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Hello people pls I need some guidance, when my friend failed in period 27 and one of the comment made by the marker was that of his referencing and evaluation and analysis of information. But there was something he told me the marker said, and that was that there is no need to provide the meaning of the ratios calculated. I’m submitting my project in P28 and I’ve provided the definition of my ratios such as EPS, PE ratio etc, and also referenced appropriately. Does tht mean I should remove the definitions of ratios. As I need to remember remove smth cuz my Part C is currently above 4500 words.
Also @trephena u said it is wrong to reference in text using URL or the name of the site, however currently I’ve gotten some information from some sites such as investopedia and there is no author or date of publication of the article so I referenced in text like this (Investopedia, n.d), or in some cases where there was no name and no date as well and I had to use the URL ie (www.investopidia.com, n.d) example of where I did this was with my focus company’s website. Pls I need guidance if this is right.As I haven’t seen your report I can only speculate what the marker was referring to but perhaps your friend gave a detailed explanation of how to calculate the ratios? This should be in the appendix as you can assume that anyone reading your RAP is aware of how to calculate the gross profit and net profit ratio etc. So yes you should remove the definition of the ratios from your text.
The fact is that anonymous sources and Investipedia and wikipedia are not considered to be reliable sources. You should aim to use articles etc that are from more reputable sources wherever possible to avoid this but where you do use them, then (Investopedia, n.d.) in the text and Investopedia n.d. followed by the URL in the reference list is the correct way of displaying this reference. (If you are using more than one source from the same author in the same year than give them the suffix a, b, c etc.to distinguish them. For example if A Jones wrote two articles in the same journal in the same year then call the first Jones, 2012a and the second Jones 2012b. You would apply this same rule to Investopedia i.e. Investopedia n.d.(a); Investopedia n.d. (b) etc. but as I say try to find alternative sources to Investopedia and Wikipedia). But in essence it sounds as if you are doing it right now.
If your friend passed the referencing and sources of information section – then they needn’t worry – the referencing was obviously deemed adequate for a pass (even if it wasn’t perfect) and I think it says somewhere in the submission rules that once passed in a section you cannot subsequently be failed on resubmission unless you submit your RAP on a different company or topic.
By the way the word count has now been increased to 7,500 to include all headings,titles, table etc, so you now have more words to play with. I think how many words you use within each section is down to you as long as you don’t exceed the 7,500 total!
Hope that helps – Treffie
@Terphena Can you not please mentor me for my last attempt? 🙁 you have been so helpful up until now. You almost cleared up everything that I have in my mind. If you can not mentor, can you possibly review and guide me? Pleasee… It would be a great favour. I have no assistance except what I have found out through you and others. If you charge for it somewhat, I will pay you..
@trephena thank u very much for tht, it was very helpful. I did’nt use Wikipedia in my RR as I I have told not to use it, however, I did use investopia for such things as Limitation of SWOT analysis definition of sm ratios. However in RR I did’t refrence in-text citation as (Investopedia, n.d) because all the tht Articles I read was wrtting somebdy and so were CFA holders so I did in-text citation like this (Joel, 2014) (d 2014 is d year d article was published). I guess this is right pls guide me.
Finally, I need u to show me hw annual report and industry or company report tht was produced by investment firms is referenced. I’ve don’t smth I just wanted to sure I’m right. Also I referenced Annual report by these investment firms and Company Annual report the same was is this right?. Thnks once again evryone partIcularly @trephena waiting for reponsesJust so I could be better guided on hw correctly I’ve referenced my annual report. This is what I did in-text citation (xxx annual report, 2012). But wen I use industry report from Investment firms I use d name of d company like this (xxx Plc, 2012). And in my list of references I have referenced this two sources d same way like this’ xxx plc (2013). Annual report 2012 [Online]. Available at: http://www.xxx.com (Assessed: 10 January 2014).’ Pls is this the correct way.
@haider Ijaz and Joelprof12 – I will reply to you guys when I have a chance but a bit busy this week – please bear with me.
PS Joelprof12 your referencing sounds ok – yes if you have the actual author always use that but will answer in full next week
Haider…………if u have a friend who is ACCA member, ICAEW member, they are easily eligible to be your mentor…..even then if u have doubt, then u can email their CV to OBU and they will tell if he is eligible to be your mentor……………………….mentor will just have 3 meetings with you and he will receive an email from OBU about you, to which he will reply something like, yes this is haider’s work……… its that easy…………about advices and queries…………OPENTUITION or EVEN google :))
Joelprof12………………any reason for not using MS Word INTERNAL referencing system……..its SUPER FAST and CORRECT……….I have passed my first attempt……….MS Word will automatically do this referencing by asking you like “fill in the blanks with date, author etc
Joelprof12………..i used Investopedia for my ratios and other accounting things………where i used Inverstopedia in my report………I put a reference using the MS Word Internal system…..and MS Word automatically showed like this (Investopedia, n.d.)…………………………..about definintion of ratios………………i wrote like one line definitions only, (((in my own words))), with reference to where i got the definition from (mostly Investopedia)…………………………………………….u know? some students have failed with the marker saying u have written to many direct quotations and NOT written them in your own words
Thnks @trephena, u’re awesome. Pls do take ur time and thank once again for ur deep concern. @sallahUddin thnk again for ur comment, u’ve been helpfull all the way. I’ve tried MS internal referencing when I wanted to start writing my RR. But it was’nt really explaining where I got d info from so I just decided to stop. For exam MS would say (Annual Report, 2012), without say whether it was my Focus or Benchmarking company. I also had sm issues with it tht was kinda contradicting the Harvard style, so I stopped using it. But since u used it and got a B wuld consider looking @ it again. Thnks so much for ur help. God bless u
@SallahUddin I am sorry but you are misunderstanding me. I have passed my SLS already. I have a mentor who signed my project. That isn’t the issue here. I don’t have proper guidance for my RAP. This is the problem and main concern for me.
I failed in this attempt and the problem was weak financial analysis but the marker said my business analysis was good,since i have to resubmit with latest financial statements i have to change the ratios but should i update the business models too because it contains information relevant to the previous year, and the examiner said my business analysis was good so i was wondering should i keep it as it is or make changes relevant to the latest year?
Thankshi there
i have got a question regarding topic 8.i have explain all the ratios in part 2.but when i analyse ratios do i need to analyse all ratios what i explain in part 2 ?
if i analyse all the ratios in part 3 then i will be over the word limit.
i explained 10 ratios in part 2.so if i analyse at least 6 ratios is this ok?
it will be highly appreciated if anyone reply!!@chowdhury in part two you have to give theories and models used and their definitions and in part 3 you have to apply them.
open the link below of a sample rap
https://opentuition.com/?get_group_doc=29/1351808355-RAP8DGKHANCement.pdf
but its old rap now the word count has changed to 7500 words. Read latest info pack.@bassaniobroke
thanks for your prompt reply.
i got the answer.will u mind if i ask you more specifically?
for example ,i explain gross profit ,operating profit,net profit etc in part 2.
now if i analyse only gross profit and net profit in part 3 and exclude operating profit margin , is this acceptable?dear chowdhury, dissertation is an analysis, theories and models are our gadgets to analyze, for example how would you analyze your body temperature, by thermometer, so the thermometer is model or devise to analyze, in part 3, you would say how you used thermometer to analyze body temperature. So only give in part 2 what you are going to use in part 3, this may not be reason to fail, but keep perfection to the highest degree.
Good Luck.@Haider ijaz if you can list out your particular difficulties I will answer and help you. As you have one final attempt do not rush it unless the 10 year limit applies.
From reading lots of students’ work and analysing feedback here is my list of the mostt common errors that lead to failure (and a few helpful suggestions for improvement):
1. Lack of real analysis (using ‘annual report’ and textbook type explanations instead of wider sources)
2. Not really explaining causes of movements in the trends in terms of what has driven the changes in performance (just saying something has increased or decreased and by how much is not explaining – you need to discuss the factors behind it)
3. Poor referencing (there is a lot of good advice on referencing in the OBU info pack, their guidelines, in these forums and on the web). Remember to reference the SWOT & PESTLE too and all the graphs (usually the relevant annual report). DON’T put the full URL address in the text (just in the reference list)
4. Go for a good clear layout with lots of good graphs and charts all well labelled to break up the text, DON’T cite loads of numbers in the text (the graphs/charts should be used for this)
5. It’s better to discuss the comparator’s performance alongside the main company (not in a separate section at the end). Similarly when talking about profit etc don’t do it under headings for each year do it as a review of the whole 3 year period (the performance is continuous – the directors don’t start from scratch each year with their strategies!)
6. SLS – read the guidelines. Self-reflection should not be about what you did but more about why you did it and it’s effect on the outcome. Give specific examples throughout:
‘I learned a lot from my mentor’ – so what exactly? and why was this useful?
‘My communication skills improved’ – don’t generalise give some examples of this
7. SLS Q2 is not so much about how well you achieved all the objectives (after all the marker will form their own opinion about how well you did by the grade they give for the RAP) but should be more an assessment by you of your own strengths and weaknesses in achieving them and doing the report.
8. The presentation – keep the slides down to about no more than 15. Concentrate on the IMPORTANT findings, DON’T cram >2 graphs per slide or overload the slides with too many words (use bullet points and DON’T cut & paste large bits of the RAP on to the slides – remember the presentation is supposed to be 15mins and there is a limit on how much a person in the audience could realistically read and absorb!)
9. Do the work yourself – UK universities use the same checking system so you are likely to be found out. As submitting someone else’s work as your own constitutes fraud, both OBU and ACCA are likely to take a grim and unsympathetic view of it!
10. THE ABSOLUTE GOLDEN RULE
Read the info pack and all the guidelines thoroughly (if you don’t follow the rules and the advice, how can you expect to submit what OBU wants and expects??)Good luck!
.@luv2break Yes you should update it – see my response 19 Apr 2014 on the Harvard Referencing forum as that deals with your query in a bit more detail 😀
Thanks trephena, for enlightening the forum. Most of the mentors I came across are not aware what is the bachelor level dissertation of UK. As you are from UK and have been through this process you know very well what is required of at OB.
Footnote to everyone: The posts made yesterday (26.04.14) relating to comparator / competitor analysis have been moved to the Forum called ‘Business Analysis / OBU Topic 8: Competitor for ratio analysis’
This was because another student had raised a similar query and it makes more sense to have everything that’s related all in the one place under a relevant heading so everyone can benefit. (and should save time in having to hunt around too – I hope!) 😀
Regards
Trephena
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want to knw can we take ratios from company analysis and expain the logic behind or should calculate by our selves
Thank you for using the Forum to raise your query @zain25dc 🙂
These days most companies do in fact produce many of the ratios in their ‘Summary of the Last 5 years results’ table in their annual reports. It is acceptable to use these ratios as long as you reference them fully in your RAP each time. I would suggest that you reproduce the table in your Appendices and make it clear that it is information from the Company’s annual report – then you will be acknowledging that this part of your RAP is not your own work.
As part of the analysis you probably will calculate some ratios for yourself e.g. if there have been dramatic changes in the results from year to year you might calculate the year on year change or some of the liquidity ratios. You would show the basic calculations for these in your Appendix, so in your text you only need to mention something like (see Appendix Y for calculations). As these calculations are your own work this type of reference is sufficient and by referring back to the Appendices it should be clear that the actual origins of the basic figures used in your calculations emanated from the Annual report originally.
Remember though that ratios are only part of the evaluation – you need to use other sources and factors to look at what has influenced the trends over the 3 year period (PESTLE factors for example) and how the company strategies (usually outlined in the CEO / Directors reports) fit in with the SWOT.
I hope that helps 🙂
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can anyone help me as ratios are already calculated on the website of nestle so can i take them n then make analysis of my own according to them is it rite. which models should i use pestel n swot or porter five forces model moreover competitor analysis should be in finanacial ratio or also in other models
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thanks trephena for ur reply i got it pestle n swot are enough for business analysis and one more thing competitor analysis should be done in financial ratio only or on business models also
Normally you only need to apply the SWOT and PESTLE to your main company (if the 2 companies operate in the same country and similar markets, the PESTLE for both of them would be very similar anyway). This analysis would form the backbone of your business analysis.
You then do the financial analysis which includes some ratio analysis but more importantly in your evaluation you need to discuss what has caused the movements in the trends that you find – this includes research beyond the annual reports using a variety of sources to support your arguments – see my posts on the Forum ‘Business Analysis / OBU Topic 8: Competitor for Ratio Analysis’ for more details as you need to link both the financial and business analyses.
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