Module Name and Level

Academic Reading and Writing for Business, Level 1

1. The Assessment

Write a full-length essay of not less than 1500 words on any one of the following topics:

The topic is choosen in solution:

 The impact of the digital technologies on business in Oman.

1. The impact of social networks on the communication skills of young people in Oman.

Lack of face-to-face contact is becoming a serious issue these days especially among young people. Young people spend a lot of time using their mobile phones and prefer to have virtual friends instead of real life ones. This situation definitely has a great impact on their communication skills. To complete this Assignment you have to review the available literature on the topic and conduct your own survey among young Omanis to find out their attitude to using social networks and their influence on the communication skills of teenagers.

2. The impact of the digital technologies on business in Oman.

The Internet has a wide variety of uses. It provides an excellent means for disseminating information and communicating with other people in all regions of the world. While the greatest use of the Internet has been sharing information, other sources of use are rapidly developing. For instance, Internet Commerce, which connects buyers and sellers online, online advertising, etc. To complete this Assignment you have to review the available literature on the topic and conduct your own survey among Omanis to find out the level of impact of the Internet on the development of business in Oman.

3. The Structure

You are expected to write the essay follow ing the structure below:

COVER PACE The cover page should contain the following information:
- Title of Assignment
- Name and code of module
- Your name and student number

INTRODUCTION - 150 words

Introduce the topic of your choice by presenting the main idea of the essay to capture the interest of your reader and tell why your topic is important. Your Introduction should end with a thesis statement describing the main idea. You can provide some background information about your topic. You can use interesting facts, quotations, or definitions of important terms you will use later in the essay.

LITERATURE REVIEW - 500 words

You should identify the relevant literature, extract necessary information in form of opinions and viewpoints that should be further compared or contrasted depending on their nature. You are expected to use minimum 4 resources of different kinds: book, journal/magazine/newspaper article, e-book, Internet website. Use your summarizing and paraphrasing skills to present the extracted information properly. All the sources should be acknowledged in the text of the review according to The Harvard Style (see your Handout).

DISCUSSION OF THE RESULTS - 700 words

Following the design of the Questionnaire you are supposed to conduct your research among a group of respondents of your choice of minimum 10 people. Your respondents can be your class mates, tutors, colleagues or someone who is related to the field of your research. The results of the research, the data, should be presented in tables, described in detail and followed by a short on conclusion demonstrating the main trend shown by the respondents.

CONCLUSION - 150 words

You should summarize the results of your research presenting the most important findings without repeating the information provided in the Discussion of the Results.

REFERENCES
not included in the
word count You should provide the list of sourced that you used in your Literature review, arranged according to The Harvard Style. Do not include any sources that were not used in the Review.
APPENDIX: QUESTIONNAIRE
not included in the
word count Appendix should contain your Questionnaire that was used for collecting the data for the analysis.

4. Action Plan

Task
Preparation for assignment
Selecting materials for the Literature Review, reviewing book chapters, articles, e-books.
Writing the Literature review.
Designing the Questionnaire. Conducting the survey.
Drafting the Assignment.
Final submission

INSTRUCTIONS
Your work will be graded on the follow ing aspects:

1. This is an individual take home Assignment.

2. The assignment MUST be submitted on-line.

3. Your assignment shall reflect the depth and breadth of your original analyses in a clear and coherent manner.

4. Use of the relevant academic literature to support ideas and issues discussed. The range of academic sources such as texts and journals to support your arguments and comments.

5. Any reference to authors and other writers shall be quoted with due acknowledgement in your assignment report using the Harvard Referencing_Systera. For details of Harvard referencing style refer to your Handout and The Harvard Referencing Guidelines on MOVE.

6. This is an individual assignment and carries 60% of the module grade.

7. This assignment follows an essay format (modify according to the requirement of your assignment) and must be original and creative. An analytical piece of work is required. The use of `cut and paste' approach will be penalized. It must be presented in a structured manner, with appropriate cover page, content page, introduction, body (with appropriate heading / sub-headings), conclusion, references, page numbered and any required appendices.

8. Your essay should be word processed and professionally presented. The length of your essay should be between 1500 words (+/- 10%), presented in text of font size 12 with 1.5 line spacing. Please state the exact word count at the end of the assignment.

Additional Guidelines

1. The Assignment Submission link on MOVE will be open, a week ahead of the submission date.
2. You can submit your assignment multiple times, till the submission deadline. Note that Tumitin could take up to 24 hours to produce similarity reports for submissions.
3. The last submission, within the deadline, will be considered as your final submission.
4. Assignments should be submitted by 6pm on the day of the deadline. There is a grace period until midnight to allow for any technical difficulties, but any assignments submitted after this will be counted as late. Technical problems will not be accepted as an excuse for submitting after the day of the deadline.
5. The similarity percentage of your final submission will be one of the factors considered, for assessing the originality of your assignment. However, the decision to report an assignment for plagiarism is taken by the Lecturers, who mark your assignment.
6. The Lecturers will consider a number of factors such as Assignment type, Part of the assignment where similarity occurs, Nature of similarity etc., along with the similarity percentage of your assignment, to assess the originality of your assignment. Therefore, similarity percentage would not be accepted as a basis for disputing academic judgments regarding plagiarism.
7. Note that the similarity percentage of your submission can change fill the submission deadline, if the submissions of other students have similarity to your assignment. Therefore, the similarity percentages are not final, till the assignment submission is closed.