PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Effective Business Writing for Prof. Wu’s Class

Introduction Communication is perhaps the most frequently practiced activity in business. Research suggests that as much as 80% of a manager’s time is spent communicating. Writing is one form of this vital activity. In the practical nature of business, the five common types of writing include: 1) instructional (e.g., user manual, specifications, instructions); 2) informational (e.g., reports, financials, minutes); 3) persuasive (e.g., proposals, recommendations, marketing information); 4) operational (e.g., general purpose to communicate rules, guidelines, news); and 5) research (e.g., white paper, research reports, academic writing). This document provides students with guidelines and suggestions to improve their business writing on research papers.

There are five steps in business research writing:

I. Needs Assessment

II. Data Gathering

a. Selecting Journals / References

III. First Draft

IV. Review & Edit

V. Submission

Please note that there are other good writing guidelines. For an alternate guide, visit the University of Wisconsin-Madison and their Writing Center at: https://writing.wisc.edu/handbook/assignments/planresearchpaper/.

I highly encourage students to learn how to use EndNotes. This is a reference manager that can help to automate citations and bibliographies. It’s an invaluable tool if you plan to write professionally. Our university provides student (and faculty) access to EndNotes. For more information, visit: https://montclair.libguides.com/endnote.

Lastly, please review the evaluation criteria at the end of the paper to understand the grading criteria.

I. Needs Assessment Before students begin working on their paper, they need to understand the professor’s requirements. Typically, this includes the topic, purpose, citation style, length, and other requirements.

For Prof. Wu’s class, here are the general guidelines:

• Topic: This is usually related to the course title and description. For example, for MGMT436 (Strategic Project Management) or MGMT565 (Introduction to Project Management), the topic of a research paper is related to project management.

• Purpose: Most often it is a research paper, which is an unbiased analysis of a particular company, project, situation, and/or topic. Sometimes the purpose can be one of the other types as stated in the Introduction. If you are not sure, ask the professor.

• Citation Style: The default style is APA (American Psychological Association), which is generally used for social science publications. But students can adopt other common business writing styles, but they must be consistently applied. If not, points will be deducted. For APA guidelines, visit https://www.montclair.edu/center-for-writing-excellence/digital-dashboard/writer- resources/citing-sources/#APA. In particular, Purdue University has a comprehensive style guide: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide /general_format.html

• Length: Depending on the assignment, the typical range is 500 to 1,500 words. Keep in mind that for my class, “quality is over quantity.” As long as the length is reasonable, what I seek are insights, organization of the paper, supporting materials, conciseness and clarity, and proper English over a lengthy paper.

• Executive Summary (only for paper greater than 1,500 words): To busy business executives and professionals, time is precious. Therefore, it is important to summarize the paper in as few words as possible, preferably less than 100 words. Executive summary is like an elevator pitch that focuses summarizing the following questions with 1 or 2 sentences: what is the paper about, why is it important, what is the methodology (for research studies), and what are the major findings or conclusions.

• Other Requirements: Please see the specific assignment for additional instructions.

For team writing assignments, it is also important to start planning for the following:

• How does the team plan to synthesize the paper? One of the worst mistakes is to simply copy and paste. If there are four students on a team, then the paper is essentially a stitch of four different writers with potentially four different voices, styles, and little linkages. Significant points will be deducted when this happens.

• Another pitfall to avoid is dividing the group assignments so that one person is in charge of each part. In this case, if there are four parts to an assignment, then each person is responsible for one part while others don’t contribute to that part. The challenge with this approach is that most team

assignments are built on the previous assignment. Thus, when this happens, the quality of subsequent assignments will likely suffer, impacting the grades.

• To avoid stitching together discrete papers, there should be one person assigned as the chief editor. He / she may not have any other writing responsibility other than integrating and synthesizing the paper.

II. Data Gathering After completing the Needs Assessment, students move to gather data and analysis required to support their business research. It is also important to start organizing how you plan the flow of the writing, to most clearly express the topic. Here are some guidelines as students gather data:

1. Use quality and trusted sources – For a research paper, students should rely on peer-reviewed journals. For example, all students have access to MSU’s Library (https://www.montclair.edu/library/) and a good database to start is the ABI/INFORM Collection (first item in https://montclair.libguides.com/az.php). There is a checkbox for “Peer Reviewed”.

a. For more up-to-date information, students can also use other quality publications such as The Economist, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc.

b. For company research, consider Hoover’s Company Profiles, Mergent Online. For industry, consider IBISWorld and Business Source Complete.

2. For company research, the company site is a good source of information. However, this should not be used as the sole source of analysis (since the company is not likely to be objective about itself).

3. Use blog articles and other content aggregators sparingly and with care. Blog articles are people’s opinions, and they are a great source of insight. But from a research perspective, they lack the rigor and objectivity. This is true even for Prof. Wu’s company blog (www.pmoadvisory.com/blog). Some sources are from blogs, and other lower quality sites can be used, but only when they are in conjunction with quality sources.

All references should be listed in your submission. I prefer end notes over footnotes, but either is fine if they are property referenced. Also, remember to cite ALL references in-line of the research paper. There should NOT be a reference that is not clearly cited.

Now you have the data, you can create a rough outline of how you plan to organize the work. Organization of the paper is important as the structure and flow are two dominant factors in the general readability of the paper.

Also, since most of my paper requirements are relatively short, focus on two to three key points or findings for the paper. In general, depth (e.g., drilling deeper into a topic) is more preferable than breadth (e.g., covering many topics but very shallow).

III. First Draft If you have completed the first two steps thoroughly, then you can start writing in accordance with the outline developed in Step II. Otherwise, go back to Step II to re-examine the data and create a working outline. Here are some guidelines when writing:

• Important: You must use the template provided. See “Essay Template for Prof Wu's class.docx”. • When you submit the paper, please submit the paper either in Microsoft Word format or TEXT

format. Ask your Professor in advance if you plan to use any other formats but I will NOT accept Google Doc or any other online document formats.

• Keep it simple. Business writing focuses on the quality of communication of information (regardless of the writing type). This means clarity and vitality are of utmost importance. • To achieve clarity, writing should be concise and to the point. Avoid too many adjectives as they

become distractions. Avoid hyperboles, unless they are referenced and supported. Use smaller and more common words than longer and more abstract words. And use simpler sentence structure (to a point) than long and run-on sentences.

• By vitality, I am referring to engaging the reader and keeping them engaged. It’s about the tone of the writing, even when unbiased, it still can communicate energy and excitement of discovery. Vitality and clarity can be contradictions. For example, clarity would mean that all sentences should be short and simple, but if an entire paper is composed of these, it’s rather boring. Therefore, students would need to find the proper balance. It is generally more difficult to achieve vitality than clarity in business writing. It is much more difficult to achieve vitality in business writing than just clarity.

• Use a formal tone. Business writing should adopt a formal tone – a degree of seriousness that indicates rigor and authority. Avoid using informal structures, especially slang and unnecessary jargons and clichés; they “cheapen” the writing. When used excessively, the paper will not be taken seriously. • Use contractions sparingly. Some students like contractions (e.g., isn’t versus is not), but in

formal writing, use contractions sparingly. • Use tables, charts, graphs, and other illustrations. As the purpose of business writing is

communication, feel free to use these to clearly communicate the necessary information. • Use proper English. By the time most students take my class, they are already juniors, seniors, or

graduate students. Thus, my students should have a good command of general business writing. If you believe you need help, contact the Center for Writing Excellence (CWE) at https://www.montclair.edu/center-for-writing-excellence/. I realize some people prefer an easy “A,” but do you rather make mistakes here or in front of your manager?

Lastly, students should avoid plagiarism at all costs. All formal assignments are evaluated by Turnitin, and this software provides the Turnitin Similarity Index, which is a percentage from zero to 100. This is a good proxy for indicating the relative amount of your work versus other published work. While a high

rating is not a definitive guide for plagiarism, I will take a closer look and evaluate the situation. In general, anything higher than 20% will raise a flag for me to examine the paper closer. Some students are complicit in “technical plagiarism,” meaning that they failed to cite the source properly. This can be easily avoided with proper citations. For more severe cases, I will deal with the situation accordingly. Click here to view the university’s academic dishonesty policy: https://www.montclair.edu/policies/academic/policies/academic-dishonesty-policy/. For more information and drafting, visit: https://www.montclair.edu/center-for-writing- excellence/digital-dashboard/writer-resources/writing-process/#d.en.15728.

IV. Review & Edit Students should ideally write their paper, put it aside for a day or two, and then review it later. This way, their minds are clearer, and they are able to more critically evaluate the writing. For team projects, I highly recommend that someone else on the team review and edit the paper.

There are many good tools for editing. At the minimum, use MS Word’s (or other word processor’s) spelling and grammar checkers.

For more information on editing, visit https://www.montclair.edu/center-for-writing-excellence/digital- dashboard/writer-resources/writing-process/#d.en.15733.

V. Submission Submit the paper via Canvas and in the correct assignment before the deadline. In general, I would have created the proper assignment for students to submit the paper. For group assignments, it should be the person “Accountable” to conduct a final review and then submit the paper.

Again, remember submit the paper either in Microsoft Word format or TEXT format. Ask your Professor in advance if you plan to use any other formats but I will NOT accept Google Doc or any other online document formats.

VI. Evaluation Criteria

Criteria % of Grade Description Writing 20% Quality of writing, including structure and organization of the paper such

adherence to the template (note: changes are not only allowed, they are encouraged. But make sure it’s an improvement, not an omission), professional writing (e.g. free from all spelling and grammar errors),

Criteria % of Grade Description proper citation (e.g. inline citations using are standard format such as APA), and general quality of writing (e.g. having a good title, use of executive summary for a longer paper).

Relevancy 20% This criterion pertains to the topic requirement of the assignment. For example, in MGMT436 and 565, the basic requirements is the focus on a topic related to project management. Please ask the professor before the third class if you are not sure of the requirement. Note, even though this criterion is 20%, the professor can reject this paper if it is completely off topic – receiving an “incomplete” for the course.

Analysis and Synthesis

30% This is the quality of analysis and synthesis of the paper. For example, is it based on a known analysis model, such as SWOT, Ansoff Matrix, RACI, or Stakeholder Analysis Matrix or something else. The depth of analysis is more important than breadth. For example, for PM Today paper, it’s more important to focus on one or two domain areas than a general overview of many domains. Depending on the type of paper, there should be a detailed review of the available information (e.g. literature review). Clearly state where you agree or disagree with the current findings or literature, and note your ideas and innovative thinking. Make sure you synthesize the material from your research (or your team’s collective work).

Conclusion/ Recommen dation

30% Make sure the paper has a strong finish by providing a solid management recommendations or summarize of the paper. This should follow logically from the analysis (and you can view it as a continuation of the analysis). For research paper, discuss the general applicability of your findings and recommendations.