Finance Project

The module is assessed entirely by your project, a 4000 word empirical analysis.

Choosing your topic

You will be given a list of topics at the start of the Spring term. You should fill in the topic preference formlisting three topics you would like to choose. This should be submitted by 10am on Monday in Week 2 and allocations of topics to students will be completed by the end of Week 2.

Word length

The project is 4,000 words maximum. This excludes the bibliography, diagrams, tables and appendices.

Failure to observe limits of length

Any excess in length should not confer an advantage over other students who have adhered to the guidance. Students are requested to state the word count on submission. Where a student has marginally (within 10%) exceeded the word length the Marker should penalise the work where the student would gain an unfair advantage by exceeding the word limit. In excessive cases (>10%) the Marker need only consider work up to the designated word count, and discount any excessive word length beyond that to ensure equity across the cohort. Where an assessment is submitted and falls significantly short (>10%) of the word length, the Marker must consider in assigning a mark, if the argument has been sufficiently developed and is sufficiently supported and not assign the full marks allocation where this is not the case.

Margins, font and spacing

• Margin widths
  • Left: 3.5cm
  • Right, top and bottom: 2.5cm.
• The body of the project should be at least one and a half line spaced. The font size of either 11pt or 12pt should be used throughout and all pages of the project must be numbered.

Project layout

The project should include the following materials and sections, in the sequence indicated:

• Title page
• Statement of authenticity
• Table of contents
• Body of text
• Bibliography
• Appendices (if necessary)

Title page

The title page should contain the project title, word count, candidate number and the year of submission.

Statement of authenticity

Students should include a statement confirming that the project is their own work. This should be worded as follows: “I certify that this project is all my own work.”

Table of contents

The table of contents contains the headings and subheadings of the chapters and sections of the project, with the numbers of the pages on which these chapters and sections begin. The minimum content of the table of contents should be each chapter or main division title, each appendix and the bibliography.

Body of text

The project proper begins with the first page of the first chapter or section. Each chapter or section should represent an important division of the project. Special care should be given to dividing the text into paragraphs and the use of subheadings to help the reader.

Bibliography 

All academic work is building on the research and efforts of our predecessors. It is therefore courteous and displays respect for their work, to describe our sources accurately. It is also important that sufficient, accurate, information is given to enable another author/researcher/librarian to track down a quoted publication. There are many different ways of setting out a bibliography, but the Harvard system is recommended. Details for referencing styles can be found on Skills Hub).

The bibliography should only contain the works cited in the project. The inclusion of an irrelevant item is as much as a defect as the exclusion of a relevant one, so when you have finished assembling all your references into a bibliography, check that (i) everything you have quoted is in the bibliography and (ii) you do not have references in the bibliography which are not in the text.

Appendices

The principal purpose of an appendix is to keep the text of the project from being interrupted or cluttered with supplementary, minor and illustrative materials. Each appendix should start on a separate page and should continue the regular pagination of the project.

Students are also reminded that all work must be their own – penalties for collusion or plagiarism or other forms of academic misconduct can be severe, particularly for final year students. See Study Success at Sussex (S3) http://www.sussex.ac.uk/s3/ on ways of working that avoid plagiarism and on how to cope with deadlines. Also see http://www.sussex.ac.uk/adqe/standards/academicmisconduct for definitions and procedures.

Assessment map to criteria of learning outcomes

All learning outcomes for this module are assessed using the project.

Marking scheme(s)