Principles of ECON homework

Your success in the business world will depend, to a large extent, on your ability to communicate. Courses during your first few years at the Business School provided the opportunity to hone your written and oral communication skills. This course will provide you with the opportunity to develop further both of these skills. You will be required to write a formal report which might possibly be available for external judges at the end of the semester and try to convince them of the strength of your Project. You might also be required to submit several written business reports. The purpose of this section is to help you with your written assignments by providing a number of helpful suggestions as well as outlining my expectations.

Substance: You should substantiate what you are trying to convey with facts and data. In most cases, you will be asking the reader of your business report to commit substantial resources--financial, human, or physical--to a project. The decision-maker will not make the decision because you think is a good concept. Rather, you will need to convince the reader by providing hard facts and data with appropriate citations. Your rationale and reasoning should be explained logically and clearly. Effective business reports are not documents put together at the last minute—they take time to develop.

Style: The style of your business reports should be clear, concise, and to the point. The executive reading the report does not want to be entertained. He or she wants the information necessary to make a decision. Avoid flowery language with lots of adjectives and adverbs. I have high expectations. If you want to excel in the business world you should too.

Outline: You should follow the outline provided. However, most word processing software includes an outlining function. Use it. Begin your reports by developing an outline to organize your thoughts and the concepts you are trying to convey. The more comprehensive and detailed your outline, the easier it will be to write the report.

Proofread: Carefully proofread each draft of the report. You will probably need three or four drafts before you are satisfied with the report.

Exhibits/Appendices: I do not expect to receive exhibits or appendices with your handwriting on them. Instead, you should have typed exhibit numbers (let me know if you want some help). This includes copying exhibits from other sources. Unless you are using a photograph that cannot be reproduced in Word document, I expect you to make models, charts, spreadsheets on your own. This takes time but it is all part of being professional.

Due dates: Reports are due on the dates assigned and at the start of our business meetings. Late reports will have the grade lowered accordingly.

Grading: Reports will be graded as if I were an executive trying to make a business decision based upon the written report. Grading will be competitive. That is, your reports will be graded relative to those turned in by your classmates. Proper spelling, syntax, grammar, punctuation, bibliography, citations, footnotes, and professional appearance are expected. Your grade may be lowered as much as two full letter grades if these areas are lacking.

Reviewing papers: I am willing to discuss the logical reasoning and proposed content of your reports. Before visiting my office emailing or calling me, you should have made significant progress and should be well prepared.

Plagiarism: Please don’t do it. Plagiarism includes taking exhibits or ideas from books or websites without giving credit to appropriate sources.

Project:

I would like to preserve your ability to be creative with this project, so you may pursue any "subtopics" and take your research paper in a variety of different directions, but please write about the topics assigned (see the Assignment page). You will find that the database resources through the GWU Library provide great help when researching and acquiring full-text journal articles. If you have difficulty, contact the GWU Library and ask for Assistance.

The research paper should be constructed in Word. The paper should be 15 (double-spaced) pages long, excluding pages associated with title pages or bibliography. In other words the body of the paper should be no less than 15 pages (1 inch margins - 12 pt. font - Times New Roman or Arial) in length.

The paper should be documented using an APA (in-text parenthetical) documentation style, with the following additional requirements: no executive summary, abstract, or outline. A paperback reference for APA would be nice to have, although there are online sources of information about APA. I was put in a strange situation recently when a student told me that (although the documentation seemed to be flawed) their source came from a handout from a past class (which one?) or some particular online source (where?). So, let me say that the best source of information for documentation guidelines is: