Before starting work on an assignment, it is important to understand what is required. In some first year courses, there may be simple writing assignments that consist of a list of questions that can be answered using the course materials. However, as your degree progresses, you will be given more in-depth assignments that require substantial independent research combined with analysis and synthesis of information.

For liberal arts degrees, the essay is one of the most common assignment types, whereas for business degrees a report is incredibly common. Science degrees often ask for lab reports. Other types of writing may also be required such as research proposals, literature reviews, case studies, and reflective accounts to name a few.

When attempting to understand an assignment topic, look for instruction and content words. Instruction words, also referred to as task words, are terms like analyse, compare, discuss etc. Content words, also referred to as topic words, are the ideas and concepts you are going to write about. Assignments will also often have limiting words which restrict the focus further, including to a particular time and place.

There are many possible instruction words. The table below gives some common ones and suggests how they might be interpreted. It’s worth pointing out that there is an overlap between different instruction words. Many of them are different ways of asking the writer to outline the main ideas of a topic along with any key issues and controversies. For an essay of a fixed length on a given topic whether the instruction word is describe, summarise, or discuss the essays are inevitably going to cover the issues in a similar depth.

To get good marks for an assignment, it is essential that the writer correctly interprets the question or topic. Students can sometimes dive straight into writing the assignment, especially if they have left it to the last minute, before properly reading or understanding the question.