Introduction
This student consulting component is an integral part of your Professional Business English course. Its aim is to bridge the gap between the classroom and the workplace. And on this course, it provides the opportunity to prepare and practise the language and writing skills needed for your bachelor thesis.
As part of your workload for this course, you have been allocated 40 hours to carry out research on an area of business that relates specifically to your work, company or industry and then present your findings in the form of an academic paper.
This term paper will represent 50% of your final grade for the course.
Instructions
For your student consulting project, you will need to do the following:
- Your paper should be a minimum of 1,750 words and a maximum of 2,000 words.
- Your paper should include:
- a title page (Use the standard FOM layout but add whether American or British English has been used and the number words – see below)
- a table of contents
- a list of abbreviations (when applicable)
- a list of figures (when applicable)
- a declaration of authorship
- in-text bibliographical references
- a bibliography (Note that a minimum of 10 resources need to be listed, of which at least 50% must be English)
- The above elements and any explanatory footnotes should not be included in the word count.
- The paper should conform to the FOM style guide.
- The use of a formal academic style is expected (see here: Features of academic writing).
- The paper needs to clearly illustrate how something specific that you have learned while studying at the FOM is and/or could be of practical value in your current (or future) work, company or business sector.
- To avoid possible repetition, NO topics relating to corporate social responsibility (CSR) or other business ethics-related issues are permitted as these may have already been addressed in other English papers written on the BAIM programme (e.g., Business ethics).
- The paper should NOT consist solely of a review of the relevant literature and a simple reproduction of what has been read. What has been gleaned from a literature review needs to be critically evaluated and applied in the manner indicated in point 6 above. In such a short essay, this will, of necessity, entail restricting the scope of the topic.
- The paper MUST include some reference to academic studies carried out on the chosen topic and empirical evidence (i.e., facts and figures from reliable sources) should be included to support statements and arguments whenever possible.
- Marks will be awarded for both the quality of the content (40%) and the language used in the paper (60%).
- Your tutor will agree on a deadline for submission with your study group. The term paper needs to be submitted in both hard copy (paper) and digital format (PDF).
Notes on grading
The word limit for this term paper has been significantly reduced so that you can focus greater attention on the conventions of academic writing outlined on this page: Features of academic writing. Further resources that may be of help are available here: Academic writing – Online resources.
The smaller than usual word count allows for a greater emphasis to be placed on language, and as a consequence, 60% of the grade is based on an assessment of the language used in the paper and the remaining 40% will be awarded for the quality of the content.
Note that a substantial part of your grade is based on how well you apply the work we do on academic writing on the course (e.g., formality, syntax, paragraphing, paraphrasing, synthesising sources, etc.).
A copy of the correction code that will be used to mark your paper can be downloaded here: http://bit.ly/2BWCWf6
You can download these instructions here: Term-paper-instructions-1.pdf (244 downloads)
