Mid-Term paper covering Lessons 1 through 4. Note, do not plagiarize your answers and use your own voice by paraphrasing (a plagiarism violation will cost you not to receive credit for your answer(s)). Note: Paper template may be provided at the professor's discretion.

Prepare a minimum of eight pages, not counting the title page and reference(s) page, MS Word document using APA 6th Edition guidelines. Again, the paper must include a title page, an introduction, the body, summary and conclusion paragraph(s), and a reference page that provides an overview of HR management. In addition, you will provide in APA headings the following resources below,no exceptions. The template provided for the Mid-Term will assist you in ensuring that you are meeting APA paper guidelines. Your goal in this project is to synthesize all your resources learned and demonstrate your knowledge by addressing,  discussing, comparing, contrasting, interpreting, and distinguishing the following on your paper:

1. Managing Employees For Competitive Advantage

2. HR Challenges

a. Manage Organizational Demands and Environmental Influences

b. Manage Regulatory Issues

3. Work Design and Workforce Planning

a. Manage Job Design and Job Analysis

b. Workforce Planning

4. Managing Employee Competencies

a. Recruitment

b. Selection

Additional Paper Instructions:

1. Spacing -Because this is an academic paper, double space the body of your paper and references, and use correct spacing for your headings using APA 6th ed. guidelines.

2. References -At least five sources must be cited and referenced (you may use the textbook to compare and contrast to what others are saying. Two out of the five sources required must be peer-reviewed.   "Peer reviewed" (also known as "refereeing") is the process academic articles go through to be recognized as valuable contributions to the field. Peer review is the process of subjecting an author's scholarly work, research, or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field.   In our field of business management, peer reviewed may include journals from the following: Academy of Management, Human Resource Management Review, Industrial Management, Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, and Management Quarterly. Other sources may include newspaper or magazine articles that are not peer reviewed.  You may cite more than five sources; five is simply the minimum.  

3. Quotes -Limit the use of direct quotes in your paper. Your paper must contain no more than 15% direct quotes.   The rest should be paraphrased information so you can demonstrate your understanding of what you read, and critical analysis to demonstrate your ability to apply your knowledge and research to solve the problem.   Make your voice the most prominent one. In-text citations must align with the sources listed in the References section. Any source you mention in your paper must be included on your references page, and vice versa.

4. Distinguish sources -Make sure you carefully distinguish your own words versus words and ideas taken from other sources.   Direct quotes MUST be contained in quotation marks.  

5. Wikipedia -You cannot use information from Wikipedia as it is not considered a reliable source.

6. Dictionaries -May be used to define a term and be listed as source but may NOT count as one of the five sources.  

7. Graphics -If using graphics in your paper, you must include research/support data explaining the graph. This may be a table or a chart that you create or a source extracted from another source.  

8. APA format -Business and management use the American Psychological Association format for academic and professional papers.   If you were writing a researched proposal for your supervisor, you would cite your sources following APA.   You would use in-text citations to let your reader know where your information comes from.   You would use a references page to list all your sources following APA guidelines (I would recommend visiting this site:  http://www.apastyle.org/learn/tutorials/basics-tutorial.aspx)

9. In conclusion, for assistance in MS Word, you can take the Microsoft Tutorial. Below you will find the link to the tutorial.http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/FX100565001033.aspx