How to Make Assignment Writing Easier

by Mac Larry

What do you do when you get an assignment from your college or university? Do you begin drafting immediately? Or do you just freak out that you have got so many assignments and exams and you don’t know how to finish them on time? Do you leave it until the last minute and then frantically work upon it?

If this sounds familiar to you, then you are in luck.

Today I am going to tell you how to write an assignment easily. Let’s begin.

Make proper notes

The first thing you need to do when you receive an assignment is to skim and scan it for essential details and make proper notes out of it. Note the following information:

•    The final date of assignment submission

•    Word limit of the assignment

•    The keywords like ‘describe’, ‘analyse’, ‘Compare & contrast’, ‘Explain’, ‘Justify’ and ‘Discuss’.

If your assignment is formal and you have to write in the 3rd person, or if informal then you have to write in the 1st person. Most written assignments are in the 3rd person that means that you do not use personal pronouns like ‘I’ or ‘My’. Some assignments are informal, and you can write in 1st person using ‘I’ or ‘My’.

Plan well

Plan out all the paragraphs and the information you need to include in the text. You need an introduction and conclusion and in between will be the paragraphs containing all your information. You might like to picture it as a sandwich or burger. All the ingredients are placed in a certain order in the burger, and the top and the bottom part is the introduction and conclusion.

Conduct a thorough research

Don’t just rely on the first page that you find on the internet. Look for information in a variety of sources like reliable web pages, books, magazines, newspaper articles, databases, journals, and many more. Find whatever is relevant to your assignment topic.

Say NO to plagiarism

Do not copy and paste somebody else’s work and pass it off as your own. Plagiarism is a big No! No!  You would not take an art form (as that of Mona Lisa) and pass it as of your own, the same applies to information in the text. Even if you copy the sentences line by line, do not forget to cite references. To check any traces of plagiarism, you can use reliable online plagiarism detecting software like Grammarly or Small SEO Tools.

Write the draft

Your first copy is your draft. It is not going to be perfect, that’s why it is called a draft. Transfer the information that you have found during your research in complete sentences. Stay away from writing really long sentences. If a sentence goes over 20 words, check whether it makes sense and try to break it into smaller sentences. When typing your assignment into a computer, make sure that you save your work. It is better to keep a backup copy on an external hard drive or USB device.

Proofread and Edit your assignments

Read your work out loud or read it to somebody else. Check for spelling and grammatical errors. If you are using Microsoft Word, you will see a red line under the word if you spell it wrong.  You will see a green line under the word if it requires revising or has the wrong punctuation.

For example, you meant to write ‘Write the spellings correctly’ but ended up writing ‘Right the spelling correctly.’

Mistakes similar to these can be addressed when you decide to proofread your paper.

If you have worked through the steps of planning, drafting and writing your assignment, you can submit a flawless paper before the expiry of the deadline. By following the above top-notch tips, you can un-complicate the task of assignment writing.