Report Writing

Standards
Cornelis Krottje
Emily Lewis

Second Edition
2023
IBS Report Writing Standards © 2017, 2023 by Cornelis Krottje and Emily Lewis.
All Rights Reserved.

Conceived, compiled, and written by Cornelis Krottje and Emily Lewis. Approved by the Management Team of IBS,
Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen, The Netherlands (2017, 2023).
Typeset in Alegreya using LATEX 2ε and the memoir class by Lettersetterij Croddebosch, Leek, The Netherlands.
Produced in 2016–2023.
Foreword
Sound academic studies, such as your programme in International Business, will teach you how to think,
and not just that, but also how to put your thoughts on paper in a consistent, methodologically correct,
and perhaps even entertaining way. Some standardization will have to be part of this: your readers must
be able to rely on you—that you did your research correctly, based on good sources, and sources that you
also give credit to, by citing them as they deserve and by mentioning their works in the list of literature you
used, among other things.

The International Business School is a member of the AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of
Business) and on its way to accreditation by the AACSB. To achieve this, we have carried out a substantial
mass of good research, based on the best quality standards in our discipline.

In that same spirit, I invite you all to use this document as a great help to collecting your thoughts and re-
search adequately, and thus you will be part of the great international community of business schools, with
practice-oriented research, in the best interests of business and society, and in this way also for yourself.

I wish you lots of success in this pursuit!

Paul Ganzeboom,

Dean of the International Business School 2018–2021

Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen

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ii
Glossary
This is an example of a glossary ‘chapter’ in a report. Being a preliminary type of section, it should be
unnumbered. Normally, it would not require an introductory paragraph either. Merely presented here to
show how a glossary should be formatted visually, the vocab items listed here are not representative of the
scope of this reference work. It could also be put in the back matter of the report in question.

Accuracy: In language assessment, and the CEFR specifically: the degree to which
a text applies grammar, vocabulary, spelling, and task-specific features
correctly and appropriately.
APA: American Psychological Association; publishers of the Publication Man-
ual (2019), home to a set of referencing and other publication stan-
dards as used by many academic disciplines, among which the social
sciences.
body: An informal term used to refer to all material between introduction and
conclusion; should not be used as a formal chapter or section heading
boldface type: “Thick, dark type used for printing words or letters” (OALD), e.g. bold-
face.
CEFR Shorthand for “Common European Framework of Reference for Lan-
guages”
citation, to cite: Referring to an external source to make or support a point through
quoting, paraphrasing, or summarising; in other words, to cite and to
quote are not always synonymous—quotations are always verbatim; ci-
tations often refer to paraphrased or summarised information.
Coherence: An aspect of language assessment as used by the CEFR to measure the
development of a learner’s ability to link elements in a text through
paragraph writing and transition words or phrases.
end matter: All material following the main matter of a book or report, such as ap-
pendices or indices
footer: A fixed text area at the bottom of each page.
front matter: All material preceding the main matter of a book or report, such as front
page, acknowledgements, or table of contents
header: A fixed text area at the top of each page.
heading: The short text in different formatting (usually bigger and/or set in bold-
face or italics) that precedes the first paragraph of a chapter, section, or
subsection.
indentation, to “a space left at the beginning of a line or print of writing”, “to start a
indent: line or print or writing further away from the edge of the page than the
other lines”, respectively (OALD).

iii
italic type, italics, to The use of “printed letters that lean to the right” (OALD), often involving
italicise: slightly different letter shapes, e.g. italics.
line a single row of words and symbols, usually part of a sentence, that runs
from the left margin of a text block to its right margin; not to be con-
fused with a sentence
main matter: The part of a book or report that contains the most relevant content,
usually starting with the introduction and ending with the reference
list
problem statement: A brief explanation (not a question) of an issue or challenge faced by the
recipients of the report. It assists the stakeholders in establishing what
the exact problem is, why it matters, and to whom.
purpose statement: The research question’s twin sibling: a single declarative sentence (not a
question) that bridges the gap between the problem statement and the
research question, clearly indicating what the report aims to achieve:
to inform, analyse, advise?
Range: An aspect of language assessment as used by the CEFR to measure the
development of a learner’s vocabulary and idiom
research question Addressing a problem or opportunity, the RQ is the question that the
(RQ) report (and the study it represents) tries to answer. A process of analysis
and data interpretation leads to the research question being answered
in the study’s conclusion.
sentence: a combination of words and phrases, centred around a verb, that to-
gether make up a statement or question, always beginning with a cap-
ital letter and ending in a full stop; not to be confused with a line.
standard: An accepted or approved example of something against which judg-
ments or measurements can be made; a level of excellence or quality.
sentence case: The use of uppercase (i.e. CAPITAL) letters using the norm for standard
sentences, such as in “The quick brown fox from Boston jumped over the
lazy dog from Tennessee.”
system font: A typeface (i.e. font) that comes pre-installed on a computer’s operating
system.
thesis statement Essentially being the answer to the research question, it is the core idea
(TS): or claim of an essay, paper, dissertation, etc., summarised in the form
of a single sentence, thereby combining the topic focus with the direc-
tion it takes.
title case: The use of uppercase (i.e. CAPITAL) letters using the norm for titles, such
as in “The Quick Brown Fox from Boston Jumped over the Lazy Dog
from Tennessee.”
word processor: A software package which enables the user to enter, edit, manipulate,
store, retrieve, format and print text.

iv
Contents

List of Figures vii

List of Tables viii

1 Introduction 1

2 Standards for Structure 3

2.1 Title Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2 Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.3 Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.4 Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.5 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.6 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.7 Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.8 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.9 Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.10 Conceptual framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.11 Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.12 “Main Body”(!) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.13 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.14 Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.15 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.16 Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.16.1 General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.16.2 Interview transcripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

3 Standards for Layout 17

3.1 Front Matter Specifics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.1.1 The title page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.1.2 The Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.2 Main Matter Specifics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.3 Endmatter Specifics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.3.1 The References: lay-out standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.3.2 The appendices: layout standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.4 Page Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

v
 CONTENTS

3.4.1 Margins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.4.2 Page identification: headers, footers, and pagination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.4.3 Font type and size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.4.4 Paragraphing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.4.5 Section headings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.4.6 Starting a new page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.4.7 Line spacing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.4.8 Line justification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.5 Text Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.5.1 Capital letters & treatment of names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.5.2 Punctuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.5.3 Type formatting: boldface, underlining, and italics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.5.4 Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.5.5 Symbols and abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.5.6 Quotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.5.7 Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.5.8 Visuals: Tables and figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
3.5.9 Cross-references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.5.10 Footnotes and endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

4 Standards for Language 79

4.1 CEFR: Accuracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.2 CEFR: Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.2.1 General tone & register . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.2.2 Neutral language use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
4.2.3 Conciseness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
4.2.4 Jargon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.3 CEFR: Coherence and Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.3.1 Persuasiveness through logical ordering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.3.2 Paragraphing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.3.3 Linking words and phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

5 Standards for Referencing 93

5.1 Avoiding Plagiarism: When and Why to Cite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.2 Anti-plagiarism tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
5.3 Quoting, paraphrasing, and summarising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
5.3.1 Quotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
5.3.2 Paraphrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
5.3.3 Summaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
5.4 Author-year referencing APA-style (7th ed.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
5.4.1 Step 1: In-text parenthetical referencing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.4.2 Step 2: The references list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

6 Conclusion & recommendations 107

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References 109

A Report Assessment Rubric Template 113

B Report Checklist 115

C CEFR Descriptors for Writing 117

D The Sixteen Most Sinister Scribal Sins 119

E Table of Common Linking Words and Phrases 121

F Extra business communication samples 131

F.1 The memo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
F.2 Business emails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
F.2.1 Email sample #1: general . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
F.2.2 Email sample #2: response email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
F.2.3 Email sample #3: Reply to product enquiry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
F.2.4 Email sample #4: email invitation (informal) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
F.2.5 Email sample #5: email invitation (formal) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
F.3 Business letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
F.3.1 Business letter I (UK) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
F.3.2 Business letter II (US) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
F.4 Writing for meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
F.4.1 Agenda for business meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
F.4.2 Action minutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
F.5 Report types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
F.5.1 Memo report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
F.5.2 Short report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
F.5.3 Sample: longer business research report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

List of Figures

2.1 A sample abstract, including keywords (Russell, 2003) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

3.1 Two layout options for reference list entries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

3.2 The problem with full justification in a reference list. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.3 Two different methods of delineating paragraphs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.4 Dutch “paragraphing” versus English paragraphing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.5 Examples of fully justified text and left-justified (ragged-right) text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.6 Example of a fully justified text with and without end-line hyphenation. . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

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3.7 Basic components of a table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.8 Sample table APA style no. 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.9 Sample table APA style, no. 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.10 Sample table APA style, no. 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.11 Basic components of a figure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

5.1 An online academic database entry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

List of Tables

2.1 Report sections and how they are generally ordered. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2.2 Some core differences between purely analytical reports and proposals. . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

3.1 Different approaches to chapter and section heading formatting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

3.3 All relevant horizontal-line punctuation for report writing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.5 An overview of certain symbols one may encounter in business reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.6 Commonly used abbreviations in English writing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.7 Commonly used honorifics in English writing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

5.1 In-text citation pattern variations APA style. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

5.2 The four main segments in APA reference list entries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

viii
1 Introduction
As in most disciplines, standards in writing should not be a constricting straitjacket. Not only should they
provide clearly delineated parameters within which the author can safely practise his or her writing skills,
but they should also allow professional writers to use them as guidelines rather than strict rules, assisting
them in the composition and finalisation of their work. In that same vein, it was a matter of course that
students at the International Business School (IBS) of Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen,
(Hanze UAS) would benefit from an up-to-date handbook providing them with clear criteria for writing
professional texts. Even though a similar document had been made available at IBS in the early nineties
(Murcott, 1991), it was high time that a revised, modernised version of an IBS report writing guide see the
light of day.

The purpose of these standards, therefore, is to provide students and staff at IBS alike with rules and guide-
lines for the structure (i.e. sectioning and paragraphing) of the content, and layout (i.e. visual formatting
and structuring) of assignment reports and similar documents (e.g. project reports) to the effect that these
texts will have a uniform and pleasing appearance and give the reader an enjoyable reading experience. The
focus will therefore lie on the style, formatting, structure, language, and communication standards more
than on the content. Indeed, students at IBS are required to ensure that their project, assignment, and
research reports are in a standardised format, are well structured, have been prepared through careful
word-processing, and are easy to read and understand. Secondly, this guide will give the student a useful
framework for composing and writing reports later during their career. A final (but not less important)
purpose of standardisation is that it will facilitate teachers and supervisors in the accurate assessment of
student work.

Chapter 2 will give an overview of content requirements: what elements does one expect to find in the
macrostructure of a properly structured business report. Chapter 3 will present IBS standards for layout
and formatting, ranging from criteria for title page composition to rules about punctuation, footnotes, and
jargon. Chapter 4 will examine some requirements of language use: accuracy of vocabulary and grammar,
style issues, as well as coherence in paragraph writing. Chapter 5 will offer instructions on how to reference
external sources using the author-year system, and this guide will conclude with some notes of practical
advice, as well as appendices that include, among other useful material, an annotated sample report.

Many of the suggestions in this document pertaining to report structuring are based on conventions as
included in the syllabi of the old IBMS course modules ERS1, ERS2, and ERS3, as well as the Graduation
Project and Master’s Thesis handbooks. Much of the input this guide offers regarding layout, and text for-
matting in particular, is based on Ritter’s Oxford Style Manual (2003). The section on author-year referencing
(also known as the so-called Harvard system) is based on the referencing style as employed by the American
Psychological Association (APA) and explained in their Publication Manual (2019) and related publications.

1
2 Standards for Structure
It is recognised that projects and assignments vary tremendously in emphasis. The list of main sections as
given in table 2.1 covers the needs of most types of reports used in the International Business programmes,
but there may be occasions when it is permissible (or even desired or required) to deviate from it. For some
cases, businesses may need even require a report in the narrow sense of the word, but for assessment
purposes, IBS will require you to add certain textual segments to accompany the heart of such a product
(say, a spreadsheet) so that your reporting skills can still be assessed properly.

Table 2.1: Report sections and how they are generally ordered.
Report sections: Email Memo Y1/Y2 trad. Master’s
or report project GPJ Thesis
letter reports report
Front page/title page ! ! !
Abstract ! !
Executive Summary ! !
Preface !
Acknowledgements !
Contents ! ! !
List of Illustrations !
List of Tables !
Message header ! !
Introduction ! ! ! ! !
Theoretical framework/Literature Review ! !
Methodology ! ! !
Findings/Results/Interpretation of results (Data ! ! ! ! !
Collection / Analysis / Evaluation / Discussion)
Conclusion ! ! ! ! !
Recommendations (!) ! ! !
Project process evaluation !
Glossary !
References ! ! !
Appendix (!) ! ! !

Note. “!” = definitely included; “(!)” = possibly included (Also see Lewis 2015; cf. Blumberg, Cooper, & Schindler,
2014)

The general image that should be imprinted on students’ minds by the end of their first year is that the
basic IBS business report includes at least a title page, Executive Summary, Introduction, Methodology,
Findings, Conclusion, Recommendations, and list of References. Whether or not any of the other sections

3
 Standards for Structure

are included depends on the audience, purpose of the report, presence of (too) detailed material, use of
jargon, report size, etc.

To the critical student reader: Given the fact that not all types of chapter/section were necessary for this
guide, it does not contain all those sections either. As this document itself is not a business research
report, it does not, for instance, have a methodology. It does, however, attempt to provide sufficient
explanations—and, where possible, examples—to illustrate how to use said sections.

2.1 Title Page

The title page or cover page should contain: The full title of the report; its development status, such as first
draft, final draft, resit, etc.1 ; your name (or names in case of group work) and student number; your
class, group, and/or team number; the name of your lecturer, coach, or supervisor; the date of submission;
and the course-specific purpose for which the report has been written, e.g.:

This project report is presented to complete the requirements of the ... assignment
in the International Marketing Analysis module IMA of IBS.
(Murcott, 1994, p. 6)

or

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement of the degree Master of Business

Administration of the International Business School of Hanze University of Applied
Sciences Groningen.
(IBS, 2015, p. 17)

N.B. This is not the same purpose as mentioned in the purpose statement of the report, which expresses
the purpose or aim of the report in a corporate context (i.e. in the case of the company or organisation you
are—or pretend to be—writing for), such as “This report will investigate the four different essay-writing
strategies that the Department of English may employ to improve its first-year students’ academic writing
skills.”

In the case of graduation project reports, the title page should also include the names of the supervisor and
co-marker, the name of the company involved, as well as the word count, and the word “CONFIDENTIAL”
in case of confidential information.

2.2 Abstract
The purpose of the report abstract is to enable a researcher to decide at a glance if it would be worthwhile
to read the rest of your report. At IBS, however, the requirement for abstracts is mostly restricted to bach-
elor’s and master’s theses; in doubt, students should consult their teacher or supervisor. Should the report

1 In case the draft version is not included, the teacher may assume it is the only, final draft.

4
 Abstract

in question require an abstract, though, then it is important to remember that it should sell despite its
professional style. In the absence of inspiration, the temptation to write it in the form of a contents list, so
often seen in technical papers, should be avoided:

*Section 1 of the report introduces the concept of specificity. Section 2 examines

and discusses relevant factors. Some variables are introduced in section 3, and
their impact is assessed in section 4. Finally, . . . (etc.)2

Neither does the word “abstract” imply that this section will comprise sentences and phrases randomly
extracted from the body of the report. The abstract should be a succinct, well-rounded, condensation of
the whole report, giving the gist of it, and summarising methods of research, findings, and conclusions,
in (preferably) a single paragraph. It should give the essential ideas contained in the report.

There should be no fear that, in disclosing the final conclusions, the abstract will prevent people from read-
ing the rest of the report; it is not supposed to resemble an exciting and tantalising detective story in which
everything becomes clear in the final pages! Instead, a good abstract that summarises the main line of the
report lets the reader know where the report is going; the details will then make more sense.

Every year, U.S. businesses lose billions of dollars and

the U.S. economy loses hundreds of thousands of jobs
because of intellectual property theft. Although dis-
cussions of the problem are becoming more common-
place in business, academic and government circles, IP
theft continues to grow and expand. In the current IP
environment where law enforcement is handicapped by
budgetary, policy, and international barriers, individual
firms must take the initiative to protect their IP through
managing risk of IP theft, effectively using government
and advocacy organization IP protection resources, and
actively pursuing violators.

KEYWORDS: (Intellectual Property, Counterfeiting,

Piracy)
Figure 2.1: A sample abstract, including keywords (Russell, 2003)

An abstract should be written only after the rest of the report has been finished. It is very often written in
the past tense (at least where methodological descriptions and findings are concerned) with conclusions
and implications in the present tense. Standards of length vary from institution to institution (usually
journal publishers); but one may usually expect a single paragraph consisting of no more than 250 words
(APA, 2019, p. 38). In fact, the shorter it is, the better, provided that the sense is not lost. It is safest
to consult any course-specific requirements that may exist. The IBS Graduation Handbook has also set 250
words as a maximum. Confidentialreports should not include any confidential information in the abstract.

2Throughout this guide, any examples of undesirable, faulty, or outright wrong writing will be marked with an asterisk, as has
been done here.

5
 Standards for Structure

2.3 Executive Summary

This is a most important part and may well be the only section that some readers read in detail. The Exec-
utive Summary (first word pronounced [Ig"zekj@tIv], so stress on the second syllable) summarises all the
major areas of the report: a brief recap of problem and purpose statement, research methods, findings,
conclusions, and recommendations. Besides their size, the main difference between an Abstract and an
Executive Summary are the different functions each document serves. While an Abstract is read by some-
one trying to decide whether or not to read the rest of the document, an Executive Summary is read by
someone who will read the entire report, or who would like to but is unable to find the time yet still needs
to get the full gist of it. At IBS, the Executive Summary should not be more than one page regardless of the
length of the report3 . It should neither be listed in the table of contents (it precedes it after all), nor should
it be numbered as a chapter. because, like the table of contents, it’s part of the report’s front matter—see
also section 3.1). Given the fact that the ES is written after the rest of the report, use of verb tenses is similar
as in the abstract.

2.4 Preface
Texts such as books or longer reports sometimes contain a personal statement from the author in the form
of a Preface (pron. ["prEf@s]). It allows you as writer to directly address the reader to explain why you wrote
the text, what it is about, and your personal journey in putting it all together, for example.

Should such a section be written by someone else (as is the case with these Report Writing Standards), then
this is usually referred to as a Foreword; these are not commonly found in business reports, though. Al-
ternatively, instead of a Preface (or Foreword), the Introduction may also be used for the same purpose if
necessary. In such a case, such a personal statement tends to be placed at the very end of the Introduction.

2.5 Glossary
The presence or absence of a glossary depends on the subject matter; this section should provide an
overview and explanation of any important terms or jargon used in the text that the reader may or would
be unfamiliar with. One should realise that the occurrence of a term in the glossary does not mean the
term requires no explanation in the main matter of the text.

The glossary is arranged alphabetically by headword, where each headword is followed by an explanation
or definition. Each following headword-definition pair is clearly visually separated from the previous one.
For an example of a glossary, see page iii.

3 Other organisations (universities, corporations, etc.) may require longer summaries.

6
 Acknowledgements

2.6 Acknowledgements
If you have had assistance, help, or advice in the assignment or in preparing the report, or you would like to
acknowledge groups or individuals who have enabled the project, thank named people and organisations,
such as advisers, colleagues, teachers, or your host firm in the Acknowledgements. Acknowledgements
are an optional report section although they are often used in the more formal, longer types of report, such
as the Graduation Project report. They may refer to reasons why the report was written, they may mention
special circumstances or sources of inspiration, they may express gratitude (including name and function
of the individuals concerned), and they may include the author’s or authors’ personal notes (Lewis, 2015,
p. 25).

2.7 Contents
The report section commonly referred to as “table of contents”—in APA style simply styled Contents—
should enable the reader to find items in the report, and understand the contents and structure of the
report at a glance. The decision down to which section level page numbers should be given is a compro-
mise between making the table of contents too dense on the printed page, and minimising the amount of
searching that the reader will have to do to find a topic. A good general guide for business reports is that if
page numbers in the list are more than five apart, the level which has been chosen is too high.

Naturally, a table of contents includes page numbers for the sections included, and care must be taken to
ensure that the section headings precisely match the section headings used in the main matter and end
matter (the list of references and the appendices) of the report. More information on the layout of tables
of contents can be found in section 3.1.2.

Any material that precedes the table of contents should not be listed; any material that follows it ought to
be included, though. If the report contains many illustrations, diagrams, graphs, or other figures, it might
be advisable to list those separately within the table of contents. The alternative is to create a completely
separate List of tables and/or List of illustrations on the page(s) following the table of contents. Such an
extra section or sections should then also be listed in the table of contents.

Appendices should be included as well, where each Appendix (A, B, C, etc.) is listed separately.

2.8 Introduction
The first numbered chapter or section of the report, the purpose of the Introduction is to entice the reader
into reading the report and to set the scene. It should catch the reader’s interest, open up the topic of
the report, give the background, history, references to previous work on the same subject, reasons for the
assignment (also known as a problem statement), and aim or objectives—or purpose statement—of the project
or assignment. The report’s purpose statement is one of the most important elements of the introduction
as it clearly informs the reader of the direction the report will take, something more clearly illustrated in
section 2.13 on page 12.

7
 Standards for Structure

As for background information, in a lengthier report a separate background chapter following the introduc-
tion may be more appropriate. Examples of such chapters or sections are more detailed background de-
scriptions of a company or a corporate sector or branch, or a literature review with the aim to provide
theoretical background to the problem in question.

The introduction to a report should also contain a paragraph offering a preview of the rest of the report,
briefly outlining which elements the reader may expect in the report, and—befitting a deductive writing
approach—preferably including the thesis statement or “core idea” the report intends to convey. For example:

The report will conclude that, in order to meet the needs of the Ukrainian market,
Philips should consider replacing its present distribution system by the Selective
Distribution System. Finally, it will offer some practical recommendations on how
the Selective Distribution System had best be implemented.

In this case, the first sentence of the paragraph gave an explicit preview of the conclusion (the thesis state-
ment paraphrased), while the final sentence summed up what the recommendation section will cover,
which always builds on the conclusion/thesis statement.

In some cases, introductions to reports that do not contain a Preface or Acknowledgements section may
also include personal information from the author such as acknowledgements. If such information is re-
quired, though, it is best to keep it separate.

Regarding verb tenses used, the Introduction covers many different linguistic contexts: establishing the
importance of X in the context of past research and/or recent events, identifying a controversy, outlining
the structure of the thesis, etc. A range of contexts with the appropriate phrases and accompanying tenses
can be found in the “Introducing work” section of the Academic Phrasebank (University of Manchester, n.d.).

2.9 Literature Review

In lengthier research reports, such as Bachelor’s Theses—also known locally as the Graduation Project re-
port or GPJ—and Master’s Theses, a literature review may be required.4 A literature review provides a
summary of the material that has been published on a particular subject: an overview of current theoretical
insights into the general topic and the relevant variables—as linked to the research question or questions.

In other words, this section should present and explain what has been written by other authors and is
therefore already known about the broader research problem. The literature should also introduce any
theoretical frameworks and models which will be used to answer the research questions. The literature
review should be a cohesive summary and synthesis of all the relevant literature, not a randomly selected
annotated bibliography.

Some core considerations of such a chapter are:

• What has been investigated by whom?

• In what context was it investigated?

4 Students should always check the assignment instructions to verify which report sections are required.

8
 Literature Review

• How has the research developed?

• What are the pros and cons of the theory available?

These insights are then logically and clearly linked to the case study in question and developed into a co-
herent theoretical framework.

Amount, criteria, and pitfalls There is no fixed requirement on the amount of literature included in the
literature review. However, the following criteria need to be taken into account:

• The reviewed literature must be comprehensive. Theoretically, if one source provides sufficient in-
formation to base the conceptual model on, that could be sufficient and therefore acceptable. In
practice, however—especially at the Master’s level—more literature is usually required for building
a proper theoretical framework.
Related pitfall: The student author omits relevant, important theories or research.

• Even though older publications are not outdated by definition, the literature review should be based
on relevant and up-to-date sources.
Related pitfall: The student author mostly cites outdated theories and research even where it
has been superseded by new, more up-to-date theories and research.

• There is a logical and clearly discernible connection from research topic/problem statement, via the
research question or questions, to the literature discussed and the research method or methods
used.
Related pitfall: There is no clear line running from problem statement, via research question,
to literature.

Structure The structure of the literature review is not set in stone. Normally, however, the theory overview
and link to the case in question are not presented separately but in an ongoing narrative, where the argu-
mentation of the author is leading.

Potential structuring choices for a literature review include—but are not limited to:

• chronological by publication date,

• research concepts clustered, and from generic to specific, or
• from least accepted to most accepted.

In the end, the choice will depend on the audience, the complexity of the material, and the purpose of the
writer. Two very useful sites about literature-review writing are “Write a Literature Review” (University of
California Santa Cruz, 2017) and “Literature Review: Conducting and Writing” (University of West Florida,
2017).

Verb tenses most commonly used in literature reviews are past simple and present perfect. Past simple to
discuss specific past publications (e.g. “Smith (2023) suggested”) and present perfect to discuss past re-
search affecting present knowledge (e.g. “Research has indicated”). Current state of research would also
justify the use of the present tense, obviously (e.g. “Much of the current literature on X pays particular
attention to”). For more examples, check “Referring to sources” on the Academic Phrasebank website (Uni-
versity of Manchester, n.d.).

9
 Standards for Structure

2.10 Conceptual framework

The literature review (the broader, theoretical discussion of relevant publications on the topic, providing a
context) and the resulting theoretical framework (a more-narrowed-down theoretical overview) form the
basis for the conceptual framework, which embodies the specific direction by which the research will have
to be undertaken.

Even though presented here as a chapter by itself, this may not be required by the course handbook. The
conceptual framework of your research (if applicable) may also be included at the end of the literature re-
view or at the beginning of the Methodology.

As the term “conceptual framework” indicates, it follows from the author’s own conceptualisation of the
research, but it is logically inspired and underpinned by the literature review and the theoretical frame-
work. It is the researcher’s idea of how the research problem will have to be explored. More specifically, but
importantly, it describes the relationship between specific variables identified in the study and outlines
the input, process, and output of the whole investigation.

In short, it may be called the digest of the literature discussion and theoretical framework. It applies par-
ticularly to quantitative research, and presents:

• the variables that are relevant to the problem at hand,

• how the variables are related, and
• an overview of expectations that the author has regarding the nature of these relations.

This also means carefully considering the approach to the research: Will it require a quantitative or a qual-
itative approach? Will the methods and/or findings be judged from a realist or a relativist perspective? The
chosen approach is also called the research paradigm (see also Killam, 2013).

How is it written? The conceptual framework should be succinctly written, only including the measur-
able variables in the research. It provides a clear description of the relationship between the variables and
is often visualised in a diagram.

N.B. A general misconception is that the conceptual framework can include a description of the research
process. This is not the case. Any description of how the research is conducted should be saved for the
Methodology chapter.

2.11 Methodology
The purpose of this section is to convince the reader that the methods chosen to collect the data are appro-
priate for answering the research questions. The length and theoretical complexity of this section depends
on the type of report being written. At the very least, this section should explain how the information used
in the report was obtained; there is, however, a reason that it is called Methodology rather than “Method”:
in addition to describing the means of analysis, it should also outline the logic underlying the choice of
research method.

In longer reports, the central research question and sub-research questions should be formally presented
here, as well as an indication of how these research questions translate into the data desired and sources required.

10
 “Main Body”(!)

At this point, a clear distinction should be made between primary data (i.e. “raw” data directly obtained by
the author) and secondary data (i.e. data that was collected and/or processed by someone other than the
author) and all methods used to obtain both types of information5 should be described in detail.

An examination of the other methodological options and an explanation as to why these methods were not
chosen might be appropriate. Any limitations, such as time or access to information, should be addressed.
Finally, this section should include a critical evaluation of the reliability and validity of the data and how
the researcher minimised bias.

In short, a methodology is not a listing of sources, but what it does is explain in detail—using a logically
ordered structure—HOW the research is conducted (what types of primary and/or secondary research) and
WHY in that particular manner (grounding and therefore justification of the choice of methods), thereby
clearly linking it to the conceptual framework (incl. its respective variables) and the aforementioned theory.
See also Business Research Methods (Blumberg, Cooper, and Schindler, 2014) and Research Methods for Business
Students (Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill, 2015) for more information on how to write a methodology.

Check “Describing methods” on the University of Manchester’s Academic Phrasebank (University of Man-
chester, n.d.) for examples of verb tenses and other phrasing used in methodological descriptions. One
rule of thumb is that, the reporting chronologically follows the application of the method described, lead-
ing to frequent use of the past tense, such as “In order to assess whether and how Xs are produced and
received, we measured ...”, “Descriptive data were generated for all variables”, “The participants were asked to
provide feedback on ...”, etc.

2.12 “Main Body”(!)

The structure and content of the main body of the report will depend on the requirements and purpose
of the project or assignment. Note the scare quotes surrounding this section’s heading, however; what
the student should definitely keep in mind is that reports should generally not have chapters or sections called
“Body” or “Main body”; the informal term “body” is merely a label meant to indicate whatever comes be-
tween Introduction and Conclusion (including, for instance, the Methodology chapter). What it will most
often—if not always—contain is a section called “Findings” or something similar; section headings such
as “Data”, “Results”, “Analysis”, or “Discussion” are not unheard of. Alternatively, besides the Methodology,
the remaining sections may be using very subject-specific headings (e.g. “The Wernham-Hogg Model and
Its Implications”, “The Impact on Municipal Subsidies”, etc.) instead of the aforementioned more generic
ones.

The data that has been collected should be presented in a logical and persuasive (where appropriate) man-
ner. Visual representations of the data should be chosen where it is helpful. One should avoid relying too
heavily on statistical instruments such as Chi-square tests to explain the data; the researcher must view
these as a means to an end and not as the end itself—most importantly, statistical results need to be ex-

5 Primary data and secondary data are (hopefully) the result of primary research and secondary research, respectively; these two
forms of research also go by their more descriptive aliases of field research and desk research. Despite what the labels “primary” and
“secondary” may suggest, however, it is usually the case that the secondary research precedes the primary research both logically and
chronologically: Generally, primary research is used to fill any remaining gaps in the secondary research.

11
 Standards for Structure

plained and analyzed in textual form. Any details of dense and in-depth statistical analyses had best be
saved up for the appendices, however.

Any relevant tables, figures, and other illustrations given in this or other parts of the report should be num-
bered, accompanied by clear descriptive captions and should be referred to and justified in the running
text. For more on tables and figures, consult section 3.5.8.

Verb tense choice depends on whether results are described (“results showed”, “scores decreased”, etc.)
or discussed/interpreted (“the results indicate”, “the findings mean that”, “it can be seen that”, etc.). A
much more detailed set of context-specific examples of verb tense usage and results-related phrasing can
be found in the “Reporting results” and “Discussing findings” sections of the Academic Phrasebank (Univer-
sity of Manchester, n.d.).

2.13 Conclusion
Students should distinguish between the Conclusion (with a capital letter, in the broad sense of the word),
denoting the report section by that name, and the conclusion (with a lowercase letter, giving the narrow
sense of the word), echoing the report’s thesis statement.

The purpose of the Conclusion (i.e. the section) is to draw together the results of the report, summarise its
findings, and draw a conclusion or conclusions as the culmination of those findings. There should be a clear link
between the report’s Introduction and Conclusion, which should become clear through a restatement of
the report’s purpose statement and thesis statement in the Conclusion. The summary of the main findings
should—due to its very nature—never include new information; it should merely include information that
has already been covered before in the report. The result of this is that in-text citations (signalling the
presence of new secondary source evidence) should not be found in the Conclusion.

It is also important to remember that the core of the conclusion—which is essentially the same message as
conveyed by the report’s thesis statement—should be directly tied to the report’s purpose statement; after
all, the thesis statement should directly answer the research question. Indeed, if the purpose of the report
is to analyse a particular problem or situation (what is going on exactly, how did something happen, etc),
then the conclusion will basically answer only that question and no other; the potential Recommendation
section of such a—otherwise purely analytical—report would then suggest a course of action based on that
(analytical) conclusion. Alternatively, if the very purpose of the report is to suggest or propose what a com-
pany or other organisation should or had better do—also based on an analysis of a problem or situation—
then the thesis statement (the focus of the conclusion) will already be phrased as a recommendation even if
the Recommendations section immediately following it (notice the capital “R”) will give the actual, practical
recommendations. Some sample differences between analytical reports and proposals is given in table 2.2.

Verb tenses used in the Conclusion depend on the purpose of the sentence in question: restating the aims
of the study, summarising main research findings, recognising the limitations of the current study, etc.
Examples of appropriate phrasing (including verb tense usage) can be found in the “Writing conclusions”
section of the Academic Phrasebank (University of Manchester, n.d.).

12
 Recommendations

Table 2.2: Some core differences between purely analytical reports and proposals.

Analytical report Proposal

Purpose statement The aim of this report is to analyse This report will analyse a number
the underlying cultural issues that the of marketing strategies for Abellio-
world’s largest U.S.-based home im- ScotRail’s train lines (standard as well
provement retailer Home Depot faced as steam train) with an eye on maxi-
when entering the Chinese market in mal revenue, and will offer a recom-
2006. (focus on analysis) mendation. (focus on proposal)
Conclusion (i.e. the Having insufficiently considered In order to capture a larger market
thesis statement) the differences between Chinese share in the Scottish public trans-
and American values, attitudes, and port railway market, Abellio should
behaviour, Home Depot has not increase investment in online market-
adequately adjusted their business ing, ticket-and-train usage analysis,
strategy and model to the Chinese and customer service. (main clause of
market. (main clause of statement statement phrased as a brief, undetailed
phrased as an informed observation) recommendation)
Recommendations C.E. Consulting has prepared a num- Concerning their online marketing,
ber of detailed recommendations on Abellio is advised to increase their
how Home Depot had best cope with budget in that department by at least
the aforementioned problems... etc. fifteen per cent before the end of the
(specific recommendations logically built next quarter. Hiring an external...
on conclusion) etc. (comprehensive, practical, concrete
recommendations as developed from the
conclusion)

2.14 Recommendations
Whether this section is required depends on the type of report being written. It should not be included
in informational reports, is generally expected in analytical reports, and should definitely be included in
persuasive reports such as proposals. Even though recommendations in the broad sense—possibly merely
a suggestion6 —may already be found in the conclusion (see previous section), a Recommendations chapter
or section provides specific advice on how to proceed and should be formulated according to (or at the very
least inspired by) S.M.A.R.T. criteria7 . In other words, the Recommendations section should read like a
detailed action list.

It may also contain suggestions or ideas for further research. In that sense, then, it may actually contain
information that has not been mentioned earlier in the report, provided that it flows from, and is based
on, the conclusion logically and directly.

6 “recommendation: the act of telling somebody that something is good or useful or that somebody would be suitable for a particular
job, etc” (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary)
7 To the uninitiated: The acronym SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound.

13
 Standards for Structure

Verb forms used in the Recommendations chapter or section depend on the tentativeness or certainty with
which the recommendations are given. One may expect a lot of modal verbs like would, could, and should.
Some excellent examples of appropriate phrasing and verb tense usage can be found in the last two sub-
sections of the “Writing conclusions” section of the Academic Phrasebank: “Making recommendations for
further research work” and “Setting out recommendations for practice or policy” (University of Manches-
ter, n.d.).

2.15 References
Include, as an additional yet unnumbered chapter before any appendices, the details of all secondary sources
that you have consulted. Generally, reports written for IBS modules require a reference list called Refer-
ences—not ∗ Reference List, ∗ List of References, or ∗ Bibliography; simply References, in line with the 7th
edition of the Publication Manual of the APA (2019). Whereas a Bibliography would also include sources for
anything that might have helped write the report, for further background reading, or for related works of
interest, the References section only lists sources actually used (quoted, paraphrased or summarised) in
the report. An example of how to lay out a reference list is given on page 109 of this guide.

Contrary to popular belief, all sources used in IBS reports require references, regardless of whether the
sources have been quoted, summarised, or paraphrased. For all three forms of “borrowing”, parenthetical
author-year references—also called citations—will need to have been supplied in the running text, and it
is absolutely vital that the author-year combinations given in the in-text citations correspond exactly to
the author-year entries in the References section.8 For example, if a source is listed in the reference list
under the corporate author name of The LEGO Group but the citation uses the name Karlsson, the
reader has a problem as there is no way he or she can directly connect the two besides engaging in some
thorough digging through the report, which would be utterly undesirable. The References should give the
exact details for all summarised, paraphrased, or quoted material so that the authenticity of your material
may be checked, and the authority of the source to support your argument is given. Any references used
must be structured and formatted according to the standards as laid out in the Publication Manual of the
American Psychological Association (APA, 2019). An explanation of APA referencing can be found in chapter 5
on page 93ff., and an extensive collection of APA referencing examples can be found in the Publicational
Manual (APA, 2019) as well as the APA Style website.

2.16 Appendices
Supporting information, the inclusion of which might spoil the thread of discussion on the main body
of the report, should be placed in appendices. Examples of information typically placed in the appendices
include interview transcripts, questionnaires, and detailed balance sheets. The appendices should be titled
and listed separately in the table of contents. Specific reference to an appendix should be made in the
relevant section of the report. For example:

8 The only exception to this is information that has been acquired through so-called personal communication, which basically implies

that it cannot be easily verified by the reader, if at all. Such sources should be kept to a minimum, obviously. Also see the APA Style
website for further explanation and examples.

14
 Appendices

. . . In the Netherlands partnerships are encouraged to draft a partnership contract

(Appendix B: Example Partnership Contract, page 103). . .

2.16.1 General
As the example above shows, if the report has more than one appendix, they should be designated Ap-
pendix A, Appendix B, Appendix C, and so on. If the report has only one appendix, it should simply be
referred in-text as “the Appendix”, its heading being Appendix (both without an appended letter). Any ap-
pendix should always be given a title, though, separated from the label by a colon (e.g. Appendix D: Inter-
view Transcript). In cross-referencing within the running text, only the label needs to be mentioned: “The
precise wording of his response to the allegation may be found in Appendix D”, for example. If an appendix
has subsections, then numbers may be added to indicate subdivisions (e.g. Appendix A.2, Appendix D.8,
etc.). A similar approach should be taken with the numbering of tables and figures in appendices. Tables
in, say, Appendix B should be labeled Table B1, Table B2, etc.

2.16.2 Interview transcripts

To save space, it is recommended that names be abbreviated, as long as a key to the abbreviations is pro-
vided at the start of the transcript. Interview transcripts should also make use of line numbers in the left
margin to facilitate internal referencing by allowing citations to include a line number whenever an in-
terviewee is quoted or paraphrased on a particular issue. Using multiples of five only (i.e. 5, 10, 15, etc.)
should be sufficient.

ES: So, to what extent are you drawn to the suggested course of action? After all, maintaining your position
as market leader must be one of the higher priorities for this quarter, I trust?
JM: Well, we could have considered the earlier option, of course, but if you take into account the monumental
85 investments required to go... eh... to set up... such a production line, then the objections raised by our
committee members seem totally justified. I, for one, agree with them. Then again, this is purely reasoning
from my own perspective, of course. Rumour has it that some of our competitors have already been playing
around with this idea for the past couple of years. I think for... for the past two or three years or so. but we
have no solid evidence for that. And industrial espionage is hardly an option here [laughs]. No, but we need
90 to take current industry developments very, very seriously. Especially looking at what they’re pulling off in
the Dollard region at the moment. Or else we’re out, right?

The interviews should be transcribed in the language(s) used during the interview. At Hanze International
Business School, this is usually expected to be English, but if the interview was held in another language, a
translation into English should be added if requested and/or required by the supervising lecturer. In other
words, a translation should not be used instead of the original interview, but be added in an additional
column (formatting the interview as a table is recommended in that case).

15
 Standards for Structure

Transcript (Frisian) Translation

GJ: Ja, Dat hienen wy inderdaad dwaan moatten. GJ: Yes, we should have done that indeed. But not
Mar net elkenien hie dat troch fansels. Sjoch, de everyone was aware of that, of course. See, most
measte klanten tinke fan ik leau it wol en at ik op customers think along the lines of ‘I don’t care and
185 ’e koarte termyn d’r mar profijt fan hawwe kin. En as long as I can profit from it in the short term’. And
as de klant it net oanjout, dat jout ús dan ek net in if the customer doesn’t indicate it, then we don’t get
soad motifaasje – no ja, yn elk gefal net genôch mo- a lot of motivation, well, at least insufficient mo-
tifaasje om eventuele fernijings dan ek troch te set- tivation to implement potential innovations either,
ten, no? right?

190 FdH: Wat wie de lêste kear dat Ynterding BV ak- FdH: When was the last time Ynterding BV had
tyf mei klanten yn petear west hat, hin, troch in- engaged with its customers through interviews or
terviews of enkêtes, ensfh., oer de wînsken fan de questionnaires, etc., about the wishes of tourists
hjoeddeiske toerist? En is dat ek meinaam yn in these days? And has that been included in a SWOT
SWOT-analyse? analysis?

Alternatively, the supervisor in question may consider it sufficient for the report to include, after the in-
terview transcript, a summary in English of the most important points raised in the interview.

16
3 Standards for Layout
An often underestimated aspect of writing by students, the overall layout of the page and formatting of the
finer details often affect the audience’s reading experience of the text, be it consciously or subconsciously.
Ideally, the report is laid out and formatted in such a way that it actively facilitates the reading and under-
standing of the text yet does not distract the reader from its content.

This section provides advice on the superficial appearance of the report. It starts with the specifics of the
preliminary material, main text, and end matter of the report as layout treatment between them is gener-
ally different in some details. Section 3.4 will give details on commonly accepted criteria for the layout of
pages in a report such as pagination and headings, after which section 3.5 will cover more detailed aspects
of text formatting; punctuation marks and type formatting are but a few of the many issues that will be
covered rather succinctly.

3.1 Front Matter Specifics

The front matter of a report is basically all those parts that lead up to (but do not include) the Introduction:
the title page, any abstract or executive summary, preface, glossary (if not included in the back), acknowl-
edgements, table of contents, list of illustrations, and/or list of tables.

3.1.1 The title page

The title page of the sample report in appendix F.5.3 will give some idea of how such a page could be laid
out. In brief, it stands out among the rest for its lack of header and footer and its lack of paragraphed text.

Centralised text and sensible use of different font size and formatting may improve the attractiveness of
the title page. In this case, “sensible” means that not too many different fonts and font sizes should be used;
“Word Art” creations (use of 3d-letters, shadows, and the like) will be punished by flogging.

The report title and—if present—subtitle are usually set in a larger font size than information like the au-
thor’s or authors’ names and student numbers, supervisor and co-marker’s names, date (also see §[Link],
company name, and word count. Any confidentiality label may also be set larger in order to stand out vi-
sually.

Any illustrations—barring the Hanze UAS logo and/or a company logo—had best be kept to a minimum or
at the very least integrated into the title page discreetly. Students should absolutely not go overboard with
this; less is more. The title page has no header or footer (as discussed in section 3.4.2).

3.1.2 The Contents

The Contents section in a report is a listing of all the major chapter and/or section and subsection head-
ings of your report. It gives the reader an overview of the title and first page number of all the chapters,

17
 Standards for Layout

sections, and subsections that follow it, including any lists in the front matter of the report (e.g. a List of
Illustrations).

Although often referred to as “table of contents” or even “List of Contents” or “contents list”, it is better style
to use the simple heading Contents atop its first page (see also Ritter, 2003; APA, 2020; and this guide on
page 7). The report’s table of contents list should follow the same formatting principles as the contents list
of this style guide. Heading and paragraph reference numbers (see also section 3.5.9) should be included
in it for all but the lowest level of sub-heading.

Many word processors can generate contents lists automatically, but care should be taken to ensure that
English rather than some other language package is selected so that the list will indeed be labeled Contents
and not, for example, Inhaltsverzeichnis, and that the automatically generated table of contents will need to
be updated just before the final print or submission.

This guide’s table of contents (p. vii ff.) may serve as an example of a clearly laid out Contents section. Note
the use of level-based indentation, which gives a very clear visual representation of the chapter and section
hierarchy, as well as the neatly justified right margin.

3.2 Main Matter Specifics

The main matter forms the core of your report. It runs from the introduction up to, and including, the
conclusion and recommendations. Its chapters, sections, etc, are numbered from 1 up and have headings
that give a clear indication of their respective content. The main matter itself could be divided further into
beginning (introduction), middle (body chapters or sections), and end (conclusion and recommendations).
More about the content of its sections in chapter 2; more about the lay-out specifics of the main matter in
section 3.4.

3.3 Endmatter Specifics

The end matter of a report (also called back matter in US English) consists of all supplementary material at the
end. Although its page numbers continue on from the main matter, it is definitely not a part of it; chapter
numbering is not continued after the main matter, for example. The end matter of a report at IBS will most
likely consist of the references list and any appendices that may be needed.

3.3.1 The References: lay-out standards

Its heading should be References (not “List of References” or “Reference List”; it should be fairly obvious to
the reader that it concerns a list). If the writer also wants to include sources for background information
or further reading, the list should be called a Bibliography1 . This should only be done in consultation with
the teacher in question.

1N.B. An Annotated bibliography is an entirely different kettle of fish. This is a type of bibliographical list where each list entry
contains additional text (at least one, possibly more paragraphs) summarising and/or commenting on the nature of the source in
question.

18
 Endmatter Specifics

As figure 3.1 shows, the layout of your reference list can be tackled in two ways: either by using white lines
between each reference list entry and the next, or by using hanging indentation. In case of the latter, the first
line of each entry is set flush left while the remaining lines are indented. Hanging indentation is preferred
in the case of APA referencing, but what is most important is that it is clear where one reference entry ends
and the next one begins.

Herbst-Damm, K. L., & Kulik, J. A. (2005). Herbst-Damm, K. L., & Kulik, J. A. (2005).
Volunteer support, marital status, and the Volunteer support, marital status, and the
survival of terminally ill patients. Health survival of terminally ill patients. Health
Psychology, 24, 225–229. Psychology, 24, 225–229.
[Link] [Link]
Schwartz, J. (1993, September 30). Obesity
Schwartz, J. (1993, September 30). Obesity affects economic, social status. The
affects economic, social status. The Washington Washington Post, pp. A1, A4.
Post, pp. A1, A4. Shotton, M. A. (1989). Computer addiction? A
study of computer dependency. London,
Shotton, M. A. (1989). Computer addiction? A
England: Taylor & Francis.
study of computer dependency. London,
Six sites meet for comprehensive anti-gang
England: Taylor & Francis.
initiative conference. (2006,
Six sites meet for comprehensive anti-gang November/December). OJJDP News @ a
initiative conference. (2006, Glance. Retrieved from
November/December). OJJDP News @ a [Link] ojjd-
Glance. Retrieved from p/news_at_glance/216684/[Link]
[Link]
ojjdp/news_at_glance/216684/[Link]

Figure 3.1: Two lay-out options for producing clearly separated reference list entries: on the left, entries set fully
flush-left and separated from the next entry by means of a white line; on the right, entries with hanging indentation
(i.e. first line of each entry set flush left and every subsequent line indented).

In either case, the entries should be set flush left against the left margin, with a ragged (i.e. uneven) right
margin. Full line justification gives a very poor visual effect as the rather forced inter-word spacing tends
to create gaping holes in some lines, as can be seen in figure 3.2. This may get especially dramatic if end-
of-line hyphenation is switched off. More on justification in section 3.4.8.

Herbst-Damm, K. L., & Kulik, J. A. (2005). Volunteer support, marital sta-

tus, and the survival of terminally ill patients. Health Psychology, 24, 225–229.
[Link]
Schwartz, J. (1993, September 30). Obesity affects economic, social status. The Wash-
ington Post, pp. A1, A4.
Shotton, M. A. (1989). Computer addiction? A study of computer dependency. Lon-
don, England: Taylor & Francis.
Six sites meet for comprehensive anti-gang initiative conference. (2006,
November/December). OJJDP News @ a Glance. Retrieved from
[Link]

Figure 3.2: Full justification (i.e. flush left and right margins) in a reference list may create the rather messy biblio-
graphical equivalent of a Swiss cheese: full of holes...

19
 Standards for Layout

3.3.2 The appendices: layout standards

The layout parameters for the appendix or appendices are pretty much the same as the preceding text with
the exception that the labeling starts anew from the first appendix onwards: Appendix A, Appendix B,
and so on. However, if there is only one appendix, it should simply be styled Appendix (without a letter).
Any and all appendices should also have a clear heading, like the headings in this document. Appendices
may also be subdivided, in which case numbers should be added to create lower-level sectioning: A.3, for
example.

3.4 Page Composition

Before this guide delves into the detailed layout specifics of text (at letter and word level), it is of vital im-
portance to cover the layout criteria at the page and paragraph level. These are very often aspects of writing
that can be edited and assessed without even having to read what the text says: aspects like page margins,
headers and footers, font formatting, and spacing. The most important ones are covered below.

3.4.1 Margins
In setting the left, right, top, and bottom margins of a report, students should take two things into account:
whether the document is intended for printing, and if so, whether it should be printed on one or two sides.
In case it is not meant to be printed, the text should simply look good on screen. APA guidelines (APA,
2020, p.45) recommend a margin width (top, bottom, left, and right) of at least 1 inch (2.54 cm). Is the
text supposed to be printed (or at the very least printable) and handed in in a ringbinder or plastic binder,
then extra room for hole-punching and binding may be required. In the case of single-sided printing, this
should always be on the left; in the case of double-sided printing, this will alternate between left and right.

Some courses may require more specific settings. For instance, the suggested margin standards for Mas-
ter’s theses at IBS—aimed at single-sided printing—is to leave a margin of at least 1.25 in. (ca. 3.2 cm) on
the left for hole-punching and binding. The minimum right margin should be 1 in. (ca. 2.5 cm). Top and
bottom margin should be at least 0.75 in. (ca. 1.9 cm). What goes for most guidelines in this document
counts here as well: Should the teacher or supervisor require extra space for note-taking, then it would
be wise to consult him or her regarding any preferences. Alternatively, any course-specific documentation
may offer further details.

Last but not least, as a practical tip, Matthew Butterick’s Practical Typography website offers the following
advice. Considering legibility as a primary concern, he suggests that it is best to aim for an average line
length of 45–90 characters (or employing a more conservative maximum, the length of between 2 and 3
times the alphabet; Butterick, 2023). This guide is set very close to the 90-character maximum.

3.4.2 Page identification: headers, footers, and pagination

Every page should be identifiable. Then, if pages subsequently become mixed, they can easily be reassem-
bled. Ease of identification may occur through proper use of a combination of headers and footers, and
pagination.

20
 Page Composition

[Link] Headers and footers

Each page (except the title page) should have a header and a footer2 with the following information:

• Header:
– Report title
• Footer:
– Student name(s) and number(s)
– Page number

Generally, avoid putting logos or other pictures into headers or footers as they tend to create a messy ap-
pearance. Details about pagination (i.e. page numbering) are given below. An example of an effective busi-
ness report header and footer can be found in the student sample report in appendix F.5.3.

[Link] Page numbering

Page numbers should be printed in the footer, at the bottom right-hand side, for ease of retrieval, and they
should commence on the first page following the title page.

In the case of relatively long reports (e.g. extensive business research reports such as GPJs or Master the-
ses), the front matter of the report should use lowercase roman numerals (frequently italicised, i.e. i, ii, iii,
iv, v, etc.) up to, but not including, the introduction. Then, from the introduction section (i.e. chapter I)
onwards, pages should be numbered using arabic numerals (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.).

If the document has verso (left) and recto (right-hand) pages in the case of double-sided printing (like this
guide does), then the left-hand pages should have the page number in the footer on the bottom left, and
the right-hand pages should have the page number on the bottom right.

3.4.3 Font type and size

The font style and size chosen should be simple and easy to read (on screen as well as on paper). It is useful
to be aware of the distinction between serif and sans serif fonts. Historically, serif fonts (such as Times
New Roman, Computer Modern, and Century Schoolbook) are generally considered to be more suitable
for printing. On the other hand, sans serif fonts (such as Arial, Helvetica, and Verdana) have generally
been considered more suitable for the screen. Nowadays, most computer screens can accommodate either
type of font, though.

Suggested “safe” fonts (APA, 2020, p.44) include the following: 12-point Times New Roman, 11-point Geor-
gia, or 10-point Computer Modern (serif fonts) or 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial, or 10-point Lucinda Sans
Unicode (sans serif fonts). However, you may ask your teacher if he or she has a preferred font for the
report; ultimately, your teacher is your audience in this case, and your audience should have a pleasant
reading experience.

2 Should the inquisitive student want to do more research on this, headers and footers may also be called running headlines, head-

lines (not be confused with newspaper headlines), running titles, pageheads, and running heads; and running footline and running foot,
respectively.

21
 Standards for Layout

For those who care about fonts, though, opinions about the quality of some system fonts,3 such as the
omnipresent Arial and Times New Roman, are generally divided. It just may convey the wrong kind of
message:

Fame has a dark side. When Times New Roman appears in a book, document, or advertisement, it connotes
apathy. It says, “I submitted to the font of least resistance.” Times New Roman is not a font choice so much
as the absence of a font choice, like the blackness of deep space is not a color. To look at Times New Roman
is to gaze into the void. (Butterick, 2016)

Obviously, there is a certain degree of subjectivity at play here. On the whole, Times New Roman is con-
sidered a fairly legible font and therefore more than acceptable. However, the message here to the student
writer is, “Please consider carefully which font you want to use in the writing of your report; do not just go
for the default!”

For some good recommendations on font use, those who care may also want to check the “System fonts”
page of Butterick’s Practical Typography (Butterick, 2016).

N.B. The audience of the report may have very specific font or other layout preferences due to dyslexia:
sans serif rather than serif, or extra interlinear spacing for instance. As dyslexia may take on many forms,
however, it is best to consult the intended reader(s) in that case: a solution that is suitable for one reader
may not necessarily work for another. A study that shines some light on this was conducted by Rello and
Baeza-Yates (2013, 2016).

3.4.4 Paragraphing
In English writing, a paragraph can be visually marked and identified as a single unit of text in two ways.
One can either indent its first line (see the left column of fig. 3.3 on page 23)—except when it immediately
follows a chapter or section heading—or one can separate it from the preceding or following paragraph
by means of vertical spacing such as a single white line, as illustrated by the right column of fig. 3.3. The
former is used most in the printing of English text in general and is also most economical on paper; the
latter, however, tends to be used more in business communication although this style does use more paper
(Burrough-Boenisch, 2004, 119). The style often seen in journalism where one has simply “hit the Enter
key” at the end of a paragraph (or, God forbid, every other sentence) and just continue on a new line is
strongly discouraged!

Each paragraph of text of the report should represent a separate idea or subject. The first sentence of each
paragraph should clearly “signpost” what follows; the last sentence should round off the topic. Avoid exces-
sively short or long paragraphs. The concept of “subparagraphs” within paragraphs, which is common in
Dutch usage and which tends to increase their length, is not used in English (see also Burrough-Boenisch,
2004).

In such a case, the writer will have to make a carefully considered decision about where the one topic ends
and the next one begins.

3 System fonts are fonts that come pre-installed on most computer operating systems.

22
 Page Composition

3.4.1 Some paragraphs 3.4.1 Some paragraphs

This is the first paragraph right after a sec- This is the first paragraph right after a sec-
tion heading, and similar to many other well- tion heading, and similar to many other well-
written paragraphs in writing, it has at least written paragraphs in writing, it has at least
two supporting sentences. The first support- two supporting sentences. The first support-
ing sentence shows that this paragraph has a ing sentence shows that this paragraph has a
first supporting sentence; in that sense, it’s first supporting sentence; in that sense, it’s
more of a token supporting sentence. The more of a token supporting sentence. The
second supporting sentence actually has some- second supporting sentence actually has some-
thing to add: it says that supporting sentences thing to add: it says that supporting sentences
in well developed paragraphs also have sup- in well developed paragraphs also have sup-
porting detail. An example of supporting de- porting detail. An example of supporting de-
tail is this sentence. tail is this sentence.
This is the second paragraph, which is
rather short and poorly written and has just This is the second paragraph, which is rather
been written to show a layout feature: how a short and poorly written and has just been
paragraph transition can be achieved visually written to show a layout feature, namely how
through first-line indentation (except in para- a paragraph transition can be achieved visu-
graphs immediately following a section head- ally by increasing the amount of vertical space
ing). between paragraphs.
This third paragraph is even worse in
terms of development, but at least it clearly This third paragraph is even worse in terms of
shows yet another visual paragraph transition. development, but at least it clearly shows yet
another visual paragraph transition
Figure 3.3: Two different methods of delineating paragraphs: first-line indentation versus vertical spacing.

3.4.5 Section headings

Word processors offer options to format your text, including various style sets to clearly differentiate be-
tween the various different levels of heading (i.e. chapter headings, section headings, subsection headings,
etc.). For example, this document uses the formatting as given in the third column of table 3.1 on page 25.
However, one could also consider using a standard as offered by a proprietary software package like MS
Word (first column) or a format such as the style required by the APA for paper submission (as shown in
the second column). Logic, legibility, and consistency are most important, however.

23
 Standards for Layout

ties van doelsoorten het risico lopen te verdwijnen en potentially taxable assets compiled in the late eleventh cen-
als er een type ecosysteem wordt nagestreefd dat niet tury, lists 1,500 sheep attributable alone to the large Abbey of
kan voortbestaan met behulp van natuurlijke processen St Benet’s, which had grown up at the head of the saltings of
alleen (zoals kruidenrijke akkers). Daarnaast kan er ook the River Bure.
om niet-ecologische redenen voor een half-natuurlijk Back village, the fields on the nearby upland and the pas-
type worden gekozen, met name om cultuurhistorische, tures at the fen edge created by cutting and burning of the
archeologische en aardkundige waarden te handhaven alder and other trees, continued to be used in a tradition dat-
die bij blootstelling aan landschapsvormende processen ing back to the Bronze Age farmers. The wetlands, when the
zouden kunnen verdwijnen (zoals verkavelingspatronen river level fell in summer, could be used to grazae cattle, and
in veengebieden. hay could be cut and stored towards winter needs. Native
crops could be taken too. The wetlands would naturally suc-
Half-natuurlijke typen kunnen op een klein opper- ceed to alder and willow carrs if left (Chapter 3), but if cut, ex-
vlak worden gerealiseerd, soms zelfs op enkele tien- perience taught that a vegetation of reed, or of gladden (iris),
tallen vierkante meters. Inrichting en beheer dienen or of sedge or rushes could be maintained. All of these plants
te worden afgestemd op de gemeenschappelijke eisen were potentially useful and if the remaining alders were cut
van de nagestreefde doelsoorten. Natuurlijke vestig- at the base (coppiced) they would shoot up over a few years
ing van planten en dieren is daarbij het uitgangspunt. into straight poles that could be used for building or fencing.
(Her)introductie is slechts te overwegen als de betref- Building stone was very scarce and import expensive. Flint
fende soorten het gebied niet op eigen kracht kunnen could be used for walls but not for rooofs, and poles and clay
bereiken terwijl de potentie voor een duurzame popu- were much cheaper anyway.
latie wel aanwezig is. The common reed grewt the wetter parts of the fens was
Voor het duurzame behoud van doelsoorten en voor hard stuff. Full of silica absorbed from the water and rich in
een effectieve buffering tegen negatieve externe invloe- lignin, it did not rot very quickly. Scythed and bundled, it
den is het wenselijk om complete half-natuurlijke land- could form a watertight roof that provided insulation as well.
schappen te realiseren die landschapsecologisch gezien Cutting was easiest in early winter, when the leaves had blown
een duurzame samenhang vertonen. Voor veel doel- off, leaving just the tough stems, and removal then did not
soorten geldt dat ze afhankelijk zijn van een bepaalde damage the new shoots, or colts, which would sprout from the
combinatie van half-natuurlijke typen. De configuratie peat in February. Scything every year or two would also keep
van half-natuurlijke typen op landschapsschaal is in down other plants, though the very competitiveness of reed
dit opzicht erg belangrijk. De benodigde afwisseling brooked little competition anyway. A few hundred bundles
kan worden afgestemd op oude landgebruiksvormen en laid overlapping would provide a very effective cottage roof, a
historische landschapspatronen. Vaak is het dan ook few thousand that for a church or barn.
goed mogelijk om het natuurbeheer te combineren met But the hardness reed stopped it being bent over the
het behoud of de ontwikkeling van landschappelijke ridge of the roof. It splintered and water could penetrate to
waarden (van aardkundige, archeologische, cultuurhis- drip on the family below. The fen provided a solution. Saw
torische of esthetische aard). sedge, sometimes called great fen-sedge, cut green in sum-
mer, would bend without breaking, even when dry. You had
Voor de meeste half-natuurlijke typen is een actief be- to be careful; it had sharp edges, not for nothing was it called
heer nodig. Relevante maatregelen zijn enerzijds gericht saw sedge; but it too was competitive and if not cut too of-
op het beı̈nvloeden van de abiotische omstandigheden ten would grow up in nearly pure stands. Hazel, cut from the
(zoals waterpeil en nutriëntengehalte) en anderzijds remaining scrubby woodlands of the uplands, could be used
op het direct ingrijpen in de levensgemeenschap (met to fix the reed and sedge in place, even to create decoration
name de vegetatie). Concrete maatregelen zijn onder and the thatcher’s trademark, along the ridge and around the
andere waterpeilbeheer, baggeren, plaggen, maaien, doors and windows (Plate 10). Alder poles and reed fixed on
kappen en reguleren van de populatieomvang van frames provided fencing around the property.
dieren. De frequentie van deze maatregelen kan vari- Where the fen was more, perhaps because of reduced
eren van enkele keren per jaar tot eens in de circa der- competition following grazing, the cut litter still had uses. It
tig jaar. could be spread on the floor as absorbent, cheap and dispos-
Het effect van het beheer hangt sterk af van de schaal, able carpeting or the animals could bedded on it. If it had the
de frequentie en het moment waarop de maatregelen sweet flag in it, it would even smell pleasant as feet crushed it.
worden uitgevoerd. Bij de afzonderlijke natuurdoeltypen Rushes, peeled of all but a thin strip of their outer skin to hold
wordt daarop in detail ingegaan, maar enkele algemene them together, but leaving the internal pith, could be dried
vuistregels kunnen wel genoemd worden. Het moment and bundled and eventually sold to be made into wicks for can-
waarop beweid, gemaaid of gebaggerd wordt, moet dles of tallow fat. Tussock sedge, which grew year by year on
worden afgestemd op de eisen van de beoogde planten its previous bases, formed tall mounds among the alders, and

Figure 3.4: Sample excerpts from two academic texts, in Dutch and English. The Dutch sample on the left shows
the middle paragraph divided into typically Dutch “half-paragraphs”; the right-hand sample is one of two types of
layout that students are expected to be able to use at IBS, clearly indicating where one paragraph ends and the next
one begins (Burrough-Boenisch, 2004, p. 117; also see fig. 3.3). N.B. The additional effect caused by the difference
in line justification—left-aligned (a.k.a. ragged-right) on the left, fully justified on the right—is clearly noticeable
here, too. However, the shorter the line length, the less suitable full justification is and if you prefer fully justified
text, it would be wise to turn on end-of-line hyphenation in order to avoid unsightly holes in your text.

24
 Table 3.1: Different approaches to chapter and section headings—pre-set formatting styles: from Microsoft Office, the APA (7th ed.), and the format as used by this guide.
Level MS Office 2010 (MS Word) APA7 (2019, p. 48) This guide...

1 1 Level-1 Heading Style A Chapter Heading

The formatting specifications of level-1
1 A Chapter
The default chapter heading style in
headings for submitting work according to
Microsoft® Office 2016 has Calibri Light, set The formatting specifications of chapter
APA standards are centered text, set in a
at 16pt, in blue (accent 1, darker 25%), and headings in this document are Huge font size,
boldface font, using title case and the first
flush left with the margin (raggedright). raggedright, boldface, and use of title case.
line of the subsequent paragraph indented.

2 1.1 Level-2 heading style This is a Level-2 Section Heading 2.1 A Section
MS Office ’16’s default section (i.e. level-2) The formatting requirements by the APA for
The formatting specifications of section head-

Page Composition
heading style uses Calibri at 13pt, in blue section headings is that they be set flush left
(accent 1, darker 25%), and set flush left in a boldface font, using title case (combining ings in this document are “huge” font size,
(raggedright). uppercase with lowercase). Paragraphs that raggedright, boldface, and use of title case. s
follow use first-line indentation

3 1.1.1 Level-3 heading style This is Level-3 Heading Style 1.1.1 This is a subsection.
MS Office has its default level-3 section head- The formatting specifications of subsection
The formatting specifications of subsection
ings set in Calibri, at 12pt, in blue (accent 1, headings in APA journals are indented, itali-
headings in this document are “LARGE” font
darker 50%). It is set flush with the left mar- cised in boldface, and using title case (i.e. the
size, raggedright, boldface, and use of sen-
gin, producing a raggedright text. first letter of each major word capitalised).
tence case.

4 [Link] Level-4 heading style This Constitutes a Level-4 Heading. In [Link] This is a level-4 heading.
MS Word 2016 also uses Calibri for its lower- APA, subsubsection headings are required to This guide has level-4 headings that are set
level headings, this time set at 11pt, blue be indented and in boldface, using title case in ‘Large’ boldface type, raggedright, and use
(accent 1, darker 25%), and italicised, flush and ending with a period. Text begins on the sentence case.
left (raggedright). same line and continues as a regular para-
graph.

5 [Link].1 Level-5 heading style This Constitutes a Level-5 Heading. In APA, Level-5 headings in this guide — In this
As with level 4, level-5 headings are set in level-5 headings are required to be indented, guide, level-5 section headings are set in bold-
Calibri but at the same size as the normal
25

using bold italics and set in title case, ending face and one size larger than the text and are
text (11 pt). Only difference with level 4 is in a full stop. They also run in with the first line immediately followed by an m-dash yet run in
the lack of italics in the title heading. of the subsequent paragraph. with the first paragraph of the text following
it.
 Standards for Layout

3.4.6 Starting a new page

Each new report chapter or (level-1) section and appendix of a report should start on a new page. Subsection
and paragraph headings should only start on a new page if there is not room for at least two lines of text to follow
them on the same page. In other words, subsections and paragraphs that start at the bottom of a page should
have at least two lines of text before the page ends; if this is not the case, they ought to be moved to the next
page.

By extension, try to avoid widows and orphans as they create a rather awkward reading experience. A widow
is the final line of a paragraph appearing alone at the top of the next page; an orphan is the first line of a
paragraph appearing alone at the bottom of a previous page.

Do not split tables or lists over two pages if they can fit on one page or less. If possible, visual support
should be located on the same page as the text referring to it. Should this rule negatively affect the lay-out,
exceptions may be made.

3.4.7 Line spacing

Line spacing, also known as leading or interlinear spacing can have a major effect on legibility. Requirements
will differ from course to course, from teacher to teacher, and from purpose to purpose. Most books will in
fact use a spacing of more than 1 (1.15 being a minimal norm). Some argue that for pleasant reading, any-
thing between 1.2 and 1.3 is preferred. Standard settings in word processors these days are single spacing
(1), double spacing (2), or one-and-a-half spacing (1.5); if there is a need to make provision for comments
and correction (for peer or supervisory feedback, for example), the line spacing of the report should be
one-and-a-half or more. Please consult your course syllabus or teacher about the requirements.

Additionally, extra vertical space should be used in the following instances:

• Before displayed lists

• Before and after block quotations
• Before and after tables, figures, illustrations, or equations
• Between paragraphs in case they do not use first-line indentation (also see section 3.4.4).

N.B. Special care should be taken with section transitions: there should always be more vertical space
before a section heading than between it and the paragraph that opens the section. We do not think there
is a need for further illustration...

3.4.8 Line justification

There are two acceptable ways of justifying paragraphs in the text. Ranged left, flush-left, or left-aligned text
is aligned on the left side with ragged right margins. Fully justified text is aligned on the left as well as the
right. Whichever form of justification is chosen, one should be consistent throughout the report. Examples
are given in figure 3.5. The reference list of a report would be an exception to this: full justification had best
be avoided in that case as it would cause a significant number of holes in the text area.4

4 As illustrated in figure 3.2.

26
 Text Composition

Figure 3.5: Examples of fully justified text (aligned on both sides), and left-justified text (with a ragged right margin)
(Butterick, 2016).

Also, if the choice for fully justified paragraphs is made, automated end-of-line hyphenation should be
turned on as well, as not doing so may cause holes in the text, as shown in fig. 3.6.

Figure 3.6: Example of a fully justified text with hyphenation on and the same text with hyphenation off; the second
has more holes in it (Butterick, 2016).

3.5 Text Composition

In order to fully assist the reader in understanding written professional text (say, a business report), the
writer of such a text (e.g. a business and management studies graduate) should be aware of a number of
typographic and style rules. This section will cover the standards that one can expect at the paragraph,
sentence, and word level—capitalisation, punctuation, emphasis, symbols, and numbers—as well as how
to format quotations, lists, floats (i.e. tables and figures), and internal referencing.

3.5.1 Capital letters & treatment of names

The use of capital letters defined in these standards are based on English usage, with some additions. The
general principle is that capitals should be used (a) to indicate the start of a sentences, and (b) to distinguish

27
 Standards for Layout

proper nouns from other words. Especially this second usage causes difficulties in practice. What follows
below is a concise rendering of the principles.

[Link] Sentence capitals

Sentences should always start with a capital letter. This goes for unquoted material, as well as fully quoted
sentences (and by extension, “quoted” thoughts). If a full main clause follows a colon (:), the main clause
should also start with a capital letter. Some examples:

He decided to set up his own business.

The company accountant had been told, “You have no business here.”
It is imperative to remember the ninth commandment: Thou shalt not bear false
witness.

Full-sentence items in list should also start with a capital letter, unless the items merely end the intro-
duction to the list; list items that are no full sentences should not start with a capital letter. Compare the
following:

Three things are certain in life: death, taxes, There are a number of things that people
and people understanding what this trope is should simply accept in life: Some peo-
about by the time they finish this sentence. ple strongly dislike Philip Glass’s Einstein
on the Beach. Bare-chested construction
workers drinking coke during lunch hour are
rare. Most toddlers prefer Teletubbies to
The Nine o’Clock News.

[Link] The first letter of headings and captions

The first letter of headings and captions should always be capitalised, regardless of whether they are
phrases or full sentences (rare).

Fig. 3.2: Overview of ERS1 results in period 2013–2014.

Table 15: Estimated casualty figures per country.
Fig. x: Full justification (i.e. flush left and right margins) in a reference list may
create the rather messy bibliographical equivalent of a Swiss cheese: full of
holes. . .

[Link] People’s names (see next section on names)

As a rule, first letters of people’s names are written with capital letters, with the occasional exception of
certain prefixes or prepositions that may be part of a name (e.g. Kees de Vries). Specific rules for this are
language-dependent and are covered in section [Link].

28
 Text Composition

[Link] Toponyms (geographical names)

Geographical names are also capitalised in English: countries, towns, regions, waters, etc.: Bangladesh,
Israel, Vatican City; London, Winterfell, Vienna; Valencia, the American South, County Wexford; the Mississippi, the
Bering Strait, Darkmere.

The word “river” should only be capitalised if it is considered part of the name: the Hudson River, the East River
(compare Lake Erie, Loch Ness); if it precedes it and/or is meant descriptively, it should not be capitalised: the
river Thames, the river Rhine, the Mississippi river and state. Exceptions may occur and acceptable usage should
be checked in peer-reviewed texts, either in print or online.

If compass directions (i.e. north, south, east, and west or any combination thereof) are part of a geograph-
ical name, they are capitalised as well: West Lothian, South Dakota, West Midlands, or, in translations, North
Holland, North-Calais, Middle East, etc. If it is only meant descriptively, it should not be capitalised: compare
Northern Ireland to northern England.

Nouns and adjectives describing nationalities (whether politically, regionally, or locally) should always be
capitalised: Swabian, American, Peruvian, Welsh, Prussian, Chinese, etc. Same goes for the names of lan-
guages: Roumanian, Kiswahili, Letzebuergisch. In some cases, however, the adjectives are not capitalised.
See section [Link] for more on this.

[Link] Institutions and organisations

Where people formally organise themselves in society, they often have a name or label. These names of
bodies of people should always be capitalised.

Official institutions: the Government, the Opposition, the Court, Parliament. If it is meant descriptively, no
capital letter is used: “The region has always had its local parliament.” Note that in the US, government is
always written without a capital letter.

Organisations, societies, and companies are always capitalised—the Sherwood Forest Foundation, Sony,
Qbuzz, Groningen University Theatre Society, Royal Dutch Shell, the Roman Catholic Church, etc.—as do their
departments: Department of English Language and Culture, International Business School, Foreign and Common-
wealth Office, Human Resources, etc. They should not be written between quotation marks, nor should they
be italicised unless the name is emphasised or explicitly introduced.

[Link] Time units with names

Most time units with names (days, months, festivals, holidays) are written with an initial capital; the names
of the seasons do not: Tuesday, April, Michaelmas, Ramadan, Passover, the Fifth of November but spring, summer,
autumn/fall, and winter.

Time zones are capitalised in scientific and British usage: British Summer Time, Greenwich Mean Time, Inter-
national Atomic Time; in the US, they are not: daylight saving time, eastern standard time, mountain standard time
(but: DST, EST, and MST).

When referring to centuries or decades, use lower case, except when denoting a culturally particular era:
the twentieth century, the twenty-first century, the nineteen-thirties (or 1930s), the nineteen-eighties (or 1980s), but
the Roaring Twenties, the Swinging Sixties.

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 Standards for Layout

[Link] Titles of people or bodies

Personal titles always receive a capital letter in English. This may concern function titles, titles of rank,
nicknames, or in shortened forms.

Function titles and titles of rank are capitalised if they denote a specific person rather than the concept
and if they precede a name without being separated by a comma; if they are used descriptively and they
follow the name with a comma, no capitalisation is used: the Prime Minister, the Vice-President, the Pope, the
Chief Justice, the French Ambassador, King Willem-Alexander, Team Leader Janet Primrose, Dean Roger Williams,
but: Anne Williams, the managing director; Mr Rutte, the prime minister; and Mrs Primrose, our team leader. Also,
if used descriptively only, no capitalisation: a prime minister, a French ambassador.

Further descriptive use of the title of body or individual should be done without capitalisation:

Oslo University—our university Aunt Maggie—her aunt

the Oranje Hotel—that hotel Lake Erie—this lake
United Workers’ Union of Kenya—the union South Renfrewshire College—their college

If shortened forms of titles or names are used as synonym for specific people or organisations in an official
sense—in policy documents or contracts, for instance— capitalisation should be used:

the Dean the Chamber (of Commerce)

the Ministry (of Health) the University statute
the Service (e.g. Home Security Service) the Centre’s policy

[Link] Published work

Many published works are written in title case, meaning that each first and major word of the title is cap-
italised.5 . With the exception of journal, magazine, and newspaper names, title case is not used in reference
list entries. Also, an initial The should only be capitalised if it is part of the name.

• Books: Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Research Methods for Business Students, For Whom the Bell
Tolls, The Origin of Species, The Táin.
• Journals and their articles: American Economic Review, MIT Sloan Management Review. Even though
the original title of an article may not use title case, this should be used when mentioning the title in
writing (APA, 2020, p. 167): “Health and Economic Development—Evidence from the Introduction of
Public Health Care.” Again, reference list entries use sentence case only (more on this in the chapter
on referencing).
• Religious books and their parts/books: the Quran, the Authorised Version, Second Epistle to the
Corinthians
• Newspapers: Financial Times, Stornoway Gazette, Bildtse Post, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune
• Pictures, Plays, films, and TV programmes: Constable’s The Hay Wain, Waiting for Godot, The Wolf of
Wall Street, Newsnight
• Governmental or legal documents (bills, acts, treaties, policies, and legal): the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, the Bill of Rights, Factory and Workshop Act 1911.

5 Major words include nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, (not articles, conjunctions, or prepositions)

30
 Text Composition

[Link] Trade names

Trade (brand) names should always be capitalised if used proprietarily; if they are used generically, they
should not. In such a case, it usually considered best practice to use a term that is truly generic rather than
a brand name that may be unknown to foreign readers.

Hoover, Jacuzzi, Xerox, Biro, and Kleenex are proprietary terms (i.e. brand names), and are therefore writ-
ten with a capital letter if they denote the brand in question. They have, however, also evolved into nouns
or verbs or both and should not be written with a capital letter if used thusly: a hoover/to hoover, a jacuzzi,
to xerox, a biro, and a kleenex are generic terms—a jacuzzi not made by Jacuzzi or a biro by Bruynzeel is
not unheard of. It is, however, better to use truly generic terms instead: a vacuum cleaner/to vacuum, a
hot tub or whirlpool bath, to photocopy, a ballpoint pen, and a tissue.

[Link] Ships, aircrafts, and other vehicles

Names of types and specific vehicles should be capitalised; names of specific vehicles should also be itali-
cised:
a 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor the Mary Celeste
a Down Easter the HMS Enterprise
a Dacia Logan the Hindenburg
a Lockheed SR-71 the Flying Dutchman

[Link] Capital letters in abbreviations

Generally, capital letters are used in abbreviations if the words they stand for would be capitalised, such as
titles and departments, generally omitting full-stops. Examples are MP, IBS, FTSE.

In the case of abbreviated names, initials should be spaced apart: J. P. M. Smith instead of J.P.M. Smith.

[Link] Capitalisation and word order in names

This section will give an overview of capitalisation and ordering of names in written text as well as in list-
ings (including alphabetisation), with an emphasis on language-specific treatment of non-English names.
Many examples were taken from the Oxford Style Manual (Ritter, 2003). Some of the rules about prepositions
given here may deviate somewhat from the APA’s; either is fine and any correct and consistent application
is important.

The general rule is that all names are given initial capital letters, be they a first, middle, or surname (i.e.
family name), regardless of order. There may be exceptions, which are always language-specific. However,
the two overruling criteria in all instances are (a) Consistency is key, and (b) Follow the bearer’s preference.

Especially with regard to that second criterion: It is absolutely imperative that the spelling of people’s
names, incl. spacing, accents, and punctuation, are copied accurately, especially if they are directly ad-
dressed, but also if they are involved as a third party or merely referenced. Not doing so might cause
offence, which is highly undesirable if a business deal is at stake.

What follows below is an overview of the English treatment of names from a various number of languages.
These rules mostly cover issues of capitalisation, spelling, spacing, and rules for indexation/listing. The
languages are arranged alphabetically.

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 Standards for Layout

Afrikaans Being a daughter language of 18th-century Dutch, Afrikaans largely follows Dutch rules (see
the paragraph on Dutch names below).

Van Riebeeck (just the surname), but

Jan van Riebeeck (including the first name) and
Riebeeck, Jan van (in references or indexes)

Arabic In alphabetising, ignore any article—al or derivatives (e.g. ad-, an-, or as-)—and list the person
under the capital letter of their last name: e.g. [Link] al-Jundı̄ is listed as al-Jundı̄, [Link], but is alphabetised
under J. For other aspects of spelling (e.g. spelling variants like Nasser vs. Nasir vs. Nā[Link]), please follow the
spelling that occurs most frequently in the context in question).

Prefixed elements like abū (father), umm (mother), ibn or bin (son), and akhu (brother) are not capitalised
but do determine the alphabetical positioning in a list:

abu Bekr, [Link]

c Arafāt,Yāsir
ibn Saud
al-Jundı̄, [Link]
Al-Qāhirah (Cairo)

If the prefixed element begins the phrase, like in the Arab form of the Egyptian capital above, it is generally
capitalised.

Chinese Personal names in Chinese usually consist of two parts: a monosyllabic family name (i.e. the
surname) followed by a bisyllabic personal name. Both names should be written with an initial capital.
Some Chinese people, when working in an English language context, have already swapped their names
(i.e. [given name], [family name]) in accordance with many Western languages; it is best to ask in case of
uncertainty.

Deng Xiaoping
Hu Jintao (Chinese standard: family name first)
but
Tsung-Dao Lee (anglicised and family name last)
As to the romanisation of other Chinese names (placenames, etc.), the student should be aware of the ex-
istence of a number of transcription methods. For consistency, it is considered best to stick to one method
of transcription only.

Dutch/Flemish The most common name particles in Dutch (as used in both Belgium and the Nether-
lands) are de, van, van de, and variations of these three.

In northern (i.e. non-Flemish) Dutch, the prefix de is not capitalised, unless at the start of a sentence or if
used without the personal (first) name:

Richard de Groot
De Groot’s article on Lithuanian nanotechnology research offered an interesting
alternative.
The study by De Groot (1988) was used for the framework.

32
 Text Composition

Neither does northern Dutch include the name particle de in alphabetisation:

Groot, Richard de
Vries, Dennis de

Flemish Dutch, on the other hand, does capitalise the prefix consistently (and includes it in alphabetisa-
tion):

Jan De Bruyne
De Bruyne, Jan
De Clerque, Alain

In Dutch in the Netherlands, the prefixes van, van de, van den, and van der do not have an initial capital,
unless at the start of a sentence or if used in isolation:

Niels van de Keer was approached for the automation process.

The alterations suggested by Van de Keer boosted results significantly.

As with de, the prefixes van and van de are not included in alphabetisation:

Keer, Niels van de

Rossum, Maarten van
Dommele, Jeroen van

Flemish Dutch, on the other hand, does capitalise the prefix or prefixes consistently and also includes them
in alphabetisation:

Vandroogenbroeck, Alain
Vandommele, Jeroen
Van Rompuy, Herman

Surnames of UK or US citizens that originate in Dutch surnames usually get initial capitals for de, van, and
related, and are also used in alphabetisation.

French The name particles that most frequently occur in French are de and its derivative forms d’, de La,
and Du.
The particle de—or, before a vowel, d’—does not get an initial capital; also, it is alphabetised under the
surname:

Alembert, Jean le Rond d’

Mairan, Jean-Jaques de

If the name is an anglicised one or starts a sentence, de is capitalised and used for alphabetisation:

De Rainault, Robert
De Quincey, Thomas

In de La, only La gets a capital, and is also the basis for alphabetisation:

33
 Standards for Layout

La Fontaine, Jean de
Stamps celebrating La Fontaine were issued in 1995.

The prefix Du is written with a capital D and is also used as the basis for alphabetisation: e.g.

Duchamp, Marcel
Du Deffand, Marie

German The German prefix von receives no initial capital, nor is it used in alphabetisation:

Liebig, Justus von

Hippel, Eric von

If the surname stands alone, the prefix is often left out:

Liebig attended grammar school at the Ludwig-Georgs-Gymnasium in Darmstadt.

In the 1950s, Hippel attended a public school in Weston, Massachussets.

The prefixes von der and vom are not capitalised unless used at the start of a sentence. They are always
retained and do form the basis for alphabetisation:

Von der Ahe, Chris

Vom Rath, Carl
Although eccentric, von der Ahe made a number of innovations.
Having been of major importance to the German sugar industry, vom Rath passed
away on 13 September 1904.

Hebrew/Ivrit The word Ben in modern Isreali names is a part of the surname, has an initial capital, and
must be attached to whichever name follows it by means of a hyphen:

David Ben-Gurion
Avraham Ben-Yosef

In listing:
Ben-Gurion, David
Ben-Yosef, Avraham

Hungarian Hungarian names are transposed in English writing. While the original Hungarian has the
surname preceding the given name in normal writing, as in Áder János (surname, given name), English texts
should adapt it to the English word order: János Áder (given name, surname). In that case, the alphabetical
listing should also follow the English principle: Áder, János (i.e. surname, comma, given name).

34
 Text Composition

Italian Generally, prefixes (De, Della, Del, Di, etc.) are all capitalised in Italian as well as used in alpha-
betisation

Gaetano De Sanctis
De Sanctis, Gaetano

The only one exception would be in the case of aristocratic names that begin with de’, degli, or di:

Lorenzo de’ Medici

Medici, Lorenzo de’

Not adhering to this exception (e.g. *De’ Medici, Lorenzo) may cause offence.

Irish & Scottish Most names in English writing follow an Anglicised spelling: O’Brien, O’Neill (using a
capital O with apostrophe) or MacMahon, (Mc)Guinness (using a variation of the Gaelic prefix Mac directly
attached). Some individuals may prefer a more traditionally Irish (i.e. Gaelic) spelling in English writing,
though (e.g. Dara Ó Briain or Proinsias Mac Cana); stick to the bearer’s preference as far as spelling is con-
cerned.

Names derived from Scottish Gaelic follow the same principles. In both cases—also in the case of spelling
variants (MacDonald, Macdonald, McDonald, M’Donald, etc.)—alphabetical arrangement should follow as it
were spelled “Mac’. This means that McDonald would precede Macnab. If a bearer explicitly uses the Gaelic
spelling of their name, follow that preference (e.g. Murchadh MacIlleathain instead of Murdo Maclean).

Japanese Japanese personal names, like in Chinese and Hungarian, have the surname (e.g. Omura) pre-
ceding the given name (e.g. Mizuki). Contrary to its treatment of Hungarian names, the Japanese name
order is maintained in English. The surname leads in alphabetisation, so a listing would give Omura Mizuki
under the “O’.

Korean Standard order is surname followed by given name, where the surname is most often monosyl-
labic (e.g. Kim, Yi, Pak, Chong, Ch’oe, etc.) and personal names most often consist of two syllables connected
by a hyphen (e.g. Tae-woo, Min-il, Il-Sung). Deviations from this pattern are not uncommon. Consult a na-
tive speaker or literature for further details on the romanisation of Korean.

Spanish Determining which name elements constitute given names and which constitute surnames can
be difficult in Spanish due to a large degree of variation. Usually, however, the surname consists of two
elements: the father’s family surname followed by the mother’s family surname (sometimes separated by
the particle y or i). If there is one surname, the second one may have been dropped. Alphabetisation should
be done according to the first surname. Gabriel García Márquez should be listed under the G: García Márquez,
Gabriel.

US English Names that reflect foreign family ties may be treated in various, sometimes unexpected ways.
John von Neumann and Bas C. Van Fraasen are listed under N and F, respectively, rather than V. Names that
contain generational suffixes such as Jr. (including the period) or III should be separated from the name by
a space rather than a comma in APA style: John Smith Jr. and John Smith III. In listing, the suffix should be
placed after the given name or initials: e.g. Smith, J., Jr.

35
 Standards for Layout

In the case of middle names, these always go with the first name; alphabetisation follows the surname.
The books by F. Scott Fitzgerald are Fitzgerald’s novels, not Scott Fitzgerald’s novels. Listing would be:
Fitzgerald, F. Scott in an index, or Fitzgerald, F. S. in a reference list.

Thai Given name comes before family name, but the given name is often used for alphabetisation (with no
inversion and no comma after the first name). Occasionally, the Western approach (alphabetisation based
on surname, with inversion and a comma) is followed, though. The individual’s preferences (if known) had
best be followed.

Vietnamese Vietnamese names follow the order family name, middle name, given name: Nguyễn Tān ´
Dũng, where Nguyễn is the family name. Indexing, referring, or referencing the name is done according
´ Dũng could be referred to as Mr Dung in an English text, and
to the given name, however. Nguyễn Tān
referenced as Dung, Nguyen Tan. Military leader Nguyen Vo Giap becomes General Giap and is indexed as
Giap, Nguyen Vo.

Foreign place names Whether or not to use an original place name (Roma, Köln, Den Haag) or the English
translation of that same place name (Rome, Cologne, The Hague) can be a matter of course in some cases, in
others it may be more difficult. One would not want to tread on toes due to cultural or political ignorance.
In all cases, it may be best to consider this carefully.

The Oxford Style Manual provides a list of examples of preferred English usage at Oxford University Press:

Ankara (not Angora) Beijing (not Peking or Peiping)

Brussels (not Bruxelles or Brussel) Florence (not Firenze)
Gdańsk (not Danzig) Geneva (not Genève, Genf, or Ginevra)
Guangzhou (not Canton) Livorno (not Leghorn)
Lyons (not Lyon) Marseilles (not Marseille)
Munich (not München) Reims (not Rheims)
Sichuan (not Szechuan Vienna (not Wien)

In doubt, they advise the use of reference works such as The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World or the New
Oxford Dictionary of English, which includes placenames. Most Wikipedia (!) articles tend to give the right
forms as well...

In the case of place names that have more than one occurrence (say, Wellington in New Zealand or Wellington
in Canada), it may be useful to specify, depending on your audience. As the Style Manual puts it, “When in
doubt it is best to err on the side of caution, supplying additional clarification for all but the most famous
place names.” (Ritter, 2003, p. 107)

If the student writer needs to refer to the past of a town or city in a time when the area was under dif-
ferent political control, it is best to use the name that was officially used at that time (e.g. Breslau before
1945; Wrocław after 1945) although in that case, one may have to carefully balance political sensitivities with
practical considerations of communication. The same goes for competing place names in current use: con-
sidering whether or not to use the term British Isles may not be trivial when working for—or writing to—an
Irish company, for instance.

36
 Text Composition

Foreign toponyms referring to bodies of water may already contain words meaning “lake”, “sea”, “river”,
etc. For that reason, phrases such as Lake Windermere or the IJsselmeer lake should be avoided. In other
words, it would be practical to investigate if the stretch of water in question has any words in it that may
be translated as “lake”, “sea”, “river”, or a similar concept.

Similarly, Britain’s highest mountain is simply called Ben Nevis rather than “*mount Ben Nevis” or “*Ben
Nevis mountain” as the context in which the name is used should already make clear that it is a mountain.
Also, a Dutch toponym such as St. Pietersberg, rather than having the word “hill” or “mountain” added to
it, creating an awkward phrase, had better be accompanied by a translation6 :

Additional industrial activity near Sint-Pietersberg (En. Mount Saint Peter) had
best be avoided for the aforementioned reasons whereas the village and church
nearest Mount Saint Peter might actually benefit financially from a further. . . (etc.)

In this case, the italics make clear which is the original name, and the writer has a choice whether or not
to continue with the translation or the original name. Recognisability of the name—for the sake of general
readability—is most important, however.

Finally, in that same vein, familiarity with anglicised forms may be more important than official tran-
scriptions despite the fact that the latter may be more correct. Hiroshima rather than Hirosima, Seoul and
Pyongyang rather than Sŏul and P’yŏngyang, Jerusalem rather than Yerushaláyim, and Abu Dhabi rather than
Abū [Link]ı̄, to name just a few.

[Link] Adjectives derived from proper nouns

The general rule is: if the adjective is still close to the name in terms of meaning, it should be capitalised,
but if the adjective is rather removed from the source in terms of meaning, is rather indirect, and is more
conventional, then no capital should be used. Examples:

Italian Anything of, or relating to, Italy or the italic A somewhat slanted, cursive font based
Italian language on a stylised form of handwriting
Arabic Anything of, or relating to, Arabia or the arabic Referring to the Indo-Arabic numeral
Arabic language system (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.)
Roman Relating to the city of Rome, the Roman roman Referring to roman numerals (I, II, III,
Republic or Empire, or to the Romans etc.) or roman script (like this, as op-
posed to italics)
Georgian Period in British history named after titanic huge, enormous
Kings George I–IV
French Anything of, or related to, France french concepts such as french fries

Difference in usage is not all that regular, though, and there appears to be a trend towards more capitalisa-
tion in these contexts (Ritter, 2003, p. 79–80), as examples such as Spanish flu, German measles, and Turkish
delight show. An awareness of the issue is useful, and consistency is important.

6 This is only possible if the name is translatable and/or if the name already has an accepted English translation and is easily recognised

by that name.

37
 Standards for Layout

3.5.2 Punctuation
“In some matters of punctuations there are simple rights and wrongs; in others, one must apply a good ear
to good sense” (Truss, 2005, p. 27). This section will give an overview of the “simple rights and wrongs”—
the basic rules and guidelines. Students are advised to stick to those until they have mastered them7 and it
has become second nature, by which time they may consider making exceptions to the rules because they
have developed a good instinct for it.

When followed by other text on the same line, type one space after all commas, full stops, colons, and
semicolons—like in this sentence—unless they are immediately followed by a closing bracket (parenthesis)
or quotation mark. There should be no spaces before commas, full stops, colons, and semicolons.

The use of punctuation in lists is discussed under § 3.5.7.

[Link] Full stops/full points/periods

All sentences must end in a full stop, which is in that case always followed by a space. For the use of full
stops in abbreviations, see section 3.5.5 on page 62. For the use of full stops with quotation marks, see
section [Link] on page 54. For the use of full stops in reference lists, see chapter 5 on page 93.

[Link] Commas
Comma usage is inarguably the trickiest area of punctuation in English. Not only is the purpose of a comma
to indicate a small break, or pause, in the flow of information, but also to clarify the structure of the sentence
to the reader—to indicate different parts of a thought or sentence, and they do so in a very regular and
structured manner. Although the finer points can be quite tricky, the following four basic rules will resolve a
majority of problems:

Use introducer commas Set off any introductory material—words or phrases preceding the
grammatical subject of a sentence—with an introducer comma :

Fortunately, no members of staff were hurt.

Consequently, the marketing budget was increased by 10%.
In light of both companies’ recent financial setbacks, they decided to merge.
Before a vote was taken, one member called for a secret ballot.

In the same way, one can connect a subordinating clause before8 a main clause, especially if the clause is
quite long and may confuse the reader:

Since the climate in southern Spain is quite hot and dry, HEMA will not be selling
umbrellas in its stores there.
Although recent industrial activities by Axis Chemicals have disturbed the
centuries-old ecosystem in the area, no further research has been done.

7 “Until they have mastered them” may mean until long after the student has been awarded his or her Bachelor’s degree...
8 Note that the comma is not required if the subordinating clause follows the main clause: HEMA will not be selling umbrellas in its southern

Spanish stores since the climate is quite hot and dry there.

38
 Text Composition

If you can meet us at the plane, please plan to be there by six o’ clock.9

Do not use introductory commas right after subordinating conjunctions like because or although, nor after
the coordinating conjunctions: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so.10 See appendix E for an overview of the
different types of commonly used linking words.

Use inserter commas Inserter commas always comma in pairs; they are written before as well as after any
word, phrase, or clause inserted into the middle of a main clause:

The auditor in question, however, refused to participate in the investigation.

The lender, on the other hand, would purchase insurance for the investment.
Donald Trump, who canceled a campaign appearance in Miami on Friday, called for
restoring law and order.
Pam Watson, speaking on behalf of the entire department, accepted the proposal.
On July 2, 2004, Mr. Pearson made the final payment.
I saw him in Kansas City, Missouri, on May Day.
Mark Jackson, former president of the Jackson Institute, spoke to the group.
The second building, which has serious metal fatigue in all the load-bearing
members, has substandard wiring, is completely inadequate for the company’s
power needs, and is situated in an area resembling a demilitarized zone, is still
under consideration despite the aforementioned flaws.

They are also used when interrupting a quotation with a clause with a reporting verb:

“A loan”, as the article says, “may be considered usurious because of excessive or

abusive interest rates or other factors.”

Use tag commas Words, phrases or non-restrictive clauses can be placed after a tag comma at the end of
a sentence:

The region has not always been this prosperous, though.

Columbia Pictures had been acquired by Sony in 1989, for example.
For a balloon to float, it must be filled with helium, which is lighter than the air
around it.11

Use coordinating commas These are commas that connect two parallel words, phrases, or clauses, mostly
in cases where the coordinators and or or are used as well. There are three situations for this:

9 The main clause of this sentence does not contain a grammatical subject—hence no highlighting—as it is using an imperative (i.e.
command form).
10 The mnemonic “FANBOYS” (i.e. f or, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) may be useful in that respect...
11 N.B. Leaving the comma out before which would result in a sentence that may still be grammatically correct, but it would be a

sentence that makes no sense as “helium which is lighter than the air around it” would imply that helium that is heavier than air
would be a possibility too, which it isn’t—not on planet Earth, at least.... The comma after float is optional but preferred, as the
grammatical structure of the sentence is less clear without it.

39
 Standards for Layout

1. Between independent adjectives modifying the same noun:

New employees are given a long, difficult examination.

(the examination being both long and difficult)
We want quick, factual news.
(i.e. “news” is modified by “quick” as well as by “factual”)

Compare that to “The supervisor is an excellent public speaker”, where the lack of a comma be-
tween the adjectives makes clear that it is “excellent” that modifies the whole noun phrase “public speaker”.
Adding a comma between the two would change the meaning of the phrase into a speaker who is excellent
as well as public.

2. Listings of three or more items (i.e. words or phrases):

We offer fair pay, excellent benefits,12 and regular working hours.

me, myself, and I
Hearth Tax listing was arranged by county, barony, parish, and townland.
flying through the air, crawling on the ground, and swimming underwater
the bishops of Winchester, Salisbury, Bristol, and Bath and Wells
You have a choice of grey, green, purple, and white (four choices)
You have a choice of purple and white, grey, and green (three choices)

N.B. If you have a list with longer items that themselves include commas, use a semicolon to separate the
items instead:

They pointed out, in support of their claim, that they had used the materials
stipulated in the contract; that they had taken every reasonable precaution,
including some not mentioned in the code; and that they had employed only
qualified workers, all of whom were very experienced.
I should like to thank the Warden and Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford; the staff
of the Bodleian Library, Oxford; and the staff of the Pierpont Morgan Library,
New York.

3. The linking of two independent clauses with a coordinating conjunction:

The R&D department had a memorial last week, for one of the staff members had
passed away.
The IT department attended a sensitivity training last week, and they will be
reporting on their experiences this afternoon.
Mr Phillips never expected it to snow so early in the year, nor did the national
weather forecast.

12 There is no argument that a comma is required after pay. The comma preceding and (the so-called Oxford comma or serial comma) is

not required but recommended where it will prevent ambiguity, such as in the last three examples.

40
 Text Composition

Six bids have been received, but they will not be opened until 2 May.
Would Mrs Smith face criminal charges , or would she be subject to civil litigation?
Advertising is essential to the free enterprise system, yet care should be taken to
avoid irritation due to overkill resulting in the subsequent creation of a negative
image.
Certain organisms can limit yield and cause crop failure by damaging the plants, so
some degree of pest control is imperative.

Frequent comma mistakes Students should not assume that comma usage in English follows the same
rules as their native language. Some of the more frequently occurring comma mistakes include the follow-
ing:

Problem: Faulty example: Correction:

1 Comma between *The franchise agreement The franchise agreement be-
long(ish) subject between Abellio and ScotRail, tween Abellio and ScotRail
and predicate will have an overall positive will have an overall positive
impact on the Scottish railway impact on the Scottish railway
infrastructure. infrastructure.
2 Comma before *The CFO stated, that profits The CFO stated that profits
that (restrictive were down by 5%. were down by 5%.
clause) *The car, that we saw, was The car that we saw was red.
red. OR (as a non-restrictive clause)
The car, which we saw, was
red.
3 Comma splice / *It also provides protection in It also provides protection in
run-on sentence case of accident, the window case of accident; the window
does not spread and the film does not spread and the film
holds if the window is broken. holds if the window is broken.
4 commas after *Although, standardisation Although standardisation
subordinators leads to cost savings, entering leads to cost savings, entering
a new market includes factors a new market includes factors
like legal requirements. like legal requirements.

The table with linking words and transition phrases in Appendix E gives some more examples of proper
punctuation usage.

[Link] Semi-colons
The semicolon (;) is not necessarily difficult to use as long as it is clear that it is more like a full stop than
a comma; contrary to a full stop, it connects sentence parts very strongly, though. It can also be a very
eloquent device if used properly. Semicolons are used in three different ways:

1. between two independent (i.e. main) clauses that are strongly related to each other,
2. before conjunctive (i.e. linking) adverbs and adverbial phrases when followed by an independent
clause, and
3. between list items that themselves contain commas.

41
 Standards for Layout

Between main clauses without any transition If two main clauses or sentences need to be connected
without any explicit linking word or phrase, then a semicolon can be used.

A majority of startups fail in their first year; perseverance is the most important
character trait an entrepreneur can have.
Computer use is increasing; computer crime is, too.
To be born a gentleman is an accident; to die one, an achievement.
Our workers have been extraordinarily efficient this year; they are expecting a
bonus.

Before connectors In the connection between main clauses, semicolons can also be used before conjunc-
tive adverbs (e.g. however, therefore, consequently, additionally) and linking phrases (e.g. on the other hand, for
example, in short) in order to make the connection more explicit.

There has been a sharp decrease in turnover; therefore, the board will be forced to
make cuts.
The efforts as well as performance of the teaching staff have been outstanding thus
far; as a result, all pupils are ensured excellent bilingual education.
Six bids have been received; however, they will not be opened until May 2.
All questions on the form were unanswered; consequently, the application was not
considered.
The shipment arrived too late for our weekend sale; therefore, we are returning the
shipment to you.
We have plans for improvement; for example, we intend to. . .

Before words introducing lists or explanations after an independent clause

Many factors affect the direction of the stock market; namely, interest rates,
economic growth, and employment rates.
The engine has been “knocking”; that is, the gas in the cylinders explodes before
the pistons complete their upward strokes.

Between list items that contain commas If a list has items that themselves contain commas, the items
should be separated with semicolons instead:

Some of our workers have worked overtime this week: Smith, 6 hours; Hardin, 3;
Cantrell, 10; and McGowan, 11.
Among some other items, the menu contained egg and bacon; egg, sausage, and
bacon; egg and Spam; egg, bacon, and Spam; egg, bacon, sausage, and Spam;
Spam, bacon, sausage, and Spam; Spam, egg, Spam, Spam, bacon, and Spam;
Lobster Thermidor aux crevettes with a Mornay sauce, garnished with truffle
pâté, brandy, and a fried egg on top, and Spam.

42
 Text Composition

At the time of writing, students at IBS rarely (if ever!) use semicolons in their writing. However, even
though it should not be overused, it can add a bit of flair to a sentence. It is also an easy way to fix the
dreaded comma splice (also see the section with frequent comma mistakes on page 41).

[Link] Colons
Colons are used in sentence writing between main clauses to announce elaboration or explanation of a
point. They are similar in use to semicolons, with the exception that

1. colons only focus attention before (a) lists, (b) appositives, and (c) direct quotations (where semicolons
just signal that the clause before and after the semicolon are strongly connected), and
2. colons are not used to separate items in a list.

Introducing lists A colon is used between a list and its introduction:

The ceremonial county of Cornwall is divided into six districts: Caradon, Carrick,
Kerrier, North Cornwall, Penwith, and Restormel.
The first schedule of the Interpretation Act 1978, defines the following terms:
“British Islands”, “England”, and “United Kingdom”.
In late 2011, Thomson Reuters announced a new organizational structure with four
divisions: Financial and Risk, Legal, Thomson Scientific (Intellectual Property &
Science), and Tax & Accounting.
The following three factors influenced our decision: an expanded market, an
inexpensive source of raw materials, and a ready source of labour.
The carpet is available in three colours: green, burgundy, and blue.

N.B. Do not use a colon right after a form of to be or the words include or to in this case, unless the word is
followed by “the following” or “as follows”:

Incorrect: The language factors used in the assessment of the English

course are: grammatical accuracy, vocabulary range, and struc-
tural coherence.
Correct: The language factors used in the assessment of the English
course are grammatical accuracy, vocabulary range, and struc-
tural coherence.
Correct: The language factors used in the assessment of the English
course are the following: grammatical accuracy, vocabulary
range, and structural coherence.

Introducing appositives A colon after a main clause can also direct focus to an appositive or apposition:
a word or phrase that refers to the same thing mentioned before it.

There was one major exception: the National Health Service, which was widely
popular and had wide support inside the Conservative Party.

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 Standards for Layout

The scale model showed Butler Library at Columbia University: allegedly one of the
most beautiful college libraries in the United States.
An effective teacher has at least two important characteristics: thorough knowledge
of his subject and the ability to multitask.

Introducing quotations or paraphrased speech The colon should only be used in this manner when a full
main clause introduces the quotation or paraphrase, when a block quotation is introduced (in which case
no quotation marks are used), or when the introduction of the quotation is rather formal and emphatic:

Marc Zuckerberg had a very clear opinion on this: “It’s OK to break things . . . to
make them better”.
His attorney had asked him about the accusations only yesterday: “Were you or
were you not directly involved in the burglary?”
Philip: “I can’t come to bed! I’m glued to a tax demand!” [in a transcript]
Lords, ladies, and gentlemen: Allow me to present tonight’s guest of honour.

If the colon is preceded by a phrase rather than a full main clause, no block quotation is involved, and the
context is neutral or informal, a comma should be used:

According to Zuckerberg, “it’s OK to break things . . . to make them better”.

He was asked, “Were you or were you not directly involved in the burglary?”
Philip said, “I can’t come to bed! I’m glued to a tax demand!”

Separating titles from subtitles If a title of a publication (i.e. book, article, film, etc.) is separated into
main title and subtitle, they should be separated by a colon:

Business models for model businesses: Lessons from renewable energy entrepreneurs
in developing countries.
Robert the Bruce, historiography, and the Dumfries homicide case: On the variety
of representation in the accounts of a political murder.
Towards a more circular economy: Proposing a framework linking sustainable public
procurement and sustainable business models.

Occasionally, m-dashes may be found in such contexts as well:

Playing seriously—–How gamification and social cues influence bank customers to

use gamified e-business applications.

Extra material in ads or on signs

No Parking: Reserved for executives

To Let: Two-bedroom apartment

44
 Text Composition

Additional use (AmE only) In American English, colons are also used in time notation as well as in saluta-
tions of formal letters and emails. In expressions of time, they separate hours from minutes. In salutation
of formal correspondence, they are used right after the salutation.

Expressions of time:

Normally, classes at IBS are scheduled between 8:30 and 16:30.

The fire alarm went off at 4:23 p.m. exactly.

British English would use a full stop/period in such cases: 8.30, 16.30, and 4.23 p.m., respectively.

In letters:

Dear Mrs. Philips:

Dear Professor Sobecki:
Dear Sir/Madam:

British English would use a comma rather than a colon in these cases.

[Link] Apostrophes
Generally, apostrophes (sing. apostrophe, pron. [@"pOstr@fi], so stress on the second syllable) are not used to
spell plurals, but are mainly used to indicate possessive (i.e. genitive) constructions and to indicate omis-
sions.

Possessive of singular nouns and irregular plurals Regardless of which letter the word ends on, apostro-
phe+s is added to indicate possession. Any irregular plurals not ending in s also receive the apostrophe+s
treatment when used to indicate possession.

the general’s boots

the author’s signature
a company’s most important assets
the children’s ideas (plural of child)
the oxen’s ploughing harnesses (plural of ox)

The only exception to this is names from the ancient or classical world that end in s (Archimedes’ bath, Zeus’
wives, Jesus’ disciples, Confucius’ teachings) or names that end in an [Iz]-sound (e.g. Bridges’ score, Moses’ tablets),
where the apostrophe follows the final s.

Possessive of regular plurals In the case of regular English plurals, which end in s already, the apostrophe
follows the s:

the soldiers’ boots as opposed to the (one) soldier’s boots

their babies’ needs their baby’s needs
the boys’ haircuts the boy’s haircut

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 Standards for Layout

Time or quantity indications Although in terms of meaning these are not really “possessives”, this type
of expression does make use of the possessive s.

a month’s time
two months’ notice
twenty meters’ worth

Omissions Apostrophes to indicate omission are most often found in contractions: I’m, you’re, can’t, we’ll.
Generally, however, such contractions are indicative of informal writing and they should be avoided. Ob-
viously, levels of acceptability may vary quite a bit in the business world: it will be less problematic in an
informal internal memo used in a company of only five people than it might be in a very formal technical
report in a large multinational.

Very importantly, it’s can never be used as a possessive. The word pronounced [Its] is only used as a pos-
sessive pronoun if spelled without an apostrophe (so its)—compare my, your, his, her, our, their. It can only
be spelled with an apostrophe if it is an actual contraction and can be replaced with its full form: it is or it
has.

The same rule can be applied to the following:

who’s (= who is) Who’s afraid of the big bad vs whose The question is whose job
wolf? this is.
they’re (= they are) They’re not afraid. vs their Their suggestions were im-
plemented.
you’re (= you are) You’re being very informal. vs your Your computer has issues, as
do you.
there’s (= there is) There’s the rub! vs theirs This office is theirs, not
ours.
Omissions indicated by an apostrophe can also be found in “clipped” year and decade references, in which
case the century digits have been replaced by an apostrophe.

I grew up in the ’80s.

“The Summer of ’69” is a real classic.

This is still used more in twentieth-century references than with years after 2000, but there appears to be an
increase of references such as “the banking crisis of ’07”. Also, “well meaning” word-processing software
may automatically turn a well typed apostrophe into an “inverted comma” (a ‘ ) right after a space—it is
important to watch out for this; it should really be an apostrophe and not an opening quotation mark: it is
simply the wrong punctuation symbol and it may look slightly confusing as well:

Wrong: the winter of ‘44–’45

Right: the winter of ’44–’45

A small set of plurals Last but not least, there are few plurals that are spelled with an apostrophe, mostly
in cases where the word in question is not used as a noun under normal conditions.

With verb forms: Please list the do’s and don’t’s of presenting.
With conjunctions: We advise against using sentence-initial but’s and and’s.
With letters: It is high time to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.
46
 Text Composition

[Link] Question marks

Unless used in quotations, questionnaires, and research questions as posed in the methodology section
of reports, question marks should be avoided in academic writing and business reports. In academic es-
says and research reports especially, there is no use posing direct questions to the reader; instead, they
can be rendered as statements about things/issues/variables being unknown. For example, the question
So why does Deloitte appear to be facing financial difficulties? could be rendered instead as The question is why De-
loitte appears to be facing financial difficulties or The underlying factors of Deloitte’s financial setbacks will need to be
investigated.

In some cases, question marks can be used to signal doubt about a particular element in a sentence by
placing it between brackets right after the contentious part of the statement (e.g. Adam Smith was born in
Kirkcaldy in early June 1723 (?)), but this may also be rephrased using expressions such as “allegedly” or “is
believed to” if the placement of the question mark still leaves room for interpretation.

[Link] Exclamation marks

Unless used in quotations, exclamation marks should generally be avoided in academic writing and busi-
ness reports. They are mostly indicative of informal writing or speech and do generally not contribute to a
professional writing style.

In some cases, however, exclamation marks may be used by the writer to indicate amusement, surprise,
or unbelief concerning certain facts, in which case it should be put between (round) brackets/parenthe-
ses: “(!)”.

A parents’ lawsuit against McDonald’s in August 2003 claimed that the fast-food
chain had failed to clearly communicate the effect that the food and its ingredients—
among which large quantities of fat, salt, sugar, and cholesterol—have and that it
was therefore responsible (!) for their children’s obesity, heart disease, diabetes,
high blood pressure, and high cholesterol levels.

If the amusement, surprise, or unbelief is about the element in a quotation (and hence an external com-
ment by a subsequent author or editor), the exclamation mark should be written between square brack-
ets: [!].

According to CNN, one of the girls said that “a McMuffin for breakfast and a Big
Mac meal for dinner was her regular [!] diet.”

N.B. Care should be taken not to use it too much for marking absurdity, ignorance, or illiteracy as this may
come across as patronising.

[Link] Hyphens and dashes

The importance of this group of punctuation marks is severely underestimated. First of all, despite the
fact that the most frequently used symbols in this category can be easily represented by the same keyboard
key, they are definitely not the same. Hyphens and dashes could all be described as “horizontal lines”, but
they are of different length and/or height in many fonts, are produced slightly differently in most word

47
 Standards for Layout

processors, and—most importantly—also serve different purposes. Strictly speaking, we can distinguish
between at least four different symbols: the hyphen (-), the n-dash (–), the m-dash(—), and the minus sign
(–)13 ; they are used for four different purposes, which will be described, explained, and exemplified below.

This section will ignore the underscore ( _ ) as it is mainly, if not only, used in computer language (i.e. file
names, URLs, etc.). Table 3.3 on page 50 gives an overview of the four different (typographical) forms,
briefly recapitulates how they are used, and shows how they can be included—or acceptably represented—
in most word processors.

1. Connecting words to create compounds. The general rule is that the hyphen is used “to connect words”.
However, there are no consistent rules on when to write “compounds” as separate items, when to connect
them with a hyphen, and when to write them as a single word—unsurprisingly, even dictionaries may
disagree on when to hyphenate a compound and when not to. One could argue that, as far as word com-
binations in English go, they appear to “evolve” from being separate words via being hyphenated to being
written as solid one-word dictionary entries. Besides that general observation, the student writer is always
advised to consult a good dictionary for this purpose14 . In addition, however, there are definitely quite a
few good guidelines on when and where to use hyphens. According to Truss (2008, pp. 145–147), among
others, the following situations require the use of hyphens:

1. When ambiguity must be avoided: a re-formed committee can hopefully provide a fresh perspective on
things, whereas a reformed committee (not a Catholic committee) is an entirely different kettle of fish.
Recreation and re-creation are two completely different concepts. A similar problem may be found in
the pairs extra-marital relations versus extra marital relations, five dollar bills versus five-dollar bills, and
newspaper-style book versus newspaper style-book. Similarly, “a small scale factory is a small factory that
manufactures scales, while a small-scale factory is a factory that produces a small amount of some-
thing” (Ritter, 2003, p. 134).
2. When numbers over twenty need to be spelled out: thirty-two, forty-nine, etc. (N.B. there’s no hyphen
in four hundred, two thousand, etc.)
3. When nouns or adjectives are linked up in case of equal importance or if one can read “to” or “and”
between them (see also Ritter, 2003, pp. 140–141). Examples are: employer-employee relationship, on-off
switch, Dover-Calais crossing, cost-benefit analysis, American-French relations. In this category, the n-dash
may also be used instead.
4. When a noun phrase is used to qualify another noun: “corrugated iron’ versus “a corrugated-iron roof ’,
“technology from the twentieth century’ but “twentieth-century technology’. A rather embarrassing mistake
would be made if one referred to “the eight hundred odd members of the House of Lords” (i.e. all eight
hundred members are weird people) rather than “the eight hundred-odd members of the House of
Lords” (i.e. it has eight hundred members, give or take, which is—presumably—the intended mean-
ing).
5. In the case of certain prefixes: semi-illiterate, bi-annual, non-negotiable, quasi-scientific. Very often,
these may also be written as one (and very often are in US English). In doubt, consult a dictionary.
6. Mispronunciation or confusion may be avoided through hyphen use in words like co-opt or shel-like

13 The reader may already have noticed that the n-dash and the minus sign in this font are basically the same; in many fonts, however,
they may not be, which shows sometimes. Not distinguishing between these two is least problematic.
14 e.g. Oxford or Cambridge dictionaries for British English, and Merriam-Webster for American English, to name just a few.

48
 Text Composition

(cf. *coopt and *shelllike).

7. Word repetition in a series of hyphenated adjectives may be avoided: short-, medium-, and long-range
missiles instead of “short-range, medium-range, and long-range missiles”.
8. In the case that words needs to be divided in two at the end of a line of text. Proper hyphenation in
that case (i.e. knowing for certain where to hyphenate) can be very important. The hyphenation in the
sentence “The suspect was charged with mans-laughter” (Shackle, 2003) is rather awkward. Dictio-
nary consultation is advised, as many dictionaries also include hyphenation points (e.g. man⋅slaugh⋅ter
(“Manslaughter”, n.d.))

2. Indicating a range or span When expressing a range or span or similar connection between items
(even cooperation; also see previous section, point 3), writers should use an n-dash (–):

pp. 34–48
September–July
timber–tinfoil (a range of dictionary entries)
the Dover–Calais crossing
Arab–American relations (relations between ...) but an Arab-American shop (a shop run
by Arab-Americans)
the Lloyd–Jones theory (one theory, two people) but the Lloyd-Jones theory (one theory,
one person)
8.30–16.30

3. Setting off additional, non-restrictive information Ideally, setting off parenthetical information other
than with brackets or commas is done by means of m-dashes (—). This may happen in the middle of a
sentence—as exemplified by this sentence interruption—or at the end—like this. Usually, m-dashes are
more emphatic in their interruption than commas, so they should not be overused. Also, they should not
be used with spaces. Should the use of spaces really be preferred, then it is best to use n-dashes (–) with
spaces instead – like so.

His answer—the correct answer—was based on years of experience.

Compare the price—$125—with the rest of a single repair job.
The committee decided—you may think it’s a joke, but it isn’t—that the resolution
should be adopted.

In the next example, the additional information—an appositive—is set off with m-dashes because the in-
formation itself is divided by commas:

Their scores—Mary, 21; Sally, 20; and Jo, 19—were the highest in a group of 300.

4. Indicating subtraction (mathematics) Use of the minus symbol is restricted to the mathematical do-
main. As far as the subject matter of this guide is concerned, this does not require further explanation.

49
 Standards for Layout

Table 3.3: All relevant horizontal-line punctuation for report writing: the hyphen (-), n-dash (–), m-dash (—), and
minus sign (–).

name symbol Unicode usage application

hyphen - U+2010 Connects individual words to form com- -
pounds (e.g. co-operation, semi-illiterate,
a 28-year-old)
m-dash — U+2014 Without spaces, sets off parenthetical state- Go to Insert
ments (compare brackets and inserter Special character. . .
commas); for alternative, see n-dash (e.g.
“Some traditional Dutch store names—
among which De Harense Smid and
V&D—did not survive the recession.”)
n-dash – U+2013 1. With spaces, sets off parenthetical state- Is automatically cre-
ments (compare brackets and inserter ated in most word
commas) (e.g. “Some traditional Dutch processors by typing
store names – among which De Harense Space - Space ,
Smid and V&D – did not survive the reces- followed by the next
sion.”) word and another
Space .
2. Without spaces, expresses a span Go to Insert
or range (e.g. 1984–1989, May–Sept, Special character. . . or
Aardvark–Academia) use hyphen key ( - )
instead.
minus – U+2212 With spaces, subtraction in mathematical Go to Insert
sign equations (e.g. 13 – 8 = 5) Special character. . . .

[Link] Parentheses/round brackets

Parentheses should not be used as an alternative to other types of punctuation. Instead, use them (spar-
ingly) to enclose numbers, words, phrases or sentences which

• are cross-references to other parts of your document, such as other chapters, appendices, bibliogra-
phies,
• are in-text citations to external sources, providing a direct link to the reference list in the backmatter,
• are used to separate list items,
• are there to add clarity to your report without altering its meaning, or
• may not be essential to a sentence but may be interesting or helpful to some readers.

Within parentheses, use square brackets [ ] for extra parenthesis (for an example, see the next
subsection). Spaces should always be used around brackets—a space before the opening bracket and a space
after the closing bracket—unless they are directly followed by other punctuation (like this). Some examples:

(see pp. 35–37)

50
 Text Composition

. . . was John Maynard Keynes (5 June 1883–21 April 1946).

£2 million (€2.4 million)
This section will cover three important rules in improvisational theatre: (a) actively
listen, (b) always accept a given offer, and (c) do not ask but contribute.
He hopes (as we all do) that the project will be successful.

Never should parenthetical bits be put back to back; in that case, use a semicolon instead:
Incorrect: *(e.g. bitcoins) (Gearloose & Hoddard, 2013)
Correct: (e.g. bitcoins; Gearloose & Hoddard, 2013)

[Link] Square brackets

Square brackets (“[” and “]”) are used “for comments, corrections, interpolations, parenthetical notes, or
translations that a subsequent author or editor has appended to an original text.” (Ritter, 2003, p. 143).
Especially in quotations, they are used to enclose additional material that was not in the original:

The stories discussed in this dissertation were often part of such collections
[Sheridan Le Fanu’s and Sayers’], but most appeared in magazines first.
The original Bell Gurder, a black metal-bodied [emphasis added] telephone by the
Bell Telephone Manufacturing Company (Antwerp, Belgium) was made in the
1940s.

Square brackets may also be used to denote parenthetical information already enclosed in parentheses (to
limit [or preferably even completely avoid] visual confusion).

[Link] Slashes
The often misused slash (/; also known as solidus, stroke, and oblique, among other names) should only be
used to indicate alternatives and it should therefore read as “or”. Frequently used examples are either/or,
his/her, on/off, masculine/feminine/neutral. In some cases, however, wrong usage may be confusing. The
following two phrases have a distinctly different meaning:

the Rotterdam/Amsterdam/The Hague area

the Rotterdam-Amsterdam-The Hague area

The first denotes the area of either Rotterdam, Amsterdam, or The Hague; the second refers to the combined
area of those three. As slashes are often misinterpreted, it may be best to use the more explicit “or” instead:
“the Rotterdam, Amsterdam, or The Hague area”.

Some alternative uses given by Ritter (2003, p. 147) concern their use in abbreviations:
abbr.: meaning: abbr.: meaning:
A/C account Bs/L bills of lading
c/o care of I/O input–output
N/A not applicable N/V non-vintage
W/D withdrawal U/w underwriter
24/7 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

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 Standards for Layout

Special care should be taken when using the forward slash with informally or parenthetically written dates;
American contexts will have the day and month reversed: 8/3/2014 will most likely be interpreted as the third
of August rather than the eighth of March. To avoid such ambiguity, it may be best to write dates in full,
especially in the running text. More information on dates is given in §[Link].

Lastly, the slash may be used in technical contexts to indicate fractions (to separate numerator from de-
nominator; e.g. 4/5) and to indicate per in units of measurement (e.g. 35 km/h).

[Link] Quotation marks

Quotation marks, also called inverted commas or speech marks, serve three purposes:

• to set off quoted material in the running text,

• to highlight or emphasise particular terms, and
• to set off titles of certain types of text from the rest of your writing.

They come in two types:

single quotation marks (‘...’), mostly used in British academic publications and book publishing, and
double quotation marks (“...”), used in US writing and publishing without exception, and are often used
in British journalism.

Very importantly, English text should not be mixed with alternative quotation styles such as employed in
Dutch, German, or French writing:

“Style” Sample
Dutch *Microcredit has „enormous potential as a tool for poverty alleviation.”
German *Microcredit has „enormous potential as a tool for poverty alleviation.“
French *Microcredit has « enormous potential as a tool for poverty alleviation. »
Corrected: Microcredit has “enormous potential as a tool for poverty alleviation.”

Purpose #1: Actual quotations Quotation marks are used to enclose relatively short quotations in the
running text:

Churchill said, ‘This is the kind of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.’
(British practice)
Churchill said, “This is the kind of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.”
(US/APA style; preferred at IBS15 )

If other quotations are nested within the quotations, the other type is used—single would be used within
if double is the default (US/APA style), and double would be used if single is the default (British):

He had written, ‘Churchill said, “This is the kind of arrant pedantry up with which
I will not put”,’ but did not really believe it. (British practice)
He had written, “Churchill said, ‘This is the kind of arrant pedantry up with which
I will not put,’ ” but did not really believe it. (US/APA style)

15 This does not mean that British practice is not allowed; it is, as long as it is applied consistently.

52
 Text Composition

According to his consigliere, “Don Corleone should never have said, ‘I’ll make you
an offer you can’t refuse’ as it set off a rather unfortunate chain of events.”
(US/APA style)

In the case of quotations of 40 or more words (APA, 2020, pp. 272–273), no quotation marks are used, and
the quotation is set off as a block quotation. Should that block quotation contain any quotations, then
the default quotation style is used for such “secondary” quotations (i.e. double quotation marks in Ameri-
can/APA style, and single quotation marks in British style).

Purpose #2: Highlighting terms or phrases To set off special words, technical terms, or words used in a
special sense:

“Tautology” is the term used when two concurring words—e.g. “burning

fire”—create an overlap in meaning.
Their specialisation is the scientific discipline between biology and geology, called
“palaeontology”.

An alternative in this case would be to set such terms in italics instead (e.g. “Their specialisation is the
scientific discipline between biology and geology, called palaeontology.”). Using a combination of both is
possible, but then their respective uses should be differentiated, such as using italics for foreign terms
(e.g. pianissimo) and using quotation marks for their translation (“to be played very softly”).

Special caution should be taken in the case of so-called scare quotes, which are quotation marks used to set
off slang words or colloquialisms or terms that one generally disagrees with or does not approve of. To
illustrate:

Special caution should be taken in the case of “scare quotes”.

They have cut down the trees in the interest of “progress”.
Many of these “hackers” seem rather clever.

Such use should be limited or avoided where possible. As Ritter points out somewhat jocularly:

In these examples the quotation marks are used merely to hold up a word for inspection, as if by tongs,
providing a cordon sanitaire between the word and the writer’s finer sensibilities. (‘You may wish to avert your
eyes, gentle reader, whilst I unveil the word “boogie-woogie”.’) (Ritter, 2003, p. 149)

In such cases, it may be best to use the word so-called or an alternative instead; especially try to avoid using
both at the same time.

Purpose #3: Report, essay, article, or episode titles In the running text, quotation marks set off report,
essay, article, or episode titles:

The article “Was There Too Little Entry during the Dot Com Era?” has provided a
number of insights.

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 Standards for Layout

Veisbergs’s “The Contextual Use of Idioms, Wordplay, and Translation” (1997)

agrees on this point.
In the season 2 episode “The Children of Israel”, Carpenter comments further on
religious tolerance.

N.B. When included in APA reference list entries, such titles lose their quotation marks, as with the second
example:

Veisbergs, A. (1997). The contextual use of idioms, wordplay, and translation. In D.

Delabastita (Ed.), Traductio: Essays on Punning and Translation (pp. 155–159).
Namur, Belgium: Presses Universitaires de Namur.

Punctuation and quotations First of all, all question marks, exclamation marks, colons, and semicolons
go outside of the quotation marks unless they were part of the original quotation:

Did he say, “Good morning, Dave”?

No, he said, “Where are you, Dave?”
Was it really wise of him to shout, “Stop!”?
There are three major definitions of the word “gender”: vernacular, sociological, and
linguistic.

Besides that, there are two correct ways of choosing what to do with commas and full stops: the British
and the American approach. In the British approach—also called “logical punctuation”16 —commas and
full stops are placed inside the quotation marks if they were also there in the original quotation. In the American
style, essentially all commas and full stops are put inside the quotation marks. The following examples were
taken from Wikipedia.

British style:
“Carefree”, in general, means “free from care or anxiety”.
The title of the song was “Gloria”, which many already knew.
She said she felt “free from care and anxiety”.

American style:
“Carefree,” in general, means “free from care or anxiety.”
The title of the song was “Gloria,” which many already knew.
She said she felt “free from care and anxiety.”
(“Quotation marks in English”, 2016)

As with the choice of quotation marks themselves, IBS has a preference for APA style, which follows the
American approach to punctuation. In the end, however, consistency and correct usage is most important.

16 This term is by no means intended as a judgement on American-style punctuation—it is not necessarily less logical, it merely follows

a different logic...

54
 Text Composition

[sic] The Latin sic is short for Sic erat scriptum, “Thus was it written”, which is written in italics between
square brackets, [sic], to identify logical or grammatical mistakes, misspellings, etc. in quotations, as in
the following example:

The company is selling a T-shirt for girls with the following grammatically incorrect sentence written in shiny
silver print: “If your [sic] single, so am I.” (as cited in Grammarist, n.d.)

However, as Ritter points out, in many cases it may not be fair or even necessary to focus on a detail that
“may be no more than dittography or printer’s error: unless the mistake has textual significance, transmit-
ting the content of the quoted matter is usually more important than reproducing its original form, warts
and all.” (2003, pp. 192–193)

In short, generally try to avoid its use unless the error could be relevant, like in the example above, or
interesting for other reasons. Admittedly, this is somewhat subjective, but this is where critical thinking
comes in. A good alternative would be to paraphrase the quoted material in question.

[Link] Ellipsis
A series of three equally spaced full points ( ...), otherwise known as ellipsis, is used to indicate that words
or phrases have been deliberately omitted from a quoted source.

A mere two percent of the students . . . had committed plagiarism.

If used at the end of an incomplete sentence, no full stop should be added after the ellipsis (i.e. no four
dots) unless the ellipsis is part of an embedded quotation in a larger sentence.

The question that had been posed was “whether they should. . . ”.

If four points are used in the middle of a quotation, then the parts before and after the ellipsis must be com-
plete sentences and the fragment after the ellipsis must start with a capital letter:

By the time Sylvania Electric Products merged with General Telephone in 1959,
Sylvania had become a manufacturer of electronics, lighting, television, radio and
chemistry and metallurgy. . . . The company operated as a separate entity and pro-
duced cameras, photo flash bulbs, general lighting and TVs and anti-missile de-
fense systems.

Ellipsis can also be used to signal to the reader that the logical continuation of a sequence is obvious and
therefore left to the reader:

Progress reports will need to be submitted in February, April, June, . . .

by Gerard Philips, Anton Philips, Frans Otten, Frits Philips, . . .

3.5.3 Type formatting: boldface, underlining, and italics

In most professional writing and text editing, roman type (i.e. the type of letters that these very words are
set in) is used as the standard. However, like in professional typesetting and writing, the student will want
to let text stand out for reasons of convention, emphasis, or extra clarity and will therefore have to resort
to alternative styles. Underlining being rather outdated, especially italics and boldface will be of use to
students of IBS.

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 Standards for Layout

[Link] Underlining
The use of underlining—like so—is a remnant from typewriter days. Where text would be emphasised,
the writer would underline it on the typewriter, and the typesetter would then set it in italics. In the 21st
century, underlining has become largely obsolete. In other words, underlining had best be avoided!

[Link] Boldface
Boldface type or simply Bold is generally only used to indicate headwords in glossaries or dictionaries and
in titles and headings.

[Link] Italics
In short, italics are used to emphasise text or stress speech, to style titles, certain levels of section heading,
and to denote language other than English.

Text emphasis Very often, text will need to be set off from the surrounding text either in order to put
extra emphasis on it (in a similar way that intonation would do in spoken language) or to create a clear
focus on a term or concept that is being introduced:

Jenny Hereford was not the main proponent of drastic reforms in the higher ranks,
however.
The structure of a paragraph is more important than its length.
Internal transaction costs are called bureaucratic costs in order to distinguish them
from the transaction costs of exchanges between organizations in the environment.

If the original text in a quotation does not contain any emphasis but the report writer would like to empha-
sise certain words by adding italics, this should be made clear by adding the phrase emphasis added between
square brackets right after the emphasised word or phrase:

“Recreational drama facilitates individual and group [emphasis added] expression

and involves the pleasurable breaking of taboos around touch and languages”
(Johnston, 2005, p. 5).

Titles and names Italics are used to set off the titles (and subtitles) of books, journals, magazines, news-
papers, reviews, or similar type of periodicals, as well as of plays, films, television and radio series, albums,
and CDs. Its constituent parts (i.e. chapters, sections, articles, episodes, tracks, etc.) are always set in ro-
man type:

The concept was also abundantly covered in Jones’s Organizational Theory, Design,
and Change (2007).
It was The New Yorker that opened with a rather condemning headline that
Monday.
Queen’s 1975 album A Night at the Opera also featured their hit single “Bohemian
Rhapsody”.

56
 Text Composition

Individual names of vehicles (trains, ships, etc.) should also be italicised—e.g. the Queen Elizabeth, the
space shuttle Enterprise, the Enola Gay, Michiel de Ruyter’s flagship De Zeven Provinciën, etc.

Section headings In APA7 style, level-3 and 5 headings are styled in italics (APA, 2020, p. 48). Also see
section 3.4.5.

Foreign words and phrases In some instances, foreign words and phrases are italicised, especially when
a short, still slightly “exotic”, phrase is to be used and highlighted. If the word or phrase has sufficiently
assimilated into the language (e.g. facade, ad hoc, cafe, gesundheit, résumé) it is set in roman instead (so
facade, ad hoc, cafe, etc.).

Furthermore, in line with the idea of Guo Qing, parochialism is another concept to
keep in mind.
As outlined in the council meeting minutes, Stornoway should be especially
concerned about its gnìomhachas-sheirbheisean or service industry.
Their average salary amounts to £30,000 per annum.

3.5.4 Numbers
This section generally follows the approach (and has adapted some examples) of the APA’s Publication Man-
ual. Any quotations are from the same, unless otherwise indicated.

[Link] Numbers expressed as numerals

In quite a fair number of instances, numbers should be expressed as numerals.

First, numbers from 10 onwards (n ≥ 10) are expressed as numerals. In such cases, the suffix of ordinal
numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd, ...) does not need to be written in superscript; “33rd ” is fine, but “33rd” is com-
pletely acceptable, too (and even recommended by certain style guides)!

12 cm wide
the remaining 10%
25 years old
10th-grade students
the 15th trial
13 lists
105 stimulus words

Section [Link] will also include some exceptions to this rule, however.

Second, any numbers mentioned in the abstract or any graphical display should be expressed in numerals.

Third, numbers that are followed by units of measurement (e.g. distance, dimension, cubic capacity, weights,
temperatures, etc.) will need to be expressed in numerals:

a 5-mg dose
with 10.54 cm of

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 Standards for Layout

Fourth, numerals should be used in any “numbers that represent statistical or mathematical functions,
fractional or decimal quantities, percentages, ratios, and percentiles and quartiles”:

multiplied by 5
3 times as many [proportion]
0.33 of the
more than 5% of the sample a ratio of 16.1
the 5th percentile

Fifth instance is “numbers that represent time, dates, ages, scores and points on a scale, exact sums of
money, and numerals as numerals”:

1 hr 34 min
at 12.30 a.m.
2-year-olds
scored 4 on a 7-point scale

If, however, the number is an approximation of time (usually indicated by signal words), words should be
used instead:

about four years ago

a timespan of three decades

Numbers from a numbered series (e.g. books, tables, chapter and page numbers, etc.) or any number from
lists of four or more items are expressed by numerals, too:

Grade 8
Table 3
row 5
pp. 143–265

[Link] Numbers expressed as words

In some cases, numbers need to be expressed as words. Generally, numbers one through ten are spelled
out if no larger number appears in the same sentence:

Only three people were present.

We need five machines.
but
Send 5 offers and 37 enlisted personnel.

Numbers that begin a sentence, title, or headings, for example, will need to be expressed in words (even
though, where possible, sentence-initial numbers had best be avoided altogether):

Forty-eight percent of the sample showed an increase; 2% showed no change.

Twelve students improved, and 12 students did not improve.

58
 Text Composition

Also, most common fractions in running text can be expressed as words:

one fifth of the class

two-thirds majority

Last but not least, universally accepted, fixed expressions:

the Twelve Apostles

Five Pillars of Islam
The Hundred Years’ War

...as well as the expression of significant amounts or other figures in legal documents, followed by their
equivalent in figures between parentheses.

For the sum of Five Thousand Four Hundred Ninety Dollars ($5,490), . . . 17

The spelled-out amount functions as a check against the cipher-based figure. A typo in a word—say, hun-
ndred—is more easily corrected than a typo in the figure (compare 100 to 1000). The (American) Uniform
Commercial Code even states, “If an instrument [i.e. a legal promise or order] contains contradictory terms,
...words prevail over numbers.” (Uniform Commercial Code, 2002).

[Link] Mixed usage

Sometimes, using a mix of numerals and words, especially when used back to back, may visually clarify
the structure of a phrase or sentence:

3 one-hour sessions
ten 7-point scales
The package required four 17-cent stamps.

If neither number can be expressed in one or two words, figures are preferred:

We shipped 250 180-horsepower engines today.

[Link] Ordinal numbers

Ordinal numbers (first, 2nd, sixth, 85th, etc.) should be treated as cardinal numbers (one, 2, six, 85, etc.) in
the same context (see the previous sections).

Cardinal Corresponding ordinal

two orders second-order factor
four grades the fourth-graders
one item, 75 trials the first item of the 75th trial
three groups both the first and the third group

17Note that the use of capital letters in this example is not the norm; legal documents may do so to make certain elements in, for
instance, a contract more conspicuous.

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 Standards for Layout

[Link] Decimals
Most importantly, decimals should be expressed after a point as decimal separator in English, not after a
comma as in, say, Dutch or German. Some of the examples above have already illustrated this. Comma
usage in numbers is reserved only for numbers exceeding 999, such as 1,000 or 9,999,999. Especially where
calculations matter, mixing up 1.234 (less than 2) and 1,234 (more than a thousand) may have serious con-
sequences.

Currency figures generally do not write the .00 decimals in the case of integer amounts in English.

He paid ¤30 for the cabinet.

He paid ¤31.75 for the table and ¤30 for the cabinet.

For more on this, see table 3.5 on p. 62.

The zero numeral (0) should not be used before a decimal point if a statistic cannot exceed 1, such as in
correlations, proportions, or levels of statistical significance:

r(24) = –.43, p = .028

If it can be greater than 1, a zero should be used:

0.23 cm
Cohen’s d = 0.70
0.48 s

The number of decimal places to be included when reporting fractions largely depends on rules regarding
precision and statistical significance. Generally, though, readers find fewer decimal digits easier to cope
with than more digits.

The Publication Manual advises that two decimals should be used when reporting correlations, proportions,
and inferential statistics such as t, F, and χ2 . The advice on p values is that values less than .001 should be
reported as p < .001 and that other p values should be reported exactly up to two or three decimals (e.g.
p = .031). For more details, consult the relevant section of the Publication Manual. Alternatively, consult
your statistics teacher.

[Link] Roman numerals

Only use roman numerals if they were used in any original title or terminology (e.g. a Type II error). Do not
use roman numerals for standard enumeration in lists unless it concerns the creation of a topic outline or
sentence outline.

[Link] Comma use in large numbers

When expressing figures of 1,000 or higher, commas should be used between sets of three digits:

The first batch was a total of 35,250 units.

A salary increase of $7,400 was considered unreasonable in light of the recent cuts.
The party pledged €5,400,000 to the fishing sector alone if they would make it into
government.

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 Text Composition

Exceptions to that rule are:

years 1980–2016
page numbers page 1029
binary digits 00110010
serial numbers 290466960
degrees of temperature 4327 ℃
acoustic frequency designations 3500 Hz
degrees of freedom F(24,1000)

[Link] Plurals of numbers

Numbers—be they words or numerals—can be put into the plural simply by adding s or es:

twos and threes sixes 1830s 20s and 30s

[Link] Date formatting

The formatting of dates in English is subject to two choices:

• Day-Month-Year ordering (or “British”) vs. Month-Day-Year ordering (or “American”)

• Short form (e.g. 1/1/2002) vs. long form (e.g. 1 January 2002)

In all cases, it is important that any ambiguity is avoided, so short-form dates should only be used if the
context makes it clear. Generally, for quick reading, readers may prefer long form, which would be the
preferred format for running text in any case.

Additional considerations are:

• In UK English, short form is written with a slash/oblique or with a period between the elements:
25/12/2018 or 25.12.2018. US English sees an increase in the use of the hyphen as separator, so 12-
25-2018. The ISO-8601 Year-Month-Day format (used in facilitating data exchange and ordering said
data more easily) makes use of hyphens: 2018-12-25.
• American long-form formatting requires a comma between date and year,
• Months in long form are always written with a capital letter (as are the names of weekdays, if in-
cluded),
• Dates do not require ordinal numbers, so Tuesday, 1 April 1980 or Tuesday, April 1, 1980 is strongly pre-
ferred to Tuesday, 1st April 1980 or Tuesday, April 1st, 1980, and
• One should definitely not include the or of when writing the date: ∗ “the 1st of April” is a spoken, not
a proper written date format.

Instead of writing “Negotiations will start on 3/8/2014” and “Implementation will be phased in from 8/3
onwards”—both rather ambiguous—we write:

Negotiations will start on March 8, 2014. (Am.)

Negotiations will start on 8 March 2014. (Br.)
Implementation will be phased in from August 3 onwards. (Am.)
Implementation will be phased in from 3 August onwards. (Br.)

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 Standards for Layout

3.5.5 Symbols and abbreviations

Symbols
Symbols are conventional or official shorthand forms for words or concepts and are often employed in
scientific and technical writing. Which symbols one is most likely to encounter depends on the discipline,
area, or field the text is written for. Table 3.5 (p. 62) gives a collection of symbols that may be encountered
in business writing and how to use them. Naturally, if other symbols are needed in an assignment, their
use should be carefully checked.

Table 3.5: An overview of certain symbols one may encounter in business reports.

field/ symbol: meaning: usage notes:

category:

currency ¤ euro (EUR) Contrary to usage in francophone and germanophone

£ pound sterling (GBP) countries, which place the currency symbol after the
$ US dollar (USD) amount, currency symbols in English texts always di-
¥ Chinese yuan rectly precede the currency amount (i.e. without a space;
(renmimbi; CNY) e.g. ¥5, $15, ¤67, etc.). Decimal amounts (if used at all)
are generally written with two decimals after the decimal
¥ Japanese yen (JPY)
point. Integer (i.e. non-fractional) amounts are written
| Indian rupee (INR)
without decimal point or decimals unless used in a sum or
table with other, fractional amounts: . . . as £5.37 and
£7.63 do add up to £13.00. The “double 0” should
not be replaced with a dash (e.g. ¤15.– [Dutch usage]) in
such instances. Smaller unit symbols (e.g. p [pence], c
[cent], ¢ [dollar cent], etc.) in amounts less than one dol-
lar/pound/etc. directly follow the amount (e.g. 68p).

statistics

legal § section symbol Used in legal documents to refer to sections—followed by

(U+00A7) a non-breaking space and the section number: § 3, § 8.4.
In the case of more than one section, the sign is duplicated:
§§ 13.6–13.9.
© copyright symbol Followed by a non-breaking space and the name of the
copyright holder and the year or years of publication, e.g.
© John Smith 1999 or © 2005–2012 by Juan Pérez
and Dai Jones.
­ sound recording Followed by a non-breaking space and the name of the
copyright copyright holder and the year of first publication of the
sound recording, e.g. ­ 1970 EMI Records Ltd.
® registered trademark Indicates that the preceding mark is registered and used
symbol to promote or brand the product or service in question.
Should be written in superscript immediately following the
mark, e.g. Coca-Cola®.
Continued on the next page...

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 Text Composition

field/ symbol: meaning: usage notes:

category:
TM trade mark symbol Indicates that the preceding mark is unregistered and used
(unregistered) to promote or brand the product or service in question.
Should be written in superscript immediately following the
mark,18 e.g. GmailTM .

chemical Number of atoms in formulas always in subscript: CO2 ,

substances H2 O, CH4 , etc.

cm, kg, non-breaking space between number and symbol; no

distance, weight,
dl, etc. period (unless it ends the sentence); symbol should not be
units of volume, etc.
made plural: 2 dl, 350 mg, 5.36 m2
measure-
ment ° temperature in Celsius Amount immediately followed by the symbol: 19℃,
(C) or Fahrenheit (F) 66.2°F; temperature indications in Kelvin do not use the
degree symbol.
°, ′ , ′′
angle, global Follows amount directly: e.g. N 53° 14′ 21′′ , E 6° 31′ 54′′
positioning (degrees,
minutes, seconds)

Abbreviations
Sometimes one might use abbreviations which may not be familiar to the reader. In that case, the writer
should give the full name or phrase the first time it appears, followed by the abbreviation in brackets, e.g.
International Business School (IBS). Subsequently, just the abbreviation can be used. In other cases, abbrevia-
tions may need to be translated. Conventionally, the Dutch name Hanzehogeschool Groningen is abbreviated
in Dutch as either (de) Hanze, (de) Hanzehogeschool or HG; in English, however, the full name of the institu-
tion is Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen and it should always be abbreviated as Hanze UAS.

Finally, some abbreviations are common in English writing but need to be used (and written) correctly.
Most of these had best only be used between brackets or in footnotes. Table 3.6 gives an overview of regu-
larly occurring abbreviations along with alternatives for normal text:

18 For more information on trade mark symbol usage, also see Carroll, n.d.

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 Standards for Layout

Table 3.6: Commonly used abbreviations in English writing.

Abbr. Meaning/alternative Usage notes Examples (mostly from Lee,

2010)
a.m. (Lat. ante meridiem) Used in the 12-hour system, The crowd dispersed at
“before noon”, “in the with figures only, never accom- 10.15 a.m.
morning” panied by “o’ clock”; lower-case
only, with two points. “12 a.m.”
= “midnight”, the latter being
clearer.
cf. (lit. “confer”) “compare”, Used in combination with Abbott (2010) found sup-
or “see, by way of references to contrastive sec- portive results in her mem-
comparison” ondary sources. Not to be used ory experiment, unlike
as a replacement for just “see”. those of previous work
(cf. Zeller & Williams,
2007). She expands on the
working memory literature
(see also Evans & Potter,
2005).
e.g. (Lat. exempli gratia) “for Used in footnotes or between Some studies (e.g., Jenk-
example”, “for instance”, brackets only and introduces ins & Morgan, 2010;
“such as” examples. Both in lowercase (no Macmillan, 2009) have
italics), with two periods and no supported this conclu-
space. In Am. English often fol- sion. Others—for example,
lowed by a comma. Chang (2004)—disagreed.
i.e. (Lat. id est) that is, namely Used in footnotes or between The experimenters manip-
brackets only, and introduces ulated the order of presen-
an alternative phrasing (para- tation (i.e. first, second, or
phrase or explanation) of an third) of the three images
aforementioned point. Both as well their size, that is,
in lowercase (no italics), with whether they were small or
two periods and no space. In large.
Am. English often followed by a
comma. Compare “viz.” (see be-
low)
etc. (Lat. et cetera, “and other Used in footnotes or between Students ranked their
things”) and so on, and so brackets only. Requires at least school subjects (chem-
forth, and the like; such two list items to clarify their istry, math, etc.) in order
as, like, for example relationship and show in what of preference, first, second,
way the list would continue. third, and so on, until they
Should not be used if the list had ranked the entire list.
already begins with “e.g.”, “in- A majority ranked science-
cluding”, “for example”, etc. Do related subjects (biology,
not use with lists of people; use chemistry, etc.) as their
“and others” instead. Also, do second favorite.
not write “and etc.” or “&c.”
Continued on the next page...

64
 Text Composition

Abbr. Meaning/alternative Usage notes Examples (mostly from Lee,

2010, and Ritter, 2003)

et al. (Lat. et alii) “and others” Used in “normal’ as well as par- Thomas, Greengrass, and
enthetical text; also used in the Hopkirk (2010) made sev-
reference list; also see chapter 5 eral excellent points about
on referencing. goal-seeking behavior.
Thomas et al. began with
how goals are selected.
ff. and the following pages Preferably avoided, but—when The majority of Egyptian
or lines really necessary—used to in- Grammar gives a seem-
dicate an open page or section ingly comprehensive yet
range. relatively concise overview
of—as the title already
indicates—the grammar of
Middle-Egyptian (Gardiner,
1957, p. 25ff).
p., pp. page, pages Used in reference list entries The Oxford Style Man-
and in parenthetical references ual gives a clear overview
to specify individual pages and of some distinguishing
page ranges, such as “(Philips, characteristics of Ameri-
2003, p. 6)” can English (Ritter, 2003,
pp. 237–249).
p.m. (Lat. post meridiem) lit. Used in the 12-hour clock Most shops will have closed
“after noon”, “in the system, with figures only, by 6 p.m.
afternoon/evening” and never accompanied by “o’
clock”; lower-case only, with
two points. “12 p.m.” equals
“noon”, the latter being clearer.
viz. (Lat. videlicet) “namely”, Used to introduce a more de- We first replicated our ear-
“that is to say”, “to wit” tailed description of something lier study (viz., Black &
stated before; what that some- Avery, 2008) and then ex-
thing is composed of, consists tended it.
of, or constitutes.
vs. versus, against Used to connect competing el- This map will track the
ements. “v.’ is also found, but electoral vote count for
this shorter abbreviation is lim- a prospective Clinton
ited to court cases and related vs. Trump 2016 race.
legal contexts.
Legal: United States
v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683
(1974), was a landmark
United States Supreme
Court decision.

65
 Standards for Layout

Abbreviated personal titles and forms of address Also known as honorifics, these are forms of address
indicating respect, usually used in combination with a name. They may not be used frequently in busi-
ness report in the narrow sense, but good knowledge of their use is convenient for other types of business
writing, such as business correspondence or oral communication.

Table 3.7 gives an overview of the most commonly used personal titles and forms of address in English.
The period between brackets is to indicate the difference between British and American English, the main
difference being that American English tends to retain the period after most forms whereas the period in
such abbreviations has “worn off” in contemporary British English: the American equivalent of UK English
“Mr Smith” is “Mr. Smith”.

Table 3.7: Commonly used honorifics in English writing.

Honorific Usage notes Example

Mr(.) Pron. /"mIst@(r)/—Used for men, regardless of mar- Mr and Mrs Smith; Mr
ital status, in the absence (or irrelevance) of an al- Jan Liefers; Mr Ten Kate;
ternative title. Can be used with surname only or, Mr. President; Mr Speaker
if the writer needs to specify, the full name. Occa-
sionally combined with certain function titles. The
fully written-out form “Mister” should never be used
in formal writing.
Ms(.) Pron. /mIz/ or /m@z/—For women, if marital status Ms Philips; Ms Van
is either irrelevant or unknown19 . Can be used with Heugten; Ms Lebowski
surname or full name.
Mrs(.) Pron. /"mIsIz (UK) or /"mIs@z or /"mIs@s/ (US)—For Mrs Johnson; Mrs. Eleanor
married women in the absence of a professional or Twitty; Mrs. Clinton;
academic title. Was traditionally used in combina- Mr. and Mrs. John Smith
tion with the full name of the husband, but this is ar-
chaic. Like with Miss, had best be used only when pre-
ferred by the woman in question.
Miss Pron. /mIs/—For girls and unmarried women in the Miss Fletcher; Miss Smith;
absence of a professional or academic title. N.B. Miss Misses Johnson, Smith,
should only be used for unmarried women when pre- and O’Reilly; “Excuse me,
ferred by the woman in question; the more neutral Miss!”
Ms(.) is recommended. In spoken language, it may
also be used without a name to address young women
(see also Madam).
Continued on the next page...

19According to The American Heritage Book of English Usage, “Using Ms. obviates the need for the guesswork involved in figuring out
whether to address someone as Mrs. or Miss: you can’t go wrong with Ms. Whether the woman you are addressing is married or
unmarried, has changed her name or not, Ms. is always correct. And the beauty of Ms. is that this information becomes irrelevant,
as it should be and as it has always been for men. Of course, some women may indicate that they prefer to use the title Miss or Mrs.,
and in these cases it only makes sense to follow their wishes.” (“Ms.”, 1996)

66
 Text Composition

Honorific Usage notes Example

Mx(.) Pron. /mIks/ or /m@ks/—A gender-neutral hon- Mx Sam Smith; Mx Smith

orific now widely accepted by many UK—not (yet)
US—authorities, among which the government. The
title, also listed in the Oxford English Dictionary and
Merriam-Webster, “can be used by anyone regardless
of gender or marital status.” (see also “The Growing
Use”, 2015)
Madam Pron. /"mæd@m/, and in spoken form occasionally “Excuse me,
in its clipped form Ma’am (pron. /mæm/ (US or UK) Madam/Ma’am!”; Dear
or /mA:m/ (UK))—a respectful or flattering form for Sir/Madam; Madam Sec-
addressing women. Not to be followed by a name. retary
Used in written correspondence in case of an un-
known addressee. Occasionally combined with cer-
tain function titles. When addressing a group of peo-
ple, the plural ladies is used instead.
Sir Pron. /s3:(r)/—Similar in use to Madam, a respectful Dear Sir/Madam; “Excuse
or flattering form for addressing men. Should not be me, Sir!”
followed by a name as it would imply a knighthood or
baronetcy. When addressing a group of people, the
plural gentlemen is used instead.
Dr(.) Pron. /"d6kt@(r)/For anyone with a doctoral degree Dr. Smith; Dr Gibson;
(i.e. PhD, MD, JD, etc.) or as a courtesy title for med- Dr. C.W. Gibson; Dr Corey
ical practitioners, dentists, or veterinarians. Gibson
Professor Sometimes shortened to Prof. (pl. Profs.). In the Prof. D. Bakker; Dear Pro-
UK, only used for the Chair of a university depart- fessor Bakker; Dear pro-
ment; is used more broadly outside the UK, but usage fessor Smith (US, when not
varies between countries. The term professor (note the holding a university chair)
lowercase p) could be used for most university teach-
ing staff in the US, for instance.

Note. This table does not cover most legal (i.e. judicial) titles, academic titles, courtesy titles (nobility), or religious
titles (Christian or other) that exist in the English-speaking world. For more information on such titles, the student is
advised to consult a style guide.

3.5.6 Quotations
If text from an external (secondary) source is included in a piece of writing verbatim (i.e. literally word for
word), then it is referred to as a quotation (also see chapter 5). There are two ways in which quotations may
be included in writing, depending on the length of the quotation: as in-line quotations or as block quotations.
For both types, in-text citations will need to be added. More information about in-text citations can be
found in section 5.4.1.

67
 Standards for Layout

[Link] In-line quotations

If a quotation has fewer than 40 words, it may be included as an in-line quotation. This means that the quo-
tation is embedded within the normal paragraph lines and, besides being set between quotation marks,
follows standard paragraph formatting. As the authors wrote in their Report Writing Standards demonstra-
tively, “Something along these lines...” (Krottje & Lewis, 2017, p. 68).

[Link] Block quotations

If a quotation has 40 or more words, it should be included as a block quotation. This means that the quota-
tion is set apart from the rest of the text and given different formatting. The whole block is indented by ½
inch (ca. 1.3 cm) from the left-hand margin and is separated from the preceding and following text by ex-
tra vertical space, the maximum of which should equal about one white line. Some writers or editors—like
this document’s—also use a smaller font size (e.g. size 10 where the standard paragraphs use 11):

Place direct quotations that are 40 words, or longer, in a free-standing block of typewritten lines, and omit
quotation marks. Start the quotation on a new line, indented 1/2 inch from the left margin, i.e., in the same
place you would begin a new paragraph. Type the entire quotation on the new margin, and indent the first
line of any subsequent paragraph within the quotation 1/2 inch from the new margin. Maintain double-
spacing throughout. The parenthetical citation should come after the closing punctuation mark. (Purdue
OWL, 2014).

It should be realised that quotations should really be used to a minimum, except where using the exact words
from a source really makes the difference. In most cases, paraphrasing and summarising will be better.

3.5.7 Lists
Many word processing programs will recognize a list and automatically indent accordingly; if the software
does not recognise it automatically, indent one centimetre (one TAB position) from the left margin of the
paragraph in which they occur. Use numbers or simple bullet points only as required. Indeed, it should be
kept in mind that the use of numbering implies that the ordering chosen is relevant (logically, chronologi-
cally, or otherwise).

Lists should be punctuated and capitalised as if they were part of normal text. By default, list items should
therefore use sentence case when the items are full sentences or clauses.

• This is one example.

• This is another example.
• This is the final example—I promise.

However, sometimes list items should begin with a lowercase letter, such as in the case of:

• lists introduced by a sentence fragment, with a short list of items, also frag-
ments, continuing the extended sentence;
• glossary entries, where it is important to convey whether something is usually
capitalized or not;

68
 Text Composition

• lists of items with non-English names (that have not been assimilated into En-
glish), from a language in which their capitalization would be incorrect.
(adapted from Wikipedia (“Manual of Style/Lists”, n.d.))

This is also the case if the list items are mere words or phrases where the introduction is not a sentence
fragment but a properly rounded-off sentence.

Most business organisations have predictable functional structure elements (Jones,

2007, p. 146):
• management
• research and development
• sales and marketing
• manufacturing
• materials management
• finance

Finally, in some cases, approach the list as if it were simply part of a sentence, including terminal punctu-
ation at the end of the list.

The whiskies considered as potential extra ingredient for the new pie line are:
• Chivas Regal 12 years,
• Bruichladdich,
• Dalwhinnie 15 years,
• The Glenlivet,
• Glenmorangie,
• Poit Dhubh, and
• Té Bheag.

In case there is no particular ordering for the items, alphabetical ordering may be useful, as was done in
the above example.

In the case of nested lists (lower-level lists within lists), care should be taken to be consistent with regard to
tabbing: level-1 items should be indented equally to other level-1 items. Level-2 items should all be indented
further yet equally to each other, etc. The following sample (listing types of business entity in Switserland)
was lifted from Wikipedia:

• Stiftung / fondation / fondazione:≈ foundation

• investment fund (Anlagefonds / fonds de placement / fondo di investimento)
• Investmentgesellschaft mit festem Kapital / SICAF (société d’investissement
à capital fixe) / SICAF (società di investimento a capitale fisso):≈ invest-
ment trust (UK), closed-end company (US)
• Investmentgesellschaft mit variablem Kapital / SICAV (société d’investissement
à capital variable) / SICAV (società di investimento a capitale variabile):≈
OEIC (open-ended investment company) (UK), open-end company (US)
• Verein / association / associazione:≈ non-profit association
• wIG (wirtschaftliche Interessengemeinschaft) / GIE (groupement d’intérêt économique)
/ gruppo di interesse economico:≈ EIG (economic interest grouping)

69
 Standards for Layout

• Einzelunternehmen / RI (raison individuelle) / ditta indivduale:≈ sole trader

(UK), sole proprietorship (US)
• Gesellschaft “business entities”
• partnerships (Rechsgemeinschaft / société de personnes / società di per-
sone)
• eG (einfache Gesellschaft) / société simple / società semplice:≈ part-
nership by contract
• KolG (Kollektivgesellschaft) / SNC (société en nom collectif) / soci-
età in nome collettivo:≈ GP
• KG (Kommanditgesellschaft) / SC (société en commandite) / soci-
età in accomandita:≈ LP
• trading companies (Körperschaft / société de capitaux / società di capi-
tale)
• KomAG (Kommanditaktiengesellschaft) / SCA (société en com-
mandite par actions) / società in accomandita per azioni:≈ publicly
traded partnership (PTP)
• GmbH (Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung) / Sàrl (société à
responsabilité limitée) / Sagl (società a garanzia limitata):≈ Ltd.
(UK), LLC (US)
• AG (Aktiengesellschaft) / SA (société anonyme) / SA (società anonima):≈
plc (UK), Corp. (US/Can)
• Genossenschaft / Scoop (société coopérative) / società cooperativa:≈ co-operative
• Zweigniederlassung / succursale / succursale:≈ branch (of a company)
(“Types of business entity”, n.d.)

An additional way in which the different levels may be distinguished is by using various types of bullet
points for the respective levels. Obviously, nothing too excentric should be used for this; bullet-point re-
placements such as hearts, smileys, rotary-dial telephones, actual bullets, or other random dingbat-type
symbols had best be avoided....

3.5.8 Visuals: Tables and figures

It speaks for itself that tables and figures should only be used if they truly support the written text through
clarification or exemplification. Also, less is more: tables that have a surplus of data in their cells are less
effective than tables with an effective minimum. Last—but very importantly—, the inclusion of any table
or figure must be justified (i.e. explained) in the text, which should also clearly reference the table or figure
by mentioning its number; this last point is especially convenient if the layout of the page prevents the table
or figure from appearing in the same location as where it is referred to in the text—which may even mean
on a different page altogether. An example of this is table 3.5 on page 62.

Additionally, all external tabular material (i.e. tables, matrices, etc.) that you mean to copy should be recre-
ated to match the style of your own report. In other words: do not just take screenshots of tables as pro-
duced by, say, Excel or SPSS, but try to clearly and faithfully reproduce them in the text processing soft-
ware you use for your report. Not doing so will result in a report that looks cheap and sloppy. Some fig-
ures, like certain graphs or diagrams—if they are not too complex or challenging to be recreated—should
be recreated as well; however, they may be copied in case they prove too difficult to recreate faithfully.

70
 Text Composition

N.B. Citations should be provided in all cases where the content of the table or figure is based on more
than one secondary source (e.g. cell, row, and/or column taken from a different source). A full reference
should be provided if the entire figure has been copied or recreated from a single secondary source. For
more information on citing and referencing, see chapter 5.

The following sections will give some more detail on labels: any table or figure should always be accom-
panied by a label, including its number as well as a caption that clearly indicates what the table or figure
represents.

The formatting system for tables and figures used in this guide is entirely based on the formatting of tables
and figures as presented in the APA’s Publication Manual (APA, 2020, pp. 199–250).

[Link] Table and figure numbering

Tables and figures should be numbered using arabic numerals in the order in which they are first referred
to in the text even though they may be discussed in more detail at a later point in time. Tables ought to
be numbered simply as Table 1, Table 2, Table 3, etc. and figures simply as Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3, etc. In
other words, letters suffixed to the numbers (e.g. 1a, 1b, etc.) should be avoided.

Consecutive numbering may be used in the case of a relatively short report with few figures or tables; in very
extensive reports with long chapters, however, involving many figures and tables, the numbering may be
reset at the start of each chapter, combined with the chapter number prefixing the table or figure number
(e.g. Figure 3.15, Table 6.9, etc.). The same approach can be adopted for figures in the appendices: Figure B.12,
for example.

[Link] The table title

The title of a table or figure—together with its number, appearing above the table—should be clear, explana-
tory, and unambiguous: its content should become clear to the reader immediately:

Table 3: Overview of Most Commonly Used Statistical Abbreviations and Symbols

Figure E.6: Visualisation of Step 2 in the Home Depot App

[Link] Table notes

Tables can be accompanied by notes in case the caption (the table title) itself will need further explanation
and putting the information in the running text would interrupt the flow of the section or chapter too
much. APA style allows for three types of notes: general notes, specific notes, and probability notes.

General notes refer to the table as a whole and are introduced by the word Note (in italics) followed by a full
stop. They explain or provide additional information about the table data in general and usually end on
explanations of any symbols or abbreviations used.

Note. Factor loadings greater than .45 are shown in boldface. M = match process;
N = nonmatch process.
(Example taken from APA, 2020, p. 203)

71
 Standards for Layout

If the table is copied from (or based on) an external source, this is also the place to include the in-text
citation.

Specific notes refer to relevant details with regard to the data in specific rows, columns, or cells, and are
introduced by means of superscript lowercase letters in the table (i.e. a , b , c , etc.). These should be ordered
from left to right and from top to bottom. The informational notes below the table may be arranged in a
row if the line width allows for it:

an = 45. b These items were not in full working order.

Probability notes come last and are only needed if the table offers statistical data. They are used to convey
information on p values, where asterisks are used as note symbols in general, or a combination of asterisks
and daggers (or some other symbol) if the table covers a mix of one-tailed and two-tailed tests, respectively:

∗ p < .05, two-tailed. ∗∗ p < .01, two-tailed. † p < .05, one-tailed. †† p < .01, one-tailed.

If all types of notes are used below a table, they should be ordered in the sequence they were discussed
above: general note, specific note, and probability note:

Note. The participants . . . responses.

a n = 25. b n = 42.
∗ p < .05. ∗∗ p < .01.

An important visual rule for proper table layout is that lines in tables should be used only economically
(i.e. sparingly), especially vertical lines, which are often redundant and tend to create a somewhat messy
appearance.

A visual overview of the main components in a table is given in figure 3.7. Last but not least, three examples
of effectively laid out tables are given in figures 3.8 (p. 74), 3.9 (p. 74), and 3.10 (p. 75).

72
 Text Composition

column spanner:
table number heading that describes
the entries in two or more
columns in the table body decked heads:
table title Table 1: headings that are
Numbers of Children With and Without Proof of Parental Citizenship stacked, often to
avoid repetition in
stub heading: heading
column heads
that describes the Grade Girls Boys
leftmost column
With Without With Without
column heading:
table spanner: Wave 1 heading that iden-
heading that covers tifies the entries in
the entire width 3 280a 240b 281 232
just one column in
of the table body, 4 297 251 290 264 the table body
allowing for further
5 301 260 306 221
divisions
cell: point of
Total 878 751 877 717
intersection
table spanner between a row
Wave 2
stub column or stub: and a column
leftmost column of the 3 201 201 210 199
table; usually lists the 4 214 214 236 210
major independent or
5 221 221 239 213
predictor variables
table body: rows
Total 636 599 685∗ 622 and columns of
table notes: cells containing
explanations to Note. This table demonstrates the elements of a prototypical table. A general the primary data
supplement or note to a table appears first and contains information needed to understand of the table
clarify information the table, including definitions of abbreviations (See Sections 7.14–7.15) and
in the table body
the copyright attribution for a reprinted or adapted table (see Section 7.7).
a
A specific note appears in a separate paragraph below the general note, like
b
this. Subsequent specific notes (like this one) follow in the same paragraph
(see Section 7.14).
∗
A probability note (for p values) appears as a separate paragraph below
any specific notes; subsequent probability notes follow in the same paragraph
(see Section 7.14).

Figure 3.7: Basic components of a table. Section references are to the relevant sections in the APA’s Publication Man-
ual (Adapted from APA, 2020,p. 200)

73
 Standards for Layout
Table X: Inducements and Contributions of Organizational Stakeholders

Stakeholder Contribution to the Organization Inducement to Contribute

Inside
Shareholders Money and capital Dividends and stock appreciation
Managers Skills and expertise Salaries, bonuses, status, and
power
Workforce Skills and expertise Wages, bonuses, stable employ-
ment, and promotion

Outside
Customers Revenue from purchase of goods Quality and price of goods and
and services services
Suppliers High-quality inputs Revenue from purchase of inputs
Government Rules governing good business Fair and free competition
practice
Unions Free and fair collective bargaining Equitable share of inducements
Community Social and economic infrastructure Revenue, taxes, and employment
General public Customer loyalty and reputation National pride
Note. Adapted from Jones’s Organizational Theory, Design, and Change (2007, p. 28).

Figure 3.8: Sample table APA style no. 1

Table X
Wood the Woodchucks Chucked in Experiment 1

Wood
Woodchuck chucked (in kg) %
1 423.9 94.2
2 373.0 82.9
4 347.0 77.1
6 411.3 91.4
Note. Each virtual woodchuck received a 450-kg wood-
pile. Woodchucks 3 and 5 were removed from the analy-
sis because they would not chuck wood.

Figure 3.9: Sample table APA style no. 2, showing APA standards at work in a table representing relatively basic
data...

74
 Text Composition
Table X: Predictors of Self-Reported Moral Behavior

Self-reported moral behavior

Model 2
Variable Model 1 B B 95% CI
Constant 3.192∗∗ 2.99∗∗ [2.37, 3.62]
Gender 0.18∗ 0.17 [-0.00, 0.33]
Age -0.06 -0.05 [-0.14, 0.03]
Social desirability bias -0.08∗∗ -0.08∗∗ [-0.10, -0.05]
Moral identity internalization -0.17∗∗ -0.16∗∗ [-0.26, -0.06]
Moral identity symbolization -0.07∗ -0.06 [-0.01, 0.12]
Perceptual moral attentiveness 0.07∗ [0.00, 0.13]
Reflective moral attentiveness -0.01 [-0.08, 0.06]
R2 .29 .31
F 19.07∗∗ 14.46∗∗
∆R 2 .01
∆F 2.39
Note. N = 242. CI = confidence interval. Adapted from “Moral Attentive-
ness: Who Pays Attention to the Moral Aspects of Life?” by S. J. Reynolds,
2008, Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, p. 1035. Copyright 2008 by the
American Psychological Association.
∗
p < .05. ∗∗ p < .01.

Figure 3.10: Sample table APA style no. 3, a table with statistical output, adopted from the APA’s Publication Manual,
who in their turn borrowed it from a psychology journal.

See page 207 of the Publication Manual for a very useful checklist on the construction of tabular material
(APA, 2020).

[Link] Using figures

Figures should only be included if their presence can be completely justified: they must be convincingly
instrumental in the understanding of the report, and the text referring to the figure should also offer a
clear justification of the presence of the figure in the report.

Once it has been decided that the figure is relevant to an understanding of the report, the focus must be
on ensuring clarity of communication and staying true to the information value of the figure, whether it
concerns a graph, a chart, a map, a drawing, or a photograph. The APA’s Publication Manual offers some
useful standards for the inclusion of figures. An effective figure

• augments rather than duplicates the text,

• conveys only essential facts,
• omits visually distracting detail,
• is easy to read—its elements (type, lines, labels, symbols, etc.) are large enough to be read with ease,
• is easy to understand—its purpose is readily apparent
• is consistent with and in the same style as similar figures in the same article, and
• is carefully planned and prepared.

As additional advice, it recommends that the figure’s

75
 Standards for Layout

• lines are smooth and sharp,

• typeface is simple and legible,
• units of measure are provided,
• axes (in the case of graphs) are clearly labeled, and
• elements within the figure are labeled or explained.

In the interest of clarity, the student writer should always check to what extent all the relevant elements in
the figure are clearly legible and interpretable: carefully consider the graphical quality of the image. Screen
captions, for example, are not included just for the sake of including them—they have a communicative
function and one should be able to read what they depict. Images may need to be cropped so that only the
relevant information is included, and their resolution (the number of dots or pixels in a certain area) needs
to be high enough for the images to be clear. Especially useful with regard to the attention points above, is
the figure checklist on p. 232 of the APA manual (2020).

[Link] Figure label, title, and caption placement

The label of the figure, which includes its number and title/caption) should precede it. Any clarifications
should be given in notes below it, similar to how notes are added to a table. If the figure was borrowed or
adapted from a secondary source, then an in-text citation to said source should be provided as well. For
a figure template with accompanying explanations, see fig. 3.11 on page 77. For more practical details on
the inclusion of figures, as well as some examples, see the Publication Manual (APA, 2020) on pp. 225–250.
Additional explanations and examples are provided on the APA Style website (APA, n.d.-a).

3.5.9 Cross-references
To cross-refer, pronunciation /"kr6srI­f3:/, in the construction cross-refer (something) to something means
“to refer to another text or part of a text, especially to give more information about something”. When
cross-referring (also “cross-referencing”), the text will contain one or more cross references (pronounced
/"kr6s­rEf(@)r@nsIz/)—“[notes] that [tell] a reader to look in another part of a book or file for further infor-
mation” (Hornby, 2010, p. 364).

In either situation, be it internal or external cross-referencing, the cross reference may be part of the run-
ning text, such as the final sentence of the previous subsection, or may be included as a parenthetical refer-
ence (i.e. between brackets), like at the very end of the previous paragraph. How to handle external cross-
referencing will be covered by chapter 5 (p. 93ff.).

The purpose of cross references is a combination of increasing intertextual and/or intratextual coherence
as well as ensuring that a text is as economically written as possible. The coherence of a text depends on
how clearly its constituent elements are connected, and an economical approach to essay-, thesis-, and
report-writing depends on the writer not unnecessarily repeating material all over the place, only repeating
information where it helps the reader understand the message without interrupting the flow of the story
or argument.

Examples of internal cross-reference phrasing are:

• as explained/covered/... in chapter x
• as explained/covered/... on page x

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 Text Composition

figure number
Figure 1:
figure title
Changes in Work Attitude as a Function of Day and Time

image: graph, chart, 6

drawing, map, plot,
or photograph itself
5 data points

y-axis 4
Work Attitude

y-axis title legend or key:

3 ∗
Monday explanation of
symbols used
y-axis labels 2 Friday
b in the image

1 tick marks

x-axis
0 x-axis labels
9 a.m. 11 a.m. 1 p.m. 3 p.m. 5 p.m.
Time of Day x-axis title

figure notes: Note. This figure demonstrates the elements of a prototypical figure. A gen-
explanations to eral note to a figure appears first and contains information needed to un-
supplement or derstand the figure, including definitions of abbreviations (see Sections 7.15
clarify information and 7.28) and the copyright attribution for a reprinted or adapted figure (see
in the image Section 7.7).
a
A specific note explains a particular element of the figure and appears in
a separate paragraph below any general notes. b Subsequent specific notes
(like this one) follow in the same paragraph (see Section 7.28).
∗
A probability note (for p values) appears as a separate paragraph below
any specific notes; subsequent probability notes follow in the same paragraph
(see Section 7.28).

Figure 3.11: Basic components of a figure. Section references are to the relevant sections in the APA’s Publication
Manual (Adapted from APA, 2020, p. 226)
.

77
 Standards for Layout

• This is dealt with in/on/by ...

• (See section 5.2 for an analysis of y)
• (cf. the consequences of applying the Wesson & Phillips model as described on pp. 36–42)

A vast databank of phrases for cross-referencing and other communicative functions is provided on the
University of Manchester’s Academic Phrasebank website: [Link]

3.5.10 Footnotes and endnotes

Text or quotations which explain or elaborate a supporting point made in the report may distract the
reader’s attention from the main flow of the text; they may clutter the main text. If there is a danger of
distraction, a small amount of such text can be put out of the way at the bottom of the page as a footnote.20

Footnotes should be separated from the body of the text by a clear horizontal line, which most word proces-
sors will do automatically. Although footnotes should not be overused, endnotes are strongly discouraged.
In line with APA standards, footnotes and endnotes should never be used to provide referencing infor-
mation at IBS!21

20 Quod erat demonstrandum...

21 Students are advised never to plead not having been informed...

78
4 Standards for Language
Language is assessed at IBS based on the levels and descriptors of the Common European Framework
of Reference for Languages (or CEFR for short). In their Framework International Business, the National
Platform International Business refers to the use of the Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages—or CEFR—for the assessment of language skills but leaves the decision on level requirements
with the individual programmes (Sijben et al., 2017, p. 4). The document gives the general description
vis-à-vis language standards in Programme Learning Outcome (PLO) WW4: International Business Commu-
nication as “Communicate (business) messages effectively and persuasively using advanced English to an
(un)informed audience.”

Whereas the previous framework distinguished three levels for building up the various skills throughout
the degree programme (1, 2, and 3, more or less corresponding to CEFR levels B2, B2+, and C1, respectively
(National Platform IBMS, 2011), the new IB framework does not and allows a certain degree of freedom.
Currrent policy at IBS is to maintain a similar level build-up from the first year through to the graduation
year.

For an overview of the assessment criteria plus descriptors for each of these levels in written communica-
tion, please see appendix C. The assessment criteria themselves are categorised as Accuracy, Range, Coher-
ence, and Argument. These are described in more detail in the following sections.

4.1 CEFR: Accuracy

Accuracy refers to using vocabulary and grammar correctly. Writing without mistakes is obviously desir-
able, but not all errors are equal. One should first strive to eliminate errors that affect understanding and
meaning. For example, a slightly incorrect passive form like had been approve instead of had been approved
is not as egregious as getting the tense completely wrong (will implement instead of has implemented). That
being said, the end level (C1) for an IBS graduate demands a high level of accuracy and students should
strive to eliminate all errors.

Certainly, when writing outside exam conditions there is no excuse for sloppy, incorrect writing. Word
processing software offfers proofreading tools to catch silly mistakes and typos like the one in this sentence.
Moreover, students often work on reports in groups, and can thus trade work for proofreading. It is often
difficult (even for highly-educated native speakers) to proof one’s own work, so students should make use of
the possibility of peer reviewing or peer-editing when the assignment allows. When this is not permissible
or possible, students should plan to take some time away from writing assignments so that they can look
at their own work with a fresh perspective. Another method that may work is to read backwards and check
each individual word. This is not likely to catch missing words and many grammar mistakes, though.

79
 Standards for Language

Accuracy is not simply about avoiding mistakes, though.1 Accuracy also refers to the vocabulary and gram-
mar choices made. Business professionals and students are expected to express themselves succinctly and
specifically. Some English vocabulary, while perfectly acceptable (and common) in everyday speech, is sim-
ply not specific enough for professional and academic writing. For example, the word get should be avoided
and replaced with alternatives which describe the action more specifically (i.e. receive, become, obtain, etc.).
Another example in that same vein is the overuse of informal and ambiguous adjectives such as good and
bad, which can easily be replaced with more specific qualifications such as appealing, exceptional, clear, tasty,
high-quality (etc.), and unacceptable, rough, inadequate, crooked, faulty (etc.), respectively. If the essay, report,
or thesis is assessed separately on accuracy, range, and coherence, then such vocabulary-related accuracy
issues will also automatically affect the assessment of the student’s range.

4.2 CEFR: Range

When writing at IBS, students are expected to demonstrate a mastery of the appropriate range of lan-
guage. What this means will depend on the type of assignment and the audience, but in all cases formal
academic and/or business conventions will be appropriate. Students are encouraged to use the Academic
Word List (Victoria, 2012) and a business vocabulary textbook such as Cambridge Business Vocabulary in Use
Advanced (Mascul, 2015). However, range is not limited to simply selecting the right word. Other language
choices also affect range. The following table shows some important characteristics of formal versus infor-
mal writing:

Informal example Formal example

Slang, everyday – (Will u) please tell me. . . Academic/business – Could you please inform
speech, vocabulary me. . .
contractions, – Hey you guys – Dear colleagues
phrasal verbs – Shouldn’t – should not
– He tried to show. . . – He attempted to illustrate/
– He pointed out demonstrate. . .
– He highlighted

Active voice – I wrote this report. Passive voice – This report was written.

Emotional – Their proposal is Cautious – Their proposal fails to ad-

ludicrous. dress the following points. . .

Subjective – I believe that. . . Objective – One may argue that. . .

language language

4.2.1 General tone & register

The tone of a business research report should breath an air of seriousness and objectivity and thereby con-
vey an academic perspective on the matter under investigation. However, if the opposite is achieved in a
text, and the tone is inappropriate to the professional audience it was intended for, the credibility of the

1 An overview of most frequently made mistakes can be found in Appendix D on p. 119

80
 CEFR: Range

writer may be negatively affected, the effectiveness of the argument may be severely weakened, and the
readers of the report may become annoyed (Driscoll & Brizee, 2012).

Many online as well as offline tools are available to the serious language learner, assisting the student in
improving vocabulary range and raising it to a higher, more professional, and/or even academic level:

an advanced learner’s dictionary: A learner’s dictionary is essentially a monolingual dictionary that takes
the needs of language learners into account. Dictionaries such as Merriam Webster’s Advanced
Learner’s English Dictionary, the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (9th ed.), Cambridge Learner’s Dic-
tionary (4th ed.), or Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (8th ed.) offer a wide range of in-
formation on spelling, grammar, context, collocational information, example sentences, pronunci-
ation, etc. Some focus on British English, some on American English, many offer joint information
on both varieties as well as others. Most if not all of these dictionaries also have a strong presence
online with all kinds of digital tools to assist the student in their language proficiency development.
A good example of this is the homepage of the OALD, the website [Link].

the Oxford 3000: According to its own website, “The Oxford 3000 is a list of the 3000 most important words
to learn in English. The keywords of the Oxford 3000 have been carefully selected by a group of lan-
guage experts and experienced teachers as the words which should receive priority in vocabulary
study because of their importance and usefulness.” The list can be found on the website of the afore-
mentioned OALD, at [Link] A very
interesting blog about how to use the Oxford 3000 can be found at the English Language Teaching
Global Blog, including a useful Excel file (Oxford University Press ELT, 2013).

the Academic Word List (AWL): The Academic Word List is a collection of general (i.e. not subject-specif-
ic) words that occur in English academic and professional writing very frequently. It is based on a
corpus of academic written texts from 28 subject areas in four academic disciplines; the words were
selected based on their range and frequency and the total list covers ca. 10% of written academic text.
Consequently, studying the entries to the AWL would be “an excellent starting point for improving
your knowledge of English.” The homepage of the AWL is at [Link]
A tie-in to the OALD can be found at [Link]

the Academic Phrase Bank: The University of Manchester offers a comprehensive collection of useful aca-
demic language that may be freely used in academic and or professional writing: phrases for be-
ing critical, being cautious, classifying, listing, comparing, contrasting, defining terms, describing
trends, and so on and so forth. The phrase bank can be found at [Link]

a thesaurus (synonym dictionary): Thesauruses are very useful for finding alternatives to words, be that ei-
ther synonyms (words with the same meaning), near-synonyms (words with nearly the same or very
similar meaning), antonyms (words that mean the opposite), or merely words that are related to the
word in question. There are many printed thesauruses, but also a good many to be found online:
[Link] and [Link] are very good for online use; a good offline digital
thesaurus (for MS Windows and Linux users) would be Artha Thesaurus from [Link]

a good collocation dictionary: Collocations are word combinations “that [happen] very often and more fre-
quently than would happen by chance” (Hornby, 2010, p. 290), such as “be widely denounced”, “con-
clusive evidence”, or “easily avoidable”. Collocation dictionaries, a tool that many language learners

81
 Standards for Language

are unaware of, help the student writer push their writing to a higher level by providing insight into
many accepted word combinations. Using it thoroughly may make the difference between a B2 and
C1 level. Can be found at [Link]

[Link] is a context-based multilingual translation search engine that can function as a quick-fix-
with-context dictionary or as a check to see whether or not one’s English translation is the right one
in the right context. It is based on a vast corpus of official translations from various places. Not
100% infallible, but still a very useful tool. Also available as a smartphone application (for online as
well as offline use), the tool can be found at [Link]

4.2.2 Neutral language use

Careless writing may exhibit signs of discriminatory language use—most often in the form of male-centric
writing. Although such language use may often be unintentional, it should still be avoided where possible.

Although some English vocabulary allows gender distinction, one should use gender neutral language in
academic and professional English. Man as a catch-all term that is meant to include the entire human
race should certainly be replaced with (more) gender-neutral options (i.e. machine-made instead of man-
made (if the context allows for it); humanity instead of mankind) and there is no need to indicate gender
when discussing occupations (i.e. business professional instead of businessman; chairperson or chair instead of
chairman or chairwoman). One might scoff at the political correctness of this advice, but using terminology
such as sportsman excludes 50% of the population and is simply unnecessary with perfectly clear gender-
neutral alternatives like athlete.

Pronoun usage is another area where gender-neutrality might be an issue. One should not simply use he
as the default pronoun when the gender of the subject referred to is unknown. In this case, there are two
popular options: either he can be replaced with “he or she” or it can be replaced with “they”. The latter is
usually the better option for purposes of inclusivity. For example:

Incorrect: *A student who wishes to study abroad must ensure he has the required
number of credits.
Correct: Students who wish to study abroad must ensure they have the required
number of credits.
Correct: A student who wishes to study abroad must ensure they have the required
number of credits.

4.2.3 Conciseness
In general, English tends towards conciseness; in business writing this is certainly the case. Busy managers
are not interested in wasting time struggling through someone’s elaborately crafted, inordinately redun-
dant and overly complicated text. [Link]. In an international business environment where most
professionals are not native English speakers, formulating one’s ideas as simply and concisely as possible
carries an added advantage.

So what is conciseness, then, in order to be concise? According to Strunk & White:

82
 CEFR: Range

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnec-
essary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine
no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all
detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell. (2000, p. 23)

Some tips for eliminating wordiness (the opposite of conciseness) include the following:

• Avoid phrasal verbs: use decrease instead of cut down on

• Avoid wordy phrases: use because instead of due to the fact that
• Avoid redundant phrases: difficult dilemma is a tautology; dilemmas are by definition difficult, so
including difficult adds nothing
• Avoid nominalisations: use We do not intend to fire anyone instead of It is not our intention to fire anyone.

A tool that may help get rid of (or should we say “purge”) phrasal verbs is the aforementioned thesaurus.
However, special care should be taken in the case of near-synonyms offered: any results under consider-
ation should always be cross-checked with a good English-English dictionary, preferably a high-quality
learner’s dictionary.2

4.2.4 Jargon
Specific terminology and uncommon words should be defined unambiguously, but one should also take
one’s audience into account; a report specifically aimed at the financial department may require different
terminology to be explained than a report written for an HR manager. The definition can be included in the
text the first time that the word is used, and listed alphabetically in the glossary. Please note: one should
refrain from using obscure unnecessary jargon—The following fragment from Tenner’s Tech Speak, Or, How
to Talk High Tech (1986) brilliantly illustrates this:

Tech Speak is a postcolloquial discourse modulation protocol for user status enhancement. It’s a refer-
ential system for functional-structural, microscopically specific macroscopic-object redesignation. It’s
a universal semantic transformation procedure. It’s a holophrastic technocratic sociolect. It’s a meta-
semiotic mode for task specific nomenclature. (as cited in Hirst, n.d.)

The approach that should be used with jargon is: “adapt to your audience”; technical language should only
be employed in case your audience feels comfortable using it and can effectively communicate using it. If
the audience is unfamiliar with particular jargon terms, either introduce it clearly or paraphrase it. The
example that Russel Hirst gives in his Professional Writing Style is striking:

If you are an entomologist [someone who studies insects], don’t hesitate to say in a lecture to fellow bug
lovers: “Coleoptra hydrophilidae reproduce most prolifically in densely byrophic environments” [but if]
you’re speaking to non-specialists, you may want to say, “Water beetles thrive in thick moss.” (Hirst, n.d.)

Clearly, the style adopted in both examples is indicative of the background knowledge of the respective
audiences.

2 See the previous section on some useful sources, including thesauruses and learner’s dictionaries.

83
 Standards for Language

4.3 CEFR: Coherence and Argument

Coherence in writing refers to the extent to which different ideas are linked to each other. Coherent texts
can be created by presenting ideas in a logical order, by grouping them in units called paragraphs, and by
using linkers in the form of linking words, transitional phrases, or even transitional sentences.

4.3.1 Persuasiveness through logical ordering

Logical ordering can be implemented at various places within a report and at various levels. This section
merely aims to give a few examples of how the general ordering of information may affect the clarity of the
text (and any argument) positively.

[Link] Deductive versus inductive writing

The most common form in Western academic writing (or at the very least in the Anglo-Saxon tradition)
is one that makes use of a deductive approach: a statement or claim is made that is subsequently proven
by means of one or more premises3 , evidence, and argumentation. The following conclusion will then
reiterate and confirm the initial claim or thesis statement. For more on the difference between deductive
and inductive writing, see also Fudge (2015).

Inductive writing, on the other hand, has a more exploratory approach where the reader is carefully guided
through the text from argument to argument, from evidence to evidence, without “giving away the answer”
(i.e. the conclusion) too soon. The path towards the conclusion gradually becomes clear to the reader, and,
by the time the Conclusion section is reached, the thesis statement can be unveiled. This type of writing
has its uses too, as it may be the practical approach for reports on more sensitive issues. A more deduc-
tive alternative in such situations—barging in with a controversial statement on a delicate issue, to put it
bluntly—may reap the opposite effect and cause the reader to dismiss its findings forthwith. For more on
this, an interesting read would be Kaplan’s University’s Academic Support Center Blog (Fudge, 2015).

The deductive approach is generally preferred in IBS business research reports. Possible exceptions should
be discussed with the lecturer or supervisor in question.

[Link] Secondary and primary research

Another example of logical ordering is the organisation of the methodology and tools and source descrip-
tions. For example, many students, often erroneously triggered by the terms “primary” and “secondary”,
have a tendency to present all information about their means of primary research before discussing their
secondary research. However, as part of the process of constructing the argument, findings of secondary
research (e.g. literature research) often precede any primary research material (interviews, questionnaires,
etc.) in the report. Primary research is often used to fill a gap (i.e. answer questions) that the secondary
research is unable to fill. Exceptions to this may occur, of course; consulting the course lecturer or thesis
supervisor may offer clarity in this.

3 premise (n, formal) a statement or an idea that forms the basis for a reasonable line of argument

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 CEFR: Coherence and Argument

[Link] 2+2 approach, scientific approach, and the yardstick approach

Also the findings themselves can be presented in various ways, depending on the context (e.g. report size or
scope) or the effect that needs to be achieved. Three common approaches are the 2+2 approach, the yardstick
approach, and the scientific approach.

The 2+2 approach This approach is often used inductively, where all the arguments and supporting evi-
dence add up to a conclusion, an approach that may be effective in the context of a more sceptical audience.
The main points of the outline constitute the main supporting points and evidence that lead to the conclu-
sion and/or recommendation.

The yardstick approach Another commonly used approach in analytical reports, the yardstick approach
presents possible solutions to a problem as set off against pre-established criteria. With such an approach,
it is vital that these criteria are given before the various options are compared in order to increase objectiv-
ity in the eyes of the reader. Presented independently before the options, the criteria are used as a figurative
yardstick in order to “measure” the suitability of the possible solutions.

The scientific approach Albeit the most thorough and complete approach as far as the quality of the anal-
ysis is concerned, the scientific approach is not suitable for every kind of audience. It will postulate a number
of hypotheses (the solution as well as alternatives), and will then carefully analyse each option in terms of
its advantages and disadvantages, carefully weighing all evidence in favour of and/or against it. The con-
clusion will then summarise all the main findings and conclude which option or options are valid.

The benefit of this approach is that it presents (or at the very least means to present) the full picture. The
downside is that the report will inevitably be longer and not as easy to digest as the other two. A non-
specialist audience may experience an overload of evidence and argumentation, resulting in them finding
it more difficult to properly compare all the pros and cons.

[Link] Writing an outline

In order to allow oneself to properly and carefully compose a well-structured report, it may be vital to start
the writing process by (1) writing both a clear purpose statement and thesis statement of the text as well
as (2) crafting a clear outline of the report structure. Such an outline may be written in the form of a topic
outline—especially useful in the initial phases—or in the form of a sentence outline; this last type is especially
useful in the final outlining phase, intended to help flesh out the topic outline and start thinking in terms
of topic sentences and supporting sentences (explained further in section 4.3.2).

A well developed outline can assist the struggling student writer as it will help him or her to identify and
organise the content before the actual writing begins. It offers a clear base for the writing at the paragraph
and sentence level, allowing the writing to take place small sections at a time. Focus is no longer required
on the larger structure at that stage so that all effort can focus on potential problems at sentence level: style,
grammar, vocabulary, and coherence at sub-paragraph level.

A clear outline is characterised by a clear visual representation of the hierarchy of ideas (from chapter level
down to supporting details at paragraph level), resembling a tree-like structure with main branches, sub-
branches, sub-sub-branches, and so on. This is most often done in the form of a multi-levelled numbered

85
 Standards for Language

list, the various levels differentiated through indentation as well as the use of different kinds of enumer-
ation: capital roman numerals (I, II, III, IV, etc.; for chapter level), capital letters (A, B, C, etc.; for section
level, etc.), arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, etc.), lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.), lowercase roman numerals (i, ii, iii,
iv, etc.), arabic numerals between brackets, lowercase letters between brackets, etc. Sometimes, instead
of brackets, italics may be used at the lower levels.

IV. Candidates
A. Small-and medium-sized enterprises
1. Definition SMEs
a. . . .
b. . . .
2. Guillemot Books
a. Size
b. Equipment outdated: Iris printer
c. Link to education: Prints Calisota College Weekly
3. Peregrine Press
a. Size
b. Equipment: Platen printing press
c. Link to education
B. Larger companies
1. . . .
a. . . .
b. . . .
2. . . .
a. . . .
b. . . .

In some cases, people use multi-level section numbering when outlining (e.g. 3.5.1. or [Link].1.); this may,
however, result in a rather restless outline, especially in the case of long and complex reports where several
levels are involved.

A very practical outlining variant is the so-called integrated outline, which includes any relevant secondary
sources used for the research in question in the form of in-text citations (i.e. author’s surname, year of
publication, and page number when relevant). Compiling such an outline during the writing and research
process will ensure a more thorough reviewing of any literature used for the research before writing, but it
will also minimise one’s chances of committing accidental plagiarism. Creating a system for this, ensuring
consistency, is very much advised.

In that vein, it is also recommended to find a handy digital tool for such type of outlining (or any type of
outlining). Given the fact that outline writing is, say, 20 percent writing and 80 percent editing (if not
more), any preference should go out to software that allows for an easy visual reordering of information
when required4 .

4 Some examples of effective outlining software are Scrivener, Gingko Writer, Microsoft Onenote, and Dynalist.

86
 CEFR: Coherence and Argument

4.3.2 Paragraphing
As was introduced earlier in section 3.4.4, one of the most important units of text in writing is the para-
graph. Without proper paragraphing (and for a visual definition of proper paragraphing, see the afore-
mentioned section), a text will not exhibit as much clarity as when it is properly divided into paragraphs.
This section will present the basic structural requirements for what constitutes a decent paragraph as well
as give an overview of different types of paragraphs.

[Link] General rules for paragraphing

Contrary to what many student writers do initially—following some kind of stream-of-consciousness ap-
proach to paragraph writing (if they use paragraphs at all5 )—well-written paragraphs generally include a
number of structural elements that give a certain predictability and flow to the text. The “average para-
graph” contains at its heart a so-called topic sentence, which conveys the core message of the paragraph6 .
Even though it may occasionally be implied only, the topic sentence is most often explicitly written, usu-
ally somewhere early on in the paragraph, and it is always joined by one (rarely) or more supporting sentences.
Supporting sentences may explain, describe, define, elaborate, exemplify, provide evidence, and so on. The
total package of possible sentence types, logically ordered, would look as follows

• introductory sentence (optional)

• topic sentence
• supporting sentences
• concluding sentence (optional)
• transitional sentence (optional)

As is clear from this list, a paragraph may contain three other types of sentence: introductory sentences,
concluding sentences, and transitional sentences. Introductory sentences open up the paragraph as it were,
provide a platform, and establish a basis on which the heart of the sentence may be presented. A sen-
tence such as “Another raison d’être for the Dutch East India Company was more political than mercantile
in nature, however” clearly paves the way for a clear and unambiguous topic sentence outlining the afore-
mentioned political reason.

Concluding sentences, as the name indicates, come at the end of a paragraph, after the supporting sentences.
They tend to merely paraphrase the topic sentence, much in the same way that a concluding section or chap-
ter will also echo a text’s thesis statement. Occasionally, in the absence of a topic sentence, a concluding
sentence may take over that function instead.

Transitional sentences function as a bridge from one idea to the next, as if to signal “This paragraph has just
talked about X, but, hey, wait until you read the next paragraph: it’s going to cover Y!” Although introduc-
tory sentences or even topic sentences themselves may also function transitionally, separate transitional
sentences may also be found at the end of a paragraph. An example of a transitional sentence would be “De-
spite this potential benefit, however, there are some strong financial arguments against a reorganisation
of the Law Faculty”, paving the way for a paragraph that will go into one or more counterarguments.

5 Also see section 3.4.4.

6 Comparable to how a thesis statement relates to the larger essay or report.

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 Standards for Language

[Link] Types of paragraphing:

The supporting sentences in a paragraph often follow one of several patterns: they can be spatially or-
dered (descriptive paragraphs), they can be chronologically ordered (narrating and process-describing para-
graphs), and they can be logically ordered (paragraphs that exemplify, outline cause and effect, compare,
divide, classify, or define). Most of the example paragraphs below have a topic sentence; some have an
implicit topic sentence or topic phrase, though.

Spatially ordered body paragraphs The function of these paragraphs is to describe (in a non-chronological
way) what things, ideas, or people look like, are like, consist of, etc, to whichever degree of detail:

Apache was the name given to the Indian tribes who inhabited the south-western part of
the United States and parts of northern Mexico. They were excellent hunters and raiders
who had little trouble to protect their band. In the past, each Apache band was led by
its own chief, who was chosen by a tribal council. Most important decisions were made
by the council, and all the Apache council members had to agree before an action could
be taken. An Apache chief was more like a tribal chairman than a president. Most of his
job was mediating between other Apaches. Probably the most famous Apache chief is
Geronimo, who led a series of rebellions.
(Read and Write BALL at UKI, 2011)

Chronologically ordered body paragraph Paragraphs that are chronologically ordered can perform more
than one type of function: they could narrate something that will happen or has already happened:

Following his flight from the battle, Charles Edward Stuart managed to avoid capture
by Government forces by fleeing to France via the Hebrides with a small company. First,
only four days after the battle, Stuart had reached Arisaig on the west coast of Scotland.
After spending a few days with his close associates, Stuart left most of them in a small
boat and made his way to the island of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides. From there,
he travelled to Scalpay, between the islands Harris and Lewis, and from there made his
way to Stornoway. For five months, Stuart criss-crossed the Hebrides, constantly pur-
sued by Government supporters and under threat from local lairds who were tempted
to betray him for the £30,000 upon his head. During this time he met Flora Macdon-
ald, who famously aided him in a narrow escape to Skye. Finally, on 19 September, Stu-
art reached Borrodale on Loch nan Uamh in Arisaig, where his party boarded two small
French ships, which ferried them to France. He never returned to Scotland.
(Adapted from “Battle of Culloden”, Wikipedia)

Chronologically ordered paragraphs could also describe the general order in a process, however:

Members of the court have disclosed, however, the general way the conference is con-
ducted. It begins at ten a.m. and usually runs on until late afternoon. At the start each
justice, when he enters the room, shakes hands with all others there (thirty-six hand-
shakes altogether). The custom, dating back generations, is evidently designed to begin
the meeting at a friendly leve, no matter how heated the intellectual differences may be.
The conference takes up, first, the applications for review—a few appeals, many more
petitions for certiorari. Those on the Appellate Docket, the regular paid cases, are con-
sidered first, then the pauper’s applications on the Miscellaneous Docket. (If any of these

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 CEFR: Coherence and Argument

are granted, they are then transferred to the Appellate Docket.) After this, the jus-
tices consider, and vote on, alle the cases argued during the preceding Monday through
Thursday. These are tentative votes, which may be and quite often are changed as the
opinion is written and the problem thought through more deeply. There may be further
discussion at later conferences before the opinion is handed down.
(Anthony Lewis, Gideon’s Trumpet, cited in Kirszner & Mandell, 2011, p. 86)

Logically ordered body paragraphs These come in various forms and shapes, but all have in common
that they establish a logical relationship between its components—they may exemplify, outline cause and
effect, compare, divide, classify, define, and so on. Here is an example of a paragraph that exemplifies: it
illustrates a random company’s success through various forms of media:

WWWetc is the classic example of a successful enterprise. Naturally, its success has
become evident through its annual financial figures, but its booming image has espe-
cially been fostered by the degree of critical acclaim through most media in the past
three decades. For instance, since the early eighties of the twentieth century, CEO Brian
O’Halligan has put himself in the vulnerable position of regular, light-hearted talk show
guest at several American late-night shows, creating an increasing goodwill from many a
commercial channel as well as among the average American television audience (Phillips,
2007; McDougall, 2012). Also, newspaper corpora analysis performed by Wilson in 2003
seemed to suggest an overall favourable disposition towards the company between 1985
and 2002: where 19% of articles—background as well as opinion pieces—appeared gener-
ally neutral, no less than 73% of items in international newspapers were outright positive
in their verdict of the company. A final example is WWWetc’s presence and popularity
in modern media. They were one of the first corporations to develop a lasting presence
on the World Wide Web (Colquhoun, 1996), and an ever increasing number of people
(exceeding two million) have subscribed to their weekly podcast on Corporate Social Re-
sponsibility, subscribers who hail not just from the corporate corners of society but also
from political offices and campus dorm rooms (WWWetc, 2014).

Other paragraphs may be structured as to clarify the relation between cause and effect of one thing or other:

The main reason that a young baby sucks his thumb seems to be that he hasn’t had
enough sucking at the breast or bottle to satisfy his sucking needs. Dr David Levy point-
ed out that babies who are fed every 3 hours don’t suck their thumbs as much as babies
fed every 4 hours, and that babies who have cut down on nursing time from 20 minutes
to 10 minutes . . . are more likely to suck their thumbs than babies who still have to work
for 20 minutes. Dr Levy fed a litter of puppies with a medicine dropper so that they had
no chance to suck during their feedings. They acted just the same as babies who don’t
get enough chance to suck at feeding time. They sucked their own and each other’s paws
and skin so hard that the fur came off.
(Benjamin Spock, Baby and Child Care, cited in Kirszner & Mandell, 2011, p. 87)

Often, certain logical constructions can be approached in more than one way. Comparing and contrasting
in paragraphs could be achieved point by point (in this case the three criteria used to compare two publish-
ers)...

Guillemot Books and Peregrine Press are publishing houses that have a few striking
characteristics in common. First, both are relatively small publishing companies in terms

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 Standards for Language

of staff. Guillemot Books is Calisota’s smallest publisher, offering employment for a to-
tal of only 23.0 FTE. Similarly, Peregrine Press, although slightly larger, offers employ-
ment to fewer than 30 people, even though most of these work part-time. A second way
in which these two publishers are similar is that both use outdating printing presses.
Guillemot Books still has an Iris printer, whereas most Iris printers in the industry have
been replaced with printers that are less expensive and produce more durable print.
Peregrine Press still actively use a Platen printing press from the late 1930s, but that is
largely because of the company’s educational function. In that same vein, both publish-
ing houses also have a historic link with tertiary education. Whereas Guillemot Books
has been the de facto printing press of the Calisota College Weekly, Peregrine Press has
provided work placements and traineeships for typography and graphic design students
from Duckburg University’s Fine Arts Faculty.

...but comparing and contrasting could also be achieved by structuring it per subject (in this case by first look-
ing at all the criteria for the one publisher before looking at those criteria for the other publisher).

Guillemot Books and Peregrine Press are publishing houses that share a few striking
characteristics in terms of size, equipment, and links to education. Guillemot Books is
Calisota’s smallest publisher, offering employment for a total of only 23.0 FTE. Also, the
company still uses an Iris printer, whereas most Iris printers in the industry have been
replaced with printers that are less expensive and produce more durable print. Last,
Guillemot Books has been the de facto printing press of the Calisota College Weekly. In
comparison, Peregrine Press, although slightly larger than Guillemot Books, also offers
employment to fewer than 30 people, even though most of these work part-time. Also,
like Guillemot, Peregrine Press uses an outdated printing press: a genuine Platen print-
ing press from the late 1930s is still actively used in the production process although
that is largely because of the company’s educational function. Even more linked to ed-
ucation, Peregrine Press has provided work placements and traineeships for students of
typography and graphic design from Duckburg University’s Fine Arts Faculty.

Here is an example of a compare-and-contrast paragraph making use of analogy: comparing one thing to
another because of similar characteristics:

Ants are strikingly similar to human beings—to an extent that some might even con-
sider embarrassing. They farm fungi, raise aphids as livestock, launch armies into wars,
use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, capture slaves. The families of weaver
ants engage in child labor, holding their larvae like shuttles to spin out the thread that
sews the leaves together for their fungus gardens. Also, they exchange information cease-
lessly. One could go as far saying that they do everything but watch television.
(adapted from Lewis Thomas, “On Societies as Organisms” as cited in Kirszner & Mandell, 2011, p.
89)

A very transparent form of logical paragraph structuring is used when describing a division—presenting
the constituent parts or elements of something, and elaborating on or developing in what manner those
parts are distinctive:

The blood can be divided into four distinct components: plasma, red cells, white cells,
and platelets. One component, plasma, is ninety percent water and holds a great number

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 CEFR: Coherence and Argument

of substances in suspension. It contains proteins, sugars, fat, and inorganic salts. Plasma
also contains urea and other by-products from the breaking down of proteins, hormones,
enzymes, and dissolved gases. The red cells, another component of blood, give blood
its distinctive color. The red cells are most numerous; they get oxygen from the lungs
and release it in the tissues. The less numerous white cells are a component of blood
that defends the body against invading organisms. Finally, the platelets, which occur in
almost the same number as white cells, are responsible for clotting.
(student writer, cited in Kirszner & Mandell, 2011, p. 89)

Similarly, a classifying paragraph can be used to categorise things, ideas, or concepts—“[arranging] some-
thing in groups according to features that they have in common” (Hornby, 2010, p. 267):

Charles Babbage, an English mathematician, reflecting in 1830 on what he saw as the

decline of science at the time, distinguished among three major kinds of scientific fraud.
He called the first “forging,” by which he meant complete fabrication—–the recording of
observations that were never made. The second category he called “trimming”; this con-
sists of manipulating the data to make them look better, or, as Babbage wrote, “clipping
off little bits here and there from those observations which differ most in excess from
the mean and in sticking them on to those which are too small.” His third category was
data selection, which he called “cooking”—the choosing of those data that fitted the re-
searcher’s hypothesis and the discarding of those that did not. To this day, the serious
discussion of scientific fraud has not improved on Babbage’s typology.
(Morton Hunt, New York Times Magazine, cited in Kirszner & Mandell, 2011, p. 90)

As a final example, logically structured paragraphs may also simply offer a definition of a concept—in this
case, it shows clear overlap with some of the abovementioned types of paragraph:

Déjà vu is a French phrase meaning “already seen”, but it is also commonly used in
other languages as a noun or adjective describing a feeling or experience that one has
seen or done something before. For example, someone is waiting in line to check out at
the grocery store and the lady behind him asks him to hand her a pack of gum. Sud-
denly, he gets an overwhelming feeling that he has been there in that exact same spot,
talking to the same lady, even buying the same brand of gum. Although everything
seems so familiar, the person in question knows there is no way that could have hap-
pened before. There are many theories as to why and how this phenomenon happens.
One theory is that déjà vu is connected with temporal-lobe epilepsy, but people without
a history of epilepsy have also experienced déjà vu. Psychiatrists believe it is something
in your brain that confuses an event that happened in the past with an event happening
in the present. Another theory, from the controversial field of parapsychology, is that the
phenomenon is connected with past life experiences. Whether déjà vu is an experience of
the paranormal or simply some confusion in the brain, it is a perplexing feeling of having
“already seen.”
(qtd. and adp. from English120, 2005)

These are only some ways in which paragraphs may be structured spatially, logically, or chronologically;
variations of these structures (or combinations—see also the final example) may also be found. Absolute
key is that the student consciously and carefully compose each paragraph rather than throw some phrases and
sentences together willy-nilly.

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 Standards for Language

4.3.3 Linking words and phrases

Properly and effectively placed linking words and phrases—also known as transition signals—help to in-
crease the coherence of a text. A table of the most popular linking words and their function, can be found
in appendix E. One must pay attention to the grammatical function of different linking words, as well as
their effect on punctuation. Linking sentences can be used to connect paragraphs, and linking paragraphs
can be used to connect sections of a text.

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5 Standards for Referencing
In the course of any academic degree programme, the student will undoubtedly have to make use of many
different secondary sources: articles, books, research reports, online databases, and other types of docu-
ments that contain information meant to complement essays, reports, or theses. This is information that
may range from literally copied text, tables, graphs, or financial figures, to pictures, photographs, codes,
drawings, equations, and ideas. The main idea of referencing—providing citations to the reader—is that
the author supplies the reader with (a) the nature and specifics of each source, and (b) where the source is
or was located. This is done by means of in-text citations, most often enclosed in brackets (parentheses), in
combination with a clear and complete list of references in the backmatter of the written product (report,
thesis, etc.).

As a basic piece of knowledge, the student should be aware that a citation (verb: to cite) does not merely
refer to any quotation. It may also—and does most frequently—refer to any paraphrase (verb: to para-
phrase) or summary (verb: to summarise) of information from an external source.

This chapter will cover the academic “ethics’ underlying sourcing and referencing, including some elabo-
ration on the concepts of plagiarism, plagiarism software, and avoiding plagiarism; an overview of which
situations require referencing; and an introduction to the principles of APA referencing, looking at par-
enthetical in-text referencing (i.e. in-text citations) as well as the creation of reference lists. The majority
of this chapter is based on principles as laid out in the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American
Psychological Association (APA, 2020).

5.1 Avoiding Plagiarism: When and Why to Cite

It is absolutely vital to clearly separate original ideas or thoughts (i.e. as thought up by the student author)
from information taken from external sources. There are a number of theoretical, ethical, yet also practical
reasons for providing references. In short, sources should be referenced in order to:

• persuade (provide evidence to support arguments),

• give credit to the original source/author,
• enable other people to find the same sources,
• avoid plagiarism (and, in the process, avoid incurring the teacher’s or exam board’s wrath...), and
• be professional.

These five reasons are inextricably linked, and a failure to do so, as indicated by point 4, will lead to pla-
giarism, which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as “the action or practice of taking someone else’s
work, idea, etc., and passing it off as one’s own; literary theft” (“Plagiarism”, 2006). Generally, plagiarism
is considered an ethical breach of proper conduct in the world of universities and professional writing. In
fact, it is considered intellectual property theft.

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 Standards for Referencing

Now, it is important that the student writer is aware that—from a practical viewpoint—there is no differ-
ence between deliberate (i.e. planned) or accidental plagiarism, regardless of whether the latter is due to
a lack of awareness or a lack of skills. In other words, “I didn’t know any better” and “I didn’t mean to” are
unacceptable excuses.

It should not be forgotten, however, that plagiarism is the opposite of something positive, namely aca-
demic integrity (see also Bretag, 2016), which is a beneficial trait for anyone striving for professionalism.
It is therefore encouraged to pursue, develop, and foster this academic integrity as a useful, valuable, and
even lucrative investment. In the context of professional development, an active investment in one’s aca-
demic integrity will definitely yield a return in the form of soundness, trustworthiness, and respect.

5.2 Anti-plagiarism tools

In order to counter—or at the very least, detect—instances of plagiarism, Hanze UAS makes use of pla-
giarism detection software such as Ephorus or SafeAssign. This is, however, merely a tool applied “at the
gate”; in other words, once handed in, it is out of the student’s hands. In that sense, it functions mostly
as a filter for teaching staff and as a deterrent for students. In order to minimise in advance the risk of
having (accidentally) plagiarised, though, the student writer may also resort to having it checked by online
plagiarism software prior to submitting it to teacher or supervisor. A search for “online plagiarism checker
for students” in Google already gives a fair selection of online plagiarism detection software. Some of these
may be worth trying out, such as [Link] or Grammarly,1 both of which require a paid sub-
scription, but are allegedly quite accurate. According to its website ([Link]) the latter also
gives detailed feedback on spelling, grammar and word use.

5.3 Quoting, paraphrasing, and summarising

Copying ideas and other information from external sources can basically be done in three different ways:
through quoting, through paraphrasing, and through summarising. In all three instances, the student
writer will have to create a reference (also known as “citation”) to the source used.

5.3.1 Quotations
A quotation (plural quotations, verb to quote) is “a group of words or a short piece of writing taken from a
book, play, speech, etc. and repeated because it is interesting or useful” (Hornby, 2010, p. 1246). The word-
ing, structure, length, and content of a quotation are identical to the original, except when a less relevant
chunk is left out on purpose, in which case ellipsis (i.e. “...”) is used to clearly indicate from where text was
removed. Informally, quotations may be referred to as “quotes”, but in formal writing (in case there is a
need to use the word at all) such usage would be incorrect.

There are a number of—partially overlapping—reasons for quoting source material:

1N.B. The authors of this document have not tested these sites themselves, but base these suggestions entirely on online reviews and
intend it to be mere cursory advice.

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 Quoting, paraphrasing, and summarising

• Precise definitions must be provided (e.g. from dictionaries or other reference works).
• Very specific evidence must be provided (e.g. evidence that someone or some document said some-
thing in a particular way)
• Arguments need stronger support
• Exact words are important (e.g. legal documentation)

Most students have a tendency to use too many quotations in their academic writing. In fact, the inclusion
of literally copied text is in many cases not a necessity and relevant information can very often be para-
phrased or summarised effectively instead.

5.3.2 Paraphrases
A paraphrase (plural paraphrases, verb to paraphrase) is “a statement that expresses something that somebody
has written or said using different words, especially in order to make it easier to understand” (Hornby,
2010, p. 1103). In paraphrasing, only the length and content are mostly identical to the original, but the
paraphrasing author’s choice of words and sentence structure is original.

Generally, authors paraphrase information when:

• definitions must be provided,

• sources must be shown to be understood, and/or
• exact words are not important.

In the following example from Purdue OWL, a student has incorrectly paraphrased a text from a website
by only replacing certain words here and there but maintaining much of the original vocabulary as well as
structure.
Original: (from: Lester, J. D. (1976). Writ- Incorrect paraphrase (formatting of quoted mate-
ing Research Papers (2nd ed.). Glenview, Ill.: rial added):
Scott, Foresman & Co. pp. 46–47.)
Students frequently overuse direct quotation in Students often use too many direct quotations
taking notes, and as a result they overuse quota- when they take notes, resulting in too
tions in the final [research] paper. Probably only many of them in the final research paper. In
about 10% of your final manuscript should appear fact, probably only about 10% of the final
as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should copy should consist of directly quoted mate-
strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of rial. So it is important to limit the amount of
source materials while taking notes. source material copied while taking notes.

When assessed, the student text will be found wanting as far as academic integrity is concerned, and it will
very likely be considered a case of plagiarism.

A proper paraphrase of the original, clearly characterised by the use of alternative phrasing and structur-
ing, could have been:

In research papers, students often quote excessively, failing to keep quoted ma-
terial down to a desirable level (i.e. around 10%). Since the problem usually
originates during note taking, it is essential to minimise the material recorded
verbatim (Lester, 1976, pp. 46–47).

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 Standards for Referencing

In addition to the aforementioned reasons, paraphrasing is also useful because it helps the student escape
from the general tendency to overuse quotations, especially where it concerns unexceptional text frag-
ments. The educational benefit lies in the fact that it gives language learning processes (e.g. vocabulary
acquisition and sentence construction skills) a boost and that it heightens the kind of brain activity re-
quired to fully and correctly interpret the original text (Purdue OWL, 2016).

5.3.3 Summaries
A summary (plural summaries, verb to summarise) is “a short statement that gives only the main points of
something, not the details” (Hornby, 2010, p. 1549). In giving the main points of the original text, the
writer will use his or her own wording and structure, which makes it similar to paraphrasing in terms of
form but different as far as length is concerned.

Authors summarise their sources when

• evidence must be provided,

• sources must be shown to be understood, and
• details/examples are not needed

A possible summary of the text on research-paper writing is given in the right-hand column:

Original: (from: Lester, J. D. (1976). Writing Research Summary:

Papers (2nd ed.). Scott, Foresman & Co. pp. 46–47.)
Students frequently overuse direct quotation in tak- Students should take just a few notes
ing notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in in direct quotation from sources to help
the final [research] paper. Probably only about 10% minimize the amount of quoted material
of your final manuscript should appear as directly in a research paper (Lester, 1976, pp. 46–
quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit 47).
the amount of exact transcribing of source materials
while taking notes.

5.4 Author-year referencing APA-style (7th ed.)

There are two sides to APA referencing: (1) each adopted quotation, paraphrase, or summary will include a
parenthetical reference in the running text—also called an “in-text citation” or “citation” for short—such as
“(Ferguson, 2004)”, of which (2) a full and unique bibliographical information “phrase” can then be found
in the chapter or section called References. The full bibliographical reference list entry—or “reference” for
short—to the citation in the previous sentence, for instance, would be:

Ferguson, N. (2004). Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World. Penguin
Books Ltd.

Together, the citations and the references work to assist the reader in finding the origins of the sources.
The subsections below will explain this in more detail.

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 Author-year referencing APA-style (7th ed.)

5.4.1 Step 1: In-text parenthetical referencing

The APA referencing style uses a principle and general structure also known as the “author-year” format—
also generally known as “Harvard referencing”—where the in-text citation (from here on referred to as
simply “citation”) is by default placed between parentheses (i.e. round brackets). It is for that reason also
known as parenthetical referencing.2

The text refers the reader to sources used by the author—be that printed, online, or other, and whether
quoted, paraphrased, or summarised—by giving parenthetical citations (i.e. citations between round brack-
ets or parentheses) although some information is sometimes partially given outside the parentheses in
case it fits the flow of the paragraph (e.g. “According to Ferguson, Britain should not ... completely (2004,
p. 350).”). The latter is called a narrative citation, as the citation as more interwoven in the narrative of the
report.

In both cases, the citation means to give the reader a signpost to where in the reference list (placed right after
the end of the main matter) they may find more elaborate bibliographical information about the source in
question. So, the citation “(Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill, 2015)” in this document will tell the reader that
the reference list will contain full bibliographical details of this source under the letter S. The alphabetical
ordering of the list will help the reader quickly find the reference “Saunders, M., Lewis, P., and Thornhill,
A. (2015). Research Methods for Business Students (7th ed.). Pearson.”

Although the correct composition of references can be a challenge in some cases, many students frequently
find the citations to be a particularly tricky part of parenthetical referencing as well, especially in regards to
their placement. Citations can be placed in or at the end of the sentence. If placed at the end of a sentence,
they precede the full stop. However, students frequently fail to include citations at all, perhaps assuming
their audience is able to make the link between the source they have incorporated and the bibliographic
material in the references automatically. In addition to meeting one of the definitions of plagiarism, this
would also be similar to providing a scrambled table of contents without page numbers—entirely useless.
Another frequent error that students make is to include the citation(s) only at the end of the paragraph,
again making it unnecessarily difficult for the reader to distinguish between various bits of incorporated
source material from more than source within the same paragraph.

The exact APA citation format depends on a number of factors. The standard format is: ([author’s sur-
name], [year of publication], [optional location specifics]), like in “(Philips, 1923, p. 13)”. There are, however,
a number of variations on this pattern possible, as outlined and illustrated in table 5.1 below.

More details can be found in the APA’s Publication Manual (2020, Chapter 8), and a slightly less comprehen-
sive but visually attractive treatment of the material can be found on the APA Style website (APA, n.d.-b)).
Further examples of in-text referencing can be found throughout this document.

5.4.2 Step 2: The references list

The reference list, simply titled References in APA, is a list of bibliographical entries, the information in
which supplements the information given in the citations. These references are organised alphabetically

2 N.B. Author-year referencing is not the only form of parenthetical referencing; another variant is used by the Modern Language
Association (MLA), for instance. MLA referencing would use only the author and page number in the citation and would begin the
bibliography entry with author and title (e.g. Ferguson, Niall. Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World. Penguin, 2004.).

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 Standards for Referencing

Table 5.1: In-text citation pattern variations APA style.

in-text citation variation: Example:

- author + year of publication (Philips, 1923)
- only a part of the source is referred to (es- (Philips, 1923, pp. 34–36), (Smith, 2018,
pecially in the case of quoting or para- paras. 12–13), (Ding, 2016, slides 4–5), or
phrasing) (Bryson, 1945, Chapter 4)
- the author is already mentioned in the text . . . as Philips has argued quite extensively
just before the in-text citation (1923).
- two authors (Soltanifar & Smith, 2003)
- the number of authors is three or more e.g. (Liefers, Wabike, & Coughlan, 1945) in
the first reference and (Liefers et al., 1945) for
every subsequent reference.
- the date of publication is unknown (McDonald, n.d.)
- the author is unknown (“Behind the Wall”, 2013)
- the source has a corporate author (i.e. a (Ikea, 2014)
company, group, body, committee, organ-
isation, etc.)
- if it concerns a quotation within a quota- (as cited in Philips, 1923)
tion (a “second-hand” quotation)

by the authors’ names and year of publication.

[Link] List ordering principles

The list must first of all be alphabetically ordered by author’s surname (or name of company or organisation
in case no individual is mentioned). It is therefore important that the starting element of each reference is
carefully checked as indeed (a) being the author—be that a person, corporate author, or title in the absence
of an author—and (b) being in the right place. Too often, it happens that the order of a reference list has
not been checked properly.

Once more, it must be emphasised how important it is that there is a one-on-one relationship between the
citations in the text on the one hand, and the references on the other. If there is a citation “(Wabike, 2013)”,
it must be unique in the sense that it must link to a unique reference that starts with “Wabike” and was
published in 2013.

The second important ordering element for the reference list are the initials:

Jansen, J. P. M. (1998). . . .
Jansen, R. (1995). . . .

Clearly, the 1998 publication by J. P. M. Jansen precedes the 1995 publication by R. Jansen merely because
the J precedes the R in the alphabet. The third determining factor for ordering is the year of publication:

Jansen, J. P. M. (1998). . . .

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 Author-year referencing APA-style (7th ed.)

Jansen, J. P. M. (2002). . . .

Fourth, it is important to be able to distinguish publications from the same author in the same year. If a
certain author published two works (regardless of their nature) in 1996, both of which feature in the text and
are referenced, these works should not become mixed up, of course, but should receive additional labeling
in the form of letters: “(Langdon, 1996a)” and “(Langdon, 1996b)”. They should then be distinguished in
similar fashion in the reference list:

Langdon, R. (1996a). Aftermath of a. . . [etc.]

Langdon, R. (1996b). Numerology and the. . . [etc.]

Rather predictably, this example shows that the order in such a case is determined by the first letter of the
title of the publication. For any exceptions to this (which will be rare), such as two different authors with
the same surname and the same initials, we would suggest consulting the Publication Manual of the APA or
consulting the APA Style Blog online ([Link]

[Link] Abbreviations
A number of abbreviations may be used in reference list entries, and the APA considers the following ac-
ceptable (APA, 2019, pp. 306–307):

Abbreviation Book or publication part

ed. edition
Rev. ed. Revised edition
2nd ed. second edition
Ed. (Eds.) Editor (Editors)
Trans. Translator(s)
Narr. (Narrs.) narrator (narrators)
n.d. no date
p. (pp.) page (pages)
para. (paras.) paragraph (paragraphs)
Vol. (Vols.) Book/report volume
No. Number
Pt. Part
Tech. Rep. Technical Report
Suppl. Supplement

If any numerals are used in the entries, they should be arabic rather than roman (e.g. Vol. 4, not Vol. IV),
unless the title of a publication itself contains a numeral (e.g. Legendary Marketing Myths XIII).

[Link] The reference list entry: who, when, what, and where
The type of information that is relevant when composing a reference list entry can be divided into a few
main categories, which are generally given in the fixed order who, when, what, where, an approach that
gives a clear and predictable structure to reference list entries, as illustrated in table 5.2.

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 Standards for Referencing

Table 5.2: The four main segments in APA reference list entries.

Elements Book example Article example Report example

Author (who?) Scott Adams Stephen Upton Organisation for Economic

Co-operation and
Development (OECD)
Date (when?) 1997 2012 2015
Title (what?) Dogbert’s Top Identifying Effective the section/chapter “United
Secret Drivers for Knowledge Kingdom.”
Management Exchange in the United
Handbook Kingdom
Source HarperCollins Higher Education Education Policy Outlook 2015:
(where?) (New York, Management and Policy Making Reforms Happen,
United States) volume 24, issue 1, pages pages 303–306
299–314. [Link] . .
[Link] . .

The four sample sources from table 5.2 would then culminate in the following—alphabetically ordered—
reference list:

References
Adams, S. (1997). Dogbert’s top secret management handbook. HarperCollins.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2015). United
Kingdom. Education policy outlook 2015: Making reforms happen
(pp. 303–306). [Link]
Upton, S. (2012). Identifying effective drivers for knowledge exchange in the
United Kingdom. Higher Education Management and Policy, 24(1), 1–20.
[Link]

The remainder of this subsection will give an overview of the four elements that together make up the
different parts of any reference list entry: who, when, what, and where.

The first element: by whom?

• Include the full surnames plus initials of a maximum of seven authors

• Separate surname from initials with a comma
• In the case of two authors, separate them with an ampersand (&)
• If a source has more than two authors, separate them from one another with commas, and use
a comma plus ampersand before the last author (e.g. Cooper, S. L., Hofstadter, L. L., &
Koothrappali, R. R.).
• In case of corporate authors (company, government agency, association, corporation, etc.), spell
out the full name rather than abbreviate it (e.g. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and

100
 Author-year referencing APA-style (7th ed.)

Development rather than OECD). However, if the name is used repeatedly throughout the text
and full name use becomes cumbersome (such as in the case of the APA in this document), in-text ci-
tations may deviate from this usage for reasons of economy and readability; the reference list entries
must be spelled out fully, though.
• If the publication has no identifiable author, the title of the publication should be used instead.
• If a publication only has an editor, then the editor’s name should be placed initially, followed by Ed.
or Eds. between brackets after the last editor’s name. In that case, the full stop should come after
the final bracket.

Wilcox, H. (Ed.). (2013). The English Poems of George Herbert. Cambridge

University Press.

• If the chapter of an edited book has its own author(s), do not invert the editor’s name and place the
word In between the chapter title and the name of the editor.

Veisbergs, A. (1997). The contextual use of idioms, wordplay, and

translation. In D. Delabastita (Ed.), Traductio: Essays on Punning and
Translation (pp. 155–159). Presses Universitaires de Namur.

• In all cases, this element should end in a full stop.

The second element: when?

• For books and journal articles, year of publication always goes in brackets.
• For magazines, newsletters, and newspapers, both the year and the date of publication (i.e. month,
month and day, or season) are given, separated by a comma, and put between brackets.
• If a journal article has not officially been published yet but has been accepted for publication, write
in press between brackets.
• If no date is known, write n.d. (i.e. “no date”) enclosed in brackets.
• In all cases, this element is to be followed by a full stop after the closing bracket.

The third element: what? In the case of chapter titles, journal article titles, newspaper article titles, or magazine
article titles, simply capitalise the first letter of the title plus the first letter of any names, and of any subtitle
there may be3 . No italics or quotation marks should be put around it and the whole element should be
closed off with a full stop. For example:

The neverending story: A constructive approach to second language learning.

British inquiry into Iraq War brings scathing critique of Tony Blair.

This is then to be followed directly by the title of the book, journal, newspaper, or magazine. In the case of
a reference to a book as a whole, naturally it will directly follow the year of publication.

3 This—the capitalisation default—is called sentence case—the alternative, title case refers to the use of capital letters at the beginning
of all “major” words (i.e. nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.) in a phrase or sentence and it should only be used for such titles in the running
text; not in the reference list entries.

101
 Standards for Referencing

Titles of periodicals should be given in full, using title case (i.e. the first letters of nouns, verbs, adjectives,
etc. capitalised) and fully italicised:

Journal of International Business Studies

Mohave Valley Daily News
Århus Stiftstidende
Albina Românească
El Pireneo Aragonés
Bombay Samachar
De Telegraaf
Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists

Titles of books or reports, on the other hand, should use sentence case in the reference list (i.e. only a capital
letter at the beginning, in names, or at the beginning of any subtitle):

Business research methods

The Oxford style manual: The essential handbook for all writers and editors
Don’t get too comfortable: The indignities fof coach class, the torments of low
thread count, the never-ending quest for artisanal olive oil, and other First
World problems
The Dilbert principle: A cubicle’s-eye view of bosses, meetings, management fads
& other workplace afflictions

N.B. In the running text, however, such titles should use title case; to illustrate:

According to Business Research Methods, the. . .

The Oxford Style Manual: The Essential Handbook for All Writers and Editors
explains quite clearly how. . .
As rather poignantly illustrated by Don’t Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of
Coach Class, the Torments of Low Thread Count, the Never-Ending Quest for
Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems, no human being is . . .
This brings us to The Dilbert Principle: A Cubicle’s-Eye View of Bosses, Meetings,
Management Fads & Other Workplace Afflictions, which neatly points out the. . .

Before the full stop is added at the end of the element, additional information about the source such as
edition, report number, or volume number may follow its title, assisting the reader in identifying and re-
trieving the publication. The element should end in a full stop.

Development of entry-level tests to select FBI special agents (Publication

No. FR-PRD-94-06).
Survey of the Gaelic dialects of Scotland (Vol. 3).
Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.).

102
 Author-year referencing APA-style (7th ed.)

In the case of non-standard types of sources (or “nonroutine sources” as the 6th-edition APA manual (2010,
p. 186) called it), indicating the type will help to identify and retrieve the source in question. Such an indi-
cation should be provided in square brackets right after any parenthetical information that goes with the
title, if present at all. The information between brackets can be one of many indications of type of source:

[Audio file] [mp3 file]

[Audio podcast] [Painting], [Photograph], etc.
[Blog post] or [Blog comment] [Podcast transcript]
[Brochure] [PowerPoint presentation]
[CD] [Press release]
[Data file] [Real Media file]
[Database record] [Supplemental material]
[Demographic map] [Television series episode]
[Facebook note] or [Facebook page] [Television series webisode]
[Lecture notes] [Tweet] or [Twitter update]
[Letter to the editor] [Video file]
[Mobile application software] [YouTube video]
[Monograph]
[Motion picture] etc.

As the APA Style Guide to Electronic Referencing indicates, “Other phrases than these are possible; choose word-
ing that is brief, accurate, and descriptive of the source.” (APA, 2012, p. 2). As such a notation will end the
title element of non-routine sources, it should be followed by a full stop:

California Board of Psychology. (2005). For your peace of mind: A consumer

guide to psychological services [Brochure]. Retrieved from
[Link]

More information on this can be found in the APA7 manual (2020, p. 292).

The fourth element: where? The fourth element gives the reader clear information about where the source
may found—in other words: publication information.

In the case of periodicals—journals, newsletters, and magazines—separate the volume number from the
title with a comma, and set the volume number in italics. If an issue number is available (when every issue
is paginated separately, for instance), then the issue number should be set in brackets right after the volume
number (i.e. no space). Brackets and issue number should not be italicised. The volume (and issue) number
should be followed by a comma and the page number or page number range that includes the source in
question. End the page numbers with a full stop:

The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 78(2), 200-224. (with issue number)

Social Science Quarterly, 84, 508–525. (no issue number)

103
 Standards for Referencing

In the case of newspaper articles, the page number, page numbers (in the case of discontinuous pages),
or page number range should be included after the newspaper title, separated from the title by a comma.
If the newspaper consists of several sections, each with their own pagination, include the section as well
(e.g. “pp. B1–B3” or “p. A13”)

Pilling, D. (2016, June 9). Britain risks losing its voice. Financial Times, p. 9.

Location and publisher names should not be included in reference entries for periodicals.

Non-periodical publications should include the name of the publishing house. Former APA style would
have included a place of publication as well, but given the increase of international publishing and the
subsequent ubiquitousness of certain publishing houses, such specifications have become rather redun-
dant.

Names of publishing companies should be as complete as possible (e.g. Oxford University Press rather than
OUP), but should generally convey simply the way the company is referred to on the source in question (even
if this includes terms such as Publishers, Co., and Inc.). The element should end in a full stop.

The location of electronic sources is indicated differently. What still stands is the need for the writer to
indicate elements like author, year (and possibly date) of publication, and title. In addition to that, the
reader should get as much electronic information as is necessary for retrieving the source. The two most
commonly used online location indicators in APA are URLs and DOIs.

The DOI (digital object identifier; plural DOIs) is a code that is provided with the sources in most official
and academic databases. Consequently, articles, journals, and reports in most databases such as OECD
iLibrary, SpringerLink, and ScienceDirect have a DOI to facilitate easy retrieval. The advantage of a DOI
over an Internet address (also known as URL; see below) is that it is unaffected by online content disap-
pearing due to restructuring or deletion; a DOI is “a unique alphanumeric string that identifies content
and provides a persistent link to its location on the Internet”, “implemented through registration agen-
cies such as CrossRef ([Link] which provides citation-linking services for the scientific
publishing sector.” (APA, 2012, p. 5) To put it in practical terms: DOIs help to prevent broken (i.e. outdated)
Internet links.

A DOI is composed of essentially four elements:

• the abbreviation DOI or (lowercase letters),

• the number 10 followed by a period,
• a prefix (four or more digits designating an organisation) followed by a slash, and
• a suffix assigned by the publisher that stands for the journal and individual article.

For example, DOI:10.2307/3587951 stands for Averil Coxhead’s article “A New Academic Word List” as pub-
lished in the 34th volume, 2nd issue of TESOL Quarterly in 2000. The DOI number can be quite easily found
on the article page of the database in which the periodical was found, often quite close to the title, as illus-
trated by fig. 5.1

APA7 dictates—as does IBS—that student writers convert the DOI into a workable URL when including
it in a reference. All it takes is replacing the letters DOI + colon by [Link] In the case of the
journal article by Coxhead, this will give us the following reference:

104
 Author-year referencing APA-style (7th ed.)

Figure 5.1: A screen capture of the online database entry to an academic journal article, clearly illustrating the in-
clusion of its accompanying Digital Object Identifier or DOI.

Coxhead, A. (2000). A new academic word list. TESOL Quarterly, 34(2), 213–238.
[Link]

Instead of reference entries with standard location URLs (which can be very long and tend to break up the
line at times), journal article entries for databases with DOI-based URLs will end up relatively clean and
concise in the reference list.

In some instances, however, online sources do not have a DOI, in which case the URL will need to be added
to the reference list entry, following the phrase “Retrieved from”. A URL (uniform resource locator; plural
URLs) is essentially an address for mapping information online. A journal article published online without
a DOI could look like this:

Swarte, F., Hilton, N. H., & Gooskens, C. (2013). Onderlinge verstaanbaarheid

tussen Noord- en Westerlauwers Fries [Mutual comprehension between North
and West Frisian]. Us Wurk, 62(1–2), 21–46. Retrieved from
[Link]

Very importantly, an effective URL should always start with the protocol part—i.e. http (hyperlink), https
(secure hyperlink), or ftp (file transfer link)—followed by a colon and two forward slashes (e.g. [Link]
As URLs are supposed to help the reader retrace and retrieve sources that were used for the report or essay

105
 Standards for Referencing

in question, it is always useful to check whether or not the included URL is indeed a working link; after
all, mistakes in copying and pasting are easily made. In APA style, URLs should be used only if no DOI has
been provided. The URL does not end in a full stop:

Phipps, C., Quinn, B., and Johnston, C. (2016, June 25). Brexit: UK’s most
senior EU official resigns after leave vote—as it happened. The Guardian.
Retrieved from [Link]

This example also clearly shows that only the homepage URL is used: it should be easy to find the article
through the index of the website in question. Also, this approach avoids the inclusion of URLs that do not
work anymore.

On the use of retrieval dates... Many other referencing styles (as well as older versions of APA) made use
of a “Date of access” or “Date of retrieval” element in most of their electronic reference entries. However,
this is not the case in current APA referencing:

1. If a source has a DOI, then no further retrieval information (neither date nor URL) is necessary.
2. If an online source has a URL but the content is not expected to change, such as an online newspaper
article or a report from a government website published at a certain date, then no further retrieval
information (i.e. no date of retrieval) is deemed necessary either.

If, however, one takes information from a site that can change over time while its contents will not neces-
sarily be (retrievably) archived such as some wikis or certain types of social media, then the retrieval date
must be included:

Columbia Pictures. (n.d.). Home [Facebook page]. Facebook. Retrieved December

10, 2019, from [Link]

For more examples of electronic publication references and a breakdown of many different types, consult
the APA Style and APA Style Blog websites via [Link] and [Link]
blog, respectively, or the book they complement, the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Associ-
ation (APA, 2020, Chapter 10) (also available from the Hanze Library). A very useful, introductory video to
APA7 referencing can be found at [Link] (Choice Media Channel, 2020).

For an example of a properly laid out References section, see the references of this document on page 109.
Another example is given in the sample report in Appendix F.5.3 on page 148. For further assistance, a
very decent step-by-step explanation of APA referencing is provided on the site Academic Coaching & Writing
(Coogan, 2012).

106
6 Conclusion & recommendations
This guide has offered students at IBS a set of useful tools to enhance the quality of their academic and
business writing. In short, it is concerned with a set of standards the importance of which is often un-
derestimated; these standards provide an opportunity to implement what could be termed “the three c’s”:
clarity, coherence, and consistency.

Chapter 2 gave a clear overview of some macrostructural standards for report writing at IBS. Chapter 3
supplied some much needed standards for lay-out, ranging from the likes of title page and table of contents
specifics, via issues such as margins and paragraphing, to low-level layout criteria such as font choice,
punctuation, and the inclusion of tables and figures. Chapter 4 offered a concise explanation of the CEFR
criteria for language assessment as applied at IBS so that this may be taken on board in the composition
and assessment of reports by students and faculty, respectively. Then, towards the end, chapter 5 provided
a concise introduction to APA standards for referencing.

Standards are not things engraved in tablets of stone, however. These standards for report writing will
never be finalised and there will always be room for improvement. In particular, technology and capa-
bilities of word-processing packages advance at a rapid pace, and the standards will be adapted to take
advantage of new developments.

Students may undoubtedly wonder how strictly these rules are to be followed and whether they can simply
be interpreted as mere guidelines. Initially, students should familiarise themselves with these rules of
good practice by simply abiding by them. Once they master them and understand why they exist, they
may consider exceptions to the rules, provided that they know what they are doing and have very good
reasons to do so. In other words, if they deviate from these standards, they have to be able to justify their
choice to their supervisor, teacher, or exam board. In such cases, prior consultation with the teacher or
supervisor in question is strongly recommended.

If, when using these standards, students or staff members have suggestions for improvement, they are
kindly urged to make their ideas known to the authors, be that directly or indirectly. Constructive feedback
will always be welcome.

107
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112
A Report Assessment Rubric Template
Structure:1 <5.5 5.5–7.9 >8
Macrostructure Report sections missing and/or All report sections are included Content is arranged precisely
order is incorrect. Missing or and in the proper order. Content in the report sections, allowing
misplaced content affects the is presented in the correct for a logical flow of information.
function of report sections. sections with a minimum of Coherence between sections.
errors.

Focus & Scope Unclear objective. Failure to Objective of the report is Objective of the report is clear.
answer research questions. reasonably clear. Research Research questions answered.
Irrelevant information. Unnec- questions answered. Irrelevant No irrelevant information. No
essary repetition. information or unnecessary unnecessary repetition.
repetition is kept to a minimum.

Microstructure Illogical structure, providing lit- Logical structure of ideas, Logical structure of ideas, pro-
tle to no support for conclusion. providing adequate support for viding excellent support for con-
Incorrect paragraphing. Lack of conclusion. Proper clusion. Proper paragraphing.
coherence. paragraphing. Coherence Extremely coherent throughout.
between sections.

Layout: <5.5 5.5–7.9 >8

Style Sloppy or unclear design Basic design with adequate Designed with attention to
choices. attention to details such as font, detail, giving a professional
spacing, margins and headings. result.
Use of header/footer.

Visuals Readability is limited due to Size, color, and other design Design choices ensure excellent
poor design choices. choices provide for satisfactory readability. Numbering, labels,
readability. Numbering, labels, keys, and source information is
keys, and source information is provided when necessary.
provided when necessary.

Mechanics Many punctuation, capital- Standard punctuation, Standard punctuation, capi-

isation, and spelling errors. capitalisation, and spelling with talisation, and spelling with
Non-standard usage. limited errors. virtually no errors.

1No weighting for the different elements in this rubric has been provided here, as this will likely depend on the type and level of
assignment.

113
 Report Assessment Rubric Template

Language:2
Range Has enough language to get by, Has a sufficient range of Has a good command of a broad
with sufficient vocabulary to language to be able to give clear range of language allowing
express him/herself with some descriptions, express viewpoints him/her to select a formulation
circumlocutions on topics such on most general topics, using to express him/herself clearly in
as family, hobbies and interests, some complex sentence forms to an appropriate style on a wide
work, travel, and current events. do so. Language lacks, however, range of general, academic,
(B1) expressiveness and idiomaticity professional or leisure topics
and use of more complex forms without having to restrict what
is still stereotypic. (B2) he/she wants to say. The flexibil-
ity in style and tone is somewhat
limited. (C1)

Coherence Can link a series of shorter dis- Can use a number of cohesive Can produce clear, smoothly
crete elements into a connected, devices to link his/her sentences flowing, well-structured text,
linear text. (B1) into clear, coherent text, though showing controlled use of or-
there may be some “jumpiness” ganisational patterns, connec-
in a longer text. (B2) tors, and cohesive devices (C1)

Accuracy Uses reasonably accurately a Shows a relatively high degree of Consistently maintains a high
repertoire of frequently used grammatical control. Does not degree of grammatical accuracy;
“routines” and patterns as- make errors which cause occasional errors in grammar,
sociated with more common misunderstandings. (B2) collocations and idioms. (C1)
situations. Occasionally makes
errors that the reader usually
can interpret correctly on the
basis of the context. (B1)

Referencing:
APA APA is not used or so badly APA is used, but it might be APA is consistent and complete.
applied that it is unclear where inconsistently followed or
source material was obtained. incomplete (i.e. citations with
No in-text citations, missing URLS, some details of the
reference list entries. reference list not in order).

Source material Missing quotation marks. Para- Quotations marks used where Quotation marks used appro-
phrasing or summarising is too appropriate. Paraphrases and priately where required. Para-
similar to original.3 summaries are rephrased and phrases and summaries are
restructured sufficiently and completely rephrased and re-
integrated into the text. structured. Source material is
integrated seamlessly.

2 Grade indications have been omitted from this part of the rubric, as the language level required for an assignment may depend on
the place of the module in the curriculum and/or the level of the assignment in question. Contents are based largely on the relevant
CEFR descriptors (see also the CEFR table in Appendix C).
3 Actually, reports falling in the insufficient category in either the APA or source material rows are technically plagiarism, with the

exception of year-1–period-1 courses (when students should receive a stern warning); they should therefore not even be accepted
by the teacher. Rather than receiving points for this, any student work with improper use of external sources and/or insufficient
referencing should not be assessed and instead submitted to the Exam Board on suspicion of plagiarism.

114
B Report Checklist
Use this checklist before submitting a report. Not all elements listed will be relevant for all reports.

Report sections:

Front page / title page Check assignment instructions. All required information. ◻
Pleasing design.

Abstract No confidential information ◻

Executive Summary Stands alone; report represented completely ◻
Preface ◻
Acknowledgements ◻
Contents ◻
List of illustrations ◻
List of tables ◻
Message header ◻
Introduction Background, objective, preview ◻
Theoretical section / Logical sequence, compare/contrast key literature. ◻
literature review Identification of gaps.

Methodology Research design. Scope and limitations. Population and ◻

sample, variables and measures used. Data analysis
techniques.

Findings (data Objective, clear, and logically/persuasively organised. In-text ◻

collection / analysis / citations. Visual data clearly labeled.
evaluation)

Conclusion Link to objective. Summary. Thesis statement. ◻

Recommendations Logically flow from conclusion. Specific advice. ◻
Project process Critical reflection. ◻
evaluation

Glossary ◻
References Styled according to APA criteria ◻
Appendices Titled and separate ◻

115
 Report Checklist

Layout:

Style Font size and style. Spacing and margins. Header/footer. ◻

Paragraphing Clear breaks between paragraphs, 1 main idea per paragraph, ◻
topic sentences, length of paragraphs. Introductory and
concluding paragraphs in subsections of longer reports.

Visual material Pleasing design. Font and colors clear. Described in the text. ◻
Mechanics Spelling, punctuation, capitalisation. ◻

Language:

Range Appropriate choice of vocabulary (business professional/ ◻

academic world list / formal). Tone. Idiom. Also check
appendices C and D

Coherence Structure and flow. Logical connections. Linking words, ◻

sentences, and paragraphs. Also check appendices C and D

Accuracy Grammar, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation and ◻

capitalisation. Sentence construction. Also check appendices C
and D

Referencing:

Citations Following APA7, in-text, author-date style. No footnotes for ◻

reference information. Visual material is also cited where
necessary. Location specifics added where required

Reference Complete list of all sources used. Link between citation and ◻
beginning of reference entry. One list, alphabetically ordered.

Source material Quotations marks used when quoting, having quoted source ◻
material only with good reason. Paraphrased and summarised
text is substantially different from the original.

Cross-referencing Clear connections between parts of the report. ◻

116
 C CEFR Descriptors for Writing
The IBS CEFR descriptors for English written proficiency have been adapted from descriptor grids in the Common
European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe [CoE], 2001) and the CEFR Companion Volume (CoE, 2018,
pp. 77, 132–134, 142). The Accuracy column also includes elements from the “Orthographic Control” table (CoE, 2018,
p. 137). For the sake of having a clear reference point to the lower levels, level A2 (the higher beginner proficiency level)
has been included as well. Familiarisation with the levels can be achieved through the University of Helsinki’s CEFTrain
Project website ([Link]

Level Accuracy Range Coherence Argument

C2 Maintains consistent and highly Shows great flexibility in formu- Can create coherent and Can produce clear, smoothly
accurate grammatical control of lating ideas in differing linguis- cohesive texts making full flowing, complex reports, arti-
even the most complex language tic forms to convey finer shades and appropriate use of a cles and essays which present a
forms. Errors are rare and con- of meaning precisely, to give em- variety of organisational case or give critical appreciation
cern rarely used forms. Con- phasis and to eliminate ambigu- patterns and a wide range of proposals or literary works.
sistently correct and appropriate ity. Also has a good command of connectors and other Can provide an appropriate
use of vocabulary. Writing is or- of a very broad lexical reper- cohesive devices. and effective logical structure
thographically free of error. toire including idiomatic expres- which helps the reader to find
sions and colloquialisms; shows significant points. Can set out
awareness of connotative levels multiple perspectives on com-
of meaning. plex academic or professional
topics, clearly distinguishing
his/her own ideas and opinions
from those in the sources.

C1 Consistently maintains a high Has a good command of a broad Can produce well- Can write clear, well-structured
degree of grammatical accuracy; range of language allowing organised, coherent expositions of complex subjects
occasional errors in grammar, him/her to select a formulation text, using a variety of underlining the relevant salien
collocations and idioms, but they to express him/herself clearly in cohesive devices and issues. Can expand and sup-
are rare and difficult to spot. an appropriate style on a wide organisational patterns. port point of view with some sub-
Also, no significant vocabulary range of general, academic, sidiary points, reasons, and ex-
errors besides occasional minor professional or leisure topics amples. Can write a suitable in-
slips. Layout, paragraphing, and without having to restrict troduction and conclusion to a
punctuation are consistent and what he/she wants to say. The longer report, article, or disser-
helpful. Spelling is accurate, flexibility in style and tone is tation on a complex academic or
apart from occasional slips of the somewhat limited. professional topic provided that
pen. the topic is within his/her field of
interest and there are opportuni-
ties for redrafting and revision.

B2.2 Shows mostly consistent and ac- Has a sufficient range of lan- Can use a sufficient Can write an essay or report that
curate control of spelling, punc- guage to give descriptions and number of linking words develops an argument systemat-
tuation, and grammar. Occa- express viewpoints, mostly efficiently to mark clearly ically with appropriate highlight-
sional ‘slips’ or non-systematic avoiding ambiguity. Shows a the relationships between ing of some significant points
errors and minor flaws in sen- sufficient command of appro- ideas, to create texts and relevant supporting detail.
tence structure may still occur, priate and idiomatic language, which are mostly coherent Can evaluate different ideas or
but they are rare and do not with only occasional lapses into on both sentence and solutions to a problem.
cause misunderstandings. Can awkwardness. Shows limited paragraph level, and
produce clearly intelligible con- flexibility in tone and style. Can which mostly avoid any
tinuous writing, which follows understand and use the main jumpiness or break-ups in
standard layout and paragraph- technical terminology of his/her reading.
ing conventions. Spelling and field, when discussing his/her
punctuation are reasonably ac- area of specialisation with other
curate but may show signs of specialists.
mother tongue influence.

117
 CEFR Descriptors for Writing

Level Accuracy Range Coherence Argument

B2.1 Shows a relatively high degree of Has a sufficient range of language Can use a limited number Can write an essay or
grammatical control. Does not make to be able to give clear descriptions, of linking words and report which develops an
errors which cause misunderstand- express viewpoints on most general cohesive devices to link argument, giving some
ings. Has a good command of simple topics and for matters connected to his/her sentences into reasons in support of or
language structures and some com- his/her field, using some complex clear, well-organised, and against a particular point
plex grammatical forms, although sentence forms to do so. Can vary coherent text, though of view and explaining
he/she tends to use complex struc- formulation to avoid frequent repe- there may be some the advantages and
tures rigidly with some inaccuracy. tition, Can produce the appropriate “jumpiness” in a longer disadvantages of various
Can produce clearly intelligible con- collocations of many words in most text. Can structure longer options. Can synthesise
tinuous writing, which follows stan- context fairly systematically. Lan- texts in clear, logical information and argu-
dard layout and paragraphing con- guage lacks, however, expressiveness paragraphs. ments from a number of
ventions. Spelling and punctua- and idiomaticity and use of more sources.
tion are reasonably accurate but may complex forms is still stereotypic.
show signs of mother tongue influ-
ence.

B1.2 Communicates with reasonable ac- Has a sufficient range of language Can introduce a counter- Can write short, simple
curacy in familiar contexts; generally to describe unpredictable situations, argument in a simple dis- essays on topics of inter-
good control though with noticeable explain the main points in an idea cursive text (e.g. with est. Can write a text on a
mother tongue influence. Errors oc- or problem with reasonable precision ‘however’). topical subject of personal
cur, but it is clear what he/she is try- and express thoughts on abstract or interest, using simple
ing to express. Can produce continu- cultural topics such as music and language to list advan-
ous writing which is generally intelli- films. tages and disadvantages,
gible throughout. Spelling, punctua- give and justify his/her
tion, and layout are accurate enough opinion. Can summarise,
to be followed most of the time. report and give his/her
opinion about accumu-
lated factual information
on familiar routine and
non-routine matters
within his/her field with
some confidence.
B1.1 Uses reasonably accurately a reper- Has enough language to get by, Can link a series of Can write very brief
toire of frequently used ’routines’ and with sufficient vocabulary to express shorter, discrete simple reports to a standard
patterns associated with more com- him/herself with some circumlo- elements into a con- conventionalised format,
mon situations. Occasionally makes cutions on familiar topics such as nected, linear sequence of which pass on routine
errors that the reader usually can in- family, hobbies and interests, work, points. Can form longer factual information and
terpret correctly on the basis of the travel, and current events, but lexical sentences and link them state reasons for actions.
context. Can produce continuous limitations cause repetition and together using a limited Can present a topic in a
writing which is generally intelligible even difficulty with formulation at number of cohesive short report or poster,
throughout. Spelling, punctuation, times. devices, e.g. in a story. using photographs and
and layout are accurate enough to be Can make simple, logical short blocks of text.
followed most of the time. paragraph breaks in a
longer text.

A2 Uses simple structures correctly, Uses basic sentence patterns with Can write a series of sim- Can give his/her impres-
but still systematically makes basic memorized phrases, groups of a ple phrases and sentences sions and opinions in
mistakes—for example tends to few words and formulae in order to linked with simple con- writing about topics of
mix up tenses and forget to mark communicate limited information nectors like “and”, “but”, personal interest (e.g.
agreement. It is usually clear what mainly in everyday situations. “because”, and “then”. lifestyles and culture,
he/she is trying to say, but errors He/she will generally have to com- stories), using basic
may sometimes cause misunder- promise the message and search everyday vocabulary and
standings. Can copy short sentences for words. Has sufficient vocabu- expressions.
on everyday subject—e.g. directions lary to conduct routine, everyday
how to get somewhere. Can write transactions involving familiar sit-
with reasonable phonetic accuracy uations and topics. Has a sufficient
(but not necessarily fully standard vocabulary for the expression of
spelling) short words that are in basic communicative needs. Has a
his/her oral vocabulary. sufficient vocabulary for coping with
simple survival needs.

118
D The Sixteen Most Sinister Scribal Sins
Or, a list of the most frequently detected language-related problem areas in academic
writing...
The list below uses the categorisation following the CEFR dimensions of Accuracy, Range, and Coherence
to link it to assessment criteria more easily. Note that, despite what the numbering appears to imply, the
ordering of the list items in each category below is entirely random, so they are not ordered by frequency
or importance, for instance. The numbering was chosen for easier referencing.

Accuracy:
1 Incorrect word order—Most often, this concerns a mix-up of (1) grammatical subject and
verb or (2) auxiliary verb and main verb, but it could also be (3) incorrectly placed adverbs.
2 Definite (the) and indefinite articles (a/an)—how and when (and when not) to use them.
3 Subject–verb disagreement—If a subject has a certain number (say, third person singular),
then the verb form must match that. In short, both “It go” and “They goes” are incorrect.
This problem is seen most often in sentences with long, elaborate grammatical subjects or
sentences with many interrupting adverbials. Is it “The group of Elvis impersonators have
left the building” or “The group of Elvis impersonators has left the building”?
4 Count nouns vs. non-count nouns and their modifiers—Phrases like “the amount of
books” or “fewer funding” are incorrect
5 Verb tense problems—Because the formation and use of the tenses differs largely from
language to language, this is an area that mistakes are very often made in. The most
problematic are:
• mixing up past simple and present perfect: “saw” versus “have seen”, respectively.
• mixing up simple and continuous tenses: “sees” versus “is seeing”, respectively.
6 Gerund–infinitive mix-up—This happens where verbs are combined. For instance, “He
looks forward to seeing you” vs. “He looks forward to see you”, the latter being incorrrect.
Another example is “He stopped to do it” vs. “He stopped doing it”, where both are
grammatically correct, yet carry different meanings.
7 Adjective-adverb mix-up—In some languages, like German or Dutch, these mostly have
the same form (e.g. realistisch); in English, they’re usually different (e.g. “realistic” vs.
“realistically”). Adjectives are used to qualify nouns and pronouns, adverbs are used to
qualify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, and entire sentences.
8 Sentence fragments—These are incomplete sentences, which means they miss a subject,
verb, or complement. Very often, this involves subclauses without a main clause. Although
this is sometimes acceptable in creative writing. :-) They are unacceptable in business
writing, however.
9 Punctuation problems—Trivial in the eyes of some students, incorrectly placed
punctuation may lead to confusion, misinterpretation, and sometimes just a waste of time,
forcing the reader to read a sentence more than once, or twice, or even more often before
understanding it. Some of the most frequently occurring punctuation errors are:
• comma splices or other run-on sentences

119
 The Sixteen Most Sinister Scribal Sins

• Missing introductory commas (after sentence-introductory material)

• Missing coordinator commas (before coordinating conjunctions between
independent clauses)
• Problems with relative—defining and non-defining—clauses or phrases (very often
involving who(m), which, or that)
• Abused or neglected apostrophes
• The ‘subject–verb comma’ (often seen in the English of Dutch and German writers
when a comma is placed between a long grammatical subject and the finite verb)
10 Spelling errors—Again, trivial in the eyes of some (“As long as we understand what it says,
right?”), spelling errors, including mistakes in capitalisation, may in fact sometimes lead to
confusion or embarrassment even. Not forgetting to activate a spell checker in your
software—as well as activating the right language package—just may make a tremendous
difference. Spellcheckers may not even spot an incorrectly used homophone;
weather/whether or not spelling is rite/right/write may depend on the context.

Range:
10 General vocabulary range—Let’s just say that an extremely basic vocabulary “kills” the
academic or professional feel of a text. Expanding the vocabulary range used will remedy
that. The minimum range for a GPJ report is at C1 level.
11 Register/style—Even if the range in general is very broad, an incorrect register (the type of
vocabulary) may seriously harm the “mood” of the text. This may occur through the use of
• first- and second-person pronouns: I/me/my/mine, we/us/ours/our, you/your/yours.
• colloquial language: the language of home, the street, etc. (“kind of”, “get”, “a lot
of”, etc.)
• direct questions: Especially in essays and reports, the author should not directly
address the reader; the reader cannot answer back anyway. Even rhetorical
questions had best be reserved for more journalistic or creative writing.
• Phrasal verbs: using multi-word verbs (with preposition) where a single-word verb
will do (think about vs. consider, leave out vs. omit, put up with vs. tolerate, etc.)
12 Verbose, grandiloquent, circumlocutory, loquacious writing—No idea what it says? Then
you get my point. It’s about using too much, often too flowery and diffuse language when
more concise, less ‘fancy’ writing will suffice.

Coherence:
13 Paragraphing—No clear and/or consistent use of paragraphing.
14 Linking/transitions—Lack of, too little, or incorrect use of transitional words or phrases.
15 Unclear pronoun reference—Words such as it, they, this, etc. being used ambiguously
(unclear what they refer to)
16 Misplaced or dangling modifiers—If a modifier is incorrectly linked to a sentence,
modifying the wrong word: “Hoping to offer clarity on the matter and resolve the current
situation, the letter was distributed to all committee members.”—It’s usually not letters
that do the hoping.

120
E Table of Common Linking Words and Phrases
The following pages contain an overview in tabular form of the most commonly used signposting words
and phrases in written academic English. They are also known as linkers, linking words and phrases, or
transitional words and phrases.

The linking words in the table are organised along two dimension: the rows represent 17 different
functions, which are then subdivided along three columns, representing various grammatical categories.
The functions are the following:

1. to list (in order of time or importance) 8. to give a possibility (p. 125)

(p. 122) 9. to explain or restate (p. 125)
2. to add information, to add similar points 10. to give an example (p. 125)
(p. 122) 11. to indicate place (p. 126)
3. to show a condition (p. 123) 12. to indicate manner and extent (of distance
4. to give extra information on people, or frequency) (p. 126)
animals, things, time, or place (p. 123) 13. to give a reason or purpose (p. 127)
5. to introduce that clauses, if/whether clauses, 14. to give a result or consequence (p. 128)
and question clauses (p. 123) 15. to refer to source material or personal
6. to show opposites/contrasts (I): “X but Y” perspective (p. 128)
(p. 124) 16. to emphasise a point (p. 129)
7. to show opposites/contrasts (II): “X is not 17. to conclude (p. 129)
true; Y is true” (p. 124)

The various grammatical categories are adverbials, which include adverbs (single words; e.g. “meanwhile”)
as well as adverb phrases (e.g. “in the meantime”); coordinating conjunctions (e.g. “and”, “but”, etc.), which
link main clauses to one another, and subordinating conjunctions (e.g. “while”, “because”, etc.), which link
subclauses to main clauses; and a final miscellaneous category, which includes signposts in the form of
other word types such as nouns (e.g. “example”, “result”, etc.), verbs (e.g. “to affect”, “to conclude”, etc.),
and adjectives (e.g. “first”, “another”, etc.).

Every category cell gives a set of linking words and phrases that match that particular type of meaning
and that work in the same grammatical context. Each set of linkers is complemented by one or two
example sentences.

Additionally, all/most/many of the conjunctive words and phrases are can be linked to a certain CEFR
level. These labels are based on the English Vocabulary Profile, a project by, among others, the University
of Cambridge and the British Council (University of Cambridge, 2015). You can find these levels at the
English Vocabulary Profile website: [Link]

N.B. As the meaning of each individual linking word or phrase is not given, the student is advised to
cross-reference the word or phrase with its corresponding entry in a learner’s dictionary in order to
ensure it is used appropriately. For example, “because of” cannot always be replaced by “due to”—these
two prepositional phrases have rather different meanings and are far from interchangeable.

121
122

Type: Adverbials: Coordinators & Subordinators: Miscellaneous:

Adverbs and adverb phrases are placed before, after, or in Coordinating conjunctions connect main (independent) Other word types (adjectives, prepositions, verbs) follow
the middle of sentences—usually followed by a comma clauses. They are officially preceded by a comma, but it the rules of the word category in question—check a
when placed at the beginning of a sentence (sometimes may be left out in short and balanced sentences. learner’s dictionary for specifics on usage.
following a semi-colon to create a stronger link to the Subordinating conjunctions introduce subclauses (de-
previous sentence), and often preceded by a comma if pendent clauses) so that they may be connected (at the
used at the end of a sentence. beginning, middle, or end) to main clauses—generally,
they do not take a comma if the subclause follows the
main clause.

Table of Common Linking Words and Phrases

To list (in order afterwards, afterward; finally; first (of all), sec- Subordinators: after; as, just as; as long as; as the first, the second, the third, ...; another; the
of time or impor- ond, third, ...; first and foremost; in the mean- soon as; before; since; until; when; whenever; last; before; after; during; the next; the final
tance) time, meanwhile; next; subsequently; then; after while
Exx.
that; last, last of all; more/most importantly;
Exx. - The last hurdle to be overcome is the. . .
more/most significantly; above all; most of all
- After the plans have been approved, the - Subsequent plans will be drawn up during
Exx. head of HRM will. . . the autumn break.
- First, we need to consider the financial - Working conditions have improved since
side. the plant in Lancashire has been. . .
- In the meantime, further production will
be stopped.

To add informa- also; besides; furthermore; in addition/addition- Coordinators: alike, like, just likewise; as, just as; as well; as well
tion, add similar ally; likewise; moreover; similarly and; both ... and ...; neither ... nor ...; not only as; compared with or to; in comparison with or
points Exx.
... but also ...; or to; to be similar (to); too; another X; an additional
X; a second X; as well as X; a similar X; a final X
- Additionally, supplies have dwindled dras- Exx.
tically. - All buses will be confiscated, and the Exx.
- The finance department has also consid- problem that will then need to be tack- - The plan is similar to last year’s market-
ered. . . led is. . . ing proposal.
- Not only have they contributed signifi- - It is progressive as well as economical.
cantly, but they are also continuously. . .
Continued on the next page...
 Type: Adverbials: Coordinators & Subordinators: Miscellaneous:

To show a condi- Subordinators:

tion if; unless

Exx.
- We should only proceed if the circum-
stances are right.
- We should proceed unless too many fac-
tors are uncertain.

To give extra Subordinators:

information on who; whom; whose; that; which; when; where
people, animals, Exx.
things, time, or - The committee first interviewed the em-
place ployee who was responsible.
- Mr Philips, whose letters had been pub-
lished earlier, decided not to attend.

To introduce Subordinators:
that clauses, that; whether (or not); if (... or not); who, who-
if/whether ever, whom; which, what, where; when, why,
clauses, and how; how much/many; how long, how often, etc.

question clauses Exx.

- The majority of the respondents said that
they would not buy the product.
- Mr Smith will determine whether or not a
raise is justified.
- R&D will investigate how this could have
happened.
Continued on the next page...
123
124

Type: Adverbials: Coordinators & Subordinators: Miscellaneous:

To show oppo- in contrast; however; nevertheless; nonetheless; Coordinators: despite X; in spite of X; instead of; rather than
sites/contrast (I): on the other hand; still but; yet (more contrast)
Exx.
“X but Y” Exx. Exx. - Despite its shortcomings, the guide of-
- It may be doable; however, certain pre- - It was brief but it was informative. fered a considerable amount of useful infor-
cautions will have to be. . . - It was useful, but more in-depth practical mation.
- Most community colleges do not have dor- information could have been provided. - It should be maintained and developed

Table of Common Linking Words and Phrases

mitories; in contrast, most four-year col- - The team has met nine times in the past rather than sold to the first bidder.
leges do. three weeks, yet no minutes have been pro- - It was decided that the department needs
duced for any of the meetings. a new head instead of a new structure.

Subordinators:
although; even though; though; despite the fact
that; while; whereas

Exx.
- Production went according to plan de-
spite the fact that the lack of funds had
not been resolved yet.
- Whereas a majority of staff members have
shown interest, the project will be shelved
indefinitely.

To show oppo- instead; on the contrary; rather; instead (‘as a

sites/contrasts substitute’)
(II): “X is not Exx.
true; Y is true” - The changes were not for the better; on
the contrary, an industrial psychologist had
to be reeled in.
- They had planned an economy drive; in-
stead, the budget was exceeded even more.
Continued on the next page...
 Type: Adverbials: Coordinators & Subordinators: Miscellaneous:
To give a possibil- alternatively; on the other hand; otherwise Coordinators:
ity Exx.
or; either ... or; whether ... or

- Offenders will be barred; alternatively, Exx.

they may be reported to the local authori- - Question is whether the customers will be
ties. most interested in quality or service.
- Lego had to withdraw its latest kit; other- - The company will either remain in Lon-
wise, they would have been sued for negli- don or move to Amsterdam.
gence.

To explain or in other words; that is

restate Exx.
- The average level among the employees
was C1.1; in other words, more than suffi-
cient to handle the incoming complaints.
- Item 30256 proved unpopular; that is, less
than 15 percent of the items had been sold.

To give an exam- for example; to exemplify; for instance; to illus- such as X; an example of X; exemplify, illustrate
ple trate,
Exx.
Exx. - The following recent developments and
- . . . an assessment for any possible environ- projects exemplify this strategy.
mental impact from your operations; for - financial products such as savings ac-
instance, the presence of noxious, possibly counts and fixed-income life insurance.
hazardous waste chemicals. . .
- To illustrate, this report will show a de-
tailed cost-benefit analysis.
Continued on the next page...
125
126

Type: Adverbials: Coordinators & Subordinators: Miscellaneous:

To indicate place Subordinators:

where; wherever; anywhere; everywhere

Exx.
- They marched to Wickham, where they
halted a few days.
- Passers-by will encounter the brand any-

Table of Common Linking Words and Phrases

where they look.

To indicate man- Subordinators:

ner and extent (just) as; as if, as though; as [adjective] as; as [ad-
(distance or fre- verb] as
quency) Exx.
- They love the attention, as most members
of the species do.
- They looked as if they had been called.
- The respondents had to mention as many
different brands as they could think of.
Continued on the next page...
 Type: Adverbials: Coordinators & Subordinators: Miscellaneous:

To give a reason for this reason Coordinators: as a result of X; because of X; due to X

or purpose Ex.
for
Exx.
- For this reason, each cell contains only Ex. - As a result of this outcome, Cameron re-
three examples. - No gas should be wasted, for it is very signed as prime minister.
expensive these days. - The lordship collapsed due to to a mix-
Subordinators: ture of internal disunity and external pres-
as; because; since; so that; in order that sure.

Exx.
- Lundia furniture is quite popular because
of the durability of its material.
- The fences were updated and improved
so that/in order that no more sheep would
escape.
Continued on the next page...
127
128

Type: Adverbials: Coordinators & Subordinators: Miscellaneous:

To give a result or as a result; consequently; therefore; thus; hence Coordinators: the cause of X; the reason of X; to have an effect
consequence Exx.
so on X; to affect X

- The material had been strongly underes- Ex. Exx.

timated by all; as a result, fail rates were - Natural water resources are running low, - It may have an effect on customer satis-
through the roof. so water use in the entertainment industry faction rates.
- Most bus drivers thus faced a rather bleak should be curbed. - It may affect customer satisfaction rates.

Table of Common Linking Words and Phrases

Christmas. Subordinators:
so [adjective] that; so [adverb] that; such a(n)
[noun] that; so much/many/little/few [noun] that

Exx.
- Passengers will be so careful that the
industry may experience a drop in ticket
sales.
- It is experienced as such a convenience
that alternatives are generally not consid-
ered anymore.

To refer to source according to X; as X explains; in my opinion to believe (that); to feel (that); to think (that); to
material (inf.); in my view (inf.) consider (that); to be of the opinion that

Exx. Exx.
- According to Fraser, none of the existing - Most respondents considered the first
models can explain the deviations (2008, flavour to be “too sweet”.
p. 35). - Smith & Jones (2002) believed that the
- As the article clearly explains, theoreti- Chebyshev linkage construction was prob-
cally it should simply not have occurred. lematic in this case.
Continued on the next page...
 Type: Adverbials: Coordinators & Subordinators: Miscellaneous:

To emphasise a indeed; in fact

point Ex.
- The importance of text structuring is
underestimated; indeed, most first-year-
student writing is more akin to freewriting
than to professional writing.

To conclude all in all; in brief; in short; to conclude; to sum- The conclusion can be drawn that...; It can/may
marise; in conclusion; to summarise; in summar; be concluded that...
for these reasons,
Exx.
Exx. - It may be concluded that deviant work-
- In short, the argument of frequent fraud place behaviour may lead to higher
in parapsychology seems more politically turnover rates.
than evidentially founded. - One can conclude that an open-office
- For these reasons, Knuth designed the workspace is not always conducive to a
language more than four decades ago. productive work environment.

(Adapted from Oshima & Hogue, 2006, pp. 291–299)

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F Extra business communication samples
This final appendix offers some business writing samples, ranging from fairly basic and brief to longer
and complex: the old-fashioned yet still effective memo (p. 131ff), business emails (p. 132ff), business
letters (p. 137ff), writing for meetings (p. 139), and business reports (p. 141). They should be studied for
their use of layout and writing style, and can with that purpose in mind be used as writing templates.

F.1 The memo

Actual physical, printed memos as an internal means of communication are onsidered outdated by some,
but some companies still use memos for the simple fact that they draw more attention than the
ubiquitous email.

MEMO

To: All staff

From: Willem Swinney
Date: 26 July
Subject: Copyright warning

Please note that all use of material from external sources

should be carefully sourced and checked before published or
shared with external parties.

Figures (illustrations, graphs, photographs, etc.) and tables

from outside sources should not be copied into our material
without proper citations.

Also, for use of other external material (paragraphed text or

entire pages), please consult with our copyright expert, Mrs
Salmond, in room Q5.236.

As we do not want a repeat of last year’s plagiarism

fine (Peregrine Books), it is expected that this matter is
taken seriously by all.

Your co-operation is much appreciated!

WS

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F.2 Business emails

F.2.1 Email sample #1: general
(adapted from [Link]

From: accountspayable@[Link]
To: [Link]@[Link]
CC: Accounts Payable
BCC:
Subject: Request for copy of invoice

Dear Ms. Smith:

I’m Francis Grouse from the Accounts Payable department at Hornberg Holdings Ltd. I understand
that we have an invoice outstanding with your company since July 1, 2010. This email is to request you
for a copy of the invoice, so that we can clear it for payment at the earliest.

First of all, apologies for the delay in payment. The accounts team has been reshuffled and this case
came to my notice just an hour ago and I am writing to you immediately. The invoice in question is
invoice number 246849, for Mr. Coot who stayed at your hotel for a period of 4 days. That is, from June
28, 2010 to July 1, 2010.

We cannot seem to locate the invoice, so I request you to send me a copy of the invoice, so that I can
issue the payment right away. Please send it to the email address mentioned below and mark it for my
attention. Once again, sincere apologies for the delay.

Thank you,

Francis Grouse (Mrs),

Senior Executive
Accounts Payable,
Hornberg Holdings Ltd

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 Business emails

F.2.2 Email sample #2: response email

A short but appropriate response email:

From: accountscredit@[Link]
To: accountspayable@[Link]
CC: Accounts Credit
BCC:
Subject: FAO-LMN: Copy of invoice

Dear Mrs. Grouse:

This is in reference to the email that you sent me this morning. First off, I would like to thank you for
taking the initiative of asking for the invoice copy.

As requested by you, I have attached a copy of the invoice 246849. I’m sure you have our bank details.

Thank you,

Jane Smith,
Accounts Credit,
Golden Goose Hotels Group

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F.2.3 Email sample #3: Reply to product enquiry

(adapted from Emmerson, 2004, p. 35):

From: [email address sender]

To: [email address recipient]
CC: [copy to other relevant email address]
BCC:
Subject: Inquiry scanner product line

Dear Mr X,

Thank you for your email inquiring about our products.

We have three optical pen scanners in our range: the 400C, 600C, and 800C. A pen scanner is like a
hand-held scanner; you scan in text from a page and download it into your PC or PDA later. The 800C
is our best selling model and has the widest range of functions, including a translating dictionary. The
600C is similar to the 800C, but has less memory - it can only store 1,000 pages of text, compared to
2,000 pages for the 800C. The 400C is cheaper than the other two models and doesn’t have as much
memory or functionality. It’s a more basic model, but its ability to scan text is just the same. You will
find full product and price details in the attached document.

In your email, you asked about our terms of payment for large orders. Clearly, the bigger your order,
the more discount we can give. Our normal minimum order is 500 units, but for a first-time customer,
we would accept an order as small as 200 units. It would be better to discuss all this in more detail at a
later date, but I’m sure you’ll find our terms are very competitive in comparison to other suppliers.
We’re confident that these pens will sell very well in your market, and customer feedback on the 800C
is amongst the best we have ever had.

If you have any other questions, please do no hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards,

John Doe.

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 Business emails

F.2.4 Email sample #4: email invitation (informal)

Email invitation from company with informal corporate culture (adapted from Emmerson, 2004, p. 26):

From: ...
To: [email address recipient]
CC: [copy to other relevant email address]
BCC:
Subject: Inquiry scanner product line

Dear Mary,

I’m writing to invite you to a meeting here on 14 May. I’ve arranged it to bring together all our colleages
working in Central Europe to share experiences about working in this market. It’d be great to see you.

The meeting will last all day and will have an informal agenda — you won’t need to write a report for it
or make a presentation. There’ll be plenty to eat and drink during the day.

Hope to see you in May! Please let me know if you can make it asap.

Thank you,

Best regards,

Stephanie

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F.2.5 Email sample #5: email invitation (formal)

Email invitation from company with formal corporate culture (adapted from Emmerson, 2004, p. 26):

From: ...
To: [email address recipient]
CC: [copy to other relevant email address]
BCC:
Subject: Inquiry scanner product line

Dear Ms Schmidt,

We would be very pleased if you could come to a meeting here on 14 May. It has been arranged to bring
together all our colleagues working in Central Europe in order to share experiences about working in
this market. Your attendance will be very welcome.

The meeting will last all day and will have an informal agenda - it will not be necessary to write a report
for it or make a presentation. Refreshments will be provided during the day.

Your presence at the meeting would be very useful. Please let me know if you will be able to attend, as
soon as possible.

Thank you,

Best regards,

Stephanie Barrowman

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 Business letters

F.3 Business letters

F.3.1 Business letter I (UK)

(adapted from "Sample Business Letter", n.d.)

Dr Michael Smith
123 ABC St.
New York City, NY 99999
April 17, 2016

Dr Patricia Brown
University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center
777 Medical Dr.
Los Angeles, CA 11111

Dear Dr Brown,

I am the chairman of the 2016 Metropolitan Medical Conference that is being held this
year in Miami, Florida on July 5, 2016. I write to invite you to present your
groundbreaking research on beta blockers with our conference participants and invited
guests. A 30-minute discussion of your work along with a 20-minute question and
answer session would add so much to the intellectual landscape of our annual medical
conference.

The Metropolitan Medical Association would be pleased to cover your travel and lodging
expenses while you visit the conference, in addition to providing a per diem budget
during your stay.

Please reply with your answer as soon as you are able so that we may begin making
arrangements. I encourage you to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Kind regards,

Dr Michael Smith

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F.3.2 Business letter II (US)

(adapted from "Sample Business Letter", n.d.)

Dr. Michael Smith

123 ABC St.
New York City, NY 99999
April 17, 2016

Dr. Patricia Brown

University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center
777 Medical Dr.
Los Angeles, CA 11111

Dear Dr. Brown:

I am the chairman of the 2016 Metropolitan Medical Conference that is being held this
year in Miami, Florida on July 5, 2016. I write to invite you to present your
groundbreaking research on beta blockers with our conference participants and invited
guests. A 30-minute discussion of your work along with a 20-minute question and
answer session would add so much to the intellectual landscape of our annual medical
conference.

The Metropolitan Medical Association would be pleased to cover your travel and lodging
expenses while you visit the conference, in addition to providing a per diem budget
during your stay.

Please reply with your answer as soon as you are able so that we may begin making
arrangements. I encourage you to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Kind regards,

signature

Dr. Michael Smith

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 Writing for meetings

F.4 Writing for meetings

F.4.1 Agenda for business meetings

AGENDA
Meeting: SPQP third quarterly departmental meeting: HR
Date: April 31, 2019
Time: 10.00–13.00
Location: Henson Building, room 3.25
Invitees: William Blake (chair), Michael Jackson (secretary), Wojciech Kilar, Steve Jobs,
Galileo Galilei, Ken Watanabe, Winnie Mandela, and Charles Stuart.
Guest: Peter Wilkins of WNYX

I. Opening
a) Introduction by William (chair)
b) Meeting goals: Review previous meeting minutes and outstanding
business item. Discuss new business items.
II. Attendance
a) Present
b) Absent with notification
c) Absent without notification
III. Agenda
a) Requests for additions
b) Vote to approve final agenda
IV. Minutes from last meeting (December 19, 2019; Michael)
a) Final opportunity for amendments
b) Vote to approve minutes
V. Old business
a) Progress new training programme (Ken)
b) Conclusion to job application protocol analysis (Wojciech)
VI. New business
a) Welcome new HR officer Charles Stuart
b) Upcoming: workplace safety white book
c) Departmental activity day 13 July
VII. Any Other Business
VIII. Closing/Adjournment

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F.4.2 Action minutes

Minutes of the Management Committee Meeting

Date: 7 April
Venue: Building B, room 10-213
Participants: Jim Scarfield, Andrea Hevitsun, Robbie Gibson, Paul
Keown, Apologies: Tony Barton

Point Discussion Action By

1 Management We agreed changes to the management AH 26 April
pay review pay review. AH will include these when
the review is presented at the next
meeting of the finance committee.
2 Sales projections We agreed that we need to produce JS and PK 10 May
next quarter better sales figures for the next quarter
after the poor results so far this year. JS
and PK will spend the next month
personally visiting our top clients to
check the reasons for the business
downturn.
3 Recruitment We decided not to do any recruiting over RG 20 April
and capital the next quarter. However, we will buy
expenditure the new accounting software to increase
our efficiency in invoicing customers, if
we can get a bigger discount from the
software supplier.
4 Company bonus Because of the present financial AH 3 May
scheme situation, a bonus scheme can only work
if it is linked to productivity. AH will
review different possibilities for discussion
with the finance committee and report to
us at the next meeting.

Next meeting: 3 May 14.00

Venue: Building B, Room 10–213

Adapted from Cotton, Falvey, & Kent (2011, p.130)

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F.5 Report types

F.5.1 Memo report
Memo reports are a special type of short report that bridge the gap between reports and one-page memos.
Like the latter, they are intended for internal communication, which makes memo conventions suitable
rather than the more conventional (and more formal) report layout. Memo reports are also characterised
by more concise writing and the way headings are used. They can be used for progress reports, proposals,
recommendations, short studies, white papers, and persuasive reports (Howe Writing Iniative, 2013).

Memo Report

To: Board of Directors of Beatty

From: Lisa Ogowengyo
Date: Thursday, 10 December 2009
Subject: Devise a strategy to rescue the Shanghai project

The project manager and the project sponsor met to discuss the problems the Beatty
Shanghai project is currently facing. The major two problems are delays and budget
shortages. The two project managers, Jim Kuipers and Holly Wensleydale, and the two
project sponsors, Rosemary Johnson and Lisa Ogowengyo, participated in the decision
process. The following sections of this report contain the main points of discussion.

Background of the project

Currently, there is a building boom in China that will continue for at least 20 years. For the
Shanghai project, Beatty used nothing but the best products in their project including a
three-phase housing development, as well as a shopping and leisure centre. The team
contributing to the project consists of developers from Canada, architects from Germany,
and contractors and structural engineers from Shanghai.

Reasons for the review

Next to being afraid that the budget for the project will be exceeded by 16 per cent, the
major problem that needs to be reviewed are the delays and the causes for delays. The
first reason for this is the redesign that took three weeks to reach to contractor. Another
delay was due to road works by the government. Hence, larger equipment could not reach
the site for a few weeks. Because of financial difficulties, and another project hindering
them, the building contractors were not able to be ready for the new start date. Additionally,
when the steel delivery was postponed, the suppliers began charging more money, since
the steel price in China is rapidly rising. Finally, some of the delays were caused by a heat
wave over the summer.

Key findings
Firstly, our team discussed on how to eliminate problems between the groups involved in
the project: architects, developers, contractors, and structural engineers. When talking to
each of them, we found that there is a major discrepancy in terms of quality. The
developers do not have as high a quality standard as the Germans and Chinese do.
Furthermore, effective communication, which is already hindered by distance, is disrupted

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because each team uses different ways of communicating. While some Germans and
Chinese prefer to use e-mail, telephone, and paper-based systems, the Canadian team
uses an Internet-based application.
Secondly, we talked about what could be done to shorten the time of delay. We
decided that the deadline would be cut down to one and a half months of delays, instead of
two months. Also, we would ask the government if they could stop the road works that
caused the delays for contractors and suppliers over those one and a half months.

Recommendations for action by sponsors, team members and project stakeholders

Our first recommendation would be to establish a general quality standard before the
second building phase starts. Secondly, the groups should try using the same channels of
communication. Ideally, an important channel would be the internet platform designed by
the Canadians for this project alone. Moreover, bad weather conditions must be taken into
consideration by everyone since they cannot be changed. Finally, to bridge the differences
between all groups, it might be of use to create the position of a manager that all workers
can communicate their problems to.

Immediate action plan

We will try to prevent delays due to redesign by setting a fine that the architects will have to
pay if this happens again. The project sponsors will determine the terms of this fine.
Concerning the road works, we will have to contact the government and ask them
when the works will be finished, and if they would suspend their works for one and half
months. For the second building phase, a good schedule must be designed so that the
heavy material arrives on time, even when there are still road works. The project managers
will contact the government and design the schedule.
Most of the delays caused by the contractor and suppliers were due to the road
works, so there will be no immediate action plan. If, however, the other project our
contractor is involved in next to the Beatty Shanghai project will interfere with our project in
the future, we will start searching for a new sub-contractor. We will try to overcome the
problems with supplies by building some more storage space for heavy materials. Our
project sponsors now have to determine the amount of money that could be spent on the
construction of storage space.
If our recommendations are administered by the different groups and if the
immediate action plan is realized, the first phase will probably be finished in one and a half
months, and future delays will be prevented.

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F.5.2 Short report

The difference between a ‘standard’ report and a ‘short’ report is merely practical due to the difference in
length. As a consequence, short reports generally do not need a table of contents and section numbers,
sometimes even lack a separate title page (if the report itself is only one page long), and tend to have a very
concise executive summary.

Turning the page…

An evaluation of FlakyFolios’
brand strength, web
presence, and business
activities

John Smith (123456) @Hanze International Business School, Groningen

Word count: 888
Date: 30 February 2021

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Turning the page: Evaluating FlakyFolios’ brand, web, and business activities

Executive Summary
This report has been commissioned by the publisher FlakyFolios in order to look into different solutions
on how to revamp their company and enforce a new strategical approach. The information for this report
has been collected both primary research such as interviews and surveys, and secondary research (books,
articles and journals). Both research methods have concluded that the company is facing serious setbacks
due to falling behind the new social media trends. As a result, FlakyFolios is failing to distinguish their
brand among their competitors.

Introduction
FlakyFolios is a publishing company that has been on the market for long period of time. In recent years,
however, the company has had to face financial challenges. The aim of this report is to investigate findings
on how FlakyFolios could remodel its brand image and overall strategy in order to reestablish themselves
in the short and long term by utilizing the potential of the current media landscape.
This report will conclude that there has been a shift in the publishing market that will require
FlakyFolios to go through an internal change. Finally, it will offer recommendations on how to successfully
implement the found ideas from the research.

Methodology
Internal and external data has been collected using qualitative research methods. Most of the findings
have been compiled using primary research. This includes numerous interviews with potential
stakeholders such as writers and customers, as well as a conducted survey among the target customers
of FlakyFolios. The rest of the information was gathered using secondary research such as journals,
articles, and additional work on media theory. In addition, case studies have been analyzed in order to
discuss the performance of the company’s competitors on the market and how FlakyFolios compares to
them.

Findings
After a thorough research process, PowWowConsulting has found that there has been a significant change
in the structure of the company’s target market segment. Compared to a decade ago, the current
demographic of the target customer base profile consists of two age groups – 18-24 and 25-34 years old.
This contrasts the past group of only 25-34 years old (Tobin, Moss, & English, 2020).

John Smith (123456) 1

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Turning the page: Evaluating FlakyFolios’ brand, web, and business activities

In light of the provided information, FlakyFolios has taken into account the current growth in the
use of social media as a marketing tool in the age of technology. The company is broadly discussing the
idea of launching a strong social media presence in order to be able to keep up with their customer base.
However, there is a major dilemma within the company as to how to approach this matter. On the one
hand, FlakyFolios has no staff with experience in social media management. On the other hand, the
company shows no intention of outsourcing this area to an outsider organization. In addition, the
company would rather not withdraw from using traditional marketing means such as television,
brochures, and newspaper advertising (Croddebosch, Mansfield, & Rue, 2020). Interviews with possible
future customers of FlakyFolios indicate that engagement with the company’s brand will gradually
increase if they achieve significant social media presence.
Another finding that has been discovered during the conducted research is that FlakyFolios needs
to adjust the balance between their B2B and B2C marketing strategies. Studies show that B2B (also known
as business-to-business) marketing is less favorable than B2C (also referred to as business-to-consumer)
strategies (Gonzales-Delgado et al., 2020, pp. 15). Currently, the company is focusing more on business-
to-business marketing which serves as a considerable disadvantage due to the customers feeling
neglected and ignored (Raven, 2020).
It is generally accepted that publishing companies will face struggles in the upcoming years due
to the increased use of technologies in the current century (Papagiannis, 2016). This could also explain
the company’s unfavorable financial situation over the past few years. However, according to secondary
research, FlakyFolios is currently in 6th place among 10 other competitors on the market. This suggests
that “other companies manage to make profit and continue operating and leading the market”
(Gooseberry, 2019, p.123). After consulting with public documents from the competitors’ databases, it
has been revealed that other companies have implemented flourishing marketing strategies to take
advantage of their social media platforms. As a result, FlakyFolios has fallen behind the current trends.

Conclusion
The findings appear to indicate that FlakyFolios is facing the problem of managing their social media
marketing segment. It is pointed out that the company is struggling to find a solution on this matter,
however, it is vital that they find a way to accommodate their new customer base. Furthermore, the
organization needs to update their marketing policy in order to be able to accumulate leverage over their
competitors and also retain their target consumers.

John Smith (123456) 2

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Turning the page: Evaluating FlakyFolios’ brand, web, and business activities

Recommendations
It is evident that there has been a drastic change in the publishing market trends over the past decade. In
view of that, FlakyFolios needs to adjust to them in order to be able to satisfy their customers’ needs.
If the company is unwilling to outsource their marketing department to another organization, then they
should hire marketing experts that will take over their social network and assert a strong social media
presence.
One solution that would help FlakyFolios surpass their competitors is to boost their profile image.
The way to approach this would be to implement an action plan that includes regular discounts,
competitions for different prizes and increasing the benefits that frequent clients have.

References
Croddebosch, C. C., Mansfield, B. S., & Rue, J. M. de la (1980, April 1). Foundation principles of
FlakyFolios Ltd. [Link]

Gonzalez-Delgado, M., Vandommele, K. P., Posthumus, S., Delano, F., & Thomas, B. T. (2020). On the
efficiency of connections: A triple-tier analysis of product flow and marketing tools. Journal of
Ingvaeonic Industry Issues, 2020(3), 15.

Gooseberry, C. B. (2019). Strategies for social media: Marketing tools in the battle for the bottom line
(5th ed.). Balmy & Wobbles Press.

Papagiannis, D. (2016, February 14). A book of revelation: The inevitable downfall of print publishing
[Video]. Youtube. [Link]

Raven, S. (2020, August 13). Will FlakyFolios find fresh focus? Daily Enquirer, 23.

Tobin, D., Moss, M., & English, E. (2020, October). A past, present, and future perspective on FlakyFolios:
An expanded image analysis. [Link]

John Smith (123456) 3

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The report below is even shorter, also excluding a title page and methodological section.

Parry, Parry & Gibson — Site accident report

Executive summary
Damage has been caused to the emergency generator on the Witherby power plant site. It was caused
by a fire started by the electrical contractors Mullet & Sons. Although the packing material that
caught fire was left by another subcontractor, the personnel from Mullet started work before clearing
the waste matter away, in contravention of contract regulation 2.3.8. Mullet & Sons should therefore
pay for the replacement of the damaged equipment.

Introduction
This report will look at:
• the sequence of events
• the subcontractors involved
• the responsibilities of the subcontractors
• the financial compensation from the subcontractors
• recommendations to avoid future incidents of this nature

Findings
1. Fire broke out at 17.30 on Friday 13 October in the working area around the emergency
generator. All personnel were cleared from the site and the fire service informed by 17.45. The
fire service arrived at 18.00 and the blaze was extinguished by 18.30.
2. The electrical contractors Mullet & Sons started the fire accidentally when carrying out the
connection work of the generator to the main power line. Packing material left on the ground
by another subcontractor Harvest Macdougall plc caught fire and this quickly spread.
3. Although Harvest Macdougall are obliged to remove any packaging material they bring with
them it seems that the electricians from Mullet told them to just leave it. We assume they
wanted to get their own work done as quickly as possible so that they could finish for the
weekend. Starting welding work without first making sure there is no inflammable material
around is in direct contravention of contract regulation 2.3.8.

Conclusion
Mullet & Sons must pay for the replacement of the generator (¤90,000) as they are solely responsible
for the damage.

Recommendations
1. Mullet & Sons should not be offered any more work on site if they do not accept these terms.
2. Harvest Macdougall should receive a formal warning.
3. All subcontractors must be reminded of their obligation to follow all fire and safety regulations.

Norma Poole
Site Manager
19 October

Adapted from Cotton, Falvey, & Kent (2011, p.131)

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F.5.3 Sample: longer business research report

30 February 2016 The Home Depot:

Failure in China

Consultants:
John Smith (student nr. xxxxxx),
Jane Doe (student nr. xxxxxx),
Lieschen Müller (student nr. xxxxxx), and
Joe Bloggs (student nr. xxxxxx)

International Business School,

Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen

Client:
Ms Joan Cadigan, representative of Home Depot China

Word count: 2,883 words

Date: 30 February 2016

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THE HOME DEPOT: FAILURE IN CHINA

Executive Summary

The aim of this report is to analyse the underlying cultural issues that the world’s
largest U.S.-based home improvement retailer Home Depot faced when entering the
Chinese market in 2006. These cultural differences in terms of values, attitudes and
behaviours caused the closure of all twelve Home Depot stores until 2012 and
represent the basis for recommendations by C.E. Consulting.

To justify the reliability and validity of the recommendations, primary, secondary

and tertiary research has been conducted: C.E. Consulting conducted face-to-face
interviews with Chinese Home Depot customers to understand their preferences and
buying habits. Furthermore, to investigate the market situation and to perform a
competitor analysis, different online data banks from the Hanze Media Library as
well as Google Scholar were of use. Besides, textbooks concerning the underlying
cultural concepts presented a framework.

The results indicate that Home Depot did not sufficiently take the cultural
differences into consideration and therefore did not adjust its business model
accordingly. Firstly, ignoring the concept of guanxi is a main reason for Home
Depot’s business failure in China. Guanxi stands for a strong relationship-based
mindset with a high emphasis on local partnerships as opposed to the American
transaction-oriented mindset. On this basis, guo qing, another disregarded concept,
comes relevant. Guo qing stands for national characteristics that should be
considered when introducing a product to the Chinese market. Secondly, the DIY
model known for the American home improvement market does not match the
consumer preferences of the Chinese customer. A third issue was the location of the
stores, and lastly, the store design was unsuitable for the mostly female customers
usually in charge of home decoration.

Resulting from the findings, it is recommended that Home Depot implement

customer showrooms and therefore deliver a clear home decoration idea. Next, they
are advised to install technical devices that enable customers to digitally create and
order items directly in the store. Furthermore, a joint venture with local
subcontractor companies and handymen should be built to foster the concept of
guanxi. Lastly, C.E. Consulting advises to keep prices on the same level.

Smith (xxxxxx), Doe (xxxxxx), Müller (xxxxxx), and Bloggs (xxxxxx) i.

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THE HOME DEPOT: FAILURE IN CHINA

Contents

1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1

2 Methodology ........................................................................................................... 2

3 The Home Depot—Background .............................................................................. 3

4 Problem Analysis .................................................................................................... 4

4.1 Problem One: Assumption of Similarities........................................................ 4

4.1.1 Business model .......................................................................................... 4

4.1.2 Design and location of the stores............................................................... 5

4.2 Problem Two: Consumer Mentality ................................................................. 6

4.2.1 The concept of guanxi................................................................................ 7

4.2.2 The concept of guo qing ............................................................................ 8

5 Conclusion............................................................................................................... 9

6 Recommendations ................................................................................................ 10

6.1 The New Store Concept and Introducing Technical Devices ......................... 10

6.2 Building Joint Ventures .................................................................................. 12

References .................................................................................................................... 13

Appendix A: Home Depot Interview ............................................................................ 15

Appendix B: Home Depot Showroom.......................................................................... 18

Appendix C: QR Code on WeChat ................................................................................ 19

Appendix D: Handyman companies in Shanghai ........................................................ 23

Smith (xxxxxx), Doe (xxxxxx), Müller (xxxxxx), and Bloggs (xxxxxx) ii.

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THE HOME DEPOT: FAILURE IN CHINA

1 Introduction

Before expanding a business operation into a new country, companies should

conduct a thorough cultural analysis and consider the adjustment of their business
models and strategies to ensure that local customer needs and preferences are met.
Therefore, it is highly advisable that companies that decide to venture abroad
appreciate and recognize cultural differences to prevent the failure of their business
expansions in foreign markets and to understand the cultural determinant. Thus,
underlying cultural concepts, values, and attitudes are important components of a
company’s business model, and they affect their business success (Gao, 2013).

The world’s largest home improvement retailer, Home Depot, founded in 1978, had
started their business expansion into China in 2006, inspired by forecasts that it
would become the largest economy by 2030 and by the favourable economic
situation as the world’s largest building-material market (Gao, 2013, p. 176). After six
years of business operation, however, Home Depot announced the closure of all its
stores in China. The following report will analyse the main problems which
determined the business failure of Home Depot in China.

Chapter 2 will briefly outline and explain the method used in the analysis of recent
developments, followed by a concise overview of the company’s history in chapter 3.
Chapter 4 will perform a post-mortem based on two potential problems, rooted in
the cultural concepts of guanxi and guo qing, after which the report will conclude
that Home Depot failed to implement these concepts properly and that it assumed
too many similarities among the U.S. and China, having misunderstood Chinese
consumer mentality and the importance of its store design and locations in China. In
the final chapter, C. E. Consulting offers recommendations on how Home Depot
could improve its approach on the Chinese market.

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2 Methodology

In 2009, three years after Home Depot had begun to expand to China, the company
approached C.E. Consulting because of its unfavourable market position and the low
profit rates. It was decided to conduct a profound market analysis in China through
both primary and secondary research.

Primary research has been executed in terms of quantitative research by carrying out
face-to-face interviews with Chinese Home Depot customers. This gave C.E.
Consulting insights into the consumer preferences, insights into the reasons and
frequency of visits, as well as data on the average amount of money spent on home-
improvement items in the Chinese Home Depot stores. The interview questions can
be found in Appendix A.

Secondary research has been conducted in the form of a market trend and
competitor analysis in order to study the outlook in the retail industry as well as to
determine the market position of Home Depot. To ensure the reliability of the
presented data, tertiary sources from the online data banks of Hanze UAS and
quality newspapers such as The Week and journals such as Business Source Premier
have been used.

The market trend analysis assisted C.E. Consulting in recognising continuing trends
among Chinese home-improvement consumers and in evaluating the success of
Home Depot’s current business strategy in China. Moreover, the competitor analysis
has been conducted while focusing on Home Depot’s major foreign competitor,
IKEA, and by comparing the success of both companies’ business strategies and their
product adjustments to Chinese consumer preferences. To justify the reliability of the
stated problems, the report has also made use of underlying cultural concepts as
presented by Adler and Gundersen (2008), Barna (1988), Gesteland (2012), Osland
(1998), and Verluyten (2013).

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3 The Home Depot—Background

In order to change the way people would care about and improve their homes,
Bernie, Marcus and Arthur Blank founded Home Depot back in 1978 (The Home
Depot, 2016). With global sales of over 83 billion USD, the company is known as the
world’s largest home improvement specialty retailer. In its more than 2,200 retail
stores in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, Home Depot supplies its customers with up to
40,000 different building materials, home improvement supplies, lawn, and garden
products. Home Depot’s economic success is also reflected in the Fortune 500 list,
where it was ranked No. 33 in 2015 (Times Inc., 2016).

Growing income levels and purchasing power in conjunction with mortgage

incentives and property investment potentials caused an immense increase in the
private home ownership in China. This trend has been strengthened in 2007, when
the National People’s Congress facilitated the first law to protect private property. As
a result, this trend made China the world’s largest building material market
(Flanagan, 2011).

Seeking further growth opportunities, Home Depot expanded to the booming

Chinese market in 2006 by acquiring 12 big-box stores from its Chinese counterpart
Home Way. Home Way was founded in 1996 and it was the first big-box home
improvement retail chain in China. The concept of big-box stores focuses on big floor
space (>50,000 ft² ≈ >4,500 m²) with a high number of items that are available for
purchase (“Big-Box Store”, n.d.). The rapid expansion of 12 stores within 11 years led
to the situation that Home Way needed to sell their stores to Home Depot in 2006
(Kwok, 2006).

Besides the Tianjin headquarter, the stores of Home Depot are spread over the cities
of Beijing, Xi’an, Qingdao, Zhengzhou, and Shenyang (“Home Depot Shuts”, 2011).

In 2012, after a period of six years, Home Depot announced the closure of all its
Chinese big-box stores. Moreover, the company recorded an accumulated loss of its
investment of $160 million (“Why Home Depot Is”, 2012).

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4 Problem Analysis

The following part is going to investigate the two major problems which Home Depot
has faced. Each problem analysis is based on underlying cultural theories and
concepts in order to give profound explanations and justifications. The derived
advice for Home Depot can be found in the subsequent section.

4.1 Problem One: Assumption of Similarities

The first underlying problem which Home Depot faced with its business expansion to
China can be described by Barna’s stumbling block of the “Assumption of
Similarities”. Thus, Home Depot was confident in assuming that similar business
models, consumer preferences and buying behaviours would be present in China as
in the U.S. Based on Barna’s theory it can be said that without having the ability and
willingness to acknowledge differences in cultural perceptions, values and attitudes,
misinterpretations and misunderstandings are likely to occur (Barna, 1988).

4.1.1 Business model

According to Osland, one of the main barriers to achieve business success in a foreign
country is created by culture wherefore this determinant has to be taken into account
when developing the business models for international business operations (1998,
2013). This can be seen in the first underlying problem as Home Depot executed the
same business strategy of “Do-it-yourself” (DIY) that it used in America in the
Chinese market, which led to the closing of the stores. Hence, Home Depot did not
sufficiently recognize that Chinese consumers do not show the same enthusiasm for
DIY as the consumers in America do. This Chinese consumer behaviour is rooted in
the Confucian tradition as manual labour was seen as lower ranked which is also
related to the social status issue. This means that usually poor people would take on
DIY projects since they were not able to hire subcontractors.

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However, poor Chinese people mainly live in rural areas where they buy the
materials from local second-hand shops whose products are much cheaper than
those from Home Depot (Gao, 2013). Besides that, for the middle and upper class of
Chinese consumers, manual labour is relatively inexpensive wherefore most people
tend to hire an external handyman or subcontractor to accomplish their home
improvement projects. Instead of adopting the American DIY strategy, Chinese
consumers show their preferences for a Do-It-For-Me (DIFM) approach instead
(Gao, 2013).

Hence, it can be identified that Home Depot should have recognized the need to
reposition itself and to adapt its business model to the Chinese culture and therefore
to incorporate their own corporate culture with the host culture of China (Gao, 2013).

At this point, Home Depot’s business operations can be compared to the business
success of IKEA in China, Home Depot’s major foreign competitor. One reason for
IKEA’s success is based on the fact that in recent years there has been a shift in the
Chinese consumer lifestyle of home ownership from around 0% in 2000 to 70% in
2012 (Bhasin, 2012). This change brought advantages for IKEA as the Chinese
consumers were willing to learn from the western approach of home improvement.
Furthermore, Western-style show rooms within IKEA in the form of bedrooms,
family rooms and kitchens provide imagination and guidance for the new generation
of Chinese homeowners. Thus, IKEA attempts to educate their consumers and
therefore experience the Western culture while Home Depot did not offer any of this
design service to give advice to its customers (Gao, 2013). Consequently, IKEA
succeeded due to its efforts to adapt their business strategy to the Chinese consumer
needs. Unfortunately, Home Depot failed to acknowledge the cultural differences and
to redevelop their standardized business strategy which led to the closing of their
stores (Delavan, 2013). The derived advice from this analysis can be found in the
subsequent section.

4.1.2 Design and location of the stores

Another important issue that Home Depot overlooked when entering the market in
China is the unsuitable design and location of the stores to the local customer needs.

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It should have been clear that, when entering a new market with a different culture,
certain aspects call for an adjustment and the business model cannot simply be kept.
According to Adler and Gundersen, this issue of cultural blindness, which includes
ignoring or choosing to overlook differences between cultures even though they do
exist, is frequently observed (2008). Therefore, it highly limits working with other
cultures and makes it ineffective.

Firstly, as opposed to the U.S., it is of high importance for the Chinese to live as close
as possible to city centres (Gao, 2013). Therefore, the Chinese middle-class, which
was mainly targeted by Home Depot, tends to live in downtown areas of
metropolitan cities. Using the “big box” concept, Home Depot on the other hand
positioned its stores mainly in suburb areas that are not easily accessible for the
targeted homeowners which consequently limited their willingness to buy there
(Gao, 2013).

Secondly, the design of the stores was not tailored enough to the female customers.
Different from the American culture, women are usually given full control over the
decoration of the house (Tulshyan, 2013), which then calls for a completely different
approach of the store design in order to attract them. Developing small showrooms
as seen in the example of IKEA would provide women especially with a visual idea on
how to decorate their homes and therefore offer a different, more appealing shopping
experience. An adapted business strategy, including location, design, and targeting is
essential in this case. The detailed advice on how Home Depot could change the store
design and the selection of the location can be found in the recommendations.

4.2 Problem Two: Consumer Mentality

As stated by Adler (2008), the cultural background determines the “interaction of
values, attitudes, and behavior” of a society (Adler, 2008, p. 19). Therefore,
companies need to study these closely in order to experience success in a foreign
market. Hence, the following problems concerning the consumer behaviour have
been overlooked by Home Depot when entering the Chinese market.

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4.2.1 The concept of guanxi

One of the underlying problems of Home Depot’s business failure is based on the fact
that the company did not recognize the significance of the Chinese concept of guanxi.
Within the Chinese Ethnic, guanxi means “webs” and “network” and it refers to the
importance in Asian cultures to build up relationships with people you know and
trust (Verluyten, 2013, p. 48; Gesteland, 2012, pp. 24–25). Due to the Chinese
relationship-oriented culture, building trust and connections with local partners
could have prevented the business failure of Home Depot. Hence, the American
transaction-oriented culture conflicted with the more relationship based Chinese
culture at this point (Adler & Gundersen, 2008, pp. 47–48).

Moreover, it can be identified that local partnerships with their expertise are crucial
and that developing a good guanxi with relevant organizations, authorities, landlords
and suppliers is of significant importance when entering the Chinese retail market.
In China, no business transaction is executed before having gained mutual trust
between the business partners (Gao, 2013). Thus, it can be analysed that the
international retailer Home Depot should have undertaken efforts to develop and
foster local partnerships.

Here it can also be mentioned that China has one of the most profitable and fastest
growing retail markets in the world, which results in an increasing level of
competition for retailers, depending on their sector, and an increasing number of
chain stores. Moreover, only around 5% of China’s retail enterprises are foreign
invested which is, amongst others, based on the imposed restrictions on foreign
investment in the Chinese retail sector and the strict licensing procedures for
foreign-invested retailers (Lu, 2010).

Consequently, it would have been an advisable strategy for Home Depot to form joint
ventures or mergers with local business partners which could have contributed
valuable resources as knowledge of local market conditions and business contacts
(Lu, 2010).

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4.2.2 The concept of guo qing

Expanded from the previous context, another concept that is of high importance
when coming to the Chinese market is called guo qing, meaning “national
characteristics” (Yan, 1994). From a Chinese viewpoint, a product or service
implemented in the country should only be adopted if it meets these underlying
values. Hence, in order to attract Chinese consumers, following guo qing is crucial. If
an expanding company does not adopt to this concept, Chinese customers tend to
disregard its products, as the foreign company does not take their culture, more
precisely their history, into account (Yan, 1994). As for instance, in order to be
successful in the Chinese market, a brand requires a positive reputation and the trust
of the Chinese consumers (Sampi Marketing Inc., 2014). Therefore, companies
should focus on official and trustworthy marketing channels, such as trusted
newspapers or radio channels.

The high consciousness towards brands is again reflected in the negative consumer
attitude towards Home Depot as it has not built a trustworthy reputation yet (Gao,
2013) and therefore did not become competitive next to other, more well-known and
trusted stores. Additionally, the Chinese customers are used to finding the demanded
products in a store organized according to brands which is not in accordance with
Home Depot’s American store concept (Gao, 2013).

Furthermore, in line with the idea of guo qing, parochialism is another concept to
keep in mind. This concept implies only seeing one’s own belief system and ignoring
anything else beyond it (Adler & Gundersen, 2008, p. 85). This assumption causes
others to only be a reflection of oneself and not what they really are and therefore lets
one assume similarities despite severe differences. In this particular instance, Home
Depot acted in a parochial manner due to the missing empathy for the Chinese
culture and the missing acknowledgement of differences in values and norms.

Lastly, social status is an important aspect in China so that using rather simple and
inexpensive products from a DIY store is looked upon as poor compared to hiring
others (Gao, 2013). This again reflects the importance for Home Depot to execute the
DIFM approach in order to also attract the higher classes of the Chinese population
in the foreign market.

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5 Conclusion

After having analysed the main underlying problems, it can be said that Home Depot
missed the opportunity to adjust their business strategy and model to the Chinese
market, which consequently led to their business failure in the expanding country.
Reasoning from the assumption that Chinese consumers have the same preferences
for the DIY model as the American consumers, this indicates that Home Depot did
not undertake enough research to recognize cultural differences. Moreover, Home
Depot executed the wrong business strategy when designing the stores and choosing
their location. While using big stores in rural areas that are difficult to reach for the
target group, the possibility to locate them in urban centres was neglected. Besides,
acknowledging the concept of guanxi would have brought benefits for Home Depot
through local partnerships, resources and expertise. Beyond that, the problem
analysis reveals that Home Depot did not consider the concept of guo qing, which
determines the Chinese consumer mentality. This consumer behaviour includes the
importance of the social status, price consciousness, and brand awareness. Taking
the concept of Parochialism into consideration, it can be seen that in all underlying
problems, Home Depot did not appreciate the differences between the Chinese and
American values, attitudes, and behaviours.

Thus, locating their stores in suburbs, implementing the “big box” concept and
failing to recognize the female target group is a clear indication of Adler’s concept of
cultural blindness.”

Based on the cultural issues analysed, specific recommendations have been provided
for Home Depot which can be found in the following section.

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6 Recommendations

On the basis of the problem analysis, Home Depot faces two major issues in China.
In the following sections, detailed recommendations to cope with these problems will
be given by C.E. Consulting.

6.1 The New Store Concept and Introducing Technical

Devices
Firstly, Home Depot is advised to adapt to the Chinese “Do-It-For-Me” (DIFM)
approach. The prior mentioned case of IKEA has shown the importance of giving
Chinese customers guidance with their home improvement projects. Thus, Home
Depot should immediately start to implement centrally located showrooms based on
an average Chinese apartment size of 40m² in the boroughs of Jing An or Xu Hui,
Shanghai, in order to provide customers with home decoration concepts. C.E.
Consulting provides an example of such a showroom in Appendix B.

Engaging in the booming Chinese e-commerce market, Home Depot should equip
the showrooms with tablets that have user-friendly apps installed. These apps feature
Home Depot products, which are tagged with QR-codes in stores. Customers can
adjust the virtual rooms according to their own desires by scanning QR-codes with
WeChat, the Chinese equivalent to WhatsApp, or by searching for items on the app.
This means, each product will be present only once in the shop itself and design
options can be created via the app. Purchases are then made on the tablet while there
are no limitations of having the entire room design or single furniture items
delivered. Please find a visualization of an app design option, an explanation of its
usage and a QR code to test the WeChat function with in Appendix C.

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C.E. Consulting recommends the instalment of 10–15 tablets per store in order to
provide all customers the opportunity to have the full shopping experience via the
Home Depot App, as shown in figure 6.1.

Figure 6.1 Home Depot app

The items of Home Depot are located in rented warehouses in Shanghai suburb
boroughs like Song Jiang or Bao Shan as they are offering comparable low rental
prices. After the order and payment are processed via the tablet, customers are given
two options that reinforce the DIFM approach: (1) Consumer employ their own
handymen and Home Depot delivers the items on the same day to the customers or
(2) customers can hire the handymen service offered by Home Depot which deliver
and build the furniture in the consumers’ home for a fee. A detailed explanation of
the second option can be found in the following section.

Since Home Depot’s current approach to customer service and store outlay appears
to be the most contrary to the Chinese culture, C.E. Consulting strongly advises the
management to start the restructuring immediately and fully implement the new
concept by 2010.

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6.2 Building Joint Ventures

In order to operate according to the highly valued concept of guanxi, Home Depot
should become more relationship-oriented and trustworthy in the eye of its Chinese
consumers. Hence, for a Western company like Home Depot, this should be done
through establishing close partnerships with local subcontractors and handyman
companies. Thus, C.E. Consulting provides a list with highly reputable subcontractor
firms from which Home Depot is advised to choose at least one. The list, which has
been compiled by the C.E. Shanghai office can be found in Appendix C. In order to
establish a valuable contract that addresses all applicable laws between the two
parties, Home Depot should make use of further consultation of a legal expert in the
field of American-Chinese business law. Since C.E. Consulting operates in both
countries, the U.S. as well as in China, a link between the Chinese experts and Home
Depot’s management can be established. Thus, C.E. Consulting is able to build the
foundation for a trusting relationship between Home Depot and the local partnership
companies. Since hierarchy is highly valued in China, it is recommended for the U.S.
Home Depot CEO, Frank Blake, to make a business trip to China for one to two
weeks in order to facilitate a good business relationship. This action should be
executed within the next two months.

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References

Adler, N. J. & Gundersen, A. (2008). International dimensions of organizational

behavior (5th ed.). Thomson South-Western.
Barna, L. M. (1988). Stumbling blocks in intercultural communication. In M. Bennett
(Ed.) Basic Concepts of Intercultural Communication: Selected Readings (pp.
174–188). Intercultural Press.
Bhasin, K. (2012, September 14). Why IKEA took China by storm, while Home Depot
failed miserably. Business Insider. [Link]
[Link]
Big-box store. (n.d.). In Business Dictionary. Retrieved January 30, 2017, from
[Link]
Delavan, J. (2013, November 3). Home Depot and Ikea in China. International
Consumer Behavior. [Link]
Flanagan, E. (2011, February 8). Home Depot fails to convince China to DIY. NBC
News. [Link]
convince-china-to-diy
Gao, M. H. (2013). Culture determines business models: Analyzing Home Depot’s
failure case in China for international retailers from a communication
perspective. Thunderbird International Business Review, 55(2), 173–191.
[Link]
Gesteland, R. R. (2012). Cross-cultural business behavior: A guide for global
management (5th ed.). Copenhagen Business School Press.
The Home Depot. (n.d.). The home is where our story begins. Retrieved March 21,
2016, from [Link]
Home Depot shuts Beijing store due to difficulties. (2011, January 27). [Link].
[Link]
KPMG. (2007). Luxury brands in China.
[Link]
_brand.pdf
Kwok, V. W. (2006, December 13). Home Depot buys China clone. Forbes.
[Link]

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cx_vk_1213markets01.html
Lu, S. (2010, May 1). Understanding China’s retail market. China Business Review.
[Link]
Osland, G. E. (1990). Doing business in China: A framework for cross-cultural
understanding. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 8(4), 4–14.
[Link]
Sampi Marketing Inc. (2021, November 17). Chinese brands and consumer trust
issues. [Link]
Time Inc. (2016). Fortune 500. [Link]
Tulshyan, R. (2013, April 26). Home Depot’s failure in China: Ignoring women.
Atlanta Business Chronicle.
[Link]
[Link]
Verluyten, S. P. M. (2013). Intercultural skills for international business and
international relations: A practical introduction with exercises (3rd ed.). Acco.
Why Home Depot is failing in China: 4 theories. (2015, January 11). The Week.
[Link]
theories
Yan, R. (1994, September-October). To reach China’s consumer, adapt to guo qing.
Harvard Business Review. [Link]
consumers-adapt-to-guo-qing

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Appendix A: Home Depot Interview

The following survey has been executed by C.E. Consulting in order to analyse the
consumer preferences, the reasons for visit and the frequency of visits as well as the
average amount of money spent on home-improvement items at Home Depot. C.E.
Consulting calculated the active response rate and therefore interviewed 1,500
customers after they had finished their shopping at Home Depot in various locations.

1. What is your gender?

• female
• male

2. How old are you?

• Under 18 years
• 18 to 24 years
• 25 to 34 years
• 35 to 44 years
• 45 to 54 years
• 55 to 65 years
• Older than 65 years

3. What is your marital status?

• Single (never married)
• Married
• Separated
• Widowed
• Divorced

4. What is your preference of ordering/ buying your home improvement items?

• In the shop with offered service
• Order online

5. What is your preferred home improvement approach?

• Do-It-Yourself
• Do-It-for-Me (hiring a handy man who will deliver and build up the
ordered items)

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6. In which home improvement retail stores do you order/buy?

• I do not buy at home improvement stores
• B&Q
• IKEA
• Home Depot
• Best Buy
• Others

7. How far away do you live from the Home Depot store?
• 0–10 km
• 10–20 km
• 20–50 km
• More than 50 km

8. Do you think the current Home Depot store is easily accessible?

• Yes
• No

9. How did you reach the Home Depot store?

• By feet
• By bike
• By private car
• With public transportation

10. How often do you buy at Home Depot?

• I do not buy at Home Depot
• Less than once per year
• Once per year
• Twice per year
• More than twice per year
• Once per month
• More than once per month
• Once per week

11. What was your purpose of buying at Home Depot?

• Private purpose
• Commercial purpose (owning a handyman company)

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12. What is your average amount of money spent at Home Depot?

• I do not buy at Home Depot
• $10–20
• $20–50
• $50–150
• $150–300
• $300–500
• > $500

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Appendix B: Home Depot Showroom

Figure B1 gives an impression of how the new stores of Home Depot could be
designed, located in the different locations around China.

Figure B1. Sample showroom

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Appendix C: QR Code on WeChat

Home Depot should launch the mobile application in 2010 in which customers can
view products and purchase them directly online. Besides, by using this app,
customers can also design their showrooms, which will also give female customers a
more convenient and creative shopping experience. By going through four steps,
customers can easily finish both, designing their room and purchasing the desired
items. The app is designed in the Chinese and English language. More detailed
explanations will be given below together with the concept picture of the application.

As mentioned in the recommendation, customers at Home Depot are able to scan the
QR codes of different products in the showroom to get further information about the
available sizes, colours and corresponding prices.

This QR code can be scanned using WeChat. To test the function, please download
WeChat in the app store and create an account. Then proceed as follows: Choose
‘Chat’ on the bottom > click ‘+’ in the top right corner > choose ‘scan QR code’.

Figure C.1. QR-code By scanning the QR code (see figure C.1), the customer will
be directly
forwarded to the Figure C2. Scanned Item on WeChat

desired product of
the app from Home
Depot, can see
design options and
make the purchase.

Figure C.2 shows the product that is linked to

the QR code in figure C.1 above.

The four steps of the ordering and

purchasing process will look as follows.
Firstly, customers can search for the product

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Figure C.3. Visualisation of Step 1 on the Home Depot app.

they needed which can be selected based on the preferred price and brand. An
impression of this is given in figure C.3. In addition to that, customers can also read
the reviews from other customers. For any other questions, customers can tap the
CONTACT bottom in order to directly engage in a chat with the customer service
online.

Figure C.4. Visualisation of Step 2 in the Home Depot app.

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After choosing the colour and size, customers will enter Step 2 (see figure C.3) and
set up their showrooms.

Before starting with the showrooms, customers need to take a picture of the
structural map, which they will get from the builder. The app will directly digitalize
the drawing. After that customers can place their products wherever they want. On
the screen will be shown both, the detailed effect picture and the overall organization
from the top view. If customers have difficulty arranging their products, they can
check other examples provided in the app.

As mentioned in the recommendation part, Home Depot is advised to cooperate with

local subcontractors and handymen. Thus in Step 3 (figure C.5), customers can
choose to either hire their own group or forward the process to subcontractors,
offered from Home Depot. If customers choose the later, their draft from Step 2 will
directly be handed to this “external” company. Followed, the customer and
subcontractor will get in contact to arrange further delivery details and possible
schedules.

Figure C.5. Visualisation of Step 3 in the Home Depot app

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Figure C6. Visualisation of Step 4 in the Home Depot app

In the last step, Step 4 (figure C6), customers only need to fill in their delivery and
payment details. Subsequently, the purchasing process will be completed.

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THE HOME DEPOT: FAILURE IN CHINA

Appendix D: Handyman companies in Shanghai

1. Lord Decoration [Link]

2. GuoXin space design [Link]
3. Yi Tang [Link]
4. Ju Tong [Link]
5. Qian Xiang space design [Link]
6. Qi Jia [Link]

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