LEGAL ASPECTS OF HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT
FINAL PAPER HANDOUT

Twenty-five per cent of your course grade will be based on the final paper. The purpose of this hand out is to give you guidance on the following matters relating to it:
1.) General philosophy behind this course requirement
2.) Topic guidance
3.) Grading criteria
General Philosophy Behind This Course Requirement
The main idea behind doing the term paper is to give you the opportunity to personally relate the information studied in the course to you career goals as well as to simulate a “real world” dynamic. It is not meant to be a mechanical exercise where you are required to grind out eight or more pages of dispassionate text.
In the “real world” you will most likely be working for an entity in the hospitality industry where you have a boss or a direct supervisor who assigns you projects. Sometimes those projects are very task specific and defined for you. More often than not, they are assignments that will require you to exercise your creativity, resourcefulness and ingenuity. This is what gives you the opportunity to demonstrate your worth to your employer. It gets you raises, promotions and the opportunity to advance.
Most of you want to be hospitality managers. As such, you are being hired to solve problems your boss does not want to confront, is not equipped to confront or simply does not have time to confront. When you are given a project, in addition to having to meet certain goals your boss is also saying, “Lighten MY burden and impress me with the results.” He/she does not expect to do the project for you or spoon feed you step by step directions. Although a reasonable amount of initial direction is necessary, ultimately your boss does not want to be absorbed in the project. That is one of the reasons he hired you.
A classroom environment does not directly lend itself to this dynamic. However, the goal of doing the term paper is an attempt to replicate it. You are being given very broad instructions and asked to use your mind to produce creative, original work product. Thus, your assignment is to research and create paper of no less than eight pages using a minimum of four outside sources on a topic of your choice that relates to the hospitality industry related legal concepts we’ve covered and your career goals. That’s it. There is no right and there is no wrong topic so long it falls within this broad parameter.

Topic Guidance
Choosing a topic, narrowing it and determining where to get information may pose some difficulty at first. Asking yourself why you are a hospitality management major may give you direction. We’ve had students who want to become event planners, open bistros, manage a bed and breakfast, work at an airline, etc. Whatever your goal is, you will be forced to confront many of the legal issues presented in this course as you pursue it. Write about how they relate to these goals. We’ve also had students grapple with a topic that seems too large such as “The legal aspects of starting a restaurant.” This can be reduced to a manageable size by choosing several legal topics related to starting a restaurant and focusing on those at the expense of the multitude of others. Some options for research sources include conducting live interviews, use of the Internet, legal pamphlets by regulatory agencies, etc. Overall, you are given great latitude in choosing your thesis and how to research it because we want the paper to be personalized.
Grading Criteria
Often students are unsure of how they will be evaluated on the paper. It is a subjective evaluation. There is no way around that. However, in our attempt to relate this project to the real world we’ve found it best to remind students of the saying, “You get an ‘A’ for effort.” Generally, if you boss gives you a project even if you don’t do it to his/her complete satisfaction, if you demonstrate solid effort, originality, resourcefulness, etc. this will be recognized and valued. It’s the same with your term paper. If you hand in a paper that uses wide margins, is merely a summary of the class text, and is not proofread, do not expect to do well. Trust us, you would not get a raise or promotion for submitting work product that communicates disinterest and laziness to your boss. However, if you present a well researched, original, personalized paper that is a “good read,” you will do very well. Treat the project as if you are competing against coworkers for a promotion. Stand out from the crowd in terms of effort and quality.
By analogy, an A means you get a promotion because you exceeded the expectations of your bossyour effort and work product shined above the others, a B means you completed the task as assigned and did a decent job, a C means you did less than what was required and it shows.start looking for another job, a D means you are on probation with a slim chance of being asked back and an F means you were fired.
Good luck!

8 Pages

APA – 6 References