Objective
In this lesson, you will learn how to gain a better understanding of a writing
assignment.
Introduction
A beautifully written essay expressing brilliant ideas can still get a failing
grade if it doesn't fit the assignment. Writing of any kind must fulfill its
purpose to be successful, and in academic writing that purpose is dictated by
your assignment. If you want to be successful as a writer in an academic environment,
you have to know what the assignment is asking you to do; that's the first step.
The final step is evaluating whether or not you've done what was asked. Those
two steps comprise the bookends that fit around any writing you do for a class
assignment.
How do you analyze an assignment?
You begin by paying careful attention
to everything the teacher has written or said about the assignment. Look at
everything and ask yourself some very basic questions about the assignment.
Some typical questions might be:
1. When is the assignment due? This will help you determine how long
you have to work on it. Don't forget to plan time to revise your first draft
at least once, if not more.
2. What does the assignment cover? You'll want to know if you need
to read a specific story, for example.
3. Do I need to do any outside research? This information is important
to help you plan your time and to help you plan what you're going to write!
4. What are the format guidelines for the assignment? Is there a specific
format you need to follow? What is the page length? Do you need to use a specific
style guide to document your sources? These things don't deal so much with
what you write as how you present it, but they are important considerations.
You'll have to know the answer to questions like these before you finalize
the writing to turn in for a grade.
5. What are the content guidelines for the assignment? This deals
with the heart of the assignment: what are you being asked to do in this writing?
If you don't know the answer to this question, you MUST talk with your teacher.
If you don't know what you're supposed to do, how will you know where to start
and how will you know if you've succeeded when you've finished writing? Having
a clear understanding of the requirements of the assignment is absolutely
essential.
Task Words
Teachers don't intentionally try to confuse their students-really, they don't!
Usually, your assignment will contain "task words" that will help
you get a clear sense of your purpose (what you are supposed to really accomplish
in a particular piece of writing). Look at your assignment sheet, and underline
task words; this will help you understand what is being asked of you in the
assignment. Here are a few typical tasks that you might find in a college writing
assignment:
- Describe Telling the reader what you see, or what you feel, for example,
might be something you would do in response to a "describe" assignment.
When you do that, you'll want to use a lot of concrete words and you'll want
to use a lot of sensory details to make your description vivid for your reader.
When you describe something, ask yourself what you see, what you hear, what
you feel, what you taste, or what you smell. Answer those questions for your
reader to provide a vivid description.
o Example Topic: Describe your first day in college.
o Exercise: Give a two or three sentence explanation of what you
would need to include in this essay.
o Answer: You would need to use details to describe the events
of the day or the things you felt that day. You might talk about a racing
heart or sweaty palms as you walked into your first college class. You
might talk about the near panic you had when you couldn't find a parking
place. You could describe the preparation you had before that first day-how
you went and got shiny new notebooks for each of your classes, and made
sure that you had a new pen and a sharp pencil and a schedule book for
your assignments.
- Analyze Typically an analysis asks you to look at how or
why. When you're asked to analyze something, the teacher wants you to
take an in-depth look at something. This key word is telling you that you
need to go below the surface and really take a look at whatever you're writing
about.
o Example Topic: Analyze a TV commercial or print ad of your choice.
o Exercise: Give a two or three sentence explanation of how you
would approach this assignment.
o Answer: You would need to very briefly describe the ad or the
commercial and then you would want to look at what the different elements
in the piece contribute to the overall effect. For example, you might
talk about how the young characters appeal to a youthful audience, or
how an authority figure like a doctor gives the appearance of truth to
the message. The idea is to talk about what the things you see really
do to convey a message that may or may not be readily apparent.
- Compare or Contrast These words indicate that you should look at
similarities and differences. How are your subjects alike? How are they different?
Generally you're also going to want to make some sort of comment about why
those similarities and differences are important.
o Example Topic: How is being a college student like or unlike being
a high school student?
o Answer: In this essay you would look at the things that are different
about being a student in college and the things that are the same. If there
are no similarities, that's okay too. You just need to point that out to the
reader.
- Define When you see define, your teacher is asking you for
more than a dictionary definition. You may be asked to define an abstract
term, for example. Defining frequently uses other development methods such
as illustration and example to help you explain what a term means to you.
o Example Topic: Define patriotism.
o Answer: This kind of topic requires you to look at what the term
means to you personally. You might give examples of things that are patriotic
actions. You might talk about what you think it means to be patriotic. You
could also contrast that with what isn't patriotic to you.
- Evaluate When you see this word you're being asked to supply your
own judgment. When you evaluate something you give your opinion, but that
opinion needs to be supported with good evidence and solid reasons.
o Example Topic: Evaluate the author's use of symbols in the poem.
o Answer: You would need to do two things in this essay. You would
first need to tell what the symbols are and how they are used, and then
you would need to say whether or not you think they're effective-and you
would also have to explain why you think that way.
-
Argue This isn't asking you to pick a fight! It's asking you to
take a stand on one side or the other of a controversial topic. When you
present an argument you defend or explain your point of view on an issue.
o Example Topic: Smoking should (or should not) be banned in all
restaurants.
o Answer: The first thing you have to do is decide whether you're
going to take a positive or negative stand on the issue. Then your job is
to convince your readers that you have a legitimate opinion on the subject.
You don't have to make them agree with you; you just have to make them agree
that your opinion is valid.
These task words will help you understand what your teacher is asking
you to do. They don't necessarily limit the way you can develop your writing
assignment, however. You can use illustration, or examples, to help you define
an abstract term. You can include comparison as part of an analysis. The key
words may or may not indicate the method of organization you'll need to use
in the writing assignment. But the will provide some information about what
your teacher wants you to accomplish in an essay.
Key Words
In addition to the task words that tell you how you should approach the topic,
teachers frequently include key words to help you focus on the topic and understand
how to design your approach to a topic. Let's look at a sample assignment and
see what some of those key words might be.
Assignment:
Many of the decisions we make in life seem unimportant at the time we make
them, but later they turn out to have been major decisions that had a great
influence on where we are now. Discuss one such decision you made and the
impact it had on your life.
Exercise: Pick out the key words you think are important in that assignment
and write them in the box below. When you're finished, click to compare your
answers to ours.
Answer: decisions, unimportant, major decisions, influence, where
we are now
Why do you think those key words are so important? It's because they're telling
me the things that I need to include in my essay if I want to fulfill the
requirements for this assignment. The teacher is giving me the map for my
essay. I need to:
1. Describe, briefly, a decision that I made that seemed to be no big deal
at the time. This will include telling the reader why I thought that it
wasn't an important decision.
2. The bulk of my essay will be the discussion of how that decision turned
out to have been a major decision. Even if I don't use these exact words,
I will address this by saying "This turned out to be a major decision
because _____."
3. Finally, I'll need to address how that decision affected the direction
of my life and helped to get me to where I am now. Again, I'll try to use
specific words from the assignment to indicate that I am responding to the
assignment. I might say something like this: "It's been ten years since
I made that initial decision to put off going to college for a year. Now
instead of worrying about getting a date for Saturday night I'm worrying
about getting a babysitter so I can go to the library to do research for
a paper that's due next week."
Final Tips
When you look at an assignment, take a few minutes to make sure you understand
what it's asking you to do. If you don't know any of the words used in the assignment
description, make sure you look them up, and write down definitions. It might
also help for you to put the assignment into your own words. Write it out at
the beginning of your document. Doing this will force you to really think about
what your teacher is asking you to do. Then,
1. Look at the format requirements.
2. Look at the content requirements.
a. Check for task words that will help you determine how to approach
the topic.
b. Check for key words that will give you your focus and tell you what you
must include in the content.
3. Write your first draft.
4. Go back and read your draft to make sure that you've really addressed the
assignment. Underline words in your draft that show where and how you've done
what the assignment is asking you to do. If you can't find any words to underline,
look again at the assignment. You may have taken a wrong turn somewhere in
the writing process.
Summary
After reading this lesson, you should have a clear understanding of how to move
from assignment to actual essay draft. Remember: it's important to make sure
you understand every assignment before you begin to write; so, keep these tips
in mind as you approach your future writing projects.
  
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