Students Interactions with the University

Supplement

The “How-To’s” of

Students’ Interactions with the University

Prepared by Dr. Franklin VALCIN

Dear Student:

I am pleased to provide you with this “how-to” document, which contains guidelines about your interactions with the Academic Department at AIU (telling you how to contact the academic division of the university for whatever purpose). The document is designed to have all students use one universal format for assignments, seminars, theses, telephone calls, requests, and messages throughout their dealings with that division of the university. Therefore, I am asking that you take the time to become familiar with the contents of this brochure and also to make sure you are in compliance with all its provisions. Failure to do so can cause either a delay in the processing of your submissions or a grade below what you would normally have obtained, had you followed the Supplement’s criteria. Of course, misunderstandings, difficulties, or problems may arise any time; in that case, a quick phone call or email message should be able to clear any doubt or solve the problem. Beginning with the cover page sample that follows, it is critical that you reproduce all your papers just like the samples in order to ensure that, not only is every one on the same page, but also AIU students perform tasks of the same academic standards or standings as elsewhere. Ultimately, it is my hope that this addendum will prove to be a useful tool that will eventually make your experience at AIU as smooth, positive, and enjoyable as feasible. In the meantime, I wish you the very best with your endeavors here and through life in general.

Very truly yours,

Dr. Franklin Valcin

Academic Advisor

 Cover Page for a Seminar…………………….……………..4

 Cover Page for a Final Thesis……………….………………5

 General Text Structure………………………………………6

 References throughout the text……………….…………..…7

 References at the end of a text…...………………………….7

 APA Style and other handy support ….…………………..…8

 Email Messages…………………………………..………....9

 Telephone Calls…………………………………..………..10

 Peer-to-Peer Networking (Cooperative Work) ……………11

 Final Thesis Outline..………………………………………12

Also make sure you understand that a 12 pt font size is the universally accepted standard in college and university papers. A different size is used in our sample simply to provide students with a handy document they can look at quickly and use appropriately whenever the need arises for such.

JOHN DOE

ID UM234BBW1001

000AIU FUNDAMENTALS OF KNOWLEDGE II

Student’s Profile

My Life in Shangai, China

ATLANTIC INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

JOHN DOE

ID UM234BBW1001

Pragmatic Human Interactions

Between Managers and employees

A Final Thesis Presented to

The Academic Department

Of the School of Business and Economics

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of Master in Business Administration

ATLANTIC INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

General Structure of a Text

Introduction: Purpose of the topic

(Definition & Rationale for its selection)

[About half of a page]

Description

(Components of the topic & how they relate to modern world)

[About 1 page]

General Analysis

(Additional relevant details about the topic)

[About 1 page]

Actualization

(Specific case study to prove your point)

[About a page]

Discussions

(Pros and cons about the topic)

[About a page – this section can be waived]

General Recommendations

(What you suggest or wish to happen)

[About a page]

Conclusion: A new perspective

(Connect everything you mentioned to something new, or some possible outcome) [About half of a page]

References:

List, in alphabetical order, of all books, journals, newspapers, documents, and other sources consulted to complete the paper [About a page] {Look at the following page for actual format}

While it is recommended to use the same above titles, they must NOT be underlined.

References throughout the text

You must use at least one reference in each page. If you use more than one, it is better, of course. The reason for that is your university document is always a research project, and you must indicate what others have said about your topic before you. Make sure you read authors who have solid track records or reputations on your topic, and provide the reference in either one of the following ways:

Dr. Valcin (2000) mentioned….. (if it is an indirect quotation)

Dr. Valcin (2000, p. 7) mentioned, “you must use at least one reference….. (in the event of a direct quotation).

References at the end of the text

Your college paper must contain a list of references. This list (presented in alphabetical order) simply goes back to all your in-text references and provides readers with a way to see or check out the references if there is a need for such. For a 5-page document, a list of at least 20 references is sufficient, but try not to have only 5 or 6 references. This is what many call a bibliography. Make sure you follow rigidly the following format.

References

Valcin, F. (1996). Unveil The Yankee. Artex Publishing: St. Petersburg, Florida.

APA Style and other handy support

APA style (with the manual published by the American Psychological Association) is a writing and formatting standard universally accepted and recommended in most colleges and universities in the United States of America. For reason of convenience, however, we will not make this a requirement for our students, as there are many points of confusion and/or disagreement about several aspects of this system. The APA style mostly tries to unify how to write and present manuscripts for publication. We make mention of this here solely so that our students can be aware of its existence just in case. Any student who is interested can acquire the manual at any local bookstore.

Other important sources for writing techniques, particularly for theses, can be found in English at the following web sites. Remember that those tips are the properties of scholars who uploaded them on the net and are not to be reproduced, copied, distributed, or the like, without proper authorization.

http://www.middlebury.edu/~lib/thesisguidepg/thesisguide.html

http://www.rpi.edu/library/instruction/guides/styleguides.html

Email Messages

Due to the very nature of distant delivery advisory, a significant amount of communications between students and the academic department occur through electronic correspondence (email), and we continue to strongly encourage this. Yet, because there are so many students who have chosen this system, it is often confusing when it comes to determining who is sending what. Very often, the messages do not even have headers in the subject box. When it happens, as it can be imagined, it is a mess for the department to sort out messages and place them appropriately where they belong. For this reason, we ask that students always identify their email messages in the following manner:

Subject: AIU - ID UM234BBW1001 – Seminar # 2

If you happen to change the subject of your email, you then need to say so by writing something like the following:

Subject: AIU - ID UM234BBW1001 – New topic for thesis

By proceeding like that, you help the academic department to expedite your case because such headers say a lot, if not all, about your case before even anyone reads your correspondence.

Telephone Calls

Every day, students leave several tens of messages for academic advisors, and, like in the case of email correspondence, it is fundamental that messages be sorted out for proper delivery. Many first names are identical, and so are some last names. Therefore, the only way to know who is who, and who wants what, is to identify each caller and, consequently, each message. In the case of telephone calls, because every second costs money, it is not necessary to provide the secretary with every single character in your student ID; only the three digits that follow UB or UM or UD are important. For instance, you need to begin or end your message in the following manner:

“This is a message from John Doe, ID # 645.”

Whenever you fail to follow this procedure, this will cause a delay in the time it takes to respond to your needs.

Peer-to-Peer Networking

At the academic department, we also want to encourage AIU students to network between themselves whenever feasible. What this means is, due to the fact that cooperation is becoming increasingly critical in everything, likewise, students need to interact with each other every time they have the opportunity to do so. Therefore, soon after initial enrollment, students should inform us of their desire to network with peers who are majoring in similar fields. The information should be provided to us in the following manner:

Name:______

School: ______

Major: ______

Telephone: ______

Email: ______

Signature: ______

This information will then made available only to other students who have indicated their desire to network with peers and whose majors are similar to those of other students within the network. If you are not interested in this type of activity, please do not use or sign this form. Also understand that AIU cannot be held liable in any way, shape, or form whatsoever for anything that goes wrong in this networking endeavor.

Final Thesis Outline

Acknowledgements (to people who helped you out)

Abstract (a short summary of your thesis)

Chapter 1: General Introduction

Contextual Data

Background Information

Chapter 2: Definition of the Investigation (or Issue)

Statement of the Issue

Description of the Issue

Chapter 3: Dynamics of the Anticipated Solution

Goal(s) and Objective(s) of the Investigation

Methodology

Chapter 4: Overall Outcomes

Strategy and Techniques

Results

Chapter 5: Analysis

Interpretation of Results

Questions about alternatives

Chapter 6: Conclusion

General Discussions

Recommendations