Form and requirements
Topic – The role of forensic accountants in preparing insurance claims after natural disaster.
Students are asked to research publicly-available sources to gather relevant information and analyze the topic. The research report should summarize the key information, identify relevant themes, leading practices or pitfalls for practitioners and managers. Superficial reports, or those that merely recapitulate of news accounts or press releases will not be sufficient to receive full marks. To receive full credit, you must synthesize three or more high-quality information sources to provide a succinct summary of the subject and bring your own analysis of the case using the themes and learning from the course. Include a reference page of all sources.
While we expect that most of the Research Reports will be written in memorandum form, we will accept of other forms of reports. For example, students have the option to submit an oral presentation as a Powerpoint with voiceover (similar to the short lecture segments in this course) or YouTube video. The form and format is up to the student. Whatever form is chosen, the Research Report should be clear, concise, and businesslike. To illustrate, imagine that an executive level supervisor has asked you to research this topic and send her a memorandum to summarize the issue and tell her what she needs to know in her executive role in the enterprise. Imagine that she is a busy person. She is interested in understanding the most relevant elements and she wants you to pick out the most important information. She does not want to read a lot of extraneous information and she wants valuable information she can use. In this exercise it is more important to summarize and synthesize the most important information in a concise manner than to create a long, detailed report with every possible fact. Regardless of form, the reports should be “client-ready”. That is, well-written in error-free, articulate English. It is my professional experience that typos and writing flaws significantly impact the perception of the quality of your work. Grades in this exercise will reflect that. Research reports should be direct and to-the-point. Written, narrative reports should not exceed 3,000 words.