Assignment writing - some advice

You (as a student) are sometimes required to write assignment reports as your subject courseworks; these assignment reports are different from a typical dissertation report in the following ways:

a. There is no need to formulate a specific research design. Especially, it is not required to gather primary data for analysis
b. There is no need to develop a theoretical framework in the literature review exercise to guide a specific reseach design. On the other hand, it may still be useful to come up with a synthesized theoretical framework for carrying out some form of theory-driven analysis and evaluation in the assignment work, for example, to evaluate other writers' publications
c. There is no need to validate management theories with empirical data gathered by you (also refer to point a above).
d. You are not expected to conduct serious statistical analysis using secondary data.
e. The requirement to come up with assignment objectives that have academic and practical values is less demanding as that of a dissertation report.

Thus, assignment reports are not the same as dissertation reports. However, certain dissertation/ research skills are applicable in assignment works, namely.

a. Literature review skills
b. Theory-driven analysis of facts gathered from the literature review
c. Clear referencing in harvard referencing format
d. Clear assignment essay title, and subtitles (preferably with outlining)
e. Ability to write in descriptive, evaluative and discussion modes. It is useful to make use of real-life examples as illustrations to support your viewpoints in your discussion.
f. Ability to express ideas clearly and logically in English without grammatical errors and in an organized way

In general, an assignment report has the following structure:

Assignment essay titlc
1. Introduction
2. Describe the main concepts and theories of the assignment topic chosen
3. An evaluation of the topic area (by comparing the ideas/ viewpoints of various writers on the topic chosen; by reviewing the status of application of the theories under review; and presenting your own views on the topic with justifications, preferably with real-life examples)
4. Conclusions and recommendations
References
Appendix

The assignment may require you to write an executive summary, sometimes not. Usually, it is a good practice to provide a table of content for your assignment.

Some assignment tasks require you to do a case study on a specific company. Often, the case provided to you does not provide all the information that you would like to have. In this case, you need to do some Internet search to learn about the company and its context. Often, it is useful to explore the problem situation facing the company by drawing a rich picture diagram (a soft systems methodology technique) of it.

Overall, you can still learn from articles on certain topics in dissertation/ research report writings for your assignment work preparation. I offer the following articles for your references:

1. http://josephho33.blogspot.com/2011/08/literature-review-of-research-subject.html
2. http://josephho33.blogspot.com/2011/08/plagiarism-what-plagiarism.html
3. http://josephho33.blogspot.com/2011/08/determination-of-your-standpoint-in.html
4. http://josephho33.blogspot.com/2011/08/use-of-theoretical-frameworks-in.html
5. http://josephho33.blogspot.com/2011/07/stem-as-critical-success-factors-in.html
6. http://josephho33.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-contemplate-contemporary-issues.html

When you write an assignment, consider the following ideas:

• try to write what you know about the subject based on your literature review
• try to write something that can make an impact on your readers;
• try to write what you want to know (ie make use of writing as a means of thinking and exploring the subject matter.)