Best Tips for Writing A University Assignment

Confident about your writing skills? Well that’s a great thing indeed. However, do take a SWOT analysis before you make a mistake which impacts your grades. Writing an assignment for university level submissions is significantly different from term papers that you submitted at undergraduate level. The tone, content, format, language, research tools all are significantly different. The kind of rigor and discipline that is needed for writing a university assignment is pretty demanding and complex.

What These Assignments Will be Assessing?

Most students make the error of taking university assignment writing as a mundane routine task. No, they are tools to enhance your understanding of the subject and develop your research, thinking and writing skills.

Kinds of University Assignments You Need To Be Conversant With

Academic writing is formal in language, content and tone. While it may share several features yet there are different kinds of university assignments that you may be required to submit from time to time. Each of these has a different purpose, audience and format. Let’s have a look at the different kinds of writing:

• Reports
• Case studies
• Dissertations
• Term papers
• Research Proposals
• Monographs
• An Essay
• A field Trip Report
• A Business Report
• A Review
• An Annotated Bibliography

Stages of writing a University Assignment

The first most crucial and integral step as a precursor to a well synthesized academic writing is planning. A lot of investment in terms of time has to happen at the onset of the writing process. Listed below are the essential prerequisites to writing an organized, effective, content rich and structured assignment:

Prepare: Rome was not built in a day. Similarly, a University assignment will not be completed in a day’s time. Best strategy is to divide it into neat building blocks and keep writing and revising.

Assessing: Begin with an assessment of the topic. The better you are able to apprehend the nature of the assignment more accurate would be your research and presentation of ideas. Make a research plan.

Researching: Extensive reading and analysis are the cornerstones of any good assignment. Draw insights and enrich your argument or thesis with relevant theoretical or empirical findings. Remember to read widely and critically.

Writing: Develop a writing plan. Remember clear writing comes from clear thinking. Focus on getting your ideas across. Create an outline, mind map, identify key points and concentrate on getting your ideas across in simplest, lucid, and engaging manner.

Editing: A key aspect of any good writing is how finely it has been proofread for errors. There is no room for mistakes, inappropriate words, ambiguous language in academic writing.

Formatting: Proper observance of structure is mandatory. The format of a term paper is going to be very different from the format of a dissertation. So, adhering to the structure of the form of academic writing you are engaged in is very important.

Determine the Purpose of Academic Writing

A very important point is to have clarity about the purpose of your academic writing.

Purpose:

Whether you are being asked to describe and explicate or interpret or evaluate determines a lot. Do not make the error of taking these terms to be synonymous to each other. They have a world of difference. The word description demands that the questions such as Who? What? When? Where? be answered succinctly. Whereas if the academic writing is analytical in nature it would ask you to focus on queries such as How? Why? What is the significance?

Audience:

The university assignment has to be reader centric. Audience analysis is imperative and of great significance.

Language:

Language is extremely significant. It has to be formal, clear, lucid, unambiguous, scientific or literary, grammatically correct.

Data collection:

This indeed is the back bone of any research document. The richer the content the more pertinent the thesis statement.

Let’s Do A Review

So, before you are ready to submit have a checklist ready at hand. Assess whether your document is relevant and addresses comprehensively the topic? Is it the research plagiarism free? There cannot be any compromise on academic ethos. In fact more often than not you would be asked to submit a Plagiarism report. Check for any fallacious or redundant argument. Cross check the resources cited, are they relevant and appropriate. Do keep an eye if the findings you are making a reference to are free of any errors. Ensure that the writing is readable and engaging. The hallmark of university assignment is that you are able to use appropriate terminology which is discipline centric.

Keep An Eye On The Timeline

 Do not procrastinate. Writer’s often face a writer’s block. They become so overwhelmed with the task at hand that it becomes difficult for them to start the writing process. Remember, that while the quality of research matters the quality of writing matters the most. Often the most commendable of research has fared badly in academic circles for having written in a sloppy manner. Hence, keep ample time saved for writing. This is a time-consuming process and keep a close tab. You would require many alterations, bouts of rewriting and editing. Often the tremendous work pressure couple with peer pressure will make you suffer from what is called analysis paralysis. Do not overwork yourself. Plan well ahead in time and keep your eyes glued on the submission deadlines.

Last but definitely not the least important is the citation. Proper indexing as well as making a citation style appropriate bibliography is a must. Academic researchers will definitely scroll through the primary and secondary resources you have claimed to have referred to in the process of your writing and you cannot put a false step ahead here. Proper compliance with stylesheets is essential, this goes without saying. If you manage to follow these pointers nothing possibly could go wrong with your writing.