‘Marker-Speak’ – Understanding what the Marker Feedback really meant…

Are you puzzled by your marker’s comments? Are you struggling to make sense of your feedback sheet and relate it to your work? I have produced this to help students decipher the marker’s comments – if there are some terms on your feedback sheet that you do not understand and are not on this list please post them on OBU forums  and I will try to interpret them for you and add them to this list.

(Note: only terms that you do not understand please – not general feedback where the meaning is clear – so just small quotes and phrases that are worded in such a way that you are not sure what the marker means!)

What the OBU marker said:

Your evaluation was:

Too Descriptive –

In relation to T8 – you just set out increases/decreases in the trends; you mentioned differences only in terms of numbers or merely said that a ratio was just bigger or smaller for one company compared with the other but offered few if any real explanations

In relation to other Topics – you described what you found but did not evaluate it or apply any real analysis; a tendency to just present the situation and accept it rather than question it (see also ‘not Objective enough’ as the two are connected)

Speculative – proper researched reasons were not given; a lot of the evaluation was guesswork e.g. ‘this is probably due to..’ , ‘it could be because..’ (Note: the point of research is to find out WHY and what actually happened)

Not Objective enough – you relied on too few sources; most of it was annual reports or company generated information; in relation to the analysis you did not consider whether it was valid or biased; you made statements that were not backed up by evidence (including references); you did not present alternative points of view

•  In relation to some topics (Particularly T17 & T20) additionally:
  you did not consider other standpoints; you just accepted the company’s stance without subjecting it to any scrutiny or a more comprehensive unbiased analysis

Was not Balanced – most of your information came from the annual report and company sources and few if any other sources were used;   all you have presented was the company view of things; your evaluation was one-sided

Your explanations were based on Conjecture – you made suggestions but they were not backed up by proper evidence e.g. ‘this may be because’, ‘it might be due to’; you put forward potential causes but these were merely possibilities rather than definite reasons (see also ‘Speculative’ as these terms can be used interchangeably)

You did not consider:

Management decisions – you needed to look at the company’s strategies by reading the Chairman/CEO/Directors’ reports (within the annual report) and link the financial results to them

The wider environment – you did not put the company in a business context or think about how the SWOT /PESTLE factors may have influenced results and strategies; you have relied too heavily on company information and not used sufficient sources from the business & trade press

Your sources were:

Too narrow – you have relied mainly on company information; you have not researched sufficiently widely and found other sources of relevant but appropriate information

• the following comment is virtually the same but expressed in different terms:

You have not used sufficient External Sources – you did not use non-company sources e.g. articles from the business press, analyst reports or trade journals; most of your work depended on the annual reports or company statements for analysis

Your data was unreliable / invalid – (this comment is usually made in connection with topics where most of the information gathering came from primary data collection) the survey you conducted was flawed; you did not follow established research principles; the questions asked were ambiguous/poorly worded/unclear; your sample was not appropriate and/or respondents lacked sufficient knowledge of the subject to be able to answer honestly/with credibility/ reliability

Your explanations were generic – you were too general and did not give specific examples, you used a text-book type of approach to try to explain things; your comments did not have any real depth to them and should have been more relevant to your company/topic

If there are some terms on your feedback sheet that you do not understand and are not on this list please post them on this topic on the OBU forums  and I will try to interpret them for you and add them to this list

(Note: only terms that you do not understand please – not general feedback where the meaning is clear – so just small quotes and phrases that are worded in such a way that you are not sure what the marker means!)