Yes, it is a fact of university life.
Every instructor or professor seems to believe that his/her course is the only one in which you are enrolled and that, of course, you have enormous amounts of time to spend on his/her coursework assignments, whether they are in the form of large amounts of reading, presentations, essays, or papers. Written courseworks which must be submitted for evaluation and grading, in fact, often comprise the majority of a student’s grade, and anyone who is not well-practiced and or properly skilled in writing at the university level is certainly at a disadvantage. It is our hope that this short guide will assist you as you tackle all of the coursework writing you may face.
ORGANIZE YOURSELF
You know yourself well, and you should know how you best work and what distracts you from full concentration. Generally, you should have a workspace that is comfortable and yet conducive to focus and free from distractions. Most individuals cannot work well with television on, although music is sometimes beneficial. Again, you know the environment that promotes work. Coursework writing is ever so much easier when the environment is correct for the author.
Time of day is important too. While many work best in the morning and/or early evening hours, you may be of the minority group that works best at night. Choose those times during which you are at your best to work on written assignments. Multiple courseworks at the same time will tighten your schedule a great deal, so plan carefully.
Set up a timeline that is realistic and flexible. If your assignment is long-term, this is absolutely critical, and following a set timeline reduces the chance that you will procrastinate and attempt to prepare a complex written work in too short a time.
CONDUCT YOUR RESEARCH (IF REQUIRED)
More often than not, research will be required for most coursework writing. Based upon your instructor’s requirements, you may have specific types and numbers of resource materials to be used. Locate these early on, and follow your timeline for research completion. This is perhaps the most time consuming part of the process, because you must not only read a great deal, but you must take notes and carefully note from where any information, data, or opinions comes.
The best method of research note-taking is still the note card process. Each note card can be titled based upon potential sub-topics, and, once the research is complete, you can divide the note cards from multiple sources by these sub-topic headings. And, if you have carefully noted the resource information on each note card, you will have no difficulty referencing your sources correctly when you reach the writing phase. Having the research well-organized truly assists efficient coursework writing
DEVELOP A SOUND OUTLINE
Your research should have provided a solid list of sub-topics which will form the basis of your outline. Beginning with the most important sub-topic first, list them in descending order of importance, and be certain to include the ideas, concepts, facts, data, or opinions that you will include in each sub-topic area. The outline will drive your composition, so be certain that it contains all of the content you intend to include in your essay or paper.
DEVELOP A THESIS STATEMENT
Dependent upon the purpose of your essay or paper (explain, describe, posit an opinion, test a hypothesis or research question), you should have a pretty good idea of the “point” of your work. Develop your statement based upon this “point,” and do not worry too much about how it sounds right now. You will have plenty of time to develop it further.
STRUCTURAL SOUNDNESS
As you begin to write your first draft, you need to consider the following areas of structure:
- Is the content organized into appropriate sub-topics?
- Is there a logical flow to the ideas, information or opinions you are presenting?
- Does the piece reflect fluidity? This means that the writing flow is logical, coherent, and that transitions between paragraphs and sub-topics are smooth.
- Is your paragraph division logical?
- Are you altering the length and type of sentences you are using? Nothing is more boring than to read a piece that contains the same types of sentences (simple, complex, compound, etc.) with no variation.
- Are you using headings and sub-headings when appropriate? This allows your reader to follow your presentation easily.
REFERENCING/STYLE FORMAT
Your instructor has most assuredly given you a required format style, and this includes the methods by which you provide both in-text and end of text references/citations. If you are unfamiliar with the specified style, consult any number of web sources for that style. Purdue Owl is an excellent online reference for all formats, with great examples of every style. Writings for multiple courseworks may mean different format styles, so be careful!
A word about plagiarism: If you have completed the note-taking portion of your process correctly, you should not have any issue with proper referencing. One issue that comes up often, however, is what must be referenced. Generally, if an author states something that is common knowledge, and all authors you have read say the same thing, you probably need not reference it. If, however, there are specific opinions, research, ideas, etc. of an author, you must give credit to that author. When authors disagree, moreover, you must also credit them.
Direct Quotes: Direct quotes of critical information or opinions can enhance your thesis and purpose. These, of course, must be set off from your words, and style formats differ. Generally, however, you should not use more than one paragraph of direct quote at any one time, as the paper then becomes the referenced author’s, not yours. Try, as much as possible, to present information, ideas, research, opinions, etc. in your own words, providing credit to the author who presented them to you.
REVISING THE ROUGH DRAFT
Most students are too close to what they have written to be objective reviewers. For this reason, it is always best to seek someone else to read your piece. You need to know if the ideas and information flow logically and if the essay or paper is coherent. Did you stick to your thesis? Have you stuck to the purpose of the work? Does everything flow well? In short, does everything make sense? Once you have reviewed it and another has reviewed it, you can then think about preparing the final draft.
GRAMMAR AND MECHANICS
If your forte is not composition, and you know that you have grammar and mechanics issues, you need to first obtain coursework help through a word processing program that will automatically check for grammar and punctuation errors. Fortunately, the current programs will point out sentence structure errors, errors in agreement, fragments, run-ons, etc., as well as spelling issues. Be certain that the grammar and spell check features are engaged as you write, and consider yourself lucky that you were not preparing essays and papers 15 years ago when such great programs were rare indeed!
FINAL DRAFT
If you have completed all of the previous steps of the process, your final draft should simply be a matter of re-typing, being certain to use the font and size specified by the instructor. Re-read this final draft once more before submission, in order to be certain that it is truly the best that it can be.
A FINAL WORD
It is our hope that this brief guide has assisted you in important ways. If you are still struggling with your writing, please contact us for coursework help or to buy coursework assignments which can be originally produced by our professional staff of writers. It is not a comment on your intelligence to need coursework help. Some of the most brilliant individuals throughout history have not been able to prepare solid writing work – they generally hire ghostwriters for these tasks. And some extremely intelligent students of today buy coursework from us, knowing that they should spend their valuable time on other academic efforts. Feel free to contact us with any need you may have!
