>> WRITING REPORTS

Assessment Reports

Who has got to do assessment reports?:

Every student under the admission category "Text Required" must write 1 to 3 assessment reports about the textbooks assigned in their academic program. The Process Control form will show you the admission category. The Academic Assignment Control (AAC) Form will list the textbooks for your program, as well as the report assignment an other instructions.

Instructions:

The degree program you have been admitted to requires that you read and study the textbooks that have been selected especially for you. Also, following the attached guidelines, you must write a series of reports (in English or Spanish, depending on the texts) based on your readings of these books. Certain textbooks are assigned only as annotated or secondary bibliography and, therefore, do not require a report. When this is the case, you will be informed via the Academic Assignment Control form.

Format of the written report:

Introduction: Each report will be written in English or Spanish --depending on the language the textbook being studied is written in-- on white paper, typed or legibly hand-written on one side of the page only, and including the following heading: student's name and last name, degree program and field of study, title of the book being reported, and date. Your signature and the following statement must also be included at the bottom of the title page: "I do hereby attest that I am the sole author of this report and that its contents are only the result of my reading of the textbook above mentioned."

Table of contents: Following the title page, you should include a table of contents explaining briefly what the report will talk about and what the main concepts are. This index should extend for no more than three pages.

Body of the report: The report will be 15 to 35 pages long. Exceeding the length limits provided might cause your report to receive a failing grade. Students must understand that the length limitations set forth serve a very important purpose: they are intended for students to process information within certain limits. At times, this might involve summarizing information and in turn summarizing the already synthesized material in order to adapt it to the limitations established. Precisely this process is what will allow students to assimilate the information contained in the textbooks.

A report that exceeds the length limits set forth in this statement will not be accepted by the Academic Board. It will be mailed back to the student, who will then rewrite it to adjust its length to BIU requirements. Only then will the report be ready for resubmission.

Content of the report: The report usually consists of a summarization or reconceptualization of each of the textbooks studied. In addition, the student is encouraged to add his/her own comments, thoughts, or opinions about the contents studied. It is also advisable to make reference to real cases and experiences to illustrate how a certain concept can be applied to real life situations. As a whole, the report must bring out the student's level of understanding and learning. In the case of science reports, formulas, figures, and exercises can be included in a report, but only as a complement to the written text. The report must always be elaborated in full written form: an outline will not be accepted. The only section that will be accepted in outline format is the table of contents.

Final Project / Thesis

Who has got to do a Final Project or Thesis?:

Every student under the admission category "Full Validation", and those under the category "Text Required" who are instructed to do so. The Process Control form will show you the admission category. The Academic Assignment Control (AAC) Form will show the requirements to Final Project or a Thesis, as well as any other relevant instructions.

Instructions:

To complete your degree program, you are usually required to submit the following:

Final project of at least 50 pages for Bachelor's and Master's degrees.
Thesis of at least 75 pages for Doctorates.

Format: In both cases, this written work must be typed on white paper (standard size), writing only on one side of each page. It can be written either in English or Spanish and two copies must be submitted to BIU. Once the project or thesis is read and graded, one of the copies will be mailed back to you with the university stamp on it. Your written work will not be accepted if it does not fulfill the requirements outlined below:

Title page: This first page contains the title of the project or thesis, the student's name and last name, program the student is enrolled in, and the date. The student's signature and the following statement must follow the above information: "I do hereby attest that I am the sole author of this project / thesis and that its contents are only the result of the readings and research I have done.". Of the two copies required by BIU, only the one that will be filed at BIU must contain the above statement. The second copy will be stamped and returned to you; therefore, it does not need to have the authenticity statement on its title page.

Table of contents / Bibliography: Following the title page, you must include the table of contents and the complete list of bibliographic material consulted, including books, journal articles, conference papers, etc...

Abstract or Synopsis: The next one to three pages will be devoted to a brief explanation of the content and objective of the work developed by the student. The project/thesis will be developed after this synopsis.

Body of the paper: In this section you will develop the core content of the project/thesis. The information contained in the body of the work must follow certain pattern of organization: chapters, sections, parts, or even case studies. This structure must be reflected in the table of contents and all pages must be numbered. As part of your discussion, you can include graphs, photographs, drawings, charts, xeroxed articles, and any other material that you consider relevant. The body of the project /thesis must fulfill the minimum length requirement; on the other hand, we also advise you not to exceed the limit of 150 to 200 pages. At BIU we value the quality of the content more than its quantity.

With prior approval from BIU, you can also submit material that has been previously published, such as books, journal or magazine articles, reports, etc. Of course, these items do not need to fulfill the above described requirements. They can be submitted to BIU in the original format in which they were published. BIU required that you submit two copies.

Content:

You are free to choose the title and content of your project /thesis. Once you have reached a decision, you will submit a 1-3 page proposal containing an abstract of your intended project/ thesis and the title of the work to be filed at BIU. This preliminary procedure is optional to you, since any proposal submitted will be approved as long as it relates directly with your field of interest. Take advantage of this opportunity to explore in depth those topics that interest you the most, both personally and professionally.

Sense of Responsibility

As long as you fulfill the objectives and requirements outlined in your degree program, you are free to follow or not these guidelines and to study the way you think is more productive for you.

The Distance Learning System is designed for people who have a certain level of maturity and responsibility; students and professionals with a clear objective in mind: to learn, to improve, and to excel. Nobody but yourself will monitor the way you read and study your textbooks. When you write your reports, you are allowed to use the books you have read as reference material, but you should be careful not to overdo it.

In any successful learning program, the key is in the type of mental process that takes place when you extract information from each text, especially when you have to synthesize and extract information to write a report. This process turns studying into an active phenomenon that forces you to think at the same time that you are incorporating new data and channeling increasingly more information. Our learning program is anything but memorization. Assimilation is, on the contrary, much more effective and the information extracted can be actively applied in real life, synthesized, related to other concepts, and expressed in a coherent way. This is the process that will develop your intelligence because it expands your capacity to process information and solve problems. In this way, studying at BIU will not become just a "parenthesis" in your life, but it will be permanently absorbed in your life.

If you copy the contents of the books when you elaborate your reports, you will demolish the mental processes of learning and assimilation, as we have described them. In fact, they will disappear completely once you have finished your program. A degree (master's, doctorate, etc.) is not just a piece of paper; it is a mental process developed at a certain level that you are expected to have. Along your life or in your professional career, whenever you come across problems you have to solve, it will be this capacity that will allow you to do it successfully; not the piece of paper that certifies that you have a master's or a Ph.D. In the corporate world, this is the most required skill: it is assumed that your degree physically represents this capacity. Through its process of selection and admission, Bircham International University has ensured that you possess the level of maturity needed to understand the importance of this process of learning. Nobody will keep an eye on you to see how you organize and how you write your reports; however, we would like to warn you that plagiarizing from your textbooks is a waste of time and money.

All the information that is not structured is not functional because it cannot be understood and applied practically. Try to structure, develop, present, and interpret the information you read in a clear and effective way