Research Report Business & Marketing Essay Research

ENGL 3080, Brumbaugh Spring 2020 Research Report For this assignment, you will create a formal report following the advice in our course textbook and the guidelines below. Because many organizations use both internal reports and external reports, you will probably be involved in writing reports at some point in your career. This assignment will thus provide valuable practice. Good writers advance in their careers more than similar employees who cannot write well. The most valuable employees can typically plan and conduct research, manage a team (or be a strong part of a team), and synthesize information into meaningful recommendations. Required Focus: Your final research report for our class should attempt to persuade your target audience that the organization in question would benefit from adopting specific recommendations that your report proposes. The target audience for your report must be specified individuals within the company or organization that you (or one member of your team) applied to for the Job Application Materials assignment for this class. For this assignment, imagine that you (or all members of your team, for those working in teams) work either as (1) employees of the company or organization to which you will offer advice [in which case you would compose an internal proposal] or (2) consultants who have been hired by the company or organization [in which case you would compose an internal proposal]. In either case, the report should focus on a specific real-world problem or opportunity, offering suggestions for ways in which the organization could accomplish one or two of the following goals: x improve its website, x increase the number of potential customers or clients it reaches, x enhance the quality of services or products that it currently offers, x add one or more products or services that it does not currently offer, x increase the satisfaction of its current customers, or x make itself more sustainable and environmentally friendly. Your formal research report should contextualize the problem that you have chosen to focus on or the improvements that the report will suggest; explore the roots or causes of any current problems; and offer concrete, actionable solutions and recommendations. Research Requirements: The type of research you conduct will depend on your objectives and the particular topic you choose to investigate. No matter what type of research you conduct, however, you will need to keep track of where you obtain information and provide a list of “Works Cited” (see below). You will be required to cite a minimum of five secondary sources. At least four of these sources should be from Business Source Premier, Mergent Intellect, or other subscription databases available through the Auburn University Libraries (under “Find,” then “Articles and Databases by Subject,” then “Business”). These secondary sources could include articles from journals or trade magazines, reports, or appropriate government publications (e.g., codes, regulations, technical guidelines). You should use at least one primary source as well. Not all primary research involves face-to-face interactions. If you analyze various features of the website of the organization you have selected and of the websites of its competitors or of other organizations it could learn from and compile the resulting data (as in the sample report that appears in Chapter 20 of our course text), you would be performing primary research. (If instead, you found such analysis and comparisons in an article or report written by someone else, you would be doing secondary research.) Primary research could also include your own surveys, interviews, site visits, or observations; however, such research would obviously be more difficult this semester due to restrictions stemming from the COVID-19 outbreak. Any interviews you include should NOT be with members of your own family. Formatting and Organization: Follow the general guidelines on writing formal reports in our course text, Business and Professional Writing: A Basic Guide (BPW). For example, the report should use a formal writing style (do not use contractions, write in the third person, and observe formal academic standards for punctuation and grammar [BPW 310]). The report must include the following sections: x title page (see BPW 314 and examples on 370 and 348; your “Prepared For” line on the title page should indicate your target audience [as described above]), x table of contents (see BPW 319 and examples on 350 and 373), x table or list of figures, if included (see BPW 320 and examples on 351 and 374), x list of tables, if included (see BPW 320 and examples on 351 and 374), x executive summary (see BPW 321-22 and examples on 352 and 375), x introduction and background (see BPW 323 and examples on 353-54 and 376), x analysis (see BPW 323 and examples on 355-61 and 378-81), x conclusions (see BPW 324 and examples on 362 and 382), x recommendations (see BPW 324 and examples on 364-66 and 384-88), x appendices, if included (see BPW 325 and examples on 351 and 374), and x list of references, which for this report should take the form of a list of “Works Cited” using MLA documentation format (see BPW 325-26 and examples on 351 and 374). For a sample “Works Cited” in MLA format, see our Canvas cite, under “Pages,” then “Sample Documents,” then “‘Works Cited’ in MLA Format.” See also, the link “Purdue OWL: MLA Formatting, which appears on our Canvas cite, under “Pages,” then “Useful Websites.” Note that our course text and others sometimes use the label “front matter” to refer collectively to the first five sections listed above (the title page through the executive summary). The label, “body of the report,” refers to the next four sections (the introduction through the recommendations). “Back matter” includes any appendices included and your list of references. The body of your report (excluding the cover page, table of contents, and references page) should be 6-8, 9-12, 12-16, or 15-18 pages in length (for teams of 1, 2, 3, or 4 students respectively), using double spacing and one-inch margins throughout. Up to one-fifth of this length may be tables, graphs, or other illustrations. As the sample reports in chapters 19 and 20 of our course text illustrate, however, some of these pages will not actually consist of full pages of writing. Some may include only a brief paragraph, and appendices might consist primarily of tables, graphs, or charts. Each major section of the body of the report, though, must include enough detail to be convincing for the target audience and to meet the criteria described in our course text (see the page numbers that appear with each bullet point above). If you create charts or tables yourself, you should cite the sources of any data you use to produce them. If you use visuals from other sources, you must cite those sources. Format the report according to the advice in Chapter 18 of our course text. Note that most sections of the body of the report use block formatting (single space within paragraphs, double space between paragraphs, left justify [except for headings], and don't indent). The report should also meet the following requirements: x use topic headings to organize the body of your report, per the examples in our course text; x for text in the body of the report, use an eleven- or twelve-point font size and a reader-friendly font such as Times New Roman; x begin each paragraph in the body of the report with a topic sentence; x place exact wording from sources of all kinds (online or print) into quotation marks and provide a parenthetical citation (including a page number) in MLA format for all information that derives from any source other than your own head. Not more than 20% of the total words in the proposal (as a maximum) should be exact wording from any source other than your own head. The report must cite a source and provide a page number for each quote or paraphrased example that it cites; and x include on your “Works Cited” for each source that you obtained online (using a computer) either a DOI or a **complete, active URL** that links directly to the source. (MLA style now requires either a DOI or a complete URL for each source that you obtain online (using a computer, regardless of whether or not the source also exists in print format). Remember that for sources in AU databases like Business Search Premier you can often click on a “cite” button to generate a complete citation. You will also be required to submit copies of each source that you cite within the report and to mark on the copies of the sources that you submit the information that you cite (quote or paraphrase) within your report. Submit your report as a PDF file so that you don't lose points for inadvertent changes to your document when it is opened in a different version of Word. Each student should submit the proposal separately. For students working in teams, IF all members of the team contributed equally, you may all submit the same file, but if you do so, note in the comment box for the assignment that all team members have submitted identical files. All members of each team should keep copies of each team’s assignment.