- Why do undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications include assignments?
The first step you as a student need to ask your-self is : why should I have to do assignments to achieve my qualification?. Assignments are one of the best learning tools which can bridge the gap between theoretical and practical learning.
I always believe learning theory is essential, but the application of theory into practicality is a skill which we all need to develop. I call it a skill because it is something that we can learn and master.
Assignments are included in academic qualifications in order for students to broaden the horizons of their cognitive skills. Moreover, students can apply meaningful concepts, and this is a which is a great way to develop a perspective towards a given assignment.
2. What are the different types of assignments that students are required to do?
Different educational institutions and disciplines have different requirements; also different lecturers and tutors may have different expectations from written assignments. It is important that students ask questions and understand the requirements clearly before starting to write an assignment.
Fundamentally, before you start writing an assignment, you need to read your course material or assignment guidelines consciously.
The different types of assignments are as follows:
- Essay
An essay is a piece of formal writing which discusses a specific subject, topic, issue, or problem. An essay mostly involves a constructive argument about a particular issue. In an essay, you need to present what is happening in your field of work and be able to support any points with convincing evidence.
“Think practically, if you are a marketing manager of a private company, you need to convince the board of directors why they should increase your XXXX advertising budget for the next financial year. You as an employee, would need to highlight your key findings from the product or market.”
So, in an essay, you should be able to present both sides of an issue. Furthermore, when writing an essay, you need to follow the key steps below to make it more constructive and clear.
In an essay, it is very important to convince your marker with justifications to strengthen your key findings.
- Reports
Reports involve presenting your investigation and information on a specific issue or, problem, recommending actions and making proposals.
If you are writing a business report, as an employer, you have to provide information to the board which has clear structure and easy to understand to enable them to make their decisions.
An academic report focuses on presenting and discussing the results of an experiment, survey or a research method. In general, the following sections need to be covered in an academic report:
- Case studies
A case study is an in-depth investigation which is carried out to solve the problem. A successful case study analyses a real-life situation,- for example, a case study which shows Gillette from P&G declining sales over a period of time. In a case study, you need to analyse all the necessary information only from the details provided.
I believe that case studies are one of the best methods to relate theory to practice. In a case study you will be able to apply your course work knowledge into practice and you can also be innovative and creative when presenting your suggestions.
When writing a case study, it is important to:
- Identify the problems that the organisation faces
- Select and highlight the major problems in the case study
- Propose solutions for the identified problems (You should be able to apply your theoretical concepts in practice)
- Recommend the best solution to be implemented for the problem
- Present how your recommended solution should be implemented.
Abstract
An abstract is a summary of a longer work such as an academic article, dissertation, or a research paper. The objective of an abstract is to provide a brief overview to the reader of what the paper is about.
Generally an abstract is around 150-300 words, and there will always be a strict word limit. However, as a student, you need to adhere to the requirements of your university, polytechnic or the tutor.
If you are planning to write an abstract, the following areas should be included:
- A brief research problem and objectives
- Your methods or the approach followed
- The results and findings of your investigation
- The implications of what was found
- Your conclusion
If you are writing a dissertation or thesis, include the abstract on a separate page after the title page and acknowledgements, and before the table of contents.
3. What are the main factors to consider when writing an assignment?
According to your tutor’s guidelines, assessments may include individual or group assessments. Producing an assignment to a high standard takes time, and I always believe you should aim for an A or A+, and you need to have a liking for the topic that you are writing about.
Before you start writing, you should structure your assignment.
An assignment structure should contain the following key steps:
Planning your assignment will give you total focus, and you can track your own progress.
Timing
For your assignment, check how much each task is worth and what percentage of marks have been allocated towards the final grade.
Check your marking schedule
It is important to know in-depth about your marking schedule because you should know what your tutors will be looking when they are marking; also it will benefit you to be focused and allocate your time to each task.
Sit in silence and think what you need to do complete your assignment
For example, if you are doing an individual assignment, find out the information about each task, take in-class notes, and sort and order the information to develop an outline.
That’s all you need to do in the planning section.
Before you jump to answer the question on each task, you need to know what each task is expecting from you. So please ask your-self the following three questions:
- What is this topic about? (for an example, the topic may be asking about a marketing environment or marketing strategies)
- What does this question mean? ( for example,is the question about PESTLE factors- )
- What do I have to do?(for example, is the question asking me to compare, analyse, critically evaluate, or discuss-)? Remember to know the meaning of these words before you start.
I always recommend students to identify the keywords in the question. This will help you to identify what type of approach you should take and what particular aspect of content you should focus on.
Drafting your outline will give you a structure to follow in your assignment. You need to check your question and marking schedule because it will help you to understand how you need to manage the structure according to your tutor or academic institute expectations.
The basic structure of an Essay
You need to divide it into three main sections which are:
Introduction: Introduce your topic, the key points and the purpose of your assignment and the intended outcome.
Discussion/Body: You can divide your topics into different paragraphs and start each paragraph with a heading.It is important that you provide supporting evidence and examples. In your draft outline you can write a few ideas under each topic that you want to elaborate on.
Conclusion:Briefly restate your main idea and summarise your conclusion.
In your course outline or learning material, you will find recommended readings, and at the same time, you can search through online sources.Also, have a discussion with industry experts or students who did well in their exams, and this will help you to get a clear idea.
Once you have your information, you need to evaluate whether it is relevant to your topic or whether you need to search for more information.
Once you have all the information and a draft outline, you can start writing the main points under each section.It is better if you write freely and do not think about the wording at this stage.
All you need do is to start writing under each heading according to what you have planned in your draft.
Once you have finished writing, it is now time to do your fine-tuning.
Check and revise your draft and make sure all the points have been covered according to your guidelines. Further, look at your wording and make sure that the flow is well on track. Take a good break and leave your writing for a day or two then- come back and do the fine-tuning. You will then see many adjustments that you can make.
When you are fine-tuning, make sure to use linking or transition words or phrases to connect your statements and maintain your flow of meaning.This will help to explain your viewpoints and develop your ideas. Also make sure you include your reference and bibliography list.
I have attached a table of possible sentence starters, transitional and other words which may be useful when you are writing your research project or thesis.
Once you have finished writing your assignment, you must do a proofread. When you are proofreading, ask your-self the following questions?,
- Have I covered all the tasks according to the guidelines and the marking schedule?
- Is the structure accurate?
- Have I met all the guidelines (Eg: Title page, introduction, conclusion, APA Reference list )
- Does my assignment flow well?
It is better if you can read it aloud or give your work to an English speaking friend to read and get some useful insights. Formatting and presenting your assignment accurately is essential because almost all assignments include presentation marks as well.
So make sure your assignment is well presented to your tutor with elements such as formatting and layout, word count, APA referencing, writing style, grammar and spelling all attended to.
4. What advantages can a student gain by writing an assignment?
Tutors will require different kinds of assignments for various topics. If you are an undergraduate or a postgraduate student in the business management field, you will gain knowledge in strategic management, finance, human resources, marketing etc. Hence by writing an assignment, you will expand your horizons of learning.
Practice makes perfect, so writing assignments will help improve your writing skills. When you later enter a professional working environment after you qualify, your improved writing skills will definitely be an advantage.
I always believe, and I have written in my previous articles as well, that learning theory is important, but the application of theory to real business is a skill. So by doing assignments, you will be able to apply what you have learned in class to real business case studies. This will help you to acquire a new level of learning when writing an assignment.
As I always tell my-self, in the hyper-connected data-driven technology environment in which we live, the most important asset is knowledge. if you are knowledgeable in your specific field, that will be your biggest strength, it is not always about the money. So when you start writing an assignment, you will enhance your knowledge in different ways; you need to read, analyse, and apply all this to real-life business situations. All this will improve your knowledge greatly .
It is not only passing the exam and qualifying which is important. You also need to think to your-self, about the ways in which you can increase your knowledge. The answer is: keep on learning, keep improving your skills.
5. What are the common mistakes students make when writing an assignment?
- Lack of proper structure
Most students start writing at once when they get their assignment, but I always believe that you need to take a step back and ask your-self: how can I put all my ideas together to meet the assignment guidelines that my tutor expects?.
Your tutor may expect you to follow a particular format, so if you are interested, you can refer to the section where I have written about the main factors to writing an assignment.
When writing an assignment, you need to use a large number of resources to prove your points. Your ideas and opinions need to have factual detail to back them up and support, which, will give more weight to your assignment.
- Irrelevant content
Another mistake many students make during their assignment writing is, including irrelevant information which will tend to lose marks because you are not focusing on what has been asked for. Your tutor will not appreciate it if you don’t answer the specific question or if you include irrelevant data. It detracts from the overall piece of work and it is also a waste of time.
- Plagiarism
Plagiarism means using the words or ideas of another person or author, which have already been published, without any approved consent or acknowledgment. This is a very important factor and one of the biggest mistakes that students make when they write their assignments. So it is always a big challenge to avoid plagiarism. Always make sure to maintain records of sources for proper referencing and also citations whenever you want to use direct quotes.
In my next article, I will explain how to do referencing according to APA 7 format.
References
Open Polytechnic. (n.d). Open Polytechnic. Retrieved from Types of assignments: https://www.openpolytechnic.ac.nz/current-students/study-tips-and-techniques/assignments/types-of-assignments/
The University of Queensland. (2019, November 25). Steps for writing assignments. Retrieved from The University of Queensland: https://my.uq.edu.au/information-and-services/student-support/study-skills/assignment-writing/steps-writing-assignments
Tony, L. (n.d). Academic Essay Writing for Postgraduates. Retrieved from Academic Essay Writing for Postgraduates: https://www.ed.ac.uk/files/atoms/files/aewpg_ismaterials.pdf
The University of Otago. (2019). Library services and resources to support your learning, research and teaching needs. Retrieved from University of Otago: https://www.otago.ac.nz/library/index.htm