Master's dissertation

1

BUS7048: Major Project

Lecture 3: Putting

your Project Report

together

Peter Samuels

27th August 2019

BUS7048:

Major Project

Module assessment  25% proposal (Options 1 and 2) or proposal

presentation (Options 3 and 4)

 75% final report due Wednesday 25th September:

 Options 1 and 2: Dissertation

 Option 3: Work-based report

 Option 4: Business plan

 If you failed your proposal you need to resubmit it as an appendix to your final report. If you pass the final report your resubmitted proposal will be remarked but with a cap of 50%.

 Students who failed their proposal presentation should discuss resit arrangements with me

2

BUS7048:

Major Project

Ethics update

 Required for all options (even Option 2)

 68 applications approved

 18 submissions still have a problem

 9 non-submissions

 Please get your form completed, approved and

returned as soon as possible

 Carrying out research without ethics approval is

unauthorised and unethical

BUS7048:

Major Project

The five stage writing process

 Ideas generation

(not relevant here)

 Planning

 Drafting

 Revising

 Editing

See Coventry

University handouts

3

BUS7048:

Major Project

Putting your project report together

 Completing your major project: the end game

 The writing process stage 1: Planning:

 Outlines

 The writing process stage 2: Drafting (omitted)

 The writing process stage 3: Revising

 The writing process stage 4: Editing

 Good writing practice for different parts of your thesis

 Referencing using the BCU Harvard system

BUS7048:

Major Project

The “end game”

Problem: Cutting off the research:

 Set a realistic cut off date – feasible for both the research

and the write-up

Critical

Critique

and

evaluate

theory and

method

Action

Collect

and

organise

data

Analytical

Analyse

data and

generate

findings

Creative

Assemble

dissertation

Write

discussion

and

conclusions

Final editing

Conceptual

Organise your

dissertation topic

mentally

4

BUS7048:

Major Project

How are you progressing? Week commencing 10/06 17/06 24/06 01/07 08/07 15/07 22/07 29/07 05/08 12/08 19/08 26/08 02/09 09/09 16/09 23/09

Number 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Firm up topic

Prepare research

proposal

Literature review (1st

draft)

Methodology (draft)

Design research

instrument

Methodology (final)

Collect data

Analyse data (draft)

Literature review (final)

Data analysis (final)

Discussion (draft)

Discussion (final)

Full dissertation (draft)

Proofreading and final

preparation

Proposal deadline

End of supervisions

deadline

Hand-in deadline 25/09/19

BUS7048:

Major Project

A good major project will:

 Have a clear objective based on a central question

 Be well planned and researched

 Demonstrate a good grasp of relevant concepts

 Contain evidence of analysis, critical evaluation and discussion

 Be consistent and demonstrate correct referencing

 Follow academic writing conventions

Source: (Dawson, 2006)

5

BUS7048:

Major Project

Overview of the project

report writing process

Project report chapter structure

Project report outline

Argument structure

Paragraph topics

Paragraphs

Draft chapter 1 Draft chapter 2 Etc.

First draft

...

Successive drafts

Remember: you must draft

before you can craft!

Start some chapter

drafts early

Drafts

may be

done in a

different

sequence

Revising,

supervisor

feedback, etc.

BUS7048:

Major Project

Advice on document handling  Store chapters as separate files

 Use version numbering, e.g. Chapter2v3, every time you start working on a chapter change its number

 Save your work on different media (e.g. 2 hard disks and 2 memory sticks or a virtual drive)

 Combine all the chapter files together for the first time in your first draft (of your whole dissertation)

 It is then best to work from a single document unless the file is too large due to figures, etc.

 Keep using version numbers so that you can reconstruct your thesis if something goes wrong

6

BUS7048:

Major Project

 Title Page

 Acknowledgments (optional)

 Abstract (300 words)

 Table of Contents (number your pages from here onwards)

 Lists of Appendices, Figures, Tables, Illustrations

 Chapter One: Introduction (start each chapter on a new page)

 Chapter Two: Literature Review (20%)

 Chapter Three: Methods (15%)

 Chapter Four: Results / Analysis

 Chapter Five: Discussion

 Chapter Six: Conclusions (and Recommendations) (10%)

 Chapter Seven: Reflective account

 References

 Appendices (numbered and titled, including your full proposal, ethics application, supervisor meeting records, blank copies of primary research materials and software output)

Project report structure (Options 1, 2 and 3)

15%

15%

+10% for grammar,

referencing and

presentation

15%

BUS7048:

Major Project

 Title Page

 Acknowledgments (optional)

 Table of Contents (number your pages from here onwards)

 Lists of Appendices, Figures, Tables, Illustrations

 Chapter 1: Executive Summary and Introduction (10%)

 Chapter 2: Business model (10%)

 Chapter 3: Industry analysis (including review of appropriate academic literature review applied) (15%)

 Chapter 4: Market positioning and market analysis (including review of appropriate academic literature applied) with concise marketing plan and strategy (20%)

 Chapter 5: Financial plan (with analysis) and risk analysis (20%)

 Chapter 6: Operational plan - with legal and technological feasibility with rationale and evidence (15%)

 Chapter 7: Reflective Diagnostic, Analysis, and Development Plan (10%)

 References

 Appendices (numbered and titled, including your full proposal, ethics application, supervisor meeting records, blank copies of primary research materials and software output)

Business plan structure (Option 4)

7

BUS7048:

Major Project

The writing process stage 1:

Planning

The dissertation outline

 Draft table of contents order

 Important step between the dissertation

structure and the argument structure

 Can be linear or a concept map

BUS7048:

Major Project

Example dissertation outline Chapter One: Introduction

1.1 Background

1.2 Aim

1.3 Objectives

Chapter Two: Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

2.2 Resistance to change and key reasons for failure of change

2.3 The effect of technology on the retail industry

2.4 Currently accepted change models and frameworks

2.5 Discussion

Chapter Three: Methodology

3.1 Primary research

3.2 Questionnaire format

3.3 Secondary research

3.4 Method and approach

3.5 Sampling

Chapter Four: Results and Analysis

4.1 Introduction

4.2 Primary research results and analysis

4.3 Secondary research results and analysis

Chapter Five: Discussion

5.1 The surrogate manager model

5.1.1 The role of the surrogate manager

5.1.2 The theory and literature behind the surrogate manager model

5.1.3 The benefits of using a surrogate manager

5.2 Conclusions

5.3 Limitations

Note: This is an actual example;

some choices are not recommended

8

BUS7048:

Major Project

Where to put critical writing: example project report outline Chapter One: Introduction

1.1

1.2

1.3

Chapter Two: Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

2.2

2.3

2.4

2.5

Chapter Three: Methodology

3.1

3.2

3.3

3.4

3.5

Chapter Four: Results and Analysis

4.1 Introduction

4.2

4.3

Chapter Five: Discussion

5.1

5.1.1

5.1.2

5.1.3

5.2 Conclusions

5.3 Limitations

Key:

Descriptive writing

Critical writing

BUS7048:

Major Project

The writing process stage 3: Revising

 Large scale changes to your draft (hard work but vital)

 Make a minimum of 3 drafts before your create your final version (don’t hand in your first draft!)

 Check the clarity of your argument and the logic of your paper’s structure. Ask yourself:  Have I created a strong thread of argument throughout my

thesis connecting individual points / paragraphs to my research question statement?

 Have I given evidence to support each point, with thorough explanations?

 Have I provided transition sentences to link subsections?

 You may need to move sections around

 You may also need to add new sections to fill gaps

9

BUS7048:

Major Project

The writing process stage 4:

Editing  Small scale, but important, changes:

 Leave sufficient time: carries 10% of the marks

 Read your project report through (or swap with a friend)

 Look for mistakes in:

 Grammar

 Spelling

 Punctuation

 Paragraph structure (see Lecture 3 handout)

 Font: style, size, use of italics and bold

 Language: is it formal enough but still engaging?

 Document integrity: e.g. check correspondence between

citing figures and tables and their labelling

BUS7048:

Major Project

Psychology of project report reading  Project report readers/markers are

normally busy people

 They are very unlikely to read your entire report in linear order

 The most important parts are therefore:  The title and abstract

 The introduction (already covered)

 The conclusions

 If these parts are not well written you will bias your reader/marker against your research and discourage him/her from reading it in detail

 You need to “sell” your work to an extent

10

BUS7048:

Major Project

Title page

TITLE (your dissertation title) (All Caps and Centred)

By

Your Name

A Major Project Report Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the

(Insert the appropriate degree)

Department of (your department) Birmingham City University

(Month and Year)

Make sure your title is clear, succinct and conveys the overall aim/idea of your research to a non-specialist reader

BUS7048:

Major Project

Abstract  Normally a single paragraph

 200-300 words

 Purpose: Sets out the nature of your project, your main findings and your conclusions

 Summarises / extracts / distils / condenses the most important points from your major project

 Concise: no extra or long words

 Don’t refer to individual chapters

 Avoid language shortcuts (e.g. jargon, abbreviations)

 Avoid sophisticated language forms (e.g. preliminary remarks, descriptive details, examples and footnotes)

 Use CARS or IMRD style: see Aula for examples

11

BUS7048:

Major Project

Executive summaries (Option 4)  Longer than abstracts – often 1-2 pages (however,

yours will need to be very concise due to marks / word count restrictions)

 Purpose: to give busy executives a summary of your entire report:

 Too short  miss out vital information

 Too long  might not be read

 Suggested generic structure:

 Aim

 Methods

 Results

 Recommendations

 Limitations

You may need

to follow the

project report

structure instead

BUS7048:

Major Project

Example (Woodward-Kron, 1997) [Aim] This report provides an analysis and evaluation of the current and prospective profitability, liquidity and financial stability of Outdoor Equipment Ltd.

Methods of analysis include trend, horizontal and vertical analyses as well as ratios such as Debt, Current and Quick ratios. Other calculations include rates of return on Shareholders Equity and Total Assets and earnings per share to name a few. All calculations can be found in the appendices.

Results of data analysed show that all ratios are below industry averages. In particular, comparative performance is poor in the areas of profit margins, liquidity, credit control, and inventory management.

The report finds the prospects of the company in its current position are not positive. The major areas of weakness require further investigation and remedial action by management.

Recommendations discussed include:

 Improving the average collection period for accounts receivable

 Improving/increasing inventory turnover

 Reducing prepayments and perhaps increasing inventory levels

The report also investigates the fact that the analysis conducted has limitations. Some of the limitations include: forecasting figures are not provided; nature and type of company is not known nor the current economic conditions; data limitations as not enough information is provided or enough detail, i.e. monthly details not known; results are based on past performances not present.

12

BUS7048:

Major Project

Example qualitative thematic analysis: 2011 riots

 Who were the rioters?

 How the riots unfolded

 Understanding the riots:

 Policing

 Gangs

 Inequality

 Shopping for free?

 Social media

 Phase II: What next?

Source: (Lewis et al., 2011)

Description

Analysis

Evaluation

BUS7048:

Major Project

Example qualitative research report

Keyworth, C., Peters, S., Chisholm, A. and Hart, J. (2012) Nursing students’ perceptions of obesity and behaviour change: Implications for undergraduate nurse education. Nurse Education Today, 33(5), pp. 481–485.

 Semi-structured interviews

 Grounded theory

 Explains method nicely

13

BUS7048:

Major Project

Writing up quantitative results

 Descriptive statistics:

 Use tables or charts in conjunction with a narrative

 Think about the information content (e.g. use charts instead of lots of long numbers in a table)

 Move beyond single variable frequencies – use cross-tabulations (e.g. gender v. Likert question)

 Statistical testing:

 Interpret output from statistical software (e.g. compare “Sig.” values in SPSS with standard confidence levels and make appropriate decisions)

 Don’t include software output in your main report

BUS7048:

Major Project

12274

3622

5987

18765

2223 2000 3700 5400 7100 8800

10500 12200 13900 15600 17300 19000

mile s

Number of

pasenger miles

14

BUS7048:

Major Project

Of the 32 companies in Lagos that responded,

20 were micro businesses (with less than 10

employees) whilst 12 were small businesses

(with between 10 and 50 employees).

BUS7048:

Major Project

“A Pearson correlation was carried out. This returned a

coefficient of 0.704, interpreted by Cohen et al. (2003) as

‘large’, with a significance value < 0.001, providing very

strong evidence of a non-zero correlation. This linear model

accounted for 49.5% of the variance in the data.”

This output

should not be

put in a results

chapter, but it

could be put it

in an appendix

15

BUS7048:

Major Project

Data analysis drop-in

 10am to 1pm this Thursday

 Curzon 038

 Qualitative and quantitative analysis

software learning resources will be

available (including NVivo 12)

 You can also ask advice on analysing

your data or writing up your analysis

BUS7048:

Major Project

Conclusions (Options 1, 2 and 3)

 800 words (10%)

 Remind your reader of your aims and objectives

 Summarise your whole dissertation process

 Summarise your findings

 Evaluate how well your dissertation has achieved your aim(s) or answered your research question(s)

 Discuss how your research connects with its context (the wider research area in which it lies, as identified by your literature review)

 Explain the implications of your research and how they relate to organisational issues

 Consider limitations in your findings and whether and to what extent your results are generalizable

 Recommend further research based on what you have achieved

16

BUS7048:

Major Project

Reflective account “A commentary and reflective analysis on the process of undertaking research projects, including a self- reflection on professional development issues, identifying areas of strength and areas to improve upon related to research and project management.”

 15% - Options 1, 2 and 3 (including supervision reports)

 10% - Option 4

 800 - 1,200 words

Suggested structure (Driscoll and Teh, 2001):

 What?: What you did

 So what?: What you have learnt about yourself and how you have developed

 Now what?: How you plan to move forward

BUS7048:

Major Project

Plagiarism checking

 Your project report will be submitted to Turnitin to check it for plagiarism

 You can submit you draft without penalty here: https://moodle.bcu.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=7 15

 Plagiarism in final reports will be taken more seriously than for the proposals

 Possible outcomes if plagiarism is found:

 Reduction in mark by 5%

 Reduction in mark by 10%

 Referral for academic misconduct

17

BUS7048:

Major Project

Turnitin reports  Click on the percentage when it appears – it opens your

Turnitin report

 Then click on this number: makes the matching text and match overview appear

Several sections cut

and pasted from an

original source without

quoting or citing: clear

example of plagiarism

BUS7048:

Major Project

How to avoid plagiarism

 Use direct quotes with citations when you cut

and paste (but only use this style for about 10%

of your citations)

 Learn how to summarise in your own words –

get away from the original language used in the

source you are citing (see Lecture 1)

 Use Manchester Academic Phrasebank to give

you alternative language ideas

18

BUS7048:

Major Project

Your major project submission  Supervision support officially finishes on Friday 6th

September

 Your submission deadline is Wednesday 25th

September at 12:00noon

 Submit your electronic report via Moodle

 Most document types are accepted (e.g. docx, pdf)

 If you failed your proposal (scored less than 50%),

please include a revised proposal as an appendix.

Please see me for Options 3 and 4 (presentations).

 You can only submit once

 There is a file size limit of 20Mb

BUS7048:

Major Project

BCU Harvard referencing system  A version of Harvard specific to BCU available from:

https://icity.bcu.ac.uk/Library-and-Learning- Resources/Referencing/Harvard-Referencing

 Required in the Business School

 Comprises of citing in text and a reference list

 Uses (author, year) style for indirect citations

 Can also use the author’s name directly within the text followed by (year) – more personal style

 References are given in an alphabetically ordered list at the end of the document (all types of source together)

 Reference list entries depend on the type of source but generally have the structure:

Author, Initials (Year) Title. Other required information.

The main document title will be in italics

19

BUS7048:

Major Project

Citing a single author 1. Plagiarism is an important issue in contemporary higher

education (Neville, 2007). (backing up an assertion)

2. Neville (2007) reports that… (summary)

There are many alternative reporting verbs, e.g.:

 Found

 Argues

 Suggests

 Claims

 Concludes

See Manchester Academic Phrasebank

3. “Referencing is not a new idea” (Neville, 2007: 2) (short quote – must have a page number, if available; page numbers are optional for other types of citation)

Use summaries and critiques

to emphasise more important

sources – see Using Sources

and Avoiding Plagiarism guide

BUS7048:

Major Project

Citing multiple authors

Two authors – use and:

 Directly:

White and Brown (2004) in their recent study found...

 Indirectly:

A recent investigation (White and Brown, 2004) suggests that...

Three or more authors – use et al.:

 Directly:

Green et al. (1969) identified the following …

 Indirectly:

Further research (Green et al., 1969) showed that ...

20

BUS7048:

Major Project

Referencing a paper journal article

Format:

Author, Initials (Year) Title of article. Full Title of

Journal, Volume number(Issue/Part number), pp.

page numbers.

Example:

Driscoll, J. and Teh, B. (2001) The potential of

reflective practice to develop individual orthopaedic

nurse practitioners and their practice. Journal of

Orthopaedic Nursing, 5(2), pp. 95-103.

BUS7048:

Major Project

Referencing a book

Format:

Author, Initials (Year) Title of Book. Edition (if not

the first edition). Place of publication (this must

be a town or city, not a country): Publisher.

Example:

Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (2019)

Research Methods for Business Students. 8th

edn. Harlow: Pearson.

21

BUS7048:

Major Project

Referencing a pdf report

Format:

Author, Initials or Institutional Author (Year) Full Title of

Report. [pdf] Place (optional): Publisher (optional).

Available at: full URL [Accessed date].

Example:

Plymouth University (2010) Critical Thinking. [pdf] Available at:

https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/uploads/production/documen

t/path/1/1710/Critical_Thinking.pdf. [Accessed 9

November 2018].

Note: If a report is also published in paper format then cite that

one instead.

BUS7048:

Major Project

Referencing a website

Format:

Author, Initials or Institutional Author (Year) Title of

document. Place (optional): Publisher (optional).

Available at: Full URL [Accessed date].

Example:

Coventry University (n. d.) The writing process: steps 1 and

2; step 3; and steps 4 and 5. Available at:

http://curve.coventry.ac.uk/open/items/58f5ef96-aa60-

316c-c30b-f945aa89bfc7/1/. [Accessed 9 November

2018].

Note: Try to avoid too many electronic sources as they are

often not peer reviewed so are less academically important

22

BUS7048:

Major Project

Additional references

Dawson, C. (2006) The Mature Student’s Study Guide, 2nd edn. 374.130281/Daw and e-book.

Horn, R. (2012) Researching and Writing Dissertations: A complete guide for business and management students. 2nd edn. 808.066658/Hor.

Lewis, P. Newburn, T., Taylor, M., Mcgillivray, C., Greenhill, A., Frayman, H. and Proctor, R. (2011) Reading the Riots: Investigating England’s summer of disorder. The Guardian / LSE. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/46297/1/Reading%20the%20riots(published ).pdf.

Roberts, C. (2010) The Dissertation Journey: A practical and comprehensive guide to planning, writing and defending your dissertation. 2nd edn. e-book.

University of Manchester (2018) Academic Phrasebank. http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/.

BUS7048:

Major Project

Additional references (cont’d) Woodward-Kron, R. (1997) Extracts from a student report to illustrate

report structure. In Writing in Commerce: A guide to assist

Commerce students with assignment writing. Revised edn.

Newcastle, Australia: The University of Newcastle.

https://www.uow.edu.au/content/groups/public/@web/@stsv/@ld/do

cuments/doc/uow195620.pdf.