University life means lots of enjoyment and a share of challenges. One among them is writing longer assignments that require higher information, communication and critical thinking skills. Essays are a primary means by which scholars communicate their ideas on the assignments. Within their essays, students focus on significant questions or problems in their field, create arguments to respond to those questions and problems, and support their arguments with specific evidence and citations.
The essay begins with an introduction that introduces the topic and the thesis of the essay, next it contains body paragraphs that develop and support the essay’s thesis with evidence, and end with a conclusion that highlights the significance of the thesis.
The essay writing process for university assignment consists of three main stages. Firstly, the student needs to do research on the assignment topic and create an essay outline. Then, we need to set out an argument in the introduction, develop it with evidence in the main body, and wrap it up with a conclusion. At last check the content, organization, grammar, spelling, and formatting of the essay is necessary. There are some more steps that can be followed for a better essay.
Improving written communication will help the student succeed at university and beyond. Some important steps that will help in improving this writing skill are:
1. Understanding the question
The first and most important step is understanding the question of the assignment. This may sound like somewhat banal advice but fact is that failing to properly understand the question set is one of the most common reasons behind a disappointing grade when it comes to essay writing. These are some of the common phrases found in essay questions, and each indicates a different set of expectations, critically evaluating a particular theoretical approach to gain an understanding of theory.
You must come to a well-justified and confident conclusion. Compare and contrast essays are essentially a hybrid that need to take a critical approach and evaluate the literature, but focus has to remain solidly on the theories. It is important to show that you understand both core theories in great depth, both on a theoretical and applied level.
2. Plan and schedule
Understanding the question is the first step, but it is equally important that you make efficient use of the available time. Students often underestimate the amount of work required to write a good essay, which results in two things: (1) late nights at the library, and (2) a disappointing grade. If you want to achieve a good mark, you should start planning your essay the moment you receive the essay question.
By setting deadlines for yourself and committing to stick to them, ensure that you won’t be left with too much work right before your hand-in date. It is also important to leave time, ideally a couple of days, between finishing the first draft and proofreading.
3. Read widely
Writing may be the core task, but reading is equally important. Before starting writing an essay, conduct a broad search for relevant literature. Learning how to sift through a large amount of data is an important academic skill. Before starting searching through databases read through the abstract to ensure that it is relevant.
It is important not to rely too heavily on one or a couple of texts, as this indicates to the marker that they have not engaged with the wider literature. Be particularly careful in using course books as these are essentially summaries of other people’s work.
Now, we are mentioning some of the best tips that will help in writing perfect essay for university assignments:
1. We should use all available sources of information
Beyond instructions and deadlines, lecturers make available an increasing number of resources. But students often overlook these. To understand assignments, include lecture recordings, reading lists, sample assignments and discussion boards. All this information is usually put together in an online platform called a learning management system (LMS).
2. Referencing should be taken seriously
Using somebody else’s words or ideas without information is a serious offense at university, you can say it is a form of cheating. Sometimes even students are unaware that they have cheated. They lack the skills to put the information from their sources into their own words.
To avoid making these mistakes students must approach the university’s library or face-to-face workshops or online resources on referencing. There are referencing management software available to store sources, retrieve citations and create reference lists with only a few clicks. Zotero has been recommended for undergraduate students as it seems to be more user-friendly. This software will save searching time and formatting references.
3. For a good essay writing we must plan before start writing
Writing an academic paper requires careful planning in which we need to decide the number of sections, their organization, and the information and sources that will be included in each. Students who prepare detailed outlines produce higher-quality texts.
Planning will not only help in getting better grades, but will also reduce the time spent staring blankly at the screen thinking about what to write next. Spending some time planning the assignment before starting writing will save much time.
4. Choose the right words
The written language used at university should be more formal and technical than the language normally used in social media or while chatting. Academic words tend to be longer and their meaning is also more precise. To find the right words we can use an online dictionary with search entries categorized grammatically.
5. Editing and proofread
There is no software to date which can detect every error and it is not uncommon to be given inaccurate suggestions. So, in addition to proof-readers, it is needed to improve and expand the grammar knowledge. Check with the academic support services at university if they offer any relevant courses.
Conclusion
Written communication is a skill that requires effort and dedication. This is the reason that universities are investing in support services, face-to-face workshops, individual consultations, and online courses to help students in this process.
