Posted: April 20th, 2015

Working individually, produce a written report which compares and contrasts the indicators/trends of the city centre office market, in the two following locations:  Manchester  Leeds (UK)

Assignment Brief:

Working individually, produce a written report which compares and contrasts the indicators/trends of the city centre office market, in the two following locations:
 Manchester
 Leeds
(UK)

You should also include a reasoned opinion of likely market trends within your chosen sector over the next 12 months

This is an individual piece of work so all writing must be original, free from plagiarism or collusion.
Please ensure that all material from secondary sources is correctly referenced

Additional Instructions to students:

Your report should contain the following elements:
-A review of relevant literature
-You should research the city centre office market in your chosen cities by referring to theory in published literature and current issues in professional reports.
-You may wish to discuss the history and development of your particular markets, but don’t spend too long on this – you should focus on recent trends.
-Ensure that you focus on fact rather than opinion, and avoid relying on one source (particularly lecture notes).
-The web links provided in the module reading list are fundamental sources of market data.

A review of secondary data
You should obtain relevant data from appropriate sources which can be used to show important trends. Large surveying firms, such as those listed in the reading list, produce research reports that contain up to date statistics on office markets.
-Use tables or graphs rather than quoting figures in the text, and examine trends over years rather than reporting year by year. Data from personal contacts cannot be verified and so should not be included.

Critical analysis

The literature and data should be analysed critically and your argument should have a clear logical structure. Simply describing the data that you have found is not analysis – you need to interpret the data, comparing and contrasting the two cities and drawing conclusions from this. Links between theory/practice should also be identified.

Conclusion
Summarise the report and provide reasoned predictions for the next 12 months based on your findings.

Presentation
You should demonstrate correct use of English, spelling and grammar, and the report should be word processed in a professional report format (i.e. use of title page, contents page, numbering, section headings, page numbers etc.).

Illustrations
Maps should be Ordnance Survey based and have a title, scale and north point (use Edina Digimap). Graphs or diagrams should be simple and legible with titles/labels, and photographs should be clear with a brief caption. All sources must be stated and correctly referenced.

References and quotations
You should put references in the text to books, articles, web sites, photos, graphs or diagrams etc., and the Harvard system should be used.

For information about referencing see the ‘Cite Them Right’ guide on the University website: http://elp.northumbria.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/library/Library%20Content/Cite_them_right_secure.pdf

Bibliography
An alphabetical bibliography of all sources should be correctly laid out in the back of the report. See Cite Them Right for further guidance and please note that web addresses should be precise e.g. www.egi.co.uk is not detailed enough – we need the full link to web content you have accessed.

Plagiarism
All writing must be original, free from plagiarism or collusion. Please make sure that you understand the University regulations regarding plagiarism.

Further Information
Learning Outcomes assessed in this assessment:
1. Examine the nature and functioning of urban property markets
2. Explore and discuss the roles of different actors in property markets
3. Analyse the growth, structure and functioning of towns and cities
4. Apply research skills to secondary data collection and academic writing

Assessment Criteria/Mark Scheme:
Review of literature and secondary data: 30% Interpretation and critical analysis of data: 40% Conclusion: 20%
Presentation: 10%
Referencing Style:

APA 6th edition or Harvard Northumbria