Are entrepreneurial opportunities created or found? While drawing on the relevant concepts and theories answer this question using two case examples from entrepreneurs you know.
Extended Essays
You should aim to produce a well integrated piece of work of approximately 2,000 to 4,000 words.
Please read carefully the assignment guidelines which are attached to this document, particularly with regard to acknowledging your sources correctly.
The following pages contain some general guidelines on coursework assignments. As conventions vary in different countries, the various sections are intended to provide some indications as to what we are looking for in coursework assignments. They also offer guidance on structure and approach.
1 WHAT MAKES A GOOD ASSIGNMENT?
A good assignment is one that addresses the question set, making use of a wide range of relevant literature and other sources to support a thoughtful discussion. It is clearly expressed and well organised, achieving a good balance between context, literatures, discussion, and synthesis of ideas, with convincing and well argued conclusions.
2 BEFORE YOU START
Analyse carefully the question you have been set, looking very closely at the precise wording. Don’t just focus on one or two of the words in the question. If there is more than one part to the question, make sure that you have thought about the implications of each part. It will be important that you address each part in your answer.
Start your literature search early. If you find one good article, the work which that author or authors have drawn upon (as given in their references) is likely to lead you to other useful sources. So leave yourself time to follow that paper trail.
If you are photocopying an article or a section from a book, be careful to write on it at the time all the details which you will need for the reference. It can sometimes be very difficult to remember or track back later where you got something from.
3 OUTLINE ASSIGNMENT STRUCTURE
Generally speaking, an assignment will usually contain three distinct parts: a) an introduction, b) a main section containing discussion and analysis, and c) a conclusion.
Introduction
The introduction should literally introduce the reader to the assignment, by providing a context for what follows and defining the focus and approach being taken. Be clear in defining the focus and aims, ie what you are trying to achieve.
A good introduction should outline clearly the various areas which you are going to address, why, and in what order. This is where you are setting the parameters for what you are going to do. The introduction helps to make the structure and logical sequence of what follows more apparent to the reader. It can also be useful to you as you are put the assignment together – are you actually doing what you said you were going to do? Sometimes the assignment may evolve in a slightly different direction from what you had first planned: if that happens, you may want to revisit your introduction and rewrite it, so that it reflects what you have actually presented (so long as you are still addressing the question effectively, of course).
Main body of assignment
In the central part of the assignment you will be drawing on academic literature to help you build and develop your argument. You should be using appropriate theoretical frameworks, concepts or research findings and other source material to help you analyse the question set, consider and evaluate different perspectives, formulate arguments and demonstrate your understanding of the issues involved.
You need to bear in mind that the purpose of the coursework assignment is to demonstrate that you have developed thoughtful insights into the topic and issues covered in a particular course. A coursework assignment which does not draw on any of the material which you have been introduced to in the course fails to do this effectively. Such material includes lectures, tutorials, guest speakers, video cases, etc, as well as your own wider research. However, you are welcome and encouraged to refer to material from other courses where appropriate to develop your arguments. This can be a valuable way of showing the links between different disciplines.
While sub-headings might be frowned upon in a conventional essay format, for these assignments it is perfectly acceptable to use sub-headings; indeed, it can be a helpful way of organising your material and signaling the structure to your reader.
Conclusion
This is perhaps the most important section, and should be substantial and multi-dimensional – not just a few lines. You need at this point to revisit the question, in order to reach some kind of overall ‘verdict’ on the question. Besides providing your considered ‘verdict’ on the question – the outcome of your thinking, research and analysis – this is your chance to stand back and put the whole argument into a broad context.
Make sure that you do not introduce completely new arguments into your conclusions – this section should serve as a ‘pulling together’ of the threads of your argument – it is not the point at which you introduce new material which needs fuller discussion earlier in the essay.
On this course, we also encourage you to develop a habit of critical reflection; what does it all mean in the broader scheme of things? Does the ‘theory’ really help in interpreting and explaining what goes on? Finally, try to say a few words about yourself and the assignment process: what have you learned and how do you think the assignment could have been improved?
4 DEVELOPING YOUR DISCUSSION
Using academic literature
Reading as widely as possible in the literature should enrich your thinking and enable you to develop a more sophisticated and thoughtful level of discussion. The literature which is introduced in lectures is intended to be only a starting point for you. We expect you to go to the original sources wherever possible and to show evidence of reading beyond what is mentioned in lectures or the core text book.
In any single area you are likely to find competing perspectives: sometimes the points of disagreement may be relatively slight and subtle, in other cases they will be more markedly divergent. A good assignment will review the literature as extensively as possible in relation to the question: it will compare and contrast the views of different authors, drawing out the key points of difference or agreement, considering why these may have arisen, and evaluating the merits of particular arguments. But focus on relevant theory only: theory that is relevant to your specific focus and to the arguments which you are discussing. Don’t feel compelled to mention sources and frameworks for the sake of it – this probably won’t earn you any more marks!
We are interested here in your ideas, too – these are very important. However, you need to build a logical and convincing argument, and ensure that you do not make sweeping generalizations or unsubstantiated assertions. While that may be common and acceptable in opinion-based journalism, academic writing requires a more detached and reasoned approach. Any point you make needs to be supported wherever possible by evidence or argument from research or published studies. If you are expressing a more tentative hypothesis, for example maybe proposing an alternative perspective for which you do not have actual evidence, then it is wise to couch your language more cautiously. The use of words such as ‘might’, ‘possibly’, ‘perhaps’, etc, can be very useful.
All the sources you use should be clearly acknowledged. Use abbreviated references in the text – e.g. Storey (1994) – supported by a list of full references at the end of the assignment. We prefer that you use Harvard style referencing rather than footnotes (which can become cumbersome). For fuller details on referencing, see section 5.
NB: don’t confuse ‘references’ with ‘bibliography’. The references section is a source list that the reader can refer to in order to find full details of works that you have referred to in the text. Under certain circumstances, a bibliography is useful as a list of ‘further reading’ that the reader might find useful but which has not been specifically referred to in the text.
Using examples from practice
If the question specifically asks for you to illustrate your answer with examples, then your marker will be looking for appropriate examples as an essential feature of your answer. However, using examples can also be very effective in many other assignments as it demonstrates your ability to link theory and practice. Guest speakers introduced on the course can provide a rich source of examples. Equally, you might draw on personal experience, perhaps people that you have interviewed, or examples from other printed sources. Make sure that in all cases you state clearly the source of your examples, and provide enough background information to show the relevance to the point you are making. Try to keep the examples as concise and clear as possible – long chunks of descriptive narrative text will probably detract from your argument, rather than add to it.
Conducting and using your own primary research
Undertaking some research of your own (ie primary research) to explore a particular topic can be a very powerful learning vehicle and provide you with some interesting insights. However, if you do incorporate some of your own research, you need to indicate clearly at the outset that you are doing this – probably within your introductory section.
You also need to give detail as to of what you have done. If you are conducting interviews, this would include some background details of your interviewees, some indications as what you asked and how (were the interviews conducted by telephone, in person, by e-mail, how were responses recorded, etc). If you carry out a survey, you need similar details about how the size and composition of your sample, what return rate you had, and how the survey was conducted. Most importantly, you need to provide some justifications as to why you have taken a particular approach, why you selected those individuals/sample, etc. The importance of this is to give the reader the context from which they can understand interpret your ‘findings’ and draw their own conclusions as to their likely value.
Material from the web
There are many valuable materials available on the web, both academic papers and more general articles. HOWEVER, do exercise some caution in how you interpret and use what you find. Consider the particular purpose and audience for which it may be written and how that may affect what is said and how it is said – ie, assess the credibility of the source.
All material from private or company websites should be referenced clearly, just like other material. The most appropriate way of doing this is to put a brief reference in the text (www.barclays.com), then put in your references the full html reference (ie which would take the reader direct to the specific page in the site), together with the date on which you accessed the information. The date is important, since web-pages can be updated.
If you are using a journal article which you have accessed via a online database, the web is just the tool you have used to find it – in this case, your referencing should follow standard procedure for journal articles (see section 5 on Referencing).
Using statistics
When using statistics in support of a point, make sure that you always indicate the source clearly – and also bear in mind how the source and underlying purpose may affect those statistics. The period of time to which these statistics relate is also important, as is the context in which they were compiled.
All tables, charts and diagrams must be clearly labeled with the source acknowledged. If you are incorporating a model you have developed yourself, make that clear – eg ‘adapted from’ or ‘drawn from’.
Use of appendices
Appendices can be used for material which illustrates some aspect of your argument or for material which is perhaps too large to be contained easily within the body of your text: for example, a detailed table. If you have done a survey, you would typically include a copy of that survey in your appendices. But whenever you put material in appendices, make sure that you include cross-references in your main text, so that your reader knows it is there.
If you are using one particular model as a basis for discussion, it is probably better to incorporate the model into the body of your text rather than in an appendix – it makes it easier for your reader than switching to and fro between appendices and discussion.
5 REFERENCING
It is very important to ensure that you reference your sources fully and consistently. If you fail to do so, you are in danger of the serious academic offence of plagiarism – ie where you take someone else’s idea and present it as your own. Whether you are summarising someone’s idea (as in Example 2 below) or using a direct quotation (as in Example 3), you need to make sure there is an accompanying acknowledgement.
When you refer within your assignment to someone else’s idea or argument, or to statistics or research published elsewhere, you will need to give an abbreviated reference in the text. Please give in brackets the author’s surname, date of publication and, if appropriate, page numbers after the reference – see examples 1 and 2 below.
If you are using someone else’s words, this MUST be clearly indicated by use of quotation marks. Quotations should be used only when appropriate to illustrate or support a point, and should normally be kept relatively short.
Each time you reference like this in the text, you must include a corresponding full reference in the separate reference section at the end of your assignment.
The references should be consistent in format, following the conventions – see example 3 below. The title of the book or journal article should either be in italics or underlined. The list of references should be ordered alphabetically by author. NB: It doesn’t matter whether the reference is to a book or a journal article, there should be one alphabetical sequence incorporating both.
ALSO: check very carefully who the author actually is. Some texts are compiled of chapter contributions from various authors, under the editorship of one or two individuals (eg Carter and Jones-Evans (eds), In this instance, you need to cite the particular author whose chapter you are referring to – see the final part of Example 3 below for how to do this.
Example 1 – Referencing in the text (author, date):
In understanding the process of strategy formulation attempts must be made to apply multiple perspectives (Mintzberg, 1990).
Here the idea expressed is not a direct quotation from Mintzberg, but a summary or paraphrase of his argument, therefore needs no quotation marks
Example 2 – Referencing quotations in the text (author, date, page numbers)
“We need to know how this beast called strategy formation, which combines all of these schools and more, really lives its life. . . . in addition to probing its parts, we must give more attention to the whole strategy formation beast. We shall never find it, never really see it all. But we can certainly see it better.” (Mintzberg, 1990: 208-209).
Example 3 – Referencing in the references section (author, date, title, publisher and the place of publication):
A book
Bennis, W & Nanus, B (1985) Leaders: The strategies for taking charge, Harper & Row, New York.
A journal article
Chakravarthy, B S & Doz, Y (1992) ‘Strategy process research: Focusing on corporate self-renewal’, Strategic Management Journal, 13, pp 5-14.
A chapter in a book
Stokes, D (2000), ‘Marketing and the small firm’, in Cooper, S and Jones-Evans, D (Eds), Enterprise and Small Business: Principles, Practice and Policy, FT/Prentice Hall, Harlow, pp 354-366.
6 PRESENTATION
Proof-read your work carefully – or if you can, ask someone else to proof read it.
Grammar and spelling – check that they are correct as they can ruin the whole tone of an assignment if incorrect and create a very poor impression. An automatic spellchecker is really useful – but only does half of the job, since it won’t pick up words which are spelled correctly but misapplied, etc (e.g. their/there).
It can also be helpful to read your work aloud, either to yourself or to someone else, as this can sometimes highlight ambiguities of expression or illogicalities in your flow of argument.
Think about the visual impact of your work and how easy it is to read – use clear headings, underlining and indentations where appropriate to help in emphasizing the structure of your work and ensure the whole assignment follows a consistent pattern.
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF OUR PROMOTIONAL DISCOUNT DISPLAYED ON THE WEBSITE AND GET A DISCOUNT FOR YOUR PAPER NOW!