Assignment Planning: Quick Guide
If you're not used to writing coursework (another name for assignments) it can be a bit daunting. The best way to approach an assignment is to break it down into different steps.
Before You Start
- Think about feedback from previous assignments - if there is anything you need to do differently
- Read the question and make sure you understand what you're supposed to be doing. If you're unsure, check with your teacher
- Make sure you know the due date of the assignment and how you're supposed to submit it
Understand
- Make sure you thoroughly understand the assignment. Read it carefully and look up any words you don't understand
- Look for "instruction words" - in the assignment question, that tell you what you have to do
- If you have to choose from a list of questions, pick the topic that interests you the most
Plan
- Break down the assignment into task and think about how much time to need to give to each task. The tasks will be:
- Research your topic
- Read and take notes
- Write the assignment
- Edit the assignment
- Look at the Assignment Calculator to help you plan
- Usually there's a 40:60 split between the research/reading and writing/editing
- Include some time between finishing writing and starting editing. Give yourself plenty of time to make changes if they are required.
- If you're using a laptop or PC, create a folder for your assignment to keep your electronic notes together. If you're using paper, keep your notes in a ring binder or folder
Get Started
- Read the question again and think about how you're going to approach it
- You can use brainstorming to generate ideas
- Freewriting: writing down, or typing out, the thoughts that come into your mind when you think about your topic
- Mindmapping: a technique for visually organising information (see the Getting Started page for more info)
Research
- Think about the sources of information you'll use
- Think about how you'll go about finding information
- Have a look at these Library sections
- The Search Process discusses the steps involved in a search
- Information Sources looks at the most commonly used sources of information and the differences between them
- Evaluating Sources will help you assess the quality of your sources, particularly those available on the web.
- Search Skills looks at the techniques involved in searching library resources
Read and Take Notes
- Read with your topic in mind
- If it's hard going reading something, break it up into smaller chunks
- Try to read critically; don't take everything as gospel - does what you read seem convincing?
- Always look up words you don't know the meaning of
- Take notes
- Highlight or underline everything you think is important
- Think about colour-coding your highlighting/underlining - using different colours for different concepts (ideas, meanings, people etc)
- Think about recording yourself reading
- Maybe you can get someone to quiz you on what you've been studying
Writing
- Go and look at the Academic Writing section and the Academic Writing handbook
- You need to structure your assignment so that it has
- Introduction - provide some background and context ("this is what I'm going to say and why")
- Main body - where you answer the assignment question (say it)
- Conclusions - sum things up ("this is what I said")
- Reference List - the sources of information you’ve used to help answer the question
- If you're using a laptop or PC, save often! Backup the file to a USB key, or send it by email to yourself
- Give your document a meaningful name so that you can easily find it
Editing
After completing the first draft, you need to look to see if you need to tidy it up before you submit (and you almost certainly will). Print out your essay and read it. You need to:
- check the content
- have you answered the question that was set?
- is there anything that you missed?
- proofread for spelling and grammar (word processing spell/grammar checking is useful, but not sufficient - you need to do it by hand, too)
- check spelling and grammar separately - one read for each
- see if you can get a friend to help you out here
- check your references
- are all your in-text references listed in the reference list?
- are all your reference list entries used in-text?
Formatting
Make sure the format of your document follows the instructions given to you in the assignment brief or in your course handbook. If no instructions are given, some standard formatting instructions are presented on the Formatting page.
Before You Submit
Have you:
- proofread the assignment for spelling and grammar?
- revised the assignment as necessary?
- included a reference list that contains all the sources that you have cited?
- put a cover page on the assignment that has your name and assignment details?
- followed the instructions on submitting the assignment
After You Submit
- do you have confirmation that the assignment was successfully submitted?
- think about what went well and what didn't
- what will you do differently on your next assignment?
