Unit 5 Assignment Guidelines explained: LANGUAGE — use concise and clear Standard English that is organized. LENGTH — no fewer than 2,500 words and no more than 3,000. The word count includes all documents from your cover page through to the references page. SPACING — because this is a business report, single space the body of your proposal and double space between paragraphs. REFERENCES — At least five sources must be cited. At least one of these must be a peer- reviewed journal article. 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 the field of business management, peer-reviewed journals include the following: Academy of Management, Human Resource Management Review, Industrial Management, Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, Management Quarterly, among others. The Writing Center includes additional guidance on peer-reviewed articles (go to Academic Tools area and select Academic Support Center, and on the main page you will see the Writing Center link and additional resources). You may use no more than two personal interviews. Other sources may include newspaper or magazine articles that are not peer reviewed. Or, if you locate several peer-reviewed articles to use, that is fine too. You may cite more than five sources; five is simply the minimum. Quotes — limit the use of direct quotes in your researched proposal. Your paper must contain no more than 15 percent 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. 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. Wikipedia — you may not use information from Wikipedia as it is not considered a reliable source. Dictionaries — may be used to define a term and be listed as source but may NOT count as one of the five sources. APA FORMAT FOR CITING SOURCES — 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.