• Conceptually
• Chronologically
• Methodologically
Generally, you are required to establish the main ideas that have been written on your chosen topic. You may also be expected to identify gaps in the research. A literature review does not summarise and evaluate each resource you find (this is what you would do in an annotated bibliography). You are expected to analyse and synthesise or organise common ideas from multiple texts into key themes which are relevant to your topic (see Figure 20.10 ). Use a table or a spreadsheet, if you know how, to organise the information you find. Record the full reference details of the sources as this will save you time later when compiling your reference list (see Table 20.5 ).
Overall, this chapter has provided an introduction to the types of assignments you can expect to complete at university, as well as outlined some tips and strategies with examples and templates for completing them. First, the chapter investigated essay assignments, including analytical and argumentative essays. It then examined case study assignments, followed by a discussion of the report format. Reflective writing , popular in nursing, education and human services, was also considered. Finally, the chapter briefly addressed annotated bibliographies and literature reviews. The chapter also has a selection of templates and examples throughout to enhance your understanding and improve the efficacy of your assignment writing skills.
Gibbs, G. (1988). Learning by doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Further Education Unit, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford.
Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D., Jasper, M. (2001). Critical reflection in nursing and the helping professions: a user’s guide . Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Ryan, M. & Ryan, M. (2013). Theorising a model for teaching and assessing reflective learning in higher education. Higher Education Research & Development , 32(2), 244-257. doi: 10.1080/07294360.2012.661704
Academic Success Copyright © 2021 by Cristy Bartlett and Kate Derrington is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.
[madrid] use the servicenow® advanced work assignment (awa) feature to automatically assign work items to your agents, based on their availability, capacity, and optionally, skills., awa pushes work to qualified agents using work item queues, routing conditions, and assignment criteria that you define. agents see their assignments in their agent workspace inbox., customers use different channels to request service, for example, chats, cases, or incidents. requests from customers create task or interaction records that store information about these objects, called work items., awa automatically routes work items to queues that focus on certain types of support, using criteria (such as priority or customer status) that you provide. queues can be defined based on need or type, for example product or critical cases. you also identify the agent groups responsible for work in the queue. awa then applies assignment rules that you set and uses agent availability, capacity, and skills (if defined) to assign work to the most qualified agent..
service channels, a means of providing customer service. awa offers base system channels for chats, cases, incidents, and walk-up centers. for each channel, you can set attributes such as agent capacity and utilization conditions to control the work handled in the channel., a single piece of work to be handled by an agent from start to completion. for example, one chat or one case are objects that are routed and assigned to agents., work item queues, a queue stores a work item for a specified service channel. awa admins can create queues that focus on certain types of support within the channel, such as vip customers or critical cases. awa routes work items to queues based on specific conditions or requirements that you define, such as customer status, or region. groups assigned to each queue handle the incoming work items. once work items are placed in a queue, awa can then assign items to available agents based on assignment rules and agent availability and capacity., assignment groups, agents belong to specific groups that are organized by the type of work assigned to them. you provide details about an assignment group including the name and description, manager, and group email. you can also set up roles, groups and group members, queues, and agent capacity overrides for agents in an assignment group., assignment rule, criteria that determines how work items are pushed to the appropriate agent within a qualified assignment group., agent capacity, the maximum number of work items on a particular service channel that an agent may actively work on at one time., agent availability, states that indicate agent presence and whether the agent is available for work or is busy or offline. awa uses the agent availability state to determine if an agent is able to receive work., inbox layout, a configuration tied to a service channel that defines which fields of a record representing a work item are shown in agent inboxes. a layout defines what the agent sees in agent workspace., advanced work assignment roles, awa adds the following roles for users who configure, manage, and receive work assignments..
Users with the awa_admin role determine:, what to route – configure the base service channels to be used., where to route – define the work item queues and the routing rules, execution order, work item sort order, and strategy, how to assign work items – define the assignment rules that determine the work items pushed to agents, what the agent sees – set the inbox card layouts and presence (availability) states that agents use in their agent workspace, for more information: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/madrid-servicenow-platform/page/administer/advanced-work-assignment/concept/awa-overview.html.
The work assignment feature in project management software allows work to be assigned to the appropriate person within the project team. Whether it’s creating a new project or adding in a new task, the work needs to be assigned to a resource for it to be executed.
After all, if the work isn’t assigned to someone, then no one knows who is responsible for ensuring it’s completed. Instead of relying on everyone knowing who’s responsible for what and passing it on to the right person at the right time, you can store all that information inside your project management software.
The work assignment feature can be used for new requests using dynamic request forms . It can also be used for workflows using the auto-assignment feature.
Dynamic request forms ensure that all vital task information is captured without asking the requester any unnecessary questions. The form questions change based on the information the requester provides as they’re filling it out.
These request forms are designed to automatically modify fields to match request types. One of the available modifications is the automatic assignment of resources based on specific form answers or selections.
For example, if a request is created to ask for additional product testing, it can be automatically assigned to your lead project tester. This feature ensures that work is always assigned to the correct person, even when the requester doesn’t know who should be responsible.
To use automatic work assignments within request forms, one of your software admins simply needs to tie certain drop-down options or checkboxes to the appropriate work owners when creating the form template.
Auto-assigned workflows automatically assign work to team members when it’s ready for them to begin. This functionality allows users to auto-assign workflow stages. As tasks enter each stage, new assignees are added and automatically alerted to start their work. For example, the work assignment feature will allow you to automatically assign work to your editor as soon as it’s moved to the “content review” stage.
This auto-assignment approach also helps teams deliver faster by preventing rework since tasks will not be assigned until requirements and prior stages are complete. Plus, it reduces the number of tasks visible to each employee, allowing them to better focus on current priorities.
Team members cannot access a task until it’s assigned to them. By reducing the volume of work assigned in the system, you can optimize speed and quality, reduce multitasking , and lower employee stress.
Plus, as the project manager, you don’t need to remember to give people the go-ahead when it’s time to begin the next piece of work. The system will automatically notify everyone for you so that you’re not wasting time trying to contact people, and you don’t need to micromanage their progress.
Auto-assigned workflows can also be useful for larger projects that have separate phases with phase gates . Using this approach, the next phase typically is not approved to start until the gate has been successfully approved. The auto-assign workflow feature allows you to tie work to these phases so that people do not accidentally begin tasks before approval is received.
To use auto-assigned workflows, you simply need to define each stage of your overall workflow and assign each workflow stage to team members. The system will then automatically send “Start Next Task” alerts to assignees when prior dependencies have been completed, and they can start their work.
Here are some additional tips on using auto-assigned workflows:
Thankfully, dashboards can allow you to easily visualize workflows and pinpoint any issues with assignments. If you know someone is absent, you can see all the work currently assigned to them and decide whether it can wait until their return, or you can reassign it to someone else.
Without work assignments, requesters must know who the work belongs to and manually assign it to them. This results in more time filling out forms, and it increases the risk of work being assigned to the wrong person.
If you have a large company or new employees, they may not be aware of who’s responsible for each type of work . A task may not find its way to the right person, or it can get stuck in a certain step of the process if it's not appropriately handed off to the correct person at the correct time.
If tasks are not closely monitored and managed, sometimes a request can sit there for weeks with no movement due to it being unclear who’s responsible for it. When the work is then assigned to the incorrect person, time is lost rerouting it. These delays may even cause deadlines to be missed or work to go uncompleted.
Having the ability to auto-route requests to the appropriate person based on project details can solve all these issues. In addition, tying certain workflow statuses to certain team members ensures that tasks are automatically moved to the right person as soon as they’re ready for them.
Auto-Assign Workflows to Increase Speed and Simplify Processes
Addicted to Multitasking: The Scientific Reasons You Can’t Stop Juggling Work
Accelerate Your Business With Wrike's New Custom Workflows
Artem is a Director of Account Development at Wrike. He previously held the role of Project Manager, overseeing a team of customer success managers (CSMs). Over the years of building teams and scaling business processes, he has successfully deployed multiple projects, from automating client outreach to setting up work prioritization tools for sales reps and CSMs.
Writing and researching, writing tools and techniques, editing and proofreading, grammar and spelling, audience, tone and purpose.
There are many different types of written assignments, including essays, reports and reviews. Student Services has resources to help you understand different types of written assignments and how to structure your work:
Online tools and courses to improve your skills:
Sometimes when we read aloud we say the words that should be there, even if they are not. A text-to-speech tool is a good way of checking the accuracy and flow of your assignment. The tool will only read what actually is written on the page. Study hacks lists text-to-speech tools .
Student Support has information on finding a proofreader .
You can use the spelling and grammar features in your word processing tool (e.g. Microsoft Word and Google Docs ) to check what you have written. Some writing tools use generative artificial intelligence to make recommendations. Using AI tools in your studies includes information about what you should consider before using AI writing tools in assessment tasks.
Use the Macquarie Dictionary and Thesaurus if you are unsure about any words. It is regarded as the standard reference on Australian English.
To write effectively, you should think carefully about the intended audience and purpose of your assignment. Adjust your tone to suit your audience and the medium you are using.
The Communication Learning in Practice for Scientists (CLIPS) website outlines how the audience, context and purpose affects how you should communicate. The website was developed to help undergraduate science students develop their communication skills but is relevant for students in all fields.
Types of Assignments Copyright © 2023 by The University of Queensland is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.
Your Turnitin guidance is moving! We’re migrating our content to a new guides site. We plan to fully launch this new site in July. We are making changes to our structure that will help with discoverability and content searching. You can preview the new site now . To help you get up to speed with the new guidance structure, please visit our orientation page .
Revision Assistant offers three color-coded assignment types:
Each assignment type comes with a set of standards-aligned writing tasks, referred to as "prompts," that teachers assign their students within Revision Assistant itself. Prompts have different feedback, guidance, and scoring capabilities for teachers and students depending on which assignment type they correlate to. Regardless of the assignment type though, students can continue to submit and resubmit their work as many times as they'd like until the assignment is closed. Keep reading for more on what each assignment type has to offer. Then, check out the Secondary Education Prompts page in the Prompts and Resources section to see some of the most popular prompts available for each assignment type.
Assigning Signal Check prompts lets students request instant, rubric-based, holistic and sentence-level feedback as they write. Students can also get prewriting and grammar guidance -- all visible to teachers too. These prompts offer students the most amount of Revision Assistant guidance.
Best use : skill building , formative assignments
Assigning Expansion Pack prompts gives students the option to get holistic feedback and scores, and prewriting and grammar guidance as they write -- all visible to teachers too. These prompts offer students an intermediate amount of Revision Assistant guidance.
Best use: skill building
Assigning Spot Check prompts lets students write without any feedback, prewriting, or grammar guidance. Students' writing will be instantly scored against a Revision Assistant rubric, but the scores are only visible to teachers. These prompts offer the least amount of guidance and let teachers see their students' raw writing power without any help from Revision Assistant. Spot Check prompts are great for giving teachers a quick snapshot of students' progress or helping to get a baseline of their writing skills at the beginning of a semester.
Best use: skill building, formative assignments, progress monitoring
Pssst! Teachers, all Spot Check prompts are also available as Signal Check prompts.
Still a little fuzzy on what Revision Assistant is and what it can do for you? Check out Understanding Revision Assistant .
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It’s probably a no-brainer that improper delegation of tasks has obvious consequences, such as increased frustration, stress and workload. The quality of work and team morale may suffer while trust, productivity, efficiency and profitability dwindles. In such a situation, the organizational structure fails, clients’ trust dies, reports of unaccountability emerge, staff may underperform and project failure becomes imminent. This is why it’s vital to ensure that work assignments are delegated efficiently and to the appropriate team member.
Approximately 94% of companies lack exceptionally good management. The 6% of firms with excellent management culture and style tend to be dedicated to their workforce and team building rather than external stakeholders.
Achieving excellence in organizational operations is an enormous challenge for most organizations and begins with the manner and style of delegation of assignments.
Management has to choose the right team , build trust and accountability , develop its team through delegation, manage performances, have tough conversations and acknowledge and reward excellence to enhance employee engagement and lower turnover.
Work assignments are remarkable tools for enhancing employee growth and must be managed deliberately; otherwise, they could limit efforts towards building a diverse workforce.
Evidence shows that experimental learning accounts for 70% of leadership development , particularly, effective delegation of work assignments.
Work assignments are tasks that are deliberately designed for organizational purposes. They are allocated to staff to achieve results. In the simplest terms, these assignments are activities or projects for a specific end. Work assignments should come with a task description, deadline and expected results.
Work assignments tips
Employee empowerment.
Managers with great team building skills understand the importance of instilling trust in team members for enhanced morale and performance because they believe they are wired to drive organizational objectives.
Assigning work means trusting the employee’s ability to achieve a particular result through task performance. Frequent delegation builds the trust needed to create collaborative skills within organizations.
Successful delegation of work assignments lessens the burden of tasks that pile up. It saves the time needed to focus on other important organizational tasks and goals.
Most industries, such as hospitality, telecommunications and healthcare need to ensure uninterrupted service delivery. At the same time, they must consider the health of their employees, who need regular breaks and leave to stay productive and rested.
With the rise of flexi-workers , ensuring everyone gets a fair share of leave could become a logistics nightmare for business owners. This also applies to contractual staff who may feel overburdened.
When planning and distributing work assignments, managers must take into account employees’ vacation days, sick leave, emergency absences and so on. Things to consider include, but are not limited to:
The manager planning the duty roster should keep track of requests and demands in real time. This enables the planner to synchronize replacement leave and overtime pay calculations at the end of the roster period.
Create an effective work plan.
An effective work plan is the key to the success of every project. Approximately 58% of organisations don’t understand the value of project management, which explains why most projects fail as soon as they begin.
The planning phase determines either the failure or success of such project. Organizations must have a solid work plan, including a weekly action plan for greater efficiency and productivity. You can create a good work plan by following the steps below.
By assigning work to employees based on their areas of strength and skills, you set them up to excel. This means you need to understand your employees’ strengths, preferences and weaknesses. You may also allow your staff to choose their preferred tasks. This is important for building trust.
No need to stress everyone out and kill their morale with endless impromptu and urgent work assignments. As far as is feasible, try to give your employees a couple of days’ notice at least.
Encourage your team to ask questions for clarity. Determine your availability and take the time to give them clear instructions, feedback and assistance. Giving them a sense of ownership allows your team members to see the big picture.
Real delegation is when you encourage your team to own the project. This gives them the authority to take initiative for the execution process.
Most companies spend hours and weeks planning and generating roasters manually when they can use TimeTrack Duty Roster to save time. TimeTrack Duty Roster creates a perfect overview of both employers and employees and allow managers to personalize shifts according to preferences.
TimeTrack Duty Roster
Monitoring work assignments helps your team complete their duties successfully and meet the desired outcomes. There’s no need to micromanage, but you can certainly help keep employees focused while tracking processes.
Every organization wants to empower its workforce for enhanced morale, focus, accountability, efficiency and productivity. These achievements are only possible with effective delegation of work assignments and tasks.
I am a researcher, writer, and self-published author. Over the last 9 years, I have dedicated my time to delivering unique content to startups and non-governmental organizations and have covered several topics, including wellness, technology, and entrepreneurship. I am now passionate about how time efficiency affects productivity, business performance, and profitability.
Gen ed writes, writing across the disciplines at harvard college.
Gen Ed courses transcend disciplinary boundaries in a variety of ways, so the types of writing assignments that they include also often venture outside the traditional discipline-specific essays. You may encounter a wide variety of assignment types in Gen Ed, but most can be categorized into four general types:
Traditional academic.
For most of us, these are the most familiar types of college-level writing assignments. While they are perhaps less common in Gen Ed than in departmental courses, there are still numerous examples we could examine.
Two illustrations of common types include:
Example 1: Short Essay Professor Michael Sandel asks the students in his Gen Ed course on Tech Ethics to write several short essays over the course of the semester in which they make an argument in response to the course readings. Because many students will never have written a philosophy-style paper, Professor Sandel offers students a number of resources—from a guide on writing in philosophy, to sample graded essays, to a list of logical fallacies—to keep in mind.
Example 2: Research Paper In Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Cares?, a Gen Ed course co-taught by multiple global health faculty members, students write a 12–15 page research paper on a biosocial analysis of a global health topic of their choosing for the final assignment. The assignment is broken up into two parts: (1) a proposal with annotated bibliography and (2) the final paper itself. The prompt clearly outlines the key qualities and features of a successful paper, which is especially useful for students who have not yet written a research paper in the sciences.
In Gen Ed, sometimes assignments ask students to engage in academic work that, while familiar to faculty, is beyond the scope of the typical undergraduate experience.
Here are a couple of examples from Gen Ed courses:
Example 1: Design a conference For the final project in her Gen Ed course, Global Feminisms, Professor Durba Mitra asks her students to imagine a dream conference in the style of the feminist conferences they studied in class. Students are asked to imagine conference panels and events, potential speakers or exhibitions, and advertising materials. While conferences are a normal occurrence for graduate students and professors, undergraduates are much less likely to be familiar with this part of academic life, and this kind of assignment might require more specific background and instructions as part of the prompt.
Example 2: Curate a museum exhibit In his Gen Ed class, Pyramid Schemes, Professor Peter Der Manuelian's final project offers students the option of designing a virtual museum exhibit . While exhibit curation can be a part of the academic life of an anthropologist or archaeologist, it's not often found in introductory undergraduate courses. In addition to selecting objects and creating a virtual exhibit layout, students also wrote an annotated bibliography as well as an exhibit introduction for potential visitors.
One of the goals of Gen Ed is to encourage students to engage with the world around them. Sometimes writing assignments in Gen Ed directly mirror types of writing that students are likely to encounter in real-world, non-academic settings after they graduate.
The following are several examples of such assignments:
Example 1: Policy memo In Power and Identity in the Middle East, Professor Melani Cammett assigns students a group policy memo evaluating "a major initiative aimed at promoting democracy in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)." The assignment prompt is actually structured as a memo, providing context for students who likely lack experience with the format. It also outlines the key characteristics of a good memo, and it provides extensive advice on the process—especially important when students are working in groups.
Example 2: Letter In Loss, Professor Kathleen Coleman asks students to write a letter of condolence . The letter has an unusual audience: a mother elephant who lost her calf. Since students may not have encountered this type of writing before, Professor Coleman also provides students with advice on process, pointing to some course readings that might be a good place to start. She also suggests a list of outside resources to help students get into the mindframe of addressing an elephant.
Example 3: Podcast Podcasts are becoming increasingly popular in Gen Ed classes, as they are in the real world. Though they're ultimately audio file outputs, they usually require writing and preparing a script ahead of time. For example, in Music from Earth, Professor Alex Rehding asks students to create a podcast in which they make an argument about a song studied in class. He usefully breaks up the assignments into two parts: (1) researching the song and preparing a script and (2) recording and making sonic choices about the presentation, offering students the opportunity to get feedback on the first part before moving onto the second.
These are the types of assignments that perhaps are less obviously "writing" assignments. They usually involve an artistic or otherwise creative component, but they also often include some kind of written introduction or artist statement related to the work.
The following are several examples from recently offered Gen Ed courses:
Example 1: Movie Professor Peter Der Manuelian offers students in his class, Pyramid Schemes, several options for the final project, one of which entails creating a 5–8 minute iMovie making an argument about one of the themes of the course. Because relatively few students have prior experience making films, the teaching staff provide students with a written guide to making an iMovie as well as ample opportunities for tech support. In addition to preparing a script as part of the production, students also submit both an annotated bibliography and an artist’s statement.
Example 2: Calligram In his course, Understanding Islam and Contemporary Muslim Societies, Professor Ali Asani asks students to browse through a provided list of resources about calligrams, which are an important traditional Islamic art form. Then they are required to "choose a concept or symbol associated with God in the Islamic tradition and attempt to represent it through a calligraphic design using the word Allah," in any medium they wish. Students also write a short explanation to accompany the design itself.
Example 3: Soundscape In Music from Earth, Professor Alex Rehding has students create a soundscape . The soundscape is an audio file which involves layering sounds from different sources to create a single piece responding to an assigned question (e.g. "What sounds are characteristic of your current geographical region?"). Early on, as part of the development of the soundscape, students submit an artist's statement that explains the plan for the soundscape, the significance of the sounds, and the intention of the work.
Assignment Decoder
What this handout is about.
The first step in any successful college writing venture is reading the assignment. While this sounds like a simple task, it can be a tough one. This handout will help you unravel your assignment and begin to craft an effective response. Much of the following advice will involve translating typical assignment terms and practices into meaningful clues to the type of writing your instructor expects. See our short video for more tips.
Regardless of the assignment, department, or instructor, adopting these two habits will serve you well :
Many assignments follow a basic format. Assignments often begin with an overview of the topic, include a central verb or verbs that describe the task, and offer some additional suggestions, questions, or prompts to get you started.
The instructor might set the stage with some general discussion of the subject of the assignment, introduce the topic, or remind you of something pertinent that you have discussed in class. For example:
“Throughout history, gerbils have played a key role in politics,” or “In the last few weeks of class, we have focused on the evening wear of the housefly …”
Pay attention; this part tells you what to do when you write the paper. Look for the key verb or verbs in the sentence. Words like analyze, summarize, or compare direct you to think about your topic in a certain way. Also pay attention to words such as how, what, when, where, and why; these words guide your attention toward specific information. (See the section in this handout titled “Key Terms” for more information.)
“Analyze the effect that gerbils had on the Russian Revolution”, or “Suggest an interpretation of housefly undergarments that differs from Darwin’s.”
Here you will find some questions to use as springboards as you begin to think about the topic. Instructors usually include these questions as suggestions rather than requirements. Do not feel compelled to answer every question unless the instructor asks you to do so. Pay attention to the order of the questions. Sometimes they suggest the thinking process your instructor imagines you will need to follow to begin thinking about the topic.
“You may wish to consider the differing views held by Communist gerbils vs. Monarchist gerbils, or Can there be such a thing as ‘the housefly garment industry’ or is it just a home-based craft?”
These are the instructor’s comments about writing expectations:
“Be concise”, “Write effectively”, or “Argue furiously.”
These instructions usually indicate format rules or guidelines.
“Your paper must be typed in Palatino font on gray paper and must not exceed 600 pages. It is due on the anniversary of Mao Tse-tung’s death.”
The assignment’s parts may not appear in exactly this order, and each part may be very long or really short. Nonetheless, being aware of this standard pattern can help you understand what your instructor wants you to do.
Ask yourself a few basic questions as you read and jot down the answers on the assignment sheet:
Who is your audience.
Try to look at the question from the point of view of the instructor. Recognize that your instructor has a reason for giving you this assignment and for giving it to you at a particular point in the semester. In every assignment, the instructor has a challenge for you. This challenge could be anything from demonstrating an ability to think clearly to demonstrating an ability to use the library. See the assignment not as a vague suggestion of what to do but as an opportunity to show that you can handle the course material as directed. Paper assignments give you more than a topic to discuss—they ask you to do something with the topic. Keep reminding yourself of that. Be careful to avoid the other extreme as well: do not read more into the assignment than what is there.
Of course, your instructor has given you an assignment so that they will be able to assess your understanding of the course material and give you an appropriate grade. But there is more to it than that. Your instructor has tried to design a learning experience of some kind. Your instructor wants you to think about something in a particular way for a particular reason. If you read the course description at the beginning of your syllabus, review the assigned readings, and consider the assignment itself, you may begin to see the plan, purpose, or approach to the subject matter that your instructor has created for you. If you still aren’t sure of the assignment’s goals, try asking the instructor. For help with this, see our handout on getting feedback .
Given your instructor’s efforts, it helps to answer the question: What is my purpose in completing this assignment? Is it to gather research from a variety of outside sources and present a coherent picture? Is it to take material I have been learning in class and apply it to a new situation? Is it to prove a point one way or another? Key words from the assignment can help you figure this out. Look for key terms in the form of active verbs that tell you what to do.
Key Terms: Finding Those Active Verbs
Here are some common key words and definitions to help you think about assignment terms:
Information words Ask you to demonstrate what you know about the subject, such as who, what, when, where, how, and why.
Relation words Ask you to demonstrate how things are connected.
Interpretation words Ask you to defend ideas of your own about the subject. Do not see these words as requesting opinion alone (unless the assignment specifically says so), but as requiring opinion that is supported by concrete evidence. Remember examples, principles, definitions, or concepts from class or research and use them in your interpretation.
More Clues to Your Purpose As you read the assignment, think about what the teacher does in class:
Now, what about your reader? Most undergraduates think of their audience as the instructor. True, your instructor is a good person to keep in mind as you write. But for the purposes of a good paper, think of your audience as someone like your roommate: smart enough to understand a clear, logical argument, but not someone who already knows exactly what is going on in your particular paper. Remember, even if the instructor knows everything there is to know about your paper topic, they still have to read your paper and assess your understanding. In other words, teach the material to your reader.
Aiming a paper at your audience happens in two ways: you make decisions about the tone and the level of information you want to convey.
You’ll find a much more detailed discussion of these concepts in our handout on audience .
With a few exceptions (including some lab and ethnography reports), you are probably being asked to make an argument. You must convince your audience. It is easy to forget this aim when you are researching and writing; as you become involved in your subject matter, you may become enmeshed in the details and focus on learning or simply telling the information you have found. You need to do more than just repeat what you have read. Your writing should have a point, and you should be able to say it in a sentence. Sometimes instructors call this sentence a “thesis” or a “claim.”
So, if your instructor tells you to write about some aspect of oral hygiene, you do not want to just list: “First, you brush your teeth with a soft brush and some peanut butter. Then, you floss with unwaxed, bologna-flavored string. Finally, gargle with bourbon.” Instead, you could say, “Of all the oral cleaning methods, sandblasting removes the most plaque. Therefore it should be recommended by the American Dental Association.” Or, “From an aesthetic perspective, moldy teeth can be quite charming. However, their joys are short-lived.”
Convincing the reader of your argument is the goal of academic writing. It doesn’t have to say “argument” anywhere in the assignment for you to need one. Look at the assignment and think about what kind of argument you could make about it instead of just seeing it as a checklist of information you have to present. For help with understanding the role of argument in academic writing, see our handout on argument .
There are many kinds of evidence, and what type of evidence will work for your assignment can depend on several factors–the discipline, the parameters of the assignment, and your instructor’s preference. Should you use statistics? Historical examples? Do you need to conduct your own experiment? Can you rely on personal experience? See our handout on evidence for suggestions on how to use evidence appropriately.
Make sure you are clear about this part of the assignment, because your use of evidence will be crucial in writing a successful paper. You are not just learning how to argue; you are learning how to argue with specific types of materials and ideas. Ask your instructor what counts as acceptable evidence. You can also ask a librarian for help. No matter what kind of evidence you use, be sure to cite it correctly—see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial .
You cannot always tell from the assignment just what sort of writing style your instructor expects. The instructor may be really laid back in class but still expect you to sound formal in writing. Or the instructor may be fairly formal in class and ask you to write a reflection paper where you need to use “I” and speak from your own experience.
Try to avoid false associations of a particular field with a style (“art historians like wacky creativity,” or “political scientists are boring and just give facts”) and look instead to the types of readings you have been given in class. No one expects you to write like Plato—just use the readings as a guide for what is standard or preferable to your instructor. When in doubt, ask your instructor about the level of formality they expect.
No matter what field you are writing for or what facts you are including, if you do not write so that your reader can understand your main idea, you have wasted your time. So make clarity your main goal. For specific help with style, see our handout on style .
The technical information you are given in an assignment always seems like the easy part. This section can actually give you lots of little hints about approaching the task. Find out if elements such as page length and citation format (see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial ) are negotiable. Some professors do not have strong preferences as long as you are consistent and fully answer the assignment. Some professors are very specific and will deduct big points for deviations.
Usually, the page length tells you something important: The instructor thinks the size of the paper is appropriate to the assignment’s parameters. In plain English, your instructor is telling you how many pages it should take for you to answer the question as fully as you are expected to. So if an assignment is two pages long, you cannot pad your paper with examples or reword your main idea several times. Hit your one point early, defend it with the clearest example, and finish quickly. If an assignment is ten pages long, you can be more complex in your main points and examples—and if you can only produce five pages for that assignment, you need to see someone for help—as soon as possible.
Your instructors are not fooled when you:
Critical reading of assignments leads to skills in other types of reading and writing. If you get good at figuring out what the real goals of assignments are, you are going to be better at understanding the goals of all of your classes and fields of study.
You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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CVs and interviews don’t predict job performance, but work assignments can.
It’s really simple; hiring managers need to place competence in context to assess candidates’ technical and interpersonal skills .
If a structured interview process can help flush out candidates with the right attitude and cultural alignment, homework assignments can highlight people with the perfect skillset for the role.
And for a hiring manager, the hiring confidence when selecting between candidates who list the right skills on their resume and those who nail take-home tasks is like night and day.
Curious if work assignments could be a good fit for your company? In this article, we discuss:
Let’s dive in!
A homework assignment or an interview project is a task given to a candidate during the interview process that tests whether they have the right skills for a role. Typically these assignments take about an hour or two to complete and have a specific deadline. But they can be more detailed and take up to 5 hours or longer, depending on the role seniority or complexity.
We recommend sticking to a maximum of two hour-projects to keep it fair and reasonable for candidates. As a hiring manager, your main goal is to get a reliable snapshot of a candidate’s technical fit for the job – not to subject applicants to NASA-level testing.
Alternatively, you could swap homework assignments for paid test projects. While many candidates frown upon the idea of completing longer take-home tasks for free (who doesn’t hate free labor?), paid projects are generally accepted as a reasonable alternative. Learn how we leverage paid projects at Toggl Hire.
If a candidate won’t complete an assignment that takes less than 2 hours of their time, likely, they aren’t really interested in the role. So it also doubles as a reliable method to screen out prospective bad hires .
Homework assignments help companies get a better idea of a candidate’s strengths and whether they’d be a good match for the role. It’s a bit like shopping online. Seeing a new pair of sneakers you want in a 2D image is great. But getting a fully immersive AR experience really brings the sneakers to life and builds your confidence you’re making the right choice!
These days, many companies prioritize work assignments over interviews , as the typical interview process is outdated. Interviews and CVs alone don’t help the hiring team explore a candidate’s actual abilities. Why? Well, firstly, candidates sometimes exaggerate their qualifications on CVs. Plus, a potential candidate could be great in an interview scenario but terrible at the actual job.
Another reason interviews are passé is that they can open up the hiring team to potential cognitive bias (hiring someone very similar to you). This might seem kind of nice, but in the end, you’ll have less diversity if everyone you hired was a mini-me, right?
Yet, interviews do have an important role to play in the hiring process. But not right in the beginning, necessarily. Shifting the interview portion further down the hiring process steps helps companies focus on quality candidates rather than the search for quality candidates. They could rather confirm the technical fit through skills assessments and then dig deeper during the second interview.
One of us (Jeff) spent several years hiring writers for our firm. He used a scenario-driven writing assignment, administered after a short introductory call, to assess skills. Many publications use writing or editing tests for job candidates, but Jeff approached the task more analytically than most: After receiving the assignment, he conducted a follow-up conversation to understand not just what was on the page, but the candidate’s choices in crafting it. Not only did this give us a sense of how a candidate would perform, but they got a much better sense of the job itself, as we related elements of the task to actual role expectations. By using the same exercise repeatedly, it also built a database of responses over time, a positive feedback loop to better assess the next candidate. Geoff Tuff, a principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP – Harvard Business Review
Job seekers may not often feel enthusiastic about interview assignments. And we get it. People are busy juggling so many things in their day to day that adding one more can feel overwhelming. But those who look at the bigger picture see it as an opportunity to shine.
Work assignments are a foolproof way for job seekers to demonstrate their skills and expertise . And if candidates happen to have any gaps in their experience, they can still demonstrate their aptitude through an online assignment.
It’s also an easy way for candidates to show they’re truly interested in the position and the employer and stand out from the crowd of other applicants.
Not only do these task projects give them a peek into their potential day-to-day responsibilities , but it’s also a window into whether the role is a good fit for them in the long run .
If they find the task takes too long or that the topic or sector is dryer than toast – they should put their sights elsewhere. But if it’s all systems go – then they’ve already got a head start on producing what’s needed for the role.
Take-home interview assignments are a popular choice for assessing technical and creative candidates. But now companies are seeing the benefits for other roles too.
Three things that hiring managers should consider for all these types of interview assignments:
And now, onto the examples of homework assignments.
Quick skills screening tests as a pre-qualifying step can help reduce the volume of applications without any manual effort. That means no manual resume screening or individual candidate feedback.
As applicants get instant feedback via skills test results (they either pass the required score threshold and move on or stop there), recruiters and hiring managers benefit in three major ways: 1) they save hours of their time by automating CV screening; 2) they can easily identify qualified applicants who should move to the interview stage; 3) they ensure a great candidate experience with modern skills-based hiring practices.
Keeping the tests short and sweet to respect candidates’ time and effort. We’d recommend 15 or 20-minute assessments at the kickoff. However, it’s important to ensure the tests are hard, so they actually act like a quality filter for your candidate pipeline.
Focusing too much on theoretical, bookish questions that make the test feel like a school exam can harm your test completion rate and prevent great candidates from submitting their applications. Additionally, making the screening tests too long or too intrusive (e.g., taking snapshots through the computer camera) can create an unnecessary barrier and reduce your chances of sourcing top-quality people.
While a job interview can help hiring managers assess interpersonal skills, such as communication , teamwork, or motivation, it’s not the best medium for evaluating hard skills . Online coding tests help the hiring team select technically capable developers that can contribute to the business.
A recruiter would typically source candidates with the right programming languages listed on their profile or resume. And then, it’s the hiring manager’s responsibility to work out if the applicant has what it takes to write good code. Easier said than done!
That’s why a coding assessment as a homework assignment has become the norm in tech hiring, and most developers are willing to take them on.
Remember, though; candidates don’t owe you free work. Your approach to designing a coding test will determine whether people continue in the hiring process or drop off.
First of all, decide what you want to assess and why. If you’re hoping to ascertain a candidate’s troubleshooting and problem-solving skills, time-boxing the assignment wouldn’t work to your advantage. The candidate can always use the ‘lack of time’ as an excuse for lower-quality work.
Another thing to remember is to set the test at the right skill level, depending on whether it’s a junior, intermediate or advanced role.
Testing skills that are nice to have or don’t match the role is a common mistake. Focusing on too many topics requires candidates to switch context from question to question – which is often confusing and tiring in such a short span of time.
Another issue employers run into is using clunky testing software that candidates need to figure out on the fly. If it takes effort to learn the platform or the platform doesn’t have the required features, developers will have to pay the price.
Ask any creative about their opinion on spec work, and you’ll likely hear that it sucks. And there are good reasons for graphic designers, writers, and other creatives to hate this kind of work – why should they commit to the project without any promise of payment?
If you’re hiring a professional from the creative field, we highly recommend starting with a live portfolio review . That’s when a candidate can take the interviewer through specific portfolio examples and share the backstory and lessons learned from that project. With creative roles, it’s often the unique style and quirks alongside the technical skills that can help determine the best person for the job.
However, sometimes paid spec work is a much fairer and more accurate way of getting insight into a candidate’s skillset. For tasks that require a highly personalized approach or solution, going the freelance gig route can yield better results.
Inform candidates ahead of time that you’d like to review their portfolio during a live interview. This will give them time to prepare and update their work samples. Ask questions that relate to their portfolio, even if the current samples don’t match your brief – you want to understand their creative process and practices. For paid spec work, make time to discuss the brief in person and agree on a check-in schedule to ensure work progresses in the right direction.
Springing this on the candidate without any warning and expecting the work to be delivered on a short deadline is a questionable move. Even if you’re opting for paid spec work, bear in mind these tasks are often completed in a vacuum and should be evaluated through a less critical lens. And finally, the not-so-secret secret: most creatives are terrible at maintaining their portfolios up-to-date. Giving them the heads-up will increase your chances of selecting the right talent.
This type of home assignment can take many forms – from asking a marketing professional to write a press release for a product launch that already happened to requesting a business analyst to extract key insights from a dataset.
To ensure it’s not perceived as free work, time-boxed assessment projects often focus on real-world business problems that have been solved internally. This way, you can benchmark candidates’ work against your internal quality standard and reassure candidates of your intentions. The sole purpose of interview assignments is to confirm candidates’ technical fit in an efficient manner.
Keep the topic or assignment relevant to the role, and limit the necessary time it’ll take to complete to about 2-3 hours. Remember that the clarity of your brief will largely determine the quality of the deliverables, so be specific about your expectations.
Expecting someone to take 5-10 hours out of their busy schedule for an unpaid assignment is unrealistic.
Interviewing is exhausting for both the candidate and the interviewer. So it’s unsurprising that paid interview assignments have been gaining in popularity in recent years.
As a hiring manager, would you rather spend hours of your time interviewing candidates to filter out the bad apples or use the job interview as a way to get to know potential hires?
Homework assignments are exactly that – a simple, efficient method for spotting A-level candidates with the right skills for the job.
As you confirm the technical fit before the interview, both parties can focus on aligning on other important factors, such as the organizational fit , team culture, and manager expectations.
However, many employers have realized that the sentiment around homework assignments has shifted from acceptable to immoral, as applicants began calling assignments ‘free work’. Research shows that drop-off rates increased when candidates were asked to complete a take-home assignment.
Enter paid homework projects.
The perfect combo of practical competency assessment and paid work. Since the candidate receives compensation for their time, these types of assignments can be longer and more complex.
Anything from analyzing the growth funnel to tackling a programming challenge to designing an effective product onboarding experience can serve as a homework assignment idea.
What’s important to note is that these kinds of work assignments allow employers to get a glimpse into a candidate’s work ethic , thinking process, time management, and many other skills that are impossible to assess during the interview process.
If you’re paying for their time, treat them like consultants: provide access to important information, answer their questions and connect them with the right people internally. And be sure to outline the recruitment process at the very start; not everyone will happily take on a bigger commitment project, even when it’s paid.
As a hiring manager, stay in touch throughout the recruitment process to lay the foundations for a good working relationship. Provide clear requirements and timelines to reduce stress, and don’t forget about fair compensation – going below the market rate is disrespectful.
A great way to cause unnecessary stress is to ask candidates to present to a large audience or high-level execs they would never work with on a day-to-day basis.
Be sure to provide a clear agenda for the presentation call ahead of time and prep your interview panel for follow-up questions.
Work assignments are a good thing for companies and candidates alike. The result is like the difference between speed dating and a real dinner and a first date. Yes, they’re both exciting, but in the case of hiring, you need to hire someone that can demonstrate they have the right skills. The cost of hiring the wrong candidate is just too high for companies.
To find truly interested candidates, who have the right aptitude, introduce your team to the benefits of work assignments. You’ll save both parties loads of time and the hassle of a dragged-out interview process and other redundant hiring steps.
If you’re ready to explore how to transform your business’ hiring process from a time-consuming to a slick candidate pipeline, we leave you with five simple tips on designing an effective homework assignment.
Have a peek at our Test Library for more assignment ideas, and good luck!
Juste loves investigating through writing. A copywriter by trade, she spent the last ten years in startups, telling stories and building marketing teams. She works at Toggl Hire and writes about how businesses can recruit really great people.
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You’re progressing well through an interview process, and you think you’re close to landing that coveted offer, when the employer says, “One more thing—we have a little homework for you.”
This tactic is used by a lot of companies (especially startups), and with good reason: The hiring manager gets a firsthand look at your approach, creativity, quality, turn-around speed, and communication and presentation style and can gauge how serious you are about the position.
If you really want that job, your instinct will likely be to put your best foot forward and provide the most fabulous project the employer has ever seen. But there’s something else to consider: You may end up putting in many hours of work, creating an awesome deliverable—and at the end of it all, still not getting the job. There’s even a chance that the company will take the ideas you labored over for its own benefit, and you’re left not only without an offer, but without compensation for all that hard work.
It’s happened to me: Once, at the end of a second round interview, a hiring manager asked me for a list of quick-hit ideas on increasing user engagement for his consumer website. I spent almost half a day coming up with a list of 10 great ideas, including many examples from other sites. After I proudly sent over my recommendations, I didn’t hear from the company for over two weeks. When I finally got a response, he thanked me for all my hard work and said that the company decided not to pursue the position at this time due to “internal matters.”
Who knows if this really was the case; but to my surprise, I noticed a handful of my ideas were actually implemented within the next few months on their site. Maybe these were ideas already in motion and my assignment only confirmed what was planned, but I couldn’t help but feel that I had been somewhat “used” and regretted putting so much time and effort into this homework.
While there are times you may want to go to the moon and back for a job , it’s also important to be careful how you approach these homework assignments—especially if you’re investing your time into applying to multiple jobs. Here are some tips on how to handle this tricky situation.
First, it’s important to get a sense of how this assignment will factor into the overall evaluation of your candidacy. Is this the final hurdle before the job offer? (It should be.) How will this be weighed with other elements of your interview? (You should get some positive reinforcement that the company’s very interested and just wants to get a sense of how you work.) How long will the assignment take? (Being asked to spend more than 2-3 hours on an assignment before getting hired is bordering on disrespect.)
Don’t be afraid to ask questions like, “Can you help me understand how this assignment will be evaluated?” “Are you looking more for big-picture ideas, or a detailed look at my recommendations?” “Roughly how much time do you recommend I put into this assignment?” It’ll help you understand what the company is looking for and how much time you’re willing to put forth.
Next, remember that you have every right to ask for information that’ll help you better tackle the assignment and not start from scratch (if you were hired, that’s what you’d obviously do , right?). So, put some onus on the company to provide relevant data. For example, if the company is asking for your ideas on potential partners, ask questions that’ll point you in the right direction, like, “Who are your current partners?” “What types of partners are you currently pursuing?” “What are the key metrics that define a successful partnership?”
And if the company doesn’t provide any more information? Do your best, but also make sure you express where you’ve made assumptions based on lack of information—e.g., “Without knowing what your current metrics for successful partnerships are, I’ve made suggestions for partners that will boost both brand awareness and website traffic. Obviously, if the company has different goals, I would be able to adjust these recommendations.”
And then don’t worry—if the hiring manager doesn’t offer it, he or she will understand that you’re operating under lack of information and history.
More often than not, the primary reason companies dole out homework is to get a better sense of your thought process, as well as how you structure and convey your thoughts and ideas. There’s not necessarily a “right” answer, nor is there a need to get way down in the weeds.
So, don’t stress about providing a ton of information—just outline the main points (bullets and numbered lists usually work well). You can tease out more details as you’re talking through your assignment in the interview without having to write down your specific plans and fully fleshed out ideas. Remember: You don’t want the hiring manager to have the blueprints for your fabulous ideas—you want him or her to hire you so that you can be the one implement them!
Depending on the type of job function and level you’re interviewing for, it may not be a bad idea to request a non-disclosure agreement. If there is any confidential information you do not want shared widely, your assignment involves using data from your current employer, or you just have a nagging concern that the company may steal your best ideas, take a precaution and get a simple mutual NDA executed (many template NDA forms are available online for download). Don’t make it too legally formal—the company may get turned off by this move—just let the hiring manager know you just want to make sure things stay confidential and you’d be more comfortable providing details with a simple NDA in place. If he or she refuses to sign, this may be another warning flag.
Knocking a homework assignment out of the park can be an amazing chance to show you’re the best candidate of the bunch, but you never want to get in a situation where you’re wasting your time or being used for free labor. Follow these guidelines, and you’ll be able to present a great deliverable while making sure you’re spending your time and effort the right way.
How can I effectively assign tasks to people?
Why is it that despite assigning tasks, some groups reach peak productivity and project success, while others grapple with conflicts and burnout?
And how can I address and solve issues related to task assignment?
In this article, we’ll provide answers to all of these questions.
Ready to elevate your task assignment skills and boost your project success? Let’s dive right in!
1. What is task assigning?
Task assigning is the process of allocating specific duties to team members to achieve a common goal.
2. Why is assigning tasks to team members important?
Effective task assigning is crucial for achieving team goals and maintaining productivity because it improves:
There’s more.
As everyone knows their role, responsibilities, and how their work contributes to the bigger picture, they feel less confused and more accountable for their assigned task.
Below are the best strategies, practices, and tips for assigning tasks to others effectively.
Ensure you get a clear understanding of:
This step allows you to match the right tasks with the right team member, which helps allocate tasks efficiently, increase productivity, and maximize project success.
Follow these steps:
This makes it easier for managers to allocate responsibilities and track progress while helping team members better grasp the overall process.
Prioritize tasks based on 3 factors: 1) urgency, 2) importance, and 3) complexity. Here’s how:
This valuable step helps managers make informed decisions on which tasks to tackle first and find the right people to work on each task.
Assign tasks to the most qualified people.
Start by allocating high-priority tasks to the first available person with the matching expertise. Schedule low-priority tasks.
Straightforward tasks can be assigned to less experienced members, while complex tasks may be given to those with advanced skills.
If you know your employees well enough, then make a list of dependable people who are ready to take on a little more duties.
Give them low-priority yet important tasks with authority.
To avoid disputes, constant clarification, or errors, it’s important to help your team members understand:
Tips: Use clear and concise language when communicating. Encourage employees to ask questions and seek clarification on the project and their assigned tasks.
Check-in with team members regularly to see how they are doing and if they need any help.
Encourage them to open up and transparently communicate their concerns and challenges.
On your side as a team leader or project manager, be available to offer assistance if they encounter challenges.
This helps resolve issues and improve the task assignment process.
Ensure that team members have the necessary resources, tools, and information for their task completion.
After each project or task, take time to reflect on what worked well, what didn’t, and where certain tasks weren’t up to par.
Address any issues and offer feedback on completed tasks. Use this feedback to refine your approach in future assignments.
Recognize and reward everyone’s efforts and contributions. This helps keep employees excited and motivated.
Invest in training and development opportunities for your team to enhance new skills and knowledge.
Extra tips for assigning tasks effectively:
In this section, I’ll show you how a project management tool like Upbase helps simplify task assignments, improve morale, and increase outcomes.
Quick info:
Sign up for a free Upbase account here , follow this guide, and take your task assignment process to the next level.
Create a new list:
Add new tasks to the list:
Add new tasks via emails : Open the dropdown menu next to the list name, select “add tasks via emails”, and follow the instructions.
Add task details:
You can add specific instructions, priorities, deadlines, and other attributes to individual tasks and subtasks.
Keyboard shortcuts : Hover over a task card and press:
Upbase Tip : Use task tags to categorize tasks by urgency, importance, and complexity. This makes it easier to match the right tasks to people for later.
Check your employee availability:
Go to the Members page, and click on the team member you’d to assess their workload.
You’ll be driven to a separate page that shows that member’s assigned tasks, along with their due dates, priorities, etc. You can also filter tasks by one of these attributes.
Use this page to check each employee’s availability and identify who can complete additional tasks.
Assign tasks:
Open the desired task, click “Assignee”, and choose the right team member(s).
Keyboard shortcuts : Hover over the task and press “A” to open the Assignee picker. Press the space bar to assign yourself. This way makes assigning tasks easier and quicker!
If you want multiple people to work on a particular task, consider dividing it into subtasks, give time estimates for each, and then assign them to the right team member(s).
Communicate tasks:
Use the Messages and Chat modules to communicate with your team.
Messages is best suited to show the big picture, like project goals, desired outcomes, everyone’s duties, and how their work contributes to the whole.
Make use of the comment box to encourage everyone to ask questions and seek clarification about the project or their assigned tasks.
Chat supports both 1:1 chats and group chats. It’s perfect for quick discussions about issues, task deadlines, etc.
Upbase offers an array of tools for project managers to track the workload of other employees.
To track a project’s progress:
From the Tasks module :
Here, you can view tasks in a List or Board format.
The List format provides an overview of tasks, deadlines, priorities, and employees working on them, while the Board visualizes the project’s progress.
Besides, you can group tasks by due date, priority, assignee, or section. View tasks filtered by one or multiple tags. Or create a custom filter.
From the Calendar module:
It shows all the scheduled tasks within a project by week or month. It also allows you to create a new task or reschedule overdue tasks.
To track the progress of all projects in a workspace :
Filters : In addition to filtering tasks within a project, you can create custom filters across multiple or all projects in a workspace.
Schedule : It functions similarly to the Calendar module. The two main differences are:
1) Schedule is to track the progress of tasks from all projects while Calendar is to track the progress of tasks within a project.
2) Schedule offers an additional view, named Daily Planner.
Other tools for progress tracking:
My Tasks : A private place where you can get an overview of all the tasks you create or tasks assigned to you.
Use Upbase’s Docs, Files, and Links to provide employees with resources, information, and tools they need to complete tasks.
These modules are available in each list, making it easy to manage project data separately. Plus, they all provide collaboration features like watchers and comment boxes.
On the Tasks module, you can create a section, named “Review”.
When a task is completed, the assignee will drag and drop it here. Then, you, as a project manager will leave feedback on it via the comment box.
So, why wait? Sign up for a free Upbase account now and experience it yourself.
For successful task assignment, remember to avoid these common mistakes:
Some people, particularly new or inexperienced managers, may hesitate to allocate tasks to others due to concerns about:
This fear can hinder productivity and personal growth within a team or organization.
This means that the instructions and details regarding a task are not transparent.
Team members may not have a clear understanding of what they are supposed to do, what the goals are, or what the expected outcomes should be.
This lack of clarity can lead to confusion and misunderstandings.
Poor communication can contribute to misunderstandings and problems in task assignments, too.
However, it addresses different aspects of the overall process.
Poor communication means that there might be a lack of information sharing or ineffective communication methods. This could include:
Even with clear instructions, if there’s poor communication, the information may not be conveyed effectively.
Assigning too many tasks to a single person or team can overwhelm them and negatively impact the quality of their work. It’s crucial to distribute tasks evenly and consider each individual’s capacity.
Neglecting to match tasks with team members’ skills and strengths can result in subpar performance. Assign tasks based on individuals’ expertise and abilities to optimize results.
Hovering over team members and scrutinizing every detail of their work can stifle creativity and motivation.
Trust your team to complete their tasks and provide support when needed.
Being rigid in task assignments can prevent adaptation to changing circumstances or new information. It’s essential to remain open to adjustments and feedback.
Setting unattainable deadlines can put unnecessary pressure on your team and lead to a rushed and subpar outcome. Ensure that timelines are realistic and allow for unexpected delays.
Forgetting to provide constructive feedback or failing to seek input from team members can hinder growth and improvement. Regularly discuss progress and provide guidance when necessary.
In summary:
Successful task assignment relies on clear communication, matching tasks to skills, flexibility, and a supportive, accountable, and feedback-driven environment.
Avoiding these common mistakes will help ensure that tasks are completed efficiently and effectively.
Task delegation means you give someone the authority to make decisions and complete tasks independently without constant supervision.
Task allocation, on the other hand, means you assign specific duties to someone, often with clear instructions, while retaining overall control.
A delegated task gives the team member more freedom to make decisions and determine how to produce the desired results. An assigned task is more limited because it’s based on instructions and under supervision.
In short, delegating tasks typically involves a higher degree of trust and empowerment than allocating tasks.
Tasks are generally larger, more significant activities that need to be completed, while subtasks are smaller, specific components or steps that contribute to the completion of a task.
Subtasks are often part of a broader task and help break it down into manageable pieces.
The person assigned to a task is called an “assignee”. They’re responsible for completing that specific job or duty.
Delegate a task to the person best suited for it based on their skills, expertise, and availability.
Choose someone who can complete the task effectively and efficiently, taking into account their experience and workload.
The best way to assign tasks to others is by considering each member’s strengths, skills, and workload capacity, and aligning tasks with their expertise and availability.
Assigning tasks to team members is crucial because it ensures clarity, accountability, and efficiency in achieving goals.
It helps prevent duplication of efforts, enables better time management, and allows team members to focus on their strengths, ultimately leading to successful project completion.
To politely assign a task, you can follow these steps:
Short-term goals are specific, achievable objectives that you aim to accomplish soon, typically within days, weeks, or months.
Long-term goals are broader, more substantial objectives that you work towards over an extended period, often spanning years.
Short-term goals are like stepping stones to reach long-term goals.
Tasks, messages, docs, files, chats – all in one place.
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As students advance in their academics studies, their academic knowledge increases thus increasing the level of assignments issue by their lecturers. Students are given academic assignments to test their level of understanding in a particular topic or subject.
Are you a student struggling to understand the various types of assignments you encounter during your academic journey? Look no further! In this article, I will provide you with a comprehensive overview of the different assignment types commonly found in universities. By gaining a better understanding of these assignment categories , you will be better equipped to meet the requirements and excel in your academics.
Assignments come in different forms and serve different purposes. Some of the most common types of assignments you may encounter include essays, case study responses, reports, reflective writing assignments , annotated bibliographies , and literature reviews . Let’s explore each of these assignment types in detail!
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One of the most frequently assigned tasks in university is the essay. Essays require you to present your ideas and arguments in a formal and structured manner. They demand clear and logical thinking, as well as the use of credible academic sources to support your claims. Essays can be further categorized into analytical essays , where you thoroughly examine a topic, and argumentative essays , where you take a stance on an issue and provide supporting evidence.
The following is a general list of sections you should include in your essay assignment:
A good essay title tells people what your essay is about. It helps them know what to expect from your essay, especially if they’re reading it for their own research. If the essay title is interesting, it can also make people curious and want to read your essay.
How important a catchy title is depends on the type of essay you’re writing. If it’s for a class assignment and your teacher is the only one reading it, the title doesn’t have to be super exciting. But if you’re entering a contest, applying to college or grad school, or trying to get it published, a catchy title is crucial. This is because the title is the first thing the editor or admissions committee will see, and it might decide whether they read your essay or not.
In short, a strong essay title gives a clear idea of what your essay is about. It doesn’t have to reveal everything, but it should give a general sense of what to expect and make people want to keep reading.
Your introduction is like the hello of your paper. It’s the first thing your reader sees, and it gives them an idea of how your writing will be. It helps them know what to expect in terms of tone, voice, and style.
Think of it as a warm-up for your reader. It shares some important info about your paper, so your reader understands what you’re talking about and why it matters.
But the introduction is not just about facts. It’s also a chance to grab your reader’s interest. If you start with something cool or make them think, they’ll be more excited to read the rest.
Here’s what you should include in your introduction, no matter what kind of paper you’re writing:
Think of paragraphs as small parts of a bigger piece of writing. Each paragraph is like a mini version of the whole thing, with its own introduction, body, and conclusion in the form of sentences.
Now, let’s break it down. A good paragraph has four important parts, and you might already know some of them from our guide:
Many people find writing conclusions in essays tough. But, they are super important because they make things clear and give you a better understanding of the topic.
To make a good ending for your essay, follow these steps:
Restate the thesis : A good ending reminds the reader about the main idea of your essay. But don’t just repeat it word for word. Say it in a different way while keeping the main point.
Repeat the important points : Besides talking again about your main idea, also go over the key points you made to support it. Instead of saying the same things you said before, summarize the main ideas.
Connect the beginning and ending statements : It’s helpful to go back to what you talked about at the start of your essay. This gives the reader a clear ending. You can do this by using similar ideas, going back to a story you started with, or using the same images.
Give some new thoughts Your ending should give the reader something to think about. It could be a solution, a new idea, questions for more thinking, or a call to do something. Explain why your ideas matter and why people should care. Answer these kinds of questions to leave your reader with something important to ponder.
You should include a list of sources (including module materials) that are mentioned in the essay. Find out more in the ACADEMIC STYLE GUIDE
Features | Description |
---|---|
Objective | Analyzing a topic by examining its various components |
Structure | Introduction, body paragraphs with analysis, and a conclusion |
Tone | Objective, neutral |
Language | Formal, precise |
Examples | Analyzing a literary work, dissecting a scientific concept |
Features | Description |
---|---|
Purpose | Presenting arguments to support a specific viewpoint |
Structure | Introduction with a clear thesis statement, body paragraphs presenting arguments, counterarguments and evidence, and a conclusion |
Tone | Persuasive, logical |
Language | Formal, persuasive |
Examples | Debating a social issue, discussing the pros and cons of a policy |
Essay assignment example: Applying the Concepts of Epidemiology and Nursing Research on Measles Nursing Paper Essay
In certain fields like health or business, case study assignments are commonly assigned. These assignments require students to analyze a scenario in a particular field and respond to it guided by specific questions posed concerning the situation. In many cases, the scenario or case study involves a number of issues or problems that must be dealt with in a professional workplace.
To effectively respond to a case study, it is important to refer to the case itself, structure your analysis effectively, and use examples and data from the case as evidence to support your points.
Illustrative case study: employed to provide a descriptive portrayal of a particular situation without aiming for generalizations. Often used for educational purposes, it offers readers a tangible example, fostering a clearer understanding of concepts.
Exploratory case studies: serve the purpose of exploring a subject or phenomenon, collecting preliminary insights before conducting a more extensive study. Ideal for gaining an understanding of the scope, scale, and potential variables associated with a problem, these studies help researchers refine their focus and approach.
Explanatory case studies : focus on establishing cause-and-effect relationships. They investigate why and how a specific situation occurred and explore its impact. This type is valuable when researchers seek to uncover underlying principles or factors contributing to a particular outcome, providing a deeper understanding of complex issues.
Critical instance case studies : concentrate on instances deemed uniquely interesting or significant. By delving into cases of exceptional relevance, researchers can extract insights that might be applicable to broader contexts. This type is particularly useful when studying rare or extreme cases that offer a distinctive perspective on an issue or challenge.
Prospective or longitudinal case studies: involve tracking the development of a situation over time. This approach necessitates repeated observations and data collection to analyze changes and patterns, making it well-suited for studying processes, developments, or changes in individuals, groups, or organizations over an extended period.
When analyzing a case study, consider the following aspects:
“The case study presents a real-world scenario in the healthcare industry, focusing on the challenges faced by a hospital in improving patient satisfaction. Through a detailed analysis of patient feedback and hospital data, I identified the key issues contributing to low satisfaction scores, such as long wait times and inadequate communication. Based on this analysis, I recommended implementing strategies to streamline processes, enhance communication between staff and patients, and improve overall patient experience. This case study provided valuable insights into the complexities of healthcare management and the importance of patient-centered care.” – Student, Health Management Program
A well-structured case study analysis typically includes the following sections:
Advantages | Challenges |
---|---|
Related blog article: Case Study on Moral Status .
Reports are a common form of assessment in various professions. They serve as a means of communicating information and analysis to a specific audience. Report assignments can take different structures and formats, depending on the professional requirements and the purpose of the report.
In general, a report consists of several sections that provide a comprehensive overview of the topic being discussed. This may include an executive summary, introduction, methodology, findings, analysis, and conclusion.
The specific sections of a report can vary depending on the field and purpose of the assignment. For example, a business report may include sections on market analysis, financial analysis, and recommendations, while a scientific research report may include sections on hypothesis, methodology, results, and discussion.
When working on a report assignment, it is important to carefully follow the given guidelines and structure the report in a logical and coherent manner. Each section should be clearly labeled and organized, making it easy for the reader to navigate and understand the content.
Additionally, reports often require the use of visual aids such as tables, charts, and graphs to present data and support findings. These visual elements should be properly formatted and referenced within the text.
Section | Description |
---|---|
Executive Summary | A brief overview of the report, highlighting key findings and recommendations. |
Introduction | An introduction to the topic, providing background information and setting the context for the report. |
Methodology | A description of the research methods or approach used to gather data and information. |
Findings | Presentation of the main findings from the research or analysis conducted. |
Analysis | In-depth analysis and interpretation of the data, including comparisons and trends. |
Conclusion | A summary of the main points covered in the report and any recommendations for further action. |
Overall, report assignments require careful planning, research, and analysis to effectively present information and make informed recommendations. By understanding the structure and components of reports, you can ensure that your assignments meet the requirements and effectively convey your findings and insights to the intended audience.
Report assignment essay: Term-Long Project Nursing Paper Example
Reflective writing assignments , annotated bibliographies, and literature reviews are important types of assignments that you may encounter in your academic journey. They each serve a unique purpose and require specific approaches to effectively complete them. These assignments encourage self-reflection and exploration of personal experiences and thoughts on a particular topic.
Reflective writing assignments provide an opportunity for self-reflection and personal exploration. In fields such as nursing, education, and human services, these assignments encourage you to think critically about your experiences, thoughts, and emotions related to a particular topic. By analyzing your own reactions and considering the impact of these experiences, you can gain deeper insights and develop a greater understanding of the subject matter.
Annotated bibliographies are valuable resources that provide a comprehensive list of sources accompanied by brief descriptions and evaluations. These assignments require you to carefully select relevant sources and provide thoughtful annotations that summarize the key points, strengths, and weaknesses of each source. By creating an annotated bibliography, you demonstrate your ability to critically analyze and evaluate existing literature on a particular topic.
Literature reviews involve a thorough examination of existing literature on a specific subject. They aim to identify current trends, research gaps, and areas for further investigation. By conducting a comprehensive review of scholarly articles, books, and other relevant sources, you can contribute to the existing knowledge base and showcase your ability to synthesize information from multiple sources.
Now that you have a better understanding of the different types of assignments , you can confidently tackle any task that comes your way. Remember, at StudyingHq.com, you can find thousands of free essay examples, samples, guides, topics, and research papers to inspire your own work. And if you need writing assistance, our team of expert writers is ready to help you within 2-3 hours. Good luck with your assignments!
Some common types of assignments include essays, case study responses, reports, reflective writing assignments, annotated bibliographies, and literature reviews.
Essays require formal language, a clear and logical structure, and the use of credible academic sources. They can be categorized into analytical essays , which involve examining a topic thoroughly, and argumentative essays , which require taking a position on an issue and presenting arguments supported by evidence.
Case study assignments involve analyzing a specific situation, problem, or organization over a selected period of time. When responding to a case study, it is important to refer to the case, structure your paragraphs effectively, and use examples and data from the case as evidence to support your points.
Reports can take different structures, such as business reports or scientific and research reports. The structure of a report depends on professional requirements and the purpose of the report. It typically includes sections like an executive summary, introduction, process, findings, and conclusion.
Reflective writing assignments involve self-reflection and exploring personal experiences or thoughts on a particular topic. Annotated bibliographies are lists of sources with brief descriptions and evaluations. Literature reviews examine existing literature on a topic, highlighting current trends and identifying research gaps.
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Home » Assignment – Types, Examples and Writing Guide
Table of Contents
Definition:
Assignment is a task given to students by a teacher or professor, usually as a means of assessing their understanding and application of course material. Assignments can take various forms, including essays, research papers, presentations, problem sets, lab reports, and more.
Assignments are typically designed to be completed outside of class time and may require independent research, critical thinking, and analysis. They are often graded and used as a significant component of a student’s overall course grade. The instructions for an assignment usually specify the goals, requirements, and deadlines for completion, and students are expected to meet these criteria to earn a good grade.
The use of assignments as a tool for teaching and learning has been a part of education for centuries. Following is a brief history of the Assignment.
Here are some of the most common types of assignments:
An essay is a piece of writing that presents an argument, analysis, or interpretation of a topic or question. It usually consists of an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
Essay structure:
A research paper involves gathering and analyzing information on a particular topic, and presenting the findings in a well-structured, documented paper. It usually involves conducting original research, collecting data, and presenting it in a clear, organized manner.
Research paper structure:
A case study involves analyzing a real-life situation, problem or issue, and presenting a solution or recommendations based on the analysis. It often involves extensive research, data analysis, and critical thinking.
Case study structure:
A lab report is a scientific document that summarizes the results of a laboratory experiment or research project. It typically includes an introduction, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion.
Lab report structure:
A presentation involves delivering information, data or findings to an audience, often with the use of visual aids such as slides, charts, or diagrams. It requires clear communication skills, good organization, and effective use of technology.
Presentation structure:
A creative project is an assignment that requires students to produce something original, such as a painting, sculpture, video, or creative writing piece. It allows students to demonstrate their creativity and artistic skills.
Creative project structure:
Following are Examples of Assignment templates samples:
Essay template:
I. Introduction
II. Body paragraphs
III. Conclusion
Research paper template:
I. Title page
II. Abstract
III. Introduction
IV. Literature review
V. Methodology
VI. Results
VII. Discussion
VIII. Conclusion
Case study template:
II. Analysis
III. Solution/recommendations
IV. Conclusion
Lab report template:
IV. Materials and methods
VI. Discussion
VII. Conclusion
Presentation template:
II. Main points
Creative writing template:
Here is a general guide on how to write an assignment:
Assignments have many applications across different fields and industries. Here are a few examples:
The purpose of an assignment varies depending on the context in which it is given. However, some common purposes of assignments include:
Assignments are typically given by instructors or professors as part of a course or academic program. The timing of when to write an assignment will depend on the specific requirements of the course or program, but in general, assignments should be completed within the timeframe specified by the instructor or program guidelines.
It is important to begin working on assignments as soon as possible to ensure enough time for research, writing, and revisions. Waiting until the last minute can result in rushed work and lower quality output.
It is also important to prioritize assignments based on their due dates and the amount of work required. This will help to manage time effectively and ensure that all assignments are completed on time.
In addition to assignments given by instructors or professors, there may be other situations where writing an assignment is necessary. For example, in the workplace, assignments may be given to complete a specific project or task. In these situations, it is important to establish clear deadlines and expectations to ensure that the assignment is completed on time and to a high standard.
Here are some common characteristics of assignments:
There are several advantages of assignment, including:
There are also some limitations of assignments that should be considered, including:
Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer
In this article, we will look into the Assignment Types available in HCM Cloud and how to use them in the reports.
Each worker type is denoted by its alphabet value in the ASSIGNMENT_TYPE and PERIOD_TYPE columns of the PER_ALL_ASSIGNMENTS_M and PER_PERIODS_OF_SERVICE tables respectively. Both ASSIGNMENT_TYPE and PERIOD_TYPE should have the same values for the given work terms record.
For example, pending worker is denoted by P, employee by E, contingent worker by C, nonworker by N, and offer by O.
Worker Type | Description | |
---|---|---|
Pending Worker | P for Assignment, PT for Work Terms | A person who will be hired as an employee or contingent worker and for whom we create a person record prior to the hire or start date. When the hire is finalized, we convert the pending worker to the proposed worker type. We can create a pending worker work relationship in these scenarios: For a new worker, as part of their hire. For an ex-worker, as part of their rehire or renew placement. For an existing worker, as part of their new job in a different legal employer or for a different worker type in the same legal employer. A pending worker work relationship can’t be created for an existing worker who has a job offer in Oracle Recruiting Cloud (ORC). |
Employee | E for Assignment, ET for Work Terms | A person who typically has a permanent relationship with the organization. |
Contingent Worker | C for Assignment, CT for Work Terms | A non-employee, for example, contract worker or temporary worker. |
Nonworker | N for Assignment, NT for Work Terms | A person having a nonwork relationship with a legal employer, for example, a volunteer or retiree. The work relationship defines the details of the association. |
Offer | O for Assignment, OT for Work Terms | A person having an offer assignment in the organization. This worker type is available only if you’re using Oracle Recruiting Cloud and an offer is created for the candidate. |
Both Assignment and Work Terms information will be stored in PER_ALL_ASSIGNMENTS_M table with a different ASSIGNMENT_TYPE.
Now, if you are building reports based on the Assignment table, we should use the right Assignment types.
If we have to pull Employees only, we need to use ASSIGNMENT_TYPE = ‘E’. If you use ASSIGNMENT_TYPE <>’ET’ then this query might work if you ONLY have Employees in the client POD without any contingent workers and pending workers, else it will pull additional employees on the report.
I have seen many cases where the developers used ASSIGNMENT_TYPE NOT IN (‘ET’,’CT’).. In this case, it will pull Employees, Contingent Workers, Non-Workers, and Offers. Instead of writing like this, it is better to rewrite it as ASSIGNMENT_TYPE IN (‘E’,’C’) if there is a need for pulling Employees and Contingent Workers.
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As a graduate student, you will be assigned a variety of types of writing projects. A good rule of thumb in approaching any writing project is to ask yourself: for whom am I writing and why? Or, who is my audience and what do they expect from my writing? Your assignments will almost invariably require you to make one or more arguments. A good argument is well-written, logical, and supported by evidence.
Expository writing involves understanding, explaining, analyzing, and/or evaluating a topic. It includes your standard graduate school essay, book review, or research paper where your instructor requires you to analyze and/or study a topic. In general, your audience for such assignments will be your course instructor. You can think of such writing assignments as your instructor asking you to make an argument. Your instructor wants to gauge your creative thinking skills and how well you understand the course material by seeing how well you can make an argument related to that material. Remember: a good argument is well-written, logical, and supported by evidence.
An expository paper is therefore not about you (at least not directly); it is about the facts you have learned and researched and the argument you have built from those facts. Therefore, unless you are quoting someone, you should avoid using first person pronouns (the words I, me, my, we, us, our ) in your writing. Let your facts and arguments speak for themselves instead of beginning statements with "I think" or "I believe."
A compare & contrast assignment is a type of expository & research paper assignment. It is important to organize your writing around the themes you are comparing & contrasting. If, for example, you are assigned to compare & contrast, say, Augustine's Confessions and The Autobiography of Malcolm X , a common mistake students make is to write the first part of their essay strictly about Augustine's Confessions , and the second part of the essay strictly about The Autobiography of Malcolm X . In a good compare & contrast essay, you instead explore an issue in every paragraph or two, and show how, in this case, both Augustine & Malcolm X share common ground or differ on that issue. Then, move onto another issue and show how both Augustne and Malcolm X covered it.
Unless your instructor directs you otherwise, you should not use first person pronouns ( I, me, my ) in such a paper.
A book review assignment is meant to be an analysis of a book, not a chapter-by-chapter summary of a book. Instead of organizing your paper sequentially (the first paragraph is about chapter 1, the second paragraph is about chapter 2, etc.), organize your paragraphs around the themes of the book that are thread throughout the book. Topics to consider in a book review include (but are not limited to):
A literature review is similar to a book review assignment in that it is meant to be an analysis of a theme or themes across several books/articles. What have various authors written about your topic? That said, as you will typically have less space to talk about each work (perhaps a paragraph or less for each work as opposed to multiple pages), you might end up moving from one author's findings to another. For a literature review in a thesis, think of a literature review as a mini-essay within your broader thesis with its own mini-introduction, thesis statement, and conclusion.
Unless your instructor directs you otherwise, book reviews and literature reviews should be written like expository & research papers. In particular, you should not use first person pronouns ( I, me, my ). So, instead of writing: "I think this book is a good analysis of ___," write: "This book is a good analysis of ___."
Reflective essays are especially common in theology courses. Reflective writing requires that you explicitly write about yourself and your own views. To put it another way, you typically have two audiences to write for in such an assignment: your instructor and yourself. As such, and unlike a standard expository paper, such essays require you to write about yourself using first person pronouns ( I, me, my) and use statements like “I think” and “I believe.” Otherwise, a reflective essay shares a lot with expository writing. You are still making arguments, and you still need evidence from cited sources! Unless your instructor tells you otherwise, you should still include a good title, introduction paragraph, thesis statement, conclusion, and bibliography.
For online courses, you will likely have to take part in classroom or group discussions online, in which you will be encouraged or even required to respond to your classmates. Such writing assignments often include a reflective element. Discussion posts are almost always shorter than essays and as such may not need long introductions or conclusions. That said, a discussion post is not like a Facebook or social media post! Good discussion posts are long and well-written enough to convey one or more thoughtful, insightful observations; you cannot just "like" someone else's post or only write "Good job!" If you decide to challenge or critique a classmate’s post—and you are certainly encouraged to do so!—you should do so in a respectful and constructive manner. As your main audience for online discussions are your own classmates and, to a lesser extent, your instructor, it is often okay to use relatively more informal language and to refer to yourself using first person pronouns ( I, me, my ). Finally, as with reflective essays, discussion posts still benefit from evidence. Even if a discussion post is relatively less formal than an essay, if you quote, paraphrase, or draw ideas from outside sources, you still must cite them! If the online medium does not allow for footnotes, use parenthetical references for citations (see chapter 19 of Turabian).
Those of you taking preaching courses or earning a DMin degree will have to write and submit your sermons. On one hand, your main audience for such a writing assignment is the congregation to whom you may preach. The language, tone, message, level of detail, etc. of a good sermon will depend on the precise context of your congregation and the message you want to impart. Therefore, unlike an expository essay or a reflective essay, you have a lot more freedom in how you chose to organize your sermon, as well as how formal or not you want the language to be.
On the other hand, in submitting such assignments, you also have a secondary audience: your instructor. As such, you may still need to include citations, even if you would not read them out loud in your sermon. In submitting a sermon as an assignment, you may also need to include some sort of write up or commentary, which your instructor may require to be expository and/or reflective in nature.
Those of you earning an MAR or DMin will finish your coursework by proposing, researching, writing, and defending a thesis or project. A thesis/project should be an original contribution to your field of study. To put it another way, the audience for your thesis/project is not just your advisor, but the broader academic and/or ministerial community. A good thesis/project can go on to become the first draft of a published academic journal article or a chapter or two of a book. Your thesis/project should be largely expository, but it may also include reflective sections.
It is never too early to start thinking about what you want to do for your thesis/project! You can try to make your thesis/project writing process easier by writing your course papers on topics within or adjacent to what you think you want to do for your thesis/project; that said, if you do so, you will need to cite these earlier works in your final thesis. See our citation guide for help with that.
For more information on writing a thesis or project, from choosing a topic to submitting it, check out our Thesis & Project Guide .
First and most importantly: Proofread your paper over before you submit it to make sure that it reads well and is without errors! Read your paper over as you are writing it. Check over your work with spell check. Before you submit it, read it over one last time to catch anything you missed. If possible, consider reading the work out loud: you will be more likely to spot problems in your writing than if you read it in your head. If you are able to do so, ask a friend or schedule an appointment with the Writing Center for a review. Another pair of eyes can often spot a mistake or problem that the writer has overlooked.
Find evidence to support your thesis from good quality sources. Your research and writing should be based on the study of reputable primary and secondary sources. Typically, this means books published by academic presses and academic journal articles. Wikipedia, YouTube, random websites, and dictionary entries are generally not considered to be good sources for academic writing, although there are instances when it is acceptable to use and cite them, like if you were researching how topics in Black theology are represented or misrepresented on Wikipedia. If you need help in finding good resources for your paper, consult a librarian.
Quotations are meant to be evidence to support your argument; they are not filler to meet a length requirement. While you must quote and paraphrase sources, you should not quote or paraphrase more than you need. When possible, consider paraphrasing over quoting. Keep in mind that your writing assignments are supposed to showcase your thinking and writing, not the thinking and writing of whoever you are citing.
Be careful not to turn long sentences into run-on sentences. Long sentences are not always bad: when well-written, a long sentence can read better and help convey complex ideas better than a series of short sentences. A run-on sentence, on the other hand, occurs when multiple sentences are inappropriately lumped into a single sentence. Therefore, when reading your paper over, keep an eye out for any sentence that you can break into multiple sentences.
Relatively longer paragraphs are generally better than short ones. If your paragraph is three sentences or less, consider if you can write more about that paragraph's topic or incorporate it into another paragraph. If a paragraph represents one idea, then a longer paragraph typically shows that you have better considered and flushed out that idea. That said, if your paragraph is longer than a page, you could probably shorten it or break it into two paragraphs.
Make sure your paper flows well from one idea to the next. Does your third paragraph make sense following your second paragraph? Do you drop ideas and only pick them up much later? Cut and paste sentences and paragraphs around as necessary.
When possible, avoid using the passive voice. This can be tricky! The passive voice is when you use the verb “to be” next to and in conjunction with another verb to make the object of the sentence into the subject. For example, compare the active sentence: “Kate Turabian wrote the book” to its passive equivalent: “The book was written by Kate Turabian.” Grammatically speaking, in the latter, passive sentence, "The book" is the subject, even though in a real world active sense, it is the object.
Writers consider passive sentences not as good because, like in the above example, they can be wordier than necessary and take the focus off the real subject. There are exceptions in which it is good to use the passive voice. For example, if you were writing an article about Kate Turabian, it would be better to write: “Kate Turabian was born in 1893” instead of “Kate Turabian’s mother gave birth to her in 1893.” The former sentence keeps Kate Turabian, the focus of the paper, as the subject, while the latter sounds a little weird (maybe English speakers are too squeamish, but we typically do not recount someone's birth in that way).
At its worst, the passive voice can obscure the subject and make facts unclear. Consider the sentence: "Jackie Robinson's signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1946 was considered a crucial moment in the Civil Rights movement." With the passive voice, the reader does not know who exactly considered that so? Did all Americans in 1946 think this? Did some specific people come to recognize it later? Compare that sentence to: "Martin Luther King, Jr. considered Jackie Robinson's signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1946 a crucial moment in the Civil Rights movement."
Be precise and crystal-clear in your statements and arguments. Similar to how the passive voice can make facts unclear, overly general language can make for weak arguments. Consider the argument: "Many people now support same-sex marriage." Many people? Which people? "Many" and "people" are very general terms and do not tell us much in this statement; the more specific you can be, the better your argument:
In general, use the present tense when paraphrasing an author or setting up a quotation. While you should use the past tense when writing about events in the past, you should in general use the present tense when discussing a scholar's writing. Scholarship is a ongoing discussion. When you read and discuss an author's work, that author is making an argument right now in the present, even if she is dead. So, do not write:
Carl Jung wrote: "The psyche... Carl Jung said, "The psyche... Carl Jung argued that...
but instead:
Carl Jung writes: "The psyche... Carl Jung says, "The psyche... Carl Jung argues that...
Use repetition of words carefully. When done well, repeating words can sound good and emphasize ideas. When done poorly, repetition sounds monotonous. Avoid, for example, starting too many sentences or paragraphs with the same word, or overutilizing the same verb. If you need help in bringing variety to your word choices, purchase a thesaurus or check out thesaurus.com .
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IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
a. Work together to get the job done quickly and effectively. b. Align around a common vision and objective. c. Each know our roles and responsibilities. d. Work well as a team to get the best from each other. I am willing to take a risk if: a. It's most likely to help us achieve the goal. b. The outcome benefits the organization. c.
Additive Manufacturing (AM) and Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) are complementary enabling technologies for design and manufacturing of "fit-for-purpose" materials. Both technologies will impact rapid material design, reduction in cost- and time-to-market for new applications, and discovery and implementation of new materials.
Work can be assigned automatically with the help of automatic work flow. Automatic assignment helps to deliver the project faster by avoiding confusion and rework. Using computer applications companies can schedule the work assignment by considering factors like type of work, skill of employee, time required for that work etc. Benefits are ...
Work assignments are most common in creative and technical fields of work. For example, writers may need to complete a trial piece before being hired, and marketing professionals may have to create a campaign pitch and outline as part of their interview process. For more technical work, like information technology or computer science, the ...
your work: • Assignment types — outlines the purpose, audience, tone of writing and structural features of some written assignment types, including research essays, reports, annotated bibliographies and reflective journals • Steps for writing assignments — breaks the assignment writing process into a series of manageable tasks ...
Types of Assignments Cristy Bartlett and Kate Derrington. Figure 20.1 By recognising different types of assignments and understanding the purpose of the task, you can direct your writing skills effectively to meet task requirements. Image by Armin Rimoldi used under CC0 licence. Introduction. As discussed in the previous chapter, assignments are a common method of assessment at university.
AWA pushes work to qualified agents using work item queues, routing conditions, and assignment criteria that you define. Agents see their assignments in their Agent Workspace inbox. Customers use different channels to request service, for example, chats, cases, or incidents. Requests from customers create task or interaction records that store ...
The work assignment feature in project management software allows work to be assigned to the appropriate person within the project team. Whether it's creating a new project or adding in a new task, the work needs to be assigned to a resource for it to be executed. After all, if the work isn't assigned to someone, then no one knows who is ...
Written assignments - Types of Assignments. 2. Written assignments. Writing and researching. Writing tools and techniques. Editing and proofreading. Grammar and spelling. Audience, tone and purpose. There are many different types of written assignments, including essays, reports and reviews.
Revision Assistant offers three color-coded assignment types: Signal Check (blue headers) Expansion Pack (teal headers) ... Regardless of the assignment type though, students can continue to submit and resubmit their work as many times as they'd like until the assignment is closed. Keep reading for more on what each assignment type has to offer.
A performance test is an exam in which an interviewer or employer provides a sample work assignment for the candidate to complete. Performance tests require an understanding of a company's expectations, style and work methods. ... Explain your involvement: If your portfolio or other types of work samples contain pieces that were a collaborative ...
Work assignments are tasks that are deliberately designed for organizational purposes. They are allocated to staff to achieve results. In the simplest terms, these assignments are activities or projects for a specific end. Work assignments should come with a task description, deadline and expected results. Work assignments tips.
These short-term work assignments allow businesses to mobilize skills and grow their organization while developing employees at the same time. Here, we'll examine some of the benefits and risks. Benefits. The organization fills a skills gap by relocating an employee where their capabilities are needed. Also, the employee can train others and ...
Sometimes writing assignments in Gen Ed directly mirror types of writing that students are likely to encounter in real-world, non-academic settings after they graduate. The following are several examples of such assignments: Example 1: Policy memo In Power and Identity in the Middle East, Professor Melani Cammett assigns students a group policy ...
What this handout is about. The first step in any successful college writing venture is reading the assignment. While this sounds like a simple task, it can be a tough one. This handout will help you unravel your assignment and begin to craft an effective response. Much of the following advice will involve translating typical assignment terms ...
Start the sifting process early with a quick skills screening test. This will weed out the bad eggs and leave you with a selection of good potential candidates. Make your assignment brief and easy to understand, and explain the key outputs you expect. Match the level of the homework assignment to the level of the role.
Interviewing for a new job requires you to prove your skills, qualifications and personality aligns with what a company wants. Many hiring managers now look for ways to assess a candidate's technical abilities before giving them a job offer.In this article, we discuss what a job interview assignment is, the do's and don'ts of completing a job interview assignment and examples of job interview ...
5. Sales Jobs 6. Project Management Jobs 7. Account Management Jobs 8. Healthcare Jobs. SEARCH ALL JOBS. 1. Understand General Goals and Expectations. First, it's important to get a sense of how this assignment will factor into the overall evaluation of your candidacy.
Hovering over team members and scrutinizing every detail of their work can stifle creativity and motivation. Trust your team to complete their tasks and provide support when needed. 6. Inflexibility. Being rigid in task assignments can prevent adaptation to changing circumstances or new information.
Argumentative Essays. Essay assignment example: Applying the Concepts of Epidemiology and Nursing Research on Measles Nursing Paper Essay Case Study Assignments. In certain fields like health or business, case study assignments are commonly assigned. These assignments require students to analyze a scenario in a particular field and respond to it guided by specific questions posed concerning ...
Here are four job interview assignment examples for various positions and industries to help you learn more about this type of task: Example 1 Review this example of a job interview assignment for a copywriting position: Creative Concepts, a copywriting agency, is hiring freelance writers to research, write and edit blog posts for clients. The ...
Types of Assignment. Here are some of the most common types of assignments: Essay. An essay is a piece of writing that presents an argument, analysis, or interpretation of a topic or question. It usually consists of an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. ... Individual or group work: Assignments can be completed individually or as ...
Assignment Type. Description. Pending Worker. P for Assignment, PT for Work Terms. A person who will be hired as an employee or contingent worker and for whom we create a person record prior to the hire or start date. When the hire is finalized, we convert the pending worker to the proposed worker type.
One of the assignment types must be configured for the technician, while the other assignment type must be configured for the supervisor based on the supported work assignment types. Only the same level of assignment types is supported. In this, you can configure either header level assignments or operation level assignments, and not both.
A compare & contrast assignment is a type of expository & research paper assignment. It is important to organize your writing around the themes you are comparing & contrasting. If, for example, you are assigned to compare & contrast, say, Augustine's Confessions and The Autobiography of Malcolm X, a common mistake students make is to write the first part of their essay strictly about Augustine ...