If you are a student, you know how difficult it can be to keep up with your studies, especially if you are busy with other life matters. Assignments usually have strict deadlines that you should meet, but if you are struggling with this, there are different practices that could help you improve your academic productivity. Hence, here are ten ways to prepare writing assignments.
First of all, you need to understand the assignment at hand. If you don’t know what is expected of you, you can’t possibly write an accurate and detailed paper that satisfies all the requirements of your assignment.
To understand the assignment, write down all the key points. What is the topic? What is the format? What is the word count? When is the deadline? By having a list of specific requirements that your paper should meet, you will be able to write exactly what your teacher or professor is asking for.
Once you have a list of requirements that your paper should satisfy, you will need to create a plan of action that you can follow one step at a time. With a clear plan of action, it will be easier for you to complete your assignment from start to finish, especially if it is a lengthy and complex one.
For instance, if you need to find specific types of sources, you will need to add that as a point in your research and planning stage. Only once you have found such sources will you be able to proceed to the next step in your plan and continue working on your assignment. The following tips might also give you some ideas regarding the way you should plan.
The first stage of completing your assignment includes research and planning. You already know what you need to do for the assignment and how you will do it, so it is time to begin researching your topic.
At this stage, you will likely have to find a number of sources to use or maybe even have a main source and additional ones. For example, if you are writing a book review, the book itself will be your number one source, but you might also have to use additional sources for the concepts or ideas you want to discuss in your paper.
After you have found the right sources and identified the information you want to use from them, you need to structure all of it. By structuring your information, you can better organize your paper and already create an outline for it with different sections.
There are different ways of structuring ideas, so you need to decide what will be the most appropriate one for your type of assignment and topic. For instance, a chronological order would be the best one for an assignment where you are dealing with events or even specific dates. On the other hand, if you are discussing concepts, you might want to structure ideas from the general to the specific.
Speaking of ideas, this is also the time when you can think of what you want to say about the topic. For many assignments, you are expected to discuss existing ideas proposed by other people while also adding your own thoughts and analysis.
If you are unsure of how you can phrase your ideas, you can get help from the writing service Trust My Paper by hiring an experienced writer who will help you complete your assignment. This way, you will be sure that what you wrote is in line with the way you think about the topic while also fitting the assignment requirements.
Instead of trying to complete your assignment all at once, start from the introduction and then work on different sections. In some cases, it might even make more sense to start with a different part of your assignment rather than the introduction first. For example, in a research paper, you might want to start from the literature review.
Keep in mind that the outline you created is not rigid and you can still move around some sections. You don’t have to do everything the exact way you planned it out beforehand. There might be things that need to be moved around, expanded on, or even completely removed from your paper.
Always use appropriate language when completing your assignments. Academic writing should sound formal and have proper grammar. Moreover, you need to avoid jargon or slang unless the terminology you are using is specific to the topic you are writing about.
If you don’t have much experience with academic writing, look up examples of it. You can even use the sources you found (such as academic papers) as examples of academic writing to develop your own style in a similar vein.
Speaking of using appropriate language for your assignments, you should also make sure to cite everything correctly. Your reference list needs to be in alphabetical order and formatted according to the formatting you are using (e.g. MLA, Chicago, etc.)
If you are not sure about the correct way of formatting your references, you can always consult online resources or even use citation tools that will create the citations for you automatically.
Once you have written your paper, you will need to proofread it thoroughly. You might even need to rewrite it a few times or alter some parts, but it is necessary to get the final, polished version of your paper that you can send to your teacher or professor.
Last but not least, before you actually submit your assignment, try to get some feedback on it. You can ask your classmate, friend, an english tutor or family member to read it. Perhaps they know nothing about the topic you were writing about, but they could still give you some valuable feedback regarding your flow or point out linguistic mistakes you didn’t notice yourself.
All in all, writing assignments are definitely not as scary as you may consider them to be. The more assignments you complete successfully, the easier it will become for you to do them well and with less effort. Try the tips in this article to improve your academic habits and start writing more high-quality assignments.