General Queries Topic 8

You mean total word count for the whole RAP, right?

The deadline fast approaches, Keep trying to reduce your word count, it will be prudent to aim for about 7200 to 7400 words in total , especially if you have Used plenty wordy images as graphs,

It is not possible for me to recommend how many words without seeing and understanding your work. However, with topic 8 a conclusion should be pretty straight forward, a decent conclusion can be done with about half the words you have used, less in some cases, it all depends on the researchers objectives.

Okay thank you so much Hanne. Can you please tell me about how I should be preparing the presentation slides?

What I should be including in the ”introduction part”? and also do I need to talk about the findings from Ratio analysis only or do I need to talk about the findings of SWOT and PESTLE as well?

hello maryam20,

the slides need to be interesting, they need not be too wordy , you will appreciate use of images here. The idea is that you are expected to explain the slides during the 15 minute presentation. The slides should not be more than 20. The presentation is only about part 3 of your rap

It is a good idea to have a structure in the form of a table of contents, you could start by introducing your company and its operations, of course it is crucial that the audience knows your rap objectives. in the absence of any key information, you can then move on to the business performance through the means of the models, and then the financial performance which can be adequately shown as images too. you may include limitations if applicable, but a conclusion is obviously necessary.

Calculate your slides properly, don’t crowd each slide with too much information. You can always change the slides with hindsight after presentation to your mentor before you submit.

Your presentation should be about your findings, consult the latest information pack for guidance on this (page 44). Parts 1 and 2 are predominantly about the writing process, and would therefore not be included on that basis.

I believe your mentor meant well with that comment, but “never limit yourself” is probably better applied in efforts to increase the depth of your analysis or expand the source and quality of your references. It is and important academic skill to stick to specified word limits in writing and that what obu intends to test.

Writing about your competitor would most come in during the ratio analysis as a side by side comparison.
If you choose your main company and comparator well, you will find that their PEST external environment would be very similar, although this is rarely(if ever)100% accurate.
With swot analysis your focus is mainly on your company, your competitor would not typically come in.

Hmn, saying ‘source excel’ , doesn’t sound quite polished to me. We know that when we are submitting the rap, we are to accompany it with an appendices file that contains any required and additional information in the form of an xls or xlsx format. Microsoft excel just happens to be the norm for spreadsheet software, the obu guidelines do not require you to strictly use excel. For the project, you will be submitting docx , xlsx, pdf formats etc . It is left to the examiner to open the files with their software of choice. Which is probably a Microsoft office software.

I Know the above assertion is true for a fact because I didn’t use any Microsoft office software to do my rap.
Bulletproof your work by applying better referencing methodology.

Oh now I see, I understand your point now Maryam. I believe what obu is trying to achieve by separating spreadsheet file and appendices (eg financial statements pdf file as in the case of topic 8) is to ensure the student has shown the use of functions and/or formulas (which can not be shown from pdf), and can work with different document types perhaps, among other things.

From an overall perspective, Appendices are all just additional information to support the rap, be it in the form of excel spreadsheet of pdf statements.

Here’s what worked for me. Multiple organised sheets in my spreadsheet workbook. I had one for the financial statements of my main company and comparator, I had another that comprises of a neat table where i compiled my calculated ratio figures, the next and final sheet was kept for graphs which I later exported as images to my rap document. By all means, feel free to add more information as per your research direction, i have read of a student adding a swot analysis of the comparator on this forum.

I appropriately labelled the sheets with their respective headings, providing any additional descriptions where necessary, referenced the fs to their respective annual reports, and systematically designated each piece of information with an appendix number or letter.

Where I referenced the graph figure in the rap, I was directly referencing the ratio data i had calculated (which can be traced back to the fs figures sheet from the formulas) and not the graphs themselves.

To fulfil the requirement of my “appendices”, I just exported my fs sheet to pdf and submitted that. You will notice the obu information pack said to include only the relevant pages of the fs, In my work for example cash-flow statements as well as some other fs info was not relevant so I didn’t include them.

Like I said in my earlier posts, the aim of referencing is to find stuff easily, there is no best way, but there are best practices.