Effective Assignment Writing

Introduction
Completing assignments will be a central element of your programme of study. It is, therefore, important that you develop effective assignment writing skills as these will increase your chances of achieving good grades for your assignments. These skills will also help with preparing for and taking examinations. You should aim to write assignments which are academically sound and demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of the topic in question. Assignments may take various styles with essays, reports and case-study analysis being the most common formats in business and management programmes.

The art of writing

Assignments and written examinations are the most common forms of assessment which you will encounter. Your skills as a writer are, therefore, important in ensuring that you produce high quality written work. Academic writing is primarily concerned with the concise expression of ideas, summaries of evidence, avoidance of unnecessary jargon and the correct use of grammar and punctuation. Your writing should be clear, informative and lacking in ambiguity. You will almost certainly need to make use of a dictionary to ensure that you are using the correct word and that you are spelling it correctly.

Reading and note taking

It is important that you read the question carefully before beginning your reading and note taking activities. Many students put a great deal of effort into preparing assignments but receive poor grades because they have failed to answer the question which has been set or have used an incorrect format for their presentation. For example, if a question requires a report format then submitting an essay will result in a lower grade being achieved. Read the question carefully section by section and consider what you are being asked to do. If you are asked to analyse a topic then it is not sufficient to describe the situation. When you have read and analysed the question you can then identify what reading you will need to undertake. Ensure that you have access to all the necessary texts and journals which you will require. Increasingly you will need to make use of web based material but you must ensure that any websites accessed are academically reliable. You should make notes as you read and add any comments which you may think relevant as you go along. Ensure that your reading is relevant to the topic it is easy to

find yourself drifting away from the subject. For example, in some text books you may only need to read a small part of one chapter to obtain the material required for a particular assignment. Good note taking also helps avoid plagiarism as your notes will represent your summary of what other writers have said. Note down all details of author, book/journal title, website, publisher, chapter and page numbers as you read so you can reference the assignment thoroughly. Having to go back and check all your references on completion of the assignment is wasteful of time. In addition to drawing on academic sources you may be required to draw on your own practical experience. Take note of questions which state Using an organisation with which you are familiar or Drawing on your experience as a manager. It is important that your reading takes account of this. For example, something which you read in a textbook may contradict what occurs in your own organisation and this should be reflected in your assignment.

Preparing the assignment

After completing your reading and note taking you need to organise the material which you have collected into a logical sequence which will allow you to present a well organised answer to the assignment question. You will need to organise your material into 3 groups: Material and ideas which may be relevant to the introduction of your assignment; Material and ideas which may be relevant to each section of your assignment and Material and ideas which may be relevant to your conclusions and recommendations.

On completion of this exercise you should be aware of any gaps in your material which will need to be filled by further reading and note taking. The majority of assignments will consist of 3 sections as indicated above. 1. Introduction

The introduction will define the terms of the question and should state how you intend to tackle the question, the areas you intend to discuss and the approach you are adopting. 2. The body of the assignment

This is the main part of the assignment and may account for around 2000 words of a 2500 word assignment. This part of your work will draw very heavily on the notes you prepared during your reading. It may take different forms depending on the nature of the assignment the body of an essay will be different from the body of a report.

In this section you may identify points for and against a particular argument, the limitations of your analysis and the methods adopted in preparing the assignment. If you are required to draw upon your own experience then this should feature heavily in this section. Also, if you are required to focus on a particular organisation then this will become a central part of your work. 3. Conclusion

Your conclusions, and recommendations if required, should be based on the evidence provided in the body of the assignment. Your conclusions should be succinct and no new material should be introduced at this stage. Your assignment should conclude with details of references presented in the form of a bibliography using the Harvard referencing system.

Editing
Finally, you should complete a draft of your assignment several days before the deadline. You will need to edit the draft carefully before submission to correct any spelling errors, amend terminology or make minor adjustments to the structure. It is too late at this stage to make major structural adjustments. Your well written assignment is now ready for submission.