The new academic year is under way. The first coursework is due in and the second hand-ins are on the way. This article focuses on a range of approaches which, if adopted when preparing coursework, could make the difference between a pass and a fail, or a 2:1 and a first. None of them are subject-specific but address the more generic aspects of how to approach coursework and the way it is written. While the advice is directed at coursework, most points apply to preparing client reports in practice.
1. Plan what and when you are going to do things
Prepare a graphic timeline showing dates, milestones and deadlines. This can be done on your PC, but nothing beats mapping it all on a sheet of paper so that it can be viewed and updated regularly. Stick it on your bedroom wall and mark up progress, blockages, and strategies to resolve them.
2. Read and reread coursework questions and briefs carefully
Look for and keep in mind the key “instruction word” or “word” – the verb: describe, examine, discuss, assess, evaluate, compare and contrast, etc. They are not the same and they are there for a purpose. They intend you to answer the question in a particular way.
Most coursework briefs often require you to go beyond descriptive facts and information and ask you to show your ability to evaluate and apply them. Many universities now use task-based criteria to help guide students as to what is expected for either or both:
a) the component technical parts of a coursework task; and
b) the key knowledge and skills being assessed.
These may also have weightings, which are there to guide you as to the relative importance of parts of a question or task. Whatever the case, do not ignore them. They are important. At final year and at postgraduate level in particular, that expectation is much stronger, such that:
- knowledge and understanding should be more systematic, extensive and, where appropriate, comparative level;
- cognitive skills are required to a higher level of conceptual understanding with the ability to develop and sustain particular lines of thinking and/or evidence of problem solving; and
- practical skills should evidence independence in completing tasks and, as appropriate, be commensurate to a professional standard expected in industry.
Sticking to the stated word length is also important. Not doing so – either under or over – may affect your final grade. Always read the small print and check whether it includes tables, graphs and footnotes.
3. Make your assumptions explicitly clear in your introduction, explain what you intend to cover and how you intend to do so
If a coursework brief is not entirely clear as to what is being sought or is deliberately open-ended, make your assumptions explicitly clear. That is, state what you understand the question is after and/or the interpretation of any word(s) or phrase(s) used.
Lecturers should not have to guess where an essay or project report is going. The introduction should make it clear where you will take the reader. You might also usefully make clear at the beginning what conclusions you hope to draw. This might not always be appropriate, but in general you are not writing a crime novel where everything is only revealed in the last chapter. In practice, clients often want to know what your recommendations or proposals are right at the beginning – and then the rest of the report is about how you got there and the supporting evidence.
Remember, too, that the opening paragraph will create an impression in the mind of the lecturer who is marking the work. Try and make it a positive one. This means spending time drafting and redrafting.
4. Practice-based work
Many practice-based tasks are multidisciplinary. Try using subject “coat hooks” on which to hang material. Many such tasks have some measure of legal, technical, economic, social, managerial and, sometimes, political dimensions. Use these coat hooks to gather material under these headings to help order and plan the work. However, remember that if it is a property law paper, the assessor is looking for legally based answers, not one addressing technical or policy based matters, unless they are pertinent to the case.
5. Try using graphic methods to help address the overall question and/or specific components of a task
Try and see the question as a whole and the context in which it sits (the wood as well as the trees). Then try and break it into parts by using mind maps, spider or Venn diagrams to help unscramble your thoughts and ideas, as well as help structure a concept or idea. See, for example, the Venn diagrams contained at www.vennage.com/templates/charts.
Remember, illustrations can often be more expeditious than written text in explaining structures, processes and relationships. The ability to illustrate a situation, process, or concept can often be a good signal to a tutor (or client) that you understand and explain the essence of something in an easily assimilated format. Don’t forget to annotate your graphics: this is important. Photographs of buildings and views for example, should always be tied to a map showing the location and direction they were taken.
6. The judicious use of headings where appropriate can be helpful, as is the annotation of numerical answers
This can be helpful in framing the structure of answers and helpful to assessors by highlighting the overall content and balance of submitted work. Nothing is worse for a marker than being confronted with page after page of unbroken text.
Unless you are told otherwise, annotate numerically based workings – even though you might assume component parts of a calculation are self-evident. Valuations, for example, should always make clear the evidence for where the numbers come from and the assumptions made in using them. Lecturers expect this and, in practice, clients will too.
7. Avoid generalisations and inaccurate scope
Avoid making unsubstantiated generalisations. Reference, for example, to planners or developers needs to be considered and written carefully. Not all planners and developers in all situations and locations either think or act in the same way.
If you are asked, for example to discuss housing problems in the UK, don’t simply address the housing problems of England, to the exclusion of Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.
8. Answer the question, not the generality of the topic
It is so easy to lose the particular direction of the question (or at worst ignore it or miss it in the first place). Where appropriate, it may be a good idea to explicitly refer back to the question or particular phrases or words in it, within the body of the answer. This reminds the person marking that you are trying to pay attention to the question or task.
In terms of good reasoning, mathematician AN Whitehead once said: “The art of reasoning consists in getting hold of the subject at the right end… seizing on the few general ideas that illuminate the whole… and persistently organising subsidiary facts around them. Nobody can be a good reasoner unless by constant practice he has realised the importance of getting hold of the big ideas and hanging on to them like grim death.”
9. Acknowledge and reference everything and do so meaningfully
No matter what referencing system you use, though Harvard is the most commonly used, acknowledge and reference everything you have used in the preparation of a piece of work.
A classic thing many students do, is to quote sources as if they all had the same value and weighting. Good work will always have regard to who in particular has said something, what their background and experience is, the context in which they said what they said and the date they said it. Another pitfall is making reference to “the government” when the government that may have said something is no longer in office.
Another typical error is to make reference to a source that is embedded with a book but not citing the book itself and its author. You must cite both.
10. Provide a strong summary and conclusion, then revisit your work
It is crucially important to summarise the main points covered, what your conclusions are and how you arrived at them. If you don’t do this, lecturers (and later, clients) may think you do not recognise what is important in the work undertaken. Not doing this will almost always lose marks or grades – sometimes quite considerably. One other thing you should never do is introduce new cited evidence in the summary and conclusion that you have not already referred to in the text.
Once complete, leave at least a full day before the deadline, to read back through and make corrections and amendments. The result of such a review might mean the difference between a pass and fail or a 2:1 and a first.
Paul Collins is a senior lecturer at Nottingham Trent University and Mainly for Students editor and Jen Lemen is co-founder of Property Elite
