4 Assessment details Assessment 1 – individual written assignment An essay or report in an area concerning current issues in external audit. This will be submitted in week 8 – Tuesday 15 April. It will have 40% overall weighting. Your written work should be 2500 words (+ or – 5%). The word count does not include appendices, although you should remember that the point of appendices is to support “main body” analysis. No more than 10% of your words should be direct citations. This means that 90% of the words must be your own and must be properly referenced. Appendices may be your own construction or maybe fully cited work. Your work should be presented in the normal way, to the student centre and must be accompanied by a CD ROM of your work. This will be plagiarism checked. See the section below on plagiarism Required Select a contemporary issue in external auditing from the list below. Trace the development of the issue over the last ten years – you may go back further than ten years if you feel that there is a key event that must be included, but not ancient history, please! In tracing the development, identify the key stages and the changes that took place in approaches to external auditing. You should reference the arguments that influenced those changes. Select two companies or other organisations that have been influenced by the changes you have reported and analyse the effects on these companies. From this analysis you are to draw conclusions that synthesise the likely future direction that this issue will take. The issues; The role of external auditors in the corporate governance framework. The level of audit fees. The audit of not-for-profit organisations The provision of non-audit services for audit clients. Ethics versus rules in auditing. Auditing and the growing use of financial software. Auditing and E-commerce. Environmental auditing. Any other topic you wish to choose and discuss with your tutor. Marking criteria A & quot;B & quot; grade response will demonstrate; A clear, brief and well structured background to the issue showing good reading of appropriate sources of information. An effective analysis of the development of the issue An effective summary of the issues affecting the chosen organisations indicating that the extent of the effect has been evaluated. An understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the analysis undertaken. A reasoned and effective choice of future direction showing clear evidence of research into current and emerging issues/ Appropriate and properly referenced sources in a well-structured and clear report. A & quot;D & quot; grade response will demonstrate; Inadequate background reading, with poor referencing A poor grasp of the structure of analysis demanded by the task An over reliance on descriptive rather than analytical methods Only a weak grasp of auditing issues gained from inadequate sources. An attempt to describe the auditing issues but without effective support, and without prioritising. Little attempt to demonstrate future direction or giving assertions without support. Conclusions about the issue which are independent of the context or weakly linked to the analysis. 5 Plagiarism & #160; This is a serious offence that will be punished; Plagiarism is Copying chunks of unascribed text from elsewhere Incomplete or inaccurate referencing Copying other student’s work Downloading material from the internet Work presented by a student in an assessment is expected to be the student''s own, and while quotations from published sources are usually acceptable, such cases must be clearly identified and the source fully acknowledged. You should particularly beware downloading information from the internet and/or copying from books. It may be that your referencing is perfect but so much of your work is copied hat it still represents plagiarism. Lecturers can often recognise plagiarism when the style of writing changes in a piece of text. Lecturers will also routinely check work for copying especially from internet sources. & #160; A student who commits plagiarism will normally receive a fail grade, but worse things can happen. If you are not sure about plagiarism you can ask me before you submit your work.