Plagiarism, Informal Report Structure, and APA Formatting

A set of flashcards covering key definitions and guidelines on plagiarism, informal report and business memo structure, writing methods, and APA reference formatting.

Academic Dishonesty

Passing off someone else's work or ideas as your own.

Plagiarism

The practice of presenting work from other sources—such as AI generation, copied text, reused assignments, or uncredited web content—without proper citation or adding your own original voice.

Mashup

A type of plagiarism created by stringing together direct quotations and paraphrased text from multiple sources without original contribution.

Informal Report Format

A business memo structure commonly used for individual live case assignments to clearly present what a decision-maker needs to know.

High Information Headings

Bold, descriptive section titles (such as Recommendation, Decision Criteria, and Analysis) that highlight key points and main analysis arguments.

Memo Heading

The top section of an informal business report specifying the Date, Sender (FROM), Recipient (TO), and Subject.

Recommendation Section

The section of a report summarizing the key takeaway, setting context, identifying immediate and underlying issues, and detailing the expected outcome of the proposal.

Decision Criteria

The explicit qualities, standards, or benchmarks used to select and evaluate solution alternatives, written in a maximum of $4$ parallel sentences.

Analysis Section

The largest section of an informal report that details executive reasons, arguments, and evidence showing why the recommended option best meets the decision criteria over alternatives.

Implementation Plan

The part of a report listing specific main actions and time periods for immediate, short-term, and long-term execution of the recommendation.

Risks and Contingency Plan

A section written in $3\text{--}4$ sentences identifying the most likely and impactful challenges that may go wrong and explaining how to mitigate them.

Appendices

Supplementary pages at the end of a report used to present non-crucial details, reference exhibits, and answer anticipated questions.

Dot-Dash Method

A structural note-taking and outline technique where bullet dots represent main ideas or headlines, and dashes represent supporting evidence, research, or context.

Common Knowledge Rule

Information that does not require citation because it can be verified in more than $3$ independent sources ($>3\text{ sources}$).

No Big Deal TiPS

A mnemonic for APA reference citations outlining the core component sequence: Name, Brackets around Date, Title, Publisher, and Site.