How to get your head around uni assignments

Regardless of your course, unit or lecturer, you should try to develop two habits when doing assignments:

1. Read the assignment carefully as soon as you receive it and start working on it early – they usually take longer to complete than you think!
2. If you're unclear about anything in the assignment, ask the lecturer or tutor questions or check with classmates. It's best to get help before you attempt the assignment.

What's in an assignment?

Assignments generally have 5 parts:

1. An overview with background information on the topic that contextualises the task.
2. A task statement containing verbs like discuss, describe, evaluate, critique.
3. Content guidelines to ensure you address all aspects of the content and that you organise your work systematically.
4. Style/presentation guidelines, including things like referencing, layout, formatting and word count.
5. Assessment criteria explaining the mark allocations and grading system.

Note: To thoroughly understand the assignment task and the instructions, you'll need to read it a few times.

How to demonstrate your knowledge

Your learning is mostly assessed on the work you produce in assignments.

To demonstrate your knowledge in an assignment, you should synthesise what you've learned from studying the literature and relate it to the assignment task.

The claims you make and your explanations in addressing the task must be properly substantiated, i.e. you'll need evidence to back up your arguments.

Evidence can be things like quoting authorities on topics, facts and statistical proof, documented cases or examples from the literature.

Note: You're not only learning to present an academic argument, but also how to argue using specific types of materials and ideas.

How to write assignments

Universities expect you to write your assignments in the 'academic writing style'.

That means it'll be formal in style and tone.

You'll also need to be focussed on addressing the topic, question or problem.

Your information needs to be organised and systematically structured.

And the content must be unbiased, reasoned and based on research.

Plenty to think of, but you'll get the hang of it.

One final thing…

Presentation is important in academic writing.

So make sure your assignment is in the correct format and carefully edit and proofread your work. And always check your spelling, grammar and referencing.

Good luck!