Position Paper- Personality Testing
A position paper presents an argued opinion about an issue. It presents an argument that supports one side of a defined question or statement about an issue, similar to a debate. The argument is supported with evidence to ensure the validity of your claim and address any counter claims.
Position papers are commonly used in many organisations such as not-for-profits, corporates and government (local, state, national and international) to argue a view for a particular course of action. The position paper may also be used to develop resourcing requirements.
Note: For this assignment you need to consider your team as internal consultants who have been asked by the senior leader to produce the position paper to inform future decision making.
Structure
The assignment is in two related parts: Part A: Annotated Bibliography and Plan, and Part B: Paper. In Part A, you will develop the building blocks required to craft a position paper on an OBM (Organisational Behaviour management) topic followed by the completion of the paper in Part B.
This assignment is intended to engage you with fundamental issues facing OBM and to develop essential critical thinking and communication skills required in the academic and business environments. All the steps from topic interpretation through to paper composition and editing will be developed. The topics are intentionally broad to allow you to explore the wide variety of related views. You need to develop a question or statement about the topic, which you will then argue. You may answer the issue affirmatively or negatively but, either way, you must develop a clear argument and support it with evidence.
Aim
The fundamental aim of this assignment is to develop your learning capability, building your ability to learn again in the future, not just your ability to collect and repeat the words of others. It is the goal of this assignment that you
- explore a topic area through researching the knowledge, arguments, and evidence of credible sources that have preceded you and then
- integrate your knowledge and experience with those sources to offer creative and sound arguments for the position you have taken. In this unit, a critical approach is necessary. A university post-graduate degree-level response to a topic requires your own critical interpretation and Lecturers look for evidence of original thought in your response not just a simple rehash and recall of the content area. The most effective assignments will demonstrate critical analysis of specific applications/examples, the development of criteria for judgement, a confidence in identifying key issues, and evidence of wide research and new perspectives.
- Remember, good assignments
- always answer the question
- are easy to read
- show a critical approach to reading and writing
- are less descriptive and more evaluative
The position paper is a natural extension of the preparatory work done in Part A. Your position paper needs to develop the arguability of the topic you have chosen and deal with an issue that has controversy and uncertainty. The issue needs to be narrow enough to be manageable and you need to identify two distinct positions. Part B aims to assist you to integrate ideas, narrow and sharpen focus, analyse, interpret and develop sound and compelling arguments based on the evidence collected, and compose a compelling position. Part B requires additional references to be identified and analysed. You should focus so that one clear coherent idea is developed and an organised argument is crafted. Your paper must include at least 10 relevant academic references (from 2008+). The paper must not exceed 1750 words (+ or – 10%), it should be 1.5 spaced, 12 pt Arial or Times New Roman font preferred, with margins 2.5cm. Include all in text and end text references as per the Murdoch guidelines http://library.murdoch.edu.au/Students/Referencing/. You should use APA6 referencing.