Assignment writing guide

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ASSIGNMENT WRITING GUIDE
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WHAT IS AN ASSIGNMENT? Great ability develops
and reveals itself increasingly with every new
assignment. Baltasar Gracian Consider these
following terms Essays, assignments, statement
of purpose, admission essays, dissertations,
thesis, class presentations, term papers, end of
semester papers. Do you think all these terms
refer to the same thing? Well, you are
delusional! College and universities in
Australia, UK and USA use various terms for
different kinds of academic writing. Each term
refers to one particular genre of academic
writing written for a specific purpose with
specific end results in mind. Knowing what you
are writing will not only help you to write
effectively but write better. Universities in US
for instance ask for something they call SOP or
statement of purpose where you narrate your
reason to study in a specific university. This
writing is different from the assignments you
will be writing for your college teachers and
university professors while pursuing a particular
academic course. An assignment is, therefore, a
generic term that may be used to mean anything
that is assigned to you during the course of
study. The word may be synonymously used for
term papers, end of semester papers or
essays that you write to earn credit points in
a course. Some universities may ask to submit
assignments even when you are auditing a course
(i.e. a course which carries no credit points for
your final C.G.P.A.). Finally, it should be
remembered that an assignment is not a thesis or
a dissertation which is a much larger piece of
work done on the basis of original research by
the student in consultation with the teacher. It
is usually submitted at the end of the course
unlike an assignment.
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WHAT STRUCTURE TO FOLLOW? Various subjects
have various writing methodologies. However, some
points run in common in all the subjects. A
five-paragraph essay is the classic format,
although there is no hard and fast rule as such.
A well written essay must contain an exposition
or an introduction where you state your research
question and your methodology. This should be
followed by the body of the essay and finally the
conclusion. So, if you are writing on the
educational and employment conditions of
aboriginals of Australia for your anthropology
class then you might start by stating A sample
survey done on the aboriginals of Australia and
Torres Strait population reveals a grim state of
employment and education. Now that you have
already painted a grim picture of the aboriginals
of Australia, you should move on to elaborate on
how the educational policies of the Australian
government are designed to keep the aboriginals
in a poor state of education and employment. This
should be followed by your conclusions about the
main reasons for such discrimination. While an
exposition, a main body and a conclusion may work
for all subjects, specific subjects do require
additional points. For instance, science courses
based on laboratory experiments should start with
a hypothesis followed by details of the
experiment and finally the inference. Stick to
the following structure while writing a marketing
case study Start with an overview of your
arguments or at least state very clearly what you
are trying to do. Follow it up by your research
methodology or how you are going to conduct the
research. This should be followed by a context
description and then the main narrative of your
case study. Finally, summarize your findings and
state your recommendations. While we gave you a
sneak peek at how to structure your assignment,
it is still a complex subject matter that
requires a detailed discussion.
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HOW TO WRITE AN ASSIGNMENT? While our entire
article is about this, in this section we
concentrate on the content strategy and style.
Follow a simple style of writing, free from
jargons and complicated sentences. Although
professional researchers do use a fair amount of
jargons, that should not overwhelm your subject
matter. Try to keep in mind an imagined audience
who is not familiar with your subject matter. Try
to explain each and every term that you use,
instead of simply assuming that your audience is
already familiar with the terms. However, your
linguistic style should not be too casual as you
are writing for an academic audience. It is also
important to be politically correct and not to
use any sexist or racist terms. A simple style
of writing should be supplemented with a forceful
argument. However, you should consider both sides
of an argument and come to a possible solution.
Think of the Hegels formula of reaching the
ultimate truth in universe. A thesis confronts an
anti-thesis leading to a synthesis. A good essay
is also like that. You should first state an
argument, present a counter-argument and then
reach a possible solution. Try to give equal
value to both sides of the argument before
reaching a conclusion. Always divide your essay
into several paragraphs. Doing this will make
your essay look nice and organized. Each
paragraph should convey one particular argument
or a thought. Cramming of too much information in
one paragraph, writing a paragraph that goes on
forever and haphazardly stating information will
ruin your chances of scoring high. Be careful
about spelling and grammar. Students often commit
silly mistakes which create a bad impression on
the person who is checking your assignment. If
you are using MS word then chances
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HOW TO WRITE A BIBLIOGRAPHY? A bibliography is
another important part of assignment writing.
Basically it is a list of all the books,
monographs, journal articles and online resources
you have used while writing your assignment. It
comes at the very end of the assignment. This
gives the teacher an overview of your sources. A
bibliography is different from citation in the
sense that while citations usually come as
footnotes or end notes in the assignment paper a
bibliography is a list of the sources that you
place at the very end of the assignment article.
Place all the names of the authors you have
consulted and their works, in a serial and an
alphabetical fashion. Further, surnames of the
authors should come in the beginning followed by
the proper name, the title of his work, the name
of publisher, the place of publication and the
date of publication. If the authors name is,
say, Michael Porter and the name of the book The
Competitive Advantage of Nations, then write
Porter, Michael, The Competitive Advantage of
Nations, Free Press, New York, 1990.
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