– General guidance on the assessment criteria for assignments -

Individual feedback on your case study reports or essays is provided on the feedback forms attached to your work. These forms consist of four sections. Firstly, there is a section where you will receive your provisional mark. This is the mark that you receive after your script has been through the School’s internal marking process (i.e. it has been first marked and internally moderated), but before the external examiners have checked the marking across the module and indicated that they are happy with it, and before the final mark has been confirmed by the Board of Examiners. Secondly, there is a section where your tutor will provide general comments on your work. Thirdly, there is a section where your tutor will identify some key areas for improvement. Finally, there is a tick-box section. This section will be completed using the criteria listed below, and includes things like whether or not you actually answered the case study/ essay question, whether your answer possessed a clear and logical argument (which was backed up by supporting evidence), how well the essay or the report communicated your ideas and whether or not it followed the accepted academic conventions on style and referencing. The purpose of the tick box section is to provide you with a quick at-a-glance overview of the strengths and weaknesses of a case study report or an essay. It is important to note that it isn't used to calculate the mark. The relative weighting that your tutors give to a particular indicator will depend on what they are trying to test with the assignment.
This case study report / essay addressed the question that was set
The first and most basic requirement of an assignment is that it answers the question that has been set; not the question that you would have liked to have been asked or indeed have prepared an answer to. A great essay or a report is not a great answer unless it actually addresses the question, no matter how well it is written. If a question asks you to describe x, you need to describe x, not y or z; if it asks you to critically evaluate y, then you need to critically evaluate y, not just describe y. Furthermore, this needs to be the chief focus of what you write. If, for example, your tutor asks you to compare and contrast two approaches to understanding organisational behaviour, this may require you to describe the two approaches first. However, most of the marks will come from undertaking the comparison. Don’t expect top marks for writing a lot of description but only supplying a little bit of the value-added for which you have been asked. The other thing to keep in mind is that at degree level there may not be a right or wrong answer. Different people looking at the same problem, under the same set of circumstances, can quite legitimately arrive at completely different conclusions. A key part of being a student involves reviewing what other people have to say about a subject and forming your own judgment. In short you are being tested not so much on what you think but rather on the quality of your reasoning and your ability to marshal evidence to back up your position.

This case study report/ essay possessed a clear argument
It logically follows from the above, that your argument plays a key role in determining the quality of your answer. To an academic, an argument consists of a set of propositions (or premises), which, when taken together, give rise to a logical conclusion. For example, in response to the question, ‘why is it so difficult for organizations to plan effectively?’ one argument might be: organizations often find it so difficult to plan effectively because effective planning requires individuals to be operating in an environment which is to some extent predictable, however in the era of globalization business markets are just not like that’. Whether or not this is a good argument rests on a number of things. One thing to consider is