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 Re: مهارات أكاديمية / كتابة بحوث - قراءة - تقديم عروض - إلخ (Re: طارق عمر مكاوي)
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Writing your assignment
An assignment is something you’ll be asked to produce as part of your
course, and is usually assessed. There are many different types of
assignment, so make sure you understand which kind you have been told
to do. This guide will give you some tips to help you get started.
1. Don’t leave it to the last minute
You don’t have to start the assignment as soon as you’re given the brief by
your tutor, but it’s useful to have a look at the instructions so that you have
an idea of what you have to do (and how long it might take you).
Remember that the library only has a certain number of copies of each
book, so don’t leave it too late to find key texts.
2. Make sure you understand the instructions
Do you have to write an essay (a continuous piece of writing) or a report
(which might have headings for each section, diagrams, graphs and so on)?
How many words does the essay / report have to be? (Check with your
tutors about rules regarding word limits.)
When do you have to hand it in?
Do you have a choice of questions to answer? If so, pick one which
interests you and about which you think you will be able to find lots of good
information.
3. What is the question actually asking for?
You have to make sure to answer the question or complete the
assignment correctly – you could write a fantastic essay, but if you haven’t
done what you were asked to do, you won’t get a good mark.
Look for clues such as the ‘process words’ or ‘action words’ – are you
being asked to compare two theories? Are you being asked to evaluate
something (in effect, this means you are looking into how good something
is)? There’s a list of common ‘process words’ at the end of this leaflet.
If the question is particularly long or complicated, it will help if you break it
into sections and look at each section individually at first.
A good way of checking whether you have completely understood the
instructions is to try explaining them out loud, either just to yourself or to
someone else – checking with others on your course can help you to be
sure that you have all interpreted the instructions in the same way.
4. Do a quick plan before you start
Think about what you already know, and what you need to find out. What
sort of things might you need to include? Do you need to look for a
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definition of a term before you can do anything else? By doing this, you will
know what you are looking for before you start your research, and you’ll be
able to direct your reading towards relevant material.
5. Collect your information
Make sure to use a good range of sources – your tutors usually want to
see a mixture of books, journal articles, websites and other sources
relevant to the topic. There will be some useful sources on your reading
list, but you also need to find additional information elsewhere. If you’re not
sure where to start, have a look at the reference list in a good source on
the topic that you already have and see what books / articles that author
used. You might find that there’s a particular journal which keeps cropping
up in other people’s reference lists, so you could start by searching for that.
Online databases are very useful, and you might find that you can print off
many of the journal articles you need from your home computer. However,
you need to have an idea of what you are searching for before you start,
as typing in a keyword might give you thousands of results!
Every time you make notes from a source, keep the reference details with
the notes so that you know exactly where each piece of information came
from. That way, you won’t need to hunt around at the last minute, trying to
remember which book you used.
6. Write a more detailed plan
Now you’ve got lots of information, you need to work out which bits to use
in your assignment and in what order you need to mention them. A plan is
a way of organising your thoughts and information, so it doesn’t matter
what it looks like. You might write a list, draw a flow diagram or spider
diagram, or even use a notice board to arrange the information into a
suitable order. Doing this before you start writing will save you a lot of time
in the long run, and your essay will flow rather than jumping around
between different topics. One of the most common negative feedback
comments from tutors is that a student’s assignment is badly structured,
and by planning beforehand you will be structuring your assignment before
you even begin writing it. Tutors can tell very easily whether a student has
planned the structure of their work or not!
7. Getting started
If you’re finding it hard to start writing, break your tasks down into small
chunks. Look at your plan and see what you need to do – do you need a
paragraph which explains a theory, or a section which discusses a
particular author’s work? Start with something small like this, and write
something – it doesn’t need to make sense, in fact it could just be a list of
points or things you’ve found out about that author or theory. You can put
it together as a proper paragraph later. Once you start writing and have
something on the page or screen, you should find that it becomes
gradually easier to carry on.
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8. Don’t forget your introduction
Always start your essay or report properly by including an introduction.
Your introduction lets the reader know where the assignment is heading,
so you might choose to start with something like “The purpose of this
report is to…”, or you could start by defining a key term from the title of the
assignment.
Some people find it easiest to write the introduction first, whereas others
leave it until the end. Neither approach is right or wrong, so write the
assignment in whichever order feels best for you. The introduction might
be around 10% of the word count (200 words for a 2000 word assignment).
9. Don’t forget your conclusion
At the end of the assignment, you need to summarise the key points
you’ve made. You won’t be introducing any new material here, but you
might be effectively answering the original question and stating why the
evidence has led to that answer. Your conclusion could be up to 10% of
the word count for the assignment (200 words for a 2000 word
assignment).
10.Use other authors’ work
You are rarely asked to write about your own opinions in your assignments.
The most common exception to this is in reflective writing, which is
covered in another Study Basics guide. In most cases, you are expected
to research other authors’ work and to present their arguments, studies
and theories in your essay or report. You will therefore need to look for
themes, similarities and differences – do some authors agree with each
other? Do others disagree? Why? Have two authors carried out the same
experiment but claim to have found different results?
Remember to look at your sources critically – have a look at the Study
Basics guide called “Critical analysis of a journal article”.
Don’t forget to tell the person reading your assignment where each piece
of information originally came from – see our Referencing guide and
Plagiarism pack for more details on how to do this correctly.
11.Academic writing style
There are a number of things to be aware of when writing academic
assignments. The most common issues are shown here.
• Don’t use shortened versions or contractions such as “don’t” and
“won’t” in academic writing. Always write the full version, “do not” or
“will not”.
• Don’t use slang. To get used to the kinds of language you need to
use, try reading some journal articles and looking at the way the
authors write.
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• Don’t use “I”, “we”, “you” and so on – unless you have been
specifically told you can. (You are allowed to use these words in
reflective essays, and in some subject areas you may be told that
you can use “I” when specifically asked for your opinion, but in
almost all academic writing you will not be permitted to use the first
person.) You can still get your opinion across in your essay or
report, by discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the studies
you are discussing.
12.Edit your work
Don’t feel that once you have written a paragraph you can’t change it –
read it through and edit if you need to. You might choose to do this as you
go along, or you could leave it until later. Make sure that your points are
clear and that your sentences make sense.
13.Get your draft assignment written
Once you’ve written a draft or first version of your essay / report, it’s best
to stop working on it for a while. Hopefully you haven’t left your assignment
to the last minute and have time to ignore it overnight or even for a couple
of days. Then come back to it and read it through.
14.Proofread your draft
Some people find it easy to write their assignment directly onto the
computer, whereas others write everything out longhand and then type the
finished work up afterwards. Whichever way you work, you’ll find it easiest
to proofread your draft if you print it out or use a handwritten version. It is
very difficult for most people to proofread accurately whilst using a
computer screen.
Tips for proofreading:
• Read your assignment out loud, either to someone else or just to
yourself. Your ear will pick up on things which your eye might not
notice, so you’ll hear when sentences aren’t clear or when you
haven’t explained something very well.
• Ask someone else to read it through for you. It’s best not to ask
another student from your course to do this – ask a friend or family
member who isn’t an expert on the subject. That way, they will be
able to tell you whether you have explained things clearly as they
won’t have too much prior knowledge of the topic.
• If you’ve managed to leave enough time between finishing writing
the draft and proofreading it, you might find that extra points have
occurred to you which you now want to add. The intervening time
gives your brain the opportunity to process what you have written,
and possibly to identify any gaps in your information.
• Don’t ignore this stage of the assignment-writing process! You
must read through your work before you hand it in to make sure
that it answers the question and makes sense.
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15.The final edit
After proofreading, you might want to make a few additions or changes,
move sections around or even completely re-write parts of the assignment.
Before you hand it in, have one final look through it and make sure to
check the following:
• Your grammar
• Your spelling (try the F7 key if using Microsoft Word – make
sure it is set to UK English and don’t rely on it to pick everything
up correctly as it is not a substitute for proofreading, but it is a
useful tool)
• Have you answered the question or done what you were asked
to do?
• Is the assignment the right length?
• Have you used the correct font size and style, line spacing and
so on (check whether you have been given instructions about
this – not all Schools have the same rules)
• When you’ve checked all this, the assignment is finished. Don’t
worry about it any more and hand it in – it’ll probably never be
absolutely perfect, so don’t keep adding and changing
unnecessarily.
16.Don’t ignore your feedback
Your feedback is there to help you. It will show you what you have done
well, and what you need to work on for next time. It’s particularly easy to
ignore your feedback when you have passed an assignment – you might
breathe a sigh of relief and put the feedback in a folder, never to be looked
at again. However, it’s important to read it and to learn from it, to ensure
you’re doing the right things in future assignments.
You may find other guides in our Study Basics range useful when writing your
assignments. Have a look at our Referencing and Critical Analysis leaflets.
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Some ‘process words’ or ‘action words’ you might encounter
Compare Look for similarities and differences between two given themes.
You could reach a conclusion about which is preferable and
justify this clearly.
Contrast Set two things in opposition to bring out the differences.
Criticise Judge the merits of a theory or opinion on a given subject.
Always back this up with evidence or reasoning.
Describe Give a detailed account of something.
Discuss Explain an issue and then give both sides and consider any
implications.
Explain Give details about why and how something is.
Evaluate Make an appraisal of the value or effectiveness of something.
Has it proved useful to the discussion or argument?
Justify Show grounds for decisions or conclusions you have made and
answer any objections likely to be made about them.
Outline Give the main features or general principles of a subject,
omitting minor details and emphasizing structure and
arrangement.
Summarise Give a concise, clear explanation of something, presenting the
chief factors and leaving out minor details.
Mathematical words can be different
Write down
State Write down without justification.
Give
Find
Determine
Calculate
Explain You are required to show your workings out.
Derive
Evaluate
Solve
Prove
Show Justify each step and provide a convincing argument or
Explain explanation.
Deduce
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طارق عمر مكاوي
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست