Beryl Pittman, 2023

Assignment 4: TEAM Draft Academic Report (15%)

Due:  Nov 10, 23:00 EET, MyCourses/Turnitin and Assignments

 

Why this matters: So far, you have brainstormed about an issue related to some aspect of artificial intelligence and business, developed a thesis statement, presented your personal opinion on this issue, and gathered and evaluated sources (you’ve been busy!). 

The next step in the writing process is to prepare a polished draft of the formal academic report for which the previous assignments and activities have served as stepping stones. Your goal is to persuade your audience to agree with your position. Your draft report should be cohesive, engaging, and academically rigorous.  As is common in academic writing, you are writing collaboratively and will also have the opportunity to learn skills that will enable you to be a valued team member.

The purposes of this assignment are:

 

1.       To develop the skills relevant to developing an engaging, well-structured argument based on logic and credible outside sources;

2.       To prepare you for writing the required Aalto University Bachelor’s Thesis; 

3.       To demonstrate the evolutionary process of preparing a strong persuasive report; and

4.       To develop the collaborative writing and communication skills that are typical within academia.

 

Content:  Your thesis statement should set up an argument that is narrow enough in scope to be well developed and, therefore, persuasive in about 10 pages.

 

You should assume that your audience is your classmates:  also studying business; interested but non-expert; enjoys lively debate; reflects cultural diversity. While you are required to use 4-6 outside scholarly sources, your team should develop its analysis around its own ideas, using the outside sources as support only.  And beyond the required sources, you may certainly use other reputable sources, such as The Guardian, The Economist, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Pew Research, etc. No Wikipedia.  Period.

 

Your draft must be complete and polished.  You do not need the title page or table of contents yet.  You do need the introduction, body (including visuals), and conclusion. Insert headings and subheadings as needed (see Format below).  Outside sources must be correctly attributed both in the text and in the Reference List.


 

Length: ~ 10 pages, excluding Reference List; 1.5 line spacing within paragraphs; Arial 12; flush left/ragged right text.   Default margins in MS Word. 

 

Format, Citations, and References: Refer to the Aalto University Citation and Reference Guide: The Harvard System.  Use headings and sub-headings that are consistent, useful, and visually appealing. Title page and table of contents are optional for the draft. If you don’t prepare a formal title page, then write the title of your paper on page 1, about 1/3 of the way down from the top edge of the page.  In the top left, flush left, write your name, my name, and the date on three separate lines.

DOC/DOCX only.

 

 



Last modified: Monday, 6 November 2023, 10:42 AM