Resources

Assignment Preparation

Look at your weekly schedule and identify the times available for working on your major assignments and essays. If there are no times remaining for these, you will have to consider whether you are overcommitted and need to limit the time associated with some of your extra-curricular activities (clubs, teams, etc.) or possibly withdraw from one or two of them altogether.

While some students are able to work at a steady pace throughout the term, most students find that they work to deadlines, increasing the amount of time they spend on assignments as the submission deadlines approach. If you work this way, then you will need to make sure that you have a good deal of flexible time in your schedule. Identify what part of your schedule can realistically be changed in times of high demand.

Some useful time management strategies include:

  1. Block off a bit of time each week to work on your assignments, no matter when they are due. Identify times during the week where you know you can add more hours, if necessary, as you get closer to the deadline.
  2. Review a completed sample of the schedule by clicking the button below.
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SPARK York University

Module Objectives

This module on understanding assignments provides strategies for:

  • understanding the general requirements of an academic assignment
  • determining the purpose of an assignment in order to guide the writing process
  • discovering types of assignments and their corresponding signal words
  • noting various disciplinary approaches
  • defining the audience and considering its role in the assignment