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Dear friends,
I am writing to post a new topic for sharing experience on conducting RAP in this forum. Hopefully, friends will spend your time on sharing your experience on it. I have a couple of basic questions as follows:
1. Information gathering:
If i live in Vietnam, can i use information of published audited financial statement of Vietnamese companies (listed in Vietnam) for topic 8? These published audited FS is in English and audited by Big4 firm. But other information may be required to analyse. But such information is in Vietnamese. (i.e. journals, news). In this case, i am wordenring whether examiners check the information based on it.
Another option, i am thinking of choosing a company listed in Singapore via SGX website. Normally, for passed friends in this forum, what information did you use for the RAP?
Please leave your comments which option i can go.
2. Referecing
is there any minimum requirement of the number of refencing source (i.e. at least 20 referecing source)?
3. Writing method
Do i copy the referencing source to rewrite it in my own words or we collect the information and apply the theories/concepts from the referencing source to entirely write in my own words? Of course, referencing must be made in accordance with Harvard Referencing System.
For topic 8 “The business and financial performance of an organisation over a three year period”, therefore, the RAP is to analyse the business and financial performance of an organization. Thus, i think the RAP is rather analysis (i.e. using some ratios, business analysis) than a research.
Please share your experience and advise me whether my understanding is correct.
Thanks and best regards
I have only one attempt left and I still can’t understand how to make referencing, I have in the marker’s comments about it:
“Make sure that your work is thoroughly and systematically referenced. There are many statements of fact that are unreferenced, and where statements are opinion are unreferenced I cannot tell if it is your opinion or someone else’s. Where you do reference you do not use the Harvard system, which is a project requirement. It is incorrect to include the web address in the text as a reference: the Harvard system uses only AUTHOR (DATE). All of your charts and graphs are unreferenced.”
I’m shocked because I thought that I referenced them, for example:
The other two companies of the Peer Group, Nordstrom, Inc. (6,5% (2011), 6,6% (2010), 5,3% (2009) and Tiffany & Co. (12,1%, 11,9%, 9, 8% respectively) showed stable levels of net profit margin (Appendix C) and then a chart or a graph. Is it necessary to write anything in a chart or a graph themselves? But what? They are from Appendices.
How to reference charts and graphs, and what to do if the information is from the internet site? Please, help me, I really will appreciate your help.
Thank in advance!
Hi Nati
The examiner has metioned two specific examples where you are in breach of the referencing rules. The first one is web addresses which i think most people struggle with. Lets say you read on the FT website about Nordstrom experiencing management conflicts and you express that as a statement of fact, lets say:
“During 2011, Nordstrom continued to experience conflicts within their executive management committee”
It is not good enough to write just that. You need to write,
“During 2011, Nordstrom continued to experience conflicts within their executive management committee (Smith, 2011).”
This example is purely hypothetical and in this case the pretend author of the article is Peter Smith and published in 2011. Then in the list of references you need to reference the full website, author, date, name of article etc.
I assume that if you make an unreferenced statement you need to be clear that it is the author’s opinion (your opinion).
And regarding the charts and graphs, are they yours ? I.e. did you create them in Excel ? If so you must have got the data from somewhere to build your graphs – I would assume that is what you need to reference ? So for example, if you built a graph showing the Nordstrum share price over a 3 year period, and you got the data from yahoo or some other financial source, you would need to be clear that’s where it came from. Otherwise how does the examinor know you haven’t just made the whole thing up ?
I want to qualify my response by saying I haven’t submitted yet, intending to do so in November, but I have read the Bsc pack thoroughly and that is how I would interpret the rules.
Would be good to get some feedback from someone who has passed as I think your question is perfectly reasonable and what you have asked for is not breaching any sharing rules (ie.. all those people who say ” can you send me your whole project?” !!!!
Good luck
Thank you very much for your answer, I really understand what “statements of fact” means but my situation is a little different, i.e. I often used the information from the site of the company and gave (https://www.sothebys.com, 2012), there is no author, what to do if there is no author?
The graphs and charts are from the financial statements from the company’s site, how technically to reference them?
Please, help who passed, I really will appreciate your help. I don’t need any RAP I only want to understand referencing. Answer here, please, I can see only your nick.Thank in advance!
Hi Nati
If there genuinely is no author, then for a website I believe you should cite (Sothebys, 2012). I have seen several references to people failing for including the full website in the text. The place for the full website address is in the refereces.
As for your graphs, I assume they follow exactly the same principle – utlimately you have taken them from a website. Or if you have a hard copy of the company financial statements and you’ve replicated the graphs from that then I assume the referencing should follow the same principle as any document / journal – this is detailed in the bsc notes.
There’s no guarantees you are going to get a reply from someone who has passed so I really think you need to read the guide on referencing from the BSc pack.
Cheers
Kitcat thank you very much for your answers.
For the others: stop asking for RAP, simply start doing it. If you have questions you can ask them in this topic. People really help. I have two fails but still hope to pass.Cheers
Dear all,
Thanks for your comments. I understand that there are many issues to many students. But i would like to brief some of the steps to conduct the RAP as above. Please advise your experience on each of them and how to prepare it well. I read the Information Pack but there is something else. That is why i would lke to raise this topic for sharing experience. Hopefully, before everyone asks any questions, please read the information pack. Anything else, please leave your comments here especially for those passed the RAP.
Thanks for your time!
Cheers!Hello has anybody written topic 18 – Marketing strategy and its effectiveness, I could use some help with my layout
Hi all,
I know this topic has been long closed sort, but still for those of us who reached here through google search – incase you are looking for the author of an article found on websites and the website does not explicitly state the author, for some websites it is possible to find it like this: by right clicking on a blank area of that website and clicking o view source. Under that if you search for author by pressing Ctrl F – it might be mentioned or some link might be given. Like I tried for one website, and it gave the Google + link of the author. But many-a-times they just put the same website address as the author – but i guess its still worth a try to just check if we can find the author like this!
Hope it helps
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