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How to write the best college assignments.

By Lois Weldon

When it comes to writing assignments, it is difficult to find a conceptualized guide with clear and simple tips that are easy to follow. That’s exactly what this guide will provide: few simple tips on how to write great assignments, right when you need them. Some of these points will probably be familiar to you, but there is no harm in being reminded of the most important things before you start writing the assignments, which are usually determining on your credits.

The most important aspects: Outline and Introduction

Preparation is the key to success, especially when it comes to academic assignments. It is recommended to always write an outline before you start writing the actual assignment. The outline should include the main points of discussion, which will keep you focused throughout the work and will make your key points clearly defined. Outlining the assignment will save you a lot of time because it will organize your thoughts and make your literature searches much easier. The outline will also help you to create different sections and divide up the word count between them, which will make the assignment more organized.

The introduction is the next important part you should focus on. This is the part that defines the quality of your assignment in the eyes of the reader. The introduction must include a brief background on the main points of discussion, the purpose of developing such work and clear indications on how the assignment is being organized. Keep this part brief, within one or two paragraphs.

This is an example of including the above mentioned points into the introduction of an assignment that elaborates the topic of obesity reaching proportions:

Background : The twenty first century is characterized by many public health challenges, among which obesity takes a major part. The increasing prevalence of obesity is creating an alarming situation in both developed and developing regions of the world.

Structure and aim : This assignment will elaborate and discuss the specific pattern of obesity epidemic development, as well as its epidemiology. Debt, trade and globalization will also be analyzed as factors that led to escalation of the problem. Moreover, the assignment will discuss the governmental interventions that make efforts to address this issue.

Practical tips on assignment writing

Here are some practical tips that will keep your work focused and effective:

–         Critical thinking – Academic writing has to be characterized by critical thinking, not only to provide the work with the needed level, but also because it takes part in the final mark.

–         Continuity of ideas – When you get to the middle of assignment, things can get confusing. You have to make sure that the ideas are flowing continuously within and between paragraphs, so the reader will be enabled to follow the argument easily. Dividing the work in different paragraphs is very important for this purpose.

–         Usage of ‘you’ and ‘I’ – According to the academic writing standards, the assignments should be written in an impersonal language, which means that the usage of ‘you’ and ‘I’ should be avoided. The only acceptable way of building your arguments is by using opinions and evidence from authoritative sources.

–         Referencing – this part of the assignment is extremely important and it takes a big part in the final mark. Make sure to use either Vancouver or Harvard referencing systems, and use the same system in the bibliography and while citing work of other sources within the text.  

–         Usage of examples – A clear understanding on your assignment’s topic should be provided by comparing different sources and identifying their strengths and weaknesses in an objective manner. This is the part where you should show how the knowledge can be applied into practice.

–         Numbering and bullets – Instead of using numbering and bullets, the academic writing style prefers the usage of paragraphs.

–         Including figures and tables – The figures and tables are an effective way of conveying information to the reader in a clear manner, without disturbing the word count. Each figure and table should have clear headings and you should make sure to mention their sources in the bibliography.

–         Word count – the word count of your assignment mustn’t be far above or far below the required word count. The outline will provide you with help in this aspect, so make sure to plan the work in order to keep it within the boundaries.

The importance of an effective conclusion

The conclusion of your assignment is your ultimate chance to provide powerful arguments that will impress the reader. The conclusion in academic writing is usually expressed through three main parts:

–         Stating the context and aim of the assignment

–         Summarizing the main points briefly

–         Providing final comments with consideration of the future (discussing clear examples of things that can be done in order to improve the situation concerning your topic of discussion).

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Lois Weldon is writer at  Uk.bestdissertation.com . Lives happily at London with her husband and lovely daughter. Adores writing tips for students. Passionate about Star Wars and yoga.

7 comments on “How To Write The Best College Assignments”

Extremely useful tip for students wanting to score well on their assignments. I concur with the writer that writing an outline before ACTUALLY starting to write assignments is extremely important. I have observed students who start off quite well but they tend to lose focus in between which causes them to lose marks. So an outline helps them to maintain the theme focused.

Hello Great information…. write assignments

Well elabrated

Thanks for the information. This site has amazing articles. Looking forward to continuing on this site.

This article is certainly going to help student . Well written.

Really good, thanks

Practical tips on assignment writing, the’re fantastic. Thank you!

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How to Start an Assignment

Last Updated: January 29, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Michelle Golden, PhD . Michelle Golden is an English teacher in Athens, Georgia. She received her MA in Language Arts Teacher Education in 2008 and received her PhD in English from Georgia State University in 2015. There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 105,870 times.

Getting started on an assignment or homework can often times be the hardest step. Putting off the assignment can make the problem worse, reducing the time you have to complete the task and increasing stress. By learning how to get started and overcome the urge to procrastinate, you can get your assignments done on schedule and with less stress, opening up more free time.

Restructuring Your Assignment

• For example, you might research areas of a report that you find most interesting before moving on to other areas.
• If your math assignment has different types of questions, try doing those that you enjoy the most before moving on to the others.
• You might also try tackling smaller or easier tasks first so you can cross a few items off your list. Seeing that you've already made progress may help you feel motivated to continue.

• Promise yourself that you will meet your goal of working for five minutes on the assignment.
• Once you get started, you may find that you don't want to stop working. Otherwise, you can take a break and come back to the assignment, knowing you're at least five minutes closer to finishing than you were before.

• Try to set reasonable periods of time that you know you can meet. For example, you might set aside two hours on a Friday to dedicate to your assignment. If you don't have that much time all at once, try to carve out a few 20- or 30-minute blocks.
• You may or may not wish to continue working after your time limit has gone by.
• Have a realistic understanding of how fast you can write and plan your schedule accordingly.

• It can help to read the assignment as soon as you get it and then ask any questions you might have.
• If you're not sure if you understand the assignment, try rewriting it in your own words or explaining it to someone else. If you find you can't or have a lot of questions, you may need more information.
• You should have an overview of the assignment, understand the main task, and understand the technical and stylistic requirements.
• Look for important words in the instructions to understand the assignment. These words might include define, explain, compare, relate, or prove.
• Keep your audience in mind and write a paper that would best deliver information to them.

• Goals that are too big or not well defined can be difficult to start working towards.
• Smaller and well defined goals can seem easier to achieve than larger ones.
• For example, you could break a research paper down into several smaller tasks: 1) do preliminary research, 2) write an outline, 3) draft an introduction, 4) draft body paragraphs, 5) write conclusion, 6) revise. Each of these is much more do-able on its own.

Changing Your Focus

• You might want to go for a quick walk after working for a set amount of time.
• Try reading a website or book that you enjoy for a few minutes after working.
• Alternatively, try a quick burst of exercise before setting to work. Exercise releases feel-good chemicals called endorphins and can also help boost your memory. [8] X Research source

• Instead of dreading your work, focus on how good it will feel to make progress. You won't have it hanging over your head. You can actually enjoy the weekend instead of feeling guilty.
• Keeping your eye on long-term rewards can help you stay motivated to finish your assignment.

• Avoid moving your workspace constantly.
• Don't get lost on tangential research.
• Don't take constant breaks to get a snack.

• For every hour you waste procrastinating, you can limit how much television you watch that night.
• If you waste too much time procrastinating, you might deny yourself a favorite snack later on.

Community Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/solving-unsolvable-problems/201408/4-steps-stop-procrastinating
• ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/friendship-20/201405/the-surefire-first-step-stop-procrastinating
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/procrastination/
• ↑ https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/homework.html
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/understanding-assignments/
• ↑ https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/ab22ff64-3358-4387-9761-8c58878a6b84/resource/3ee38320-17e4-46f9-b24f-c95f9f345eb9/download/ipp7.pdf
• ↑ http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/07/how-exercise-can-help-us-learn/
• ↑ https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/happy-life.html

About This Article

To start an assignment, try working on the most enjoyable or easiest parts of the assignment first to get the ball rolling. Even if no part of the assignment seems enjoyable or easy, set a timer and try to make yourself work for at least 5 minutes, which is usually enough time to build momentum and overcome procrastination. You can also try breaking your assignment up into smaller, more manageable tasks and scheduling yourself regular breaks so it doesn't seem as overwhelming. To learn how to stay positive and avoid procrastination while working on your homework, scroll down! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to Write a Perfect Assignment: Step-By-Step Guide

Table of contents

• 1 How to Structure an Assignment?
• 2.1 The research part
• 2.2 Planning your text
• 2.3 Writing major parts
• 3 Expert Tips for your Writing Assignment
• 4 Will I succeed with my assignments?
• 5 Conclusion

How to Structure an Assignment?

To cope with assignments, you should familiarize yourself with the tips on formatting and presenting assignments or any written paper, which are given below. It is worth paying attention to the content of the paper, making it structured and understandable so that ideas are not lost and thoughts do not refute each other.

If the topic is free or you can choose from the given list — be sure to choose the one you understand best. Especially if that could affect your semester score or scholarship. It is important to select an  engaging title that is contextualized within your topic. A topic that should captivate you or at least give you a general sense of what is needed there. It’s easier to dwell upon what interests you, so the process goes faster.

To construct an assignment structure, use outlines. These are pieces of text that relate to your topic. It can be ideas, quotes, all your thoughts, or disparate arguments. Type in everything that you think about. Separate thoughts scattered across the sheets of Word will help in the next step.

Then it is time to form the text. At this stage, you have to form a coherent story from separate pieces, where each new thought reinforces the previous one, and one idea smoothly flows into another.

Main Steps of Assignment Writing

These are steps to take to get a worthy paper. If you complete these step-by-step, your text will be among the most exemplary ones.

The research part

If the topic is unique and no one has written about it yet, look at materials close to this topic to gain thoughts about it. You should feel that you are ready to express your thoughts. Also, while reading, get acquainted with the format of the articles, study the details, collect material for your thoughts, and accumulate different points of view for your article. Be careful at this stage, as the process can help you develop your ideas. If you are already struggling here, pay for assignment to be done , and it will be processed in a split second via special services. These services are especially helpful when the deadline is near as they guarantee fast delivery of high-quality papers on any subject.

If you use Google to search for material for your assignment, you will, of course, find a lot of information very quickly. Still, the databases available on your library’s website will give you the clearest and most reliable facts that satisfy your teacher or professor. Be sure you copy the addresses of all the web pages you will use when composing your paper, so you don’t lose them. You can use them later in your bibliography if you add a bit of description! Select resources and extract quotes from them that you can use while working. At this stage, you may also create a  request for late assignment if you realize the paper requires a lot of effort and is time-consuming. This way, you’ll have a backup plan if something goes wrong.

Planning your text

Assemble a layout. It may be appropriate to use the structure of the paper of some outstanding scientists in your field and argue it in one of the parts. As the planning progresses, you can add suggestions that come to mind. If you use citations that require footnotes, and if you use single spacing throughout the paper and double spacing at the end, it will take you a very long time to make sure that all the citations are on the exact pages you specified! Add a reference list or bibliography. If you haven’t already done so, don’t put off writing an essay until the last day. It will be more difficult to do later as you will be stressed out because of time pressure.

Writing major parts

It happens that there is simply no mood or strength to get started and zero thoughts. In that case, postpone this process for 2-3 hours, and, perhaps, soon, you will be able to start with renewed vigor. Writing essays is a great (albeit controversial) way to improve your skills. This experience will not be forgotten. It will certainly come in handy and bring many benefits in the future. Do your best here because asking for an extension is not always possible, so you probably won’t have time to redo it later. And the quality of this part defines the success of the whole paper.

Writing the major part does not mean the matter is finished. To review the text, make sure that the ideas of the introduction and conclusion coincide because such a discrepancy is the first thing that will catch the reader’s eye and can spoil the impression. Add or remove anything from your intro to edit it to fit the entire paper. Also, check your spelling and grammar to ensure there are no typos or draft comments. Check the sources of your quotes so that your it is honest and does not violate any rules. And do not forget the formatting rules.

with the right tips and guidance, it can be easier than it looks. To make the process even more straightforward, students can also use an assignment service to get the job done. This way they can get professional assistance and make sure that their assignments are up to the mark. At PapersOwl, we provide a professional writing service where students can order custom-made assignments that meet their exact requirements.

Expert Tips for your Writing Assignment

Want to write like a pro? Here’s what you should consider:

• Save the document! Send the finished document by email to yourself so you have a backup copy in case your computer crashes.
• Don’t wait until the last minute to complete a list of citations or a bibliography after the paper is finished. It will be much longer and more difficult, so add to them as you go.
• If you find a lot of information on the topic of your search, then arrange it in a separate paragraph.
• If possible, choose a topic that you know and are interested in.
• Believe in yourself! If you set yourself up well and use your limited time wisely, you will be able to deliver the paper on time.
• Do not copy information directly from the Internet without citing them.

Writing assignments is a tedious and time-consuming process. It requires a lot of research and hard work to produce a quality paper. However, if you are feeling overwhelmed or having difficulty understanding the concept, you may want to consider getting accounting homework help online . Professional experts can assist you in understanding how to complete your assignment effectively. PapersOwl.com offers expert help from highly qualified and experienced writers who can provide you with the homework help you need.

Will I succeed with my assignments?

Anyone can learn how to be good at writing: follow simple rules of creating the structure and be creative where it is appropriate. At one moment, you will need some additional study tools, study support, or solid study tips. And you can easily get help in writing assignments or any other work. This is especially useful since the strategy of learning how to write an assignment can take more time than a student has.

Therefore all students are happy that there is an option to  order your paper at a professional service to pass all the courses perfectly and sleep still at night. You can also find the sample of the assignment there to check if you are on the same page and if not — focus on your papers more diligently.

So, in the times of studies online, the desire and skill to research and write may be lost. Planning your assignment carefully and presenting arguments step-by-step is necessary to succeed with your homework. When going through your references, note the questions that appear and answer them, building your text. Create a cover page, proofread the whole text, and take care of formatting. Feel free to use these rules for passing your next assignments.

When it comes to writing an assignment, it can be overwhelming and stressful, but Papersowl is here to make it easier for you. With a range of helpful resources available, Papersowl can assist you in creating high-quality written work, regardless of whether you’re starting from scratch or refining an existing draft. From conducting research to creating an outline, and from proofreading to formatting, the team at Papersowl has the expertise to guide you through the entire writing process and ensure that your assignment meets all the necessary requirements.

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5 tips on writing better university assignments

Lecturer in Student Learning and Communication Development, University of Sydney

Disclosure statement

Alexandra Garcia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

University of Sydney provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

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University life comes with its share of challenges. One of these is writing longer assignments that require higher information, communication and critical thinking skills than what you might have been used to in high school. Here are five tips to help you get ahead.

1. Use all available sources of information

Beyond instructions and deadlines, lecturers make available an increasing number of resources. But students often overlook these.

For example, to understand how your assignment will be graded, you can examine the rubric . This is a chart indicating what you need to do to obtain a high distinction, a credit or a pass, as well as the course objectives – also known as “learning outcomes”.

Other resources include lecture recordings, reading lists, sample assignments and discussion boards. All this information is usually put together in an online platform called a learning management system (LMS). Examples include Blackboard , Moodle , Canvas and iLearn . Research shows students who use their LMS more frequently tend to obtain higher final grades.

If after scrolling through your LMS you still have questions about your assignment, you can check your lecturer’s consultation hours.

2. Take referencing seriously

Plagiarism – using somebody else’s words or ideas without attribution – is a serious offence at university. It is a form of cheating.

In many cases, though, students are unaware they have cheated. They are simply not familiar with referencing styles – such as APA , Harvard , Vancouver , Chicago , etc – or lack the skills to put the information from their sources into their own words.

To avoid making this mistake, you may approach your university’s library, which is likely to offer face-to-face workshops or online resources on referencing. Academic support units may also help with paraphrasing.

You can also use referencing management software, such as EndNote or Mendeley . You can then store your sources, retrieve citations and create reference lists with only a few clicks. For undergraduate students, Zotero has been recommended as it seems to be more user-friendly.

Using this kind of software will certainly save you time searching for and formatting references. However, you still need to become familiar with the citation style in your discipline and revise the formatting accordingly.

3. Plan before you write

If you were to build a house, you wouldn’t start by laying bricks at random. You’d start with a blueprint. Likewise, writing an academic paper requires careful planning: you need to decide the number of sections, their organisation, and the information and sources you will include in each.

Research shows students who prepare detailed outlines produce higher-quality texts. Planning will not only help you get better grades, but will also reduce the time you spend staring blankly at the screen thinking about what to write next.

During the planning stage, using programs like OneNote from Microsoft Office or Outline for Mac can make the task easier as they allow you to organise information in tabs. These bits of information can be easily rearranged for later drafting. Navigating through the tabs is also easier than scrolling through a long Word file.

4. Choose the right words

Which of these sentences is more appropriate for an assignment?

a. “This paper talks about why the planet is getting hotter”, or b. “This paper examines the causes of climate change”.

The written language used at university is more formal and technical than the language you normally use in social media or while chatting with your friends. Academic words tend to be longer and their meaning is also more precise. “Climate change” implies more than just the planet “getting hotter”.

To find the right words, you can use SkELL , which shows you the words that appear more frequently, with your search entry categorised grammatically. For example, if you enter “paper”, it will tell you it is often the subject of verbs such as “present”, “describe”, “examine” and “discuss”.

Another option is the Writefull app, which does a similar job without having to use an online browser.

5. Edit and proofread

If you’re typing the last paragraph of the assignment ten minutes before the deadline, you will be missing a very important step in the writing process: editing and proofreading your text. A 2018 study found a group of university students did significantly better in a test after incorporating the process of planning, drafting and editing in their writing.

You probably already know to check the spelling of a word if it appears underlined in red. You may even use a grammar checker such as Grammarly . However, no software to date can detect every error and it is not uncommon to be given inaccurate suggestions.

So, in addition to your choice of proofreader, you need to improve and expand your grammar knowledge. Check with the academic support services at your university if they offer any relevant courses.

Written communication is a skill that requires effort and dedication. That’s why universities are investing in support services – face-to-face workshops, individual consultations, and online courses – to help students in this process. You can also take advantage of a wide range of web-based resources such as spell checkers, vocabulary tools and referencing software – many of them free.

Improving your written communication will help you succeed at university and beyond.

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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 involve translating typical assignment terms and practices into meaningful clues to the type of writing your instructor expects. See our short video for more tips.

Basic beginnings

Regardless of the assignment, department, or instructor, adopting these two habits will serve you well :

• Read the assignment carefully as soon as you receive it. Do not put this task off—reading the assignment at the beginning will save you time, stress, and problems later. An assignment can look pretty straightforward at first, particularly if the instructor has provided lots of information. That does not mean it will not take time and effort to complete; you may even have to learn a new skill to complete the assignment.
• Ask the instructor about anything you do not understand. Do not hesitate to approach your instructor. Instructors would prefer to set you straight before you hand the paper in. That’s also when you will find their feedback most useful.

Assignment formats

Many assignments follow a basic format. Assignments often begin with an overview of the topic, include a central verb or verbs that describe the task, and offer some additional suggestions, questions, or prompts to get you started.

An Overview of Some Kind

The instructor might set the stage with some general discussion of the subject of the assignment, introduce the topic, or remind you of something pertinent that you have discussed in class. For example:

“Throughout history, gerbils have played a key role in politics,” or “In the last few weeks of class, we have focused on the evening wear of the housefly …”

The Task of the Assignment

Pay attention; this part tells you what to do when you write the paper. Look for the key verb or verbs in the sentence. Words like analyze, summarize, or compare direct you to think about your topic in a certain way. Also pay attention to words such as how, what, when, where, and why; these words guide your attention toward specific information. (See the section in this handout titled “Key Terms” for more information.)

“Analyze the effect that gerbils had on the Russian Revolution”, or “Suggest an interpretation of housefly undergarments that differs from Darwin’s.”

Additional Material to Think about

Here you will find some questions to use as springboards as you begin to think about the topic. Instructors usually include these questions as suggestions rather than requirements. Do not feel compelled to answer every question unless the instructor asks you to do so. Pay attention to the order of the questions. Sometimes they suggest the thinking process your instructor imagines you will need to follow to begin thinking about the topic.

“You may wish to consider the differing views held by Communist gerbils vs. Monarchist gerbils, or Can there be such a thing as ‘the housefly garment industry’ or is it just a home-based craft?”

These are the instructor’s comments about writing expectations:

“Be concise”, “Write effectively”, or “Argue furiously.”

Technical Details

These instructions usually indicate format rules or guidelines.

“Your paper must be typed in Palatino font on gray paper and must not exceed 600 pages. It is due on the anniversary of Mao Tse-tung’s death.”

The assignment’s parts may not appear in exactly this order, and each part may be very long or really short. Nonetheless, being aware of this standard pattern can help you understand what your instructor wants you to do.

Interpreting the assignment

Ask yourself a few basic questions as you read and jot down the answers on the assignment sheet:

Why did your instructor ask you to do this particular task?

Who is your audience.

• What kind of evidence do you need to support your ideas?

What kind of writing style is acceptable?

• What are the absolute rules of the paper?

Try to look at the question from the point of view of the instructor. Recognize that your instructor has a reason for giving you this assignment and for giving it to you at a particular point in the semester. In every assignment, the instructor has a challenge for you. This challenge could be anything from demonstrating an ability to think clearly to demonstrating an ability to use the library. See the assignment not as a vague suggestion of what to do but as an opportunity to show that you can handle the course material as directed. Paper assignments give you more than a topic to discuss—they ask you to do something with the topic. Keep reminding yourself of that. Be careful to avoid the other extreme as well: do not read more into the assignment than what is there.

Of course, your instructor has given you an assignment so that he or she will be able to assess your understanding of the course material and give you an appropriate grade. But there is more to it than that. Your instructor has tried to design a learning experience of some kind. Your instructor wants you to think about something in a particular way for a particular reason. If you read the course description at the beginning of your syllabus, review the assigned readings, and consider the assignment itself, you may begin to see the plan, purpose, or approach to the subject matter that your instructor has created for you. If you still aren’t sure of the assignment’s goals, try asking the instructor. For help with this, see our handout on getting feedback .

Given your instructor’s efforts, it helps to answer the question: What is my purpose in completing this assignment? Is it to gather research from a variety of outside sources and present a coherent picture? Is it to take material I have been learning in class and apply it to a new situation? Is it to prove a point one way or another? Key words from the assignment can help you figure this out. Look for key terms in the form of active verbs that tell you what to do.

Key Terms: Finding Those Active Verbs

Here are some common key words and definitions to help you think about assignment terms:

Information words Ask you to demonstrate what you know about the subject, such as who, what, when, where, how, and why.

• define —give the subject’s meaning (according to someone or something). Sometimes you have to give more than one view on the subject’s meaning
• describe —provide details about the subject by answering question words (such as who, what, when, where, how, and why); you might also give details related to the five senses (what you see, hear, feel, taste, and smell)
• explain —give reasons why or examples of how something happened
• illustrate —give descriptive examples of the subject and show how each is connected with the subject
• summarize —briefly list the important ideas you learned about the subject
• trace —outline how something has changed or developed from an earlier time to its current form
• research —gather material from outside sources about the subject, often with the implication or requirement that you will analyze what you have found

Relation words Ask you to demonstrate how things are connected.

• compare —show how two or more things are similar (and, sometimes, different)
• contrast —show how two or more things are dissimilar
• apply—use details that you’ve been given to demonstrate how an idea, theory, or concept works in a particular situation
• cause —show how one event or series of events made something else happen
• relate —show or describe the connections between things

Interpretation words Ask you to defend ideas of your own about the subject. Do not see these words as requesting opinion alone (unless the assignment specifically says so), but as requiring opinion that is supported by concrete evidence. Remember examples, principles, definitions, or concepts from class or research and use them in your interpretation.

• assess —summarize your opinion of the subject and measure it against something
• prove, justify —give reasons or examples to demonstrate how or why something is the truth
• evaluate, respond —state your opinion of the subject as good, bad, or some combination of the two, with examples and reasons
• support —give reasons or evidence for something you believe (be sure to state clearly what it is that you believe)
• synthesize —put two or more things together that have not been put together in class or in your readings before; do not just summarize one and then the other and say that they are similar or different—you must provide a reason for putting them together that runs all the way through the paper
• analyze —determine how individual parts create or relate to the whole, figure out how something works, what it might mean, or why it is important
• argue —take a side and defend it with evidence against the other side

More Clues to Your Purpose As you read the assignment, think about what the teacher does in class:

• What kinds of textbooks or coursepack did your instructor choose for the course—ones that provide background information, explain theories or perspectives, or argue a point of view?
• In lecture, does your instructor ask your opinion, try to prove her point of view, or use keywords that show up again in the assignment?
• What kinds of assignments are typical in this discipline? Social science classes often expect more research. Humanities classes thrive on interpretation and analysis.
• How do the assignments, readings, and lectures work together in the course? Instructors spend time designing courses, sometimes even arguing with their peers about the most effective course materials. Figuring out the overall design to the course will help you understand what each assignment is meant to achieve.

Now, what about your reader? Most undergraduates think of their audience as the instructor. True, your instructor is a good person to keep in mind as you write. But for the purposes of a good paper, think of your audience as someone like your roommate: smart enough to understand a clear, logical argument, but not someone who already knows exactly what is going on in your particular paper. Remember, even if the instructor knows everything there is to know about your paper topic, he or she still has to read your paper and assess your understanding. In other words, teach the material to your reader.

Aiming a paper at your audience happens in two ways: you make decisions about the tone and the level of information you want to convey.

• Tone means the “voice” of your paper. Should you be chatty, formal, or objective? Usually you will find some happy medium—you do not want to alienate your reader by sounding condescending or superior, but you do not want to, um, like, totally wig on the man, you know? Eschew ostentatious erudition: some students think the way to sound academic is to use big words. Be careful—you can sound ridiculous, especially if you use the wrong big words.
• The level of information you use depends on who you think your audience is. If you imagine your audience as your instructor and she already knows everything you have to say, you may find yourself leaving out key information that can cause your argument to be unconvincing and illogical. But you do not have to explain every single word or issue. If you are telling your roommate what happened on your favorite science fiction TV show last night, you do not say, “First a dark-haired white man of average height, wearing a suit and carrying a flashlight, walked into the room. Then a purple alien with fifteen arms and at least three eyes turned around. Then the man smiled slightly. In the background, you could hear a clock ticking. The room was fairly dark and had at least two windows that I saw.” You also do not say, “This guy found some aliens. The end.” Find some balance of useful details that support your main point.

You’ll find a much more detailed discussion of these concepts in our handout on audience .

The Grim Truth

With a few exceptions (including some lab and ethnography reports), you are probably being asked to make an argument. You must convince your audience. It is easy to forget this aim when you are researching and writing; as you become involved in your subject matter, you may become enmeshed in the details and focus on learning or simply telling the information you have found. You need to do more than just repeat what you have read. Your writing should have a point, and you should be able to say it in a sentence. Sometimes instructors call this sentence a “thesis” or a “claim.”

So, if your instructor tells you to write about some aspect of oral hygiene, you do not want to just list: “First, you brush your teeth with a soft brush and some peanut butter. Then, you floss with unwaxed, bologna-flavored string. Finally, gargle with bourbon.” Instead, you could say, “Of all the oral cleaning methods, sandblasting removes the most plaque. Therefore it should be recommended by the American Dental Association.” Or, “From an aesthetic perspective, moldy teeth can be quite charming. However, their joys are short-lived.”

Convincing the reader of your argument is the goal of academic writing. It doesn’t have to say “argument” anywhere in the assignment for you to need one. Look at the assignment and think about what kind of argument you could make about it instead of just seeing it as a checklist of information you have to present. For help with understanding the role of argument in academic writing, see our handout on argument .

What kind of evidence do you need?

There are many kinds of evidence, and what type of evidence will work for your assignment can depend on several factors–the discipline, the parameters of the assignment, and your instructor’s preference. Should you use statistics? Historical examples? Do you need to conduct your own experiment? Can you rely on personal experience? See our handout on evidence for suggestions on how to use evidence appropriately.

Make sure you are clear about this part of the assignment, because your use of evidence will be crucial in writing a successful paper. You are not just learning how to argue; you are learning how to argue with specific types of materials and ideas. Ask your instructor what counts as acceptable evidence. You can also ask a librarian for help. No matter what kind of evidence you use, be sure to cite it correctly—see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial .

You cannot always tell from the assignment just what sort of writing style your instructor expects. The instructor may be really laid back in class but still expect you to sound formal in writing. Or the instructor may be fairly formal in class and ask you to write a reflection paper where you need to use “I” and speak from your own experience.

Try to avoid false associations of a particular field with a style (“art historians like wacky creativity,” or “political scientists are boring and just give facts”) and look instead to the types of readings you have been given in class. No one expects you to write like Plato—just use the readings as a guide for what is standard or preferable to your instructor. When in doubt, ask your instructor about the level of formality she or he expects.

No matter what field you are writing for or what facts you are including, if you do not write so that your reader can understand your main idea, you have wasted your time. So make clarity your main goal. For specific help with style, see our handout on style .

Technical details about the assignment

The technical information you are given in an assignment always seems like the easy part. This section can actually give you lots of little hints about approaching the task. Find out if elements such as page length and citation format (see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial ) are negotiable. Some professors do not have strong preferences as long as you are consistent and fully answer the assignment. Some professors are very specific and will deduct big points for deviations.

Usually, the page length tells you something important: The instructor thinks the size of the paper is appropriate to the assignment’s parameters. In plain English, your instructor is telling you how many pages it should take for you to answer the question as fully as you are expected to. So if an assignment is two pages long, you cannot pad your paper with examples or reword your main idea several times. Hit your one point early, defend it with the clearest example, and finish quickly. If an assignment is ten pages long, you can be more complex in your main points and examples—and if you can only produce five pages for that assignment, you need to see someone for help—as soon as possible.

Tricks that don’t work

Your instructors are not fooled when you:

• spend more time on the cover page than the essay —graphics, cool binders, and cute titles are no replacement for a well-written paper.
• use huge fonts, wide margins, or extra spacing to pad the page length —these tricks are immediately obvious to the eye. Most instructors use the same word processor you do. They know what’s possible. Such tactics are especially damning when the instructor has a stack of 60 papers to grade and yours is the only one that low-flying airplane pilots could read.
• use a paper from another class that covered “sort of similar” material . Again, the instructor has a particular task for you to fulfill in the assignment that usually relates to course material and lectures. Your other paper may not cover this material, and turning in the same paper for more than one course may constitute an Honor Code violation . Ask the instructor—it can’t hurt.
• get all wacky and “creative” before you answer the question . Showing that you are able to think beyond the boundaries of a simple assignment can be good, but you must do what the assignment calls for first. Again, check with your instructor. A humorous tone can be refreshing for someone grading a stack of papers, but it will not get you a good grade if you have not fulfilled the task.

Critical reading of assignments leads to skills in other types of reading and writing. If you get good at figuring out what the real goals of assignments are, you are going to be better at understanding the goals of all of your classes and fields of study.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Eberly Center

Teaching excellence & educational innovation, creating assignments.

Here are some general suggestions and questions to consider when creating assignments. There are also many other resources in print and on the web that provide examples of interesting, discipline-specific assignment ideas.

Consider your learning objectives.

What do you want students to learn in your course? What could they do that would show you that they have learned it? To determine assignments that truly serve your course objectives, it is useful to write out your objectives in this form: I want my students to be able to ____. Use active, measurable verbs as you complete that sentence (e.g., compare theories, discuss ramifications, recommend strategies), and your learning objectives will point you towards suitable assignments.

Design assignments that are interesting and challenging.

This is the fun side of assignment design. Consider how to focus students’ thinking in ways that are creative, challenging, and motivating. Think beyond the conventional assignment type! For example, one American historian requires students to write diary entries for a hypothetical Nebraska farmwoman in the 1890s. By specifying that students’ diary entries must demonstrate the breadth of their historical knowledge (e.g., gender, economics, technology, diet, family structure), the instructor gets students to exercise their imaginations while also accomplishing the learning objectives of the course (Walvoord & Anderson, 1989, p. 25).

Double-check alignment.

After creating your assignments, go back to your learning objectives and make sure there is still a good match between what you want students to learn and what you are asking them to do. If you find a mismatch, you will need to adjust either the assignments or the learning objectives. For instance, if your goal is for students to be able to analyze and evaluate texts, but your assignments only ask them to summarize texts, you would need to add an analytical and evaluative dimension to some assignments or rethink your learning objectives.

Name assignments accurately.

Students can be misled by assignments that are named inappropriately. For example, if you want students to analyze a product’s strengths and weaknesses but you call the assignment a “product description,” students may focus all their energies on the descriptive, not the critical, elements of the task. Thus, it is important to ensure that the titles of your assignments communicate their intention accurately to students.

Consider sequencing.

Think about how to order your assignments so that they build skills in a logical sequence. Ideally, assignments that require the most synthesis of skills and knowledge should come later in the semester, preceded by smaller assignments that build these skills incrementally. For example, if an instructor’s final assignment is a research project that requires students to evaluate a technological solution to an environmental problem, earlier assignments should reinforce component skills, including the ability to identify and discuss key environmental issues, apply evaluative criteria, and find appropriate research sources.

Think about scheduling.

Consider your intended assignments in relation to the academic calendar and decide how they can be reasonably spaced throughout the semester, taking into account holidays and key campus events. Consider how long it will take students to complete all parts of the assignment (e.g., planning, library research, reading, coordinating groups, writing, integrating the contributions of team members, developing a presentation), and be sure to allow sufficient time between assignments.

Check feasibility.

Is the workload you have in mind reasonable for your students? Is the grading burden manageable for you? Sometimes there are ways to reduce workload (whether for you or for students) without compromising learning objectives. For example, if a primary objective in assigning a project is for students to identify an interesting engineering problem and do some preliminary research on it, it might be reasonable to require students to submit a project proposal and annotated bibliography rather than a fully developed report. If your learning objectives are clear, you will see where corners can be cut without sacrificing educational quality.

Articulate the task description clearly.

If an assignment is vague, students may interpret it any number of ways – and not necessarily how you intended. Thus, it is critical to clearly and unambiguously identify the task students are to do (e.g., design a website to help high school students locate environmental resources, create an annotated bibliography of readings on apartheid). It can be helpful to differentiate the central task (what students are supposed to produce) from other advice and information you provide in your assignment description.

Establish clear performance criteria.

Different instructors apply different criteria when grading student work, so it’s important that you clearly articulate to students what your criteria are. To do so, think about the best student work you have seen on similar tasks and try to identify the specific characteristics that made it excellent, such as clarity of thought, originality, logical organization, or use of a wide range of sources. Then identify the characteristics of the worst student work you have seen, such as shaky evidence, weak organizational structure, or lack of focus. Identifying these characteristics can help you consciously articulate the criteria you already apply. It is important to communicate these criteria to students, whether in your assignment description or as a separate rubric or scoring guide . Clearly articulated performance criteria can prevent unnecessary confusion about your expectations while also setting a high standard for students to meet.

Specify the intended audience.

Students make assumptions about the audience they are addressing in papers and presentations, which influences how they pitch their message. For example, students may assume that, since the instructor is their primary audience, they do not need to define discipline-specific terms or concepts. These assumptions may not match the instructor’s expectations. Thus, it is important on assignments to specify the intended audience http://wac.colostate.edu/intro/pop10e.cfm (e.g., undergraduates with no biology background, a potential funder who does not know engineering).

Specify the purpose of the assignment.

If students are unclear about the goals or purpose of the assignment, they may make unnecessary mistakes. For example, if students believe an assignment is focused on summarizing research as opposed to evaluating it, they may seriously miscalculate the task and put their energies in the wrong place. The same is true they think the goal of an economics problem set is to find the correct answer, rather than demonstrate a clear chain of economic reasoning. Consequently, it is important to make your objectives for the assignment clear to students.

Specify the parameters.

If you have specific parameters in mind for the assignment (e.g., length, size, formatting, citation conventions) you should be sure to specify them in your assignment description. Otherwise, students may misapply conventions and formats they learned in other courses that are not appropriate for yours.

A Checklist for Designing Assignments

Here is a set of questions you can ask yourself when creating an assignment.

• Provided a written description of the assignment (in the syllabus or in a separate document)?
• Specified the purpose of the assignment?
• Indicated the intended audience?
• Articulated the instructions in precise and unambiguous language?
• Provided information about the appropriate format and presentation (e.g., page length, typed, cover sheet, bibliography)?  
• Indicated special instructions, such as a particular citation style or headings?  
• Specified the due date and the consequences for missing it?
• Articulated performance criteria clearly?
• Indicated the assignment’s point value or percentage of the course grade?
• Provided students (where appropriate) with models or samples?

Adapted from the WAC Clearinghouse at http://wac.colostate.edu/intro/pop10e.cfm .

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How to Ace Your College Assignments

College can be tough. You’re juggling classes, homework, a social life, and maybe a job on the side. It’s no wonder that sometimes your college assignments don’t get the attention they deserve. But did you know that there are tricks to acing your college assignments? Here are some tips and strategies that will help you get better grades in school!

For many students, college is a big learning curve. It’s a time in your life that involves a lot of change and getting used to many new things. When it comes to college assignments, many students find that things work differently from when they were in high school. The format and types of assessments are different, the criteria for passing can feel unfamiliar, and of course, the level of learning is a step up from high school too.

But getting good grades has a direct impact on your success at college, so it’s important to do as well as you can. So what can you do to get to grips with college assignments so you ace them? Here are some tips.

Read The Instructions

Start by reading the assignment instructions carefully. This may seem obvious, but it’s important to make sure you understand what the task is and what your lecturer or professor is looking for. If you’re unsure about anything, ask for clarification from your instructor. They are there to help you, so you should never feel unsure about going to ask for clarification, or for a little extra direction. You could even ask them what they’re looking for in order to give good grades. For example, is it more about research, or a good writing style? Any tips you can glean from the people marking your assignments will help.

Use Past Papers And Study Materials

When you have a better understanding of what’s required, it can be helpful to use past papers and college study materials to give yourself an idea of the sort of thing that might be expected. Study materials can also give you an idea of the level of detail required and the standard expected by your college. If you’re not sure where to find these things, ask your instructor or librarian for help. Getting hold of some of these past materials will help to give you a framework for your learning, understand the types of assignments your college sets, and what success looks like to them.

Create A Plan And Work Schedule

Once you have a good understanding of the task at hand and what’s expected of you, it’s time to create a plan. This should be a detailed document that outlines everything you need to do in order to complete the assignment to a high standard. Your plan should include a timeline and deadlines for each task, as well as what resources you’ll need and any other information that will help you to complete the assignment.

Work In Short Bursts

One of the best pieces of advice for college students is to work in short bursts . This means setting a timer for a certain amount of time and working on the task at hand for that amount of time, before taking a break. This method is often recommended for students because it’s a more effective way of working than trying to power through for hours on end. It’s also a lot easier to stay focused when you’re working in short bursts. When you take a break, make sure you get up and move around, have a snack, or do something to take your mind off of your work so you can come back refreshed and ready to focus again.

Take Regular Breaks

It’s important to take regular breaks when you’re working on an assignment. This will help to keep you from getting too bogged down in the task and will allow you to come back to it with fresh eyes. When you’re taking a break, make sure you get up and move around, have a snack, or do something to take your mind off of your work so you can come back refreshed and ready to focus again.

Set A Deadline For Yourself

As well as any deadlines set by your instructor, it can be helpful to set a deadline for yourself. This should be a date or time by which you will have completed the assignment. Having a personal deadline will help to keep you on track and motivated to get the work done.

Don’t Leave It To The Last Minute

One of the worst things you can do is leave your college assignment to the last minute. This will only lead to stress and will likely result in a rushed and poorly done piece of work. If you start the assignment early, you’ll have more time to do it properly and you’ll be less likely to make mistakes. It will also give you time to deal with any unexpected circumstances, such as some additional research you decide you need to do, or dealing with a cold that leaves you feeling under the weather for a few days.

Start With The Easy Stuff

When you’re starting an assignment, it can be helpful to start with the easy stuff. This will help to get you into the flow of working on the task and will give you a sense of accomplishment. Once you’ve completed the easy stuff, you can move on to the more challenging tasks. This will help you to stay focused and motivated, and will make the whole process less daunting.

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How to Write an Effective Assignment

At their base, all assignment prompts function a bit like a magnifying glass—they allow a student to isolate, focus on, inspect, and interact with some portion of your course material through a fixed lens of your choosing.

The Key Components of an Effective Assignment Prompt

All assignments, from ungraded formative response papers all the way up to a capstone assignment, should include the following components to ensure that students and teachers understand not only the learning objective of the assignment, but also the discrete steps which they will need to follow in order to complete it successfully:

• Preamble.  This situates the assignment within the context of the course, reminding students of what they have been working on in anticipation of the assignment and how that work has prepared them to succeed at it. 
• Justification and Purpose.  This explains why the particular type or genre of assignment you’ve chosen (e.g., lab report, policy memo, problem set, or personal reflection) is the best way for you and your students to measure how well they’ve met the learning objectives associated with this segment of the course.
• Mission.  This explains the assignment in broad brush strokes, giving students a general sense of the project you are setting before them. It often gives students guidance on the evidence or data they should be working with, as well as helping them imagine the audience their work should be aimed at.  
• Tasks.  This outlines what students are supposed to do at a more granular level: for example, how to start, where to look, how to ask for help, etc. If written well, this part of the assignment prompt ought to function as a kind of "process" rubric for students, helping them to decide for themselves whether they are completing the assignment successfully.
• Submission format.  This tells students, in appropriate detail, which stylistic conventions they should observe and how to submit their work. For example, should the assignment be a five-page paper written in APA format and saved as a .docx file? Should it be uploaded to the course website? Is it due by Tuesday at 5:00pm?

For illustrations of these five components in action, visit our gallery of annotated assignment prompts .

For advice about creative assignments (e.g. podcasts, film projects, visual and performing art projects, etc.), visit our  Guidance on Non-Traditional Forms of Assessment .

For specific advice on different genres of assignment, click below:

Response Papers

Problem sets, source analyses, final exams, concept maps, research papers, oral presentations, poster presentations.

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Communication Across the Disciplines

10 tips for writing assignments.

• Clarify the task. Don't let questions about the task encourage procrastination.
• Do the research early. Collecting and absorbing the material will help you meditate on what you will write, even if you don't get to work on the writing immediately.
• Leave a strong paper trail. Frequently, the lack of good note taking doesn't register until you are in the throes of the final preparation of your project, when deadlines loom, and materials are difficult to recover. This is because one often reads and discards materials as not being relevant during the research process, only to discover later, during the writing process, that they are.
• Brainstorm, make notes, jot down ideas as they occur, and begin by writing the stuff you do know. Most writing will be complex and you can't do all of the stages--brainstorming, drafting, revising, editing, proofreading--in one fell swoop. Breaking the process into smaller steps makes it more manageable, and lets you make progress even when you don't have large chunks of time to devote to writing.
• Get feedback. It's difficult to anticipate the gaps, confusion, and potential misinterpretations that complex writing can generate. You need to have at least one outside reader to help you.
• Allow time for revising and editing. Once the ideas are drafted, you'll usually find that you need to go back and re-read, re-search, re-organize, and re-think what you have said.
• Make the organization apparent. Use paragraphs, subheadings, and spatial divisions (layout) to indicate clearly changes in subject matter, focus, and depth. Sometimes this is a good time to prepare an outline, to make sure that your organization makes sense.
• Write the introduction last. A good introduction must point forward to what the writing contains. It is a promise to the reader, and should be accurate. The best introductions will be prepared after you know what you will say and how you will say it.
• Check for accuracy. Research-based writing is often complex and it is easy to overlook a mistake made while drafting. Check your sources, read carefully through your quotations, citations, and documentation.
• Proofread carefully. This is often a step left out in the crunch to finish by a deadline, and yet, it is often little mistakes (typos, errors of punctuation and grammar) which communicate to your reader a sense of carelessness or inability to write.
• Forgive yourself for what is not perfect. We never stop learning how to write. No draft is ever perfect, but the deadline requires that you do your best and then send it out into the world of the reader.

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How Do I Create Meaningful and Effective Assignments?

Prepared by allison boye, ph.d. teaching, learning, and professional development center.

Assessment is a necessary part of the teaching and learning process, helping us measure whether our students have really learned what we want them to learn. While exams and quizzes are certainly favorite and useful methods of assessment, out of class assignments (written or otherwise) can offer similar insights into our students' learning.  And just as creating a reliable test takes thoughtfulness and skill, so does creating meaningful and effective assignments. Undoubtedly, many instructors have been on the receiving end of disappointing student work, left wondering what went wrong… and often, those problems can be remedied in the future by some simple fine-tuning of the original assignment.  This paper will take a look at some important elements to consider when developing assignments, and offer some easy approaches to creating a valuable assessment experience for all involved.

First Things First…

Before assigning any major tasks to students, it is imperative that you first define a few things for yourself as the instructor:

• Your goals for the assignment . Why are you assigning this project, and what do you hope your students will gain from completing it? What knowledge, skills, and abilities do you aim to measure with this assignment?  Creating assignments is a major part of overall course design, and every project you assign should clearly align with your goals for the course in general.  For instance, if you want your students to demonstrate critical thinking, perhaps asking them to simply summarize an article is not the best match for that goal; a more appropriate option might be to ask for an analysis of a controversial issue in the discipline. Ultimately, the connection between the assignment and its purpose should be clear to both you and your students to ensure that it is fulfilling the desired goals and doesn't seem like “busy work.” For some ideas about what kinds of assignments match certain learning goals, take a look at this page from DePaul University's Teaching Commons.
• Have they experienced “socialization” in the culture of your discipline (Flaxman, 2005)? Are they familiar with any conventions you might want them to know? In other words, do they know the “language” of your discipline, generally accepted style guidelines, or research protocols?
• Do they know how to conduct research?  Do they know the proper style format, documentation style, acceptable resources, etc.? Do they know how to use the library (Fitzpatrick, 1989) or evaluate resources?
• What kinds of writing or work have they previously engaged in?  For instance, have they completed long, formal writing assignments or research projects before? Have they ever engaged in analysis, reflection, or argumentation? Have they completed group assignments before?  Do they know how to write a literature review or scientific report?

In his book Engaging Ideas (1996), John Bean provides a great list of questions to help instructors focus on their main teaching goals when creating an assignment (p.78):

1. What are the main units/modules in my course?

2. What are my main learning objectives for each module and for the course?

3. What thinking skills am I trying to develop within each unit and throughout the course?

4. What are the most difficult aspects of my course for students?

5. If I could change my students' study habits, what would I most like to change?

6. What difference do I want my course to make in my students' lives?

What your students need to know

Once you have determined your own goals for the assignment and the levels of your students, you can begin creating your assignment.  However, when introducing your assignment to your students, there are several things you will need to clearly outline for them in order to ensure the most successful assignments possible.

• First, you will need to articulate the purpose of the assignment . Even though you know why the assignment is important and what it is meant to accomplish, you cannot assume that your students will intuit that purpose. Your students will appreciate an understanding of how the assignment fits into the larger goals of the course and what they will learn from the process (Hass & Osborn, 2007). Being transparent with your students and explaining why you are asking them to complete a given assignment can ultimately help motivate them to complete the assignment more thoughtfully.
• If you are asking your students to complete a writing assignment, you should define for them the “rhetorical or cognitive mode/s” you want them to employ in their writing (Flaxman, 2005). In other words, use precise verbs that communicate whether you are asking them to analyze, argue, describe, inform, etc.  (Verbs like “explore” or “comment on” can be too vague and cause confusion.) Provide them with a specific task to complete, such as a problem to solve, a question to answer, or an argument to support.  For those who want assignments to lead to top-down, thesis-driven writing, John Bean (1996) suggests presenting a proposition that students must defend or refute, or a problem that demands a thesis answer.
• It is also a good idea to define the audience you want your students to address with their assignment, if possible – especially with writing assignments.  Otherwise, students will address only the instructor, often assuming little requires explanation or development (Hedengren, 2004; MIT, 1999). Further, asking students to address the instructor, who typically knows more about the topic than the student, places the student in an unnatural rhetorical position.  Instead, you might consider asking your students to prepare their assignments for alternative audiences such as other students who missed last week's classes, a group that opposes their position, or people reading a popular magazine or newspaper.  In fact, a study by Bean (1996) indicated the students often appreciate and enjoy assignments that vary elements such as audience or rhetorical context, so don't be afraid to get creative!
• Obviously, you will also need to articulate clearly the logistics or “business aspects” of the assignment . In other words, be explicit with your students about required elements such as the format, length, documentation style, writing style (formal or informal?), and deadlines.  One caveat, however: do not allow the logistics of the paper take precedence over the content in your assignment description; if you spend all of your time describing these things, students might suspect that is all you care about in their execution of the assignment.
• Finally, you should clarify your evaluation criteria for the assignment. What elements of content are most important? Will you grade holistically or weight features separately? How much weight will be given to individual elements, etc?  Another precaution to take when defining requirements for your students is to take care that your instructions and rubric also do not overshadow the content; prescribing too rigidly each element of an assignment can limit students' freedom to explore and discover. According to Beth Finch Hedengren, “A good assignment provides the purpose and guidelines… without dictating exactly what to say” (2004, p. 27).  If you decide to utilize a grading rubric, be sure to provide that to the students along with the assignment description, prior to their completion of the assignment.

A great way to get students engaged with an assignment and build buy-in is to encourage their collaboration on its design and/or on the grading criteria (Hudd, 2003). In his article “Conducting Writing Assignments,” Richard Leahy (2002) offers a few ideas for building in said collaboration:

• Ask the students to develop the grading scale themselves from scratch, starting with choosing the categories.

• Set the grading categories yourself, but ask the students to help write the descriptions.

• Draft the complete grading scale yourself, then give it to your students for review and suggestions.

A Few Do's and Don'ts…

Determining your goals for the assignment and its essential logistics is a good start to creating an effective assignment. However, there are a few more simple factors to consider in your final design. First, here are a few things you should do :

• Do provide detail in your assignment description . Research has shown that students frequently prefer some guiding constraints when completing assignments (Bean, 1996), and that more detail (within reason) can lead to more successful student responses.  One idea is to provide students with physical assignment handouts , in addition to or instead of a simple description in a syllabus.  This can meet the needs of concrete learners and give them something tangible to refer to.  Likewise, it is often beneficial to make explicit for students the process or steps necessary to complete an assignment, given that students – especially younger ones – might need guidance in planning and time management (MIT, 1999).
• Do use open-ended questions.  The most effective and challenging assignments focus on questions that lead students to thinking and explaining, rather than simple yes or no answers, whether explicitly part of the assignment description or in the  brainstorming heuristics (Gardner, 2005).
• Do direct students to appropriate available resources . Giving students pointers about other venues for assistance can help them get started on the right track independently. These kinds of suggestions might include information about campus resources such as the University Writing Center or discipline-specific librarians, suggesting specific journals or books, or even sections of their textbook, or providing them with lists of research ideas or links to acceptable websites.
• Do consider providing models – both successful and unsuccessful models (Miller, 2007). These models could be provided by past students, or models you have created yourself.  You could even ask students to evaluate the models themselves using the determined evaluation criteria, helping them to visualize the final product, think critically about how to complete the assignment, and ideally, recognize success in their own work.
• Do consider including a way for students to make the assignment their own. In their study, Hass and Osborn (2007) confirmed the importance of personal engagement for students when completing an assignment.  Indeed, students will be more engaged in an assignment if it is personally meaningful, practical, or purposeful beyond the classroom.  You might think of ways to encourage students to tap into their own experiences or curiosities, to solve or explore a real problem, or connect to the larger community.  Offering variety in assignment selection can also help students feel more individualized, creative, and in control.
• If your assignment is substantial or long, do consider sequencing it. Far too often, assignments are given as one-shot final products that receive grades at the end of the semester, eternally abandoned by the student.  By sequencing a large assignment, or essentially breaking it down into a systematic approach consisting of interconnected smaller elements (such as a project proposal, an annotated bibliography, or a rough draft, or a series of mini-assignments related to the longer assignment), you can encourage thoughtfulness, complexity, and thoroughness in your students, as well as emphasize process over final product.

Next are a few elements to avoid in your assignments:

• Do not ask too many questions in your assignment.  In an effort to challenge students, instructors often err in the other direction, asking more questions than students can reasonably address in a single assignment without losing focus. Offering an overly specific “checklist” prompt often leads to externally organized papers, in which inexperienced students “slavishly follow the checklist instead of integrating their ideas into more organically-discovered structure” (Flaxman, 2005).
• Do not expect or suggest that there is an “ideal” response to the assignment. A common error for instructors is to dictate content of an assignment too rigidly, or to imply that there is a single correct response or a specific conclusion to reach, either explicitly or implicitly (Flaxman, 2005). Undoubtedly, students do not appreciate feeling as if they must read an instructor's mind to complete an assignment successfully, or that their own ideas have nowhere to go, and can lose motivation as a result. Similarly, avoid assignments that simply ask for regurgitation (Miller, 2007). Again, the best assignments invite students to engage in critical thinking, not just reproduce lectures or readings.
• Do not provide vague or confusing commands . Do students know what you mean when they are asked to “examine” or “discuss” a topic? Return to what you determined about your students' experiences and levels to help you decide what directions will make the most sense to them and what will require more explanation or guidance, and avoid verbiage that might confound them.
• Do not impose impossible time restraints or require the use of insufficient resources for completion of the assignment.  For instance, if you are asking all of your students to use the same resource, ensure that there are enough copies available for all students to access – or at least put one copy on reserve in the library. Likewise, make sure that you are providing your students with ample time to locate resources and effectively complete the assignment (Fitzpatrick, 1989).

The assignments we give to students don't simply have to be research papers or reports. There are many options for effective yet creative ways to assess your students' learning! Here are just a few:

Journals, Posters, Portfolios, Letters, Brochures, Management plans, Editorials, Instruction Manuals, Imitations of a text, Case studies, Debates, News release, Dialogues, Videos, Collages, Plays, Power Point presentations

Ultimately, the success of student responses to an assignment often rests on the instructor's deliberate design of the assignment. By being purposeful and thoughtful from the beginning, you can ensure that your assignments will not only serve as effective assessment methods, but also engage and delight your students. If you would like further help in constructing or revising an assignment, the Teaching, Learning, and Professional Development Center is glad to offer individual consultations. In addition, look into some of the resources provided below.

Online Resources

“Creating Effective Assignments” http://www.unh.edu/teaching-excellence/resources/Assignments.htm This site, from the University of New Hampshire's Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning,  provides a brief overview of effective assignment design, with a focus on determining and communicating goals and expectations.

Gardner, T.  (2005, June 12). Ten Tips for Designing Writing Assignments. Traci's Lists of Ten. http://www.tengrrl.com/tens/034.shtml This is a brief yet useful list of tips for assignment design, prepared by a writing teacher and curriculum developer for the National Council of Teachers of English .  The website will also link you to several other lists of “ten tips” related to literacy pedagogy.

“How to Create Effective Assignments for College Students.”  http:// tilt.colostate.edu/retreat/2011/zimmerman.pdf     This PDF is a simplified bulleted list, prepared by Dr. Toni Zimmerman from Colorado State University, offering some helpful ideas for coming up with creative assignments.

“Learner-Centered Assessment” http://cte.uwaterloo.ca/teaching_resources/tips/learner_centered_assessment.html From the Centre for Teaching Excellence at the University of Waterloo, this is a short list of suggestions for the process of designing an assessment with your students' interests in mind. “Matching Learning Goals to Assignment Types.” http://teachingcommons.depaul.edu/How_to/design_assignments/assignments_learning_goals.html This is a great page from DePaul University's Teaching Commons, providing a chart that helps instructors match assignments with learning goals.

Additional References Bean, J.C. (1996). Engaging ideas: The professor's guide to integrating writing, critical thinking, and active learning in the classroom . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Fitzpatrick, R. (1989). Research and writing assignments that reduce fear lead to better papers and more confident students. Writing Across the Curriculum , 3.2, pp. 15 – 24.

Flaxman, R. (2005). Creating meaningful writing assignments. The Teaching Exchange .  Retrieved Jan. 9, 2008 from http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Sheridan_Center/pubs/teachingExchange/jan2005/01_flaxman.pdf

Hass, M. & Osborn, J. (2007, August 13). An emic view of student writing and the writing process. Across the Disciplines, 4. 

Hedengren, B.F. (2004). A TA's guide to teaching writing in all disciplines . Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.

Hudd, S. S. (2003, April). Syllabus under construction: Involving students in the creation of class assignments.  Teaching Sociology , 31, pp. 195 – 202.

Leahy, R. (2002). Conducting writing assignments. College Teaching , 50.2, pp. 50 – 54.

Miller, H. (2007). Designing effective writing assignments.  Teaching with writing .  University of Minnesota Center for Writing. Retrieved Jan. 9, 2008, from http://writing.umn.edu/tww/assignments/designing.html

MIT Online Writing and Communication Center (1999). Creating Writing Assignments. Retrieved January 9, 2008 from http://web.mit.edu/writing/Faculty/createeffective.html .

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9 Writing Apps For Your College Assignments

When you are in college, writing can seem like a huge job. How can someone successfully manage and organize their thoughts when they have a lot of work to do? Do not be afraid! Lots of writing apps are out there that can help you write better and faster by working like your digital helper. Are you ready to start? Let’s look into these useful tools together.

Why You Need Writing Apps

Benefits of writing apps.

You might be wondering why all the fuss is about writing apps. Many people use writing apps instead of paper, but these apps are like superheroes in the world of writing. They come to your aid and help you fix your spelling, put your ideas in order, and even remember your homework.

The Modern Writing Toolkit

Imagine having a magic set of tools that changes based on what you need to write. In fact, these writing apps do just that. With features like real-time collaboration, grammar checking, and project management, they change and adapt to make sure you have everything you need to face your assignments head-on.

1. AssignmentBro

AssignmentBro is the first tool that stands out that you might want to use for your college assignments. This is a specialized do my assignment online service that helps college students handle and do well on their tasks. AssignmentBro stands out because it focuses on giving you help that is tailored to your needs.

2. Google Docs

Real-time collaboration.

When you want to work together, Google Docs is great. It’s easy to share your work and get comments in real time. Doesn’t that sound perfect for group projects?

Access Anywhere

Because Google Docs is in the cloud, you can view your work from anywhere at any time. No more forgetting to do homework at home!

3. Grammarly

Grammar and spelling checks.

In a way, Grammarly is like a kind but thorough English teacher. It helps you improve your work by finding and fixing mistakes that are simple to miss.

Enhancing Writing Style

Grammarly doesn’t just fix mistakes; it also offers ways to improve your style, which makes your writing clear and crisp. It’s like having a writing expert help you get better.

4. Evernote

Organizing your thoughts.

As you write, Evernote keeps your thoughts and notes in order, like a personal writing assistant. It’s like having a digital notebook that is well-organized and easy to carry around with you.

Ease of Access

You can easily get to your notes and thoughts from any device. Doesn’t it make the process of writing easier and more open?

5. Scrivener

For long assignments.

Scrivener is like the planner of writing apps; it helps you organize long, complicated tasks. It’s very helpful for working on theses and papers.

Powerful Writing Tools

Scrivener makes writing more organized and less stressful by giving you a lot of strong tools. You’ll feel like you have a writing warrior by your side, ready to fight the chaos of big tasks.

6. Hemingway App

Making your writing easy.

The Hemingway App is the best app for writing that is clear and to the point. You can think of it as a personal editor that cuts out words and sentences that aren’t needed, leaving your work clear and to the point.

Improvements to Readability

The app makes sure that your writing is clear and easy to understand, so your points and ideas stand out.

Workspace with Everything You Need

Notion is like a Swiss Army Knife; it gives you many ways to handle your writing jobs. It brings together different parts of your project, making sure that everything fits together and is well-organized.

Making Changes

With Notion, you can make your workspace fit your style and tastes by customizing it. It’s like having your own personal study space.

Managing a Project

Trello is the project manager you’ve always wanted. Making a plan and organizing your tasks will help you meet your due dates without any problems.

Writing with Others

Are you working on a group project? Trello makes working together easy and efficient, which encourages teamwork and unity.

9. FocusWriter

Writing without being distracted.

FocusWriter is a safe place for writers to work without being interrupted, which helps them concentrate and stay on task. It’s like going into a quiet room where you can be creative without any interruptions.

Customizable Backgrounds

Change the background and themes to fit your mood and tastes. This will make writing more comfortable and unique for you.

There are a lot of different writing apps out there, and each one is like a magic wand for writers. They help you plan, manage, and improve your writing, so you can turn in great assignments. So, are you ready to change the way you write?

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How to Create a College Study Plan: 23 Smart Tips

Are you wondering how to study in college? Are you unsure how to create a study plan that will let you achieve all your goals?

A college study plan helps you look ahead so that you can submit assignments, complete projects, and finish papers on time—so you succeed in college!

College is full of many challenges, and learning how to study more effectively is one of them. Having a structured study plan will help you achieve your academic goals.

You can create a personalized study plan that works for you. Whether you struggle with a long reading list or with revising complex papers, you can create a unique study plan that will help you succeed. 

Managing your courses, social life, and campus activities in college is much different than going to high school. You may have more free time in college, but you also have a lot of commitments.

The key to creating a study plan that works for you is scheduling time for everything you need to do in college. This blog post will help you learn how to study in college.

1. Assess Your Goals

Before you can create a study plan, think about your learning goals and academic priorities for the semester.

Think about what you want to achieve in your courses.

Consider short-term goals like acing a test, completing a project, and getting good grades.

Also think about long-term goals like completing the courses you need for your major and graduating in four years.

Of course, college isn’t just about your academic performance. There’s socializing, work, clubs, committees, and life.

List all of your commitments so you can see where your time goes and how you can fit in enough quality study time.

2. Choose a calendar or planner that works for you

As you start to think about how you will find time for all your school work and activities, you’ll need a good planner to help you keep track of your schedule.

Do you want a calendar that breaks down each day into half-hour blocks? Or is a basic square per day sufficient for you to note what you need to do when.

Many students find it helpful to use a calendar that offers a monthly, weekly, and daily view so that assignments that seem far away don’t sneak up on you. 

You can start with a study planner that includes a weekly planner spread, as well as pages of daily planners. Then you can see how much detail you need to include in your study timetable.

You can also use an online calendar, an app, or whatever works best for you.

Here’s a great list of planners for college students with ADHD that are actually great for all college students.

3. create a study plan By Planning for the Semester

College is basically guaranteed information overload. One of the best study strategies is to break all your courses down into manageable chunks.

Look carefully at the syllabus for each class you’re taking this semester.

On your calendar or planner, write down each lecture and lab for every class.

If you have any online classes, note the class times in your planner.

Also note the times for office hours with your professor, tutoring sessions, and anything else that you need to attend to better understand the material.

Writing down every required assignment, exams, and due dates for papers, as well as optional events like office hours and tutoring, will help you plan for the semester.

This is a key step in having an organized schedule!

4. Plan Backwards

After you write down each class assignment, plan for all the steps that go into completing each assignment. 

Work backwards to decide what you need to do when, in order to turn in the assignment on time or be ready for your test.

This way of creating a study plan helps you break each assignment into smaller achievable chunks. Checking off each task will keep you on track to meet your overall goals.

For example:

         History of Modern France Mid-term Paper , due October 15

            Study plan:

            October 1: Brainstorm topics

            October 2: Preliminary research                    

            October 3-5: Finalize topic and continue research

            October 6: Draft an outline

            October 8-10: Begin writing 

            October 11: Finish first draft

            October 12-13: Make revisions and edits

            October 14: Proofread and submit

Planning backwards may feel like a long, tedious process, but this will prevent an assignment from sneaking up on you, leaving you stressed out, with not enough time to complete it.

Planning for your college workload like this will also make you aware early in the semester if you have two (or more) big projects due at the same time, so you can adjust your schedule. 

The key to time management is knowing what to do when , so breaking down each paper, exam, or assignment will help you stay on top of studying when life gets hectic.

Be sure to create a study map with assignments and due dates for each class.

5. Plan enough time for each subject

Be sure to allow time each week for reading assignments, writing papers, doing homework, or studying for exams.

You can expect to spend three to five hours a week (and maybe more!) studying and preparing for each subject. 

One way to organize all those assignments and due dates is to create a folder for each class with a detailed weekly study schedule or a simple list of things you have to do each day.

6. Refresh your Schedule Weekly

At the beginning of each week, update your schedule for the week.

Include anything you didn’t get to last week, check off things you finished early, and schedule extra time where you’ll need it.

Note if you have an upcoming exam or any last minute events. Add in work shifts, exercise classes, and time with friends.

Looking at your weekly schedule at the beginning of each week will help keep you on task and accountable.

Write out a daily schedule for each day of the week. Include each hour of class time, your work time, extracurricular activities, and time for studying.

Remember, your study plan isn’t set in stone. If something’s not working, don’t be afraid to adjust your schedule, change your goals, or try different study techniques .

You might need to update your study schedule on a daily basis. You’ll almost certainly have to account for unexpected events during the semester.

College is all about learning, after all, and that includes learning how you study best.

7. Consider what commitments (besides studying) you have

Balance is essential! Make sure you allocate the right amount of time to classes, study, friends, and, of course, some ‘me-time’. College isn’t just about grades; it’s about life experiences too.

You might need to plan time for a job, fun with friends, commuting, other specific activities, or appointments (doctor visits, haircuts, etc.).

You’ll have a lot of important things to include in your schedule. Write it all down in your planner!

8. Use Apps and Tech to Manage Your Time

The amount of material you have to learn in college over the course of a semester can be staggering.  Add to that the exams, quizzes, papers—it can be overwhelming!

However, use calendar reminders, alarms, and productivity apps to help you stay on track.

Set reminders for when you should start your next study session or take study breaks.

If social media is too much of a distraction, you can use an app to limit your social media time, delete social media apps from your phone, or set your phone to “do not disturb” when you study.

9. Use the Pomodoro Technique 🍅

The Pomodoro Technique is when you set a timer and work for twenty-five minutes, then take a five-minute break. It’s a game changer for staying focused during study sessions.

Pomodoro is Italian for tomato. 🍅

Here’s how it works:

• Decide what you’re going to work on.
• Set a timer for 25 minutes. Focus on a single task until the timer rings.
• Draw a little pomodoro.
• Enjoy a five-minute break.
• Then set a timer for twenty-five more minutes and repeat.
• After four pomodoros, take a longer 15-30 minute break.

The Pomodoro Technique helps you focus by asking you to block out all distractions for 25 minutes.

This study technique makes the time spent studying go by more quickly and helps you break down complex projects. The short break after each 25-minute session, plus the longer breaks, gives your mind a chance to rest.

10. Don’t procrastinate

Procrastination is sneaky! It steals your study time and leaves you with regret.

Use the time management techniques above and hold yourself accountable to your weekly schedule.

Keep your goals front and center to help you avoid distractions.

You might think you have so much time to study for upcoming tests or write end-of-term papers, but if you don’t set aside dedicated time to get the work done, the time will slip away before you know it.

11. Optimize your study space

Create a dedicated study area in your dorm room, with a great study aesthetic. Having an area that is conducive to studying will help you want to be there and stay focused.

Basically, you want create a study oasis that is quiet, comfy, and helps you focus. Be sure you have good lighting, a comfortable chair, and a tidy desk.

If you work well with background noise, play a podcast or some music. If you like quiet, minimize all sounds or consider running a white noise machine to drown out any dorm noises you can’t control. 

For some college students, the best place to study might be the library instead of their dorm or apartment. Others might prefer the atmosphere of a coffee shop or the student center.

The main thing is finding a good place to study and prep for final exams that works for you!

12. Find study partners

Make friends with the people in your classes. Schedule time to meet at least once a week during the semester and more before exams.  

Talking through difficult problems and concepts with a study partner is a great way to reinforce your knowledge or get new insight into a topic.

In study groups, you can summarize what you’ve learned, ask each other questions, and explain concepts to each other.

Studying with a friend will give you a chance to learn from that classmate and let you explain the things you know. This active learning will help you remember concepts better.

13. Make studying a habit

Study at the same time and in the same place so studying becomes part of your regular routine.

Also, get in the habit of using free half hours or even hours as study time, instead of just scrolling your socials. Successful study sessions can happen in little bits of free time.

Studying in small increments of time won’t feel overwhelming, and it will free up larger blocks of time for study sessions with friends or fun activities.

Put a study schedule in your calendar and make study plans part of your daily routine.

Once you have a regular study routine in place, you’ll find it easier to keep going and accomplish everything you need to do.

14. Stay Organized

Keep your study materials and your study space organized and tidy.

Be sure your notes, textbooks, lecture notes, or digital files are accessible and in order.

Being able to find the information you need will save you from wasting time or getting stressed when you have to take your precious study time to find lost materials.

15. Use digital Organization tools

Use apps for note-taking and task management. Use cloud storage so your files will be available from any device whenever you need them.

16. Review regularly

Go over your notes from class at the end of each day, or even right after class, while the information from class is still fresh in your mind.  A quick review session can be an effective way to retain information.

If you’ve already forgotten what you meant when you wrote something down, it will be easier to figure it out by asking the professor or a classmate about it the next day, rather than realizing weeks later, that you don’t understand your notes.

By reviewing your notes from lectures, readings, or study sessions regularly, you will retain the information better than if you try to do a cram session before exams. 

17. Go to class

Obviously, it’s a lot easier to learn in class if you attend class.

If you’re having a difficult time focusing in class, figure out what it takes to get yourself to pay attention in class.

Do you need to sit up front? Have a coffee during class? Have something to fidget with?

Being able to focus in class is essential to processing and understanding the material. 

18. Maximize your Resources

Use all your resources, including course material, textbooks, online modules, lecture notes, and study guides. If you still don’t understand, do your own research at the library or on the internet.

Sometimes you need to get information from different resources to help you understand it.

19. Get help

If you’re struggling, seek help!

Go to your professors’ office hours, seek out tutoring, talk to your academic advisor, and ask the TA all your questions.

Get help if:

• You don’t understand the content
• You aren’t sure what to study
• It’s unclear what topics will be on the test
• You don’t know what the professor expects
• You have any other questions about the material

Getting extra instruction can be the best way to finally understand difficult subject matter.

20. Self-Care

The not-so-secret secret to college survival is managing stress and taking care of yourself. Self-care is essential to managing college life and succeeding at your classes.

• Get plenty of rest. Try to get eight hours of sleep a night. Take time to relax.
• Make time to exercise. Take a gym class, get in a workout, or go for a run. Just move your body.
• Eat healthy food. Yes, even some vegetables. A healthy diet will make you feel better.
• Try stress management techniques like deep breathing and meditation.

Take care of yourself and your studying will be much more effective. 

21. Understand how you learn best

Think about your learning style and figure out how you learn best.

Are you a visual learner who loves charts and diagrams, an auditory learner who absorbs info through lectures, or a more hands-on learner who needs to make models?

Tailor your study habits so that you’re studying in a way that helps you retain the information you’re studying. Everyone has different learning styles, so the best study plan for you will match your style of learning.

The more you understand about how you learn the best, the more you’ll be able to study successfully and remember all the information you’re being taught!

22. Make a study plan for exams

You know exams are coming at the end of every semester. Use the good study habits you developed over the semester to create a timetable for study for exams.

Allow time to review material from earlier in the semester, catch up on readings you missed, and study any new material.

Lots of students find it helpful to calculate what grade they need on their final to know how much they need to study to achieve their goal grade.

23. Reward yourself

Give yourself a reward when you meet your study goals, get a great final grade, or just pass a particularly difficult class!

Go have fun with friends, treat yourself to a fancy coffee drink and a brownie, or watch a movie with your roommate.

Even if you don’t meet your study goals, be easy on yourself. Regroup and make a new plan for the next day. College is supposed to be fun—not just hard work!

Final Thoughts on Creating a Study Plan for College

Being organized and having an effective study plan in place will take away a lot of the stress of studying.

Setting goals, learning time management skills, using technology for your benefit, staying organized, and monitoring your progress will help you level up your study skills.

Once you have a study schedule and good study habits in place, you’ll feel much better about everything you have to do for your college classes!

The tips and strategies in this article will help you create an effective study plan for your college classes, including math, history, the sciences, and more. These study strategies will and ultimately help you with your goal of earning a college education.

Graduate of Brown University, higher ed professional, and mom of three. Sharing everything I’ve learned about college with you.

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One Comment

Great advice for parents too!

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College Assignments 101- Get More Done, In Less Time

Excelling in Your First-Year College Assignments: Strategies for Success

The first year of college is an exciting time filled with new experiences and opportunities. However, it also brings academic challenges, with a significant focus on assignments, papers, and projects. Successfully completing first-year college assignments requires more than just academic knowledge; it demands effective organizational skills, productivity tools, and time management techniques. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore various strategies to help you excel in your first-year college assignments.

1: Staying Organized with MyStudyLife’s College Schedule Maker

One of the most crucial aspects of thriving in college is staying organized. With numerous courses, assignments, and deadlines to juggle, a study app like MyStudyLife can be your best friend.

MyStudyLife is a versatile app designed to help students manage their academic schedules and assignments effectively. Here’s how to make the most of it:

• Input Your Class Schedule: Start by entering your class schedule into the app. This forms the foundation of your academic organization.
• Set Assignment Reminders: Use MyStudyLife to set reminders for assignment due dates. Customize these reminders to align with your study habits and priorities. Rely on these homework and school reminders to take the pressure off you a bit so you can focus on your workload rather than focusing on remembering what you need to do.
• Track Progress: MyStudyLife’s homework planner enables you to mark assignments as completed, providing a sense of accomplishment and helping you identify areas where you may be falling behind.
• Sync Across Devices: The app is available on various platforms and can be synchronized across devices, ensuring you have access to your schedule and assignments wherever you go.

Section 2: Leveraging AI Tools for School

Artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized various aspects of our lives, including education. Harnessing AI tools can significantly enhance the quality and efficiency of your assignments. Though ChatGPT for school is a good option, there are other AI tools for students that you may find helpful.

• Grammarly: Grammarly is an AI-powered writing assistant that can help you improve the quality of your assignments. It checks for grammar and spelling errors, suggests vocabulary enhancements, and provides real-time feedback as you write. By using Grammarly, you can ensure that your assignments are well-written and error-free.
• Citation Generators: Accurate citation is paramount in college assignments. AI-based citation generators like Zotero and EndNote can help you create precise citations and bibliographies in various styles (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.), saving you time and ensuring compliance with academic standards.
• Plagiarism Checkers: Plagiarism is a serious offense in academia. AI-driven plagiarism checkers like Turnitin and Copyscape can help you ensure the originality of your work by detecting unintentional plagiarism. Run your assignments through these tools before submission to avoid any issues.
• Study Recommender Systems: Some AI-driven platforms, such as Coursera and edX, offer personalized course recommendations based on your academic interests and career goals. Utilizing these platforms can expand your knowledge and provide additional resources for your assignments.

Section 3: Staying Focused with the Pomodoro Technique

Maintaining focus during study sessions is crucial for completing assignments efficiently. The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method that can help you stay on track and prevent burnout.

To follow the Pomodoro technique to be more productive with your college assignments:

• Set a Timer: Choose a task you want to work on and set a timer for 25 minutes (one Pomodoro session).
• Work Intensely: During the 25-minute session, focus exclusively on your assignment. Avoid distractions such as social media, texts, or unrelated websites. Some students find it helpful to set specific music for studying during the focused times.
• Take a Short Break: When the timer goes off, take a 5-minute break to stretch, relax, or grab a snack.
• Repeat: After the short break, start another Pomodoro session. Repeat this cycle, and after completing four Pomodoros, take a longer break of 15-30 minutes.

The Pomodoro Technique helps you break down your assignments into manageable chunks, making them less overwhelming and more achievable. It also trains your brain to concentrate for short bursts, ultimately increasing your overall productivity.

Section 4: Additional Techniques for Assignment Success

While MyStudyLife, AI tools, and the Pomodoro Technique are valuable assets in your academic toolkit, several other techniques can further aid in completing first-year college assignments successfully:

• Prioritize Tasks: Not all assignments are equal in importance. Prioritize them based on deadlines and their weight in your course. Tackle high-priority tasks or time-consuming tasks like college essays first to ensure you meet essential deadlines.
• Create a To-Do List: Creating a to-do list is a powerful technique to combat procrastination and ensure productive assignment completion. Rather than succumbing to the temptation of easier tasks, prioritize your list by starting with the most challenging assignment. By addressing the toughest task first, you’ll build momentum, increase your confidence, and significantly reduce the risk of procrastinating on important assignments.
• Seek Help When Needed: Don’t hesitate to reach out to professors, tutors, or classmates for clarification or assistance with challenging assignments. Collaboration and seeking help are essential skills in academia.
• Time Management: Develop strong time management skills by setting realistic goals, allocating time for leisure activities, and maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Effective time management is key to academic success, so be sure to integrate the use of a daily school planner to track your schedule.
• Review and Revise: Always allocate time for reviewing and revising your assignments. This ensures your work is polished and free of errors, contributing to better grades and academic growth.

Succeeding in your first-year college assignments is not only about mastering academic content but also about developing strong organizational skills, utilizing productivity tools , and managing your time effectively. As you progress through your college journey, you’ll discover that assignments become more manageable as with time, you’ll naturally develop improved productivity and focus. Prioritization, seeking assistance when necessary, effective time management, taking care of your overall well-being, and consistently reviewing your work all contribute to this growth. Embrace these strategies, and you’ll find yourself excelling in your first-year college assignments and beyond as you continue to refine your skills.

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Templates for college and university assignments

Include customizable templates in your college toolbox. stay focused on your studies and leave the assignment structuring to tried and true layout templates for all kinds of papers, reports, and more..

Keep your college toolbox stocked with easy-to-use templates

Work smarter with higher-ed helpers from our college tools collection. Presentations are on point from start to finish when you start your project using a designer-created template; you'll be sure to catch and keep your professor's attention. Staying on track semester after semester takes work, but that work gets a little easier when you take control of your scheduling, list making, and planning by using trackers and planners that bring you joy. Learning good habits in college will serve you well into your professional life after graduation, so don't reinvent the wheel—use what is known to work!

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How To Keep Up With College Assignments (Ultimate Guide)

Keeping up with college assignments can feel like trying to swim upstream with your hands tied behind your back. Even though this can feel impossible sometimes, there are many things you can do to make your semester go as smoothly and successfully as possible.

Here’s how to keep up with college assignments:

• Keep a weekly planner.
• Take notes by hand.
• Form an accountability group.
• Avoid burnout at all costs.

This article is meant to guide you through your college courses and to help you keep up with your college assignments. You will learn how to keep up with your studies, and how to avoid burnout at the same time. So let’s keep going.

1. Keep a Weekly Planner

If you’re always unsure of what you need to complete in a given week or what’s coming up in your classes, then you’re setting yourself up for failure. Get yourself a weekly planner and organize your thoughts and schedule for the week. 

People who use planners are usually much more organized and are able to tackle the events of a week efficiently and effectively. Take an hour at the start of the week, such as Sunday or Monday, and write out everything that you are responsible for that week.

Plan out the best days to complete each so that you’re not crunched for time.

Most weekly planners also have monthly pages, so you can also plan ahead for assignments that may require more than a week’s work. A larger project or final paper might need two or more weeks, so keeping up with the monthly portion will set you up to plan these types of assignments accordingly.

My favorite undated planner is the Clever Fox Undated Weekly and Monthly Planner (link to Amazon). This planner is great because you can pick it up and start whenever since there are no set dates on the pages. 

It helps break down large tasks into smaller, more doable ones and helps keep your priorities for the week in order. 

I usually recommend this planner for people who are new to using a planner because if you miss a week or struggle to get into the habit of filling it out, you aren’t left with a bunch of blank pages killing your motivation. 

Just pick up where you left off.

If you prefer a dated planner, then the Moleskine 12 Month Weekly Planner (link to Amazon) is my go-to, which is what I use for everything. The pages are clean, simple, and easy to keep up with. 

There are a few different sizes and colors, but I find that the pocket size in plain black is classic and fits everywhere I need it to. 

Things To Avoid in a Weekly Planner

It’s both a blessing and a curse that planners have absolutely skyrocketed in popularity. There are so many to choose from, with a million different sorts of goals in mind. Planners for fitness, water consumption, beer-drinking, inspirational quotes, or knitting progress all exist now. 

Being able to pick a planner that fits you best is great. However, these planners are bloated with useless pages and sections. Okay, maybe not useless but not incredibly useful either.

If your planner is meant to help you keep your assignments straight and limit your time procrastinating, then a planner with pages to list all of your favorite moments from the previous day, month, and year won’t help you. 

If you want a planner to help practice positivity and gratitude, that’s great. Just keep them separate, and put on one on your nightstand for pleasure and one in your backpack for work.

Schedule a Weekly Catch-Up Day

It can be very helpful to have a day or half-day schedule that’s always reserved for just catching up on work that you have fallen a bit behind on. This isn’t to be scheduled for anything else so that you can always count on some time to just sit and catch up before things get out of hand.

If you’ve been able to keep up that week, having that day completely free is something to look forward to. You can use that time to do whatever you love most.

2. Take Notes by Hand

Your classes are probably full of students typing out their notes on their laptops. This trend has been such a detriment to students being able to retain what they heard in their classes.

One widely cited study concluded that those who take notes on their laptops were much less likely to comprehend the content they were typing. Instead, they were unable to form the concepts that would help them understand the material ( source ).

In addition to laptops inviting a whole host of distractions into the classroom, typed notes are usually more like shallow transcriptions of the lecture. The hand-written notes would help them process the information that was communicated instead. 

Students who wrote out their notes with pen and paper were more likely to write out the lectures in their own words . When you take the lecture and translate it into a language that makes the most sense to you, then you’ll have a deeper understanding of the material and the ability to recall the concepts you learned. 

If you’re working through your assignments and are able to easily recall the lectures, you’ll be much faster than if you’re staring blankly at the script you wrote out on a laptop. 

Leave the technology at home. You’ll have less distraction and will find that you actually need less time to complete your assignments since you’ll have actually learned the material you’re working on.

3. Form an Accountability Group

Something that students report as being a huge help with keeping up on college assignments is having a group of other students keeping them accountable. Some of the different ways that students have formed accountability groups are with group messaging, tackling assignments together, and weekly work meetings.

The best way to form an accountability group will depend on who you have that would be interested in joining. If there’s enough interest in a particular class, then you might find that getting together and working on the weekly assignments together is very helpful. 

However, it can be just as helpful to form a weekly group even if the members are in different classes. 

In my own undergraduate years, I would form a group of a handful of other students, and we would meet up twice a week to work. Everyone was in different classes and had different work to do, but working together made it much more enjoyable.

4. Avoid Burnout at All Costs

The most important thing you can do to keep up with your college assignments, by far, is to avoid burnout. It doesn’t matter how on top of things you are the first few months if everything falls apart in the last weeks when assignments tend to be worth much more. 

Many other articles and academic advisors will stress that you must always put your college classes and their assignments first before anything. However, that’s bad advice. 

That’s the advice that led to a generation of burnt-out students and young adults. 

Burnout results from long exposure to stress, when you’re under the impression that you’re failing to keep up with your responsibilities or are just barely making it. It’s made up of physical, psychological, and relationship effects on the person ( source ).

Thankfully, the prevalence of burnout is becoming recognized as a serious problem, and universities are beginning to take notice of the effects it has on their student population.

Ultimately, before anything, the thing that should always come first is your own health and well-being. If you’re taking good care of yourself, then getting your work done throughout the whole semester will be much less stressful than if you’re overworking, undersleeping, and at your wits’ end on most days. 

The best way to get through the college semester and keep up with your assignments is to prevent burnout from happening in the first place. However, if you do feel as though you’re beginning to have some symptoms, then tackling that and getting your health in order should become the top priority. 

Once you’ve recognized that you’re experiencing burnout, if you ignore it and try to keep on trudging through the semester, then you can end up much worse off, both in your health and in your college classes.

Recognizing Warning Signs of Burnout

If you’re worried about whether or not you’re experiencing burnout, look back on the last few weeks of your life and make an honest assessment of how you felt on those days ( source ).

Additionally, begin to keep a journal where you can just quickly write down how you’re feeling physically and mentally. This can be a great tool for reference when looking for symptoms of burnout since memory isn’t always the most reliable guide. 

If you’re feeling some of these early signs, then you should seek some help before things begin to snowball:

• You’re feeling drained and exhausted most days.
• Having consistent body and headaches.
• Loss of appetite.
• Problems sleeping.
• Problems with feeling motivated.
• Easily feeling overwhelmed.
• Becoming apathetic towards school, work, and other pastimes.

If you’re experiencing some or all of these signs, then it’s time to seek some outside help. Most colleges provide free counseling services and support groups specifically for burnout since it has become such a burden on students. 

Additionally, it might not hurt to reach out to the professors of your classes. 

More often than not, they’ll be very empathetic and be willing to create a timetable for you to get back on track in a way that also allows you to recover from the effects of burnout at the same time. 

Ways To Combat Burnout

The best offense against burnout is a super strong defense. Taking care of yourself throughout the semester before things get out of hand will be incredibly helpful in keeping your stress levels at a manageable level. 

Taking a holistic approach to your life has been shown to do a lot of good when it comes to combating burnout in chronically stressful settings, such as college. 

Some of the best things you can do to stave off burnout are:

• Adopting a consistent exercise routine.
• Taking the time to eat well every day.
• Avoid alcohol and other drugs.
• Maintain your friendships and other relationships.
• Give yourself time to relax.

These are just some of the things you can do to try and keep up with your health and well-being. This is super important and will directly translate into further success in college as well ( source ).

Habits To Help Keep Up With College Assignments

Once the semester really begins to pick up, it can feel like you’re drowning in assignments, papers, and studying for exams. Once you start to fall behind, catching backup can be very difficult and exhausting. 

Keeping up with college assignments is a lot of hard work. 

Everyone struggles to keep up sometimes, so it’s not just you. Many college students feel alone in the struggle, so a good place to start is with the knowledge that this is something that all people at college struggle with from time to time, even the professors.

With this in mind, the difference between students who manage to keep up and those who don’t are usually the implementation of good habits. They have learned how or were taught how to study and work efficiently and have used that knowledge to make good habits to help succeed in college and later in their career too.

By learning what these habits are and practicing them in your own life, you’ll also start to see results in your success at college. 

Even when you stumble one week and find yourself procrastinating on an assignment, it’ll be much easier to get back on track if you’ve been practicing the following nine habits for keeping up with college assignments.

Final Thoughts

College is often talked about as some of the best and most exciting times of a person’s life. However, there’s a lot of stress and responsibility in college that isn’t talked about near enough.

Hopefully, with the habits I have discussed in the article, you’ll be able to have all of the fun the college experience has to offer while still keeping up with your college assignments and being successful in your classes!

Recommended Reading:

• Passing Grades in College: Understanding the Impact of a D
• Curved Grades – A Complete College Student’s Guide
• Unweighted vs. Weighted GPA Explained

Emily is an engineer at a Fortune 100 company. Her degree is in Chemical Engineering with minors in Mathematics and Chemistry. She completed 4 internships in college and graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2020. She is from Texas and currently lives in Seattle, WA. Emily loves hiking, traveling, and playing guitar. She is a very proud dog mom to her fur baby, Oliver.

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Easily distribute, analyze, and grade student work with Assignments for your LMS

Assignments is an application for your learning management system (LMS). It helps educators save time grading and guides students to turn in their best work with originality reports — all through the collaborative power of Google Workspace for Education.

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Bring your favorite tools together within your LMS

Make Google Docs and Google Drive compatible with your LMS

Simplify assignment management with user-friendly Google Workspace productivity tools

Built with the latest Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) standards for robust security and easy installation in your LMS

Save time distributing and grading classwork

Distribute personalized copies of Google Drive templates and worksheets to students

Grade consistently and transparently with rubrics integrated into student work

Add rich feedback faster using the customizable comment bank

Examine student work to ensure authenticity

Compare student work against hundreds of billions of web pages and over 40 million books with originality reports

Make student-to-student comparisons on your domain-owned repository of past submissions when you sign up for the Teaching and Learning Upgrade or Google Workspace for Education Plus

Allow students to scan their own work for recommended citations up to three times

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Protect student privacy — data is owned and managed solely by you and your students

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Compatible with LTI version 1.1 or higher and meets rigorous compliance standards

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Organized Chaos: College Assignment Tracker

January 26, 2016 · College

Every student needs this college assignment tracker!

College assignments are such a headache! That’s why I made a college assignment tracker. This semester, though it feels late in the game as I will graduate this year, I decided to start the semester off right. To do this I created an assignment and readings spreadsheet to track the due dates of all my assignments and what I should be reading each day for each class. I’m going to share how I designed my assignment and reading tracker.

I got the idea for a college assignment tracker from  Kirsten at Organized Charm and Dani at Dani Dearest . I think it’s amazing, however I changed it a little to fit my style and to include a reading tracker. As an English Major I read about 200 or more pages a week. Let me show and explain how I made and am using my assignment tracker.

NOTE: Set aside about 2 or 3 hours your first weekend back to school to go through your syllabuses and to set up the assignment spreadsheet. 

Trying to find the best way to manage your readings and assignments for college? Learn how to make a college assignment tracker now! Click To Tweet

STEP ONE: Gather Your Syllabuses and Highlighters 

The first step in making an assignment or reading tracker is to gather all of your class schedules and syllabuses. Go through each one, highlighting all big assignments like papers or tests. Once you’ve highlighted the important due dates and assignments then you’ve done one of the hardest parts.

STEP TWO: Create and Format your Spreadsheet

Create an Excel spreadsheet. Mine has four columns: Due Date, Class, Assignment and Points. This setup works best for me. I went through each syllabus and added the assignments. Once you made your spreadsheet begin to add your assignments. As I mentioned, I have a separate sheet for Assignments and another for Readings. With so many readings and assignments it felt to overwhelming the other way.

STEP THREE: Organize your Spreadsheet

I recommend adding your assignments or readings by date and then if you have another assignment on the same date or a previous date just click the insert row button. For me this was the easiest way to do it, though Kirsten and Dani both suggest the AZ Sort function. I organize my sheet by month, but you might find it easier to organize by class or even week. For my reading list I added an extra row between each week just so it felt more manageable.

STEP FOUR: Print & Staple

Once you’ve filled in your assignments check the print preview and make sure it all fits width wise on one sheet. You may have to play with font types or sized and the size of the columns until you get it just right. On my Readings sheet I deleted the Completed column because the readings are so long. In the end this worked out better as it is very easy to just highlight completed readings and the page doesn’t look super overwhelming.

You can also use it only on your computer or tablet. Microsoft makes an Excel for the iPad that I find easy to use and there is Google Sheets. These are both great options if you don’t want to print and keep track of your sheets as a hard copy or if you may have to add or change your sheets often.

Here are a few final tips:

• Make the time to setup your college assignment tracker.  Sure, it is tedious, but 2 or 3 hours at the beginning of the semester is worth it when you think of all the studying, reading and assignments you have to do over the semester. Being prepared now will help you considerably later in the semester.
• Actually use your assignment tracker!  This is a big point for me, because why go through the trouble of making a tracker if you don’t plan to keep up with it. I can tell you honestly that in the three weeks I’ve been in school this semester I have seen a major improvement in my stress level about assignments and readings.
• Don’t go crazy with highlighting or color coding. I considered coloring coding my spreadsheet, but decided it against it because with five classes and five colors the sheets would just become overwhelming and pointless in relieving stress about my assignments. Instead just make sure to mark what course each reading or assignment is for and then use a highlighter when completed or use the strikethrough option if you’re keeping a virtual copy.
• Adjust the format to fit your classes and style. There are many ways to set one of these up, just find what works for you. The only thing that matters is that you stick with it. This can’t work unless you make sure to use it. I’ve seeing a great improvement in my stress, time management and grades since creating and using my sheets.
• Only put the most necessary information on your tracker. Page numbers and due dates are important. School holidays like Spring or Fall break are important or if you’re on a quarter instead of semester schedule, those dates are important. Sorority, work, club or other types of events? Those are probably best left for your day planner.

Are you going to make a college assignment tracker? Share you experience with me!

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Twenty-six year old  living in the Charleston, SC, also known as the Holy City.

I graduated from the College of Charleston in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in English and I recently completed my master’s degree in Mass Communication specializing in Social Media at the University of Florida.

I spend my days on social media and handling the marketing for a local business. I’m also working to grow my own business offering social media and digital organization services.

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College Applications: How to Begin

Find the right college for you..

Applying to college is a big job. It can feel overwhelming. However, you can make the process much easier by breaking it down into small steps. Here's how.

How to Start Applying for Colleges

The good news is that most U.S. universities follow the same standard application process. If possible, begin the following four-step approach several months before the submission deadline.

• Understand the common terminology you'll see during the application process. Learning how to apply to college involves having a good grasp of such things as frequently used acronyms, supporting documents, and government departments.
• Review the appropriate application timeline you should follow when signing up for college. Every school has its own deadlines, but you may have certain milestones to hit during your senior or even junior year.
• Discover the individual components of a complete application . For example, schools usually ask for supplemental application materials like letters of recommendation, transcripts, and written essays.

• Create a real and a virtual folder for storing documents.
• Print a checklist to track your progress on each part of the application.
• Build a spreadsheet to stay on top of submission deadlines.
• Your Social Security number.
• Your high school code.
• A copy of your high school transcript.
• Your score report from a college admission test.
• Make sure you’ve included all required information and that the information filled out on the forms is accurate and spelled correctly.
• Confirm that any required attachments are the correct files and have been properly uploaded.
• Double-check that you filled out all fields and followed all instructions.
• Take a deep breath. Click submit !

Where do I start with college applications?

The first step is to do your research. Knowledge is power. Knowing what to expect from the application process makes a difference. Research the schools you're interested in applying to. Learn as much as you can about their admissions process.

What are the steps in the college application process?

Keep in mind that signing up for college is a multistep process. Among other key steps, you must fill out a standard application, acquire crucial support documents, and write personal essays. Although schools have different requirements, here are the main steps of the college application process:

• Create a list of colleges you're interested in.
• Research and visit schools to narrow down the list.
• Fill out the FAFSA®, and consider finances and scholarship opportunities.
• Get letters of recommendations, if required.
• Take college admission tests.
• Write your college application essay, if required.
• Complete your online application(s).
• If any of your target schools have their own institutional applications, complete those.
• Check and recheck your application documents before submitting them.

What should I do before I fill out my college application?

How do you apply for college without wasting time? Advisers often recommend gathering relevant documents before you begin. You can knock out the informative sections in one go, reducing your chances of making an error. Some of the basics you need include:

• Identity cards and Social Security number.
• School transcripts.
• Test scores.
• List of extracurriculars.
• List of awards and achievements.
• Recommendation letters, if required by the college.
• Application and school portal login credentials.

What are the most important parts of a college application?

College admissions officers consider many factors when reviewing applications. Among the most important factors are your grades and the courses you took.

The best approach to have when completing applications is to treat every part as important. Put your best foot forward in all areas. Make every part shine.

Now you're informed, inspired, organized, and ready to begin. For more on the college admissions process, visit Applying to College: FAQs .

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J.D. Martinez injury update: Mets DH could make season debut Friday after starting year with back issue

Martinez will continue his rehab assignment with a move to triple-a on tuesday.

J.D. Martinez is getting closer to joining the New York Mets . Martinez went 2 for 3 with a double for New York's Low Class-A affiliate on Sunday and will head to Triple-A on Tuesday, manager Carlos Mendoza said Sunday ( via SNY ). "Hopefully he's a player for us on Friday," Mendoza said, meaning he hopes all goes well in Triple-A and Martinez can be activated Friday.

Martinez, 36, signed a one-year, $12 million contract with the Mets on March 21 . He reported to the minors to prepare for the season, though a lower back issue kept him off the field from April 6 until Sunday. The back issue was serious enough to require a cortisone injection. Sunday's performance would seem to indicate Martinez's back is doing well.

J.D. Martinez lines a double to left for his second hit of the day in Port St. Lucie! pic.twitter.com/pgCLDLAV4k — SNY Mets (@SNY_Mets) April 21, 2024

Martinez has played only 12 innings in the field the last two seasons and he will serve as New York's everyday DH. DJ Stewart , owner of a .226/.432/.581 batting line with three home runs, has been the primary DH to begin the season. The numbers crunch could push Stewart to Triple-A. The Mets don't have another obvious demotion candidate.

Although he's no longer the all-around force he was in his prime, Martinez slashed .271/.321/.572 with 33 home runs for the Los Angeles Dodgers last season. The Mets rank middle of the pack with 22 home runs and a .392 slugging percentage, so Martinez's power bat will be a welcome addition to the lineup.

New York enters play Sunday on a six-game winning streak. They are 12-8 with a plus-21 run differential, and are 12-3 since starting the season 0-5.

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