Business:
Essay Title Management tools SWOT and PEST are used by managers to inform decisions regarding business strategies. Discuss the usefulness and limitations of these tools in relation to a chosen organisation, providing commentary on how managers may overcome
Project description
Points to note
1. The word limit is 1000 (+/- 10%). Neither the title page nor your reference list count towards the word limit but your in-text referencing will count. Please state the number of words you have used. Your marks will be reduced if you under- or over-shoot the word limit.
2. The current university policies on plagiarism and late submission apply. The deadline is as listed in Study Direct. Please submit electronically.
3. Reference your work in a way that follows the advice and guidance available on the 3S (Study Success at Sussex) site or any received from your Academic Advisor and/or your N1065 seminar leader and/or in lectures. Furthermore we suggest you use TURNITIN to review your own work.
4. The exact title as above should be displayed; not your own version of the title.
5. It is an essay and no sub-titles are expected.
6. In the early stages of the essayyou should state clearly themanagement tools you are going to write about and which organisation is the main focus of your essay.
You should also give a very brief description of your selected organisation but dont waste too many words on this; it wont gain you many marks (for example dont go into detail about its history).
7. Try not to use overlong quotations they soak up too many words. Use a range of authoritative sources and reference properly. Referencing lecture slides will bring very few marks; avoid this and Wikipedia!
8. In your essay you are trying to show understanding and application of relevant concepts, models, arguments and theories. You should do this convincingly, and for a higher mark, critically. So for example dont assume that your selected organisation gets it right all the time you are being asked to give your view on how well the tools enable the organisational members to make good decisions.
9. Remember it is an essay, not a report, so you dont need to end with recommendations. You should provide a conclusion which reviews what you have found and draws the readers attention to the key issues and these might be problem areas or challenges for the organisation you have chosen and it is here you may wish to include critical elements and limitations of the tools.
10. Dont hand in your essay until you have checked it through and proof-read it AND dont hand it in late!
This guidance is not definitive. You can seek the opinion of your seminar leader regarding your choice of organisation when you meet in seminars or you can, by arrangement, drop them an email or you can use the N1065 forum. However, we will not comment on essaydrafts. You will probably never get as much guidance as you want or feel that you need. This is partly because we should be stretching you and giving you responsibility for your own learning. This is intellectually demanding and can feel uncomfortable.
So we wont teach you how to write an essay as we expect students to either have these skills on entry and/or be sufficiently intellectually capable to learn by doing.
Please visit Study Success at Sussex (S3) accessible via the 1st section of the N1065 Study Direct site which has some very good advice about writing academic essays and critical writing.
PLEASE DO NOT EXPECT YOUR SEMINAR LEADER TO GIVE YOU SUGGESTIONS ON WHICH ORGANISATION TO STUDY: MAKING YOUR OWN APPROPRIATE CHOICE IS PART OF THE ASSESSMENT PROCESS