Planning your assignment

Before you begin reading this guide, you should consult our introductory guide: Understanding your assignment brief. This will help you to ‘unpack’ the assignment question (or title) so that you have a better idea of what your lecturer is looking for. 

Once you have done this, you will need to investigate the assignment brief further. You may be provided with further information from your lecturers, such as the assessment criteria or additional information you should refer to. Key questions to find out:  

• What is the format that is expected of your assignment, a report or essay?  
• What is the word limit? 
• What criteria are being used to assess your work?  
• Are you being referred to specific sources of information?  
• What is the deadline? 

Once you have broken down and understood your assessment question/task, you can start to jot down your ideas, organise your research, and figure out exactly what point(s) you want to argue. Here is a practice activity you can try if you are struggling to get going with responding to the assessment question/task:  

• Try to come up with a one-word answer to the assessment question/task (‘yes,’ ‘no,’ ‘maybe’ – or perhaps two words: ‘not quite;’ ‘only sometimes’).  
• Then expand the one-word answer into a sentence summarising your reason for saying that.  
• Then expand that sentence into three sentences, giving slightly more detail. This could be the beginning of your plan.  

Mind-maps are useful for getting all your ideas onto one page and establishing a sensible structure. Create mind-maps digitally on software such as Mindview  or Coggle

Firstly, try re-phrasing the assignment question (title) into your own words as this will help you to understand it and prompt ideas for your response. Then record the information you have so far in a mind-map, using individual words or short phrases only.

Example mind map: University of Adelaide Writing Centre

The following two activities from De Montfort University can also be used to help you plan the initial note-taking and planning stages of your assignment at Abertay, and to think about which planning technique best suits you. 

• A good place to start is writing notes about what you know already about your question / title or assignment task. By doing this, you may discover that you know more than you originally thought. 
• Refer to your lecture notes and course materials for initial references. 
• Then ask yourself some questions about the title – i.e.  Is the subject important? Why? What are the current views or research?   
• Apply these key words to your subject: What, Who, When, Where, How and Why to develop your thoughts further 

Higher Education Assignment Toolkit. © De Montfort University 2010 

• Finally, look at your plan, and take a different colour pen and underline or write notes on the things you need to find out or you don’t know. This will be your ‘jobs to do list’. By doing this, you will use your time efficiently and not waste time making notes on areas that you don’t need. 
• Even though you have just started planning, you should start thinking about your overall argument. As you read and research, you should remain open to the ideas of others as they may influence you and cause you to change your initial opinions. 
• Even at the start, it could be useful to measure the balance of points you want to make. Using the marking scale: 50/50, 70/30, 60/40? 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100, where would you place your views at this stage in your planning?  Your overall argument may not be clear at this stage, and very often it is not about finding reasons for or against. Instead, your aim is to make ‘a careful judgement after balanced consideration of all aspects of a topic’ (McMillan and Weyers 2006 p137). 

• From your plan pick out the most relevant points. Do not include any points where you have no evidence to use as support. 
• Consider your reader carefully. Don’t include too much background information in your essay or report.  Ask yourself whether the points you have made specifically answer the question you have been set. 
• Decide how you will present the information (points or arguments you want to make) in logical order, 
• Plan a logical structure chart in paragraphs, under headings or in sections.