05 Dec Writing Assignment – Data-Driven Decision-Making For this assignment, you will take what you have learned

Writing Assignment – Data-Driven Decision-Making

For this assignment, you will take what you have learned so far about information systems along with your life experience and write a short paper about how customer sales data is created every time we shop and how you think that data is used by a large corporation that does not have a Walmart-like, supplier-driven inventory management system.  Look at or remember a receipt you got from the grocery store, the mall, the gas station, or anywhere you have bought something.  Think about the kinds of information printed on it, from the name of the company and store number down to the items you purchased at which date and time.  If a large corporation did not have its suppliers act as “product managers” as is the case with Walmart, how do you think the company might best go about making business decisions about which products to carry or drop, which stores to carry the products in, and in what quantities?  Do you think the time of year or holidays affect inventory decisions, and if yes, how so (give examples)?  How might the geographic location of the store affect the products it carries?  This is an extension of the Sidebar information found in the Information Systems for Business and Beyond reading assignment in this module.

Guidelines:

1. Submit an original work addressing the topic and questions provided above and other relevant factors you may think of beyond the questions provided here.

2. No title page is required.  Provide your name, the course and section number, and date in the header of the first page and subsequent pages.

3. If you use material from outside sources (i.e. the Internet), be sure to cite the source in the body of the paper where you use the information and provide an APA-style reference at the end of the paper.

4. The expected word count is 400-500 words, excluding the information in the header and any references.

5. A plagiarism checker is used, so be sure to cite and reference any outside source material.

6. You are writing with a professional audience in mind, so be sure to use a professional tone.  Do not use a familiar tone as you might use when discussing this with a friend.

Writing Assignment Examples:

I am including three examples of a writing assignment that I created, along with the grade that each would receive.  Each one includes comments from me as to why it is considered poor, average, or best.  For the purposes of these examples, I used a recent article I found on the web about space junk.  I used the entire article word for word and did not add any of my own thoughts, which normally would earn a grade of zero, so this is for illustrative purposes only.

Example 1 Download Example 1

Best – Grade assigned: A.  This example meets all the criteria listed above.  I did use an outside source and it is cited twice in the body using two different in-text citation styles, and it is also included in the references list at the end of the paper.  The word count meets or exceeds the minimum expected word count for the assignment.  There are no spelling errors, no grammar errors, and no contractions, and the overall tone is professional.  The header contains all the required information.

Example 2 Download Example 2

Average – Grade assigned: C.  This example meets most of the criteria listed above.  The paper does not meet the minimum word count and the header is incomplete.  There is a reference to the original source document (webpage) at the end of the paper.  As I noted above,  if this were a real submission, the grade would be much lower than a “C” because there is no original thought by me in the paper.  All I did was copy and paste someone else’s work, even though I did give credit to the original author.

Example 3 Download Example 3

Poor – Grade assigned: F.  The paper does not meet the minimum word count and provides a clear example of plagiarism.  The entire paper is copied directly from a website but no credit is given to the original author.  

See the grading rubric below for point details.

 If you have trouble understanding what needs to be done, contact your instructor and ask for help.

Submitting your Assignment

1. Click the Submit Assignment button.

2. Click the Choose File button and upload your file.

3. Click the Submit Assignment button to submit.

Rubric