Establish credibility by acceptable and adequate use of bibliographical support.

Formal Written Business Report

The report will be a formal written report that identifies a problem within an organization, offers several solutions with supporting research and documentation, and makes a recommendation or draws a conclusion.

You may choose your own topic. It should address a problem at a place of business or on your planned career.

There is no minimum or maximum length requirement. The report should adequately cover the topic, yet be concise in accordance with business writing principles.
The report must include the following (in this order):

Title page
Executive summary
Body of report
Reference list (Citations)
Appendices (if applicable)

The general format will follow these guidelines:

Typed
Standard-sized paper (8.5 x 11 inches)
1-inch margins on all sides
Double-spaced (for grading purposes)

All sources must be cited fully and accurately. In-text citations and references will comply with the APA style manual. See Appendix B of the textbook.

Citation Machine is an interactive web tool that will help you with your citations. Be sure to choose the APA citation format. http://citationmachine.net
For more detailed information about APA style guidelines, go to: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
The final draft must be submitted in hard copy.
For more grading information, see Attachment 3.

Writing Standards

Papers must:

Express clarity of purpose (a clear theme), coherence in expression, and be rational in demonstrating the relationship of ideas. Develop clear transitions from sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph. Each sentence and paragraph carries the reader closer to an understanding and appreciation of the writer’s goal (not goals). This organization evidences your understanding of what you are putting down on paper.

Demonstrate at least adequate use of evidence to support conclusions; such use of evidence requires acknowledgment of the biases and reliability of the sources used. Concrete examples from a variety of sources show that you have command of your material.

Establish credibility by acceptable and adequate use of bibliographical support. Your ability to demonstrate command of all of your sources is crucial.

Maintain accurate use of facts, spelling, grammar, quotations, statistics, scientific and critical findings, and mathematical computations. If you don’t care enough to do these things right, how can you convince your reader that what you have to say is worth reading?

Display relevancy in relating material support to individual conclusions and in relating these conclusions to the major thesis of your work. Without focus, your work becomes a big gob of goo.

Write with style. Sentences are varied, and word choices are accurate. There is no clutter or “padding.” Phrasing is clear and direct. Tone is handled consistently; sentence length and word choices are appropriate to the audience and purpose of the piece. Formatting is correct. Verbs stress the active voice. Opening, closing, and title are strong and contribute to the sense of purpose, focus and unity of your piece of writing