Starbucks Case Study: A Latte of Errors

#1: Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding ’s or ’.

Examples:
The company’s value proposition included high quality coffee, excellent customer service, and store ambience.
OR
Starbucks’ value proposition included high quality coffee, excellent customer service, and store ambience.

Exception: its and it’s
The first (its) is the possessive form of a singular subject; the second is a contraction, meaning “it is.”

#2: In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term.

Example:
The company’s value proposition included high quality coffee, excellent customer service, and store ambience.

#3: Contractions

It is best to avoid the use of contractions in academic and professional writing.

#4: Use the proper case of pronoun.

Example: Starbucks is a singular noun. Just because it has an ‘s’ on the end of its name, does not make it multiple companies.
Starbucks should make the $40 million investment in its stores.

#5: Punctuation marks (commas, periods, semicolons, etc.) belong inside quotation marks.

Example:
Starbucks referred to each of its store employees as “partners.”

#6: Lose and losing versus loose and loosing

Lose: (verb) to fail to maintain or retain something; to come to be without
Loose: (adjective) not firm, taut, or rigid; free from anything that binds or restrains

Other rules to keep in mind:

Choose a suitable design and stick to it, including the format and layout of paragraphs, lists, and headings.

Know your audience.
Know who will be reading your paper and the knowledge the reader already has on the topic. Unless you are supporting a fact or argument, you do not need to include a lot of historical or background information.

Place yourself in the background.
Unless strongly supporting your argument, personal anecdotes are not needed. Omit comments or information not relevant to or present in the case study.

Omit needless words and phrases.
Your writing will be more concise if you state things simply. This does not mean you should omit all details or merely outline things, but that you should write clearly and avoid redundancy.

Use the active voice.
The active voice is more direct and gives strength to your statements.

Do not take shortcuts.
Start by writing out names (e.g. Christine Day) and acronyms in full (e.g. earnings per share) for the first reference, and then switch to the shorthand (e.g. Day, or EPS) after introducing them to your reader.

Be consistent with verb tense.
Many of the events in the Starbucks case happened in the past, so they should be written about in the past tense. For the $40 million recommendation, some of it is a matter of future tense because it is an event that may or may not happen and you can only offer projections for its implications.