Approach to writing an A+ grade assignment |LGAW01
Introduction
Largely, a very common hurdle faced by most of the students when they arrive at undergraduate level is how to manage so many assignments at the same time. Mostly, in high school level, students are used to long class hours and assignments are quite straight forwards, in terms of containing direct questions that can be answered mostly from the text books. In contrary, in undergraduate and obvious to graduate level, the class hours are quite less and students are provided with much more freedom to study outside class on their own, and express their perspectives.
In the beginning, this freedom is cherished by most of the students as typically they don’t understand that this free time is not to be misused, rather they are expected to study on their own in this outside-class time. A thumb rule to be remembered is that you should spend at least double the amount of in-class time, outside the class. Means, for every hour spent in the class, you should at least spend 2 hours outside the class. However, if one doesn’t understand the importance and necessity of this 2 hours outside the class, after a month or so in the new semester, he or she will find himself or herself completely submerged with a number of assignments, with very little or all most impossible amount of available time to finish them.
Now, as in colleges and universities, lots of importance is given on assignments, failing to submit these within the stipulated deadlines will cost you flat 20-40% of marks for the assignment, irrespective of how well-written and good your assignment were. Hence, utmost care and importance should be given to these assignments and you should diligently follow all the necessary steps to complete these assignments. These steps will not only help you to maintain the deadlines for assignments, but also will help you immensely to produce a top notch assignment to get impressive grades. This document will guide you with step by step manner to understand all the necessary steps to produce a successful assignment. For more details of each step, you can follow the respective links to the dedicated page for each step.
Approach To Writing An A+ Grade assignment
Topic Analysis: This is the very first step of completing an assignment. In this step, your primary objective is to analyze the question you have been given for the assignment. As already discussed, in college the questions for the assignment are not that straight forward as it is in high school level. So, most of the students struggle a lot to adequately comprehend the question given to them, and failing to do so, naturally can set them in a wrong direction from the very beginning. Thus, it is imperative that you are absolutely clear about all the details of how to conduct a comprehensive topic analysis.
Brainstorming: After topic analysis, you are supposed to exercise, brainstorming as the second step. Basically, brainstorming is an interesting exercise of bringing out your most unorganized thoughts, ideas, concepts, plans on to a piece of paper or in a computer. Initially, you might feel this step to be kind of perplexing as one often feels completely blank when asked to do brainstorming. Nevertheless, once you have gained some confidence about how to conduct an enriching brainstorming exercise, you will definitely enjoy this step more than any other steps of writing an assignment. As this step offers you ample scope of innovative thinking and also helps you to unleash your creative potential. From this perspective a fruitful brainstorming exercise, will certainly empower you and will provide lots of satisfaction.
Developing Questions: Once brainstorming is done, you are all set to start building the initial structure of your assignment. For that purpose, you need a set of interesting as well as unexplored research questions as the necessary spearhead of your assignment. As has been the spearhead, research questions need to be sharp and precise. Hence, it is not adequate to only form questions, rather it is imperative that you generate a set of excellent research questions. And for that matter, you need to know how you can develop a set of excellent research questions that can guide your assignment.
Beginning Research: With the research questions, you should then begin your research. As often, assignments at this level you expect to conduct some form of research, mostly from secondary sources, at times even from primary sources. For this you first should be acquainted with how and where to access academic sources of information to begin the research. However, in academia any source of information can’t be used, and due to that reason, you should always verify the sources of information before you use them in your research. Once, you use any sources in your research as well as in your assignment, you should cite them properly to avoid plagiarism.
Reading Critically: Although the step of reading critically is placed after you have begun research, you should not treat it as just a step and limit it to this position. Rather, reading critically should be an attitude for anyone in academia and thus critical reading should be the backdrop of almost anything you do related to your assignments to completing your courses. At first, you should be clear about what it means to read anything critically. Once, you have comprehended that you should understand all the essential steps of reading critically. As highlighted, you should always try to understand the essence of critical reading and not merely conduct it mechanically.
Taking Notes for the Assignment: All the above five steps can be considered as allied steps to complete an assignment, from this step onwards you will see how actually you can start writing an assignment and eventually complete it successfully. Taking notes is always a good habit for any students at all levels. In undergraduate and graduate level also, you should be aware of the importance of note taking. Along with it, you should always polish your skills of note taking. The clear knowledge of different strategies of note taking is also immensely vital in terms of producing effective notes that will substantially aid the assignment writing process.
Planning your Writing: After you have taken good notes, you are supposed to start formulating a comprehensive plan for your assignment. You should spend solid 1-2 hours in drafting the plan before you go on to the next step. There are different types of method for planning to organize as well as structure the planning process. Remember to listen to your gut feeling in deciding which method suits you the most, as in this case the final result, i.e. The plan for writing is more important, not the chosen method.
Structure your Writing: With a good plan in your hand, you should focus on structuring your assignment. Like a building, an assignment also completely stands on the underlying structure. Hence, at any cost, you cannot get loose on this step. Extending the similar analogy, paragraphs can be considered as the bricks of an assignment. Thus, your first task should be to understand how to structure paragraphs and what are different types of paragraphs used in structuring an assignment. Then, you are required to know what makes a good essay.
Approach To Writing An A+ Grade assignment
Editing and Proofreading: Most of the students find these steps very monotonous and boring. However, often it is found that proper editing and proofreading can enhance your marks by 20-30%. Hence, never underestimate this step and devote a significant amount of your energy and time for this one. Mostly, students consider editing and proofreading as the two sides of the same coin, but in reality it is not the case. You should definitely try to clearly understand the different purposes and steps involved in editing and proofreading. At times, it is productive to exchange assignments among close friends for doing editing and proofreading.
Time Management for Assignment: As indicated in the introduction that in colleges and universities, often there are stricter deadlines and a significant percentage of marks is directly contingent on the fact whether you are maintaining deadlines or not. Hence, at this level you should not have any doubts about how to plan your time and how to execute an effective time management practice. Although it is often found that time management skills highly depend on one’s personality, you should give this step your hundred percent, and take the necessary help from various available software for time management.
Once, you are completely familiar and confident with these steps, it is expected that you are capable of producing top quality assignments if you are clear with the subject matter. However, often students find it difficult to understand how to approach different types of assignment like essay, literature reviews, Annotated Bibliography, Journal Article, etc. It is highly recommended that you should be clear about all the different steps to produce different types of assignment, before you begin.
