Week 5 – Final Paper

Business Proposal

[WLO: 3] [CLOs: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Prior to beginning work on this final paper, read Chapter 14 and Chapter 15 from your textbook and the Week 5 Weekly Lecture.

You will develop a business proposal persuading the senior management of your organization to initiate a change in processes, procedures, products, people, or structure based on events currently happening in your company. You may use experience with a past company if applicable.

In your paper,

• Develop an introduction that provides sufficient background on the topic, a thesis statement, and a logical conclusion that smoothly flows from the body of the paper.
• Identify processes, procedures, products, people, or structures that need change based on events that are or were happening in your current or past company.
• Organize the information using appropriate headings based on the context of the recommended change initiative.
• Provide a fully developed rational argument to persuade management into initiating change.

The Business Proposal Final Paper

• Must be six to seven double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references pages) and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s APA Style (Links to an external site.)
• Must include a separate title page with the following:
  • Title of paper
  • Student’s name
  • Course name and number
  • Instructor’s name
  • Date submitted

For further assistance with the formatting and the title page, refer to APA Formatting for Word 2013 (Links to an external site.).

• Must utilize academic voice. See the Academic Voice (Links to an external site.) resource for additional guidance.
• Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the purpose of your paper.
  • For assistance on writing Introductions & Conclusions (Links to an external site.) as well as Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.), refer to the Ashford Writing Center resources.
• Must use at least three scholarly or other credible sources in addition to the course text.
  • The Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source for a particular assignment.
  • To assist you in completing the research required for this assignment, view this Ashford University Library Quick ‘n’ Dirty (Links to an external site.) tutorial, which introduces the Ashford University Library and the research process, and provides some library search tips.
• Must document any information used from sources in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.)
• Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. See the Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.) resource in the Ashford Writing Center for specifications.

Carefully review the Grading Rubric (Links to an external site.) for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.