accounting for managers

How to succeed in Phil’s assignments!

· Ultimately this depends on to what extent you want to achieve a good grade! Those students who put time and diligence into their assignments are generally rewarded for their efforts.

Important specific points to remember

· Think about the question and the structure of your answer – you need a clearly defined structure which addresses the specific issues of the assignment. Therefore, PLAN your response very carefully before beginning to write. Think to yourself:

· What is the question asking me to do?

· Is what I am writing focused on the question – is it relevant – or am I just including it because I found it!!?

· Make sure that you read all articles which are referred to in the assignment (if any)

· Never write anything in your assignment that you do not understand

· Do not use ‘bullet points’ to any great extent – this tends to preclude analysis and explanation

· Think about presentation

· Contents page

· Page numbers

· Use short sentences

· Use many short paragraphs – a new paragraph for each different idea.

· Do not use too many headings – this tends to prevent the flow of the work

· Where an assignment is divided into parts 1) 2) 3) etc – answer in that format – do not merge answers - it is impossible for the assessor to mark these easily.

· When referencing

· NEVER reference to Wikipedia, Investopedia, mbaessays.com, chaeatsrus.com etc – these websites are all unsubstantiated – the material on these can be written by anyone – ALWAYS use academic literature (journal articles, text books etc – these have been refereed by other academics) – unless you are looking on reliable websites for data and statistics

· If you include a quote in “speech marks” you need to also include the page number from the source as well as the author name and date

· All the references that appear in the script should appear in your Reference List – it is not a Bibliography

· The Reference List should be in alphabetical order by author surname (family name)

· Working Practice

· Discuss with colleagues but type up your work separately.

· Never give your work to another student in an electronic format – you will be guilty of collusion, as well, if they use any of it

· Do not leave your work accessible on a university computer whilst you are not present

· Never share a file where calculations/spreadsheets are concerned

· Keep a back-up of your work – computer problems are not a reason for an extension

· Print the work leaving yourself plenty of time before submission

· Never sub-contract your work to a third party – it is generally easy to identify!