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(Review of the Literature)
An Introduction to Choosing & Using Sources Copyright © 2015 by Teaching & Learning, Ohio State University Libraries is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.
Writing assignments, learning objectives.
Figure 1 . All college classes require some form of writing. Investing some time in refining your writing skills so that you are a more confident, skilled, and efficient writer will pay dividends in the long run.
Writing assignments can be as varied as the instructors who assign them. Some assignments are explicit about what exactly you’ll need to do, in what order, and how it will be graded. Others are more open-ended, leaving you to determine the best path toward completing the project. Most fall somewhere in the middle, containing details about some aspects but leaving other assumptions unstated. It’s important to remember that your first resource for getting clarification about an assignment is your instructor—they will be very willing to talk out ideas with you, to be sure you’re prepared at each step to do well with the writing.
Writing in college is usually a response to class materials—an assigned reading, a discussion in class, an experiment in a lab. Generally speaking, these writing tasks can be divided into three broad categories: summary assignments, defined-topic assignments, and undefined-topic assignments.
Empire State College offers an Assignment Calculator to help you plan ahead for your writing assignment. Just plug in the date you plan to get started and the date it is due, and the calculator will help break it down into manageable chunks.
Being asked to summarize a source is a common task in many types of writing. It can also seem like a straightforward task: simply restate, in shorter form, what the source says. A lot of advanced skills are hidden in this seemingly simple assignment, however.
An effective summary does the following:
That last point is often the most challenging: we are opinionated creatures, by nature, and it can be very difficult to keep our opinions from creeping into a summary. A summary is meant to be completely neutral.
In college-level writing, assignments that are only summary are rare. That said, many types of writing tasks contain at least some element of summary, from a biology report that explains what happened during a chemical process, to an analysis essay that requires you to explain what several prominent positions about gun control are, as a component of comparing them against one another.
Start with a clear identification of the work.
This automatically lets your readers know your intentions and that you’re covering the work of another author.
Omit nothing important and strive for overall coherence through appropriate transitions. Write using “summarizing language.” Your reader needs to be reminded that this is not your own work. Use phrases like the article claims, the author suggests, etc.
This is not a statement of your own point of view, however; it should reflect the significance of the book or article from the author’s standpoint.
Figure 2 . Many writing assignments will have a specific prompt that sends you first to your textbook, and then to outside resources to gather information.
Often, the handout or other written text explaining the assignment—what professors call the assignment prompt —will explain the purpose of the assignment and the required parameters (length, number and type of sources, referencing style, etc.).
Also, don’t forget to check the rubric, if there is one, to understand how your writing will be assessed. After analyzing the prompt and the rubric, you should have a better sense of what kind of writing you are expected to produce.
Sometimes, though—especially when you are new to a field—you will encounter the baffling situation in which you comprehend every single sentence in the prompt but still have absolutely no idea how to approach the assignment! In a situation like that, consider the following tips:
Many writing tasks will ask you to address a particular topic or a narrow set of topic options. Defined-topic writing assignments are used primarily to identify your familiarity with the subject matter. (Discuss the use of dialect in Their Eyes Were Watching God , for example.)
Remember, even when you’re asked to “show how” or “illustrate,” you’re still being asked to make an argument. You must shape and focus your discussion or analysis so that it supports a claim that you discovered and formulated and that all of your discussion and explanation develops and supports.
Another writing assignment you’ll potentially encounter is one in which the topic may be only broadly identified (“water conservation” in an ecology course, for instance, or “the Dust Bowl” in a U.S. History course), or even completely open (“compose an argumentative research essay on a subject of your choice”).
Figure 3 . For open-ended assignments, it’s best to pick something that interests you personally.
Where defined-topic essays demonstrate your knowledge of the content , undefined-topic assignments are used to demonstrate your skills— your ability to perform academic research, to synthesize ideas, and to apply the various stages of the writing process.
The first hurdle with this type of task is to find a focus that interests you. Don’t just pick something you feel will be “easy to write about” or that you think you already know a lot about —those almost always turn out to be false assumptions. Instead, you’ll get the most value out of, and find it easier to work on, a topic that intrigues you personally or a topic about which you have a genuine curiosity.
The same getting-started ideas described for defined-topic assignments will help with these kinds of projects, too. You can also try talking with your instructor or a writing tutor (at your college’s writing center) to help brainstorm ideas and make sure you’re on track.
Writing is not a linear process, so writing your essay, researching, rewriting, and adjusting are all part of the process. Below are some tips to keep in mind as you approach and manage your assignment.
Figure 4 . Writing is a recursive process that begins with examining the topic and prewriting.
Write down topic ideas. If you have been assigned a particular topic or focus, it still might be possible to narrow it down or personalize it to your own interests.
If you have been given an open-ended essay assignment, the topic should be something that allows you to enjoy working with the writing process. Select a topic that you’ll want to think about, read about, and write about for several weeks, without getting bored.
Figure 5 . Just getting started is sometimes the most difficult part of writing. Freewriting and planning to write multiple drafts can help you dive in.
If you’re writing about a subject you’re not an expert on and want to make sure you are presenting the topic or information realistically, look up the information or seek out an expert to ask questions.
It doesn’t matter how many spelling errors or weak adjectives you have in it. Your draft can be very rough! Jot down those random uncategorized thoughts. Write down anything you think of that you want included in your writing and worry about organizing and polishing everything later.
Set a timer and write continuously until that time is up. Don’t worry about what you write, just keeping moving your pencil on the page or typing something (anything!) into the computer.
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Many instructors write their assignment prompts differently. By following a few steps, you can better understand the requirements for the assignment. The best way, as always, is to ask the instructor about anything confusing.
After you are finished with these steps, ask yourself the following:
(Notes on prompts made in blue )
Poster or Song Analysis: Poster or Song? Poster!
Goals : To systematically consider the rhetorical choices made in either a poster or a song. She says that all the time.
Things to Consider: ah- talking points
These thinking points are not a step-by-step guideline on how to write your paper; instead, they are various means through which you can approach the subject. I do expect to see at least a few of them addressed, and there are other aspects that may be pertinent to your choice that have not been included in these lists. You will want to find a central idea and base your argument around that. Additionally, you must include a copy of the poster or song that you are working with. Really important!
I will be your audience. This is a formal paper, and you should use academic conventions throughout.
Length: 4 pages Format: Typed, double-spaced, 10-12 point Times New Roman, 1 inch margins I need to remember the format stuff. I messed this up last time =(
Academic Argument Essay
5-7 pages, Times New Roman 12 pt. font, 1 inch margins.
Minimum of five cited sources: 3 must be from academic journals or books
Remember this! I missed the deadline last time
The design plan is simply a statement of purpose, as described on pages 40-41 of the book, and an outline. The outline may be formal, as we discussed in class, or a printout of an Open Mind project. It must be a minimum of 1 page typed information, plus 1 page outline.
This project is an expansion of your opinion editorial. While you should avoid repeating any of your exact phrases from Project 2, you may reuse some of the same ideas. Your topic should be similar. You must use research to support your position, and you must also demonstrate a fairly thorough knowledge of any opposing position(s). 2 things to do - my position and the opposite.
Your essay should begin with an introduction that encapsulates your topic and indicates 1 the general trajectory of your argument. You need to have a discernable thesis that appears early in your paper. Your conclusion should restate the thesis in different words, 2 and then draw some additional meaningful analysis out of the developments of your argument. Think of this as a "so what" factor. What are some implications for the future, relating to your topic? What does all this (what you have argued) mean for society, or for the section of it to which your argument pertains? A good conclusion moves outside the topic in the paper and deals with a larger issue.
You should spend at least one paragraph acknowledging and describing the opposing position in a manner that is respectful and honestly representative of the opposition’s 3 views. The counterargument does not need to occur in a certain area, but generally begins or ends your argument. Asserting and attempting to prove each aspect of your argument’s structure should comprise the majority of your paper. Ask yourself what your argument assumes and what must be proven in order to validate your claims. Then go step-by-step, paragraph-by-paragraph, addressing each facet of your position. Most important part!
Finally, pay attention to readability . Just because this is a research paper does not mean that it has to be boring. Use examples and allow your opinion to show through word choice and tone. Proofread before you turn in the paper. Your audience is generally the academic community and specifically me, as a representative of that community. Ok, They want this to be easy to read, to contain examples I find, and they want it to be grammatically correct. I can visit the tutoring center if I get stuck, or I can email the OWL Email Tutors short questions if I have any more problems.
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Writing Across the Curriculum
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One of the best ways for students to determine what they know, think, and believe about a given subject is to write about it. To support students in their writing, it is important to provide them with a meaningful writing task, one that has an authentic purpose, clear guidelines, and engages students in their learning. In this section, you can read about key principles of assignment design, review examples of effective writing assignments, and use a checklist to guide your own designs. You can also consult with a Writing Across the Curriculum Program team member . We’re happy to think with you about your writing assignment, whether it is in the inkling stage or undergoing a few minor tweaks.
A good deal of educational research points to the benefits of writing assignments that exhibit the following features:
Meaningful tasks. A task is given meaning by its relevance to and alignment with the learning aims in the course. What counts as meaningful in one course context might not be meaningful in another. As Eodice, Geller, and Lerner (2016) have shown, meaningful writing assignments do occur across all disciplines and they are typically ones that “offer students opportunities to engage with instructors, peers, and texts and are relevant to past experiences and passions as well as to future aspirations and identities.”
Maximized learning time. As Linda Suskie argues, effectiveness is determined by the “learning payoff,” not by size of the assignment. Will students learn four times as much on an assignment that takes 20 hours outside of class than one that takes 5? Longer research-based assignments and elaborate class activities (mock conferences, debates, poster sessions, etc.) can greatly maximize learning, but there must be an appropriate level of writing and learning time built into the task. Term papers are much more effective when students have time to draft and revise stages of the assignment, rather than turning in one final product at the end.
Logical sequencing. A writing task that includes discrete stages (research, drafting, review, revising, etc.) is more likely to be an effective learning experience than one that only specifies the final product. Furthermore, these stages are more effective when they are scaffolded so simpler tasks precede more complex tasks. For example, a well-sequenced 10-12 page essay assignment might involve discrete segments where students generate a central inquiry question, draft and workshop a thesis statement, produce a first draft of the essay, give and receive feedback on drafts, and submit a revision. Read more about sequencing assignments .
Clear criteria will help students connect an assignment’s relevance to larger scale course outcomes. The literature on assignment design strongly encourages instructors to make the grading criteria explicit to students before the assignment is collected and assessed. A grading scheme or rubric that is handed out along with the assignment can provide students with a clear understanding of the weighted expectations and, thus help them decide what to focus on in the assignment. It becomes a teaching tool, not just an assessment tool.
Forward-thinking activities more than backward-thinking activities. Forward-thinking activities and assignments ask students to apply their learning rather than simply repeat it. The orientation of many writing prompts is often backward, asking students to show they learned X, Y, and Z. As L. Dee Fink (2013) points out, forward-thinking assignments and activities look ahead to what students will be able to do in the future having learned about X, Y, and Z. Such assignments often utilize real-world and scenario-based problems, requiring students to apply their learning to a new situation. For Grant Wiggins (1998) , questions, problems, tests, and assignments that are forward-thinking often:
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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Part 1: chapter 3.
C ollege writing assignments serve a different purpose than the typical writing assignments you completed in high school. The textbook Successful Writing explains that in high school, teachers generally focus on teaching you to write in a variety of modes and formats, including personal writing, expository writing, research papers, creative writing, and writing short answers and essays for exams. Over time, these assignments help you build a foundation of writing skills. In college, many instructors will expect you to already have that foundation.
Your college composition courses will focus on writing for its own sake, helping you make the transition to college-level writing assignments. However, in most other college courses, writing assignments serve a different purpose. In those courses, you may use writing as one tool among many for learning how to think about a particular academic discipline.
Additionally, certain assignments teach you how to meet the expectations for professional writing in a given field. Depending on the class, you might be asked to write a lab report, a case study, a literary analysis, a business plan, or an account of a personal interview. You will need to learn and follow the standard conventions for those types of written products.
Finally, personal and creative writing assignments are less common in college than in high school. College courses emphasize expository writing, writing that explains or informs. Often expository writing assignments will incorporate outside research, too. Some classes will also require persuasive writing assignments in which you state and support your position on an issue. College instructors will hold you to a higher standard when it comes to supporting your ideas with reasons and evidence.
Personal response paper.
Expresses and explains your response to a reading assignment, a provocative quote, or a specific issue; may be very brief (sometimes a page or less) or more in-depth
Restates the main points of a longer passage objectively and in your own words
States and defends your position on an issue (often a controversial issue)
Presents a problem, explains its causes, and proposes and explains a solution
States a thesis about a particular literary work (or works) and develops the thesis with evidence from the work and sometimes from additional sources
Sums up available research findings on a particular topic
Investigates a particular person, group, or event in depth for the purpose of drawing a larger conclusion from the analysis
Presents a laboratory experiment, including the hypothesis, methods of data collection, results, and conclusions
Records a student’s ideas and findings during the course of a long-term research project
Presents a thesis and supports it with original research and/or other researchers’ findings on the topic; can take several different formats depending on the subject area
In Part One of this textbook, we covered college writing at CNM, and reading strategies that will help you succeed in different disciplines. As reading and writing go hand-in-hand, we will now turn to the steps you can take toward effective writing, also known as developing a writing process.
Adapted from “Chapter One ” of Successful Writing , 2012, used according to creative commons 3.0 by-nc-sa
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Writing at the college level involves new expectations that may require new strategies. While specific genres of writing have distinct purposes, college writing helps you develop skills such as thinking critically, communicating professionally, and articulating yourself well. Although common writing expectations and strategies are listed below, always follow assignment guidelines and write with your audience in mind.
Writing as a college student can seem daunting, but drawing on your previous writing experience and relying on instructors and campus resources can help to ease the transition. Although writing assignments may differ, many have similar expectations to those listed below.
Using effective strategies when approaching writing assignments can help you mitigate worries, strengthen writing skills, increase confidence, and improve writing efficiency.
College writing assignments can be complex, and assignments can build on each other within a course. It may also involve in-depth academic research. Create and maintain a personal writing process to organize your writing, research, and personal time.
As a college writer, you will continually grow and improve. College is a learning environment. Getting support from others can ease anxiety and build your confidence as a writer. If you feel overwhelmed, remember that you are in college to learn, and faculty, peers and the Writing Center are here to help.
Types of writing assignments.
The Expository Essay
The Argumentative Essay
The Persuasive Essay
The Narrative Essay
The Reflection Paper
Discussion Posts
The Annotated Bibliography
The expository essay requires the student to investigate an idea; collect, generate, and evaluate evidence; and establish a thesis/argument on the topic in a clear and concise manner. This is accomplished through comparing and contrasting, the analysis of cause and effect, etcetera (Purdue Online Writing Lab, n.d.).
The expository essay is typically logical and short in length. In other words, the writer cannot write an emotional response to defend their thesis/argument.
The most common method for writing an expository essay is the five-paragraph approach, which includes all four components of an essay. These consist of:
• An Introductory Paragraph : This typically includes the main features of an introduction, such as a hook sentence, an explanation of the hook sentence, a clear, concise thesis statement/argument, discussion points, and a transition from the introduction to the body paragraphs.
• Three Body Paragraphs : Each body paragraph will contain a topic sentence (or the main idea of the body paragraph) example(s) supporting the topic sentence’s claim, an analysis of why the example(s) are important, connecting the body paragraph to the thesis/argument, and a transition from one paragraph to the next.
• A Conclusion: The conclusion goes beyond a summary. It is the writer’s last chance to let the reader understand why the thesis statement is important and to demonstrate how the evidence used is connected and not random.
• Citations: This is used to prove that your assignment is academically honest. At Bow Valley College, most writing assignments will require the student to use the APA citation style. See the Library website: ( About APA Style - APA Style, 7th Edition - LibGuides at Bow Valley College ) on how to properly cite references that were used.
Note : While this is an excellent source of reference, students are encouraged to check their syllabus and/or rubric to ensure they include all the requirements of an assignment.
Purdue Online Writing Lab. (n.d.). Expository essays. Expository Essays - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University
The argumentative paper requires the student to investigate a topic; collect, generate, and evaluate evidence; and establish a thesis/argument on the topic in a clear and concise manner. The argumentative paper differs from the expository paper in that extensive research of literature or previously published material/peer reviewed material is required. As a result, the argumentative essay is commonly assigned as a final project (Purdue Online Writing Lab, n.d.).
In addition to length, the argumentative essay is logical. In other words, the writer cannot write an emotional response to defend their thesis/argument.
The most common method for writing an argumentative essay is the five-paragraph approach, which includes all four components of an essay. These consist of:
• Three Body Paragraphs: Each body paragraph will contain a topic sentence (or the main idea of the body paragraph), example(s) supporting the topic sentence’s claim, an analysis of why the example(s) are important, connecting the body paragraph to the thesis/argument, and a transition from one paragraph to the next.
• Citations: These are used to prove that your assignment is academically honest. At Bow Valley College, most writing assignments will require the student to use the APA citation style. See the Library website: About APA Style - APA Style, 7th Edition - LibGuides at Bow Valley College on how to properly cite references that were used.
Purdue Online Writing Lab. (n.d.). Argumentative essays . Argumentative Essays - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University
A persuasive essay requires the student to identify an issue and choose a side/argument. The purpose of a persuasive essay is to get the reader on your side by using facts and emotions. The writer is allowed to appeal to the reader’s emotions, which makes the persuasive essay unique.
The persuasive essay can be broken down into four parts:
• An Introductory Paragraph : This typically includes the main features of an introduction, such as a hook sentence, an explanation of the hook sentence, a clear, concise thesis statement/argument, discussion points (make sure you outline the structure your argument will follow) and a transition from the introduction to the body paragraphs.
• Body Paragraphs : Each body paragraph will contain a topic sentence (or the main idea of the body paragraph), example(s) supporting the topic sentence’s claim, an analysis of why the example(s) are important, connecting the body paragraph to the thesis/argument, and a transition from one paragraph to the next.
I. One of these body paragraphs will have a summary of some of the opposing views. The writer will give a topic sentence explaining the opposing argument. Next, the writer will provide a brief synopsis of the opposing ideas. After providing generalized evidence, the writer will transition into a rebuttal paragraph that follows.
II. In the rebuttal paragraph, the writer gives a topic sentence explaining that this paragraph expands on the previous one. The writer will present how their ideas are stronger. This is done by presenting evidence directly disputing ideas mentioned in the previous section. Finally, the writer will give a concluding statement summarizing the counter arguments.
• A Conclusion : The conclusion goes beyond a summary. It is the writer’s last chance to let the reader understand why the thesis statement is important and to demonstrate how the evidence used is connected, not random.
• Citations : These are used to prove that your assignment is academically honest. At Bow Valley College, most writing assignments will require the student to use the APA citation style. See the Library website on how to properly cite references that were used.
The main purpose of a narrative essay is to tell the reader about a key event, a crucial interaction, or experience that happened to the author over a limited time period. Therefore, writing a narrative is like writing a story. Most importantly, the narrative must have a purpose (think of this as your thesis!). Other important traits of a narrative essay include:
• It must be written from a clear point of view.
• Clear and concise language is used.
• The use of the first-person pronoun ‘I’ is welcomed. However, do not abuse this exception!
• Body paragraphs must be in a logical order. Typically, this means the narrative will be in chronological order (Purdue Online Writing Lab, n.d.).
The most common method for writing a narrative essay is the five-paragraph approach, which includes all four components of an essay. These consist of:
• The Introduction : Provide a hook sentence that will make the reader want to read the rest of your essay. The introduction is also where the writer will provide a setting and notify the reader of the thesis.
• Three Body Paragraphs : Each body paragraph will contain a topic sentence which is the main idea of the body paragraph. The writer will develop and connect details to the topic. Additionally, the writer will provide a transition from one paragraph to the next.
• A Conclusion : The writer will connect the paragraph details to the overall theme. The writer should try to end the narrative in an impactful way so that the reader has no doubt in their mind as to the purpose of the narrative.
• Citations : Some narrative essays will require the students to use citations. These are used to prove that your assignment is academically honest. At Bow Valley College, most writing assignments will require the student to use the APA citation style. See the Library website: About APA Style - APA Style, 7th Edition - LibGuides at Bow Valley College on how to properly cite references.
Purdue Online Writing Lab. (n.d.). Narrative essays . Narrative Essays - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University
The Reflection Paper is an assignment that requires the writer to consider how their personal experiences and observations shape their thinking and their acceptance of new ideas or practices. It is discipline and course specific and might take the form of a short paper on course readings, or a response to a service placement opportunity. Therefore, students must check their syllabus and/or rubric to ensure they include all the requirements of the assignment.
Key Traits of a Reflection Paper are:
• The writer connects the course readings with their knowledge and experience in order to further comprehend the readings. Therefore, the first-person pronoun “I” is welcomed.
• The writer questions their assumptions about course readings or service placement opportunities; it also challenges the writer to reflect on their previous beliefs and arrive at a more complex, or new understanding of a reading or issue (Trent University, n.d.).
• A reflection paper can have an open format that explores and connects course content with life experience(s).
• While the reflection paper does not need a thesis statement, it is often argumentative.
• The reflection paper does not need to be conclusive, but can identify gaps in knowledge, make connections, or challenge prior beliefs (University of Toronto, 2014).
As with other academic writing, a reflection paper will include all four components of an essay. These consist of:
• An Introductory Paragraph : This will identify the paper’s topic, describe the major course concept/theory and state what the paper is going to explore/argue.
• Body Paragraph(s): Describe the situation or context being analyzed, the writer describes their reaction or experience and then connects the experience to the theory.
• Conclusion : The writer summarizes what they’ve learned and discusses how these lessons may impact or influence them in the future.
• Citations : Check instructions to see which citation style is required.
Trent University. (n.d.). How to write a reflection paper . How to Write a Reflection Paper - Academic Skills - Trent University
University of Toronto at Scarborough. (2014). The reflection paper . Writing Support | Centre for Teaching and Learning (utoronto.ca)
The Photo or Visual Analysis Paper
All images possess an idea or claim. In a visual analysis essay, students are provided with a photograph(s) and are expected to describe the image(s) and discuss how the image is put together (also known as the composition). The student will choose a theme that they think the picture(s) is/are trying to make & then analyze the meaning of the image(s).
In order to write an effective visual analysis essay, the student should consider the purpose of the artist, the artist’s audience, the way the image was composed, the historical meaning of the image(s), and evaluate the effectiveness of the image(s) in contemporary times.
The most common method for writing a photograph essay is the five-paragraph approach, which includes all four components of an essay. This consists of:
• An Introductory Paragraph: The writer will provide basic facts about the art. Get the reader interested in the image(s) by using one of the following methods:
• Describe the image(s) vividly.
• Discuss how the image(s) was/were created.
• Explain the purpose of the artist(s).
• Give interesting or relevant facts about the image or artist.
• Talk about a controversy or misunderstanding about the art.
• Your thesis will tell the reader the meaning of this image (Kearney, 2020).
• Three Body Paragraphs : Each body paragraph will contain a topic sentence (or the main idea of the body paragraph), example(s) supporting the topic sentence’s claim, an analysis of why the example(s) are important, a linking sentence connecting the body paragraph to the thesis/argument, and a transition sentence from one paragraph to the next.
• A Conclusion : Do not just repeat your thesis. It is the writer’s last chance to let the reader understand why the thesis statement is important and to demonstrate how the evidence used is connected, not random. Kearney (2020) suggests to:
I. Compare the reception of the visual aid by the audience who first saw it with your own ideas, or with the way people today might interpret the picture.
II. Speculate on what the artist would think about the way his picture has been viewed over time.
III. Suggest how this piece of art fits into the works of an artist, or the ad campaign of a company.
• Citation : This is used to prove that your assignment is academically honest. At Bow Valley College, most writing assignments will require the student to use APA Citation. See the Library website on how to properly cite work: About APA Style - APA Style, 7th Edition - LibGuides at Bow Valley College
Note : While this is an excellent source of reference, students are encouraged to check their syllabus and/or rubric to ensure they include all requirements of an assignment.
Kearney, V. (2020, March 25). How to Write a Visual Analysis Paper . Owlcation. How to Write a Visual Analysis Paper - Owlcation
Single Paragraph Assignment/Expository Paragraph
The expository paragraph provides information. The writer explains a subject, gives directions, or demonstrates how something happens. In expository writing, students generally use linking words like “first,” “second,” “then,” and “finally,” which helps the reader navigate through the paragraph. Other key characteristics of a single paragraph/expository paragraph essay include:
• Indent the first line.
• One central idea for each paragraph (i.e.: If the assignment is about which fruit is the best tasting, the writer should not be discussing vegetables).
• Avoid repetition of words in a paragraph, unless it is a key term : For example, a writer should use a synonym for words like “moreover” such as “furthermore”. However, if the topic is about apples, then the writer will have to use the word “apple” more than once.
• Include a thesis statement : Typically, in a single paragraph essay, this is first sentence, also known as a topic sentence, which is one sentence long and tells the reader what the paragraph will be about.
• Supporting sentences : Each sentence that is written after the topic sentence must be related to the topic sentence and follow one another in a logical sequence of steps. This helps keep the writer on topic and helps the reader better understand the main idea of the paragraph. Supporting sentences provide the reader with details such as:
Note : After providing an example, the writer must immediately state why the example used is important or relevant, before they proceed with the next example.
• A concluding sentence that closes the subject in a clear manner.
Discussion boards give students the opportunity to discuss course topics with each other - and with the professor - as they would if they were in a traditional classroom.
To Write an Effective Discussion Board Post:
• Answer the question posed by the instructor directly.
• Provide a clear and thorough answer to the question (incorporating some of the wording of the question in your answer).
• Paraphrase rather than quote, unless the wording is unique or special.
• Give evidence and provide an explanation for your argument. The evidence the writer will provide will be from their text, notes, or outside research (where appropriate) to support their point. Remember to cite all sources used.
• Explain the connection by ensuring the evidence provided supports the writer’s point. Never assume the evidence provided is obvious to the reader.
• Despite discussion posts having an informal tone to them, students are expected to have good sentence structure, spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
• Be clear in the subject line so that the reader knows what to expect.
To Write an Effective Follow-up Discussion Post:
• The writer must explain why they agree or disagree with the student’s post and offer their own supporting points and evidence.
• Be Respectful. Do not respond emotionally to what others have said. Rather, respond to the ideas and the argument, not the person.
Note : While this is an excellent source of reference, students are encouraged to check their syllabus and/or rubric to ensure they include all the requirements of a discussion post.
An annotated bibliography contains a list of sources (in alphabetical order), followed by a summary (annotation) of each source, and provides an assessment of its value or relevance. A key purpose of the annotation is for the student to begin interacting with their sources in order to develop their own opinions and insights that will form the basis of their paper.
An Annotated Bibliography Includes:
• A Proper Reference Citation (APA) : Students are encouraged to refer to BVC’s APA Style, 7th edition webpage ( About APA Style - APA Style, 7th Edition - LibGuides at Bow Valley College ) to learn the steps of how to reference sources, as well as to download a pre-formatted, APA 7 MS Word document.
• A Short Summary : Discuss what the source says in your own words and focus on the scholar(s)’s conclusions. DO NOT COPY AND PASTE.
• Use : Explain how or why the source is useful for your argument. This is where the writer will include facts, statistics, quotes or ideas from the source material that they might include in their assignment.
The Following is an Example of an Annotated Bibliography Entry:
Annotated Bibliography Sample
Hill, T. D., Kaplan, L. M., French, M. T., & Johnson, R. J. (2010). Victimization in early life and mental health in adulthood: An examination of the mediating and moderating influences of psychosocial resources. Journal of Health & Social Behavior, 51 (1), 48-63. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022146509361194
The author found that situations which make children feel less equal to their peers can harm their mental health as adults. One in four children suffer from self-esteem issues; one in three live in poverty that affects their self-esteem.
This is strong evidence from a peer reviewed journal of the effect of poverty on juvenile delinquency: It starts with damage to the child’s self-esteem. Poverty and inequality shape many into maladjusted teens adults. This could be a root cause of juvenile delinquency.
Part 1: Citation in APA: Also note the hanging indent. This is a requirement of APA citation.
Part 2: Source Summary: Note the stats provided in the summary. This is an indicator that the writer could use these stats in their assignment.
Part 3: Source Usage: Major discovery in the research and therefore validates the usage of the source.
The Response Assignment
In response papers, writers are expected to describe their personal response to a reading assignment and explain why they had this reaction. A response paper is not meant to provide a review or a rating of the reading.
Be selective in what you choose, because if you choose too many reactions to the literature provided, you will be unable to fully explain why you have that reaction. As a result, choose only 1 significant thought you had while reading and explore that thought in depth. Response papers are usually brief and informal and do not necessarily follow the thesis/support model in most other writing assignments. Furthermore, since response papers are about a personal response, most teachers permit the writer to use the first-person pronoun 'I'.
While a response paper is like a personal essay - where the student reflects on their own life and thoughts - the student must ensure that they keep the literature as the main focus.
Since there are no concrete rules about response papers, students must carefully read their instructor’s directions and follow them closely.
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Cristy Bartlett and Kate Derrington
As discussed in the previous chapter, assignments are a common method of assessment at university. You may encounter many assignments over your years of study, yet some will look quite different from others. By recognising different types of assignments and understanding the purpose of the task, you can direct your writing skills effectively to meet task requirements. This chapter draws on the skills from the previous chapter, and extends the discussion, showing you where to aim with different types of assignments.
The chapter begins by exploring the popular essay assignment, with its two common categories, analytical and argumentative essays. It then examines assignments requiring case study responses , as often encountered in fields such as health or business. This is followed by a discussion of assignments seeking a report (such as a scientific report) and reflective writing assignments, common in nursing, education and human services. The chapter concludes with an examination of 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.
At university, an essay is a common form of assessment. In the previous chapter Writing Assignments we discussed what was meant by showing academic writing in your assignments. It is important that you consider these aspects of structure, tone and language when writing an essay.
Essays should use formal but reader friendly language and have a clear and logical structure. They must include research from credible academic sources such as peer reviewed journal articles and textbooks. This research should be referenced throughout your essay to support your ideas (See the chapter Working with Information ).
If you have never written an essay before, you may feel unsure about how to start. Breaking your essay into sections and allocating words accordingly will make this process more manageable and will make planning the overall essay structure much easier.
An effective essay introduction needs to inform your reader by doing four basic things:
1 | Engage their interest and provide a brief background of the topic. |
2 | Provide a thesis statement. This is the position or argument you will adopt. (Note a thesis statement is not always required. Check with your tutor). |
3 | Outline the structure of the essay. |
4 | Indicate any parameters or scope that will/will not be covered. |
An effective essay body paragraph needs to:
1 | State the topic sentence or main point of the paragraph. If you have a thesis statement, the topic sentence should relate to this. |
2 | Expand this main idea, define any terminology and explain concepts in more depth. |
3 | This information should be paraphrased and referenced from credible sources according to the appropriate referencing style of your course. |
4 | Demonstrate critical thinking by showing the relationship of the point you are making and the evidence you have included. This is where you introduce your “student voice”. Ask yourself the “So what?” question (as outlined in the critical thinking section) to add a discussion or interpretation of the how evidence you have included in your paragraph is relevant to your topic. |
5 | Conclude your idea and link to your next point. |
An effective essay conclusion needs to:
1 | Summarise or state the main points covered, using past tense. |
2 | Provide an overall conclusion that relates to the thesis statement or position you raised in your introduction. |
3 | Not add any new information. |
You may be required to write different types of essays, depending on your study area and topic. Two of the most commonly used essays are analytical and argumentative . The task analysis process discussed in the previous chapter Writing Assignments will help you determine the type of essay required. For example, if your assignment question uses task words such as analyse, examine, discuss, determine or explore, you would be writing an analytical essay . If your assignment question has task words such as argue, evaluate, justify or assess, you would be writing an argumentative essay . Despite the type of essay, your ability to analyse and think critically is important and common across genres.
These essays usually provide some background description of the relevant theory, situation, problem, case, image, etcetera that is your topic. Being analytical requires you to look carefully at various components or sections of your topic in a methodical and logical way to create understanding.
The purpose of the analytical essay is to demonstrate your ability to examine the topic thoroughly. This requires you to go deeper than description by considering different sides of the situation, comparing and contrasting a variety of theories and the positives and negatives of the topic. Although in an analytical essay your position on the topic may be clear, it is not necessarily a requirement that you explicitly identify this with a thesis statement, as is the case with an argumentative essay. If you are unsure whether you are required to take a position, and provide a thesis statement, it is best to check with your tutor.
These essays require you to take a position on the assignment topic. This is expressed through your thesis statement in your introduction. You must then present and develop your arguments throughout the body of your assignment using logically structured paragraphs. Each of these paragraphs needs a topic sentence that relates to the thesis statement. In an argumentative essay, you must reach a conclusion based on the evidence you have presented.
Case studies are a common form of assignment in many study areas and students can underperform in this genre for a number of key reasons.
Students typically lose marks for not:
When structuring your response to a case study, remember to refer to the case. Structure your paragraphs similarly to an essay paragraph structure but include examples and data from the case as additional evidence to support your points (see Figure 20.5 ). The colours in the sample paragraph below show the function of each component.
The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) Code of Conduct and Nursing Standards (2018) play a crucial role in determining the scope of practice for nurses and midwives. A key component discussed in the code is the provision of person-centred care and the formation of therapeutic relationships between nurses and patients (NMBA, 2018). This ensures patient safety and promotes health and wellbeing (NMBA, 2018). The standards also discuss the importance of partnership and shared decision-making in the delivery of care (NMBA, 2018, 4). Boyd and Dare (2014) argue that good communication skills are vital for building therapeutic relationships and trust between patients and care givers. This will help ensure the patient is treated with dignity and respect and improve their overall hospital experience. In the case, the therapeutic relationship with the client has been compromised in several ways. Firstly, the nurse did not conform adequately to the guidelines for seeking informed consent before performing the examination as outlined in principle 2.3 (NMBA, 2018). Although she explained the procedure, she failed to give the patient appropriate choices regarding her health care.
Topic sentence | Explanations using paraphrased evidence including in-text references | Critical thinking (asks the so what? question to demonstrate your student voice). | Relating the theory back to the specifics of the case. The case becomes a source of examples as extra evidence to support the points you are making.
Reports are a common form of assessment at university and are also used widely in many professions. It is a common form of writing in business, government, scientific, and technical occupations.
Reports can take many different structures. A report is normally written to present information in a structured manner, which may include explaining laboratory experiments, technical information, or a business case. Reports may be written for different audiences including clients, your manager, technical staff, or senior leadership within an organisation. The structure of reports can vary, and it is important to consider what format is required. The choice of structure will depend upon professional requirements and the ultimate aims of the report. Consider some of the options in the table below (see Table 20.2 ).
Executive or Business Reports | Overall purpose is to convey structured information for business decision making. |
Short form or Summary Reports | Are abbreviated report structures designed to convey information in a focused short form manner. |
Scientific Reports | Are used for scientific documentation purposes and may detail the results of research or describe an experiment or a research problem. |
Technical Reports | Are used to communicate technical information for decision making, this may include discussing technical problems and solutions. |
Evaluation Reports | Present the results of or a proposal for an evaluation or assessment of a policy, program, process or service. |
Reflective writing is a popular method of assessment at university. It is used to help you explore feelings, experiences, opinions, events or new information to gain a clearer and deeper understanding of your learning. A reflective writing task requires more than a description or summary. It requires you to analyse a situation, problem or experience, consider what you may have learnt and evaluate how this may impact your thinking and actions in the future. This requires critical thinking, analysis, and usually the application of good quality research, to demonstrate your understanding or learning from a situation. Essentially, reflective practice is the process of looking back on past experiences and engaging with them in a thoughtful way and drawing conclusions to inform future experiences. The reflection skills you develop at university will be vital in the workplace to assist you to use feedback for growth and continuous improvement. There are numerous models of reflective writing and you should refer to your subject guidelines for your expected format. If there is no specific framework, a simple model to help frame your thinking is What? So what? Now what? (Rolfe et al., 2001).
What? | Describe the experience – who, what, why, when, where? |
So what? | What have you learnt from this? Why does it matter? What has been the impact on you? In what way? Why? You can include connections to coursework, current events, past experiences. |
Now what? | What are you going to do as a result of your experience? How will you apply what you have learnt in the future? Are there critical questions to further pursue? Make an action plan of what you will do next. |
The Gibbs’ Cycle of reflection encourages you to consider your feelings as part of the reflective process. There are six specific steps to work through. Following this model carefully and being clear of the requirements of each stage, will help you focus your thinking and reflect more deeply. This model is popular in Health.
This model (Ryan and Ryan, 2013) was designed specifically for university students engaged in experiential learning. Experiential learning includes any ‘real-world’ activities including practice led activities, placements and internships. Experiential learning, and the use of reflective practice to heighten this learning, is common in Creative Arts, Health and Education.
What is it.
An annotated bibliography is an alphabetical list of appropriate sources (books, journals or websites) on a topic, accompanied by a brief summary, evaluation and sometimes an explanation or reflection on their usefulness or relevance to your topic. Its purpose is to teach you to research carefully, evaluate sources and systematically organise your notes. An annotated bibliography may be one part of a larger assessment item or a stand-alone assessment piece. Check your task guidelines for the number of sources you are required to annotate and the word limit for each entry.
When choosing sources for your annotated bibliography it is important to determine:
Important considerations include:
It is easy to get confused by the terminology used for literature reviews. Some tasks may be described as a systematic literature review when actually the requirement is simpler; to review the literature on the topic but do it in a systematic way. There is a distinct difference (see Table 20.4 ). As a commencing undergraduate student, it is unlikely you would be expected to complete a systematic literature review as this is a complex and more advanced research task. It is important to check with your lecturer or tutor if you are unsure of the requirements.
A literature review | A systematic literature review |
A review which analyses and synthesises the literature on your research topic in a systemic (clear and logical) way. It may be organised: • Conceptually • Chronologically • Methodologically | A much larger and more complicated research project which follows a clearly defined research protocol or process to remove any reviewer bias. Each step in the search process is documented to ensure it is able to be replicated, repeated or updated. |
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.
by Antony W
June 9, 2024
This is the complete list of the types of assignments that you will come across in high school, college, and university this year and beyond.
The following is the complete list of the types of assignments that you will do in school. Whether you’re in high school, college, or university, this list is worth checking.
Essay assignments give students a chance to express and back up their thought with explanations, statements, facts, and analysis.
Although an essay can have as many paragraphs to express various ideas, the basic format is the 5-paragraph structure, which already includes the introduction, body, and conclusion.
Other than the structure, it’s also important to know about the types of essays . These include argumentative, persuasive, analytic, and expository essays.
An analytic essay will disintegrate issues into solutions. An expository essay provides explanations to things. Then an argumentative essay attests topics to give proof.
Memos are assignments that require students to provide short reports such as a monthly sales report. Memorandum assignments are good because they help cultivate conciseness in students.
That’s so because a memo should be short and precise providing only what is important to the reader.
In addition, memos can either request or share important information, and is therefore important to keep it clear.
Your instructor may ask you, as an individual or in a group, to go in front of the class and present certain ideas. They do this to see how well students can be at representing ideas to a crowd.
Adequate preparation is the key when it comes to creating presentations. At the end of the day, the last thing you ever want to do is to get nervous in front of other students.
More importantly, presenting ideas as a group is good because it helps you to cultivate collaborative skills.
Flowcharts represent processes or workflow of events using boxes connected together with arrow. Students will use flowcharts to show step-by-step procedures to solve given tasks.
For example, they can use flowcharts to represent service or administrative processes, manufacturing processes, or project plans.
Project report assignments are to be written in future tense if the goals intended are yet to be met and in past tense where the intended goal has been achieved.
This assignment provides stakeholders with a brief preview of the projects at hand and clues whether a given project will be a success or will need improvement to meet the set goal. Students should also draft their reports with factual details.
A report should have the following arrangement:
The body should not feature any subtitles. The conclusion, on the other hand, should feature recommendations, references, and appendices.
The aim of having project reports is to ensure students are capable of organizing both their works and goals.
A reflective journal is one of the types of assignments that require students to write what they understand according to what they think.
Most students who find reflective assignments hard to do can always request academic writing help from the experts in their areas of study.
With research paper assignments, students are supposed to choose topics they can explore as they come up with explanations to support their investigation.
In this assignment, students are to survey their research to understand the study that they carry out. A good research paper will feature findings that check and marge with the hypothesis .
A good example of a research paper assignment that your teacher may ask you to write is a theology paper .
The goal of the case study assignment is to find out whether or not students can investigate situations.
The assignment will suggest scenarios to students for a given study and provide secondary or subordinate questions. It is the work of the student to treat the scenario as real. That way, they can get the right answers for the given case study within the shortest time possible.
A case study response should be authentic, reasonable, and based on facts. In a case study assignment, students are at liberty of having politicians, the public, and professionals as their audiences.
When it comes to writing, you have to avoid the use of a massive block of words instead but make the findings should be precise and direct to the point.
Wiki assignments involve putting together information modified to about any imaginary audience. Wikis let students share their ideas and provide supportive pieces of evidence to illustrate amalgamation of understanding.
Wiki is another way of telling students the importance of collaborating with fellow students, as it allows them to come up with their own posts on given studies.
Students are at liberty of creating a list, writing research questions, or starting discussions. They are also able to comment and edit any document shared. Or they can collaborate and come up with a single well-researched and detailed post.
This is one of the simplest assignments you will ever come across in school. You can get wiki free and inexpensive wikis on websites like Wikispaces, PBwiki and Wetpaint.
Lastly, a wiki is among the tools used in colleges to help students get to an immense diversification of instructional targets.
A literature review assignment is an important pedagogical tool for students in college. Depending on the given scenario or topic, students have to validate answers by studying given literatures.
Students are supposed to use the official language and maintain high levels of literature as they prepare literature reviews.
While writing this assignment, you are encouraged to have an introduction, body, and conclusion. The introduction grabs the attention of the reader, the body explains the main idea and the conclusion tells the reader the overall summary of your study.
Apart from providing similarities and differences after evaluating more than one source, you are still supposed to give their conclusive judgments.
Most lecturers allocate 5% to 10% of their overall grade to personal narrative assignments.
Personal narrative essays are two pages long, which means students should always provide brief answers to the topic.
Most lecturers use this assignment to get to know their students as the semester kicks off.
Annotated Bibliography is a type of college assignment that requires students to gather related findings relevant to the topic under investigation arranged alphabetically.
Annotated bibliography assignment also requires students to use the official language and be as objective as possible.
A good annotated bibliography should have a summary of the assignment in the first section. The assignment checks whether students are collect and recognize literature relating to given topics.
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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. Students may encounter a wide variety of writing assignments in Gen Ed, but most of them 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.
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Please Note: These are only common assumptions and suggestions about writing assignments. They often vary! Please follow your instructor's guidelines.
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We, the APA Style team, are not robots. We can all pass a CAPTCHA test , and we know our roles in a Turing test . And, like so many nonrobot human beings this year, we’ve spent a fair amount of time reading, learning, and thinking about issues related to large language models, artificial intelligence (AI), AI-generated text, and specifically ChatGPT . We’ve also been gathering opinions and feedback about the use and citation of ChatGPT. Thank you to everyone who has contributed and shared ideas, opinions, research, and feedback.
In this post, I discuss situations where students and researchers use ChatGPT to create text and to facilitate their research, not to write the full text of their paper or manuscript. We know instructors have differing opinions about how or even whether students should use ChatGPT, and we’ll be continuing to collect feedback about instructor and student questions. As always, defer to instructor guidelines when writing student papers. For more about guidelines and policies about student and author use of ChatGPT, see the last section of this post.
If you’ve used ChatGPT or other AI tools in your research, describe how you used the tool in your Method section or in a comparable section of your paper. For literature reviews or other types of essays or response or reaction papers, you might describe how you used the tool in your introduction. In your text, provide the prompt you used and then any portion of the relevant text that was generated in response.
Unfortunately, the results of a ChatGPT “chat” are not retrievable by other readers, and although nonretrievable data or quotations in APA Style papers are usually cited as personal communications , with ChatGPT-generated text there is no person communicating. Quoting ChatGPT’s text from a chat session is therefore more like sharing an algorithm’s output; thus, credit the author of the algorithm with a reference list entry and the corresponding in-text citation.
When prompted with “Is the left brain right brain divide real or a metaphor?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that although the two brain hemispheres are somewhat specialized, “the notation that people can be characterized as ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained’ is considered to be an oversimplification and a popular myth” (OpenAI, 2023).
OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat
You may also put the full text of long responses from ChatGPT in an appendix of your paper or in online supplemental materials, so readers have access to the exact text that was generated. It is particularly important to document the exact text created because ChatGPT will generate a unique response in each chat session, even if given the same prompt. If you create appendices or supplemental materials, remember that each should be called out at least once in the body of your APA Style paper.
When given a follow-up prompt of “What is a more accurate representation?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that “different brain regions work together to support various cognitive processes” and “the functional specialization of different regions can change in response to experience and environmental factors” (OpenAI, 2023; see Appendix A for the full transcript).
The in-text citations and references above are adapted from the reference template for software in Section 10.10 of the Publication Manual (American Psychological Association, 2020, Chapter 10). Although here we focus on ChatGPT, because these guidelines are based on the software template, they can be adapted to note the use of other large language models (e.g., Bard), algorithms, and similar software.
The reference and in-text citations for ChatGPT are formatted as follows:
Let’s break that reference down and look at the four elements (author, date, title, and source):
Author: The author of the model is OpenAI.
Date: The date is the year of the version you used. Following the template in Section 10.10, you need to include only the year, not the exact date. The version number provides the specific date information a reader might need.
Title: The name of the model is “ChatGPT,” so that serves as the title and is italicized in your reference, as shown in the template. Although OpenAI labels unique iterations (i.e., ChatGPT-3, ChatGPT-4), they are using “ChatGPT” as the general name of the model, with updates identified with version numbers.
The version number is included after the title in parentheses. The format for the version number in ChatGPT references includes the date because that is how OpenAI is labeling the versions. Different large language models or software might use different version numbering; use the version number in the format the author or publisher provides, which may be a numbering system (e.g., Version 2.0) or other methods.
Bracketed text is used in references for additional descriptions when they are needed to help a reader understand what’s being cited. References for a number of common sources, such as journal articles and books, do not include bracketed descriptions, but things outside of the typical peer-reviewed system often do. In the case of a reference for ChatGPT, provide the descriptor “Large language model” in square brackets. OpenAI describes ChatGPT-4 as a “large multimodal model,” so that description may be provided instead if you are using ChatGPT-4. Later versions and software or models from other companies may need different descriptions, based on how the publishers describe the model. The goal of the bracketed text is to briefly describe the kind of model to your reader.
Source: When the publisher name and the author name are the same, do not repeat the publisher name in the source element of the reference, and move directly to the URL. This is the case for ChatGPT. The URL for ChatGPT is https://chat.openai.com/chat . For other models or products for which you may create a reference, use the URL that links as directly as possible to the source (i.e., the page where you can access the model, not the publisher’s homepage).
You may have noticed the confidence with which ChatGPT described the ideas of brain lateralization and how the brain operates, without citing any sources. I asked for a list of sources to support those claims and ChatGPT provided five references—four of which I was able to find online. The fifth does not seem to be a real article; the digital object identifier given for that reference belongs to a different article, and I was not able to find any article with the authors, date, title, and source details that ChatGPT provided. Authors using ChatGPT or similar AI tools for research should consider making this scrutiny of the primary sources a standard process. If the sources are real, accurate, and relevant, it may be better to read those original sources to learn from that research and paraphrase or quote from those articles, as applicable, than to use the model’s interpretation of them.
We’ve also received a number of other questions about ChatGPT. Should students be allowed to use it? What guidelines should instructors create for students using AI? Does using AI-generated text constitute plagiarism? Should authors who use ChatGPT credit ChatGPT or OpenAI in their byline? What are the copyright implications ?
On these questions, researchers, editors, instructors, and others are actively debating and creating parameters and guidelines. Many of you have sent us feedback, and we encourage you to continue to do so in the comments below. We will also study the policies and procedures being established by instructors, publishers, and academic institutions, with a goal of creating guidelines that reflect the many real-world applications of AI-generated text.
For questions about manuscript byline credit, plagiarism, and related ChatGPT and AI topics, the APA Style team is seeking the recommendations of APA Journals editors. APA Style guidelines based on those recommendations will be posted on this blog and on the APA Style site later this year.
Update: APA Journals has published policies on the use of generative AI in scholarly materials .
We, the APA Style team humans, appreciate your patience as we navigate these unique challenges and new ways of thinking about how authors, researchers, and students learn, write, and work with new technologies.
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000
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Common Writing Assignments. These OWL resources will help you understand and complete specific types of writing assignments, such as annotated bibliographies, book reports, and research papers. This section also includes resources on writing academic proposals for conference presentations, journal articles, and books.
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 ...
Table 1.1 "High School versus College Assignments" summarizes some of the other major differences between high school and college assignments. Reading assignments are moderately long. Teachers may set aside some class time for reading and reviewing the material in depth. Some reading assignments may be very long.
Critical Analysis: Write about the argument or reasoning of an author's work. Evaluate. Literary Analysis: Write about your interpretation of the meaning or significance of literary work (novel, play, poem, short story). In the visual arts, we use the term "critique," for writing that does this about films, paintings, etc.
In college-level writing, assignments that are only summary are rare. That said, many types of writing tasks contain at least some element of summary, from a biology report that explains what happened during a chemical process, to an analysis essay that requires you to explain what several prominent positions about gun control are, as a ...
Many instructors write their assignment prompts differently. By following a few steps, you can better understand the requirements for the assignment. The best way, as always, is to ask the instructor about anything confusing. Read the prompt the entire way through once. This gives you an overall view of what is going on.
College instructors will hold you to a higher standard when it comes to supporting your ideas with reasons and evidence. Table 1.2 "Common Types of College Writing Assignments" lists some of the most common types of college writing assignments. It includes minor, less formal assignments as well as major ones. Which specific assignments you ...
In college-level writing, assignments that are only summary are rare. That said, many types of writing tasks contain at least some element of summary, from a biology report that explains what happened during a chemical process, to an analysis essay that requires you to explain what several prominent positions about gun control are, as a ...
This article provides a brief overview of 5 types of writing assignments that students are likely to encounter in college. 1. Reflective Papers. These assignments typically require students to think about their own experiences that demonstrate a specific concept and/or principle. For instance, a student might write about their own struggle with ...
These genres—the essay, the research paper, and the literary analysis—usually require a main point or thesis. Other writing genres may require academic writing but may not require an explicitly stated main point. A literature review, for example, synthesizes existing research on a topic and is written to justify a piece of research, but may ...
Learn about common types of student papers that use APA Style, including annotated bibliographies; cause-and-effect, comparative, expository, narrative, and persuasive essays; response and reaction papers; and dissertations and theses.
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 ...
Designing Effective Writing Assignments. One of the best ways for students to determine what they know, think, and believe about a given subject is to write about it. To support students in their writing, it is important to provide them with a meaningful writing task, one that has an authentic purpose, clear guidelines, and engages students in ...
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 ...
The Writing Center Understanding Assignments 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 ...
Every type of writing assignment you participate in will deepen your knowledge on the topic, strengthen your ability to follow instructions, and challenge your abilities as a writer and communicator. Types of Assignments. You will write many different types of assignments throughout your college career. Each type of assignment has specific ...
Part 1: Chapter 3. College writing assignments serve a different purpose than the typical writing assignments you completed in high school. The textbook Successful Writing explains that in high school, teachers generally focus on teaching you to write in a variety of modes and formats, including personal writing, expository writing, research ...
College writing assignments can be complex, and assignments can build on each other within a course. It may also involve in-depth academic research. Create and maintain a personal writing process to organize your writing, research, and personal time. Modify a basic writing process to fit your needs.
Types of Writing Assignments. The Expository Essay. The expository essay requires the student to investigate an idea; collect, generate, and evaluate evidence; and establish a thesis/argument on the topic in a clear and concise manner. This is accomplished through comparing and contrasting, the analysis of cause and effect, etcetera (Purdue ...
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.
uctions from your professor. Also be aware that these types of essays may. verlap for some assignments. Always make sure that you understand your particular assignment before starting the writing process; this can sa. ample 1: Argumentative EssayThe Basics: An argumentative, or position, assignment asks you to argue for a particular point of v.
6. Reflective Journal Assignments. A reflective journal is one of the types of assignments that require students to write what they understand according to what they think. Most students who find reflective assignments hard to do can always request academic writing help from the experts in their areas of study. 7.
Students may encounter a wide variety of writing assignments in Gen Ed, but most of them can be categorized into four general types: Traditional academic assignments include the short essays or research papers most commonly associated with college-level assignments. Less traditional academic assignments include elements of engagement in ...
Please Note: These are only common assumptions and suggestions about writing assignments. They often vary! Please follow your instructor's guidelines. << Previous: Structure
As always, defer to instructor guidelines when writing student papers. For more about guidelines and policies about student and author use of ChatGPT, see the last section of this post. ... For literature reviews or other types of essays or response or reaction papers, you might describe how you used the tool in your introduction. ...