BUS320 Week 1 planning manual

1. Capture the live Week 1 packet

Create one row for every visible activity. Record its exact name, type, complete instructions, rubric or grading criteria, points and course weight, due date with time zone, permitted and required resources, length and file format, discussion reply rules, group or supervisor dependencies, attempt limits, submission location, and instructor announcements. Save the rubric version with the working file.

2. Translate criteria into visible proof

Rewrite each criterion as a testable question: what must the reader see to award this row? Pair it with the concept, evidence, example or calculation, reasoning step, and location where the proof will appear. This prevents a polished response from missing a small but expensive instruction. When the Week contains several activities, map each separately before deciding the order of work.

Reading the rubric row by row before you draft

Week 1 is the first time the posted grading criteria are visible, so read them as a scoring instrument rather than as a summary of the prompt. Work down the criteria column one row at a time and write, beside each row, the single sentence a reader would use to justify full credit. Rows carry verbs, and the verb sets the ceiling: a row that says identify is satisfied by an accurate list, while a row that says analyze or evaluate is not satisfied until the response shows why one thing follows from another. Marketing criteria often pair a content verb with an application target, such as applying a concept to a named organization or market, and both halves have to be visible in the text.

Read the level descriptors across each row, not only the top one. The distance between the highest and the next descriptor usually names the exact thing graders look for, often carried by a word such as specific, supported, or consistent. Note the point value or weight beside each row and rank the rows by weight so that drafting time follows the points. Criteria covering formatting, organization, and citation are usually low weight one by one, but together they are the least expensive points on the page.

Finish the pass by turning the criteria into a checklist, one line per row, each phrased as a yes or no question the student can answer before submitting. Keep that checklist with the working file and store the rubric version next to it, because the posted rubric inside the registered classroom is the authority and it can differ between sections and terms.

3. Apply the management and organizational decisions method

For BUS320 Principles of Marketing, the working focus is this: Define the business problem, affected stakeholders, alternatives, evidence, resource consequence, risk, recommendation, and measure of success.

Challenge the main assumption, compare at least one viable alternative, quantify where the record permits, and attach a realistic implementation and measurement plan.

Use course materials first when the live instructions require them. Add outside evidence only when permitted, verify every source directly, and keep notes that distinguish the source's claim from the student's interpretation. For calculations or structured analyses, retain inputs, units, assumptions, intermediate steps, and an independent check.

Worked reasoning: defining the market before describing it

Opening work in a principles of marketing course rewards precision about who the customer is, and that precision is exactly where the method above begins. Suppose the registered Week 1 activity asks the student to introduce a company, a brand, or a market of their choosing. The weak version names the organization and repeats its public self-description. The stronger version states the business problem first: not that a company sells athletic footwear, but that it competes for a buyer who chooses between a specialty running store and three direct-to-consumer brands, and that its share of that choice is unclear.

Work the stakeholders next. In marketing they are rarely just the buyer. There is the buyer, the payer, the user, the retailer or channel partner who controls shelf position, and the internal owner of the budget. Separating them in the first week prevents the flattening that otherwise runs all term, in which the single word customers stands in for five parties with different interests.

Alternatives belong in the draft even when the activity is descriptive. Name at least one other way the same customer need can be met, including the option of not buying at all. Then attach evidence and ask a hard question of it: what public record supports the claim that this customer exists in the numbers the draft implies? One trade article is a starting point, not a market size.

Resource consequence, risk, and measure of success are usually light at orientation, but write one line for each anyway. Even a single sentence such as success would appear as a lift in repeat purchase within two quarters trains the habit that later weeks grade far harder. If the live Week 1 instructions do not call for all eight steps, keep the unused steps in the notes rather than the draft, since the posted prompt decides what actually appears in the submission.

4. Build a student-owned response

Draft from the evidence map rather than from a generic sample. Open each section with its purpose, make the claim proportional to the evidence, explain the relationship the rubric asks for, and close with the decision, implication, or transition the reader needs. A tutor may demonstrate a parallel problem, question the logic, or comment on a student draft; the student's own judgment, context, language, verification, and final version must remain visible.

What counts as scholarly evidence in marketing

Marketing arguments run on a mix of source types, and knowing which is which protects the first submission. Peer-reviewed journal work is the scholarly core, and publications such as the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Consumer Research, and the Journal of Marketing Research carry findings reviewed before publication. Textbook chapters and assigned course materials are teaching sources: they establish shared definitions but rarely serve as evidence for a claim about a live market. Trade and business press, industry association reports, and company filings are practitioner evidence, valuable for facts about a particular market and weak as support for a general principle.

The workable rule for an opening submission is to match the source type to the claim type. A claim about how buyers behave in general needs scholarly support. A claim about what one company did last year needs a company or trade source carrying a date. A definition needs the course material the instructor actually assigned.

Sources enter a draft in that order, never in reverse. Read first and take notes in the student's own words with the citation attached to each note, then write the paragraph from the notes, then place the citation. Building a paragraph and hunting afterward for a source to justify it produces the mismatch graders notice fastest. Confirm that each source exists and says what the note claims, and keep the permitted-source limits from the live instructions in view, because some registered activities restrict evidence to the course materials alone.

5. Run the Week 1 quality gate

Compare the finished work line by line with the live instructions and rubric. Check factual support, evidence currency, calculations, citations, headings, file type, accessibility, confidentiality, originality, and the stated audience. Confirm that replies, approvals, group actions, proctored steps, or supervised requirements have actually been completed by the student where the registered Week requires them.

Three Week 1 pitfalls and their fixes

The first pitfall is treating the first visible task as the whole Week. A syllabus map can hold a discussion, a reading response, and a setup step that all close inside the same window, and the most interesting one is rarely the one due first. The fix is to complete the capture table before writing anything, then schedule backward from the earliest posted due time in the correct time zone rather than from the task that looks most appealing.

The second pitfall is a company introduction with no marketing question inside it. Orientation activities invite description, and description earns the lowest level on nearly every analysis row. The fix is to write, before drafting, the one marketing question the response answers, place it in the opening paragraph, and then check that every later paragraph moves toward answering it rather than adding more background.

The third pitfall is an unformatted first submission. Citation style, heading structure, spacing, and file type are cheap to get right and expensive to lose, and the first week is where the habit either sets or does not. The fix is to build the document from a template that already carries the required title page, heading levels, and reference-list format, then run the format check as its own separate pass instead of folding it into content editing, where it always gets skipped.

6. Submit and close the loop

The student performs the final upload or entry, opens the submitted artifact to confirm it is readable, and saves the receipt. When a grade or feedback arrives, record the criterion-level result, instructor comment, required correction, and lesson for Week 2. If an attempt is missing, late, or technically broken, use Aspen's official channel immediately rather than assuming the gradebook will repair itself.

Source boundary

Aspen University's official FAQ verifies that courses run eight weeks and that each Week's activities are organized in the online-classroom syllabus. The active catalog verifies this course code and title. Neither public source identifies the student's current Week 1 activity, so this manual never assigns it one.

Week 1 questions