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For all the course units you study within your programme you will be assessed in some way, either through a written examination or through an assignment. Here we shall focus on assignments, which are sometimes referred to as coursework.
Assignments can take almost any shape. A course might involve several small assignments or one large one. The assignments could involve any suitable activity, from writing an essay to answering ‘problem’ questions, to doing a small research investigation, to a decision-making or problem-solving task.
Over the whole programme the assignments will probably be of different kinds so that you can show a range of skills and knowledge. Whatever the nature of the assignment, though, the preparation and writing needs to be done with care and thought to make sure you get the best possible grade. Below are some guidelines about planning and writing assignments.
Prepare a time plan as soon as you know what the task is
You will probably be given the instructions for each assignment at the start of a course unit. Divide the assignment up into the tasks that are needed, and plan when they need to be completed.
Every assignment will have clear assessment criteria. This is a list of what your assignment will be marked for, and you need to write your assignment to match the criteria.
If you meet the assessment criteria then a judgement will be made by the marker about how well you have met them. Judging what you need to do to get a good mark rather than only a satisfactory one is something that worries most students. So how do you find out? Some programmes may show you examples of assignments of different standards so that you can see the difference. In others you will be encouraged to show an early draft of your assignment to your tutor so that they can give you some feedback. Usually, though, you will be encouraged to meet with the course tutor to discuss exactly what is required to achieve the highest grades. If this is not offered to you automatically, do not be afraid to ask for a tutorial. Finally, of course, discuss it with your friends and other students on the programme.
It is important to remember to check your assignment against the criteria several times, and particularly when you have produced a final draft. This is important because even though you think you know where your assignment is going, you might lose sight of this while you are writing. So check at the end, and check off each of the assessment criteria against your work. If there is anything missing then add it in, and if there is anything in there which does not help meet the criteria, then take it out.
This sounds a very obvious thing to say, but before you start work it is always important to check two things:
• Check with your tutor and friends that it is the right assignment. It is not unknown for students to see last year’s course handbook, which had a different assignment.
• Check with your tutor and your friends that your interpretation of what the assignment is asking for is correct, and that you have understood the instructions correctly and accurately.
Most subject disciplines have particular traditions about the writing and presentation of different types of assignments. Whether your work is an essay, a lab report or a research project there will be particular models and structures of presentation which you should use. However, be aware that these are only models, and the exact structure that you need to use should be explained to you clearly in the instructions for the assignment or in your course or unit handbook. Check what is needed before you prepare your assignment, including simple presentational issues – should the assignment have double-spaced lines, for example; how long should it be; what should the title page or cover sheet be like? You may find further guidance on preparing assignments on a ‘study skills’ website in your university. Ask in the library or in the student services department whether your university provides such help.
If you have been successful as an undergraduate you will know how to use referencing systems within your written work. This means that wherever you are using the ideas of other people or are directly quoting their words from a book or a journal article you indicate whose ideas or words they are.
If you do not do this there are two problems that will arise. The first is that you will not be showing the range of reading you have done and the range of ideas that you are using, and at Masters and Doctoral level this is an important part of the skills and knowledge you need to show – so you will not get a good grade for your work. The second, though, is even more important and serious, for if you use ideas or direct quotations without crediting their source you will be guilty of plagiarism, and this is a very serious academic ‘crime’.
Strictly speaking you should present a separate list of references (works you have referred to in your writing) and a bibliography (works you have read but may or may not have referred to in your assignment).
Which bibliography system should you use? There are several methods and all are academically acceptable. However, most disciplines and most universities will be clear about what their preferred method is, and will explain this in programme handbooks. It will be best to use the method that is recommended to you. In the UK by far the most common bibliography system in use now is the Harvard system. A full explanation can be found on the library website of almost every UK university.
There are now a number of software packages that will produce a bibliography for you as you work and this may well be available on the central computer network at your university. However, like all packages, they are only as good as the information you put in, so you still need to check the accuracy of the references in your bibliography.
Checking that your written English is as good as it can be is an important step. Your English will not have to be perfect – even native English speakers rarely write perfect English! However, it will need to be good enough, which means it needs to be easy to read and to make sense academically and grammatically.
Unless your written English is excellent, it is sensible to have your writing checked by somebody else – an easy system is to have reading circles amongst a group of friends where everybody agrees to read the drafts of everybody else’s work. You should not expect your tutor to do this. They will perhaps agree to look at early drafts of your work to check the academic ideas and structure, but they will certainly not agree to check your English.
This advice is very obvious, but it is surprising how often students run out of time to write their assignment, so that the finished product may not be of the highest quality possible. It is important to remember that while you may have a good idea of how long it takes you to prepare and complete an undergraduate assignment, there are three factors that will make your postgraduate assignment take longer – it requires wider reading; it should have more challenging ideas in it; and it is probably being written in a different language! It is wise, therefore, to have a target date for completion which is a week or two before the actual deadline, so that there is time for slippage if necessary.
Even with the most careful planning you may find circumstances where you have problems with time. For example, you may be ill, or there may be some difficult family events (your partner or child may be unwell), or there may be unforeseen problems with analysing the data in your work. All universities and programmes will have systems to enable you to apply for an extension to an assignment submission deadline – but the rules will be very precise and you will need to follow them exactly.
Planning your assignments is discussed more fully in Chapter 8 of the book Postgraduate Study in the UK by Nicholas and Rosalind Foskett.
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