LinuxMint (Operating System)

I have put together a series of some important information concerning Monarch Business School’s writing style. The subsequent sections will be imperative for submission of your first draft and the final submission copy of your dissertation.

At Monarch, we follow an exact referencing style to APA for CITATIONS AND QUOTATIONS ONLY. Monarch’s writing format is distinct from APA due to the fact that there is a degree of flexibility within its design. Monarch’s style is more heavily based on visual appeal and reducing fatigue on the eyes of the reader. This first part on Monarch’s writing style will focus on the basic requirements of : Cover Page and Document layout.

A. COVER PAGE REQUIREMENTS:

1. Default Font: 12 pt ARIEL
2. CREST Must Appear On Title Page
3. Followed by SCHOOL NAME: FONT SIZE 20
4. Manuscript TITLE: FONT 16
5. All of the following titles must be LEFT JUSTIFIED, written inCAPITAL letters with a FONT size of 12: Program, Submission Date, Candidate, Thesis Supervisor, Committee Chair, Second Reader, Third reader and Dean.

B. MANUSCRIPT LAYOUT AND PRESENTATION

1. RUNNING HEAD: centered and FONT 12 accepted.

2. FOOTER: centered and FONT 12.

3. All text is DOUBLE SPACED and LEFT JUSTIFIED.
4. Page numbering on BOTTOM RIGHT corner of the document.
5. ONE SPACE at the end of sentence.
5. PERIOD goes at the end of each citation, not before the citation.
6. All paragraphs should be at least THREE sentences in length and SHOULD NOT be indented.

Yours truly,

Donald Oxford York

Student Council President

Greetings Student Body!

Thank you for the positive feedback on my previous postings. Now that you have learned how to insert citations into your dissertation the subsequent sections will demonstrate how to setup your automatic bibliography.

Step 1: First establish on a blank page where you would like to insert your bibliography. For the purpose of all dissertation submissions at Monarch the bibliography page will be placed at the end of the manuscript.

Step 2: Click on DOCUMENT ELEMENTS then click on BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Step 3: Select BIBLIOGRAPHY not WORKS CITED as shown in the image below:

Step 4: Bibliography should now appear on the screen as seen below:

Step 5: Make sure that all citations are numbered and double spaced to meet Monarch’s writing style format.

Wishing you continued success in your studies!

Yours truly,

Donald Oxford York

Student Council President

Students may find Professor Schein’s classic book on Corporate Culture by clicking the image below.

On receiving the award Donald York was quoted as saying:

“I am fortunate to be a student at Monarch where my talents can be given the opportunity to flourish and I can make a difference within the student body and with my fellow students on an individual basis with respect to their own research and personal growth. Monarch has been a great experience and has helped me to prepare for the demands of a career in academic research and teaching. I hope to make an even greater impact in the future and put all my new skills to the test in a new role after my scheduled defense and graduation this December.”

Donald York is a B.A. graduate in Psychology from McGill University in Montreal, Canada and a M.Phil. in Business Research graduate from UGSM-Monarch. He is presently completing the D.Phil. Business Research / Ph.D. in Management dual degree with a focus on leadership studies. He is looking forward to continuing his academic studies after UGSM-Monarch with a second Ph.D. in Counseling from St. Paul’s at the University of Ottawa. Mr. York remains an inspiration and example to all students at Monarch and we look forward to hearing of even greater heights for his career after his scheduled graduation from Monarch.

ACBSP is a leading specialized accreditation association for business education supporting, celebrating, and rewarding teaching excellence on a diverse and global scale. The association embraces the virtues of teaching and research. UGSM-Monarch Business School is a recognized member of ACBSP. You may view their website at http://www.acbsp.org

The following section demonstrates how to enter automatic citations into document by using sample document as an example. The document begins with a quote from an author in which an automatic citation will be needed at the end of the quotation.

Example

 

According to Donald York, “Leadership is made up of five main elements”, [citation needs to be placed here]

Step 1: Begin by leaving the blinking cursor at the area in which the citation needs to be inserted.

Step 2: Go to VIEW and select CITATIONS. Your library of references should appear as illustrated below.

Step 3: Double click upon the AUTHOR’s LAST NAME and REFERENCE to be entered into the document.

Step 4: The author’s Last Name and Year should now appear at the end of the citation as illustrated below.

The next step is required to add a page number for a quotation or to remove author’s name from the citation if it is already stated in the document previous to the quotation.

Step 5: Single click the citation as shown in Step 4. Then single click the arrow on the right hand side that will go to a small drop down menu. Select Edit Citation and enter the necessary information you wish to appear in your citation.

Step 6: The Year and Page number is now shown in the document as illustrated.

Yours truly,
Donald Oxford York
Student Council President

Greetings Student Body,

I have been receiving some questions concerning using Microsoft Word for automatic: Citations, Table of Contents and Bibliographies. The first step in accomplishing each of these tasks is to make sure that the new or existing document is formatted as. docx . This will allow for utilizing the automatic functions within the document elements throughout the text.

The subsequent sections will explain and demonstrate how to accomplish generating automatic citations. It is essential to learn how to perform this task as it will take a large amount of stress of your shoulders as your dissertation broadens.

Step 1: To commence building your library of references single click VIEW and then select CITATION.

Step 2: A small rectangular box will appear, then select citation style APA. At Monarch, APA is the chosen citation style for all paper work formatting.

Step 3: Move the cursor to the PLUS SIGN at the bottom of the screen and click it .  This is demonstrated in the screen shot below.

Step 4: Upon clicking the PLUS SIGN at the bottom of the screen you will now enter into CREATE NEW SOURCE. This is where you will begin to create your library of references that will be used for your manuscript.

Step 5: TYPE OF SOURCE will provide you with the necessary information to fill out based on your document type to be entered into your reference list.

Step 6: Begin entering your Data into CREATE NEW SOURCE section as illustrated below.

Step 7: Then click OK when finished to allow the entered data to be present in your library of references.  Word places the citations automatically in alphabetical order. You will then see the CITATIONS box reappear with the author you have entered.

Step 8: Repeat Steps 1-7 until all of your citations are listed.

Step 9: To enter the citations as references within your document simply place the cursor at the end of the relevant sentence open the citation manager and double click the appropriate citation. This will create an automatic and dynamic reference within your document. More detailed instructions for Step 9 found in the post entitled “Entering Automatic Citations Into Document-Part II”

Yours truly,
Donald Oxford York
Student Council President

]]> http://monarch-sc.com/?feed=rss2&p=268 0 http://monarch-sc.com/?p=256 http://monarch-sc.com/?p=256#comments Mon, 13 Jun 2011 15:15:27 +0000 admin http://monarch-sc.com/?p=256 The Administration would like to welcome new recent students to Monarch. We wish them the best in their studies and a great experience at Monarch. The new students include:

Doctor of Philosophy in Business Research

• Ms. Linda Moyo
• Amin Al Salmi
• Ahmed Al-Battat
• Stanley Ndara
• Liane Imakando
• Godfrey Mulongo

Doctor of Professional Studies

• Ezzat Ragab
• Omar Muassess

Doctor of Philosophy in Economics

• Samuel Fadare

Doctor of Philosophy in International Relations

• Hassan Ouedraogo

Doctor of Philosophy in Finance

• Godwin Umeaka
• Joseph (Jeff) Turambi

Doctor of Finance

• Ifedolapo Olowoyo
• Babtunde Adewoye
• Bishnu Prasad Bhandari

As students we are in a very unique position at Monarch Business School in being able to receive one-on-one supervision from world-class academics. As one can imagine any lack of mentorship, coaching or supervision can easily cause a student to become discouraged and become overwhelmed. The feeling of being overwhelmed is triggered by two factors: lack of understanding of the process and poor time management. Both are blockers that prevent a student from achieving success within their thesis/dissertation process.

At first writing a thesis or dissertation may appear intimidating due to the extensive work that is involved. However, the majority of candidates at Monarch Business School have extensive backgrounds in business and should look at the exercise as being similar to what they already know. The candidates have experienced the same stress and excitement involved in writing a proposal in many of their business starts up plans or other endeavors.  Writing a thesis is not any different than many of the task that face us in business. In actual fact, your research proposal is equivalent in some sense to a start up business plan or any other document that lays the foundation for continual investment. We begin with an idea and then have to research the concept to see what has been done, what makes our business plan unique, attractive and worth the attention, involvement and investment of other parties.

There is a great amount of self-created stress and strain on the student/candidate in the transition period between writing the thesis proposal and creating the final manuscript. To ease pressures during your studies you will need to take a proactive role. Your supervisors are well read and published experts in logic, critique and reasoning. Their role is to make sure your work is at the prescribed level of excellence so that you are able to ultimately submit your thesis document with confidence.

That is, your supervisor coaches, mentors and guides you through the process of completing your manuscript. Your supervisors need to be stimulated and excited about your work confident that you are aiming at contributing to new knowledge.  From personal experience you are writing or creating a new piece of knowledge that merges with application and practicality. Once you have the outline of your work determined and your supervisor is in tune with your study and the communication flow has been established between the two of you then the rest will come easily.

In order to help all of you achieve success, I have put together a list of key concepts that I personally use to ensure greater success through my own study process:

1.    Study the UGSM- Monarch Business School Handbook: Study the Monarch Business School thesis /dissertation Handbook to get an idea and outline of what is expected of you within the given chapters. Not doing so runs you the risk of being misled or to stumble.

2.    Get To Know How Your Supervisor “Thinks”: You must take the time to know what you need to achieve in order to get through each chapter of the write up of your dissertation. Refer to your supervisor periodically to make sure you are on track. This will allow you to tailor your work to meet their requirements. Getting to know your supervisor well and understanding how he or she thinks can contribute greatly to your success.

3.    You Must Set Aside Regular Study Periods: If you are someone who constantly says, “I have no time at all”, then I question how effective and efficient you may be. Too much on your plate means that you are having difficulty getting things done and/or prioritizing. You must empty your plate before adding more to avoid “spinning” aimlessly. By scheduling set periods for thesis work and review you maintain a prescribed schedule that will aid in achieving your ultimate goal of completing the manuscript.

To succeed prioritizing is paramount. When starting on Chapter 2- The Literature Review you are learning through the principle of repetition. The most effective way to learn about your subject topic is to rehearse it and read about it regularly until you begin to see the “holes or gaps” in the literature. The literature begins to take on a life of its own and begins to repeat itself with similar themes. This is the moment where you are beginning to master the existing literature of your domain. But it takes time, perseverance and dedication to read, read, read, and then read some more. And for that you need scheduled study time.

4.    You Must Be Realistic With Time Management: One of the most important skills to learn is to set effective time management goals. One must strive to be efficient and effective and your supervisor can help you with this task. You must set deadlines and make an agreement with your supervisor that these goals are to be met by you. These goals must be specific and verbalized not general and undifferentiated. Your supervisor is in the same boat with you, as it were, and they too wish nothing more than to see you be successful, so use them as the goal keeper by identifying goals, verbalizing them and setting them as targets with the supervisor being the referee. Train yourself to use every minute of your scheduled time frame to strive to complete your work by meeting the deadlines agreed upon between you and your supervisor.

5.    Read Wide Awake: Many students work deep into the night or read while trying to multitask. They are reading while the TV or radio is on, or surfing the internet, or conversing with a significant other. The reality is that you simply accomplish more when you are awake, alert and focused on the task at hand. In the modern world we are used to multitasking, but the nature of dissertation work is that you have to let yourself become immersed in the task. When you are putting yourself to the task of your dissertation all your energies must go toward that end. Set aside the time and place as being uniquely devoted to your dissertation. These other distractions simply prevent you from allocating the energy and focus to truly master your domain of knowledge. Moreover, if you are falling asleep while trying to finish a task it is often better to put it aside and come back to it when you are refreshed. Train yourself to work with your natural cycles so that you are fully engaged when it is time to focus on your dissertation work.

6.    Move Forward With Purpose: Set a goal for each study session. If you start reading without a purpose you will fall short of your goals but if you set a goal for each session you will most probably exceed them. Every large voyage is made of smaller steps and you must pay attention to what you wish to accomplish at each step of the process so that you will ultimately achieve the larger plan. Break your larger plan down into manageable steps or legs and stick to the goals for each step. Each step containing several study sessions. So make sure you know exactly what each study session is to achieve and where that study session fits in to each step or leg and where that step fits into your larger study plan.

7.    Learn The Time Line Of Your Domain Of Study: One of my strategies has been to review my topic in chronological order starting with the subject’s history to understand how modern thought had come to be. Then you can specialized and integrate other materials that will help with the synthesis and integration of all of your material. Often thinking chronologically instead of thematically about your knowledge domain can give you the “historical lesson” you need in order to make more sense of your area of study. Understanding how and why previous seminal authors within the domain went from one area of focus to another will illustrate to you the meta level analysis of the domain that otherwise remains illusive. Once you understand this mental mapping of the chronology of the domain it will be easier for you to understand exactly where any particular theme fits into the larger time line of the domain of knowledge. Then you can jump back and forth within that time line with more ease and understanding. It will also enable you to better see any resulting gaps in the knowledge base that developed due to the shifts in focus of the writers at the time.

8.    Reward yourself: When you complete a milestone give yourself a reward. The reward system is the oldest method to give you an incentive to reach your goals. Completing a master or doctoral level thesis is a challenge and takes time. When you complete a milestone successfully, such as the perfecting of the research proposal or the completion of a Chapter reward yourself with whatever is important to you. That may be a movie, an outing with the family, shopping or simply some needed rest period away from the dissertation work. The important thing is that this time is guilt free, because you have earned it with your previous accomplishment.

9.    Keep On Top Of Your Work: One major down fall is letting work pile up which will leave you feeling overwhelmed. There are many tasks to perform during the completion of a thesis and it is very easy during the process to feel that you will never get on top of things again. Falling behind means you need to do more tweaking to your study habits and time management skills. Identification of the problem is important, do not let it become unmanaged or unmanageable.

10. Mental Discipline: Mental discipline essentially means maintaining the focus and drive through your study plan. This is difficult to achieve and takes determination and you need to know that there are others in the same situation as yourself. Your supervisors and peers are there for you to vent your frustrations as well as to hear your success and push you forward. Use them to clear your mind and regain your concentration. Often just knowing that others are facing the same challenges makes us feel much more secure in the knowledge that we too can create our own success. If you are someone who previously has worked successfully alone you may need to open yourself up to others for needed support. Everyone needs support from time to time and once you become comfortable with this exchange you will be able to be there for another at the right moment. This is one of the joys of thesis work: learning to support one another in a large study plan.

Keep moving forward, the end is closer than it appears when you are moving with purpose, efficiency and effectiveness. We are here for one another reach out and be part of the group.

Donald Oxford York, Student Council President

The student council would like to bring to the attention of students that the University has recently joined ACBSP as an educational member. For those of you who do not know the accreditation agency, ACBSP is a US based accreditation agency recognized by CHEA, the US Council for Higher Education Accreditation. The announcement was made earlier today on the University’s main website at: Monarch-Joins-ACBSP-As-Educational-Member

The educational membership that Monarch now enjoys means that the school will be further able to interact and exchange with the top universities in the world and bring more value to the students by way of curriculum, teaching and research.

We encourage all the students to familiarize themselves with the agency. It can be found at www.acbsp.org