1 MPM731 – Business Communication for Managers Trimester 1 2017 Assessment Tasks ASSIGNMENT 2 PEER REVIEW OF PERSONAL WRITING – INCORPORATING FEEDBACK INTO ESSAY DUE DATE: Friday 5th May 2017 at 11.59pm (electronic submission via CloudDeakin ONLY) TOTAL WORD LENGTH: 4000 words (+/- 10%) MARKS: 30 Marks = 30% of final unit score INSTRUCTIONS This is Group submission assignment The aim of this assignment is for students to experience the process of requesting peer feedback about a piece of their writing (their communication) in the form of an essay and then incorporating this feedback into an edited version of the piece of writing. The Task: 1. Formation of the team and initial team meeting/s: • Students are to form groups of 4 students. • The team creates a group Mission and/or Vision Statement for the group, and a set of Values to guide the group’s process (300 words, 3 marks). • The team members pick topics for task 2 (below), and discusses with team members. The team may wish to have an overarching theme. • The group develops a Gantt chart to map out the various tasks that need to be completed and coordinated, with due dates for each element of the task. 2. Write and distribute initial essays (300 words per team member, 3 marks) Each team member writes a 300-word essay on one aspect of communication that they have learned about during the course. The piece is to include: • two academic references • a title, and • a subtitle with a clearly stated aim for the piece of writing. Each essay is then distributed to the other three members in the team. Note: It is very important for all team members to contribute a good quality initial essay. Your fellow team members need to provide high quality constructive feedback and they will only be able to do so if the initial essay is done well. If readers have difficulty understanding your message, or if there are too many messages (one is best, probably) or if there is material that is not relevant or even if there are grammar and spelling mistakes, the feedback might be 2 effectively “I don’t understand”, which is not very useful. Or feedback may focus on the English, which again is not very useful or constructive. Feedback is best when the work is best. 3. Provide feedback Each team member reads the other three essays and provides 100 words of constructive feedback per essay. This feedback is returned to the original authors. Note: The feedback needs to be high quality, which means critical and constructive. Try and provide specific suggestions for improvement – not general statements. If possible, do not focus on issues such as grammar and spelling. Seethe previous note. 4. Group discussion of the essays and feedback (100 words per team member, 3 marks) The author of each essay summarises the feedback in 100 words and distributes the summary to all team members. The team then meets to discuss each essay and the feedback. Note: The summaries of the feedback need to highlight those aspects where the feedback received was useful: critical and constructive; specific, not general. 5. Revise essays (300 words per team member, 6 marks) Each student rewrites their essay incorporating the suggestions of their peers (300 words). Note: A further round of feedback and review (tasks 3, 4 and 5) may be necessary or desired – the team as a whole needs to be satisfied with the quality of each essay in task 5 and the feedback summaries in task 4. 6. Reflection and introduction a. Reflection on the process (600 words, 9 marks) The team writes 600 words reflecting on the process used in stages 1-5 above following the DIEP (Describe, Interpret, Evaluate, Plan) method (see Ch. 23 and in class discussions). b. Write an introduction for your report (300 words, 3 marks). Both 6a and 6b should, of course, be developed iteratively using feedback; you should adapt the process used to develop the essays earlier. 7. Compile report (3 marks for ‘presentation of report’) Compile all the elements of the assignment into a single report structured with the following elements: • Title Page (name of the document, group members, date submitted) • Introduction to the Group report (300 words) • The Group’s Mission/Vision and Values (300 words) • The writing pieces of each member of the group: 3 o The First Draft (300 words per each of the student in the group) o Feedback (100 word summary by the essay’s author). Attach the three clearly labelled individual 3 pieces of 100 words feedback comments received from peers / members of the group in the appendices of the report. Each appendix needs to be labelled and referred to within the document. o The Final Draft incorporating feedback (300 words) • Reflections on the process to be summarised and compiled into a group summary (of no more than 600 words). • The Gantt Chart • Appendices (eg you might want to include the original feedback provided by team members in task 3. Appendices do not count in the word count, but will not be marked.) Page numbers, and header or footer to be used throughout the report. Note: o Word limits are strict. o Please refer to ‘Rubric for Assignment 2’ for more details. Example: Assignment Gantt chart Weeks 1 2 3 4 5 6 B R E A K 7 8 9 Group Forms Complete Essays Distribute Essays Return Feedback Team meeting/s to discuss feedback Complete Revised Essays Complete Reflection Compile Completed Submission Edit/Review Submit Assignment 4 A REMINDER ABOUT PLAGIARISM Definition: Any one of the following is classified as plagiarism: a. the submission of an answer that is substantially similar to an answer submitted by another student in the same, or earlier years, either at this or another University b. the submission of an answer that is not substantially the student's own work (or, in the case of joint work, not substantially undertaken by the individuals named as having undertaken the joint work) c. the submission of an answer that contains substantial quotations from other works, such as books or journals, without appropriate reference to the source. Please note that (a) applies not only to the student who has copied an report, but also to the student from whom the answer was copied. The piece of work that you finally submit should be your own: it should contain your ideas and be written in your own words. Consequences • Any student who (i) copies or otherwise uses the work of another person or (ii) allows • another person to copy or otherwise use his or her answer when both are completing the same or similar assessment will either lose credit for that assessment, the subject, or be disciplined in some other way. Plagiarism and Collusion Plagiarism and collusion constitute extremely serious academic misconduct. They are forms of cheating, and severe penalties are associated with them, including cancellation of marks for a specific assignment, for a specific unit or even exclusion from the course. The University’s definitions of plagiarism and collusion are as follows: • Plagiarism occurs when a student passes off as the student’s own work, or copies without acknowledgment of its authorship, the work of any other person. • Collusion occurs when a student obtains the agreement of another person for a fraudulent purpose with the intent of obtaining an advantage in submitting an assignment or other work. • You should note that the University views plagiarism and collusion very seriously and may impose serious penalties. • The University’s policy on plagiarism and collusion sets out your responsibilities as a student in regard to plagiarism and collusion. Students are responsible for ensuring that: • They are familiar with the expected conventions of authorship and the appropriate use and acknowledgement of all forms of intellectual material relevant to their discipline. • Work submitted for assessment is their own. • They take all reasonable steps to ensure their work can not be accessed by others who might seek to submit it, in whole or in part, as their own. • Turnitin Guide: http://www.deakin.edu.au/students/clouddeakin/help-guides/assessment/plagiarism Whenever you refer to another person’s research or ideas (either by directly quoting or by paraphrasing them), you must acknowledge your source. If you are ever in doubt about how to properly cite a reference, consult your lecturer or the academic skills website www.deakin.edu.au/current-students/study-support/study-skills/. The University policy of plagiarism and collusion is available from The Guide www.deakin.edu.au/theguide. Regulation 4.1(1)—Student Discipline also contains important information regarding academic misconduct. 5 Unauthorised Collaboration Unauthorised collaboration is a form of collusion. It involves working with others with the intention of deceiving your markers about who actually completed the work. If you have collaborated with others in preparing an individual assessment item, you must disclose this to your lecturer. Assignments will sometimes be set as group work, but even in these cases generally you will still have to write up and submit your own report. If you have any doubt as to what constitutes authorised or unauthorised collaboration, consult with your lecturer. Penalties The Assessment Panel or Faculty Academic Progress and Discipline Committee will impose a penalty on any student who is found to have committed an act of academic misconduct such as plagiarism, collusion, or unauthorised collaboration. These penalties can include: • Allocate a zero mark or other appropriate mark for the unit or the assessment task • Suspend from the course for up to 3 trimesters • Exclude from the course for 2 trimesters or more • Impose a fine of up to $500.00 • Additional/substitute actions: • Require an apology • Reprimand and caution the student • Allow resubmission an assessment task • Recommend counseling (on a voluntary basis) • Unacceptable Activities • There are some activities that are never acceptable in the preparation of assignments at the tertiary level. Students who engage in any of the following activities create some doubt in the mind of the reader that the student's work is original. Many of these activities leave the student open to charges of plagiarism. Students should never: • Submit an assignment without providing a list of references used. • Copy one or more sentences from a reference source (book, journal, web page, etc.) without formatting the material as a quotation. • Use data in the form of numbers, tables, graphs, diagrams or other images without citing the source of the material. • Use program source code, even if it is freely available in the public domain, without citing the source of the code. • Take material from reference material and paraphrase it (write it in your own words) without citing the source of the material. • Use an idea made by another person without citing the source of the idea. 6