Essay Assignment Topics: Developing Critical Thinking and Writing Skills

Essay Assignment:
Students are tasked with completing an essay assignment from a list of 3 or 4 potential topics. The choices of assignment will be presented in class in the early part of the semester. The essay assignment attempts to achieve a couple of primary objectives. First, it attempts to develop students writing skills which are essential in the business world. Secondly, it attempts to develop students’ critical thinking abilities, by challenging them to analyse the full complexity of the business world today. Thirdly, and finally, it attempts to measure the depth of students’ understanding of core topics in the course.

This is a written assignment and students will prepare a report (single-spaced, 12-point font, 1-inch margins). APA guidelines need to be followed for referencing as appropriate. 
Marks for the essay assignment will be awarded as followed:
    Use of Course Materials and Additional Research - 5 marks
    Students are required to support their arguments by referencing materials from both within and outside of the course
    References should be almost entirely to high quality sources, such as news organizations (newspapers, network television organizations etc), government and/or academic research papers or reports (available through the resources of the Telfer and central university library) or other sources where liability can be determined (online sources where authorship is unable to be determined and/or held accountable are not considered reliable…but are often highly entertaining)
    Marks are associated both to the quantity and quality of references used as well as the ways in which the materials are used (i.e. use of quotations or other data to support arguments)
    All external materials must be clearly referenced. Failure do so could result in a charge of academic fraud (see materials included below on this topic)

?    Arguments and Content of the Essay - 16 marks
    Grades for this section will be assigned based-on the extent to which the student has answered the following questions:
    Does the essay present a clear and fully articulated position on the topic?
    Are the arguments grounded or supported by factual and/or logical arguments?
    Have alternative perspectives or opinions been identified and thoroughly discussed?
    Have all dimensions of the issue been identified and carefully considered?

?    Presentation - 4 marks
    Assignments must be free of spelling and grammatical errors
    Assignments should be professionally presented, ensuring that any tables or graphics are clearly presented and easy to read (this may require reproducing figures, as opposed to cutting and pasting from source documents)
    Do the arguments presented flow together and build upon each other

Topic
The landmark date in Brexit story was March 29, 2017 when the british voters voted for the United Kingdom to ‘leave’ the European Union. It was long discussed, yet when it happened, it was like a shock. Companies huddled into board rooms.
Administrators were confused. EU also appeared shocked in some sense. The government of the day resigned.
More than 24 months down the road, the EU and the United Kingdom are still to come to an agreement on the terms of engagement, if any. EU and the United Kingdom represent good business opportunities for each other. Yet, the deal between the two is yet to happen and the date of the formal exit is not far away.