MBA Assignments Guide: Handbook

MBA Assignments Guide
Handbook
© University of Bedfordshire 2009
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
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University of Bedfordshire MBA Page 2 of 60
Unit Handbook: MBA Assignments guide 2009
Contents
Welcome ...............................................................................................................................2
Contents................................................................................................................................3
1 General assignment marking criteria for MBA.............................................................5
1.1 Assignment writing style specifications ......................................................................6
1.2 Below is one standard template that can be used for most of the assignments..........8
2 Report Writing ................................................................................................................9
3 Essay Writing ...............................................................................................................14
3.1 Introduction..............................................................................................................14
3.2 Writing an essay..........................................................................................................14
3.2.1 Addressing the Question/Title ...........................................................................14
3.2.2 Following a Standard and Signposted Sequence ..............................................15
3.2.3 Demonstrating Familiarity with the Literature.....................................................16
3.2.4 Presenting and Analysis and Evaluation of the Ideas and Theories Discussed .16
3.2.5 Reveal Internal Coherence and Integration .......................................................17
3.2.6 Use References and Examples to Support Arguments......................................17
3.2.7 Detail References and Sources.........................................................................17
4 Presentations ...............................................................................................................19
4.1 What is presentation?..................................................................................................19
4.2 Barriers to presenting ..................................................................................................19
4.3 Preparing and planning your presentation ...................................................................20
4.4 Giving your presentation..........................................................................................23
4.5 Communication channels ........................................................................................23
4.6 Your style ................................................................................................................24
4.7 Your best chance to work a miracle.........................................................................25
4.8 Sample presentation................................................................................................26
4.9 Twenty tips for a perfect presentation ......................................................................31
5 Harvard referencing .....................................................................................................34
5.1 The importance of referencing .................................................................................34
5.2 Formatting styles: Harvard referencing ....................................................................34
5.3 Intext referencing....................................................................................................35
5.4 Using Quotations.....................................................................................................37
5.5 References (Listed at the End of the Paper) ............................................................38
5.5.1 Chapters from Edited Books..............................................................................40
5.5.2 Journal Articles..................................................................................................41
5.5.3 Using Articles from Newspapers or Magazines .................................................41
5.5.4 Citing Sources from the World Wide Web .........................................................42
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5.5.5 Other Types of References ...............................................................................42
6 Plagiarism.....................................................................................................................44
6.1 University Regulations.............................................................................................44
6.2 Penalties for Plagiarism ...........................................................................................45
6.2.1 Categories of offences of plagiarism .................................................................45
6.2.2 Penalties ...........................................................................................................46
6.2.3 Excuses That Do Not Work ...............................................................................47
6.2.4 Ways to Avoid Plagiarism..................................................................................47
6.3 Appeals ...................................................................................................................47
7 Turnitin .......................................................................................................................50
8 Group assignments .....................................................................................................54
9 Assessment Overview – The Weightings...................................................................55
9.1 Grades and Progression..........................................................................................55
10 Finding your grades .................................................................................................58

10.1 SITS: sits.beds.ac.uk...............................................................................................58
10.2 Check your Result and Print Your Transcript ...........................................................59
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1 General assignment marking criteria for MBA
1. Evidence of research and analysis: background reading that includes consideration of an
appropriate range of secondary sources – textbooks magazines and journals. This
research should reflect in the assignment in terms of references and critical analysis.
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 Don’ts in
addition to Do’s.
o One of the top things to avoid is ‘Plagiarism’. *Please read the sections on
‘Plagiarism’ for further detail.
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o Please make sure that you don’t 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.
o 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. Make sure that you understand how ‘Turnitin’ assignments work and how you can avoid
plagiarism. * Please read the sections on ‘Turnitin’ for further details.
8. 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 guideline to understand the
minimum standard expectation that will demonstrate your learning of that particular
subject.
9. Group Assignments: Generally any group assignment would have to main parts
o Actual group work task
o Group presentation/ report
The groups will have 56 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 it’s 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 as in the figure below
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· To be readable the font face should be Arial regular font, font size: 11 and 1.5 line
spacing in the paragraph settings.
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1.2 Below is one standard template that can be used for most of the
assignments
Heading 1
Heading 2
Heading 3
Normal text
Normal text bold
Figure and table number text : fig 1.1 and Table 2.1
Figures should have border
Table style: Try and make use of clear and standard table style as in the figure below
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2 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
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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.
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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 o’clock 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 writer’s 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 people’s 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
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it. These sections will set out the author’s 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 non–text 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 Orwell’s 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;
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· 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 one–sided 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 writing’s vile hard reading.
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3 Essay Writing
3.1 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 Writing an essay
3.2.1 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,
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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.
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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 people’s ideas, but rather concise
descriptions (in the essayist’s 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 writer’s 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 essayist’s 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.’
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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
culture–specific 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
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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.
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4 Presentations
4.1 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 audience’s selfinterest that is key (though most presentations drone on
endlessly about the presenter’s 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.
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4.3 Preparing and planning your presentation
An ill–prepared presenter sends the message to the audience “I don’t 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
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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. It’s 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 a logical development of ideas;
o a coherent argument;
o a smooth flow from one idea to the next;
o it tests well against Title and Aims.
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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 you’s, 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.
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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, don’t plod, don’t be afraid to let the audience know
you’re 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 can’t
maintain audience interaction, it’s 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 nonverbal 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 oneway, 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 Body language, visual aids, the room
Sound Words, tone, music, sound effects
Touch Samples, where/how the audience sits
Taste
Smell
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
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 Describe how the lighting effect feels to people
What it’s like to touch Pass the sample around for the audience to touch
What the lighting Describe what satisfied customers have
“sounds” like said about it
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 we’re 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, you’ll 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 don’t feel it!
· Put the words “you” and “your” into your presentation as often as possible;
o “let’s look at it from your perspective”;
o “here’s what it means to you”;
o “what’s in this example for you here are some things that you can do”;
o “let’s 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 answer the question;
o admit you don’t know and promise to find out;
o defer it to deal with privately at greater length afterwards;
o refer it to an expert colleague if you have brought one;
o refer it back to the person who asked it;
o refer it back to another member of the audience;
o 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 left–hand of the page indicates the principle being
illustrated, and the right–hand 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 Presenter
Opening courtesies 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 I’m not an expert on pension schemes
although I have been administering the present scheme
for the past 3 years.
Give relevant experience. You asked me to review our present staff arrangements
State the intention of the and make proposals. What I suggest — if you’re happy?
presentation in terms of the — is that I give a brief run–down 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 you’ll stop me if there’s anything
‘Route Map’. you don’t follow; but if it’s 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, whether
interruptions are 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 don’t without it dates back to when the company was fairly new and
offending those who do If the quite a lot smaller. It’s a very basic, minimum scheme:
audience know more about the the company pays in five per cent of each employee’s
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 you’ve 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. It’s 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
manage without choking 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 that’s 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 I’ve got wrong or left
‘feedback’ check. out?
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.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
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 non–contributory?
are.
3. How large?
Premium Pension
Final Variable Fixed
What % of total salaries should go into the fund?
salary
Money Fixed Variable
purchase 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
doesn’t 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 how the jargon–type The drawback with a final salary scheme — for our
phrase ‘open–ended company at this stage of its development — is that it
commitment’ is immediately is an open–ended 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 it’s 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 I’ve 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 non–contributory?
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 tax–free 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 company’s contribution? First, how much
in total? Well taking 5% of the company’s 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. I’ll be
distributing these charts in a moment.
Tell people that they’ll be

getting copies, or some will
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
draw it for themselves and
miss what you’re 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 Company’s 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 employer’s share,
proposal ‘A’ puts us here and proposal ‘B’ puts us here.
But, of course, these are just examples, and
you might opt for a larger total plus a smaller employee
State the next action and
contribution, or vice versa. You may also wish to opt for
target date, followed by a
further improvement in the pensions paid to senior staff.
benefit to them if these are
But if we could have that board decision by the end of
met.
the month, we’d 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 I’ve left out an enormous amount of detail —

typescript after the end of your transferability, widow’s pensions, death in service,
presentation. benefits, indexation, voluntary extra contributions — but
you’ll find it all in the folders along side the financial
calculations. You’ll also find examples of other sample
companies, and copies of the diagrams I was using. And
there’s some literature from the three insurance
companies I’ve been talking to — the three our brokers
recommended.
And that’s really it. Thank you for listening so patiently,

and if you have any questions I’ll 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 isn’t 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 department’s 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 you’ve built a presentation. Some templates are designed for
slideshows with lots of automatic transitions, others are best for single–shot displays.
4. Be consistent — If you don’t 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 it’s 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 colour–blind people
have difficulty distinguishing between blue, green and red. And don’t 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 don’t 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 it’s best to stick with a solid and dark background which won’t
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 shouldn’t 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, don’t 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 won’t 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 — Here’s an opportunity for imagination. You needn’t stick with round
blobs; try using symbols from dingbat fonts or cut–down clip–art.
17. Use the right characters — You don’t 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 — Don’t clutter bar charts with too much data — ideally you should
have no more than eight bars; five to six is a better maximum. Don’t 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 Harvard referencing
5.1 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 Intext 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, SpencerOatey).
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
selfevaluation 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,

1
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
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 and Gilman, 1960; Leech, 1983;
Triandis,1978).
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
SpencerOatey, 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. SpencerOatey (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 example, 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
crosscultural capability. http://www.rdq.ac.uk/AcaDepts/cl/slas/circlems.htm
[2004, 10 Sept.]
5.5.5 Other Types of References
Conference Paper
SpencerOatey, H. (2001) Disagreement in authentic ChineseBritish

business meetings: unpackaging the role of culture. Paper presented at the Regional
Conference of the International Association for CrossCultural 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
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
6 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 student’s own work. Work
presented by a student in an assessment is expected to be the student’s 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
This section describes the categories of offence and the penalties for plagiarism. There are
also other forms of cheating, such as fabrication ('presenting false, or fabricated results or
conclusions in any form of assessment'). These can be found in the University's regulations.
Here we concentrate on the offence of plagiarism. The following notes summarise the
information given in the University's regulations and should not be regarded as complete.
6.2.1 Categories of offences of plagiarism
(University Regulations, E12.2)
Acts of plagiarism are classed as minor, serious or grave:
At postgraduate level, a minor offence of plagiarism is one which
· Involves the reproduction of small amounts of text (verbatim or paraphrased) without
attribution
At postgraduate level, a serious offence of plagiarism is one which:
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
· Is a first offence
OR
· Is the use of another student's work with his or her knowledge (including unauthorised
collaboration)
At postgraduate level, a grave offence of plagiarism is one which
· Is a second or subsequent offence
OR
· Is the use of another student's work without his or her knowledge
6.2.2 Penalties
(University Regulations, E12.1 D)
For a minor offence the student should normally:
· Be awarded a fail grade for the unit or single assessment; and
· Be permitted to complete referral work, to be marked as a second attempt
· Be issued with a written warning that further offences will be treated more seriously
· Have a note included in the student's academic record
For a serious offence the student should normally:
· Be awarded a fail grade for the unit without any right of referral
· Be issued with a written warning about the consequences of any future offence
· Have a note included in the academic record
· The board 'of examiners will consider whether the student should be allowed to
retake the unit without the right of referral or debarred from taking the unit again.
For a grave offence the student should normally:
· Be awarded a fail grade for the unit without any right of referral
· Be issued with a written warning about the consequences of any future offence
· Have a note included in the academic record
For a grave offence, the board of examiners will consider whether the student:
· Should fail the entire stage of assessment (either entire semester or year)
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
· Be readmitted to the course or field (effectively terminating his or her studies).
These latter penalties should be actively considered when the offence is a
second or subsequent offence, and when the offence is one of cheating in an
examination.
To summarise the penalties can be
• The normal minimum penalty is to fail the unit and you will not have any right of
referral
• You might not be allowed to retake the unit
• You might be failed in all units taken in the semester
• Your studies at the university might be terminated
• You might lose the right to any award
6.2.3 Excuses That Do 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 recycle 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
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Students should be allowed to appeal against decisions regarding academic offences, but
only on the grounds that the examiners have failed to take mitigating circumstances into
account.
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.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
7 Turnitin
Turnitin UK is one common way of detecting plagiarism
You will submit turnitin assignment using university’s virtual learning environment BREO. It
will look something like in the image below.
fig 7.1
Most of the tutors would offer you a revision assignment or will allow you resubmit your
assignment till the last day of submission date. You will be also offered to see your originality
report at least for first assignment so that you get a clear idea about how your work will be
assessed and if it is your original work.
Below is a sample of one turnitin assignment.
Once you click on the view/Complete link for turnitin assignment you will see a page that
will enable you to submit your assignment as in the figure fig 7.2
fig 7.2
When you click on the submit icon you will be asked to fill in your details and submit the
assignment as in the fig 7.3
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
fig 7.2
You will receive a TurnitinUK digital receipt after you successfully submit your assignment.

As in the fig 7.3
fig 7.3
After submitting the assignment click on the ‘My Grades’ link (fig 7.4) in the main menu or go
to communication> My grades to access your BREO integrated grade book (fig 7.5).
fig 7.4
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
fig 7.5 fig 7.6
Click on the ‘!’ in under Calculated Grade to view originality report of your assignment. ‘!’
indicates the assignment is not yet marked and if allowed by tutor you can resubmit the
assignment till the last date of submission.
After clicking on the ‘!’ icon you will see a page as in fig 7.6. Click on the ‘view’ button next to
originality report to check the originality of your report/ assignment.
The originality report can be viewed as summery fig 7.7 Or
fig 7.7
The originality report can be viewed as quick report fig 7.8
fig 7.8
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Or
The originality report can be viewed full extensive report as in the fig 7.9
fig 7.9
If you have more than 20% match excluding quotes and bibliography you should try and re
assess your submission and make it more original and to avoid plagiarism.
Most of the times you will be allowed to resubmit your assignment till the last date of
submission unless specifically mentioned that the first submission is last submission.
*Please read the instructions on the TurnitinUK assignment’s first screen to check the
submission details for that particular assignment Fig 7.10
fig 7.10
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
8 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 have 56 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 group assignment should reflect that it’s 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.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
9 Assessment Overview – The Weightings
Group
Unit Credits Assignments Examination Other
Work
Business
15 50%+20%+30% 30%
Communications
*Class
Entrepreneurship 15 40+50% Contribution – 40%
10%
Executive
Development 30 100%
Project
Leadership
30 30%+70%
Project
Leading and
Managing 15 50% 50%
People
Marketing
15 40+30% 30% 30%
Management
Operations
15 50%+50% 50%
Management
Strategic
15 50% 50% 50%
Finance
Strategy 15 50% 50% 50%
TOTAL 180 79% 20% 1% 27%
From the above overview you will see that group produced assignments constitute 27% of
the total MBA assessment regime. The importance of a well functioning group from the
outset of the MBA, and your contribution to it is evident.
9.1 Grades and Progression
1. You must attempt all elements of assessment in a given unit.
2. You must submit assignment work by the given deadlines.
3. If you are prevented from submitting work by a given deadline through illness etc., you
may apply for extenuating circumstances and be granted an extension, normally two
weeks for an assignment. If you are prevented from attending an examination, you must
also apply for extenuating circumstances.
4. If you submit work up to two weeks after the deadline (without permission), a maximum
grade of ‘Pass’ (D/5 points) will be recorded, provided the assignment work is at least
satisfactory.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
5. Grading is against a 16point scale:
a. 1614 = A+, A, A
b. 1311 = B+, B, B
c. 108 = C+, C, C
d. 75 = D+, D, D (Minimum Pass Level)
e. 4 = E
f. 2 = F
6. The final grade for a unit is the sum of the weighted grades of the unit’s assessment.
The possible outcomes for a unit, as confirmed by the programme examinations board
are:
a. Pass
b. Referral in one or more assessment elements (i.e. you must attempt again an
assessment)
c. Fail (You must reregister for the unit and take all assessments a second time)
Note the situations:
· Leading and Managing People (50%+50%)
Example: 13 and 7 = 10 (C+) Overall Pass
· Marketing Management (40%+30%+30%)
Example: 12 and 8 and 10 = 10.2 (C+) Overall Pass
Example: 8 and 4 = 6 (D) Overall Pass
Example: 5 and 4 = 4.5 (E) Must resit the examination
Example: 4 and 5 = 4.5 (E) Must complete a referral assignment
Example: 12 and 2 = 7 (D+) BUT Must resit the examination
If you receive A ‘2’ fail grade in an assignment, you musty complete referral work even
if the weighted calculation is above D/5.
Example: 2 and 10 = 6 (D) BUT Must complete a referral assignment
Example: 4 and 4 = 4 (E) Must complete a referral assignment and resit the examination
Example: 5 and 2 = 3.5 (F) Fail the unit; Reregister; redo all assessments
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
If the weighted final grade is less than ‘4’ you have failed the unit outright and do not
have the possibility of referral. You must reregister on the unit at the next opportunity
and complete assessments.
In order to be eligible for an award you must have passed all units and obtained 180 credits.
There are three classes of MBA award: Pass, Commendation and Distinction. The criteria
for obtaining one of these classifications can be found in the University Regulations.
Intermediate awards are also possible: postgraduate certificate in business administration
(60 credits) and postgraduate diploma in business administration (90 credits).
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
10 Finding your grades
10.1 SITS: sits.beds.ac.uk
SITS: evision is connection to the UoB student Record System. You can check your result,
print the transcript yourself, change your online settings and your personal details yourself
on SITS:evision.4.2 Log on to SITS:evision
Username: Student ID Number.
Password: Date of Birth (ddmmyy)
By the first time you log in, you will need to input and confirm your new password, and
answer 2 questions for security issues before log on to your SITS homepage.
In case you forgot your password please click the ‘Forgot password’ link on the SITS home
page and you will receive your new password into your net mail account.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
You can access your evision account via BREO home page
or by directly accessing the https://sits.luton.ac.uk/urd/sits.urd/run/siw_lgn
10.2 Check your Result and Print Your Transcript
Click Your Postgraduate Result and follow the instructions, you will be able to view your unit
results and print your transcript in a settled form.
You will be able to access you grades online using evision. Once your results are published
they will be accessible via evision and will look something like this.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________

MBA Assignments Guide: Handbook

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10 Finding your grades .................................................................................................58

‘As you know’ enables you to So, if I might start with the present scheme, as you know

A visual aid on the three 1. What type?

Tell people that they’ll be

Circulate details on separate Obviously I’ve left out an enormous amount of detail —

And that’s really it. Thank you for listening so patiently,

1 An obvious issue for needs assessment should focus on the language

Research on culture related values (e.g. Chinese Culture Connection,

9 Cultural Masculinity Femininity (MF) focuses on the equality in

11 Masculinity pertains to societies in which social gender roles are

Thomas, J. (1995) Meaning in Interaction. An Introduction to Pragmatics. London:

Zegarac, V. & Pennington, M. (2000) Pragmatic transfer in intercultural

Fraser, B. (1990) Perspectives on politeness. Journal of Pragmatics, 34(2), 219236.

SpencerOatey, H. (2001) Disagreement in authentic ChineseBritish

You will receive a TurnitinUK digital receipt after you successfully submit your assignment.

You might also like

MBA Assignments Guide: Handbook

Uploaded by

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Copyright

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MBA Assignments Guide: Handbook

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MBA Assignments Guide

10 Finding your grades .................................................................................................58

‘As you know’ enables you to So, if I might start with the present scheme, as you know

A visual aid on the three 1. What type?

Tell people that they’ll be

Circulate details on separate Obviously I’ve left out an enormous amount of detail —

And that’s really it. Thank you for listening so patiently,

1 An obvious issue for needs assessment should focus on the language

Research on culture related values (e.g. Chinese Culture Connection,

9 Cultural Masculinity Femininity (MF) focuses on the equality in

11 Masculinity pertains to societies in which social gender roles are

Thomas, J. (1995) Meaning in Interaction. An Introduction to Pragmatics. London:

Zegarac, V. & Pennington, M. (2000) Pragmatic transfer in intercultural

Fraser, B. (1990) Perspectives on politeness. Journal of Pragmatics, 34(2), 219236.

Spencer­Oatey, H. (2001) Disagreement in authentic Chinese­British

You will receive a TurnitinUK digital receipt after you successfully submit your assignment.

You might also like

SpencerOatey, H. (2001) Disagreement in authentic ChineseBritish