Each student will prepare a 1200 word essay on the following:
‘Can and should the marketplace be inclusive to all consumers’
Discuss this statement with reference to the topic of marketplace inclusivity/ exclusivity explored within the workshop programme(readings), offering real-life examples to support your stance. (Can and Should are two questions, you can answer separately.)
6 readings are important, you must read them and use useful parts.
Assignment Specifics:For the next five weeks, key readings from leading consumer behaviour and marketing journals will be discussed:
• Beginning with 2* accredited journals and working gradually upwards to 4* journals as a means of helping to develop more fully academic reading, writing and criticality skills.
Students however, should use these readings as a ‘launchpad’ for the essay:
• You will need to read more journal articles relevant to the topic, building on the class readings, and others you find yourself.
• We expect that you draw on at least 12 journal articles (6 provided and a further 6+ found by yourself) throughout your essay.
• We expect to see a balance of academic journal articles and non-academic sources included in your essay.
• Therefore, in addition, you are expected to incorporate material from other sources, such as trade journals (e.g. Marketing; Brand Republic); newspapers (most quality press is available online); and any other internet articles.

Just to confirm you need 12+ academic references not ten as mentioned in today’s lecture. 6 readings on workshops should be used, do not need to use all 6 and just use readings are useful.

Some Essay Advice:

You have a short word limit so need to be clear and concise in your argument.

Perhaps focus on a specific context/ consumer group (e.g.LI consumers, overweight consumers, older consumers)
Perhaps use this context / group as the main focus to build the essay around discussing the specific marketplaces that the group is excluded/ included within and how they can be further integrated into marketplaces.
Perhaps focus on a specific or a couple of specific markets (e.g. fashion, grocery, finance, services)
discuss the different groups that are included/ excluded and why such marketplace(s) can or cannot become fully inclusive and perhaps suggest ways that they could become further inclusive.
a lot of students used fashion last year. If you want to write this and you can talk about young and plus-size women and some exlusion

Limitations & Recommendations
Given the short word limit, you need to be quite concise and so we fully support students acknowledging a limitation of your essay being that certain markets or groups of consumers are out with the scope of the essay within the introduction section, when outlining what the essay will focus upon. Highlight limitation

We are supportive of recommendations to help make the marketplace more inclusive, or even concerns of making the marketplace too inclusive. So these could be added to your conclusion section of the essay.
Some students have suggested that perhaps too much inclusion will in fact create more exclusion as everyone will be different and so no one will be included in some ways, not to mention the supply-demand, production issues that complete inclusion may cause.

From your readings you will see that limitations and recommendations are core aspects of journal papers and as such incorporation of this will further enhance your academic writing abilities and style.
Appendices
Appendices, are out with the word limit but should only be used if they will add real value to your essay (i.e. a particular table or figure will be of crucial significance to your argument).

If possible try and add any tables and figures throughout the essay.

However, if you are concerned and thinking about using an appendix/ appendices then perhaps ask you workshop leader for their advice on whether they think in your instance it would be a good idea.

Tables
On consideration I agree that ONE table can be included within the essay. This table will NOT be included in the word count but MUST be limited to only one page A4 and must be the same font and letter-size as outlined in the module outline.

Citing and Referencing
We will checking and grading on citation and referencing style, so please ensure you follow the Harvard referencing and citation style throughout your essay.
This link will help familiarise you with the system and ensure you are citing and referencing correctly:

http://lancasteranswers.lancs.ac.uk/portal/public/?querytext=refharvard&tabid=2&searchradio=searchall&searchsubmitted=true&area=ISS

A core thing to remember is to be consistent in your referencing and citation style, so ensure you check this ahead of submission and beware of cutting and pasting from other journals, especially when referencing as different journal use different styles – so it is always best to write your own reference list.

Problems:
Will I fail if I have no references to theory?
Yes, the purpose of this essay is to test you on the skill of theory engagement as well as to demonstrate and test your CB learning skills. We are asking for a minimum of ten journal articles, failure to include these will impinge your grade, failure to include any will result in failure completely.

Can I use primary data I’ve collected?
No, you should use only secondary sources, and all sources used should be from published or mainstream resources.

Can I use friends/ family narratives and experiences?
Yes and No, you can draw on your peer’s experiences and stories to help give you an idea of what to discuss within the essay but you must then find real-life, mainstream examples of these narratives and back them up with theory. Do not use I,we,us

What are good real-life sources?
FT, the guardian, The Grocer, MarketingWeek,BrandRepublic, The Herald etc.

Do I need to use only 4* journals?
No, you can use 2* up to 4*. Check the list provided in the workshop one slides to see which journals are recommended. However, we will want to see a good couple of Journal of Consumer Research (JCR) articles. Also you can use papers from other disciplines, but ensure the majority come from marketing/ Consumer behaviour journals.

Should I include all the papers read in workshops?
you may choose to focus on one or more of these in more detail than the other papers, but all should be included in some manner.

Do I need to find journals of my own or is to okay to use journals provided in the recommended reading from lectures and workshops?
By all means, use the recommended references if they are useful, but we will need to see original learning and signs of external search, so ensure you are also bringing to the essay journals and examples that have not being offered in lecture and workshops materials.