I’ve discussed the generalities of the week’s work in the Week Eight Announcement, so this Instructor Insight link is devoted to providing some guidelines for the second writing assignment, which is your paper on the Lingering Impacts of Lehman Brothers’ Bankruptcy. The great thing about this assignment is the fact that you have already completed so much preparatory work with your first writing assignment – the literature review, which is the basis for your entire discussion in this paper. You will note that the assignment rubrics are located in the writing assignment link. All you need to do is click the “rubric” link. I have listed below some guidelines that will help you focus on the what I expect to be included in each rubric section. I encourage you all to familiarize yourselves with the rubrics and my expectations so you submit the very best paper you can!

Guidelines:

Rubric 1

Please include a heading for this section. This rubric is very self explanatory. You should have already reviewed research that explores the impacts the Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy had on other financial institutions throughout the US and the world. If your literature review was thorough, you should be able to provide a general theme regarding the overall impacts, as well as discussing some specific examples, based on the research. Be extremely careful to use correct reference citations!

Rubric 2

Please include a heading for this section. Your literature review should have specific data on industries that may have benefitedfrom Lehman’s failure or those that were especially negatively impacted by their demise. Pick one (or both) and discuss in specific detail what the impacts were in each case. I am not looking for generalities here, I am looking for in-depth discussion of the benefits or the damages. Be extremely careful to use correct reference citations!

Rubric 3

Please include a heading for this section. Your literature review should have researched the managerial problems, ethical lapses, and lack of transparency with regard to the Lehman Brothers failure, so these are the types of points you should focus on when formulating your discussion on  the third rubric. What are the lessons that should have been learned?  Be extremely careful to use correct reference citations!

Rubric 4

Please include a heading for this section. Based on the groundwork presented in your literature review, discuss whether or not it is likely that a similar catastrophic failure like Lehman Brothers could occur again, in today’s financial environment, given the regulations that were put in place following Lehman Brothers’ collapse and the ensuing financial crisis. Remember, it is NOT appropriate to make a statement of personal opinion. Any conclusion you present MUST be supported by the sound data and research by your references, as presented in your literature review.  Be extremely careful to use correct reference citations!

Rubric 5

Please include a heading for this section. Be very careful NOT to express your personal opinion here! You are to present conclusions based on the sound data and empirical research you reviewed in the first writing assignment. Based on your research, you should discuss in detail the data that supports the American economy being either stronger or weaker as a result of the reforms that have been put in place following Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy. You should list those reforms and explain how each was intended to change the system, and then provide support that either they have or they have not accomplished their intended goals.  Be extremely careful to use correct reference citations!

Rubric 6

Please include a heading for this section. This rubric is tricky because you are to relate the credit crisis to your own personal experience or that of someone with whom you are acquainted. But, you should NOT write this in the first person active voice! This is NOT a personal essay, it is academic research writing. This means that you should not discuss this as a personal experience, but rather you should use your experience as context for the general experiences of many Americans during that time. So, what you should do is take this experience (either yours personally or someone else’s) and write about it as if you were a journalist reporting on the effects the credit crisis had on the average American. You will use the details of the experience you are familar with, but you will relate them as if they were experienced by an anonymous individual. For instance, let’s say your uncle owns a specialty bakery shop and during the credit crisis he was not able to obtain the financing he needed to replace an old and faulty specialty oven for the business because the banks were not making loans. Perhaps he also noticed that clients did not want to spend as much as they used to for party and wedding baked goods, and there were fewer customers than before. What you should do is take the general impacts faced by this type of small business and describe them with enough specificity to clearly exemplify the far-reaching implications of the crisis. If you use specific references for this, be extremely careful to use correct reference citations!

Rubric 7

This rubric is completely self explanatory, but I will elaborate a bit. You should all have reviewed five high-quality references in your literature reviews. If you did not use appropriate references for that assignment, it is essential that you make sure the references you use for this paper comply with the standards. References must be high quality academic journals and/or peer-reviewed research papers. ANY Internet websites used will NOT count as references, and points will be deducted for any wikipedia, Investopedia, commercial financial websites, or financial blog sites. This should not be a problem for those of you who did appropriate literature reviews. If you choose to use additional rreferences, that is fine, as long as they are appropriate. The bottom line is there must be at least FIVE high quality academic references.

Rubric 8

I am a stickler for writing mechanics; however, because my classes are so large, I am no longer able to mark each individual paper for spelling, grammatical and sentence structure errors. I will, however,  deduct points for those errors and make a general statement in the rubric feedback cells if those issues are a problem. So, it is incumbent on each of you to make sure you check your paper as many times as necessary to ensure that there are no such errors when you submit the assignment. I also encourage you to use Grammarly to check for writing mechanics errors as well as originality, because each paper will be automatically analyzed. If English is not your first language, you may feel more comfortable asking a friend or colleague to read through your final draft to help you catch grammatical errors that you may have overlooked. Also, make sure your paper conforms to the specific APA writing guidelines I have previously provided for you.

Best of luck to you all! I look forward to reading your papers!

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

Papers must be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides, and citations and references must follow APA format.

Papers must be 7 to 8 pages in length, including title page and references.

All quoted material must be enclosed in quotation marks, followed by an in-text author citation in addition to a listing in the reference list.

All graphics (charts, tables, etc.) that are duplicated from a source must include an in-text citation with the graphic.

All rubric section discussions must include specific section headings in bold type.

All rubric section discussions must address the rubric points specifically and thoroughly.

All references should be academic journals and peer-reviewed data and research. Points will be deducted for Investopedia or Wikipedia references. Points will also be deducted for excessive use of “dot com” financial websites and blogs such as Fidelity, Motley Fool, Morningstar and others, unless you have also cited material from at least the five high quality references you reviewed in the Literature Review.

All papers should be thoroughly checked for spelling, grammatical and sentence structure errors prior to submission. Points will be deducted for such errors.

All papers will be analyzed for originality, and any paper with a similarity score above 50% will receive an automatic zero grade. Papers with a similarity score between 35% and 50% will receive point deductions accordingly.