I sound like my mother here. I'm so sorry.
so here it goes...you need to do it
before the night it's due. Ok.
I cannot tell you. I cannot tell you the amount of students who
contact me saying 'Ahh
I haven't quite got it finished." And I'm like "When did you start?" "Oh, last night."
Ok, that's never going to work.
So, my tip
get in early and look
we all like to write at the last minute. Of course we do, we can't help ourselves.
But if you've at least done the thinking before
you've got a really good chance. So, keep
up with the coursework, keep up with the reading
keep taking notes. Doing all of that stuff
Even if the worst comes to the worst and you haven't started the assessment
you've at least done the work. You do not want to be
sitting there at eleven o' clock when the piece is
due at 11:59 on the LMS going "Oh my God
I still don't know the answer to that question. Let alone
how I'm going to write the answer to that question." So my tips for approaching
assessement are...and I do really sound like my mother....
preparation, preparation and preparation.
Sorry, it's really old and cliched, but it's the best way.
Read the instructions very carefully
For most assignments you will get an assessment
task sheet
and that task sheet should clearly outline what's expected of you
Read it very thoroughly because sometimes
there are very specific things that are required.
All the way down to they might expect you to have a particular font size.
Ok
Hopefully not too many subjects will do that, but you never know.
So sometimes there are very specific instructions
Make sure you read those instructions.
If anything is unclear, you can always
email your tutor or your lecturer and they can
explain that further for you if you don't understand.
So read the instructions carefully
I would also ask to see if there are any previous
examples
of this assignment. So, when it comes to
an exam, it might be that there are some past papers available that you can attempt.
Or if the assignment was done the previous
year, you might be able to have a look at
some of the other students work that have done this. It might not be exactly
the same question, but it might be quite similar
and you can see how students have structured that.
Ask for examples if there are any.
if you're not quite sure
about how to go about it.
So my next advice would be to always
plan your work, so have
a plan about how you're going to go about doing
your assignment. So you understand what's required of you first
and secondly you set a plan about how you're going to go about doing that.
I like to create mindmaps
of all the information I'm going to have
in my assignment and all the different little headings that I want
and what research I want to do under those headings.
That's how I start my plan.
The next thing I would say
is..research.
Make sure you know how to do good quality
research. Alot of the time these days that's online.
Making sure you know how to navigate
around online journals is probably one of the most important things that you can learn to do.
So know how to look up journals
in databases using the university's library.
We're very,very lucky at the university to have access to basically journals across the entire world.
Take time to write the answer and then walk away.
If you can leave it alone for a day or so give
yourself that time...just so you have a bit of headspace to then come
back and check that you've actually answered that assessment task
in the way that your lecturer or subject coordinator
has asked you to.
If you get to a point where you are not quite sure what it is that task
is asking you,
Do go and contact
the lecturer and subject coordinator or your tutor depending
on the way that your class is structured. Because that's what they are there for.
They're there to help you with those things and to clarify
and to make sure that you can answer
those questions to the best of your ability.