Word count - Report and SLS (Self-reflection)

Ms Word show word count of my RAP 7322 i.e. excluding words in Graphs and Picture. Is this word count i will display on my title page of RAP? or manually count all the words including words in Graphs and Pictures and display it on title page of RAP?

Life is too short to count words! As long as you haven't pasted tables of words as images you are well within the limit. Put 7322 on the front sheet and chill :-)

hahaha @trephana. Life is too short to count words. lol. Cant wait for the 18th though

As long as you have adequately covered limitations of your data sources. Don't forget with T8 graphs save on words in Part C - your marker really won't appreciate lots of figures and percentages they want expanations and 'proper' analysis.

Hi Trephena, as i was reading the information pack i noticed something new concerning the SLS page 67 where at the end of the page it states that students needs to answer four questions which I am well aware but it did further stated that; "From Period 32 May 2016 submission, rather than answering four questions you will be required to write a 2000 word critical reflection ‘what you have learned from undertaking the Research and Analysis Project’ supported by personal examples". my confusion is do i need to still answer the four question or only the critical reflection? Thanks

@vinessen - if that is the ruling for P32 then that is what you will have to do. I think you can probably use some of the information from your previous SLS to help as guide to what to include as examples of what you learned. My advice to everyone is to keep a dairy early on and jot things down as you go along. I suggest you approach this by considering how you went from being an ACCA student just studying and preparing exam question answers to having to produce an academic piece of work. Things like how you learned how to design a research approach and possibly using full published accounts for the first time, reflecting on whether as time went on you became more efficient in the way you found sources and referencing, laying out a report and expressing yourself in semi-professional business language.

hi @trephena page 24 of infor pack stated "From Period 32 May 2016 submission rather than answering four questions you will be required to write a 2000 word critical reflection ‘what you have learned from undertaking the Research and Analysis Project’ supported by personal examples." but at OBU mentee dashboard website, it highlighted "Studenst who are submitting in period 32 will use the original 4 questions." so i am confused as both statements are contradict. For period 32 (May 2016), SLS requirement is original 4 questions or 1 critical reflection? thanks.

@leonardl - I am puzzled too by this and when I asked my contact in the marking team they were equally puzzled. They said definitely there are plans to change the current SLS into a 2,000 word essay on self-reflection but were not quite sure when this was coming into effect and why there should be differing dates in the advice. I think the only way to get to the bottom of this is to copy what you have written above and paste it into an email to the OBU admin office as they are responsible for updating the Info Pack and mentoring website and send to [email protected] Please post your response on the forum and then we shall all know :-)

@trephena i got the answer and email replied: "Our Programme Director has decided to defer the introduction of the new SLS format until November 2016. Therefore for your submission in May 2016 you will submit the answers to the set 4 questions."

@leonardl - thank you for posting the reply from OBU as it is really helpful to everyone :-D It looks then that the 2,000 word critical self-reflection essay will not be prescribed until Period 33 now at the earliest

I have used my tabular data prepared through Excel in the results section as an image which does not count the words. Is this process allowed? Advice will be highly appreciated. Thank you.

@rizhawk - first I would say tabular data is not he best way to present numerical data -graphs and charts are far superior. Excessive use of tables where graphs etc would have been more suitable could result in a fail for Assessment Criteria 4 - Presentation of the Data. If you have many embedded images such as the one you describe and you are already close to the word count there is the possibility that the marker notices these and will then estimate the number of words and add them to the document total. If the final total is deemed to have significantly exceeded 7,500 then you could be failed - another good reason for using graphs etc as the markers tend to ignore any text in embedded graphs. (Please check before starting a new topic by using a few key words in our search facility whether there is already a topic covering your query. The question/ answer may have already appeared before - I have merged your query with the existing topic to keep our forum tidy as we only need one forum on wordcount)

Sorry for that. Many thanks indeed.

Hi @trephena, I want to ask that whether using abbreviations, AR for accounts receivable, etc is allowed in RAP? My RAP wordcount is currently 8000 :( Thank you

Yes you could do this but (a) include an abbreviation list in your appendices (b) do NOT use too many abbreviations in the same sentence and (c) do not use ambiguous abbreviations (IA can mean intangible assets or internal audit) or none standard ones. There is a good reason to avoid over use of abbreviations iand this is that it can interrupt the flow of reading while the marker has to break off and consult the abbreviation list. In extreme cases if the marker feels this has hindered their understanding and /or caused them hassle they can fail on communication. My advice is to use abbreviations only when absolutely necessary apart from very standard ones (e.g. EPS, CEO), edit parts I & II of your work, use good graphs, don't repeat what the graph already tells the reader, trim out excessive use of numbers and percentages in the text and then you will not need to use many abbreviations anyway!

Thank you @trephena, I really appreciate your help.

Ugrent,Please help My word count excluding the graphs is 7300 words.Inlucding their words it is going upto 7700 words. My mentor told me that graphs in part three which is analysis in topic 8 basically the ratio analysis .He said its graph's data is not included all others are.Is this true? If i reduce 500 words the words shown according to ms word will go to 6800.and i am scared as it wont pass if i have miscounted the graph words.

If you are talking about the labels in graphs these are normally not counted if the word count does not pick them up. To test - highlight a few words before the graph and scroll down to a few words after and you should be able to see if the word count is picking them up. The markers tend to go on the Word count - not what you say but what MS Word says. What they seem to look for are tables - if they find that tables containing text have been pasted as images (which MS Word won't have picked up) they will add those back. When the word count reaches 7,500 they stop marking so if your conclusion is outside this it will fail for lack of conclusion

I have looked into your issue about the word count forum and am temporarily posting my reply in both places. (In fact as someone had opened a second one only the duplicated one had been closed) Basically everything from the start of the front page to the final word in the Conclusions (and any Recommendations) is counted. This includes citations and the in text references. Some students try to get around word count issues by including information pasted as images in tables e.g. the SWOT analysis so it is not picked up by MS Word. Whereas a little bit of textual information from a copied chart or diagram may be ignored by the marker instances of this deliberate ploy to exceed the word count by creating one's own wordy images will not. The markers will estimate the number of words in the pasted images and add them back to the MS total and stop marking after 7,500. The requirements are for a Conclusion within the 7,500 words. If there is very little by way of a conclusion within the limit as calculated by the marker, the report is likely to fail. With word count problems my advice is to trim the beginning and superfluous material e.g. is a marker really interested in why you chose the topic/ company? - I very much doubt they care why and even bother reading the 100s of reasons from the 100s they mark as such information is not a component of the assessment criteria for the report (save it for the SLS); does the marker really need to know about primary data when you are not even using primary data? If the marker doesn't know the difference then they wouldn't be a marker in the first place!!!! In other words focus on what is relevant and important

Markers tend not to worry about graphs as I mentioned above, it is tables full of text where they are not in MS Word but have been pasted as images (and therefore not picked up by the automatic word count) they will focus on.

What is a good gauge for word allocation for Part 3 (approx. 4,500 words in all) in T8? Can I say 1,600 for biz analysis, 1,800 for fin analysis, 500 for analysis against competitor and 300 for conclusion is good?

Hi mam my word count shown by Microsoft word is 2081 but if I ignore period number topic name and questions and other formatting my total answer word count is less than 1900 now I am confused that wether or not I am breaking the 2000 word limit or not so please reply as soon as possible I will be very thankful to you and please also specify does acca id' period number and topic name are included in word count or not?

The rules on marking and the word count is that once the limit is reached the marker will stop marking. The SLS is about self-reelection on the llearning experience and although there is a word count limit of 2 O00 words (as you are aware) it is unlikely that your last 81 words will make much difference to the marker’s decision as whether there is adequate self-reflection or not. So don’t worry! ?

Thank you mam for your reply after your reply and from discussing with my mentor who is saying in case of word count of sls only answers word count is considered. not over all word count and as my answers word count is 1895(overall is 2081) and as you have also said 2081 words is not a big problem and will be unlikely to affect the decision of the marker I consider my self in a safe position that is why I am not making any change in my SLS. Furthermore hopefully I will complete my next files in next 1-2 weeks and if any problem arises between them I will consult you again . Take care and bye

Mam my question is should I check the plaegeurism for rap and sls only or should I check the plaegeurism for all my files example appendices Excel file resubmission statement etc please reply me as soon as possible

Also mam my debit card is not working can I use my friend or brother debit card for payment for checking plaegeurism or submission payment (if my card will not be able to work till submission date) please reply me as soon as possible I need answers of my both questions in detail and as soon as possible

I don't think you should do the check on your report as that was fine last time. The way these programmes work is they match against previously submitted work worldwide so it should show a high score to your report (because you are resubmitting) so it won"t be much use to you. However as you were told to rewrite your SLS it might be useful to run this through the checker. Use WriteCheck not Turnitin. I think it is fine to use other people's cards for the actual payment as long as you use your name on the application and ensure you keep a copy of the checking report ( in case of subsequent problems). For submissions there should normally be no issues if a third party makes the payment on your behalf and any problems would need to be addressed to the ACCA Brookes Office (email address in the Info Pack )

Thanks mam I don't think my report will show a high matching score because I used updated financial information also I made my report from scratch to make sure it doesn't get a higher score my benchmark is less than 6% inshort I will try my best to make sure match is not more than 3 to 4 percent I will notify you after I check match also furthermore Mam please tell me on which application should I use my name. Also if my card is not working on submission date can I use my brothers or friends card,or should I contact obu through email? and lastly what is the last date for submission payment to University if I submit my project before deadline can I make payment after the deadline or not? Reply me as soon as possible and also explain in detail

Oh do stop worrying about your report !!!! (were you always a worried child???) In fact the marker will be expecting to see some similarities between your two reports because you are resubmitting and therefore a low score is NOT a good idea. So forget about a benchmark - for a resubmission at least 25% would be NORMAL even if you are updating some of the financials. Personally I wouldn't even bother putting it through WriteCheck as advised previously As for your other questions these are administrative matters which are dictated by OBU and at Open Tuition we cannot give you definite answers on these so you would need to contact [email protected] to get reliable information on these aspects

I suggest to my mentees not to exceed 7,450 (better still stick at nearer 7,400) as markers are getting stricter. That way there is a 'margin' for the inserts graphs and charts. If you are up at 7,494 this will be apparent to the marker and they could add the other words back to this so your word count realistically is about 7,600. Markers are instructed to stop marking at 7,500 words so possibly part of your Conclusions may not be marked and Conclusions form part of the Assessment Criteria (No. 3 Evaluation, Analysis & Conclusions) you have to pass. I know from my own experience that students paste things in as images to try to get around the word count and the odd one will be ignored but if the marker thinks the student is taking this too far they will come down hard. As it is, I bet there are far more words in Parts 1 & 2 (repetitions or superfluous comments) that could very easily be taken out - so my advice is to do so as it is better to be safe than sorry and you don't want to pay GBP 340 and all your effort to be failed for exceeding the word count!.