- This topic has 8 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 9 years ago by
.
- Posts
I’ve used an interview with the director of the organisation I am writing about as part of my research. I refer to the interview frequently throughout my report and am referencing each mention of the interview.
I have two queries:
1) How do I reference the interview correctly?
2) What information should I include as an appendix? I was only going to include a list of the interview questions I asked – would that be sufficient? Otherwise I have a document which contains the questions together with rough notes on the interview responses that I wrote up shortly after the interview took place (it’s a bit messy though!)
- Topics: 0
- Replies: 3
- ☆
I was able to get in touch with an employee of my chosen organisation, it wasn’t exactly an interview, more like few emails and phone calls exchanged to acquire relevant information. How should I reference it?
I have already searched the forums for my answer and haven’t found it.@rosie2039 – I suggest that you use the name of the person you contacted in the text as (Smith, 2015a) and then list out the document e.g. Smith A (2015a) – CEO of ABC Ltd, personal email to researcher dated 21 February 2015; text (Smith, 2015b) and list, Smith A (2015b) – Phone conversation between CEO of ABC Ltd and researcher 24th February 2015 etc. I would be good if you could actually upload the emails as pdf documents in your appendices then you could add (see Appendix 1/2/3 etc) to your reference list entry.
(Note: This latter point of producing copies of the documents will be particularly important if you are depending on this person for a significant part of your report as otherwise how does the marker know you haven’t made the whole thing up? Valid research is about supplying evidence)
@KIrsty – You say part of your work – as long as it is not most of your work then this should be fine but for most topics apart from Topic 6, primary data is something that should be used sparingly.
1. Please see page 1 of https://opentuition.com/topic/obu-marker-speak-marker-feedback-really-meant/ and the question from Sajanth and my reply to it. Other relevant comments on this topic are on the forum topic Appendix Queries (I comment on this to Saad on page 4/5 on the interview reference requirements) and also the recent query and reply to rosie2039 above is also relevant
2. You will need to include as much information as possible regarding this interview to provide validity of it as I explain to Sajanth and Saad (see previous paragraph). If you have further queries about the appendices it may be useful to scan the comments on the Appendix Queries forum topic
- Topics: 0
- Replies: 3
- ☆
Hi, ok done! Thanks trephena!
Hi All
I currently work for one of the listed retailers in South Africa. It is known for its strong promotional strategies. I work within promotions and analytics team.
Do you think it would be ok to use the company? I will have access to information – I will obviously ask my boss to use it who is the Promotions Executive and also
I will be able to interview CFO and possibly CEO, my boss and other senior guys within marketing and advertising.It will be difficult not being biased but we are really doing very well at the moment.
Is this allowed?
@tandi in principle there is absolutely nothing wrong with using your organisation for your RAP as long as you follow a few basic rules. (In fact the best RAP I have ever seen was written by a student with ‘inside information’ 😀 )
The rules you need to bear in mind are first those concerning referencing – see the posts on the Forum topic Primary Data and how to reference interviews and personal emails. (Then reflect on how you can provide evidence or information that will convince the reader that your research was genuine and not made up as essentially the marker will have to form an opinion on this!). Your interviews with colleagues and the CEO constitute primary data and your marker will not normally be able to verify the Information so provide as much background detail and any tangible records as possible to validate your reported statements.
Secondly the other rule is ‘Balance’. In the context of T18 this means using some business articles or making a few comparisons (all suitably referenced) that (a) show breadth of research and (b) are not all just the company view or at least show some evidence that you have evaluated the company information from different standpoint e.g occasionally considered what a competitor does and assessed both approaches – your company’s and theirs.
- Topics: 0
- Replies: 21
- ☆
I am interesting to go with topic 9 foy my OBU have couple of questions if someone could help me with.
1. I live in UK and wanted to prepare my project on Auditor General of Pakistan. The reason is i have working with them and part of the team implementing the new ERP system knows all the problem we faced. CAN I SELECT THIS ORGANIZATION FOR MY RESEARCH PURPOSE
2. As i have been working with them in the past so i can contact them for updated information via emails and phones etc.
Thanks
Ali
@haidernchd – please read the comments on the the forum topic ‘Primary data…’ and my reply to tandi as the same comments apply to you. You may also find my reply to Sajanth on p.1 of ‘OBU Marker-speak – what the marker feedback really meant…’ helptul as although this concerned T8, a main problem was referencing primary data.
Remember the marker is in a difficult position – in the RAP students are making statements and expecting them to be believed. Where there are references the marker can check these by tracking down the documents. You are asking the marker to take your comments on trust and although they will accept to a point that you are not making the whole thing up, if there are few external references in the world of academia this is considered to be poor academic practice…..
In a nutshell markers feel happier if there is plenty of ‘independent’ referencing
You also need to be careful that you add your own analysis and objective evaluation to your work. Just describing what someone else has done with no original analysis of your own will not get you a pass grade for your RAP
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.