Introduction
The purpose of this coursework is two-fold. Firstly, it is intended to develop an ability to search the academic literature, read and think critically, and prepare a short discursive piece. This will in turn help you with the academic programme at postgraduate level. Secondly, the coursework requires you to delve deeply into a contemporary issue confronting human relations in the context of project management. The coursework is worth 33% of the marks in this 15-credit core unit. Therefore, you are expected to expend approximately 50 hours worth of personal effort in delivering this coursework. Please read the instructions found in this coursework brief carefully.

Detailed Instructions
You are required to produce a critical review of the following theme:
Coursework theme: "Social Networks and Project Management"
Your critical review must be based on a peer-reviewed academic journal article of your choice. You are required to read extensively around the coursework theme and identify a particular article that has inspired you to prepare this critical review.
The review must be word processed, and MUST NOT exceed a single page of A4, using the Arial font, minimum of 11 point in single line spacing, and margins of a minimum of 2 cm all around. You are also required to include the list of bibliographic references cited in your critical review on page 2. Therefore, your submission must not exceed 2 pages, otherwise you will get zero for this coursework. Also, do not continue your critical review on to the second page. The second page should only contain the list of bibliographic references cited, preferably presented using the Harvard referencing system. The full reference for your chosen peer-reviewed academic journal article must be included at the top of page 2, in bold, for which your critical review is based on. Please ensure that your selected article is from the University of Manchester Library electronic journals collection.
Subject to availability of space in the timetable, it is possible that a coursework seminar session is organised for you to share lessons learnt from the coursework with your peers. If this is the case, you will be expected to attend and contribute to the Coursework Seminar (detailed to be advised). If a coursework seminar is organised and you fail to attend, you will not qualify for the coursework marks.

The deadline for submitting this critical review is 2359hrs on Thursday 14 November 2013 on the link found in the Home Page of the Blackboard 9 site. Please upload interim drafts before the deadline to avoid missing the deadline as a result of bottlenecks on the day of submission. New uploads will overprepare previous versions.

Guidance on How to Construct a Critical Review

Your critical review must be related to the above theme, i.e. "Social Networks and Project Management".
You must select a peer-reviewed journal paper that focuses on a particular aspect of social networks, and relate this to the field of project management. There are many ways of achieving this. However, it is important that you read more than one peer- reviewed journal article on the theme before making a choice on which article to focus on for your critical review. It is expected that you must familiarise yourself with the concept of social networks - what this means, why this is important, and what has already been written about this - before you can make a judgement as to which article you choose for the purpose of constructing your critical review. It is suggested that you choose an article that has really inspired you to think about social networks in the context of project management.

Moreover, you should be able find detailed information about any academic journal on the homepage of the journal's website. The peer-review process (if there is one) is normally describeed in the "Instructions for Authors" or equivalent. Periodic guidance will be provided on a needs basis and during the formal session in Week 4.
The paper selected must be critically reviewed using appropriate sources and logical argument. Students are advised to focus on appraising the subject matter when constructing the critical review, and not to state their personal views or opinions and to avoid writing in the first person. There is generic advice on library and study skills found on Blackboard 9 (see Learning Resources). Please consult this before beginning your assignment.

Typically, when writing a critical review of this nature, you are advised to consider the following problems (not exhaustively):

• What is the chosen peer-reviewed academic journal article about? What is/are the central argument(s)? What conclusion(s) are the author(s) making? 

• How have the author(s) derived their arguments? What methods were used, and how have the methods influenced the strength of the argument(s)? To what extent do the methods used convince you of the argument(s) they make? 

• How does the chosen article contribute to our collective understanding of the coursework theme? What are the implications of the argument(s) found in the chosen article, especially for the theory and practice of project management? 
What are the limitations of the chosen article? Where are the weak points? What are the implications of these? ?Thinking through these problems might help you focus when reading the literature.

Care should be taken when searching the literature and selecting peer-reviewed journal articles, in that the articles you read must be of sufficient substance. A common flaw is that students select journalistic pieces. Journalistic pieces or "light weight" unreferenced material will not be accepted. It must be reiterated that students will need to undertake significant library work in order to select suitable material.