A. Essay Requirements
Your essay must meet the following requirements:
Appendices and footnotes are not permitted.
Your essay must have a title page with the essay title and your student number. Do not include or attach any other cover sheet. The above title should also appear at the top of the first page of your essay.
Your essay should not contain any other headings or subheadings, except for headings of tables, charts, graphs and diagrams, before the reference list.
You must cite at least 15 articles from academic journals available through the Edinburgh Napier University online library.
Citations of other material are permitted. All citations must be in American Psychological Association (APA) format 7. Do not number references and not use footnotes.
You must provide a full reference list using APA format 7, with the addition of the full Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for the items cited, exactly as
it appears on the address bar in your browser. Your reference list must be part of the same document as your essay and must be headed “Reference List”. You must create a page break between the end of your essay and the heading of your reference list.
All material which is not your original work must be fully referenced. All material which is not your own work must be fully distinguished from your own work and vice versa. All quotations must be verbatim and in inverted commas and you must not paraphrase other people’s words. If such paraphrasing is used to disguise the source it will be treated as academic misconduct.
You should also provide examples from the real world and real corporations to illuminate your essay. These must be accompanied by references to the evidence for any factual content used.
Your essay is permitted – but not required – to contain tables, charts, graphs and diagrams provided that they can be edited by you within your document. Do not submit any material which you cannot edit in the form in which it is submitted. All tables, charts, graphs and diagrams must have headings and be fully explained either within the table or diagram or elsewhere in your essay. The use of tables, charts, graphs and diagrams will affect your marks for presentation. Whether this effect is positive or negative will depend on the quality of presentation and the relevance to your essay of what you present.
All words within these tables and diagrams count towards your word count.
The full version of all names and phrases represented by acronyms and abbreviations must always be fully spelt out the first time they are used, followed by the acronym in brackets, for example: “Bank of England (BoE)”. When it is used again, the acronym or abbreviation can be used on its own.
Your essay must between 2,250 and 2,750 words long, including the in- text citations but excluding the title page and reference list.
Appendices and footnotes are not permitted. You will be penalised if you include any appendices or footnotes.
You are only permitted to submit your report once. Trial runs are not permitted and no spare, draft or test dropboxes will be provided. It is your responsibility to submit your own work and to ensure that your report is finalised, complete and properly edited before, not after, you submit it.
This is an individual assignment. The sharing of files or copying of work between students is not permitted.
You are only allowed to submit one document, which must contain your full report, including your reference list. Do not attempt to submit additional documents.
Your submission must be either a Word document in .doc or .docx format or a .pdf document.
Appendices and footnotes are not permitted. Any submission containing one or more appendices or footnotes will be subject to a grade reduction of one grade and the appendices or footnotes will be otherwise ignored by the examiners. You will not receive any positive credit for it.
Marking criteria and weights
Presentation and Style 10%
Use of the Academic Literature 20%
Use of Evidence and Examples from the Real World 20%
Original Critical Evaluation of the Use of Financial -Performance Measures 40%
Reference List 10%
Total: 100%