The Business Report is a research and writing project that occurs in phases, including researching, writing, and designing a recommendation report. You will explore the debate on using emojis in business communication situations. I will provide several sources, and I encourage you to look for other sources about emojis that could enrich your project. You will write a recommendation report to an audience of graduating seniors (in other words, not me) to offer advice on how new professionals might address this debate and make strategic decisions about using emojis to communicate.

Purpose The Business Report is a research and writing project that occurs in phases, including researching, writing, and designing a recommendation report. You will explore the debate on using emojis in business communication situations. I will provide several sources, and I encourage you to look for other sources about emojis that could enrich your project. You will write a recommendation report to an audience of graduating seniors (in other words, not me) to offer advice on how new professionals might address this debate and make strategic decisions about using emojis to communicate. Report Components: (See example/template below) Your report should be single-spaced block formatting with 1-inch margins and 12 point font size. Once all of the following components are assembled, your report document should be between 1000 and 1200 words. • Introduction o clear explanation of the debate and your position o preview of what is offered in the report • Findings: includes research results with citations and data visualization—charts, graphs, images that represent your research. You should answer the following questions: 1. What is an emoji? 2. How are emojis used in business communication? In other words, where do they appear, and what are people trying to communicate with emojis in business or work environments? 3. What are the benefits of using emojis? 4. What are the drawbacks or negative consequences of using emojis? • Recommendations o Based on what you have learned in researching #3 and #4 above, what do you recommend that recent graduates do—or not do—when it comes to using emojis in professional communication? • Conclusion (summary of major points) • APA References Grading & Due Date Total Possible Points: 125 Grading Criteria See rubric on Blackboard. What Your Report Should Look Like To: Recent graduates (make up names/situations here) From: Your name and position Date: Insert date here Subject Line: [Create appropriate subject line here.] Introduction The first paragraph will function as your introduction. This section explains the problem you are trying to solve. Describe the sources and methods you employed to solve the problem. Briefly list your findings and recommendation. Basically, this is a summary of your entire paper. Findings This is where you talk about the research you have done on your topic. Specifically, you will discuss the research you found in response to Numbers 1-4 above. You should use sub-headings to divide up the sections—e.g., “What are Emojis?” etc. See your textbook for instructions on creating sub-headings. You should cite your required sources and make sure they are listed on the APA reference page at the end of your report. Each paragraph where you include ideas from other sources should have a citation. The citation should be the author and the year like this (Jones, 2010). If you don’t have an author for the article, list the title of the article—or the first few words. An example would be (“Five Features,” 2010). The Findings section will be the longest section in your paper. Recommendations Most memos offer some suggestions or specific thoughts on how to implement the information you just discussed. In this section, you will spell out whether you think new professionals should use emojis when communicating at work. You can take a more nuanced approach if your research supports it (e.g., smiley faces are okay, but crying faces are not, etc.). This section will expand on the recommendations you mentioned in the introduction by providing more detail. Conclusion The conclusion tells what the findings mean, particularly in terms of solving the original problem. This should be a short paragraph that summarizes the data in the findings section. References See your textbook and the APA Handout for proper format for references. Your paper must have at least five references. Three references must come from the Newton Gresham Library databases. The rest of the references can be corporate websites.