How to Succeed at University in English

A guide to studying at university in English when English is not your first

language.

Second Edition

John M. Andre
© 2014 John M. Andre

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be
reproduced, transmitted, stored, or used in any form or by any means graphic,
electronic, or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording,
scanning, digitizing, taping, web distribution, information networks, or information
storage and retrieval systems, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976
United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Feedback or questions can be emailed to [email protected].

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:
Table of contents
Part 1: Introduction.............................................................................................................. 6
Chapter 1: How to judge success at university ................................................................ 8
Chapter 2: Why you should care about your grades ....................................................... 9
Part 2: Managing Yourself .................................................................................................. 10
Chapter 3: Improving your English ................................................................................. 11
Chapter 4: Managing your time ..................................................................................... 13
Chapter 5: Behaving professionally................................................................................ 17
Part 3: Understanding the material ................................................................................... 22
Chapter 6: Critical reading.............................................................................................. 23
Chapter 7: Listening and taking notes during lectures .................................................. 29
Chapter 8: Homework .................................................................................................... 33
Chapter 9: Understanding feedback .............................................................................. 35
Chapter 10: BTEC HNC and BTEC HND ........................................................................... 37
Part 4: Showing you understand........................................................................................ 41
Chapter 11: Common assignment types ........................................................................ 42
Chapter 12: Common task verbs .................................................................................... 47
Chapter 13: How to write an abstract............................................................................ 53
Chapter 14: How to write an introduction ..................................................................... 56
Chapter 15: How to show understanding ...................................................................... 60
Chapter 16: How to write a paragraph .......................................................................... 72
Chapter 17: How to give good evidence ........................................................................ 75
Chapter 18: How to reference properly ......................................................................... 81
Chapter 19: How to write a conclusion .......................................................................... 91
Chapter 20: What to put in the appendix ...................................................................... 94
Chapter 21: How to make your writing beautiful .......................................................... 96
Chapter 22: Reflecting on your work ........................................................................... 103
Chapter 23: Editing your writing .................................................................................. 106
Chapter 24: Marking your own work ........................................................................... 109
Chapter 25: How to give a good presentation ............................................................. 112
Part 5: Where to go from here ........................................................................................ 126

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 Chapter 26: Continuing on to graduate school ............................................................ 127
Chapter 27: Letters of recommendation ..................................................................... 129
Chapter 28: Concluding comments .............................................................................. 132

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Terminology
English is a very rich language with more words than any other language in the world.
Within English, there are different versions of the language. The most common two are
US and UK English. Some people consider “International English” to be an additional
version of English. Those of us who have been exposed to both US and UK English, may
combine the two into this “International English.”

In this writing, there will be some words which you might not be familiar with. Notice
that some of the words could have been chosen differently but please do not get lost in
the details and lose the benefits you could receive from this book. The differences
between “grades” and “marks” is not an important difference. For this reason, I use the
term grade (noun) to refer to how good a student’s performance is judged to be: “I hope
you get high grades.” I use the term mark (verb) to refer to the process of an assessor
going through and determining a student’s grade: “When the assessor marks your paper
they must decide what grade you will receive.” Again, please do not get lost in the
details.

English does not have a gender-neutral singular pronoun for humans. What this means is
in English, we can say “he” (referring to a male) or “she” (referring to a female) but we
have no way to say “it” (avoiding gender) and still refer to a human. Since teachers can
be male or female, I will use “they” which is technically incorrect (though commonly
used in spoken English). “They” can refer to plural (more than one) humans ignoring
gender. I will use “they” to refer to singular and plural so I can avoid the issue of gender.

There is another issue about the student. Presumably you are a university student. If I
refer to “the student” all the time it may feel too remote and not connected to you.
However, if I say “you” constantly it may begin to feel too much of a burden. For this
reason, I will change between “the student” and “you” when referring to you, the
student.

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Part 1: Introduction
This book was written after years of watching underprepared students enter university
and struggle with things that teachers believe all university students should already
know. University teachers usually have to focus on the content of the module (or
subject) they are teaching. Therefore, the teachers will not normally have the time to
help students learn how to write or learn how to judge if a source is a valid source to use
for academic purposes.

Students need to understand these things, and more, if they wish to succeed at
University. To succeed means to achieve high grades which will allow you to enter a
good graduate school or to get a good job. Anyone, whether an employer or a school,
who cares about your degree will also care about your grades. Therefore, it is important
to spend the time necessary to get good grades. If your only goal is to pass, get your
piece of paper (diploma), and get out, then this book will help you so that you do not
fail. If you realize that your degree will stay with you for the rest of your life and you
should get the best one you can, and you are willing to put in a little extra time to get a
much better grade, then this book is exactly what you need.

Students who are not native English speakers have all the challenges of any university
student plus they have the added challenge of the language issues associated with
studying in a second language. These language issues impact everything from reading to
understanding lectures, giving presentations, and especially writing.

University students are expected to do a lot of two things: Reading and writing.

Reading is generally how the student is expected to learn. Yes, the student will get
information from the teacher’s lectures but there will be significant amounts of reading
involved. Students will need to read texts, reports, cases, and many other sources of
information in order to gain the information they need to produce assignments showing
they understand what the teacher is expecting them to learn. Students should never
think that they can get all of the information they need simply from the teacher’s
lectures. A general guideline is that undergraduate students will need to spend 1.5 hours
outside of class for every hour of class time. So, if you spend four hours in class each
week, then you should expect to spend an additional six hours outside of class each
week. This time is mostly spent reading.

As well as reading, students are expected to write, a lot. Students may be writing 20,000
words (sometimes more) every semester (starting in their first semester). This is like
writing a small book every semester with very little training in how to write a proper
academic paper.

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The purpose of this text is to help the student better understand how to do the things
they are expected to do but might not understand how to do.

The content has been divided into chapters with each chapter focusing on a single topic
such as how to write a proper introduction for a report or how to behave properly as a
professional student. Each chapter will refer to others but can usually be read by itself if
there is just one topic that you need to understand now. For example, if you are unsure
about how to write an introduction to your report, jump the chapter “How to write an
introduction.”

As a university student, you are (probably) an adult. Being an adult means you get to
choose. Look back at the table of contents and choose an area you would like to better
understand and jump to that chapter. Each chapter is short, usually just a few pages.
Make sure you read all of it, and make sure you read it again every year or so. It is easy
to fall into the trap of thinking that we always remember everything we read.
Unfortunately that is rarely true. As a student, you should expect to re-read the most
important and the most basic information, like the information contained herein, from
time to time.

I welcome any feedback on this text. If it helped you or not, I would love to hear your
thoughts. Please feel free to contact me at: [email protected].

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Chapter 1: How to judge success at university
Success means different things to different people. For some, success at university
means learning a lot. For others, it means making life-long friends. However, one thing
that is universally understood is that a successful student will achieve high grades while
unsuccessful students will achieve low grades.

While it is clearly better for you to make friends in university, as well as enjoy the
activities and other opportunities available there, this book will focus on the issue of
getting good grades.

If you are getting good grades, then you are likely doing everything right. For example, it
is much easier to get good grades when you have good friends – friends who will
motivate you to study and will be there to discuss new ideas with. You should make
friends. It is important.

You should also have fun. You are (likely) young. You should enjoy your youth. Find the
things which are fun for you and do them. However, do not let this take up all your time
to the point where you do not have enough time for your studies.

Many people will tell you learning is easier when you are young. Learning is a very
complex topic and there are benefits to being older (you have more experiences which
help you understand new ideas). However, this time when you are at university is a time
to focus on learning the information which will shape your professional future. Take
advantage of the structure of your brain at this age. Learn everything you can, as well as
you can, and you will see benefits which will last your entire life.

Page 8 Chapter 1: How to judge success at university

Chapter 2: Why you should care about your grades
Once upon a time, there was a teacher asking their students how important getting
good grades was to them. Most students responded “Very important.” However, one
student said nothing. The teacher questioned that student and asked what he thought.
He responded “I don’t care about my grades. I just need my degree.”

The teacher asked how he could be so sure that future employers would never want to
see his grades. The student responded, “You see, my father is the head of a large
international company in this country. Once I graduate I know they will hire me and
because of my family’s position, I know I will get promoted quickly. Actually, nobody will
ever ask for my grades, but I must have the degree to get hired.” The teacher knew
exactly what the student meant.

Five years later, the student’s father was sentence to death for economic crimes against
the country. The student lost his position in the company and had to start applying for
jobs like everyone else. However, it was too late. His grades were already set.

The story above serves to illustrate one key point: The future is unknown. Life is about
many things, including managing your risks. Since you do not know what will happen in
the future, you should make sure you keep all your options open. The simple fact is, you
have more options when good grades than with poor grades.

While some cultures care more about grades than others, it will always be better to have
higher grades. So, do your future-self a favor – get the best grades you can now.

Chapter 2: Why you should care about your grades P

Part 2: Managing Yourself
The reason why most people come to university is to learn more complex ideas. The
better understanding someone has of complex ideas, the more likely they are to be
promoted into a position of management. Managers are expected to control those who
report to them. However, before you can be expected to control others, you must first
learn to control yourself.

This section will discuss three very important issues to students who are studying in
English as a second language:

Improving your English is something you will need to continue to do for your entire
university career and perhaps for your entire life. You will see several techniques that
even native English speakers use that you should also consider using.

Managing your time is necessary because you are given only 24 hours each day. You
must decide what you are going to do with each of those hours and you will see some
ideas to think about here.

You need to be motivated, disciplined, and persistent to be successful. Part of your

responsibility is to keep yourself motivated. You should not expect your teachers to
motivate you. You might be lucky enough to have some teachers who are very
motivational but remember that you are at university to improve yourself. You are here
for you. If you want the best result, then you owe it to yourself to motivate yourself, to
keep yourself disciplined, and to keep working towards your goal, even if something
starts to interfere. It is often said, “In the battle between the rock and the river, the river
wins – not because of strength, but because of persistence.”

Behaving professionally is about the image that you give to the entire world. People will
always judge you by the way they see you and what they see is how you look and how
you act. In this section you will see several key points about behaving in a professional
way.

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Chapter 3: Improving your English
English has become the international language of business. A tremendous amount of
research is released every year in English. The world’s largest economy is the US, where
they speak English. The UK, Australia, Canada, Malaysia, Singapore, India, and many
other countries include English as their official language. Global business communication
is done in English. Everyone must constantly improve their English skills, regardless of
their native language.

Some universities offer students intensive English classes. In some schools, this is the
first year of study wherein the students first learn the English language and then they
learn the content of the courses in English. In these schools, some students believe that
once they pass the English year that they are done, they can focus on the subjects, and
they can stop learning English. This is completely wrong.

Even native-speakers must improve their English

English has more words than any other language in the world. The next biggest language
has less than 50% of the words as English. Even native speakers must constantly improve
their English. They must learn new vocabulary, they must improve their understanding
of idioms and sayings. When the teacher says “I know which side my bread is buttered
on.” Do you know what they meant?

You may need to continue learning English formally with a school or a language center
or something similar. You may need to study it on your own using websites, written
books, or audio books.

Highlighting new words

One common technique that native speakers do is when they are reading, every time
they see a new word that they do not know, they will write it down, or highlight it. Then,
they will go back and look up that work in a dictionary later. Because English has so
many words, each word has a very specific meaning. The words “inspire” and “motivate”
are often used interchangeably but actually, they are different. “Inspire” means to
“breathe spirit into someone.” “Motivate” means “to move or to make someone want
to move.” Similar? yes. The same? No. The only way you can deeply understand, and the
best grades are given to those students who show the deepest understanding, is to
spend time with a dictionary.

However, just learning vocabulary is not enough. You should listen to the news or music
in English. You should watch movies in English. You should constantly expose yourself to
spoken and written English.

Chapter 3: Improving your English Page 11

Speak English with your friends
If you are studying in English then you have an excellent opportunity. You are
surrounded by people who speak English. When you are outside of class, do you speak
to them in English? If you are talking with your friend, and you both speak the same
native language (which is not English) then it naturally feels more comfortable to talk to
that person in your native language – and it is more efficient because they will
understand exactly what you mean. However, you are stealing an opportunity from
yourself. Yes, it can be uncomfortable to speak with your friends in English but the more
you do it, the stronger your English will become. English is a skill – it takes practice to
improve it.

So take the time to constantly improve your English. This can be doing relaxing things
like watching movies or it can be chatting with your friends. However you do it, make
sure that you give yourself every opportunity to improve your English language skills.

Page 12 Chapter 3: Improving your English

Chapter 4: Managing your time
Your time in university will be a time of transition. You are changing from being a child
and becoming an adult. Being an adult means many things. The biggest difference of
being an adult is that you are making your own decisions. How you manage your time is
about the decisions you make every hour of every day. If you think time management is
not important, then you might consider the words of Tom Peters, one of the most
respected business writers of the past 40 years. He said “I’m a fanatic on the topic of
time management…something more important doesn’t exist.”

We each make thousands of decisions every day. We decide what time to wake up. We
decide how much time to spend in bed between the time we wake up until the time we
get up and start our day. We decide whether we eat breakfast or not. We continue
making decisions until the very end of the day when we decide the time we sleep.

Each of these decisions is important and each decision will lead to a natural result. For
example, if you decide to not take a shower, then you will naturally smell bad and
people will not want to be around you.

Put yourself on a schedule

Managing your time is about paying attention to the big and little decisions of each day.
For example, you should be in class 15 minutes before the start of class. If class starts at
7:30 am, then you should be in class at 7:15 am. If you have to travel 30 minutes from
your home to your school and you choose to wake up at 6:45 am then you have a
natural result. You wake at 6:45 am. You brush your teeth, put on your clothes, and
collect your school books, etc. You leave your home at 7:00 am, hoping the traffic is not
going to slow you down and you arrive in class at 7:30 am. You are on time. However,
you have missed several things you should do every morning and each of those skipped
steps will impact you in some way. Here are some examples:

 You skipped breakfast – now you are hungry. You are thinking about your
stomach and not the lesson. Your body and brain are missing the nutrition from
the food you should have eaten. You will naturally pay less attention, you will
remember less, and you may start to sleep in class.
 You did not drink water before class – now you are thirsty. You may not be
thinking you are thirsty but your body is already starting to feel dehydrated. One
of the first signs of dehydration is starting to have problems thinking and
concentrating. You will learn less in class because of this.
 You did not review the lesson before class – now you do not know what is
coming. You just wait to hear the teacher lecture and hope you understand
everything they say. However, it might not be clear to you: Did they say
“strategy” or “tragedy?” If you would have spent a few minutes before class
simply reviewing the slides the teacher sent or skimming the chapter in the text

Chapter 4: Managing your time Page 13

 you would know much more about the topic and be able to better recognize
what the teacher was saying.

The solution is to properly manage your time. To properly manage your time, usually
you need to find out which times are hard (you cannot change them, like class start
time) and which are soft (you can change them, like when you eat). Class starts at 7:30
am. This is a hard time. So, you start working back from this. You should be in class 15
minutes before class starts so you must arrive at 7:15 am. It normally takes you 30
minutes to get to school so you must leave your house at 6:45. It takes you 45 minutes
to brush teeth, eat breakfast, and quickly review the lesson for the day. So, you should
wake up at 6:00 am. If you want to build in some safety, you can wake up at 5:45.

To many students, 5:45 sounds quite early. They think since they go to bed after
midnight, they feel very tired in when they wake up so early. Of course, that is very
normal. It is a natural result of the decision to go to bed after midnight.

You must consider how much sleep you need per night. Remember that newborn
children sleep for 16 hours per day. Your grandparents might only sleep for five hours
per day. If you are 18-22 you should get nine hours of sleep per night.

If you get less than nine hours of sleep, your brain is not well rested. This means you will
pay attention less, you will learn less, and later you will remember less. Your notes will
not be as good and this will affect the quality of your written assignments or exams.

There are studies which show clearly that the easiest way for a student to improve his
grades is to get enough sleep.

So, you need to wake up at 5:45 and you need 9 hours of sleep. This means you must go
to sleep by 8:45 pm (20:45). If you think it is crazy to go to bed at 8:45 pm, you are not
alone. Many students want to stay up late. However, being an adult means being in
control of yourself and resisting the short-term desires which take you away from your
long-term desires. You have to choose: Do you want to stay up late or do you want good
grades and the good future that comes with them? You could always shift your time a
little and stay up until 9:00 pm, using those extra 15 minutes to review for your class the
next day and then you could wake up at 6:00 am.

We can continue calculating back in time to see what you should do for the rest of the
day now that we know you should sleep by 9:00 pm.

If you are in class four hours in the morning then you are done by lunch time. The next
thing you should do is to eat a good lunch and relax. Always take time to have a relaxing
lunch. You have been studying for four hours; you deserve to rest your brain for an hour.

After lunch it is time to start homework. You have four more hours of work to do (if you
are a professional student you should be studying for eight hours per day). So you spend

Page 14 Chapter 4: Managing your time

from 1:00 pm until 5:00 pm doing your homework. This includes reading, thinking,
planning, and perhaps writing. It even includes reorganizing your notes from the day –
you should always reorganize your notes from the lectures that day. This will increase
your ability to remember the information for much, much longer.

So, by 5:00 pm you should be done with your work. Now you have some free time. Enjoy
it. If you want to spend time with your friends, do so. If you want to read more about
some topic, now is the time. If you want to play a game, now is the time. By 6:00 pm or
7:00 pm you should eat dinner.

Then you have a little more time to relax and finally you can get to bed at 8:45 pm and
you will have the natural result of being well rested in the morning and you will receive
all the benefits that come with that.

In the end, you should see that you have plenty of time. Actually, you have 24 hours
each day. Everyone on this planet gets 24 hours per day. Nobody gets more and nobody
gets less. We are all equal in that way. You are an adult. You get to decide what you do
with those 24 hours. You also get the rewards of deciding correctly.

What if your friends want to have lunch with you? Great! Eating is a very social activity.
What if your friends want to do something after lunch? Then you need to choose and
you live with the results of that choice. Hopefully, your friends support you and are also
trying to be serious students in order to have the best future they can have. If they do
not understand, you should explain it to them.

Take time to plan your day and things will be easy. If you let the day decide your choices,
like a leaf blowing in the wind, then you will have to depend on luck and destiny. If you
want to be responsible for your own life, then you must decide. The good news is that
you get to decide. So choose well.

Checklists
Some people are gifted with a very strong memory. They seem to be able to remember
everything. Those people are very lucky and they do have a natural advantage in higher
education. However, for those who struggle to remember everything, there are
solutions.

If you find your memory is limited, then do not try to remember everything. Remember
what is really important and write down the rest (even better is to write down
everything). Do you try to remember everything the teacher said or do you take notes?
Use writing to keep track of what you need to do.

The following is a simple checklist.

Done Due date Task

<open> Research graduate schools for best MBA program

Chapter 4: Managing your time Page 15

 17 March Buy mom some flowers
21 May Finish interviewing at least 30 people for ABC project
Checklists are not complex, you simply write down the things you need to do, including
any deadline those tasks might have. When you complete a task, you check it off the list.
When you have a new task, add it to the list. You never have to think “Hmmm, do I have
to do anything?” Just look at your list.

Use a calendar
In addition to using things like checklists, use a calendar so you can see everything that is
going to happen. You should know when your classes are, including any tutorial classes.
You should know when you can see your teachers during their office hours. You should
know when big events are coming up.

The technology of today makes keeping checklists and calendars easy. Students can use
their phone/tablet/laptop and keep their entire calendar online. When you have a new
assignment due date, add it to your calendar, and your checklist. Do not forget: Check
your calendar several times each day so you do not forget anything.

Do not procrastinate
Procrastinating is when you have something to do but you decide to do it later so you
can do something more fun now. This is very common for university students. They have
reading or other homework to do but instead of doing it, they do something else more
fun. When they get to class, they may come up with an excuse or try to beg the
teacher’s forgiveness. However, they failed to do what they needed to do. Nobody likes
people who fail because of procrastination.

The solution is to see this natural tendency in ourselves. When you see yourself thinking,
“Yes, I have those five pages I need to read but I would really rather go get ice cream
and watch kung fu movies.” Then you need to say “Oh, this is me procrastinating. I will
be much better off if I just get the job done. Then I can relax and not worry.”

Procrastinating is a terrible disease. It takes so much from us and gives us so little. It

offers a small pleasure now but it takes from us a larger happiness later. The world is
filled with many people who say “Yes, I know, I should have done this yesterday.” Those
are not the successful people. The successful people did it yesterday. So, think about
how you will feel in the future and give some happiness to your future-self by getting
the job done on time now. You will feel much better in the future, and you will also feel
better now.

Time management is one of the skills you need to master in order to be a successful
adult. It is a skill which means you must learn and then practice it, just like you must
practice English to keep those skills. Use checklists, calendars, and avoid procrastination.
It will result greater happiness for you.

Page 16 Chapter 4: Managing your time

Chapter 5: Behaving professionally
Consider this: A full-time professional worker will often work 40 hours per week. You, as
a full-time student, are expected to study (in class and outside of class) 40 hours per
week. If you are at university, you are likely studying to be a professional (non-
professionals do not normally attend university). If you are going to be a professional,
then you should start acting professionally now. This chapter will guide you by showing
what is expected of you.

Can I wait until I graduate to act professionally?

You can but that does not mean you should. Acting professionally is actually a skill, like
speaking English. It comes easily to some and others find it challenging. However, for
everyone, it takes practice and attention to detail. If you start while you are still studying
then, by the time you graduate and are ready to start your job, you will already
understand more of what it means to “act professionally.”

What are the benefits of acting professionally as a student?

There are many benefits. One is mentioned above: You start earlier building the skills
you need to be successful in your career. Another benefit is that you will impress your
teachers and those teachers may have an impact on your career or your future studies.
One more benefit is that you will simply be more successful as a student if you act
professionally.

What should I pay attention to if I am acting professionally?

Some key areas include:

Coming to class on time

Coming to class on time means being in your seat, notebook open, and ready to learn at
the scheduled start time of the class. If your class starts at 9 am, being on time does not
mean walking through the classroom door at exactly 9 am. If you want to be on time,
you should plan to be 15 minutes early.

Being early is not bad, it is good. It gives you a chance to talk with your classmates about
the previous lesson, the upcoming lesson, and how the lesson actually applies to the real
world. Of course, you can talk about non-school related issues as well but you should
consider this an opportunity to meet face-to-face with your classmates which you might
not often see outside of class.

If you have to travel to get to school, and you never know how thick traffic will be, you
should leave earlier than you think you need to. If you plan to be in class 15 minutes
before class begins, then even if you have a little bad traffic, you should still be on time.
If the traffic is so bad that you are still late, then you will know that next time you should

Chapter 5: Behaving professionally Page 17

leave even earlier. Arriving late for one class is not normally a problem. However, being
late several times is a clear sign of being unprofessional.

Coming to every class

Attendance may be required or may be optional – check with your teacher to be sure.
Even if you are allowed to miss class, you should do your best to attend every class. Your
teacher goes through great effort to prepare lectures and in-class activities to help you
learn the material. In addition, your teacher might inform everyone in class about
something which affects your grade. If you miss that class, you will not know. If you use
this as an excuse (“Teacher, I missed the class where you said that.”), do not expect your
teacher to show you mercy. You choose to miss a class and you live with the
consequences of your choice. If you miss a class, get the notes from your classmates. It is
even better to actually discuss the notes with your classmates so you can exchange
ideas.

Staying until the class has finished

For the same reason as above, you should be in class for the full time. There is
information to be learned and it is disruptive when other students see a student leave
early. It shows that the student has little respect for what the teacher might say in the
remaining part of the class (very unprofessional). Again, if you miss something important
because you left early, do not use this as an excuse later.

Paying attention to what is assigned for homework

Homework is important and if you are going to do the homework (which you should
always do), you should pay close attention to exactly what the teacher is expecting you
to do. Are you supposed to read a specific article or section of your textbook? Are you
supposed to read about a specific topic but without an assigned article to read? Are you
supposed to write something or do some exercises? Make sure you know what you
should do and what, if anything, you are expected to submit during the next class
session.

Doing the homework on time and with serious effort

The teacher assigns homework carefully. This is not random content your teacher wants
to torture you with. The teacher has given great consideration to what you should read
and when you should read it in order to maximize your learning in the subject. If you do
not do the homework, you show a lack of respect (always unprofessional) for your
teacher and you show that you do not care about either your grades or the subject.

Participating in discussions in class

If you read what you are asked to read, you should be able to participate in class
discussions. The reason the teacher plans in-class discussions is that they provide for a
certain type of learning to take place. This is all part of the teacher’s plan to help the
students learn the material so they can do well in that subject. If you do not participate

Page 18 Chapter 5: Behaving professionally

you show that you do not care, you chose not to do the assigned reading, or you are
simply unwilling to actually think about the issue being discussed. All of these show the
teacher that you do not take your studies seriously.

Being respectful to the person talking

It does not matter who is addressing the class, you should always show your respect by
listening, paying close attention, and considering carefully what is being said. Do you
agree or disagree with it? Is there a mistake in what is being said? If you disagree, then
wait until the person has finished making their point (wait until there is a long pause or
silence) and then politely explain what you think, whether you agree or disagree.

You should never be talking to someone else while someone is addressing the class. If
someone is talking, you should always pay attention to them. If you are talking to
someone else, you are doing several unprofessional things. First, you are showing that
the speaker is not important to you and that they have nothing important to say.
Second, you are distracting the person you are talking with so that person also cannot
pay attention to the speaker – making it much worse. Third, you are also distracting all
others who can hear or see that you are not paying attention.

Paying attention does not simply mean not talking. You should not be sleeping, listening
to music, watching videos, playing games, or anything other than paying close attention
to what is being said.

You should consider time in class to be “special time” during which you focus on one
thing – learning everything you can about the topic.

Paying attention to what is being taught in class

Just as you should pay attention to whomever is addressing the class, whether this is
your teacher or a classmate or a guest speaker, you should always pay attention. We
should not think there is nothing important being said because it could be just a few
words out of a hundred which could make the difference between our understanding
and our not understanding the points being made.

Being open and curious about the teacher’s feedback

Whether you are submitting homework or a larger assignment, the person who marks
your assignment will usually give you constructive feedback. That is, the person marking
your assignment will tell you what you should do to improve. It might be something
small like the format of a citation or it might be something bigger like giving evidence for
the arguments you are making. Whatever that feedback is, you should consider it
carefully and reflect on it at home so you can improve the next time you produce
something for class.

Chapter 5: Behaving professionally Page 19

Understanding the assessment and what you are expected to produce
When you are given an assignment, you should be very clear what is expected of you.
Are you expected to give a presentation? If yes, then how long should it be? What
questions should it answer? How much creative freedom do you have? How will your
grade be determined? What can you do to get the highest grade possible?

Are you expected to write a report? If yes, what is the topic? What questions must you
answer? Should you include an abstract or executive summary? What is the word count
limit? How much flexibility is there in that limit? What can you do to get the highest
grade possible?

Doing your best to achieve the highest grade on the assignment or exam
Part of your responsibility as a student is to understand how you can get the highest
grade possible. What does the teacher expect to see in order to award the highest
possible grade? Once you know this, it is up to you to do the work required to get that
grade. To get the highest grade, it is usually expected that you give evidence of deep
learning and a little creative and critical analysis helps a lot.

You should not simply produce your work, submit it, and hope for the best. Ask your
teacher if they will review your draft or review your work in progress before you submit
it. Consider all of the feedback given by your teacher and spend the necessary time
making the necessary changes to get your quality up to the point it needs to be to get
the highest grade. You should not expect your teacher to tell you what your grade will
be (before you formally submit your assignment for assessment) but you should use the
opportunity to understand how you can make your assignment even better. Ideally, you
should ask your teacher to help you understand how to mark your own work.

Supporting your classmates who might not understand as well as you

One student will naturally understand one part of a lesson better than another student.
You should always work in a study group where you get together with some of your
classmates outside of class and discuss the lesson. If you find you understood the lesson
better than others in your class, then you should help them to understand as you do.

Asking for help when your classmates understand better than you
If you find after a lesson that you did not understand the lesson well, then you should
feel comfortable asking for help. You can always ask your teacher but you should also
ask your classmates. If someone needs help and you can help them, then you should.
But if you are the one who needs help, you should ask for it. Do not let your pride stop
you from asking for the help you need in order to succeed.

What else can I do?

You can, and should, visit your teachers during consultation hours (also called office
hours). Your teachers are in their office specifically to meet with students outside of
class time. Many times, students do not know their teachers are available outside of

Page 20 Chapter 5: Behaving professionally

class. If you are unsure, ask your teachers about their office hours. Very often it is only
the best students who come to consultation hours. So, if you want to improve as a
student, come to meet your teachers during office hours. Some students learn more
from the one-to-one teaching during consultation hours than they do during class time.
Either way, you should help your teacher to help you by coming to office hours.

Be brave
Many students who study in a second language can be shy about speaking up to the
teacher. They feel the teacher knows English much better and the teacher knows the
subject much better and the student is afraid of being embarrassed by saying something
wrong. You should not feel this way. You are a student. Your job is to learn. If you do not
know something, be brave and ask. Nobody expects your English to be perfect (even
native English speakers learn many, many new words while at University). Nobody
expects you to fully understand the subject. Everyone, including your teachers, expect
you to ask. So, be brave and ask.

Taking responsibility for learning

As it was written in the introduction, you should not think that you can get all of the
information you need from your teacher. Your teacher is there to guide you. When your
teacher lectures or covers some material in class, that is designed to open your eyes to
ideas and help you understand the basics of the ideas. You should take responsibility for
learning and deeply understanding those ideas by reading about them outside of class.
Read about the topic, even if your teacher does not give you specific material to read.
You have a course text. Your teacher may have recommended other texts for the
module and you should also have access to a library or the Internet. Invest the time to
read and learn so that you can understand each topic thoroughly.

Final thoughts
Being professional includes what you do inside and outside of class. Outside of class, you
should focus on doing what you need to do to learn the material. Inside class, you
should consider that time “special time” and not try to do other activities during that
time. You should have plenty of time outside of class to do other activities. Use your
time in class to focus on what is being taught.

Chapter 5: Behaving professionally Page 21

Part 3: Understanding the material
Of the four skills of language (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) clearly reading
and speaking are used for gaining new information.

Listening can be used during lectures, when discussing with others, or listening to audio
books, podcasts, or even radio and television shows.

Reading is used even more than listening. You read your textbooks, articles, your notes,
etc. Teachers constantly tell their students “Read more.”

The simple fact is that most students get their information through reading. If you want
higher grades, then you must show that you understand more. If you want to
understand more then read more. This is something university students constantly hear
from their lecturers, “Read more.”

Regardless of whether you are reading or listening, it does matter how much attention
you are giving the process of gaining new information. It is quite easy to read and then
quickly forget. Students have been doing this for hundreds of years. The problem is if
you read and remember the information just long enough to write your paper, you are
missing a very important opportunity. Remember, one subject will assume you have
understood those which come before it. For example, if you are taking a module on
project management, it is assumed that you have already learned the basics of
leadership, motivation, and teamwork. The new project management module will not
repeat this old information. Rather, it will introduce new information which is based on
the previous content. If you are unable to remember what you learned earlier, because
you were not focused on truly gaining new information (you were just reading and
quickly forgetting) then you will have great difficulty with the new, more advanced,
content. If you want higher grades, then you must read with the intention to learn and
remember for a long time.

This section of the book will go into much more detail on two key areas for
understanding: Reading, specifically critical reading, and listening, specifically listening to
lectures. It will also cover homework, understanding feedback from your teachers, and
there is a special chapter on the BTEC HND program.

Page 22 Chapter 5: Behaving professionally

Chapter 6: Critical reading
Reading should be the activity you spend more time on than anything else while at
university. This may surprise you but most students do not know how to read well. It is
even more difficult when you are reading in a second language.

Reading poorly
It is easy to read poorly and not even be aware of it. It is easy to pick up a book, and
start looking at the words, sounding them out, and moving down the page, paragraph by
paragraph. However, this does not lead to learning, which means it is a waste of time.

Reading to learn
When you are reading, limit the amount you read in one sitting. Your goal is not to read
as quickly as you can. Your goal is to read the right information and be able to remember
it and keep it with you for a long period of time. When you are reading, you should pay
very close attention to meaning. Take the time to think deeply about the points being
made. You should be connecting the new information to what you already know, adding
to your overall understanding of the world.

Read what is important, then stop and reflect on it. Think about how this new
information changes what you previously understood.

Selecting what to read

You do not want to try to read everything written. You also do not need to read every
word of every piece of writing you can find. You must filter (reduce) the quantity of what
you try to read. You do want to read a lot but you only want to read the most important
pieces. The simple fact is that you have a limited amount of time, so make the best use
of that time and focus your reading on what is important.

If you are doing a proper search on your subject, you will likely find hundreds of
thousands of papers to read. Clearly, this is going to be too much for anyone, especially
for someone reading in their second language.

First, you should carefully look at the titles of everything you find. Try to figure out
which of those are relevant and which are not. For example, if you are trying to apply
leadership principles to the CEO of Google, and you see the following list of articles:

1. Leadership style impact on non-profit workers

2. How motivation affects retention in Nigeria
3. Leading your followers: How mother ducks tell their chicks to cross the road
4. Traits of today’s highest paid CEO’s
5. Coercive vs Lassez-faire – which are you?

Chapter 6: Critical reading Page 23

Which should you read first? Article 3 seems not relevant at all and article 5 is quite
questionable. Article 2 might be interesting but it seems very targeted. Article 1 is not
perfect because clearly Google’s workers are not non-profit workers and what motivates
them might be different. However, in some ways, motivation is the same between non-
profits and for-profits. Article 4 seems important and quite relevant, at least by looking
at the title.

So, you have eliminated articles 3 and 5 and it only took you a few minutes to reduce
your list down to 60% of the original size (you should already see how this can save you
hours of time reading unimportant information). For the remaining articles, if they are
proper research papers they will include an abstract. Skim the abstract (usually just 250
words or so per paper) to get a better idea about which is most closely connected to
your topic. Maybe all of them are and maybe none of them. Maybe just some of them.
The goal here is, again, to spend a little time and eliminate those articles which are
clearly unsuitable. You want to avoid reading anything which will not help you.

How much time will you spend reading each paper? It depends on many things. What
are you trying to learn? How deeply do you need to understand? Clearly a graduate
student needs to understand more deeply than an undergraduate student. You might be
able to read a 10 page journal article in two hours or it might take you two days. You
might need to read Article 1 for a day then read Article 2 for another day then return to
Article 1 to see how the two articles connect together and what information they are
missing.

There are multiple issues here. You need to improve your English so you understand all
the words being used (this is true even for native speakers because English has so many
words). You also need to improve your reading skills. Which parts of the paper should
you focus on? Should you focus on the methodology? The discussion? The conclusions?
Again, this depends on what you are trying to accomplish but the more you do it, the
more you will build these skills and the faster you will get. Just remember, read to
understand. Do not read just to say you have read it.

Do you need to read every word of every paper? No, certainly not. If you find a paper is
very closely connected to the work you are trying to do then you will want to read the
whole paper. If you find an article that is only loosely connected then you will want to
read those parts which are closest to your work.

Let one article lead you to another

When you read an article, consider the references in that article. Journal articles are the
best because they include clear references at the end. If you see the same articles being
cited by many of the articles you read, then you should read those because everyone
else thinks it is important. Yes, everyone else could be wrong but better for you to look
for yourself and know for sure.

Page 24 Chapter 6: Critical reading

You should also look over the list of references even just to see the titles. If you see a
title which looks interesting to you, then find that article and read it. You would be
surprised at how many students get the highest grades because of something they read
which nobody else took the time to read, or even to find.

Sharing your research

Suzi Student is struggling. She has an assignment due but she is not sure where to start.
She is not sure she understands the assignment brief and she is scared she will fail. Suzi
knows her friend Sally is a strong student. Suzi asks if she can look at Sally’s assignment
just to get some ideas about how to write the assignment. Sally naturally wants to help
her friend so she gives Suzi her completed assignment. Suzi is still too worried and still
does not know what to do in several sections. So, Suzi copy-and-pastes from Sally’s
assignment. When the teacher seems the same content in both assignment he fails both
students. Suzi is sad. Sally no longer trusts Suzi. The teacher feels that his students are
too lazy and all of them cheat. Everyone is unhappy now.

There is a simple solution to this very common problem. It is acceptable to share your
research. You can share your reading, you can even share your notes from lectures.
However, you should never share what you write, until after the end of the semester. If
you share your work before the end of the semester, the teacher will naturally see that
students are working together when that was not part of the assignment. Anyone can
read anything so there is no problem sharing your research, just not your analysis.

If Suzi does not know how to write, then Sally can help her. However, Sally should teach
Suzi not just give Suzi a completed assignment.

Skimming and scanning

When you learn to read in English, often your teachers will teach you the skills of
skimming and scanning. Skimming is when you read very quickly by reading just the first
sentence, and perhaps the last sentence, of each paragraph. Scanning is when you do
not even read but rather quickly look at each word on the page until you see the word
you are looking for. Once you have found the area, then you are told to read that area to
gain a deeper understanding of it.

Skimming and scanning allows you to ignore large pieces of writing. This is both good
and bad. It is good because it can allow you to ignore parts which you believe are
unrelated to the topic you are researching. However, by skipping sections you might be
missing information which is related to what you should be learning. For example, if you
are reading your module textbook for a class on project management and you need to
write about leadership, you will skip everything until you get to the section about
leadership. Then you will read that section and write your report. However, you might
miss the extended ideas and how those connect to other subjects. For example, you will
completely miss how team effectiveness is impacted by various factors including

Chapter 6: Critical reading Page 25

groupthink and you will miss how proper leadership solves the problem of groupthink. In
the end, your writing will not show deep understanding of the area unless you read
everything you can. You need to find a balance between reading unrelated information
(wasting your time) and being focused on your topic (missing more distant but related
information). The more you read, the easier this balance will be for you.

Reading critically
Being critical about what you read simply means questioning everything as you read it.
The more you read and the more you understand the more you will naturally question
new information. However, you should remember to consider the new information and
also question the older information you read before. After all, part of the learning
process is learning that you used to believe something and now you learn it is actually
untrue, or perhaps partially untrue.

Watch the quality of the writing

Imagine you are reading the following story in an online newspaper:

Metro Stores have been operating in this country for many years.
Recently they have been expanding by adding more stores across the
country. However, the company has never paid any income tax. The
government is investigating many firms for tax evasion.

Most students would read this and start to think several things:

 Metro is making a lot of money because they are expanding (nobody would add
more stores if they were not seeing good profits)
 Metro is bad because they are not paying their taxes
 Metro has been doing these bad things for a long time

Unfortunately, nothing above is true. The story is an example of what is sometimes

called “Yellow Journalism” and it represents very bad reporting. The reporter did not say
that Metro is being investigated. The reporter did not say that Metro should be paying
taxes. After all, to calculate taxes we look at profit (revenue – expenses). The reporter
did not say that Metro is profitable. It is easy to believe that the store must be profitable
otherwise they would not add more stores but that logic is not good. The company
might be trying to position themselves for what they foresee as an upcoming increase in
demand and they want to be well positioned for it.

In the end, this story tells us nothing other than Metro has been operating in this
country for “many years” (but it is unclear what many years means to this reporter) and
that they have never paid income tax. The reporter really only included one clear fact:
Metro has never paid income tax. Metro cannot complain about the reporter lying
unless Metro has actually paid income tax. There are no other facts in the story.

Page 26 Chapter 6: Critical reading

The above is an example of poor quality reporting. However, we must be critical of more
than just this.

Watch for bias

You must also consider who the author is in relation to the subject being covered. For
example, there have been many cases where an economist has been paid to write a
research report on a country. The writer was paid by the country with the clear intent
that the writing be positive about the country. In this case, we cannot trust the writing
because the writer is not motivated by the truth but rather is being rewarded for
focusing on the positive aspects and minimizing or ignoring the negative issues.

This problem of bias is not limited to economists being paid to write about countries. For
example, if a famous media personality, for example a “talk show host,” has become
known for being against higher taxes then in order to maintain a consistent image that
person must make a statement against anyone who is claiming that society would be
better with higher taxes. Even if the new claim was backed up by clear, well documented
evidence, the media personality would not have the luxury of truly considering the
merits of the proposal simply because as a media personality, he must be consistent or
he risks losing those who support him by appearing to be weak or uncertain of his
beliefs.

There is an old saying “To the man with only a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”
This applies here. If you have only one thing you can say, then it is not really important
what you say. We must always seek the truth, not to be right. We must always seek the
research of those who seek the truth, not those who want to prove that they were right
all along.

Consider a whitepaper. Is this a good source of information? Not really. The reason is, a
whitepaper is written by a company who is trying to sell their solution. For example, if a
company develops a new piece of software which prevents spam then they will usually
write a whitepaper showing some background on the topic and why their solution is the
best solution. The goal of a whitepaper is not to be academic, it is about convincing the
reader of a point. They may include both sides to a story but they may not fully include
both sides because that might weaken their argument. So, they include just enough of
the opposing view to convince you that they are addressing both sides adequately.

Consider the source

In any language native speakers understand the language more deeply than those who
learn it as a second language. English is no different. One time a student made a
presentation in one of my classes and they claimed something which was quite
unreasonable, almost to the point of being funny. When I saw her sources I saw she had
cited an online news site called “The Onion.” As a native speaker I knew right away what
this website was. It was dedicated to writing farce stories – stories which were close to

Chapter 6: Critical reading Page 27

being true but were clearly untrue. You would see stories like “The president has
professionals judge the value of the state of California.” [Note: This is funny because it
implies that the US sees states as assets and could sell the state of California, which they
cannot.] The writing might seem reasonable to someone who does not have a strong
command of English but clearly you would never want to cite this kind of website as
research.

Confirming new facts

When you read something that seems surprising to you, you should not simply believe
that it is true. You should confirm it. If someone says “The World Bank predicts world
population will be 25 billion in the year 2100” then you should go to the World Bank and
confirm this information. Someone saying something does not make it true. Being true
makes something true.

As a student, you will spend more time reading than doing anything else. This is normal
and expected. However, there are bad habits that you must correct and there are new
skills to learn. Skimming and scanning can help you but you must not skip over
information which can help you understand more deeply. You also much be critical on
what you read. Do not believe everything you read. When you read something, you
should try to confirm it from an unrelated source.

Page 28 Chapter 6: Critical reading

Chapter 7: Listening and taking notes during lectures
Students come into lectures with different expectations. Some come only because
attendance is required. Others come to be with their friends. Others come because they
truly want to learn. This chapter will help those students who truly want to learn and
improve their grades.

There are two big issues about listening during lectures: Paying attention and taking
notes.

Paying attention
To some, it seems simple. To pay attention you just need to pay attention. Just look at
your teacher and watch his lips as he speaks and you will naturally understand
everything he is saying. Unfortunately this is not true.

It is hard to pay attention if there are distractions. Here are just a few things which can
distract you, preventing you from fully understanding the lecturer:

 Your phone lighting up while on your desk in front of you

 Your phone vibrating in your pocket
 Your neighbor’s phone lighting up or vibrating on the table
 Another student playing a game on his laptop while he pretends to take notes
 Another student talking to you
 Another student talking to someone else close enough that you hear them
 Letting your mind wander into “day dreaming”
 Your stomach making noise because you did not eat breakfast
 Your neck hurting because you are not sitting properly

Eliminate distractions
There are many, many things which can distract you. You might not be able to solve
them all but if you want to be successful you do need to solve as many as you can. For
example, turn your phone off (not on vibrate). Tell your neighbor that his phone keeps
distracting you and ask if they could put it in their pocket or their bag. If you sit around
people who distract you and you do not feel comfortable telling them to change, then
consider changing your seat. It is well known that students in the front row generally get
the highest grades so move to the front or second row. If those neighbors distracting
you are your friends then you have a bigger choice to make. Do you want these friends
who will stop you from being successful or do you want successful friends who will help
you to be successful, too?

Every point that your lecturer makes is for a reason. Your teacher has a lot of
information to deliver to you and a little time to do it. So, for each point, think about
how that relates to your experiences in the past. How does it relate to what you learned

Chapter 7: Listening and taking notes during lectures P

earlier? Does it go against what another teacher said? Does it go against something you
read? If so, write that down and deal with it later (maybe discussing with each teacher
separately or maybe reading more to make sure you understand clearly).

Learning is always easier when you have more knowledge. That is, the more you know,
the more things you can connect to the new information when you hear it. So, the more
you read and the more you understand, the easier it will be to pay attention to your
lecturer.

Taking Notes
If you think you can remember everything said during the lecture, including what other
students say, either you have an amazing memory or you are tricking yourself into not
taking notes.

Everyone who is serious about studying, everyone who wants to succeed in university,
even in their native language, needs to take detailed notes during a lecture. The only
time you would not take notes during a lecture is if you truly knew all of the information
covered.

There are many techniques for taking notes and you should have learned some of them
when you were learning academic English. However, the most important things to know
about taking notes are:

 Do not try to write down every word

 Do not try to make your notes beautiful while you are taking notes

Do not write down every word

If you are writing with a pen, you will not be able to write as quickly as your teacher can
speak. It is just not reasonable. If you are typing your notes in class, and you can type
extremely quickly it might be possible.

You should be aware, research shows that writing notes with a pen (on paper or using
digital ink) results in a greater ability to remember the information than typing notes
into a computer.

Imagine you are in a lecture and you hear

“Once upon a time, on a dark and rainy night, there were three CEO’s
driving down the street. The first CEO was Tim Cook of Apple. The second
was Fred Smith of FedEx. The third was Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook.
Cook said to Smith, without you, nobody would receive their new iPad so
I thank you. Smith said to Cook, without you, nobody would be able to
use our iPhone app to schedule a shipment so I thank you. Zuckerberg
said, ‘Yeah, but without me nobody would like either of you two.’”

Page 30 Chapter 7: Listening and taking notes during lectures

What would you write down in your notes? It should be something like this:

Cook (Apl), Smith (FedX), Zuck (FB) driving: Cook  FedX=,

SmithApl=, ZuckFB makes people like others.

The point here is to keep your notes short and to the point. There is no need to write
very detailed notes during a lecture. You should write enough so that you can
understand your notes later but that should be easy, as long as you revise your notes as
recommended below.

Notes do not need to be beautiful during the lecture

When you are taking notes, remember what is most important is to capture the main
ideas. Once you have the main ideas, you want to add some details. What if you write
something down that is completely wrong (perhaps you misunderstood the first time
the lecturer said something). What should you do?

Perhaps you should erase everything that was wrong but then there is a blank space on
your paper. What if you draw something but later have to fix that drawing to understand
the lecture content? How will you understand your notes two or three months from now
when you are writing your assignment?

1 Source: Ally-Cat

The solution is to not worry about making your notes perfect. The problem during
lectures is that you have very little time to take notes. So take the notes that you can.
Write down key words. Draw lines with arrows to connect ideas. Draw images if that
helps you to remember the important points. Use different colors when you are writing
to indicate different kinds of information. Find what works for you. It is okay if your
notes are very messy, because you will revise your notes (below).

Chapter 7: Listening and taking notes during lectures P

Revising your notes
After class, you should take some time to re-write your notes. If you do not have time
after class, then do it later but you should always revise your notes before sleeping that
night.

Revising your notes means to re-write your notes. Start with a blank piece of paper and
re-write everything. Now is the time to make your notes beautiful. Reorganize them so
you can easily understand them later. Take your time and do this right. Your notes may
make the difference between a high and low grade on your assignment.

Remember, you will use your notes several times in the future but you will not use them
during the lecture. So, the notes do not need to capture all the information, just the
important points. The notes do not need to be beautiful because you can make them
beautiful when you rewrite them after class.

The purpose of revising your notes is so you have something you can use easily and
efficiently for years to come. You might take notes with pen and paper and revise your
notes by putting them into some electronic form. Whichever way you prefer to keep
your notes long-term, make them clear and easy to use. Remember, one university
subject may assume you remember what you learned in an earlier subject so those
notes you took in your first semester might be reused in the second, third, and later
semesters. So, take the time to do it right – you will be making life easier for your future
self.

Lecture time is a time for paying close attention to what the lecturer is saying. Do your
best to eliminate any distractions. Make sure you take detailed notes but do not worry
about making them beautiful during the lecture. You can (and should) make them
beautiful later.

Recording lecturer
If your lecturer allows you, you should consider recording the lecture. If you want to
record the audio, most lecturers will accept this. If you ask to record a video, many
lecturers will not be comfortable with that. Never take pictures or record without
permission. However, if you do record the audio of the lecture, you can take it home and
then listen again and compare it to your notes.

Page 32 Chapter 7: Listening and taking notes during lectures

Chapter 8: Homework
Many teachers will assign homework. Ever wonder why? This chapter will address this
issue and will attempt to convince you that doing the homework, even making your own
homework, will result in higher grades.

Imagine you are studying a 150 hour subject. You are expected to study 150 hours
(these are often called “guided learning hours). If you meet in class for four hours per
week for 15 weeks, that is only 60 hours. You are supposed to study the subject for
another 90 hours outside of class. Yes, some of those hours will be spent preparing for,
or completing, your assignments. However, there is still more for you to study. What will
you study? Will you simply grab your textbook and start reading random topics?

Teacher assigned homework

The teacher’s job is to identify what the students should be studying. The reading you do
outside of class is called “guided learning” because the teacher is telling you what to
study. They may do this by giving you specific articles or page numbers to read or they
may do this by giving you a topic and leaving it up to you to decide what is the best
source to get your information from.

Finding your own sources

If your teacher gives you the freedom to choose your own source, this can be great. One
reason it can be great is because you might find useful information in your native
language, which may be easier for you to read. This kind of freedom will also help you to
start developing the necessary skills of deciding what is a good source and what is not. If
you read a source that you think is good, and you bring that information with you for
discussion in class, and the teacher explains that you do not understand, then you must
consider that perhaps your source is not a good source.

Creating your own homework

Should you do homework (that is should you study outside of class) even if the teacher
does not ask you to? Yes, you absolutely should. You should know the topic of each
session you will be in class. You might even have detailed information about the topics in
the form of slides your teacher will lecture from. If your next session is going to be about
market research, then you should start reading about that topic. Start with the textbook
which the teacher chose for the subject. If you do not see anything in that book, then
you might want to ask your teacher for some recommended reading. This shows your
deep interest in the subject and will only help the teacher to see you in a more positive
way. If your teacher does not respond soon enough, then you should go to your school’s
e-library or to the internet or to your local library or to someone you know with
experience on that topic and start researching by yourself. Read, read, and read more.
Ask questions and then try to find the answers. Question the answers you find.

Chapter 8: Homework Page 33

You should see homework as an opportunity, not as a burden. It is an opportunity to
learn more and better prepare for the next lecture. The better prepared you are, the
more you will learn which will only lead to higher grades.

Page 34 Chapter 8: Homework

Chapter 9: Understanding feedback
Student are expected to learn and also to show that they have learned. When learning
something, you may think you understand it clearly but you do not. Students rely on
their teachers to guide them and to provide meaningful feedback so the students know
if they are making the amount of progress they expect of themselves.

There are two types of feedback that teachers normally give their students: Formative
and Summative.

Summative feedback
When you submit an assignment your teacher will mark it and provide you with
comments on why you received the grade you were given and, often, what you can do
improve your grade in future assignments. This is summative feedback.

Summative feedback includes marking and the goal is to look at all (the sum) of your
learning. Did you show that you understand everything you are supposed to
understand? What quality was your output? Your grade represents part of the feedback
you receive. Your grade tells you the quality of your work.

Formative feedback
Your teacher may include opportunities for you to show your understanding throughout
the semester. For example, I often will ask my students questions like “Consider the
concept of the Triple Bottom Line. How would this impact Samsung or Apple?” By the
student’s answer in class, I can see clearly (and the student can also see) if the student
understands the information. If the student says “Uh um uhhhhh.” Then we both
(student and teacher) know that the student does not understand. This is an indication
that this student needs to spend more time studying this concept. If many students have
the same problem then it is a sign to the teacher that the concept is not being taught in
a way that most students can understand (and that students are not doing the work
outside of class which will help them to understand new topics). If the student gives an
answer but it shows simple thinking, as opposed to complex thinking, then the teacher
will often let the student know the quality of their answer and how the student can
improve their future answers.

In some cases, your teacher may not be marking your work. That is, your teacher might
not be providing and summative feedback. This depends on the structure of the course,
school policies, and many other issues. However, what is important is that the instructor
should always provide formative feedback and this is how you should know if you
understand the information at an appropriate level.

Think of yourself as a ship traveling across the ocean. You might not be able to see
clearly enough on your journey (your journey to learn). You need someone who can see

Chapter 9: Understanding feedback Page 35

more clearly than you (your teacher) and you need that person to guide you and to tell
you if you are doing what you need to do in order to get to your destination.

It is your responsibility to make sure you understand the feedback you receive from your
teacher. If your teacher says that you are not reading enough outside of class, then you
need to read more. If the teacher says your thinking appears too simple, then you
should make sure you understand, from your teacher, what good examples of complex
thinking are. You should not expect your teacher to show you exactly what you should
do. Part of your learning in university is to learn the process of deciding what is
appropriate. Just like your parents do not put your food into your mouth for you, do not
expect your teachers to do everything for you. Their job is to guide you. Your job is to do
the work.

Page 36 Chapter 9: Understanding feedback

Chapter 10: BTEC HNC and BTEC HND
There are many students who study in a BTEC HNC or BTEC HND program as part of their
time in university. This chapter is just for them. If you do not study in one of these
programs, then this chapter will have no meaning for you so please skip to the next
chapter.

BTEC is from Edexcel which is currently owned by Pearson, the large publishing
company. For background, an undergraduate degree in the UK often takes three years. If
you are studying in a TNE (trans-national education) provider, then you might have four
years. If you have three years, they are likely:

1. BTEC Level 4 (HNC) subjects

2. BTEC Level 5 (HND) subjects
3. Top Up subjects (perhaps provided by a UK university, not by BTEC)

If you have four years, then the four years are more likely:

1. Intensive English (where you focus on language skills)

2. BTEC Level 4 (HNC) subjects
3. BTEC Level 5 (HND) subjects
4. Top Up subjects (perhaps provided by a UK university, not by BTEC)

Here, we will simply refer to BTEC HND (and we will not use the term HNC).

Possible grades
BTEC HND modules include different kinds of grades from what you might be familiar
with. They do not use numbers / percentages. You do not get 90% or 50%. These
numbers have no meaning for BTEC HND modules. Instead, you have four grades you
can receive: Referral (fail), pass, merit, and distinction.

Each module contains some learning outcomes. If you show that you understand all of
the learning outcomes, then you receive a grade of pass. If there is even one learning
outcome that you do not show clearly that you understand, then you will receive a grade
of referral.

Learning outcomes
Learning outcomes are actually widely accepted in the educational community. The idea
is that anyone who has passed a certain module will have shown that they can do
certain things. These are learning outcomes (outcome means result, so learning
outcome means what you are supposed to learn as a result of studying this module).
BTEC HND modules normally have four learning outcomes. However, each outcome has
various points of evidence. That is, what is considered proper evidence that the student
has achieved the learning outcomes? It might be confusing, but these points of evidence

Chapter 10: BTEC HNC and BTEC HND Page 37

are usually referred to as outcomes. So, you can have “Learning Outcome 1” or perhaps
people talk about “outcome 1.1.” Sometimes even “Learning Outcome 1.1.” Do not get
lost in the details here. What is important is that you show that you understand and can
do what is expected of you. For any module you should see a list of the outcomes (1.1,
1.2, etc.).

Some modules have only 10 outcomes and some have more than 15. However, an
assignment might not include all outcomes. It is common, but not required, for multiple
assignments to be given to for one module and the first assignment to cover Learning
Outcome 1 and 2 while the second assignment covers Learning Outcome 3 and 4. Again,
this is up to the person who designed the assessment (likely your teacher).

It is currently allowed (this is subject to Pearson making a change) for one outcome to
be on multiple assignments. This is not bad, it means you have multiple chances to pass
the outcome without resubmitting anything. It is required that all outcomes for the
module are covered by the assignments. That is, it is not OK for one learning outcome to
be skipped. This would actually make every student fail.

Pass
In order to pass a module, you must pass all of the outcomes. If there are 16 outcomes,
then you must pass all 16 to pass. If you pass 15 of them and fail one of them, then you
fail the module. Remember, the idea of outcomes is that you show you understand all of
these things if you pass. So, you must show you understand all, not most.

Merit
Merit is a higher grade than pass. You can consider merit to be 60% and distinction to be
70% (in the UK grading system – the US system is completely different in the way they
use numbers).

In order to get merit for a module, you must pass all outcomes and also get M1 and M2
and M3.

Example 1 of Merit
If your module has two assignments, A1 and A2. In A1, you pass all of your outcomes
and you also receive M1 and M3. In A2, you pass all of your outcomes and you receive
M2 and M3. In this case, you will receive merit for the module. This is because you
passed all of the outcomes and achieved M1 and M2 and M3. It does not matter when
you achieved M1 or M2. It only matters that you did achieve it.

Example 2 of Merit
If your module has two assignments, A1 and A2. In A1, you fail all of your outcomes. In
A2, you pass all of your outcomes and you receive M1 and M2 and M3. In this case, you
will need to fix your failed outcomes and resubmit. If you then pass all of your outcomes,
then you will receive merit for the module. This is because you passed all of the

Page 38 Chapter 10: BTEC HNC and BTEC HND

outcomes and achieved M1 and M2 and M3. It does not matter when you achieved M1
or M2. It also does not matter how many times you achieved M1 or M2 (you only need
each one once). It only matters that you did achieve M1, M2, and M3.

Rework, redo, resumit

In BTEC terminology, when you resubmit work after it has already been marked, this is
called “rework.” Some schools call this “redo” or even “resubmit.” However, the proper
BTEC term is “rework” as you can see on their marking documents. Some schools will
allow you to achieve M1, etc. during rework while others will not. Even if your school
allows this, you should not be in the habit of depending on this. In your final year, if you
attend a UK school, that school will usually have the policy that any rework will have a
maximum grade of the “minimum passing grade.” The minimum passing grade depends
on the university but in the end what matters is that if you do not do well on your first
submission your final mark will be very, very low.

Merit is generally what the average student should receive if they put in the required
150 hours (most BTEC HND modules require 150 hours of learning, some of which will be
in class).

Distinction
Distinction is a higher grade than merit.

In order to get distinction for a module, you must pass all outcomes and also get M1 and
M2 and M3 and D1 and D2 and D3.

Example 1 of Distinction
If your module has two assignments, A1 and A2. In A1, you pass all of your outcomes
and achieve M1 and M2 and D1 and D2 and D3. In A2 you pass all of your outcomes but
you do not achieve and M’s or D’s. In this case you will not receive distinction. You will
only pass (because you did not receive M3).

Example 2 of Distinction
If your module has two assignments, A1 and A2. In A1, you pass all of your outcomes
and achieve M1 and M2 and D1 and D2 and D3. In A2 you pass all of your outcomes and
achieved M3. In this case you will receive distinction. Again, it does not matter when or
how many times you receive M1 (or any other M or D).

Distinction is not easy and is given to the students do the most impressive work. These
students are expected to put in significant extra effort. This extra effort includes using
reflection (D1) reading widely or other significant effort (D2) and showing creativity (D3).
To be clear, what counts as D3 or M1, etc. is up to the person who designs the
assessment. So, be sure to read the assignment brief very clearly.

Chapter 10: BTEC HNC and BTEC HND Page 39

As of the time of this writing BTEC rules are that M’s and D’s are NOT supposed to
include additional tasks. M’s and D’s are only supposed to be given for higher quality
(not quantity) work. That is, they are “qualitative” grades and not “quantitative” grades.

As always, you should remember that you should try for the highest grades possible.
Higher grades will always give you more opportunities for work and for further study. A
little extra effort now will make a big difference later so invest the time now.

Page 40 Chapter 10: BTEC HNC and BTEC HND

Part 4: Showing you understand
When teachers are determining your grades, they must look at the work you have
submitted. Some students will turn in low-quality work and after they receive a bad
grade, they will go to the teacher and say, “Please do not fail me, I really do understand
this subject.” There is no need for such a request from the student.

As a student (and later as a professional), you are expected to produce your best work
the first time. If you leave out important information, then you are failing to show you
understand what is important. Your work will be marked based on what you submit, not
based on what you know but did not submit. Teachers mark based on evidence and that
evidence is the work you submit.

How you show your understand will be driven by the assignment type. Presentations are
quite different from reports just like essays are different from whitepapers. This section
will explain to you what the most common assignment types are. Next, you will see what
is meant by different activity verbs. That is, “report” and “reflect” expect very different
things from you. Since written reports are so common, you will see chapters dedicated
to each section of a report: Abstract, introduction, conclusions, paragraphing, etc. There
is also a chapter to teach you how to mark your own work. At the end of this section,
there is a chapter dedicated to giving good presentations.

Remember, this whole book is designed so you can read just the chapter you need when
you need it. For example, if you are writing an introduction, then you should read the
chapter about how to write an introduction. There is no need to read the chapter about
conclusions until you are ready to write your conclusion.

Chapter 10: BTEC HNC and BTEC HND Page 41

Chapter 11: Common assignment types
There are many types of assignments you might be given as a university student. This
chapter will give you a brief explanation of the most common and what you should
know about each of them.

Scenarios
A scenario is not an assignment type; however, in many assignments you will be given a
“scenario.” A scenario is a situation that you should imagine that you are in. The
scenario might be based on an article from a magazine or newspaper or it might be
composed by the creator or the assignment.

You will also be given a role. For example, you may be a consultant-trainee at a
consulting firm. Your assignment tasks will normally connect directly to your role. If your
role is a consultant-trainee and you are giving a presentation to the managers of the
firm, you should not start your actual presentation saying “Hi everyone. I am Bob from
this class.” Keep your answers to the context of your role.

Case analysis
A case analysis is a more complex assignment type. Here you are given a case which
includes many details about some event. The details will include specific information
about your subject but will also include other information which might be relevant. The
case will normally include several questions for you to answer. Your goal should be to
answer the questions while showing deep understand of the subject.

A case can be one page or can be 10 or more pages long. The longer the case, the more
details you have. While you might want to have a shorter case so you can read it with
less effort, you should actually want a longer case. The reason is longer cases have more
details which will help you to give more complete answers. The shorter the case, the
more information you are going to be missing. This means shorter cases give you less to
work with, which means it is harder to show deep understanding.

Research report
A research report is a specific kind of report. Most often research reports include the
student collecting primary data (going out and collecting the data from interviews,
surveys, experiments, etc.) in addition to collecting secondary data (reading about the
data collected by others).

Report
There are many kinds of reports other than research reports. If your assignment is to
provide a “business report” then you are normally expected to do some research and
present it in a business situation.

Page 42 Chapter 11: Common assignment types

While the reader of the report does want to read the information more quickly than the
reader of an essay, a report should still include clear support (evidence) for all points
made. Reports are not an excuse to ignore evidence.

Essay
If English is not your native language, then you likely produced many essays while
studying English. An essay can be as short as 150 words or can be 3,000 words or more.
There are many, many different types of essays. An essay is a written assignment and a
report is also a written assignment. The best way to understand an essay is to contrast it
to a report.

Difference between reports and essays

Reports Essays
Have bullet points, with evidence for Do not have bullet points
points
Compress information as much as possible Do not need to compress information
Use charts and graphs Do not use charts and graphs
Allow the reader to read quickly Reading speed is not a concern
Bold key words to allow speed-reading Do not bold key words
Use section headers to speed up reading Do not use section headers
Summarize information Do not need to summarize
Have shorter paragraphs – get to the point Have longer paragraphs
Report on research, recommend solutions Explain something from one point of view
Often include an abstract or executive Do not include an abstract or executive
summary summary
Often written to a business audience Often written to the teacher or assessor
Abbreviations and acronyms are common Abbreviations are not very common
Often number each section and subsection Usually do not number sections
Can use jargon if target audience knows it Does not use jargon
Does not use emotional terms Might use emotion, depending on purpose

Imagine you are a busy corporate executive. You have much more to do every day than
you have time to do. Time is very valuable to you. You do not want to spend five
minutes on anything that you can do in two minutes. Now, if you are writing a report,
remember that you are writing for an executive. Write in such a way that allows the
executive to read quickly while still getting all of the most important information.

For both reports and essays, you should not include what is already in your assignment
brief. It is acceptable to repeat small parts in order to make your report faster to read
(so the reader does not have to refer back to the assignment brief) but you should not
be copy-and-pasting paragraphs from your assignment brief.

Chapter 11: Common assignment types Page 43

Whitepaper
Whitepapers are reports where the audience is a potential customer (consumer or
company). However, the audience is not known to you when writing. Whitepapers are
common marketing tools which appear as an informative report designed to help the
reader decide which solution is best but then advocates your company’s product as the
customer’s optimal solution.

Presentation
Here you are expected to stand up in front of your class and give a presentation. The
assignment may require you to use PowerPoint slides or it might have other
requirements. Read Chapter 25 (How to Give a Good Presentation).

Presentation report
A presentation report usually has you prepare a presentation using PowerPoint slides
but you do not actually stand up and give the presentation. You will normally print your
slides and also the notes about what to discuss on each slide. This is a form of written
assignment, not a speaking assignment like a presentation or an oral exam.

Exam
Exams are written tests. You enter a room with other students, you are given an exam
paper and some answer paper, and you answer the questions. It is important that you
do not copy from other students (or cheat in any other way). It is also important that
you do not let other students copy from you. If one student copies from another, both
students will usually fail that exam.

When preparing for an exam, the four most important things you should remember are:
Study a lot, get a good night’s sleep before the exam, and drink enough water.

1. Study a lot
It is important to prepare for the exam. If you think you can just walk into an exam
unprepared and do well, then you are accepting a risk that you can avoid. Take the time
to prepare. You should prepare throughout the semester but closer to the exam day,
study extra.

2. Get a good night’s sleep before the exam

One common mistake that students make is that they “cram” just before an exam. They
study constantly, 20 hours per day, sleeping only four. The problem is, if you do not get
enough sleep on the night before the exam, your body and brain will not be rested and
you will have more difficulty remembering what you have already learned. So, the night
before the exam, sleep early and sleep enough.

Again, the night before the exam, go to sleep early and make sure you get lots of good
quality sleep that night. The extra studying you can gain the final night is worth less than
being rested for the exam.

Page 44 Chapter 11: Common assignment types

3. Drink enough water
When your body does not have enough water, you are dehydrated. One sign of
dehydration is that you cannot think clearly. Another sign of dehydration is that you
become tired and have difficulty focusing. Just before you enter the exam room, you
should drink a bottle of water. If you are allowed, you should bring water with you and
drink a little water every hour or so.

You might be thinking, what about when your body has too much water? Will you be
allowed to leave the exam room to use the bathroom? Normally, you will not be
allowed to leave the exam room to use the bathroom (because it allows students to
cheat during the exam). However, if you use the bathroom just before you enter the
exam room, you will not need to use the bathroom again during the exam, even if you
continue to drink water. Normally exams do not last more than three hours and your
body should be able to store water for longer than that.

4. Eat a good meal

Just like your body needs water for your brain to operate properly, your body also needs
food. When you skip or delay eating, your body starts to react in very negative ways.
This is often called “starvation mode” meaning that when you delay eating, your body
acts like you are unable to find food (think about when humans lived in caves). What do
you think a body does when you cannot find food? Do you think it should dedicate
resources (bio-energy) towards remembering theories and formulae? Do you think it
should reserve all resources to move the muscles needed to get some food? If you have
a morning test and you skip breakfast, you are going to lower your score. So, eat a
proper meal before your exam.

Practice exams
Because you are unlikely to know the questions on the exam before the actual exam,
you should consider creating your own practice exam. Think about what information you
have studied. Think about what the assessor wants to make sure you know (Do you
know the learning outcomes for the exam?). Then compose questions you think will be
on the exam. After you have your questions, wait a day or two and take a practice exam
at home. Some students find they can write much less than they thought and so it is
easy for them to run out of time during the exam. Do not wait until the actual exam to
discover this. If you discover problems early, you can find ways to solve them before it is
too late.

Oral exam
An oral exam is like a regular exam except your answers are not written, they are
spoken. You will be given a question and you will speak your answer to that question. If
your answer shows a deep understanding you will receive a good grade. If your answer
is weak and general you will receive a poor grade. If you fail to answer at all, you will

Chapter 11: Common assignment types Page 45

normally receive a grade of zero. So, when you have an oral exam, make sure you are
prepared.

Oral exams are normally much shorter than exams. Often you will be given a single
question and have two to five minutes to give your answer. If you are in a room with
other students, you will have the benefit of listening to the answers from the other
students. Use this opportunity to make sure you understand well before you give your
answer.

Overall
In all assignments you will be given questions to answer or tasks to complete. When
composing your answers, you want to show the deepest understanding you can. Your
grade will depend on the quality of the work you produce.

In general, you want to make sure you include relevant theories or ideas which are
important to the study of the subject. You should be able to explain those theories in
your own words. You also want to make sure you apply those theories (to the case or
scenario you are given). If you are able to, produce critical analysis and include any
recommendations you feel are appropriate.

Make sure you clearly understand what is expected of you. If you are given a question,
make sure your answer actually answers the question. Many students look too quickly at
a question and then write an answer which answers a different question. It should not
be surprising when those students get a very low grade. You must answer the question
asked. You must perform the task as stated. You can do more, but you cannot change
the question or the task to something you think is better.

If your teacher is your assessor, be clear with your teacher about what they consider to
be proper. Just because you read something here does not mean that all assessors will
agree. Be clear – ask.

Final thoughts
There are many different assignment types you might receive while studying at
university. This chapter should give you a basic idea about what is meant by each
assignment type and how they differ from one another. However, you should be clear
with your teacher what is expected from you.

Page 46 Chapter 11: Common assignment types

Chapter 12: Common task verbs
In the assignments you are given, you will be given tasks or questions to answer. The
purpose of this chapter is to help you understand what is expected of you when the task
includes specific verbs. These verbs generally refer to Bloom’s taxonomy (see Chapter
15: How to Show Understanding).

While the intention of this chapter is to help you to understand what the task verbs
mean, you should always confirm with your teacher to know what they are actually
expecting.

Analyze: You are expected to identify the components (pieces) of an idea or a system
and show how they impact each other. Example: Analyze the responsibilities of a tax
practitioner. [Consider the different responsibilities. Are there any conflicts? What
should the person be most concerned with?]

Apply: You are expected to take a theory or a concept and show how it would be used in
a given situation. Example: Apply Herzberg’s theory of motivation to Samsung. [Give a
clear example of how a manager at Samsung would use the theory to improve
motivation levels.]

Assess: (See also: Evaluate) Here you are expected to make a judgment. Is something
good or bad, helpful or harmful? Example: Assess the impact of monetary policy on
businesses and their activities. [Consider what are the many ways that monetary policy
can impact businesses. Consider which impacts are positive or negative for the business
or for society. Judge whether this is good or bad.]

Calculate: Use a specific formula or technique to determine the answer. The answer will
usually be a number or a set of numbers but it is also important to show the process you
used. Example: Calculate costs using appropriate techniques. [You will have been taught
different techniques for calculating costs, show you understand those techniques by
actually performing calculations using them.]

Carry out: (See also: Perform, Undertake) Here you are expected to do something. You
should write to show you have actually done what was asked of you. How you should
you write it? Generally you should report it (see Report below). Example: Carry out work
activities meeting the operational plan. [Write about the activities you actually did which
support the operational plan.]

Choose: (See also: Select) You are expected to select one from many choices. You should
justify your choice (why did you choose that one). Example: Choose a targeting strategy
for a selected product. [Consider all the different targeting strategies you have learned
and pick one. Explain why you selected that strategy over other options available to
you.]

Chapter 12: Common task verbs Page 47

Classify: (See also: Apply) You are expected to consider different items and choose
which category each item belongs to. Example: Classify different types of cost. [You
should have learned about different types of costs and been given a series of expenses.
You are expected to identify which expense belongs to each type of cost.]

Compare: You are expected to show you understand different choices by identifying the
important qualities of each choice. Example: Compare and contrast different
organizational structures and culture. [You should have learned many structures and
cultures. Identify what are the important qualities of each and how they are similar and
different.]

Complete: You are expected to produce something but you may be given a starting
point. For example, you may be given the structure and you must fill in the data.
Example: Complete relevant documentation and tax returns. [You should use the
theories and formulae you have learned, categorizing the data you have, and fill in the
forms with the correct numbers based on that data.]

Create: (See also: Produce) You are expected to actually produce something new.
Example: Create a plan for the collection of primary and secondary data for a given
business problem. [You should have been given a business problem. You must plan out
how to collect primary and secondary data. The collection of data should target the
business problem.]

Demonstrate: You are expected to show you can apply theories. Example: Demonstrate
how buyer behavior affects marketing activities in different buying situations. [You
should write about various buying situations and apply the theories you have learned
about buyer behavior and marketing.]

Describe: You are expected to explain something. Often this will be a list. Example:
Describe the different users of financial statements and their needs. [List all of the
people/entities who would use financial statements. Describe what needs are specific to
each person/entity.]

Discuss: You are expected to show you understand something by explaining it in your
own words. Example: Discuss the significance of international trade to UK businesses.
[Use your own words and write about how UK businesses are impacted by international
trade.]

Draft: (See also: Create, Produce) You are expected to create something. Draft means to
write which means to create a piece of writing. Example: Draft suitable management
letters in relation to a statutory audit. [You are expected to consider the information
which belongs in the letters. You should also consider the audience for each letter and
what language and information is appropriate for them.]

Page 48 Chapter 12: Common task verbs

Evaluate: (See also: Assess, Judge) You are expected to judge something as good/bad,
right/wrong, helpful/harmful. Example: Evaluate the success of the assessment process.
[Here you should consider the assessment process, that is, the process whereby people
or processes are assessed. You should also consider what makes an assessment process
helpful or harmful (and helpful to whom; harmful to whom). Then explain the details
about the assessment process and judge it against some standard. If you do not have a
standard for judgment, then you should search until you can find a clear standard. You
should not simply say “I think this is good because I like it.”]

Explain: (See also: Describe) You are expected to show, in your own words, you
understand something. Example: Explain the responsibilities of an organization and
strategies employed to meet them. [Here you should look at a company and what
responsibilities it has. All companies share some common responsibilities but each
company might also include additional responsibilities unique to it. Explain these in your
own words. You should also explain what strategies the company uses to meet the
responsibilities you wrote about.]

Formulate: You are expected to communicate some information as a formula or you are
expected to use a formula to create something. Example: Formulate and record possible
research project outline specifications. [You should create, according to the formulae
you have learned, an outline of a specification for a research project.]

Identify: Here you are expected to remember something, perhaps a list. Example:
Identify the sources of finance available to a business. [You should remember the
sources of funding for a company. You should list them and also write a brief
explanation of each.]

Illustrate: You are expected to apply some theories. Example: Illustrate the general
principles of European law. [You should remember the general principles of European
law and you should apply them to some situation.]

Importance of: This is not a verb but when you see “importance of” you should show
why it is important. One way of showing how something is important is to give an
example of what things would be like if that thing was missing. Example: Explain the
importance of leadership style on team development. [You should explain why
leadership style is important. If you look at team development and ignore leadership
style does it give you a complete picture?]

Interpret: (See also: Analyze) You are expected to explain what something means. Often
you will be asked to interpret some data. Example: Interpret and analyze the results in
terms of the original project specification. [You should consider the resulting data
carefully and see what it really means. How does it impact stakeholders? Does the data
mean that the conclusions of others should be reconsidered? How does one piece of
data have meaning when considering another piece of data?]

Chapter 12: Common task verbs Page 49

Judge: (See also: Assess, Evaluate) You are expected to show you understand the
impacts of something. Example: Judge how the business and cultural environments
shape the behavior of a selected organization. [You should look at how the business and
cultural environments impact a company. Are the impacts positive or negative? How do
companies respond to those impacts?]

Justify: You are expected to give supporting evidence for a decision which was made
earlier. Example: Justify the selection of a strategy. [You should evaluate the choice of
strategy. The decision might be yours or might be from a case. You want to show you
can judge or evaluate the impact of the decisions against some known standard and you
want to show that it was right. Justify means to evaluate in a positive way. That is, you
must show why it was the right decision.]

Match: You are expected to consider two different lists and connect items from one list
with items in the other list. Example: Match resources efficiently to the project. [You
should consider the resources that you have and what tasks need to be done. Then you
should make sure that resources are being used in the proper way. For example, if you
have four people on your team and you have three people working quite hard and one
person is not doing anything then you have not matched your resources well.]

Plan: You are expected to create a plan which will accomplish some goal. You should
write, as a reporter would, explaining the facts. Example: Plan and deliver the
assessment of the development needs of individuals. [You should consider the
individuals, what they are able to do, what they should be able to do in the future, and
what kind of training or other development they need and evaluate those needs. You
should write about the plan as well as how you delivered that plan.]

Prepare: You are expected to create something. Example: Prepare a business

presentation using suitable software and techniques to disseminate information
effectively. [You should create a presentation. You may not be required to deliver the
presentation (so your assignment might be a presentation report). You will be judged
based on your use of suitable software and the techniques you use to communicate
information to your intended audience.]

Produce: You are expected to create something. Example: Produce graphs using
spreadsheets and draw valid conclusions based on the information delivered. [You
should create graphs using a spreadsheet program. You should also give your opinion
about what is important about what the graphs communicate.]

Propose: You are expected to make a recommendation. Example: Propose ways in which
lifelong learning in personal and professional contexts could be encouraged. [You should
consider the ways you have learned to convince people that they should continue to
learn during their entire life. How do you convince people that learning should not stop
after graduating from university?]

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Provide: You are expected to create something or include something produced by
someone else. Example: Provide an appropriate plan and procedures for the agreed
research specification. [You should create a plan or use someone else’s plan and explain
it in detail. You should also include the procedures you will use to achieve your research
goals.]

Record: (See also: Report) You are expected to report on what you did. You should write
like a reporter, communicating the facts. Example: Record the audit process in an
appropriate manner. [You should report on the audit process you performed. You
should report based on how you learned to report.]

Report: (See also: Record) Write as a reporter would. Write about facts that you observe
or discover. Example: Report on existing processes of communication in an organization.
[You should explore the existing processes used for communication in an organization
and then write about what you found, covering all the facts without including your own
opinion.]

Select: (See also: Choose) You are expected to remember the options available and then
choose one of the options. You should also explain why you chose that option over the
others. Example: Select appropriate budgeting methods for the organization and its
needs. [You should identify what the choices of budgeting methods are and then identify
which is the best for the chosen company. You should explain why you made your
choice.]

Show: You are expected to demonstrate that you remember. Example: Show macro and
micro environmental factors which influence marketing decisions. [You should list the
factors and what each of them means. It is always best if you apply the factors to show
deeper understanding.]

Suggest: You are expected to apply theories to a situation and choose the best choice
out of many available. Example: Suggest improvements to reduce costs, enhance value
and quality. [You should show your understanding of what techniques are most efficient.
Consider what the company does currently and make a clear recommendation about
how they can lower their costs without sacrificing quality or value.]

Undertake: You are expected to actually do something and then give evidence that you
have done it (perhaps by reporting on it or perhaps there is another natural way that
evidence is shown). Example: Undertake a critical review of key references. [When
performing secondary research, you should make sure you read critically, understanding
both sides of each relevant issue. If you are producing a literature review, that will be
your evidence. If your literature review shows critical analysis (both sides) then you will
have done what is expected of you.]

Chapter 12: Common task verbs Page 51

Use: This verb is usually combined with another. You might be expected to complete
multiple tasks and “use” means that you should do the other task and incorporate a
certain technique or idea. Example: Use sources of secondary data to achieve marketing
research objectives. [You should have researched and found some useful secondary
data. Include that data to help you achieve the objectives identified earlier.]

Final thoughts
These task verbs give you an idea about what is expected of you when you are creating
your assignment. You should not consider this chapter as a final authority. You should
always confirm with your teacher to be sure you understand clearly what is expected of
you.

Page 52 Chapter 12: Common task verbs

Chapter 13: How to write an abstract
Academic research reports often include an abstract. If it is a business report it is more
common to have an executive summary. They both serve the same purpose: To allow
the reader to quickly determine if it is worth the time to read the entire report. This
chapter will cover how to write an abstract or an executive summary, considering them
both having the same structure. Because we consider them to have the same structure,
we will simply use the term abstract to refer to both. When writing, you should use the
term your teacher instructed you to use.

What is the purpose of an abstract?

A reader should be able to invest a small amount of time to determine if it is worthwhile
to invest a greater amount of time the read the full report. So, reports often include
abstracts. An abstract compresses the entire report down into just a few short
paragraphs. In general, abstracts should be about 250 words long.

What does an abstract include?

In order for the reader to make an informed decision about whether or not to read your
report, you must provide all of the most important information of your report in the
abstract.

The general structure of the abstract is as follows:

 A brief background of the topic

 The purpose or problem the report addresses
 The methods used during the research
 The results discovered from the research
 The conclusions and recommendations for changes or future studies
 The limitations of the research

In your report you will write quite detailed information for each of these points. In your
abstract you will write only one to three sentences for each point. Remember, your
abstract must fit into a tight word limit.

Is an abstract like an introduction?

No. An abstract is quite different from an introduction. An introduction will simply
prepare the reader to fully understand what you have written. An abstract will compress
all of what you have written. An introduction does not include the most important
information in your report but an abstract does. See Chapter 14 (How to Write an
Introduction).

Should my abstract include information not in my report?

No. Your abstract is simply a compressed version of your report. So, it should only
include information which is already in your report.

Chapter 13: How to write an abstract Page 53

Example of abstract
Individuals around the world have been using electronic communications
(EC) for the past 40 years, since the invention of email. In that time, the
available means of EC have grown from simple text messages (SMS) to
very rich content and now include instant messaging (IM), voice and
video chat, as well as social networking like Facebook and Twitter.

The purpose of the research was to discover what, exactly, do

stakeholders want from EC options. The research explored integration as
well as different features which might be interesting to stakeholders.

The research was conducted iteratively alternating between interviews

and surveys in order to more deeply explore the respondents’ desires.

The research revealed that respondents desire greater integration

between various forms of EC. They do not want the different EC options
to all be isolated. Rather, they prefer an integrated system where all
means of communication are combined.

The researcher recommends that companies which provide EC software

take heed of these desires in order to satisfy their users as failure to do
so will naturally lead to a loss of market share and lowered profits. To this
end, the companies should focus their efforts on combining their various
offerings and improving their offerings’ interactivity with those from
competing companies.

One limitation of the research is that only 166 individuals were surveyed
and those surveyed were required to communicate in English. It is
possible that other respondents who are unable or uncomfortable
speaking English would answer the questions in different ways.

 The first paragraph describes the background of the research done.

 The second paragraph explains the purpose of the research.
 The third paragraph reveals the research methods used.
 The fourth paragraph shows the most important findings.
 The fifth paragraph includes the most important recommendations.
 The final paragraph includes the most important limitations of the research.

The abstract above totals 248 words and allows the reader to very quickly see if they
want to invest the time to read the full report.

Should I write the abstract before writing the report?

The abstract must be written after you have completed your report. The reason is that
the abstract will summarize the contents of the report. If you do not know what is in the

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report, then it will not be possible to summarize it properly. So, the abstract is the final
thing you will write, after you have finished editing your writing into the final version.

Final thoughts
Your assignments may or may not require an abstract. Ask your teacher to be clear what
is expected of you. If you to create one, you make sure that all of the most important
information from your report is included. Abstracts are supposed to be short. So make
each point short and clear.

Chapter 13: How to write an abstract Page 55

Chapter 14: How to write an introduction
Introductions and conclusions are important parts of your writing. They are like the
ceiling and the floor of a house – no decent house would be without them. No decent
academic writing would be without them either.

Introductions are read first but they are often written last (but before the abstract). The
main purpose of an introduction is to prepare the reader for reading what you have
written. In short, the introduction is where you tell the reader what you are going to tell
them.

What should an introduction include?

An introduction is intended to introduce your writing to the reader. If you want to
introduce one of your friends to another friend for the purpose of getting a job, what
would you say? Would you say “Alice, this is Bob. Bob, this is Alice.” Or would you put
more thought into it and give more details?

Normally, an introduction should include some background and the purpose of your
writing, including the scope and limitations. An introduction does not need to be long
but it is common for it to be between 6% and 9% of the overall length of your report or
essay. If you find your introduction is shorter than this, then perhaps you are not giving
enough information on the background or the purpose. If your introduction is longer,
then you might be going into too much detail (save the details for the body of your
writing).

Remember that the reader is reading your report for the first time. You might have read
it 15 times, during your editing, but the reader has fresh eyes and needs to understand
where this writing fits into the world of writing. Here is an example of an introduction
for someone writing a report about legal contracts.

Contract law is an essential element of business law. It is through contracts that

business is transacted. Whether the contracts are written, verbal, or implied,
contracts give all parties the confidence they need to transact business with
confidence that the other parties will honor their commitments.

ABC Company has hired XYZ Legal Consultants to review several open cases, as
well as some hypothetical issues, and give our legal opinions. The cases were
delivered to us in a report which detailed the specifics of each case. We are
basing our understanding on that report.

Due to the fact that these cases were not fully investigated by XYZ and we were
only given a report explaining the important elements of the cases, it is possible
that some details were not included in the report from ABC which could
materially impact the legal ruling. However, we have researched all applicable

Page 56 Chapter 14: How to write an introduction

 (UK and Commonwealth) statutes and cases when coming up with our
recommendations.

Our interpretation of each case will include both how we believe a judge would
normally look at the facts of each case as well as recommendations on how to
present the case to the judge to be most favorable to ABC.

This introduction is 200 words long. If the assignment is 2,500 words, then this
introduction is 8% of the total length.

Notice the opening of the introduction. It starts with a very general statement about
contract law. This statement is not specific to the details of this report. It is very broad
and gives the reader some idea about where this writing fits in the world. This writing is
going to be about contract law.

The next section of the introduction gives some background. The background here
includes who the parties are (ABC is the reader, XYZ is the author) and how the author
received the information necessary to complete the report.

The third paragraph discusses the limitations of the report. Reports will usually have
some limitations. You must be careful about this. It can be tempting to write excuses
instead of limitations. Do not do that. You must actually write the limitations.

The final paragraph gives some hints about what is coming.

You do not need to write an introduction in exactly four paragraphs. In your writing, you
might not have limitations (essays about feelings do not normally include limitations but
research reports always include them). There is a certain art to writing and part of being
a good writer is learning what is proper in different situations. If you are unsure, consult
your teacher.

What is the difference between excuses and limitations?

Limitations are those things which limit the quality of your writing which you actively
decided upon. Any time you write, you decide what will be included and what will be
excluded. This is defining the scope of your writing. However, there are other issues
which act as limitations. For example, if you are writing a research report and you sent
surveys to 100 people and only 10 responded then you have a very small sampling size
and that sample has a “self-selecting bias.” These are both limitations which impact the
overall quality of your report, specifically your conclusions.

Excuses are reasons why you failed to do what expected of you. For example, “I did not
have enough time” is a common excuse from students. If you were given one month to
write a 3,000 word report and your research is expected to be done through internet
research then you have plenty of time. In fact, one week should be plenty of time to
complete such a report. However, if you chose to sleep late, spend time socializing, or

Chapter 14: How to write an introduction Page 57

work on other assignments rather than on this assignment, then you should not see time
as a limitation.

If your teacher did not give you all the information you need to complete your
assignment, that is also an excuse. As a student, you are expected to go out and find the
information you need to complete your assignments. Your teacher is there to help you
but it is your responsibility to verify the information the teacher gives you and you are
expected to read about more than just what the teacher explains in class.

If you are asked to write a 3,000 word report, you should not consider word count as a
limitation. 3,000 word reports are common and all university students around the world
are expected to complete them. You are expected to be able to communicate important
information in a few words. You are expected to be able to summarize, edit, and
generally reduce your writing to the essence by reducing the number of words you use
to the minimum. Word count is not normally a limitation.

What should not be included in an introduction?

You should never explain the most important part of your report. If you are producing a
research report, do not give the findings, discussion, or conclusion in your introduction.
The goal here is just to introduce, not to write an entire report in the introduction.

Examples of bad introductions

When students do not know how to write an introduction they tend to write
introductions without meaning. This kind of writing does not benefit the reader and that
means it is bad. Here are some examples of what you should not do.

This report will cover the following learning outcomes:

 compare the effectiveness of different leadership styles in different

organisations
 explain how organisational theory underpins the practice of management
 evaluate the different approaches to management used by different
organisations

These points are from the BTEC module Organisations and Behaviour (OB). If you are
studying OB then anyone reading the report knows what the learning outcomes are. This
introduction does nothing which benefits the reader. It simply takes up space, which is
never the goal of writing.

It is also unacceptable to simply copy-and-paste a section from the assignment brief. The
introduction should be from you, not from someone else.

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When do you write it?
Your introduction is often the last section you write. The reason is you need to
understand what you are introducing. If you write the introduction first, that
introduction will tend to be very weak simply because you do not fully understand what
you are introducing. The only thing you should write later than the introduction is the
abstract or executive summary.

Where does it belong?

The introduction belongs after the table of contents (if you have one) and before the
body of the report. The introduction starts a new page. This means there should be
nothing on the same page as the introduction before the introduction. It is perfectly
acceptable to continue the body on the same page after the introduction but nothing
should be on the same page before the introduction.

Final thoughts
Introductions are like the front door to the house you have built for the reader. By
walking through the introduction, the reader should have a good idea about what they
are getting themselves into and what they can expect for the rest of their stay. As the
host, the author, you should take the time necessary to create an entrance which is
inviting and useful for your guest.

Chapter 14: How to write an introduction Page 59

Chapter 15: How to show understanding
This chapter is about how to create your analysis. This word “analysis” confuses many
students but hopefully after reading this chapter you will be much clearer as to what it
means and how to write good analysis.

Analysis is your thinking. Your job as a student is to learn something and then show your
understanding, hopefully showing some unique understanding that others have not
shown before.

Why do I have to analyze anything?

Your teachers are there to help you to learn. Your assessors are there to see whether or
not you have learned. Your assessor may be your teacher or may be someone else.
Either way, it is necessary that you show that you understand what you are required to
understand before you are allowed to pass the module in question.

If your analysis is very good, then your grade will be very high. If your analysis is very
weak, then your grade will be very low. If your analysis is average, then your grade will
be average.

The 80/20 rule

When writing an academic paper, a good general rule to follow is the 80/20 rule.
According to this rule, 80% of the writing should be yours. That is, it should be thoughts
unique to you, not from someone else. 20% should be from someone else. This is where
referencing comes in (see chapter on How to Reference Properly).

The reason why 80% should come from you is that if most of the writing comes from
someone else then you did not show that you understand – you showed that someone
else understands. You should not have 100% from yourself. You need to make
statements, opinions, and you need to support those opinions with evidence (this is
academic argument). You get this evidence from others. For example, if you write about
leadership, you may make want to use the work of Daniel Goleman to support your own
analysis. This is normal and it is expected. If you do not have any work from others then
it is really just your own opinion without evidence, which means very little. You need
evidence for everything you say, unless it is common knowledge.

A better rule
The 80/20 rule is a good starting rule but it falls short in some important ways. The main
purpose of the rule is to simply make sure inexperienced writers include enough of their
own analysis and also enough supporting evidence without being too heavy on either.
That said, the 80/20 rule is not a rule at all. It is simply a starting point for those without
much academic writing experience.

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Once you have become a more experienced writer, you should be able to consider how
much evidence is proper (by considering the style of the papers you read and regard the
highest). This is going to vary a lot depending on the arguments you use. For example,
you may create a highly complex argument which references work from many other
writers. Because of this, your analysis might only be 20% of your writing. As mentioned
before, proper writing is a skill and the more you do it, the better you will get at making
the decisions such as when to include more evidence and when to include less evidence.

There are plenty of research papers which include close to 80% from others (leaving only
20% for the author). These tend to be survey papers which are focused on reviewing the
existing literature on a topic. Because of the nature of the writing, the author will not
include much own-analysis.

There are also plenty of papers which include 90% from authors (leaving only 10% from
others). These papers tend to explore areas without much research done. For example,
early work in a new field might only have a few papers to cite. Each citation might be
explored much deeper using logic as opposed to providing supporting evidence from
other academics.

Types of analysis
When you are given an assignment brief (also called an assessment), you should read
carefully what kind of analysis you are being asked to produce. If you are unclear, ask
your teacher – that is why your teacher is there. The following are from Bloom’s
taxonomy. Bloom’s taxonomy categorizes the different ways you can show you have
learned something and they start off being quite simple and move up to become
increasingly difficult. While Bloom’s taxonomy covers a wide range of areas, we are only
going to discuss the cognitive (mental) aspects. That is, we will not cover motor skills like
how to show you have learned a new dance.

Remembering
This is the most basic. For example, can you remember the six leadership styles
according to Daniel Goleman? Can you remember key facts, dates, etc.? Can you
remember categories used for some purpose?

Example 1: List Goleman’s styles of leadership.

Example 2: Describe the motivator factors according to Herzberg’s Two-Factor theory.

Generally, questions that test remembering are straightforward and you either know the
answer or you do not. The answer is usually not open to much interpretation.

Key words that tell you the assessor is looking for you to show that you remember:
Name, describe, write, tell, list, relate, state, define.

Chapter 15: How to show understanding Page 61

If you were asked to “Recall the bottommost layer in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,” that
would be remembering. The way you would show your understanding here is usually the
simplest: Either you know the fact or you do not. There is a correct answer.

Example
The lowest layer in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs includes physiological
needs like food, water, and shelter.

This answer is clearly right and could easily be verified by anyone familiar with the
subject.

Understanding
Here, you are being asked to show not just that you can remember something but that
you also understand what that means. You might remember the names of Goleman’s six
leadership styles but that does not mean that you understand them.

Example 1: Compare authoritative to democratic leadership according to Goleman.

Example 2: Discuss the pros and cons of using coercive leadership.

Key words that tell you the assessor is looking for you to show you understand: Explain,
predict, translate, compare, outline, discuss, summarize, restate.

If you were asked to “Summarize what happened when Toyota introduced the Prius in
the US, “ then the teacher is checking to see if you understand what happened.

Good example
Toyota introduced the Prius to the US car market by sending 4,000 of
them to American in the year 2000 (Smith, 2001). However, at the time
there was no clear desire that American consumers were interested in
anything other than traditional gasoline-powered cars. Toyota took a big
chance but they were successful. They actually sold out of the initial
supply of Prius cars quite quickly and the American public started asking
why Toyota did not send a larger initial supply. Toyota responded that
there was no indication that Americans were interested at all in hybrid
cars but they would make more (Jones, 2005).

This is a good example because it shows very clear, very thorough understanding of the
issue. The answer is relevant with plenty of details. It uses citation properly but there is
plenty of analysis which is not from someone else. There would be no doubt in the
teacher’s mind that the student understands the issue being assessed. The student is not
just paraphrasing someone else’s work; the student clearly understands and has
academic support for the statements of fact.

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 Bad example
Toyota introduced the Prius in the US in 2000. US car buyers liked it.
Toyota was successful.

This is a bad example because it is lacking in any meaningful details. The student has a
single fact which is not supported with any evidence (no citation). It is unclear if the
student is simply guessing or copying from someone else without proper citation. The
second and third sentences are the student’s opinion but there is no evidence (support)
for that opinion. The writing has a feeling of being hollow, empty, and simply too little.
The teacher will naturally wonder if the student understands anything other than the
year the Prius was introduced to the US. When the teacher marks this student’s
understanding, they would likely say that the student does not understand, because
there is no clear evidence of understanding.

Applying
Here you want to take a concept that you have learned and apply that idea in a new
situation.

Example 1: Illustrate how you could use affiliative leadership to rebuild trust after the
previous leader destroyed trust within your department?

Example 2: Classify the four managers in the story using Goleman’s six leadership styles.

Key words that tell you the assessor is looking for you to show you can apply: Use,
illustrate, classify, show, complete, solve, examine.

If you were asked to “Show how SuperBank could use the Andre Change Management
Model to implement a new quality management system,” that would require applying
the specific model to this specific company.

Example
“The Andre Change Management Model (2013) supports a company
going through three phases, iteratively, within a larger framework with a
strong focus on empowerment and communication. As a state-owned
enterprise, SuperBank has employees which follow a typical bureaucratic
organizational system. The workers work and the managers decide.

To implement a quality management system (QMS) using the Andre

Change Management Model, first, SuperBank would have to implement
empowerment. This would not be an easy task as there is a culture of
non-empowerment. The nature of the Model is that it could be used to
implement empowerment and then to implement the QMS; however, we
will ignore the implementation of empowerment here and assume the
management can successfully empower their workers.

Chapter 15: How to show understanding Page 63

 The first phase is planning. In the planning phase, SuperBank would need
to carefully plan out the implementation of the QMS. Since implementing
a QMS is a major task, we would break it up into smaller mini-projects.
The first phase might be to implement the QMS only within the consumer
credit department (CCD). For this first “bite” we will have the standard
three phases again. The first phase of this small bite is planning what will
change. Now, according to the model, the workers should be deciding
this as they are in the best position to know what needs to be done and
they know how to make sure they are happy with the results.

The second phase will be to implement the change. During this second
phase for the CCD, we will actually make the changes. The changes will
likely include additional monitoring and more computer systems to
capture more information which can later be analyzed. After all,
statistical process control depends heavily on data and the new QMS will
certainly require more data to support this new process.

The final phase of the CCD step is to stabilize the QMS in the CCD. The
workers need to know that the changes are here to stay and are a new
way of doing business, not just something management wants to do
temporarily. Once stabilized, the model calls for us to repeat.

Repeating means we consider this first step complete and we start the
second step, which might be implementing the QMS in with the bank
tellers. For this second overall step, we would again have the three
phases of plan, do, and stabilize.”

This analysis is good because it clearly apples the model in question to the company in
question. While there is one key element not covered by the student’s analysis
(communicate constantly), that is not a problem because of the six key elements, the
student covered five of them well enough to show understanding. The student also
reduces the repeating phrase “quality management system” with QMS to make it
shorter but clearly defines it on the first use and uses proper citation formatting.

Analyzing
Here you want to look at the pieces of a larger issue. From those pieces, understand
how they relate and connect together. Here you make a difference between what is
known (fact) and what is believed because of other information.

Example 1: Explain what invalid assumptions the manager is making in this case.

Example 2: Study the IT department’s operations and identify the training needed to
improve operations.

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Key words that tell you the assessor is looking for you to show you can analyze:
Compare, contrast, explain, examine, investigate, identify, categorize.

If the teacher instructs you to “Explain the process of handling a customer return” then
the teacher is likely trying to see if you can properly analyze it.

Example: Add theories, even your own

Customers return things for various reasons, including simply not being
satisfied with its fitness for use. When a customer enters a store to return
an item, the first step is to assure the customer that the company
understands the customer is not satisfied with the product. If the
company will give a cash refund or will only give store credit that should
be indicated to the customer straightaway in order to remove any
concerns the customer might have about what is going to happen.

The next step is to find out the underlying reason the customer was
unhappy with the product. This should be done after you have already
confirmed to the customer they would receive a refund or store credit.
The reason for this is that if you ask before, the customer may answer not
based on honesty but rather based on a calculation of what will get them
the refund they desire.

This analysis starts to break down the complex situation of a customer wanting a refund
into smaller components and describes how those components interact, showing clear
understanding.

Evaluating
Here you want to make clear judgments. For this, you must understand what all of the
options are, the impacts of choosing each option, and which impact is most desired.

Example 1: Rate the six leadership styles in their ability to build a cohesive marketing
team.

Example 2: Which kind of leadership would be best when you want your team to respect
you, and why?

When you are asked to evaluate, you must make a clear judgment. Some students
confuse “evaluate” and “report.” To report is to write about what happened, as a
reporter would do, sticking to the facts. To evaluate means to judge. If you are asked to
evaluate and you simply report, then you are not doing what was asked of you.

Key words that tell you the assessor is looking for you to show you can evaluate: Rate,
choose, assess, prioritize, justify, decide, recommend.

Chapter 15: How to show understanding Page 65

If you are asked “Evaluate your team’s performance,” then you should show that you
can evaluate.

Good example
According to Shanahan (2001), the proper judgment of team
performance should consider four elements: Inputs, outputs, process,
and structure. The structure of our team was quite strong. We setup
rules for achieving as well as maintaining membership as well as
accountability standards. All four members of the team contributed to
the design of the structure as well as performing their tasks. Assignments
were not individually determined but rather determined for each
member by the group as a whole. This increased the commitment of the
group as a group to ensure that each member actually performed
adequately. In the end, we found that each member was able to
complete their tasks on time, with one exception. That exception
stemmed from a personal issue for that member and we believe that it
would not be repeated. In short, the team performed quite well.

This answer included not only a basic judgment about the performance of the team but
judged that performance against an academic standard (Shanahan’s model of team
effectiveness). While you might be allowed to make a simpler judgment, one without
reference to any third-party criteria, to do so is not recommended simply because it
shows laziness on the part of the student. Notice also that the criteria used are from an
academic (Shanahan). This answer certainly has some problems. For example, the
student referenced four elements of Shanahan’s model but only included details for
one. This is not a great answer but it is a good answer.

Bad example
For this paper, I interviewed my father who is a manager at a local
manufacturer. He said the most important way to judge a team is simply
to see if everyone is happy. We were all happy at the end; therefore, I
can say that our team’s performance was quite good.

This answer is bad because the standard for judgment of the team’s performance is a
non-academic standard. While it might be reasonable if the person who came up with
the standard was a well know business person, it is always better to focus on academic
standards.

Creating
Here you are expected to actually create something. To create something you must first
understand the important information around the specific area. After you understand
the surrounding information then you need to know what exists already (so you do not
create something that already exists), then you need be able to actually create

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something which will work. If you create something unrealistic then it does nobody any
good.

Example 1: Imagine another style of leadership other than the six proposed by Goleman.

Example 2: Design an organizational structure or culture where nobody would be able to

use coercive leadership.

Key words that tell you the assessor is looking for you to show you can create: Invent,
create, design, plan, imagine, compose, construct.

Your options
You get to choose what you write which means you get to choose how deep your
analysis is. Just because you are asked to apply does not mean that you cannot show
critical thinking or creative analysis. You can always do more than you are asked to do. If
you have read extensively and you understand most of the major motivational theories
and you see that they all failed to consider one important issue, like the issue of cultural
differences, then you certainly can point that out and you can even come up with your
own theories of motivation which do take into account that missing element. Of course,
coming up with your own theories in your undergraduate studies is difficult, but it is not
impossible, if you have read and understand enough. Even a weak theory that shows
deep understanding will help your grade be higher.

Descriptive vs critical analysis

One common problem students often have is when they are asked to apply something
to some situation, they end up describing more than applying. For example, perhaps you
are asked to compare different leadership styles in different situations. In this case, if
you simply describe the possible leadership styles then your analysis is mainly
descriptive and that is not good. You want to show critical analysis every chance you get
(because it will increase your grade). Consider these two answers to the above task
(compare different leadership styles in different situations):

According to Goleman (2000) there are six leadership styles. Coercive

leadership is where the leader demands immediate compliance. This
style has a negative overall impact on the company’s culture. Democratic
leadership is when the leader allows the followers to be involved in
making the decisions.

This analysis is a terrible response. The reason is that the student was asked to compare
different styles in different situations. First, the student did not write about any
situations. Second, there was no comparison. Consider the following improvement:

Of Goleman’s (2000) six leadership styles, coercive is best used during

times of crisis. The leader does not have time to involve everyone in the

Chapter 15: How to show understanding Page 67

 decision making process. When not in a crisis and the leader wants to
build the team members’ skills, the leader can use coaching leadership.
This is where the leader will coach or train the followers which will, in
turn, make those followers into leaders.

That is better because it is talking about situations but it is still not right. The task was to
compare and there is no comparison taking place. The student must compare leadership
styles in different situations. “Styles” means at least two styles per situation. “Different
situations” means at least two situations. There is no other way to interpret that task,
but your teacher may want to add something to it; for example, saying that you must
cover at least three different situations (always ask your teacher to be clear about what
is expected from you). Now, consider the following:

The first situation we will consider is that of a crisis. For example, a

company has been surprised by a competitor the way Nokia was
surprised by the popularity of Apple’s iPhone launch in 2007. In this
situation, timing is of the essence as the company’s stock price will
continue to drop until an acceptable solution is found. Using Goleman’s
(2000) coercive leadership the leader of the company will demand
immediate compliance. The leader will make all the decisions and there
will not be feedback from the followers. The strength of this style is that
the reaction of the company is quick and every moment matters.
However, with only one person making the decisions it is more likely the
optimal solution will not be found, unless it is a uniquely talented leader
who is deciding. Democratic leadership would bring the followers into the
decision-making process. This would slow down the decision making
process but it should improve the quality of the decisions. One drawback
of the democratic style is that, if the team does not all agree on what the
problem is, they may get bogged down arguing and so much time may
pass before an acceptable decision can be found that too much time will
pass and the decision will not matter – it will be too late.

Now, it is true that the above only discusses a single situation but you should see the
critical analysis. The writing above discusses the positive and negative sides of coercive
leadership in this specific situation and it also discusses the positive and negative sides
of democratic leadership in this same situation. If you wanted to add innovative analysis
then you just need to come up with a unique idea and integrate it into your writing.

One more thing you should see is that in order to show proper understanding, it takes a
certain number of words. If your assessment does not have any minimum word count,
do not think you can write very little and still get a high grade. If you want to show deep,
complex understanding then you will simply need to use more words.

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Making recommendations
It is quite common to want to make recommendations in your writing. In some cases it
will be expected of you. Making recommendations is almost impossible unless you have
done a lot of research. If you are lazy and do not want to do the research, it will be very
clear to your assessor.

There is a reason your teacher always says “read more.” It is through reading that you
learn and to research usually means you will read a lot. You either do the work or you do
not. Just understand that if you make a recommendation without doing the research, it
will be obvious to the assessor that you have not done the research. Remember, your
assessor has read thousands of papers. It is common that an assessor reads more than
1,000 papers each semester. They know when you have read a lot and when you have
not.

Whenever you make a recommendation you should first make sure that it is
appropriate. For example, if you recommend that Toyota force their dealers to sell cars
at the same price, this is illegal. It is illegal (in the US and UK) under price-fixing
(collusion) laws. The dealership is owned by someone other than Toyota and, therefore,
the dealership gets to determine at what price they sell the inventory they own.

Another issue might be that the company already does what you are recommending. For
example, if you recommend that Toyota implement a quality management system, this
shows that you have not done much reading because Toyota is quite famous for their
quality management system (the Toyota Production System). Therefore, this
recommendation would not be appropriate.

What is “academic argument?”

Academic argument is very important because it is the foundation of good academic
writing. It consists of two parts: Your opinion and the evidence that supports your
opinion. Consider the following example:

Steve Jobs was a coercive leader.

This is our opinion. This is a good start but it has no evidence to support the opinion.
Unsupported opinion means nothing to an assessor so we need to add some evidence.

Steve Jobs was a coercive leader. He was the CEO of Apple and well
known throughout the world.

This is bad. We start with our clear opinion but the evidence actually has nothing to do
with our opinion. The fact that Jobs was the CEO does not mean he was coercive
because some CEOs are coercive and some are not. Now we revise it to the following.

Steve Jobs was a coercive leader. He was the CEO of the world’s largest
company which was famous for building great products. Great products

Chapter 15: How to show understanding Page 69

 come from paying attention to details so Jobs was always making all the
decisions.

Now our evidence starts to support our opinion but our evidence is quite poor. The
reason is that just because some companies make great products by paying attention to
all the details does not mean that Jobs himself paid such attention to details. Perhaps it
was someone else in the company or perhaps there is another reason for the success of
Apple’s products. We revise it again.

Steve Jobs was a coercive leader. He always made every decision about
every little detail in every process.

Now we have opinion and some evidence that supports our opinion. We are doing
better but there is still a problem. The facts that support our opinion are an issue. How
do we know these facts? Did we just guess them? This is not common knowledge so we
need to cite the source of the information.

Steve Jobs was a coercive leader. He always made every decision about
every little detail in every process and would often scream and anyone
who would fail to do what he ordered (Isaacson, 2011).

Finally, we have an academic argument. We have our opinion that Jobs was a coercive
leader and that opinion is supported by logical evidence from a trusted source (the
authorized biography of Steve Jobs). Always make sure your evidence is good evidence
(see Chapter 17: How to give good evidence).

In short, to use academic argument you must do two things:

1. You must come up with your opinion (you get this from reading a lot)
2. You must support that opinion with good quality evidence (which you get from
reading a lot)

Applying theories
University studying is about learning theories and learning how to apply those theories.
If you are writing about leadership, then you need to show that you understand
leadership theories. One example of leadership theory is Goleman’s work. Do you
understand his theories? If so, write about them and then apply them. If you truly
understand something you should be able to explain it in a few words. You can also
apply it to a company. For example, you can apply Goleman’s theory of coercive
leadership to Apple by showing the evidence that Jobs was a coercive leader.

How much should I write?

When you are trying to show you understand a topic, you want to make sure it is clear to
the person marking your assignment that you do, indeed, understand clearly. If you are
studying a topic like corporate culture, there are going to be 50 different sub-topics you

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could write about to show your understanding. Of course, if you have a word count limit,
you will not be able to write about 50 different sub-topics. You might have only learned
five in class and were expected to learn about another five on your own. A very serious
student might have done extra reading to learn about 10 or 15 additional sub-topics.
However, if you did the minimum amount of work (reading) you might only understand
five sub-topics. So, how many points will you make in your writing?

If you think you understand five, you might misunderstand two and correctly understand
three. If you write about two of the five you might include one you do understand and
one you think you understand but do not. When the teacher reads this, they will see
that of the things you wrote, you misunderstand 50% (one of the two). This might be
enough for the teacher to fail you. Now, if you write about five and you really
understand four the teacher will see that you understand 80%. It is still bad (you should
not misunderstand at all) but perhaps the teacher will consider it enough that you
should pass. The best is to write about as many points as you can, making sure you
understand them all clearly enough that if you get one or two wrong, there are so many
other points that you do clearly understand that the teacher will not question it and will
not only pass you but give you a good grade as well.

Be careful not to write about unrelated ideas. Your teacher is looking to see if you
understand part of that includes you understand what is not relevant to the task.

What if I do not know if my answer is correct?

If you are studying business, usually there will not be one right answer. The best answer
you can give in your writing is one that shows deep, complex understanding with clear
analysis. What this means is that if you have to answer a question such as “Which style is
most appropriate in the following scenario?” There may not be one right answer. In fact,
there usually will not be one right answer. What your assessor wants to see is how
deeply you understand. The deeper you understand, the higher your grade will be.

Final thoughts
If you want to receive good grades on your assignments, you need to make sure you
know how to show that you understand deeply. It is important to use academic
argument and good quality evidence. Make sure you write enough. It takes a certain
number of words to show understanding. If you write too little then your grade will be
lower simply because it is unclear how much you really understand. Write enough.

Chapter 15: How to show understanding Page 71

Chapter 16: How to write a paragraph
If your writing is a house, then paragraphs are the bricks you use to build it. They
provide the structure and if there are problems with the paragraphs then the entire
piece of writing will appear weak. In order to help your writing receive the highest
possible grade, you want to make sure that this basic building block, the paragraph, is
structured properly.

Some students do not understand how to write a paragraph and they end up creating
one paragraph that continues for many pages. This is very hard to read, makes your
writing less beautiful, and simply shows a lack of understanding of how to write
properly. This chapter will help you to make sure your writing has the proper structure
by creating proper paragraphs.

Are paragraphing rules universal?

No. There are different kinds of paragraphs and each type has a different purpose. Even
within a single type, there are many different styles of writing. There are no universal
rules for paragraphing or writing in general. We will cover general guidelines which will
help a beginning writer. When you feel you are a more advanced writer, you should
consult other texts and different ways to build a paragraph. There are many options.

How long should a paragraph be?

A paragraph should generally be between 30% and 50% of page. If your paragraph goes
much longer than this, you want to look at it again and see if you are violating some of
the rules listed here.

What should be in a single paragraph?

A single paragraph should have a single topic or idea. You should not be addressing
multiple ideas in a single paragraph unless you are combining topics you discussed
earlier in the same piece of writing. Keep your paragraph focused and powerful.

How should a paragraph be structured?

A paragraph can start with an introduction sentence. Just like everything you write
deserves an introduction, so does each paragraph. However, with a paragraph, the
introduction is just one sentence long, not longer.

After the introduction sentence, you should write your topic sentence. This is the
sentence which the paragraph is all about. If you want to say that democratic leadership
is a good all-around leadership style, then say that in one sentence here.

After your topic sentence, you want to include some support sentences. After each
support sentence, you want to include evidence for the support sentences.

You should finish your paragraph with a conclusion or a transition to the next paragraph.

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What makes a good topic sentence for a paragraph?
A good topic sentence will simply be a clear statement of what you are trying to say. If
your paragraph is to explain that democratic leadership is a good all-around leadership
style, you would say something like this:

If a CEO were forced to choose only three of Goleman’s leadership styles,

one of them should be democratic leadership.

It does not need to be more than that. Of course, you can experiment with stronger
topic sentences. Writing is an art and you should experiment to see what you like best.

What makes a good support sentence?

Support sentences should support the topic sentence. If you want to say that democratic
leadership is a good all-around leadership style, then a good support sentence might be:

Democratic leadership can help to engage others in the organization.

This sentence is direct and clearly supports the main idea of this paragraph. Of course,
here we are assuming that engaging our workers is good and something we want to do. I
believe almost every executive would agree with that.

What makes a good evidence sentence?

Evidence is what makes our support sentences believable. Here is a statement of
evidence for the support sentence above.

Research by Jones (2009) indicated that workers under democratic

leaders contributed 300% the number of improvement suggestions as
workers under non-democratic leaders.

You can see that our statement that democratic leadership increases employee
engagement is clearly supported by actual research (by Jones in 2009). We have
properly cited that research.

How many support and evidence sentences should I have?

In general, a paragraph should have three support sentences per paragraph and each
support sentence should have one or two statements of evidence.

How do I connect one paragraph to another?

The final sentence in a paragraph, or perhaps the first sentence of the next, will be used
to transition from one idea to the next. This transition allows the reader to have an
easier time with their mind adjusting from one idea to the next idea. It is through the
transitions and paragraph ordering that you your writing flows easily for the reader.

Chapter 16: How to write a paragraph Page 73

Example paragraph
If a CEO is forced to choose only three of Goleman’s leadership styles,
one of them should be democratic leadership. Democratic leadership can
help to engage others in the organization. Research by Jones (2009)
indicated that workers under democratic leaders contributed 300% the
number of improvement suggestions as workers under non-democratic
leaders. Democratic leadership can also help reduce turnover. Smith
(2014) discovered that companies with democratic leadership at the top
had 75% lower staff turnover rates. Democratic leadership also works
well with affiliative leadership. Paulson (2013) reported that of all the
leadership style combinations, affiliative and democratic worked better
together than any other combination. Since democratic and affiliative
leadership work so well together, next we will consider affiliative as the
second choice.

You can see the first sentence introduces the topic. The central idea of this paragraph is
that democratic leadership is one of the best from which to choose.

There are three sentences which support this main idea. The supporting points are:

1. It helps to engage workers

2. It reduces turnover
3. It works well with another leadership style

Each of these support points is followed by clear, academic evidence, cited properly.

The final sentence transitions to the next paragraph which will be about affiliative
leadership.

Notice also that the paragraph is not too short and it is not too long. It is 122 words long
and if the average page contains 350 words, then this paragraph is about 35% of the
length of the page.

Final thoughts
Paragraphing is extremely important but it is also something that is easy to get wrong.
Students often include too much or too little in each paragraph. However, you should
always remember that each paragraph has one main point, supporting points, and
evidence for each supporting point.

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Chapter 17: How to give good evidence
This chapter is about evidence. Specifically, it is about how to include good evidence in
your writing. Academic argument (see Chapter 15: How to Show Understanding) is the
foundation of academic writing and evidence is the foundation of academic argument.
Without good evidence, your writing will be seen as weak and lacking understanding. By
understanding how to give good evidence you will see your grades improve in all of the
subjects you study.

What is evidence?
Quite simply, evidence answers the question “Why should I believe you?” Think of a
judge with two people in court. Person A claims Person B stole a watch. Person B says
that is untrue. What will the judge do? Of course, the judge needs evidence. How does
Person A know that the statement is true? If Person A can only say “Well, because I think
so,” the judge will completely ignore Person A and Person A will not get the desired
outcome.

It is the same with writing. The reader is our judge. They will naturally be questioning
everything we claim to be true so it is our duty to provide evidence that will convince
the reader that our opinions are the right opinions.

What is an example of academic argument?

For a more complete example of academic argument, see Chapter 15 (How to Show
Understanding). However, here is a short reminder. Consider the following:

Steve Jobs was a coercive leader. He always made every decision about
every little detail in every process and would often scream and anyone
who would fail to do what he ordered (Isaacson, 2011).

Academic argument is our opinion followed by some evidence that supports our
opinion. The evidence that we use to support our opinion needs to be reasonable,
relevant, reliable, and recent.

How do I know if evidence is reasonable?

Evidence is reasonable if the reader can see the reason (logic) which gets from the
evidence to your opinion. Consider the following opinion:

Steve Jobs was a coercive leader.

If the evidence was that Jobs was hated by many people, is that reasonable?

Steve Jobs was a coercive leader. Many people hated him (Isaacson,
2011).

Chapter 17: How to give good evidence Page 75

Can you see the clear logic which goes from being hated to being coercive? It does seem
true that people who are coercive are often hated because people do not like being
coerced. However, the logic goes the other way. If we accepted the above sentence it
would be like the old example of bad logic, “All cats have four legs. My dog has four legs.
Therefore, my dog is a cat.” The logic is wrong because not all animals with four legs are
cats. When someone is coercive, that leads others to hate them. However, there are
many reasons why people hate someone and coercive behavior is just one of those
reasons. So, actually, the evidence is not good. We may know that many people hated
him but that does not mean Jobs was coercive. Perhaps Jobs always said something
which bothered people and that is why they hate him.

We must find better evidence. Good evidence would be something which relates back to
an accepted definition of coercive leadership.

Steve Jobs was a coercive leader. He always made every decision about
every little detail in every process and would often scream and anyone
who would fail to do what he ordered (Isaacson, 2011).

Here, the evidence is close enough to one of the generally accepted definitions of
coercive leadership. We can see that anyone who behaves this way will be considered
coercive. Jobs did behave this way, and we know that because Isaacson said so in his
biography of Jobs in 2011.

How do I know if evidence is relevant?

Being relevant is closely connected to being reasonable. We want to ignore anything,
even if it is true, that does not relate directly to the opinion we are making. For example,
consider the following:

Steve Jobs was a coercive leader. He was adopted and felt like he was not
accepted by his parents. Therefore, he demanded that he be accepted by
his subordinates. This was a form of compensation.

Is this reasonable? It does seem to be. We can see the logical connection between the
psychological impact of being adopted and how that might cause someone to behave
later in life. However, it is unclear why this is relevant. It might be relevant if you are
writing a biography of him but if you are writing about leadership styles then being
adopted as a child does not seem very relevant. Normally, people do not choose to be
adopted and we are writing to help people better understand what they can do to be
better. This does not mean we cannot include information of a highly personal nature
about a famous leader, if we know it to be true, but it does mean we must make sure it
relates closely to our opinion.

This evidence would be more relevant if our opinion was that great leaders often have
significant challenges as children and we include the information about Job’s adoption

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and continued to give additional evidence of the childhood challenges of other well-
known leaders (for example, Richard Branson having dyslexia).

How do I know if evidence is reliable?

Being reliable means you can depend on it. Consider how reliable these different
sources of information are.

Credible people
Walter Isaacson is a very well respected writer. He has written several well received
biographies of historical figures. His biography of Jobs, published in 2011, was
authorized by Jobs and he interviewed Jobs many times. Isaacson also interviewed
everyone else connected to Jobs including Bill Gates, Al Gore, and many others. He had
access to the information and he has a reputation for telling the truth. Combining these
facts together, we can feel confident that if Isaacson wrote something about Jobs, it is
true.

Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a great source of information but it is not reliable for academic writing. The
reason it is not reliable is that anyone can change it at any time. If you check the
population of Vietnam, it might say 90 million. You can then log in and change that
number to 20 million. Someone else might log in and change the number to be 20
billion. Because of this, we should use Wikipedia to get ideas but we should never use
Wikipedia as our evidence because it is not reliable – we do not know that it is true at
the time we read it. However, at the bottom of each page on Wikipedia there are usually
links to source data. If you go to these links you might find a reliable source which you
can use as evidence.

Blogs
What you read on a blog might be true or might be untrue. You should judge a blog both
by how it is written (does it seem reasonable to rely on it) and by the reputation of the
author. This is why it is important to read widely – read many different authors to get
both sides of the story. If you have read other writing by that author and the author
seems to be a credible source, then it would be acceptable to use as evidence. If it is just
a random blog and we know nothing about the author or we see the other writing of
that author is unreasonable (the sky is red, birds do not fly but rather they are carried by
invisible dinosaurs, etc.) then we should not include that blog as evidence, even if it
supports our argument.

Peer-reviewed journals
Some publishers are reliable and some are not. If you read something from Academy of
Management, you can generally trust it. The reason you can trust it is that this journal,
before it publishes anything, sends articles through a peer-review process. That means if
you write something to be published there, they will take your paper and submit it to

Chapter 17: How to give good evidence Page 77

several of your peers (others who are experts in your field). Based on the feedback from
those reviewers, the journal will either publish your work or they will not. If they do
publish it, others can trust that experts in the field have agreed that what you said is
reliable information.

News organizations
Big news organizations like CNN, BBC, Financial Times, Bloomberg, etc. usually have “fact
checkers” who have the job to make sure that the facts that they include in their reports
are true. For this reason, you can usually trust reporting from these sources.

Some of these sources (for example, Fox News) also include non-reporting (opinion)
information. The non-reporting should not be used as evidence. It can be difficult to tell
the difference between reporting and non-reporting but you must learn to evaluate
based on what they claim. This takes time and energy on the part of the student but it is
a necessary part of academic writing. Like most things, the more you read, the easier it
gets.

Company websites
It is common for students to get information about a company from that company’s
website. Is this an acceptable source? Well, it depends.

There are some pieces of information which are closer to hard facts. Information like:

 The number of employees a company has

 The number of products the company distributes
 The formal structure of a company (tall/flat/matrix)

Information like this is generally acceptable to get from a company’s website because
the company usually has no motivation to give out untrue information about these
items. If a company has 50,000 employees, why would they say they have 100,000
employees? While it could happen, it is unlikely and it is quite easy to verify so the
chance of the company being caught in a public lie is too high for them to take the risk.

Other information is less objectively verifiable, for example:

 Company culture
 Company values

It is quite common for companies to write on their website “Our people are our most
important assets.” However, some of those companies will immediately lay off workers
when the calculations show that the company will make more money with fewer
workers. Even if a company feels that employees are “easily replaceable pieces in a
machine” they will not write this on their website because it will cause them problems
when they are trying to hire workers.

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For this reason, students should not look to a company’s website to find out about
culture, values, or anything which the company has motivation to distort or anything
which is difficult to objectively verify.

Essay websites
Many students look to websites which contain essays written by other students. This can
be OK but you must consider the source. The website does not write the content; they
depend on others to post their own content. You cannot judge the content by the
website because they are not the author and they do not do any checking of the writing.
You must look to see who the actual author is and judge if that author is a reliable
source or not. In the end, this usually takes much more effort than simply doing your
own research.

Books
It would be great if all books were reliable but they are not. There are reliable books and
unreliable books. The reason why you should read a lot is that by reading more you can
better judge what is reliable and what is not. If a text is assigned by your teacher, then it
is more likely that this text is reliable but there are university texts which inaccurately
summarize famous pieces of writing.

Reading original sources

Many students will read about something in their course textbook, for example, Porter’s
Five Forces model of industry profitability, and base their understand on that summary.
You should always read the original writing, if you have access to it. If you do not have
access to it, ask your librarian or your teacher to help you find the original writing. If you
read someone else’s summary then someone else is reading the original work, then they
change it, and write it for you to understand. It is much more reliable simply to read the
original work.

How do I know if evidence is recent enough?

We, as a society, continue to learn as time passes. We understand much more on a
theoretical level about leadership today than we did 50 years ago. 50 years ago, and
even 3,000 years ago, there were many impressive leaders. However, the academic
study of leadership deepens our understanding. If we read something from 2014 it
should include more recent developments in leadership theory than if we read
something from 1967. Evidence should be recent but what is recent depends on many
things. The guideline is: More recent evidence is better than less recent. Of course, the
evidence must meet all the criteria, not just being recent. Evidence which is recent but
unreliable is not good evidence.

What else should I consider about evidence?

You should consider what information you have access to. For example, if you have no
library, no e-library, and can only depend on what is publically available on the internet,

Chapter 17: How to give good evidence Page 79

then you should choose the best available evidence you can find. However, if your
school provides you with a well-stocked library and a rich e-library including access to
textbooks and academic journals, then you should be using better quality evidence. You
should be using the best quality evidence you can find and academic, peer-reviewed
journals are generally the most reliable sources.

Final thoughts
When we use evidence that is unreasonable, irrelevant, unreliable, or outdated it makes
us, as the author of the opinion, appear to be unreasonable and people will stop reading
what we write. They will simply give us a low grade and move on. Moreover, if our
readers see that we often use poor evidence, that can impact our future by limiting the
quality of recommendation letters (see Chapter 27: Letters of Recommendation)
teachers will write for us.

Make sure your evidence is good evidence and you will see your grades improve.

Page 80 Chapter 17: How to give good evidence

Chapter 18: How to reference properly
This chapter is about referencing (specifically Harvard referencing – a very common way
to reference the work of others, especially for business students). Understanding
referencing is critical to avoid failing (or worse) for plagiarism. Plagiarism is failing to give
proper credit to the true author of an idea, image, etc. and referencing is about how to
properly give credit where credit is due.

Why do we reference at all?

Whatever we write, people are going to assume it is from us. After all, we are the writer,
the author. However, it is common that we use the work of others. This is quite normal
in academic writing. In fact, it is an important part of academic argument (see the
Chapter 15: How to Show Understanding). When we use someone else’s words, ideas,
image, or other intellectual creation, it is our responsibility to give them credit for their
work. We do this, by referencing (also called citing) their work.

Example: No referencing at all

When leading people, one of the most effective ways is through
authoritative leadership. With this style, the leader will create a vision of
where the group should be in the future and leave it up to the followers
to decide how best to fulfill that vision.

That looks fine. What’s wrong with it?

It is wrong because it is plagiarism and will cause a student to fail and perhaps even be
removed from the school. The idea of authoritative leadership was address by Daniel
Goleman in 2000 in his article in Harvard Business Review. When we do not cite
Goleman’s work, we are actually claiming that it is our work. This is dishonest because it
is theft – we are stealing his idea and making others think that it is our idea. This makes
us look smarter than we are and it stops Goleman from looking as smart as he really is.
Even if we do it on accident, it is still plagiarism and the penalty is the same. Ignorance is
no excuse for not citing properly.

Example: Properly cited

When leading people, one of the most effective ways is through
authoritative leadership. With this style, the leader will create a vision of
where the group should be in the future and leave it up to the followers
to decide how best to fulfill that vision (Goleman, 2000).

Detailed examples
The following will show you how to reference properly in different situations.

Journal article
Author: John Smith; Publisher: Journal of Management; Title: How we learn; Date: 15
Jan 2001

Chapter 18: How to reference properly Page 81

 Research shows that despite claims that different people have different
preferred learning styles (reading vs. listening) everyone learns best
visually (Smith, 2001).

Book, one author

Author: John Smith; Publisher: Wiley and Sons; Title: How we learn; Date: 15 Jan 2001;
Page 215

Research shows that despite claims that different people have different
preferred learning styles (reading vs. listening) everyone learns best
visually (Smith, 2001, p. 215).

Note: If we know the page number (we normally know the page number for a book), we
should include it.

Book, two authors

Author: John Smith and Sam Jones; Publisher: Wiley and Sons; Title: How we learn; Date:
15 Jan 2001; Page 215

Research shows that despite claims that different people have different
preferred learning styles (reading vs. listening) everyone learns best
visually (Smith and Jones, 2001, p. 215).

Book, three authors

Author: John Smith, Sam Jones, and Charley Thompson; Publisher: Wiley and Sons; Title:
How we learn; Date: 15 Jan 2001; Page 215

Research shows that despite claims that different people have different
preferred learning styles (reading vs. listening) everyone learns best
visually (Smith, Jones, and Thompson, 2001, p. 215).

Book, one author (alternate style)

Author: John Smith; Publisher: Wiley and Sons; Title: How we learn; Date: 15 Jan 2001;
Page 215

In his research, Smith shows that despite claims that different people
have different preferred learning styles (reading vs. listening) everyone
learns best visually (2001, p. 215).

Note: Since we wrote Smith’s name in the text, we do not need to add it in the
parentheses with the date.

Web page 1
Author: Unknown; Publisher: Business Times of the Pacific; Title: How we learn; Date:
Unknown

Page 82 Chapter 18: How to reference properly

 Research shows that despite claims that different people have different
preferred learning styles (reading vs. listening) everyone learns best
visually (Business Times of the Pacific, n.d.).

Notice that if the human author is unknown, we consider the publisher to be the author.
This is often called a “corporate author” and we use the full name, because there is no
family name for a company. Also, notice that we never put a web address (URL) or even
the domain name in the in-text citation. The full address belongs on the Works Cited
page (see below).

Also notice that if there is no known date of publication, we use the abbreviation n.d. to
indicate “no date.”

Web page 2
Author: Unknown; Publisher: Unknown; Title: How we learn; Date: Unknown

Research shows that despite claims that different people have different
preferred learning styles (reading vs. listening) everyone learns best
visually (How we learn, n.d.).

Notice that if the web page is clearly not authored by the website (so the website is not
the author), and we do not know who the human author is, then we use the title of the
article or the title of the web page.

However, in this case, we do not know the author which means we have no reason to
believe that we can trust this author. This is not good academic evidence and we should
not cite it.

How do I cite something that is common knowledge?

If something is common knowledge it does not require citation. For example, you do not
need to cite the fact that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. However, you
should be very sure that information is actually common knowledge.

How do I cite something if I did not read the original work?

This is quite common for students. You read something like Goleman’s leadership styles
in your text book. You want to cite Goleman (the original author of the idea). What do
you do? You have two choices:

1) Find the original work (Goleman’s work was in Harvard Business Review in 2000).
Once you have that article, you read it (to make sure your book is correct about
how they describe it) and then you cite the original article.
2) You use the following format: ...coercive leadership involves the leader
demanding immediate compliance (Goleman, 2000 quoted in Smith, 2008). When
you use this format it is clear than you are giving credit to the original author

Chapter 18: How to reference properly Page 83

 (Goleman) but you did not read that author’s (Goleman’s) work directly. Rather
you read the writing of someone else (Smith) who wrote about it.
a. Alternate style: Goleman wrote that coercive leadership involves the
leader demanding immediate compliance (2000 quoted in Smith, 2008).
Notice here that we did not include the original author’s name within the
parentheses because we included it in the text.

In all of these examples, you may notice we do not use first (given) names. For an author
of John Smith, we do not include “John” in the citation, we simply refer to the author by
the family name of “Smith.” We also do not include titles. We do not say “Mr. Smith” or
“Dr. Smith” we only call him “Smith.”

You may also notice that the parentheses for the citation normally come at the end of
the sentence. They actually belong inside the sentence so you should place the period
(dot) after the parentheses.

Correct: According to Goleman, coercive leadership involves the leader

demanding immediate compliance (2000 quoted in Smith, 2008).

Incorrect: According to Goleman, coercive leadership involves the leader

demanding immediate compliance. (2000 quoted in Smith, 2008)

Is it OK to cite what my teacher said in class?

If your teacher has referenced some research, you should not take the lazy way out and
simply cite your teacher. Just like any time you learn about something from a third-
party, you should look up the original piece, read it, and cite the original piece. For
example, if your teacher explains Goleman’s leadership styles, read Goleman’s work, do
not use your teacher’s definition of Goleman’s work.

If your teacher is not referencing anyone else’s work and is simply speaking from
personal experience, you can cite the teacher’s personal experience but this is generally
considered an anecdote (a short story to illustrate a point) and not considered valid data
for academic purposes. If your teacher is referencing their own research, read that
research and cite what you read. If your teacher is citing their own research and has not
published it, then you can cite what your teacher said during class.

If you are unclear whether your teacher is referencing the work of someone else, you
should ask so that you are clear. If you do not have access to the original work, ask your
teacher for help.

Do I need to cite definitions?

Yes. In fact, citations for definitions are extremely important. Take the issue of teams.
There are many different definitions and the definition you use makes a significant
difference. For example, Merriam-Webster, the famous dictionary, defines team as “a

Page 84 Chapter 18: How to reference properly

group of people who work together.” However, Katzenback and Smith have a very
different definition of “a small number of people with complementary skills, who are
committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which
they hold themselves mutually accountable.” These two definitions are extremely
different. If you are using the definition from Katzenback and Smith, you must credit
them for their intellectual creation.

You should always properly cite those whose definitions you use, even a dictionary.
However, when you have a choice, it is always better to use an industry-specific
definition. Legal subjects have very different definitions than common usage for many
words like consideration. So, use the subject-specific definition whenever possible.

Do I need to cite something that I wrote before?

Yes. If you wrote something previously, then you must cite it as you would cite the work
of anyone else. If you fail to cite it then you are guilty of self-plagiarism which you
should always avoid. It may seem strange because you cannot steal from yourself.
However, it is proper behavior to cite all previous work, including your own. Many
assignments have a requirement of being original work so treat your previous work just
like the previous work of anyone else.

When do I use quotes?

Use “quotes” any time you are using someone else’s exact words. If you are
paraphrasing, then do not use quotes.

One warning sign is if you have quotes around a sentence and you have no citation with
it. This normally means you know you are using someone else’s words but you have not
cited properly. Avoid this mistake because it is plagiarism.

Must I use a Works Cited page at the end or can I use footnotes?
In Harvard referencing, it is allowed to use footnotes but not to identify the work you
have cited. The full reference should always be on a page at the end of your writing.
Footnotes1 can be used for additional information. For example, if you believe that most
readers will already be familiar with an idea, you might not want to explain the idea in
detail in your text. However, for those few readers who might be unfamiliar with the
concept in question, you might add a footnote for them to better understand your
writing. The footnote is just for additional information. It is not for identifying the work
that you have referenced.

Is it OK to reference Wikipedia?
No. While Wikipedia is a great source of information, we cannot rely on the accuracy of
that information for one main reason: Anyone can update it at any time. Another reason

1
Footnotes are like this – little notes at the bottom of the page with additional information to help a
reader more fully understand, without forcing the reader to search an external source.

Chapter 18: How to reference properly Page 85

not to cite Wikipedia is that they are not a primary source of information. Information
gets published somewhere and then someone uses that publication to update
Wikipedia. You should always find the original source of the information. If you are going
to cite Daniel Goleman’s work, then read and reference the original article he wrote. Do
not depend on another text or another article that references his work.

On Wikipedia pages, there are supposed to be references (proper citations). These are
normally at the bottom of the page. If you see some useful information on that site,
then go to the referenced source and confirm the information, then cite the referenced
source.

What does the in-text reference cover?

Ask yourself, if this text is in your assignment, is it acceptable?

Coaching leadership involves the leader acting as a coach or guide

towards the followers. Affiliative leadership involves the leader setting
the vision and letting the followers decide the best path to achieve the
vision. Coercive leadership is about the leader making the decisions and
demanding immediate compliance on the part of the followers (Goleman,
2000).

This would actually fail for plagiarism. The reference at the end only covers the one
sentence immediate before the reference. That is, the section in red below is plagiarized
and the green section is properly referenced.

Coaching leadership involves the leader acting as a coach or guide

towards the followers. Affiliative leadership involves the leader setting
the vision and letting the followers decide the best path to achieve the
vision. Coercive leadership is about the leader making the decisions and
demanding immediate compliance on the part of the followers (Goleman,
2000).

Students often think that one reference can cover the whole paragraph or, indeed, the
whole page. These students are often surprised when they fail for plagiarism.

How can I properly reference several sentences like the above?

There are three basic options to properly reference that text. They are:

1) Add a reference after each sentence. This is not so beautiful but it satisfies the
requirements.

Coaching leadership involves the leader acting as a coach or guide

towards the followers (Goleman, 2000). Affiliative leadership involves the
leader setting the vision and letting the followers decide the best path to
achieve the vision (Goleman, 2000). Coercive leadership is about the

Page 86 Chapter 18: How to reference properly

 leader making the decisions and demanding immediate compliance on
the part of the followers (Goleman, 2000).

2) Indent the entire block and cite the block. This is more readable but it implies
that this is actually one quote and not a paraphrase. This looks better but is
technically less accurate (but the student is unlikely to fail for plagiarism using
this approach).

Coaching leadership involves the leader acting as a coach or

educator towards the followers. Affiliative leadership involves
the leader setting the vision and letting the followers decide
the best path to achieve the vision. Coercive leadership is
about the leader making the decisions and demanding
immediate compliance on the part of the followers.

(Goleman, 2000)

3) The best way is to re-write it so you do not need to have a citation after every
sentence. Just describing leadership styles without saying anything meaningful
about them or without analyzing them or applying them in any way is a bit boring
(boring leads to a very low grade). Better to write something insightful about
each one. This will have the benefits of showing greater understanding as well as
making it more readable.

What else should I know about Harvard referencing?

Many students think Harvard referencing is complicated but it is simple. There are two
parts:

1. In-text citation – Here you add some reference to the text you are writing (see
above) to show the reader that this work belongs to someone else. Basically, the
format is (family name, date). If you know the page number (for example if it was
from a book) then you should include that as well (Smith, 2001, p. 23).
2. References page – At the end of your paper you add a page where you include
detailed references to all of the works you cited. You only include references on
this page if you have matching in-text citations for them. Normally you will not
include everything you read, just what you have cited.

What should the References page look like?

See the following Works Cited.

Works Cited
Decarie, C., 2010. Facebook: Challenges and Opportunities for Business
Communication Students. Business Communication Quarterly, 73(4), pp. 449-
452.

Chapter 18: How to reference properly Page 87

 Goleman, D., 2000. Leadership That Gets Results. Harvard Business Review,
2000(March-April).

Lamont, T., 2010. John Maeda: Innovation is born when art meets science.
[Online]
Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/nov/14/my-bright-
idea-john-maeda
[Accessed 9 October 2012].

The Nielsen Company, 2008. HCMC v Hanoi: Regional Consumer Differences

Study. [Online]
Available at: http://vn.nielsen.com/news/HCMCvHanoiPressrelease.shtml
[Accessed 1 October 2013].

Xu, Y., Kim, H.-W. & Kankanhalli, A., 2010. Task and Social Information Seeking:
Whom Do We Prefer and Whom Do We Approach?. Journal of Management
Information Systems, 27(3), pp. 211-240.

What is the easiest way to use Harvard referencing?

If you use Word to write, the easiest way is to let Word manage your references for you.
It can handle both the in-text citation as well as the Works Cited page. There are plenty
of references on how to do this, including what is written here. If you are unable to
research this information on your own, ask your teacher or other students for help. The
following images are from Word 2010. In different versions of Word, you might see
things differently.

First, go to the References tab, set the style to Harvard, and then click on Insert Citation
and Add New Source. If you do not see the style Harvard, then ask your teacher for help.
It is possible to add styles to Word. You can also search for this information online.

Figure 2 Word toolbar

Next, complete the information as appropriate.

Page 88 Chapter 18: How to reference properly

Figure 3 Reference source dialog

To be sure that you have entered the author’s name in the correct format, click the Edit
button and enter the author’s last name and first name. You can add multiple authors
here and Word will format them properly for you.

Figure 4 Edit Name Window

When you want your Works Cites page produced, click on Bibliography.

Chapter 18: How to reference properly Page 89

Figure 5 Works cited

Using Word’s ability to manage your references is extremely helpful when you need to
change some detail (say publication date) and you have many citations to the same
piece of writing. Change it in one place and Word will update all of the in-text citations
as well as the Works Cited list.

Where can I find more information about Harvard referencing?

Search online for “Quote Unquote Leeds Metropolitan” and you can download an 88-
page reference document that contains all of the information in extreme detail.

Final thoughts
Proper referencing is important. We should do it both because it is right to give credit to
others for the work they have done and because we may fail for plagiarism if we do not.
Harvard referencing is actually quite simple. There are usually three common sources
you will cite: Web pages, journal articles, and books. With just three options, there is not
much to remember. Better than remembering is to let Word do the work for you.

Page 90 Chapter 18: How to reference properly

Chapter 19: How to write a conclusion
Just like every piece of writing should start with an introduction, so it should end with a
conclusion. The conclusion reminds the reader what has been read and why it is
important. The conclusion does not need to be long but it does need to be there.
Writing a report and not including a conclusion is like driving someone home and then
pushing them out of a moving car. You need to take the time to slow down, come to a
complete stop, and let the reader’s mind adjust.

What should a conclusion include?

Conclusions should do three things:

 Summarize the main points you made

 Make recommendations (if appropriate in your writing)
 Make final comments on the implications of the points you have made

Summarizing the main points

In your writing, you should have had a few main points. The number of points you make
will depend on the length of your writing as well as how the teacher has structured the
assignment. However, you should take all of the main points you discussed and
summarize them in the conclusion. Do not simply re-state what you have already said.
You want to take this opportunity to bring everything together into one neat package.

Making recommendations
In research reports, it is often expected that you will make recommendations. It is
common for research reports to include a “Conclusions and Recommendations” section.
That section may, or may not, be followed by a separate conclusion section. This can be
confusing but Conclusions and Recommendations is about what you conclude
(determine to be true) from your research. The final Conclusion section is where you
conclude (finalize) your writing.

It may not be required to make recommendations. If your assignment requires you to

make recommendations then you must. Otherwise it is up to you to choose if it is
appropriate or not to actually recommend something based on everything you have
written.

If you are going to write a recommendation, make sure you show that you did the work.
When a student makes a recommendation like, “To become more successful, the
company needs to clearly create a plan to attract the right kind of customer.” This kind
of recommendation is extremely weak. It shows that the student did very little work and
this student should expect a very low grade. If you recommend “attracting the right kind
of customer” then explain what is the right kind of customer? Also, how should they
attract them? It is like a teacher telling a student “In order to improve your grades, I

Chapter 19: How to write a conclusion Page 91

recommend you produce higher quality work.” That kind of recommendation applies to
every student in every school at every time. Making a recommendation means doing the
work to produce an actual recommendation, not a general statement which applies to
everyone.

Making final comments

After you have summarized your main points, you might want to comment on the
implications of what you have written about. For example, if you are writing a report
wherein you have explained how company structure can work with company culture to
make a company more or less profitable, you might want to make some comments
about any patterns that you noticed in your research. Be careful not to introduce new
arguments here.

You can also take this as an opportunity to trigger a thought in your reader’s mind. Ask a
question to make your reader start thinking about something you want them to be
thinking about after they put your paper down.

What should a conclusion avoid?

Conclusions should never introduce any new information or any new arguments. It is
very easy to violate this rule because when you are summarizing you might suddenly see
a new connection that you want to comment on. If you have this feeling, you should go
back and edit your writing to include the new comments you wish to make. Those
comments must be in the body of your writing or they should not be referred to in your
conclusion.

Conclusions should also avoid focusing on any minor points you made. The conclusion is
a place to draw the reader’s mind back to the big picture. The reader has just read all of
your details and you want to make sure they walk away from the paper thinking about
the important points, not the trivial ones.

How long should a conclusion be?

For a 3,000 word report, a one paragraph conclusion should be enough. You might need
two or three but be careful with this. Writing more than needed for your conclusion will
simply weaken the power of your writing. Remember, the last thing you say is what will
stick in the reader’s mind the longest so you want that to be powerful.

One paragraph should be your target, unless you are told otherwise by the person who
will assess your writing.

Final thoughts
Conclusions are the place in your writing where you should help the reader return to the
real world. You brought them into your world, you showed them around in great detail,
now it is time to bring them back. You do this by summarizing what you have already
said but do not bring up new information. It is also an opportunity to pose a thought-

Page 92 Chapter 19: How to write a conclusion

provoking question – a question which will keep them thinking after they have finished
with your paper. What will that thought-provoking question be?

In case you did not see the example of a conclusion, look at the paragraph above (below
Final thoughts). It is the conclusion for this chapter.

Chapter 19: How to write a conclusion Page 93

Chapter 20: What to put in the appendix
When writing a report, it is common to have some information which might be useful to
the reader but somehow feels like it does not belong in the body of your report because
it would distract from your message. Appendixes (also called “appendices”) are for
extra, but not essential, information.

What is an appendix?
An appendix is a section in a report where the author puts information which might be
useful to the reader but does not makes sense to include in the body of the text because
it distracts from the points the writer is trying to make.

Do words in the appendix normally count for word count?

No. Normally anything you include in the appendix is not included in your word count.
Word count normally includes your introduction, body, and conclusion. Administrative
sections like the title page, reference page, and even appendixes are ignored when
counting the number of words in your writing.

Can I use the appendix to avoid the word count limitations?

No. When you include something as an appendix, it does not count for word count but it
also does not count to show your understanding.

This is quite logical, when you think about it. If the student was allowed to show their
understanding in the appendix but the appendix is not included when counting words,
then there would not be a word count limit. If the teacher did not want a word count
limit then there simply would be no such limit.

What should I put in the appendix?

Because you never want anything in your writing which distracts from your message,
you may find it helpful to put certain things in the appendix and simply refer to them in
the body of your writing. For example, if you are writing a research report, you may
include some of the data in the body of your report so the reader could fully understand
the point you are making. However, to include the full data set would be too distracting
and would take attention away from the points you are trying to make.

Other examples of items you might include in the appendix are:

 Blank questionnaires used for surveying

 A sample completed questionnaire
 A detailed description of an item or process used
 A picture
 A transcript of an interview

Page 94 Chapter 20: What to put in the appendix

Basically, the best things to put in the appendix include anything repetitive, too long, or
otherwise would distract the reader away from the points you are trying to make.

In addition, anything in the appendix must have some value to the reader. If it is not
useful to the reader, then it does not belong anywhere in your writing, including in the
appendix.

You should always ask yourself, “If the assessor does not read anything in my
appendixes, will that affect my grade?” If the answer is yes, then do not put that in the
appendix. You should assume your assessor will ignore everything in your appendix.

How do I name my appendixes?

If you have a single appendix then you should simply title it Appendix. If you have
multiple appendixes you should title them sequentially.

 Appendix A
 Appendix B
 Appendix C

How do I choose what goes in the first appendix, second, etc.?

Appendix A should include whichever information was referenced earliest in your
writing. Appendix B should include the information which was referenced next. Repeat
this process until you have included everything you need to include.

Never include anything in the appendix which is not referenced in the body of your
writing.

How do I refer to something in the appendix?

In the body of your writing, you simply need to add a reference to the appendix like the
following:

In the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (see Appendix B), you can
see that the unemployment rate has been steadily improving for 10
years.

Final thoughts
Appendixes are for information which might be useful, but not required, for the assessor
to see what you understand. They do not count towards word count but they also do
not count to show your understanding. Assume your assessor will ignore everything in
your appendixes so do not put any critical information there. It might get read, but do
not depend on that.

Chapter 20: What to put in the appendix Page 95

Chapter 21: How to make your writing beautiful
This chapter is about formatting your writing so it “looks” more beautiful. While content
(what you write) is always more important than how you format it, the format does
impact how your reader feels, including how professional they judge you to be.

Note: The examples in this chapter are not about content, they are simply about
formatting – the presentation.

If you are writing for an assessor (whether your teacher or someone else) you should
consider that the person who will read your writing may be reading the work of
hundreds of other students. One minor problem in formatting, when repeated hundreds
of times, can end up having a more powerful negative emotional impact on your
assessor than you might think. So, take some time, follow these guidelines, and make
sure your formatting is as good as your content.

Fonts
It is important to consistently use the same font throughout your writing. There is
nothing wrong with changing a font when you have a good reason to do so (for section
headings, for example). However, the bulk of your text should always be in a single font.

If you copy-and-paste from a website (or other document), it is common that the font
comes along with the text when you paste. If that font is different (and it usually will be)
from the font you write in, it will give a very unprofessional image to your writing (and
therefore to you). Consider these two examples for illustration.

Example 1: Consistent
There are 754 different leadership styles which are widely accepted.
These styles have been introduced by 11 different writers. The most
popular in academic texts on leadership is the work of Daniel Goleman
published in 2000 where he labeled six common styles. We can see from
this that just a few writers have given us so much information about
leadership. Indeed, the innovative writers, those who introduce names
for leadership styles can be counted on two hands, if you can borrow a
finger from a friend.

Example 2: Inconsistent
There are 754 different leadership styles which are widely accepted.
These styles have been introduced by 11 different writers. The most
popular in academic texts on leadership is the work of Daniel
Goleman published in 2000 where he labeled six common
styles. We can see from this that just a few writers have given us so
much information about leadership. Indeed, the innovative writers, those

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 who introduce names for leadership styles can be counted on two hands,
if you can borrow a finger from a friend.

As you can see from the second example above, the difference in font immediately
causes the reader to ask, “Why is this text in the middle different? Is there something
the writer is trying to tell me by making this text different?” This is distracting from your
message and you want to avoid that.

Paragraphs
Paragraphs are the building blocks of a written report or essay. Just as you need to
understand how to structure the content within and between paragraphs, so must you
be concerned with the formatting of each paragraph, as well as all paragraphs taken
together.

Example 1
There are 754 different leadership styles which are widely
accepted. These styles have been introduced by 11 different
writers.

The most popular in academic texts on leadership is the work

of Daniel Goleman published in 2000 where he labeled six
common styles.

We can see from this that just a few writers have given us so
much information about leadership. Indeed, the innovative
writers, those who introduce names for leadership styles can
be counted on two hands, if you can borrow a finger from a
friend.

As you can see in the example above, there is a clear, visual break between paragraphs.
When the reader is reading, they can quickly scan the text and see where the next
paragraph begins. This makes the reading process flow much easier than the following
example.

Example 2: No spacing after paragraph

There are 754 different leadership styles which are widely
accepted. These styles have been introduced by 11 different
writers.
The most popular in academic texts on leadership is the work
of Daniel Goleman published in 2000 where he labeled six
common styles.
We can see from this that just a few writers have given us so
much information about leadership. Indeed, the innovative
writers, those who introduce names for leadership styles can

Chapter 21: How to make your writing beautiful Page 97

 be counted on two hands, if you can borrow a finger from a
friend.

Here, the visual break between paragraphs is missing. When the reader is reading, if
they scan down the left side of the text, they cannot see where the next paragraph
begins. They must now switch to scanning down the right side, see where the paragraph
ends, then scan to the left, and go down one line with their eye to get to the start of the
next paragraph. While this might not sound like a lot of work, it becomes tiring for the
reader after a few pages of doing this.

Example 3: Indented first lines

There are 754 different leadership styles
which are widely accepted. These styles have been
introduced by 11 different writers.
The most popular in academic texts on
leadership is the work of Daniel Goleman published
in 2000 where he labeled six common styles.
We can see from this that just a few writers
have given us so much information about
leadership. Indeed, the innovative writers, those
who introduce names for leadership styles can be
counted on two hands, if you can borrow a finger
from a friend.

In this third example, we have indented the first line of each paragraph. The main reason
this is done is when there is no blank line between paragraphs. This accomplishes the
same goal of paragraph identification. Both Example 1 and Example 3 are generally
considered acceptable although Example 1 is easier to read than Example 3 because the
reader can even scan down the middle of the paragraph and see where the paragraph
ends.

Example 4: Double-spaced
There are 754 different leadership styles which are

widely accepted. These styles have been

introduced by 11 different writers.

The most popular in academic texts on leadership

is the work of Daniel Goleman published in 2000

where he labeled six common styles.

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 We can see from this that just a few writers have

given us so much information about leadership.

Indeed, the innovative writers, those who

introduce names for leadership styles can be

counted on two hands, if you can borrow a finger

from a friend.

In Example 4, there are clear visual breaks but each line has a blank line in between. The
“line spacing” is doubled, so we called it “double-spaced.” This is a common way to write
for someone who will mark your paper. The reason is that the extra space leaves room
for the assessor to make notes on your writing. If your writing is all squeezed together,
the only space to make notes is in the margin and that might not be enough space for
the comments the assessor wishes to make.

Just like with fonts, it is important to be consistent in your line spacing. Whatever you
choose to use, you should use throughout the document. Consider this example to show
this point more clearly.

Example: Inconsistent
There are 754 different leadership styles which are
widely accepted. These styles have been
introduced by 11 different writers.

The most popular in academic texts on leadership

is the work of Daniel Goleman published in 2000
where he labeled six common styles.

We can see from this that just a few writers have

given us so much information about leadership.
Indeed, the innovative writers, those who
introduce names for leadership styles can be
counted on two hands, if you can borrow a finger
from a friend.

Naturally the reader would wonder what is different about the middle paragraph. Is the
author trying to communicate something by using different spacing? This is often an
issue when copy-and-pasting from another document, just like it is an issue with fonts.
Make sure your spacing within the paragraph is consistent throughout your document.

Chapter 21: How to make your writing beautiful Page 99

Bolding Keywords
When you are writing a business report, you should always remember that executives
have very little time to read what you write. Their time is precious and you should write
showing you understand that, even though it takes more of your time to save their time
later.

One way to show that you appreciate their valuable time is to write using as few words
as possible. Another way is to bold key words to make them stand out, or to give them
emphasis.

Example
There are 754 different leadership styles which are
widely accepted. These styles have been
introduced by 11 different writers.

The most popular in academic texts on leadership

is the work of Daniel Goleman published in 2000
where he labeled six common styles.

We can see from this that just a few writers have

given us so much information about leadership.
Indeed, the innovative writers, those who
introduce names for leadership styles can be
counted on two hands, if you can borrow a finger
from a friend.

When you bold the most important things in your writing, whoever is reading it can
quickly scan the text and when they see something interesting, the can stop and read
more. This style of formatting can allow a busy executive to understand the essence of
your report in 10% of the time it would take to fully read the entire report.

Full justification
There are two common styles of justification in academic writing, as the following two
examples show.

Example 1: Full justification

We can see from this that just a few writers have
given us so much information about leadership.
Indeed, the innovative writers, those who
introduce names for leadership styles can be
counted on two hands, if you can borrow a finger
from a friend.

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Full justification is often considered to be easier on the readers’ eyes. You can see the
letters line up nicely on the left and on the right side of the paragraph. It gives the text a
feeling of being solid and balanced.

Example 2: Left justification

We can see from this that just a few writers have
given us so much information about leadership.
Indeed, the innovative writers, those who
introduce names for leadership styles can be
counted on two hands, if you can borrow a finger
from a friend.

Left justification is preferred by some, usually publishers. For others, they consider the
“unclean right edge” of the text to be more painful to look at. If you have not been told
which to use, use full justification as more people will consider it more beautiful in
general.

Formatting numbers
Different languages have different standards for formatting numbers. Considering the
amount of money 10 million Swiss francs and 10 centimes (a centime is 1/100 of a
franc). What is the proper way to format this number?

In French, the proper format is CHF 10.000.000,10. This is a very common way to format
numbers in many languages around the world, but not in English.

In English it is CHF 10,000,000.10.

It should NEVER be written as CHF 10000000.1. This option is extremely difficult to read.

When you are writing in English, you should always format numbers using the proper
format for English: The separator between whole numbers and fractional numbers is a
period (.) and a comma (,) is used to group the whole number section into groups of
three.

In English, you should spell out numbers less than 10. That is, you should count like this:
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12.

Formatting dates
Just like formatting numbers is different in English and many other languages, so is the
way dates are written. Consider the following date: 4/5/2001. Which date is this,
exactly? Is it the 5th day of April in 2001 or is it the 4th day of May in 2001? How about
when you read that an important anniversary is 3/10? Is the celebration going to be on
the 3rd of October or on the 10th of March?

Chapter 21: How to make your writing beautiful Page 101

In German, the day is written first, then the month, then the year. So, 3/10 is the 3 rd of
October.

In English, the month is written first, then the day, then the year. So, 3/10 is the 10th of
March.

Of course this can cause problems if your native language is Spanish and your reader’s
native language is also Spanish and you both know each other. Your reader may assume
that you are writing in the standard Spanish format and 3/10 represents the 3 rd of
October. For this reason, there are better ways to format your dates: Spell out all or
part of the month

 3 March 2001
 3-Mar-2001

These two options make it extremely clear that the date you are trying to communicate
is, indeed, the 10th day of March.

Final thoughts
You do not want anything to distract from your message, from the points you are trying
to make. Poor formatting will distract the reader. So make sure your formatting is done
correctly and consistently throughout your writing.

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Chapter 22: Reflecting on your work
The goal of educators is to develop students into independent, life-long learners. One of
the key ways to learn is to learn from our mistakes, as well as our successes. To facilitate
this, your teacher will often want you to reflect on your work.

What is reflection?
Reflecting is about looking back at your work like a third-party would. Just as you look at
your reflection in a mirror to see how others see you so should you look back at your
work to see how others might see your writing.

To properly reflect back upon your work, you want to evaluate your work.

Bad example
I wrote a lot and I read my textbook so I think I did a great job.

The reason why this is not good is that it is very weak reflection. There are still too many
questions left unanswered. For example: Is writing a lot of works the way we should be
judging the quality of someone’s writing? Writing more words without saying anything
new does not seem to be a good criteria for this.

Criteria
Criteria are those standards against we can judge something. For example, criminal
judges use the standard of the criminal code. That is, they compare the actions of the
person on trial against the written criminal code to see if the person has committed a
crime. In this case, the criteria are the criminal code.

There are different criteria for different purposes. Each set of criteria will generally be
useful for judging one category. For example, consider the SMART criteria. We often use
SMART to judge objectives.

Here we evaluate the objective “To achieve at least 25% market share of Vietnam’s tea
market before the end of 2018.” If we have created this objective, we should be able to
reflect and evaluate if we have written a good objective. To do this, we apply the SMART
criteria.

Good example
Criterion Evaluation
Specific Yes, it is clearly understood what it means. Two people will
usually see this in the same way and there will not be confusion.
We are talking about market share in the Vietnamese tea market.
Measurable Yes, it is clearly measurable. We can measure market share by
adding up the total sales all companies who sell tea in Vietnam
and then dividing how much tea we sell in Vietnam. That will give
us our market share.

Chapter 22: Reflecting on your work Page 103

 Achievable Not certain. The Vietnamese tea market has many different
competitors and the largest market share of any single firm in this
industry is only 4% therefore it seems unlikely we can achieve
25%.
Relevant Yes, we are a tea company and we care very much about our
market share. This is a common way to measure the success of a
firm.
Time-bound Yes, we have a time limit of the end of 1018.

As you can see from the table above, we have evaluated our objective against the
appropriate criteria.

Inappropriate criteria
Now, consider we are hiring someone and we want to evaluate our performance in the
hiring process. Can we use SMART?

Criterion Evaluation
Specific This does not make sense. How can performance be specific?
Measurable It is not clear how we measure our performance.
Achievable This does not make sense.
Relevant This seems too generic to judge in this case.
Time-bound This does not make sense. We are done. We are not bound by time.

You should see that SMART is a terrible set of criteria for evaluating someone’s
performance in the hiring process. So, to properly evaluate in this case, we must find
criteria appropriate to what we are evaluating.

Finding criteria
Your assignment may include some specific criteria to use for judgment (for example,
SMART, 6C, etc.) or you may need to find your own. If you need to find your own, do not
worry. Just start searching or asking people you know. There are different criteria for
evaluating many, many different things. What you need to think through is whether the
criteria you found are appropriate for what you want to judge.

Whenever you choose a set of criteria, you should explain why you chose that criteria as
opposed to others that might be available. You should not simply grab some criteria off
the internet and apply it. Why should the reader believe that this is a reasonable set of
criteria to use?

Any time you use a set of criteria you should always introduce it. Some criteria are well
known, such as SMART. However, you should not assume that a set of criteria you found
is well known to the reader. So, take one or two sentences and give a proper
introduction to the criteria you are going to use.

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Forming a reflective habit
Reflection is not limited to school. It is a good habit to have to reflect often on all
aspects of your life. Consider driving to school. You can reflect on how you did that. Did
you drive the way you know you should drive? Did you stop at the red lights? Were you
a polite driver sharing the road with the other drivers around you? Should you take a
different road next time? Should you leave your home earlier next time because you can
see the road is blocked for construction?

The best thing is to find some criteria. How should we judge driving to school? What are
the criteria? Should drivers obey the rules of the road? Should drivers be polite to other
drivers? What does being polite really mean? How can we judge if someone is polite to
other drivers?

Creating criteria
You could form your own criteria but it is better if you can use the criteria of someone
who has spent significant time formulating the criteria. Of course, if you can spend
significant time formulating the criteria, then you should let other people know (publish
it) so they can benefit from your thinking.

Final thoughts
Reflecting is an important skill to develop. Part of that skill is learning how to find the
right criteria for evaluating different situations. It is through this skill that you will
develop greater independence in your learning so make a habit of reflecting on
everything you write. You have just read this. What criteria would you use to see if you
read this well?

Chapter 22: Reflecting on your work Page 105

Chapter 23: Editing your writing
Once you have finished writing your assignment, you can relax, take a break, walk
around the building and get some fresh air. Then come back and edit it before you
submit.

There is a famous saying, “There is no good writing. Only good rewriting.”

This saying rings true with professional writers around the world. The simple fact is that
the first time you write something, you have created a draft. Do you want your grade to
be based on the quality of your first draft?

As we learned earlier (in Managing your time), what you get is often the natural result of
what you give. If you put the minimum amount of work into something, then you will
get the minimum grade (for example, zero). If you want a good grade then you must be
willing to put in the time to improve the quality of your writing. This chapter will help
you do that.

What should I do to edit properly?

You should start with an outline, identifying the points you want to make. Once you start
the actual writing, the standard technique is to write four times:

1. First draft
a. Then revise
2. Second draft
a. Then revise
3. Final draft
a. Then revise
4. Final version  this is what you submit

Write freely for your first draft. Just write and write and write some more. Once you
have written everything you think might be important, take a break. You cannot edit
well with a tired brain. After you have written your first draft, stop for the day. Do not
look at your writing again until the following day, to give you a fresh perspective.

When you are editing your first draft, first look at the overall structure. Does the report
“flow” like you thought it would? Does it communicate what you wanted? Are there
ideas that do not belong in the report at all? Are the ideas in the right order? Reorder
the paragraphs to get the overall flow and idea sequence correct. Review your
arguments and the evidence you use. Improve your opening “hook” if you included one.

Editing the second draft is usually easier because it already flows better and there are
fewer mistakes and fewer ideas which do not belong in the report. Still, go through the
entire writing from the first to the last page. Check the paragraph structure. Are your

Page 106 Chapter 23: Editing your writing

paragraphs structured properly? Do they follow the rules you learned when you read
about Paragraphing? Look for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. It is best if you
can have someone else review your second draft. Now, you are done revising your first
draft and you have your second draft. Just like before, this is the time you stop for the
day so you can look at your writing with fresh eyes, tomorrow.

On the third draft, see if you can improve the way you transition between ideas, check
once more for the overall flow and a final check for spelling, grammar, and punctuation
errors. Now you have your final version.

Now, there is no fixed rule which says you must have exactly four versions. You might
want more. You might feel completely comfortable after editing your second draft. It is
all up to you. Writing is a skill and one that takes experience. Writing also gets easier the
more you read.

How much time does it take to edit well?

For some writing, it seems like it is never done. The more of a “perfectionist” you are,
the more will see each time you edit. This means you might never actually finish. This is
a problem. At some point, you need to submit.

It is not uncommon to spend more time editing than writing. Personally, for every hour I
spend writing something, I may spend another two to four hours editing it. Editing takes
a lot of time but it is worth it. The quality of the work is so much higher, which means
your grade is so much higher. If you want higher grades, spend more time editing

Worrying about word count

When you are writing the first draft, do not worry about the word count. If you have to
submit a 3,000 word report then feel free to write 6,000 or even 8,000 words in your
first draft. A famous writer (Hemingway) said he would write 1% gold and 99% garbage.
Editing was all about getting rid of the garbage leaving only the gold.

When you revise your first draft, then you can start worrying about the word count.

Reducing the word count

When revising your first draft, go through and just start deleting things that seem not to
matter. That is, you read some paragraph and you think “That idea does not need to be
in here, it adds nothing to the overall report.” Continue deleting all content like this.
With luck, you will reduce a 6,000 word report down to 4,000 words.

To further reduce your word count, go back through every sentence and remove any
word you can. It might sound silly but removing one word per sentence can end up
reducing a 4,000 word report down to 3,300 pretty easily.

Consider this example:

Chapter 23: Editing your writing Page 107

 The other day, I was working when I found myself dreaming of a ski trip
in France with my love.

That is 20 words. Now, how can we reduce this? Which words can we remove? How can
we rewrite this sentence so it is smaller?

The other day, I was daydreaming of a ski trip in France with my love.

This is much better. Now we are down to 15 words (we reduced the sentence by 25%).
Now, how can we reduce it even more?

Dreams of a romantic French ski trip interrupted my work.

Now we are down to 10 words. We reduced this sentence by 50% and with more work
we might be able to reduce it even further.

Final thoughts
Reducing word count, while saying the same thing, increases your “information density”
and naturally feels like much higher quality writing. Most writing can be improved in this
way but it does take time. Are you willing to spend the time in order to get a higher
grade?

Page 108 Chapter 23: Editing your writing

Chapter 24: Marking your own work
You have finished your report (or other written assignment) and now you are ready to
submit it. Are you a little nervous? Do you wonder what your mark will be? Do you have
any idea what your mark will be? This chapter will help you to determine your mark
before you submit your assignment.

Many students worry about what mark they will receive. That is normal. After all, your
grades are important and they stay with you for the rest of your life. However, every
student should know their mark before they submit their assignment. At least, they
should know the “band” of their mark. That is, is it a pass, merit, distinction, 40-50%, 60-
70%, or 80-90%?

It is common practice in many schools for students to be given a rubric. A rubric is a tool
to guide the person marking your paper. The rubric will tell you what categories the
marker is supposed to look for and what constitutes which grade for each category.

For example, there might be three categories: Theory, analysis, and presentation. You
need to read this content carefully. For example, you might see the following
information (modified from a rubric for the University of Sunderland, UK):

Fail (<40%)

Use of theory: The report fails to identify the relevant theories. Theories
are not properly described. There is no evidence that the course text or
other reliable sources are used. Theories used are not relevant to the
tasks.

Analysis: There is no evidence of research from a variety of sources.

There is no structured argument. The conclusions are descriptive or
unclear. Theories are not applied or are applied incorrectly to the task.

Presentation: There are many spelling and grammatical errors.

Referencing was done incorrectly. The report was not within the word
count limits. The report is not double-spaced.

Pass (40-49%)

Use of theory: The report identifies some of the relevant theories to the
task. Theories are partly described. There is some evidence that the
course text or other reliable sources are used. Theories are sometimes
relevant to the task.

Analysis: There is evidence of limited research. There is limited structured

argument. There is limited application of the theories to the task.

Chapter 24: Marking your own work Page 109

 Presentation: There are spelling and grammatical errors. The referencing
was done incorrectly. The layout is loose and difficult to follow.

As you can see the quality needed to achieve a passing grade is quite low. Theories used
are sometimes relevant to the task? If you cannot identify the correct theories then you
did not do any meaningful work for the module so of course you would fail. Similarly,
argument and presentation for pass is also quite simple. You should never try just for
pass. You should always do better work than this.

If you produce a report for a company at the level of pass (spelling and grammatical
errors, difficult to read, etc.) it is unlikely anyone will have respect for your writing. They
might fear you if you can get into a high enough position but they will never respect you.

To gain the respect of others, you must show that you deserve respect. You do that by
producing good quality work. Look to the expectations for higher grades than just pass.
Look to the highest and see if you can commit the time to produce that quality of work
(it does take time). I know you can produce good quality work. The question is, are you
willing to invest the time to do so?

70% +

Use of theory: The report identifies all the theories relevant to the task.
Theories used are described in detail. There is clear evidence that course
text or other reliable sources are used. Theories are significant in the
completion of the task.

Analysis: There is evidence of extensive research from a variety of

sources. Structured argument is clear and combines theories and content
from research or provided in the task. Conclusions are clear and link to
the requirement of the task.

Presentation: Presentation is clear. There are no spelling or grammatical

errors. Report is referenced correctly using Harvard Referencing system.
The report is double-spaced.

Basically, it is saying you should do everything right. You should include all the right
theories, none of the wrong theories, use good academic sources (including lecture
notes), you should apply the theories to either information you were provided or that
you found while researching, and you should not make spelling, grammar, or referencing
errors. This is not an unreasonably high standard.

Information density
One of the ways of measuring quality of writing is how dense is the information. Imagine
you are eating some cake and that cake is mostly air. It might taste delicious but a small
piece does not satisfy you, so you need to eat much more. When you are writing,

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density refers to how much true information is there in how few words. That is, if you
want your writing to have a higher “information density” then you should communicate
more information in fewer words. The more density, the higher the quality of work.

Final thoughts
If you are given a rubric then you should be able to reflect on your work and give
yourself a grade. That grade should be close to your final grade. If not, talk to your
teacher and see how you can improve your skills in marking your own work.

Chapter 24: Marking your own work Page 111

Chapter 25: How to give a good presentation
Students are often required to give presentations. The purpose of teachers requiring
students to give presentations is to properly prepare students for the business world
wherein they will be expected to make presentations. Just because you are required to
give a presentation does not make it any less stressful. Public speaking is often rated as
one of the greatest fears, if not the greatest fear. So, why do teachers make us give
presentations?

The reason is exactly because students are afraid of it. That fear comes from a lack of
confidence and confidence comes with experience. So, when you are given the
opportunity to give a presentation, do not consider it a terrible thing. Would you prefer
to wait until you are at work? At work, a failed presentation can strongly negatively
impact your career. It is much better to practice in a low-risk environment so that you
will be able to present well, when it counts most.

Preparing for a presentation requires both physical as well as mental work. It is very easy
to get a presentation wrong but this chapter is designed to help you avoid those
problems so that you can give a good presentation when you are asked to do so.

Speak slowly
If your English is strong, you may be tempted to speak as quickly as possible in order to
communicate as much information as you can. This is a very common problem with first-
time presenters (including new lecturers).

You must understand that the audience does not know as much as you. You are there to
help them to understand. If you speak too quickly, you are forcing them to understand
too quickly. Understanding what someone says is like eating. You need to take a bite,
chew, wait for a moment, then take another bite. If someone is feeding you (consider
the presenter as feeding information to the audience), you would be much more
comfortable if they feed you one bite at a time. However, if they take a sandwich and
shove the whole thing in your mouth at once, you will not be able to eat it. You will spit
it out, and you will not have eaten anything.

It is the same with presenting. You must speak slowly. You are speaking to a group of
people and you want all audience members to understand you, not just some of them.

Remember this rule: It is better to present less information but present it well. You do
not get more points for speed. So, be kind to your audience and go slow.

Speak thoughtfully
When you say something, you should have a reason for saying it. Do not just repeat
something you read somewhere. Writing is quite different from speaking. Just as you

Page 112 Chapter 25: How to give a good presentation

should speak in your natural voice, you should also have a reason for every sound that
comes out of your mouth.

You should always avoid saying anything which distracts from your message. Do not go
off on a different topic. Deliver your presentation the way you planned. Always avoid
making sounds which are not words (avoid saying “uh” or “um”).

Breathe
It may seem silly to remind you to do something your body does automatically but when
someone starts to panic, they forget to breathe properly. They either breathe too slowly
(or stop breathing for a short time), which reduces the oxygen in their blood, which
negatively impacts their brain performance. Or, they start to breathe too fast, which
puts too much oxygen into their blood.

You should always make sure you are breathing calmly and deeply.

Pause
There are many reasons to stop talking while presenting. Some presenters think they
should always be talking and if they stop, the audience will wonder why they are not
talking. This shows a lack of understanding about how the brains of the audience
members work.

One reason to pause is if you put a lot of text on a slide (which you should not do). You
need to pause, to stop talking, to give the audience time to read the slide.

Another reason to pause is if you say something which is unusual, you want to give the
audience time to consider what you said. Let them think about it. It is like feeding
someone: You must give them time after a big bite before the next one.

Avoid monotone voice

Some presenters have a monotone voice when they present. Normal voices in English
have a certain music to them, a rhythm of tones going up and down. When a presenter
uses a monotone voice, it sounds like a computer and the audience wants to hear the
speaker’s normal voice. They want to feel a connection to the person presenting. That
kind of computer voice is difficult for the audience to connect to. Consider that the
members of the audience are your very close friends and you are trying to help them to
understand something. So, speak normally.

Present like you are having a conversation

As written above, people want to hear your normal voice. When someone gives a
prepared speech, the speech can actually sound too prepared. A presentation should
not sound memorized, it should sound natural. You should practice but practice
sounding natural.

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Do not say “uh”
When you do not know what word to say next, it is very common to say “uh.” The big
problem (and it is a BIG problem) is that when your audience hears you say any sound,
they have to translate that sound into a word. If your pronunciation is very good, then
this is easy for them. However, when you say “uh” they try to figure out if it is a word,
taking into account the context (the surrounding words). This is just a distraction from
your presentation and you do not want anything to distract from the message you are
trying to communicate. If you do not know what to say, it is better to remain silent for a
second rather than making any sounds which are not actually words.

Practice pronouncing long and unfamiliar words

English has some long words. Internationalization has eight syllables and for some
people that is a difficult word to say. Practice those words before your presentation so
when you are in front of your audience, you will sound smooth and skilled. If you use
numbers and you are not sure the audience can understand you clearly (for example,
14,000 and 40,000 sound quite similar) you can always write the numbers on a
whiteboard during your presentation. There is nothing wrong with writing your numbers
down. Of course, if you plan ahead, you can include the number on your slides.

You should also know how to pronounce numbers. 1,000 million should be said as “one
billion” and 1,000 billion should be read as “one trillion.” To hear “one thousand billion”
sounds very strange in English.

Prepare your slides well

Do not be lazy when preparing your slides (if you are giving a slide-based presentation).
Good slides support you making a good presentation. However, you must always
remember, the slides do not give your presentation, you do. Keep the slides simple.
Keep any animations simple. The general rule is that you do not want to do anything
which distracts from your message. The following are some key points to remember
when preparing your slides.

Slides should have more graphics and less text

If your slides have a lot of text, then why is your audience watching you present, they
could just read a report. Consider the following:

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This slide simply has too much text. This text would be better delivered in writing, as a
handout. Do not ask your audience to read a lot of text on slides. It is not a good use of
presentation time.

Use consistent fonts

When your fonts are constantly changing, it is confusing on the audience. This is true of
writing and it is true of slides. Consider this:

Use charts
The old saying “a picture is worth 1,000 words” is important here. If you want to
communicate information about the value of a university degree, one chart can explain
more than three pages of text. Consider the following:

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Remember when you display a chart with so much information, be silent and give the
audience a moment to understand what the chart is really telling them.

One slide, one thought

Do not try to communicate too much information on a single slide. Keep each slide to a
single thought. The more thoughts you put on one slide, the more likely it is that one
idea will confuse the other ideas.

Make sure one word does not wrap around

On the following slide, you can see the words Customers, Suppliers, and Employees do
not fit on a single line. Each oval should be larger or the font should be smaller. This kind
of formatting error is very distracting for the audience.

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Watch text size on slides
Remember that slides should generally have very little text. If you are going to put text
on your slides, make sure that text is readable. If it is too small, your audience will
become frustrated by being unable to read it.

Watch spelling and grammar

Again, you do not want anything which distracts from your message. If you have spelling
errors in your slides, people will start to think about spelling, they will think about the
mistake, they will think about misunderstanding. All of these are problems. You only
want the audience thinking about your message.

Consider your audience

Who is your target audience? Are you presenting to a group of well-studied academics?
Are you presenting to the general public? Are you presenting to business executives?
You should make sure that the words you choose, the images you choose, and the
points you make are suitable for your audience.

Use good quality images

Slides should not have a lot of text. They should have images. However, you should
avoid using clip-art because it can make your presentation look and feel cheap.

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Figure 5 Inservice Presentation by Anonymous

Likewise, avoid using images with watermarks (words written through the image to
prevent others from using them). These watermarks are there to tell everyone that you
do not have the right to use that image (so using it is a violation of copyright).

Figure 6 Watermarked image

It is common to find images online but you should only use images that you have the
right to use. You need to pay to remove the watermark and you did not. This creates a
very bad image for your presentation and for you (it shows you stole the image). So,
stick with images that are clean.

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Many images are free for reuse but some are not. If you use Google to search for
images, you can click the “Search tools” button and indicate that you only want to see
images which are labeled for reuse.

Figure 7 Google image search tools

The follow two images are just two good looking sample images which were found and
allow reuse without paying anything for them. All you are expected to do, for these
images, is to give credit to the creator of the image (which you should do anyway in
academic writing).

Figure 8 Crab cake presentation by waferboard

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Figure 9 Open Government Data Venn Diagram by justgrimes

You should remember that there are many sources of images which can be reused for
free. New sites come out all the time but certainly two you should consider using is
Google Images (above) and Flickr. Flickr, like Google Images, includes the ability to
search by usage rights.

Hook
When you write a paragraph, the first sentence might be something to grab the reader’s
attention. The same is true in presentations. Open with something interesting, shocking,
or unusual. You only have a few seconds before the audience decides to pay attention or
ignore you. Here are some examples:

 Every three minutes, China creates another millionaire.

 Every minute, someone who never used this product is killed by this product.
 50% of the teens in this country hope to move abroad, and never return.

Hooks can be longer than one sentence. You can stretch them into 20 or 30 seconds but
do not make them too long. It is very important that the hook you use is closely
connected with your topic. Do not start with “You can be rich and beautiful if you know
the secret” when your presentation is actually about protecting the environment.

Introduction
Remember presentations should always have an introduction. This is where you open
the box that contains everything you want to discuss in your presentation. The

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introduction can be as short as “Welcome ladies and gentlemen. I am John Smith and
today I will be discussing the importance of corporate social responsibility.” However, it
is better to use the introduction to put the presentation in some kind of context and give
the audience a road map of the points you will cover. For example, after your “hook”
you might say “In this presentation, I will show you why you do not need to choose
between being ethical and making money. By improving your relationships with
employees, customers, and even the government, you can actually make more money
by always doing the right thing.”

Body
Here you want to talk about the points you introduced in your introduction. For each
point you have, go into some detail. Remember that you want to give clear examples,
use solid evidence, and make your points as easy to understand as possible. Talk about
theories and apply those theories to show that you understand deeply.

Conclusion
The conclusion is a way to close the box that you opened in the introduction. You want
to put away everything you talked about and remind the audience what they should
remember from the presentation. It can be as short as “In short, you can see that being
a good corporate citizen can help a company not only to increase its consumer brand
value but also to decrease its operating costs substantially. I hope that each of you will
keep these points in mind when you are making the decisions that come before you in
the coming years.”

Dress for success

When you are giving a business presentation, remember that you are representing an
organization. As well, you should remember that “You never get a second chance to
make a first impression.” For a business presentation, you should not be wearing jeans
and a t-shirt. To be quite frank, people often judge us within the first several seconds of
seeing us and if they judge you as unprofessional, they will not respect what you are
trying to say. They might not even pay attention which means they might end up talking
and distracting others from paying attention destroying your ability to give a good
presentation and receive a good grade.

Do not read your slides

Always remember that your slides are there to support your presentation. Your slides do
not give your presentation. Keep your slides simple. Even if you do end up putting a
block of text on your slides, never read your slides (but give the audience silent time to
read them). If you do not know what to say, then you need to prepare more until you
know exactly what you want to say to your audience.

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Make and keep eye contact
If you read your slides, you are not looking at your audience. You need to look your
audience in the eyes. Of course, you cannot look everyone in the eyes at the same time
but you can look at one person for a few seconds, then look at someone else for a few
seconds, and so on. You should be continually making eye contact with your audience.
This keeps them engaged and actually helps them to better understand what you are
trying to communicate. It will also help you to feel more confident. Eye contact helps
you and it helps your audience. If you need to look at your slides, it is OK but try not to
look for more than one second every 30 seconds of your presentation. If you keep your
glances this short, it will not be too distracting.

If making eye contact with people you do not know well makes you nervous then try to
identify two to three people in the audience that make you feel comfortable and make
eye contact with them. Do not just stare at one person – that will make everyone
distracted. If you do not have anyone in the audience who makes you comfortable, then
look just over the tops of each person’s head. To the audience, it will look like you are
making eye contact with someone just behind them. Avoid looking at the ceiling or the
floor. This makes you look less confident and you want to look more confident when
giving a presentation.

Do not lean
Posture is important. You should stand or even walk around a bit (not running, do not
look like a crazy person). However, you should not lean. When you lean on a desk or a
wall or anything else, you are telling the audience that you are unstable and physically
weak. This will distract from your message and you never want to distract from your
message.

Do not hide behind a desk

Remember that making a connection with your audience is an important part of a
presentation. The more physical objects, and the more physical distance, there is
between you and your audience, the less of a connection they will feel with you. So,
avoid standing behind a desk. Expose yourself by getting out into the open. It shows you
are confident and that will only help your presentation to be more powerful.

Watch your body language

What we do with our body, including our hands, communicates a lot to our audience. If
you hold the microphone with one hand, what do you do with the other? If you cross
your free arm over your body, this is a “closed” posture and presenters who are closed
look scared and that does not help your presentation. If you hold the microphone with
two hands, you appear less confident. You can use the other hand to gesture to your
slides or to your audience. Gesture with your hands in a meaningful way, do not simply
start throwing your hands around making the audience think you cannot control your
arms.

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While you do not want to jump around constantly, you do want to move a little bit but
move for a reason. Moving helps the audience to pay attention to you. So, move from
one side of your slides to the other. If you just stand in one spot, frozen, you look scared
and people prefer to see confident presenters. So move, but move slowly and for a
reason.

Present with energy

If your voice or your physical movements seem to have too little energy, the audience
will become bored quickly. Your voice should be strong enough that it keeps the
audience interested. You should be excited about what you are presenting. If you are
not excited, your audience will not be excited. If your audience is not excited they will
quickly become bored and that is not what you want. When you present with low
energy, the audience also loses energy. This will make you feel less and less energy and
the cycle continues until everyone suffers from it.

When you present with high energy, your audience feels it. They become more engaged
and that will give you more energy. The energy builds and builds and everyone benefits
from it.

Fake it until you make it

You should be confident when you are presenting. Practicing more will help you to be
more confident. If you cannot be confident right now then pretend to be confident.
Consider this an acting role. Remember, the audience does not know how you really
feel. They just know what they see. So, if you pretend to be confident, you will appear
confident and that will make your presentation stronger and more convincing.

Watch lasers on mice

Having a wireless remote to advance your slides does make it easier. For this reason,
some presenters will use a wireless mouse and click or use the scroll wheel to progress
through their slides. There is nothing wrong with this but remember that the bottom of
many wireless mice includes a laser. If you do not pay attention, while you are moving
your hands around, you may be shining that laser into the eyes of your audience. This is
distracting but it is also quite dangerous for your audience. If you use a wireless mouse
to control your slides, use one finger to cover the laser.

Remember a presentation is not a report

If you have written many reports, it is easy to think your presentation should be like a
report. Some presenters even include a table of contents for their presentation. This
does not help your audience and it does not help you to be a better presenter. You do
want to give a roadmap to your audience but you can do that with a simple introduction.
There should be no need to create a table of contents for a presentation unless your
presentation is longer than one hour.

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Practice your timing
If your presentation is supposed to be a 10 minute presentation, you should practice
enough so that you have the timing right. You should practice your presentation a lot.
Practicing a presentation is like editing a report – the more you do it, the better the
quality of the final product. If you end up taking 12 or 14 minutes for a 10 minute
presentation, it is a problem. Respect the time of your audience. If they are expecting a
10 minute presentation, then give them a 10 minute presentation.

Do not go too fast

Just because you do not want to go long, that does not mean that you want to go short.
If your presentation is a 10 minute presentation, it is OK to make it eight or nine minutes
but if you suddenly find your presentation only took six minutes then you have a
problem. It takes time to develop an idea. Do not rush through it. Take the time you
need to do the presentation correctly. Allow the audience the time they need to let the
ideas sink into their minds so they can fully understand what you are saying.

Allocate your time properly

If you have five main points that you want to cover in your presentation, and you have
12 minutes to present, then you should divide that time in an appropriate way across
the points. Spending eight minutes on the first point will make the presentation feel out
of balance and will make you feel tight on time because now you only have one minute
for each of the remaining four points. Practice more to get your timing right.

Practice, practice, practice

Presenting well comes with experience. Practice more if you want to get better. Give
more presentations, practice the same presentation many times. You can even record a
video of yourself and watch it. This will help you to see what you like about your
presentation style and what you should improve. Recording a video of yourself is
something commonly done by presenters all around the world.

Never distract from your message

When you present, you have a message you are trying to communicate. This message is
like the thesis in a report you are writing. You do not want anything to distract from that
message. If you make a mistake, ignore it and get back to your message. If you stop and
say “Sorry” it makes the audience think about your mistake and they should be thinking
about your message. Every point you make should support your message, not distract
from it. If you use humor, which is great, make sure that it supports your message and
does not distract from it.

There are many things which can distract from your message. You need to consider
carefully what could be distracting and ensure you eliminate it. For example, if you leave
an instant messaging system (like Skype, etc.) running, then someone might call during
your presentation, or your audience might simply see little pop-up notifications that

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someone came online. This only distracts from your presentation, so make sure you turn
off all software which could distract your audience.

Plan for technology to fail

There are times when projectors fail or there is simply no electricity. You should be able
to give your presentation with just you, a whiteboard, and a marker (this is another good
reason not to depend on a lot of text on your slides). Laptops also fail or have problems
connecting to projectors. Bring a copy of your slides on a USB drive so you can use
another computer in case you have problems with yours. It is even possible that the
microphone will stop working in the middle of your presentation. You should be
prepared to put the microphone down and speak by projecting your voice. If you can
project your voice properly, everyone in any normal sized classroom should be able to
hear you well enough.

Be rested
The same advice for exams applies to presentation. You should prepare well but you
should also make sure that the night before your presentation you get plenty of good
quality sleep. The gain you can get from the extra preparation the night before will be
less than the gain from a good night’s sleep.

Have fun
Remember that in life enjoyment is so very important. Try not to be stressed by being
required to give a presentation. When you want to enjoy something stressful, try to find
the good or fun part of it and just focus on that part.

Have you always wanted to be an actor? If so, consider this an acting role. Do you like to
help others to understand? Consider this an opportunity to do that. Just because you
have to do it does not mean it cannot be fun. Find the fun.

The more fun you have presenting, the more your audience will enjoy it, the more they
will pay attention, and the better the experience will be for everyone involved. If you
feel it is torture to give a presentation, your audience will feel like they are being
tortured watching you.

Final thoughts
Presentations can be stressful but, if you try, you should be able to find the fun in them.
The keys to presenting well are preparing well and having confidence. Confidence comes
from experience so practice often.

In-class presentations are an important opportunity to practice something which will

impact you greatly in the future. If you prepare well and keep the audience focused on
your message, you will do great. So, get ready, get up, and get going. Your audience is
waiting for you.

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Part 5: Where to go from here
As students start getting close to graduation, their minds naturally drift towards
celebrating their efforts and successes. Celebration is important and getting a university
degree is a big step so celebrate.

You should also be thinking about your future. What will you do? After spending years
doing the same thing every day, now you will likely leave school and go to work.
Different cultures are quite different about the life-style of a university student. In some
cultures, students are expected to study only and they do not start their first job until
they have received their bachelor degree. In other cultures, students regularly work
while they attend university. Each path has its own benefits.

This section will discuss issues about continuing on to graduate school and how to get
good letters of recommendation for school or for work.

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Chapter 26: Continuing on to graduate school
As you start to reach the end of your undergraduate degree, you, and those around you
(including your teachers) will start to ask “Are you going to grad school?”

In order to answer that question, even to yourself, you need to decide. There are many
factors which go into this decision including:

What is the current job market like?

If the job market does not support you finding a job right now, it might be a better
opportunity to continue on immediately to graduate school. You will be more
competitive when searching but you must understand: Education in school is not the
same as real-world experience.

How much theory can I hold in my head?

Some students get to the point where they have “studied too much.” If you feel this
way, it may not be that you have studied too much but that you need a better balance
between studying (building knowledge) and applying that knowledge in real life. If you
feel like you have studied too much, then go out and work. You can always study more
later.

Can I afford to go to graduate school now?

If you were a talented student and followed the advice in this text, you should have an
excellent academic record and your teachers will have good things to say about you.
With the right qualifications, it is possible to go to graduate school at a greatly reduced
price – sometimes for free.

If you do not have the grades or the teachers are not impressed enough to write good
letters of recommendations for you, then you will need to depend on your own finances.
There are often options of loans from banks or family members and even working to pay
for your tuition and living expenses. If you did well during your undergraduate studies
you might be able to teach during your graduate studies.

There are two main degrees students get from graduate school, master degrees and PhD
degrees. You should be familiar with each of them.

Master degree
A master degree is a bit different from a bachelor degree. You can (and many do) think
of it as a “super-bachelor” degree. That is, a master degree involves attending classes
(but there is much less class time and much more independent study) and producing
assignments (with more independent research from you). When you have graduated
with a master degree, the school is saying “This person has mastered this topic of
study.”

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In the US a master degree is usually two years. In the UK, a master degree is often one
year but you can study for a second year (and maybe a third, depending on the school)
and receive an M. Phil (master of philosophy) which is between a master degree and a
PhD.

PhD degree
Many people think of a PhD as a “super-master” degree but in reality a PhD (doctor of
philosophy) is quite different from a master degree in almost every way. A PhD, also
called a doctorate, is about learning how to research. When you study a PhD you may
take classes and you may not (depending on the program and the entry requirements). If
you do take classes they will be mainly at the master level and will also guide you on
how to do proper academic research.

A PhD is about picking one very narrow area of interest and focusing on that doing
extensive research (primary and secondary) and creating a valuable contribution to that
field of study.

While a master can be fairly broad (covering business, international finance, etc.) a PhD
is going to be very narrow (what style of leadership will cause Swiss employees to
maximize performance in the non-profit sector). When you receive your PhD, the school
is saying, “This person knows how to research.”

Who hires someone with a PhD? Any organization which focuses on research. This
includes research-focused universities, think tanks, and companies where research and
development is important (for example, technology or pharmaceutical companies).

Final thoughts
The decision of whether and where to attend graduate school is a huge decision. Before
making that decision, especially if you want to pursue a PhD, I recommend researching
very carefully and discussing it with everyone you can. It is a serious financial
commitment and will consume a lot of your time so make sure you choose wisely.

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Chapter 27: Letters of recommendation
A letter of recommendation is a letter, written by someone credible, which recommends
someone grant you something that you want. Examples include letters for admission
into a graduate or even undergraduate degree program or for a specific job. This chapter
we will focus just on letters to enter a graduate degree program but it relates to the
other areas as well.

When someone recommends you, they are putting their reputation on the line for you.
That is, if you succeed, you make the writer look good. If you fail (for example, get bad
grades, drop out, etc.) then you make the writer look bad. If the writer looks bad, their
future letters will be ignored because they have shown that their opinion of students is
not reliable.

Does the student get to see the letter?

It depends who asked for the letter. In some countries (like the US), letters of
recommendation travel directly from the person who writes the letter to the person (or
school) that requested it. Your teacher may tell you that they will only send the letter
directly to the school. This is better for many reasons.

Think about it from the schools perspective. If the school knows the student saw and
controlled the letter, then it is reasonable that if they received several letters and they
are only providing the most positive letters (“cherry picking”). This means the school is
not getting an honest opinion about the student. Because of this, if the student delivers
the letter then the school will not consider the letter much. However, if the school
receives the letter directly from the teacher, then it is likely the school will consider the
letter much more because the student was not in a position to intercept the letter.

Another issue is that the school will think about how free the teacher felt when writing
the letter. If you are a teacher and you know your student will read the letter, are you
going to write something very negative about the student? Most likely, you will write a
very general letter like “The student was a good student.” However, the school wants
the details and if the teacher is not free from the judgment of the student then the
letter will not be as reliable.

For these reasons, you should always prefer that the person recommending you will
send the recommendation letter directly to the school.

Who should the student ask to write the letter?

Recommendation letters should be written by someone who is respected by the person
who is asking for the letter. For example, if you are applying for a graduate program, the
school will usually ask you submit one or more letters of recommendation from

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someone who knows you as a student. Your teachers are usually in the best position to
write such a letter for you.

Should I ask the teacher I liked best or that gave me the highest grade?
You should ask the teacher with the most respect in the field of study and who knows
you the best. If you did not make an impression on the teacher, they are unlikely to
write a letter for you because they do not know you well enough. If you sat in the back
of the class and did not engage in class discussion much, then the teacher might not
know you well enough to recommend you for anything.

Just because a teacher gave you a good grade does not mean that they would
recommend you for every graduate program in the world. The teacher knows they put
their reputation on the line for you and, therefore, they normally only write letters of
recommendation for students they believe will be successful. So, pick the teacher who
believes in you the most.

What should I provide to the teacher to help write the letter?

The best letters of recommendation will be very specific. Specific to you and specific to
the program you wish to enter. For example, a letter which is quite generic saying “This
is a good student and I recommend him” or “I like this student and I am sure she will do
well” is not going to help you very much, because the letter has no evidence. Just like
students should always include evidence in their analysis, so teachers should include
evidence in their letters of recommendation. For example, it would be much better to
say “Suzi was surprising me at every turn. On one assignment, she was asked to analyze
a case and recommend which of Goleman’s leadership styles would be most appropriate
and Suzi actually came up with her own leadership style after identifying deficiencies in
each of Goleman’s styles as applied to the case. This new leadership style was the first
time in five years that I have seen a student produce work of such high quality with such
creative and deep insights into the area of leadership. Considering her deep
understanding in this area, she would do very well in your MBA program because your
program has such a focus on leadership.”

To support your teacher in writing the best possible letter of recommendation for you,
you should provide all of the key details of what it takes to be successful in the program
you want to enter (this takes research on your part) and identify exactly what you have
done that shows you have what it takes to be successful. You want to give this evidence
to the teacher. Now, this must be evidence the teacher can confirm. If you say “I created
a new measurement process in my Management module” but you are giving this to a
teacher who did not teach you that subject, then it will not help because that teacher
cannot speak about that experience. At that point, you should request a letter from the
teacher who taught you the Management module as that teacher can speak about that
experience.

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In the end, you need to do some research if you want a good letter of recommendation.
Graduate programs focus on research so if you cannot do the research about the
program you want to enter, it is unlikely you will be successful to doing research at the
graduate level. A good letter can get you into a good program. It is a huge benefit to you
so be prepared to do the work necessary to get the teacher the information needed to
write the best letter for you.

Final thoughts
When you need a letter of recommendation, you want to get one from the most
qualified teacher you can. However, this will only be possible if you have made a strong,
positive impression on that teacher. If you have been shy and quiet and have not
participated much in class, and your assignments have not been impressive, then it is
more difficult to convince a teacher to risk their reputation by recommending you.
However, if you provide good quality evidence you will improve your chances of getting
a strong letter to help you get what you want.

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Chapter 28: Concluding comments
Studying at university is not easy. It is even more difficult when you study in English and
that is not your native language. Language will be a continual source of challenge and so
you should continually try to improve your English.

University lecturers and professors will often focus on the content of the module they
are teaching. If you are studying a module about quality management, the lecturer has
so much to cover about the topic that it is difficult for them to also cover how to write a
proper research report. Your teachers generally believe that you enter their class with
the ability to produce assignments and that they only need to teach you the course
material. For this reason, it is generally up to you to learn how to improve yourself,
especially with regards to what will determine your grade.

Your teachers are there to help you. You should always feel comfortable asking your
teachers for help. It is unreasonable for you to ask your teacher to do your work for you
but you should certainly be clear in knowing what is expected from you. Your teachers
are usually available for consultation hours where you can meet with them one-on-one.
If you find the lessons in class are unclear, you should take advantage of this
consultation time to improve your understanding.

Above all else, you must read. Teachers will tell you constantly to read more. If you want
to know more, read more. If you are unwilling to invest the time in reading, then you are
unwilling to learn. At that point, university might not be the place for you. University is
not like first grade. You are expected to read extensively here. You are expected to read
at least 1.5 hours outside of class for every hour you study in class. If you want higher
scores on your assignments then you should increase the amount you read.

You should always be professional. Being professional means being serious about what
you do. To be serious in your studies mean to do the work expected of you. If you are
unwilling or unable to be professional, you are likely to get lower grades. However, if
you are willing to start making the changes necessary to be professional, your teachers
will help you, your classmates will help you, and everyone else will be more likely to help
you. In the end, you must ask yourself, what do you want from your time at university?

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Detailed topic index
Part 1: Introduction.............................................................................................................. 6
Chapter 1: How to judge success at university ................................................................ 8
Chapter 2: Why you should care about your grades ....................................................... 9
Part 2: Managing Yourself .................................................................................................. 10
Chapter 3: Improving your English ................................................................................. 11
Even native-speakers must improve their English ..................................................... 11
Highlighting new words .............................................................................................. 11
Speak English with your friends.................................................................................. 12
Chapter 4: Managing your time ..................................................................................... 13
Put yourself on a schedule ......................................................................................... 13
Checklists .................................................................................................................... 15
Use a calendar ............................................................................................................ 16
Do not procrastinate .................................................................................................. 16
Chapter 5: Behaving professionally................................................................................ 17
Can I wait until I graduate to act professionally? ....................................................... 17
What are the benefits of acting professionally as a student? .................................... 17
What should I pay attention to if I am acting professionally? ................................... 17
Coming to class on time .......................................................................................... 17
Coming to every class ............................................................................................. 18
Staying until the class has finished ......................................................................... 18
Paying attention to what is assigned for homework .............................................. 18
Doing the homework on time and with serious effort ........................................... 18
Participating in discussions in class ........................................................................ 18
Being respectful to the person talking.................................................................... 19
Paying attention to what is being taught in class ................................................... 19
Being open and curious about the teacher’s feedback .......................................... 19
Understanding the assessment and what you are expected to produce ............... 20
Doing your best to achieve the highest grade on the assignment or exam ........... 20
Supporting your classmates who might not understand as well as you ................ 20
Asking for help when your classmates understand better than you ..................... 20

Chapter 28: Concluding comments Page 133

 What else can I do? .................................................................................................... 20
Be brave ...................................................................................................................... 21
Taking responsibility for learning ............................................................................... 21
Final thoughts ............................................................................................................. 21
Part 3: Understanding the material ................................................................................... 22
Chapter 6: Critical reading.............................................................................................. 23
Reading poorly ............................................................................................................ 23
Reading to learn.......................................................................................................... 23
Selecting what to read ................................................................................................ 23
Let one article lead you to another ........................................................................ 24
Sharing your research ................................................................................................. 25
Skimming and scanning .............................................................................................. 25
Reading critically ......................................................................................................... 26
Watch the quality of the writing ............................................................................. 26
Watch for bias ......................................................................................................... 27
Consider the source ................................................................................................ 27
Confirming new facts .............................................................................................. 28
Chapter 7: Listening and taking notes during lectures .................................................. 29
Paying attention ......................................................................................................... 29
Eliminate distractions ............................................................................................. 29
Taking Notes ............................................................................................................... 30
Do not write down every word ............................................................................... 30
Notes do not need to be beautiful during the lecture ........................................... 31
Revising your notes ................................................................................................. 32
Recording lecturer ...................................................................................................... 32
Chapter 8: Homework .................................................................................................... 33
Teacher assigned homework ...................................................................................... 33
Finding your own sources ........................................................................................... 33
Creating your own homework .................................................................................... 33
Chapter 9: Understanding feedback .............................................................................. 35
Summative feedback .................................................................................................. 35
Formative feedback .................................................................................................... 35

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 Chapter 10: BTEC HNC and BTEC HND ........................................................................... 37
Possible grades ........................................................................................................... 37
Learning outcomes ..................................................................................................... 37
Pass ............................................................................................................................. 38
Merit ........................................................................................................................... 38
Example 1 of Merit.................................................................................................. 38
Example 2 of Merit.................................................................................................. 38
Rework, redo, resumit ............................................................................................ 39
Distinction ................................................................................................................... 39
Example 1 of Distinction ......................................................................................... 39
Example 2 of Distinction ......................................................................................... 39
Part 4: Showing you understand........................................................................................ 41
Chapter 11: Common assignment types ........................................................................ 42
Scenarios ..................................................................................................................... 42
Case analysis ............................................................................................................... 42
Research report .......................................................................................................... 42
Report ......................................................................................................................... 42
Essay ........................................................................................................................... 43
Difference between reports and essays ..................................................................... 43
Whitepaper ................................................................................................................. 44
Presentation ............................................................................................................... 44
Presentation report .................................................................................................... 44
Exam ........................................................................................................................... 44
1. Study a lot ........................................................................................................... 44
2. Get a good night’s sleep before the exam .......................................................... 44
3. Drink enough water ............................................................................................ 45
4. Eat a good meal................................................................................................... 45
Practice exams ........................................................................................................ 45
Oral exam.................................................................................................................... 45
Overall......................................................................................................................... 46
Final thoughts ............................................................................................................. 46
Chapter 12: Common task verbs .................................................................................... 47

Chapter 28: Concluding comments Page 135

 Final thoughts ............................................................................................................. 52
Chapter 13: How to write an abstract ............................................................................ 53
What is the purpose of an abstract? .......................................................................... 53
What does an abstract include? ................................................................................. 53
Is an abstract like an introduction? ............................................................................ 53
Should my abstract include information not in my report? ....................................... 53
Example of abstract .................................................................................................... 54
Should I write the abstract before writing the report? .............................................. 54
Final thoughts ............................................................................................................. 55
Chapter 14: How to write an introduction ..................................................................... 56
What should an introduction include? ....................................................................... 56
What is the difference between excuses and limitations? ........................................ 57
What should not be included in an introduction? ..................................................... 58
Examples of bad introductions ................................................................................... 58
When do you write it? ................................................................................................ 59
Where does it belong? ............................................................................................... 59
Final thoughts ............................................................................................................. 59
Chapter 15: How to show understanding ...................................................................... 60
Why do I have to analyze anything?........................................................................... 60
The 80/20 rule ............................................................................................................ 60
A better rule................................................................................................................ 60
Types of analysis ......................................................................................................... 61
Remembering.......................................................................................................... 61
Understanding ........................................................................................................ 62
Applying .................................................................................................................. 63
Analyzing ................................................................................................................. 64
Evaluating ................................................................................................................ 65
Creating ................................................................................................................... 66
Your options ............................................................................................................... 67
Descriptive vs critical analysis .................................................................................... 67
Making recommendations.......................................................................................... 69
What is “academic argument?”.................................................................................. 69

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 Applying theories ........................................................................................................ 70
How much should I write? .......................................................................................... 70
What if I do not know if my answer is correct?.......................................................... 71
Final thoughts ............................................................................................................. 71
Chapter 16: How to write a paragraph .......................................................................... 72
Are paragraphing rules universal?.............................................................................. 72
How long should a paragraph be? .............................................................................. 72
What should be in a single paragraph? ...................................................................... 72
How should a paragraph be structured? .................................................................... 72
What makes a good topic sentence for a paragraph? ............................................... 73
What makes a good support sentence? ..................................................................... 73
What makes a good evidence sentence? ................................................................... 73
How many support and evidence sentences should I have? ..................................... 73
How do I connect one paragraph to another? ........................................................... 73
Example paragraph ..................................................................................................... 74
Final thoughts ............................................................................................................. 74
Chapter 17: How to give good evidence ........................................................................ 75
What is evidence?....................................................................................................... 75
What is an example of academic argument? ............................................................. 75
How do I know if evidence is reasonable? ................................................................. 75
How do I know if evidence is relevant? ...................................................................... 76
How do I know if evidence is reliable? ....................................................................... 77
Credible people ....................................................................................................... 77
Wikipedia ................................................................................................................ 77
Blogs ........................................................................................................................ 77
Peer-reviewed journals ........................................................................................... 77
News organizations ................................................................................................. 78
Company websites .................................................................................................. 78
Essay websites ........................................................................................................ 79
Books ....................................................................................................................... 79
Reading original sources ............................................................................................. 79
How do I know if evidence is recent enough?............................................................ 79

Chapter 28: Concluding comments Page 137

 What else should I consider about evidence? ............................................................ 79
Final thoughts ............................................................................................................. 80
Chapter 18: How to reference properly ......................................................................... 81
Why do we reference at all?....................................................................................... 81
Example: No referencing at all ................................................................................ 81
That looks fine. What’s wrong with it?....................................................................... 81
Example: Properly cited .......................................................................................... 81
Detailed examples ...................................................................................................... 81
Journal article.......................................................................................................... 81
Book, one author .................................................................................................... 82
Book, two authors ................................................................................................... 82
Book, three authors ................................................................................................ 82
Book, one author (alternate style).......................................................................... 82
Web page 1 ............................................................................................................. 82
Web page 2 ............................................................................................................. 83
How do I cite something that is common knowledge? .............................................. 83
How do I cite something if I did not read the original work? ..................................... 83
Is it OK to cite what my teacher said in class?............................................................ 84
Do I need to cite definitions? ..................................................................................... 84
Do I need to cite something that I wrote before? ...................................................... 85
When do I use quotes? ............................................................................................... 85
Must I use a Works Cited page at the end or can I use footnotes? ........................... 85
Is it OK to reference Wikipedia? ................................................................................. 85
What does the in-text reference cover? .................................................................... 86
How can I properly reference several sentences like the above?.............................. 86
What else should I know about Harvard referencing? ............................................... 87
What should the References page look like? ............................................................. 87
Works Cited ............................................................................................................. 87
What is the easiest way to use Harvard referencing? ................................................ 88
Where can I find more information about Harvard referencing? .............................. 90
Final thoughts ............................................................................................................. 90
Chapter 19: How to write a conclusion .......................................................................... 91

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 What should a conclusion include? ............................................................................ 91
Summarizing the main points ................................................................................. 91
Making recommendations ...................................................................................... 91
Making final comments .......................................................................................... 92
What should a conclusion avoid? ............................................................................... 92
How long should a conclusion be? ............................................................................. 92
Final thoughts ............................................................................................................. 92
Chapter 20: What to put in the appendix ...................................................................... 94
What is an appendix? ................................................................................................. 94
Do words in the appendix normally count for word count? ...................................... 94
Can I use the appendix to avoid the word count limitations? ................................... 94
What should I put in the appendix? ........................................................................... 94
How do I name my appendixes? ................................................................................ 95
How do I choose what goes in the first appendix, second, etc.? ............................... 95
How do I refer to something in the appendix? .......................................................... 95
Final thoughts ............................................................................................................. 95
Chapter 21: How to make your writing beautiful .......................................................... 96
Fonts ........................................................................................................................... 96
Example 1: Consistent ............................................................................................. 96
Example 2: Inconsistent .......................................................................................... 96
Paragraphs .................................................................................................................. 97
Example 1 ................................................................................................................ 97
Example 2: No spacing after paragraph .................................................................. 97
Example 3: Indented first lines ............................................................................... 98
Example 4: Double-spaced...................................................................................... 98
Example: Inconsistent ............................................................................................. 99
Bolding Keywords ..................................................................................................... 100
Example ................................................................................................................. 100
Full justification ........................................................................................................ 100
Example 1: Full justification .................................................................................. 100
Example 2: Left justification.................................................................................. 101
Formatting numbers ................................................................................................. 101

Chapter 28: Concluding comments Page 139

 Formatting dates ...................................................................................................... 101
Final thoughts ........................................................................................................... 102
Chapter 22: Reflecting on your work ........................................................................... 103
What is reflection? ................................................................................................... 103
Bad example ............................................................................................................. 103
Criteria ...................................................................................................................... 103
Good example........................................................................................................... 103
Inappropriate criteria ............................................................................................... 104
Finding criteria .......................................................................................................... 104
Forming a reflective habit......................................................................................... 105
Creating criteria ........................................................................................................ 105
Final thoughts ........................................................................................................... 105
Chapter 23: Editing your writing .................................................................................. 106
What should I do to edit properly? .......................................................................... 106
How much time does it take to edit well?................................................................ 107
Worrying about word count ..................................................................................... 107
Reducing the word count ......................................................................................... 107
Final thoughts ........................................................................................................... 108
Chapter 24: Marking your own work ........................................................................... 109
Information density .................................................................................................. 110
Final thoughts ........................................................................................................... 111
Chapter 25: How to give a good presentation ............................................................. 112
Speak slowly ............................................................................................................. 112
Speak thoughtfully .................................................................................................... 112
Breathe ..................................................................................................................... 113
Pause......................................................................................................................... 113
Avoid monotone voice.............................................................................................. 113
Present like you are having a conversation .............................................................. 113
Do not say “uh”......................................................................................................... 114
Practice pronouncing long and unfamiliar words .................................................... 114
Prepare your slides well ........................................................................................... 114
Slides should have more graphics and less text ................................................... 114

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 Use consistent fonts.............................................................................................. 115
Use charts ............................................................................................................. 115
One slide, one thought ......................................................................................... 116
Make sure one word does not wrap around ........................................................ 116
Watch text size on slides....................................................................................... 117
Watch spelling and grammar ................................................................................ 117
Consider your audience ........................................................................................ 117
Use good quality images ....................................................................................... 117
Hook .......................................................................................................................... 120
Introduction .............................................................................................................. 120
Body .......................................................................................................................... 121
Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 121
Dress for success....................................................................................................... 121
Do not read your slides............................................................................................. 121
Make and keep eye contact ..................................................................................... 122
Do not lean ............................................................................................................... 122
Do not hide behind a desk ........................................................................................ 122
Watch your body language ....................................................................................... 122
Present with energy.................................................................................................. 123
Fake it until you make it ........................................................................................... 123
Watch lasers on mice................................................................................................ 123
Remember a presentation is not a report ................................................................ 123
Practice your timing.................................................................................................. 124
Do not go too fast ..................................................................................................... 124
Allocate your time properly...................................................................................... 124
Practice, practice, practice ....................................................................................... 124
Never distract from your message ........................................................................... 124
Plan for technology to fail ........................................................................................ 125
Be rested ................................................................................................................... 125
Have fun .................................................................................................................... 125
Final thoughts ........................................................................................................... 125
Part 5: Where to go from here ........................................................................................ 126

Chapter 28: Concluding comments Page 141

 Chapter 26: Continuing on to graduate school ............................................................ 127
What is the current job market like? ........................................................................ 127
How much theory can I hold in my head? ................................................................ 127
Can I afford to go to graduate school now? ............................................................. 127
Master degree .......................................................................................................... 127
PhD degree ............................................................................................................... 128
Final thoughts ........................................................................................................... 128
Chapter 27: Letters of recommendation ..................................................................... 129
Does the student get to see the letter? ................................................................... 129
Who should the student ask to write the letter? ..................................................... 129
Should I ask the teacher I liked best or that gave me the highest grade? ............... 130
What should I provide to the teacher to help write the letter? .............................. 130
Final thoughts ........................................................................................................... 131
Chapter 28: Concluding comments .............................................................................. 132

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