demonstrating Familiarity with the Literature

Reveal Internal Coherence and Integration

The areas of control are:

Preparing and planning your presentation

Giving your presentation

Sight Sound Touch Taste Smell

lighting Describe what satisfied customers have said about it

sounds like Smell

Are you Red, Blue or Grey?

Your best chance to work a miracle

Preface Opening courtesies

Disclaim excessive authority

Give relevant experience. State the intention of

questions, interruptions are

Get them nodding.

manage without choking

What % of total salaries should go into the fund?

immediately is an openended commitment: the company cannot

Tell people that theyll be getting copies, or some will

draw it for themselves and miss what youre saying.

Twenty tips for a perfect presentation

There are three main reasons why accurate referencing is important:

Formatting styles: Harvard referencing

provide a reference list at the end of your essay/paper

References (Listed at the End of the Paper)

Chapters from Edited Books

Then you need to give details about the edited book:

As usual, give the author information first:

Using Articles from Newspapers or Magazines

Citing Sources from the World Wide Web

Other Types of References

A Definition Wider Than You Think

Penalties for Plagiarism

Avoiding Plagiarism Plagiarism from other students

Assessment Submission Process

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