What Are the 7 Steps for Writing an Assignment?

Writing assignments may sound easy, but there are several challenging tasks associated with them. Students who are new to academic writing might face even more challenges than those who have years of experience with such tasks. Students tend to get into trouble even with the basic structure and work of the assignment; writing it is an entirely different thing to indulge in. Therefore, having some prior information about these assignments, along with a step-by-step guide, is mandatory so that the basis of writing remains clear. Problems that students may face include complex assignment requirements, confusion with formatting, developing a thesis statement, lack of confidence, and research skills.

Students, while writing an assignment, may require help, which can be acquired from our expert writers. They are well-equipped to write an informative and well-formatted piece of work. Let us discuss the steps students must consider the writing process for an assignment.

Types of Assignments

Before we proceed to discuss the steps of the assignment, let's understand assignments and what they include. This will help you manage each type of assignment as per its requirements and academic nature:

1. Essays: These are comparatively argumentative, expository, narrative, or descriptive, requiring a thesis and structured arguments to support their claims. An essay may be formal or informal and may be of long or short length depending on its intention and the audience. They are usually applied to impart information, criticize ideas, or convince the reader.
2. Reports: Reports are documents in which the information is presented in a systematic and objective way in reference to the intended audience and a definite aim. They tend to evaluate facts, events, or situations, and they can back their assertions with facts and data.
3. Case Studies: A case study is a detailed account of a particular subject, such as a person, group of people, place, phenomenon, or organization, designed to learn about its complexities and dynamics, as well as its context. This in-depth analysis of a specific scenario is standard in business or social sciences.
4. Literature Reviews: A literature review is a codification and assessment of the literature on a particular subject. It gives an overview of the existing knowledge, names the most important researchers, theories, and methodologies, and points out the existing gaps in the research.
5. Presentations: Visual or oral assignments requiring clear communication. A presentation refers to the process of passing information to a given group, which usually takes the form of a speaker and some form of visual aid, such as a slide. 

Seven Steps for Writing an Assignment

There are mainly seven stages of writing process, which you must be in your knowledge before you start the work:

Step 1: Understand the Assignment

This is the most crucial step of writing an assignment, as it forms the base of your work and how it is going to be constructed further. The more clearly you understand the needs and requirements of the assignment, the better it will be written. It is not only necessary but vital that students learn to recognize the difference between the prompt and off-topic work and the inability to deliver all requirements in the narrowing of the prompt to a smaller grade. Consider the guidelines mentioned below: 

• Read the text thoroughly, taking in all the words, sentences, and paragraphs, and examine every detail. 
• You will have to seek action verbs such as analyze, compare, contrast, describe, evaluate, explain, summarize, argue, discuss, etc., as these verbs will tell you what you have to do with the information.
• Get familiar with the concrete area or concept to which the given assignment is devoted.
• It is essential to keep track of the word count or the number of words on a page, as this gives you an idea of how in-depth you need to be.
• When the prompt is complicated, break it into tiny, manageable units.
• Determine the fundamental question and be aware of the basic question or issue you are required to answer in writing process steps for better results.
• If anything in the prompt is unclear, confusing, or appears contradictory, please clarify it.
• Know the standards by which your assignment will be measured, such as clarity, organization, research, argumentation, and grammar.

Step 2: Conduct Preliminary Research

Preliminary research develops a basic level of understanding of your subject that defines main themes and identifies sources. Based on what you already know about the assignment prompt, enumerate the main concepts, theories, historical events, or people related to your topic. The research before starting to write is essential to provide evidence in support of your argument. Maintain the following key points when you research: 

• Before starting the research, it is essential to get an overview of your topic from larger and more accessible sources.
• Good sources of basic knowledge include your course textbook or other relevant textbooks focused on the general field.
• Refer to academic or government sites, university libraries, or popular organizations on your subject.
• Reading introductory materials, you will probably meet new words, names, and ideas.
• At this point, you do not read all the words of all sources. Instead, you are seeking topicality.
• Check headings, subheadings, and abstracts, and scan titles, as they provide an overview of the source, including its format and significant ideas.
• When reading the literature, scan through the pages to seek possible mentions of scholarly books, articles in journals, and credible reports.
• At this initial phase, you can begin taking notes. Write an initial set of notes and note sources. 

Step 3: Brainstorm Ideas

Brainstorming is the third step in the seven stages of writing process, which involves generating a range of ideas, arguments, examples, and methods related to your subject without immediately passing judgment or worrying about structure. Brainstorming sparks creativity and helps identify unique angles for your assignment:

• Write all the ideas on the subject matter without censoring.
• Go and put a 5-10 minute timer and write and write about what you know about the topic of the assignment.
• Do not think about grammar, spelling, or connectedness. That is, write down every thought you have.
• To drive your structure, build on these ideas when creating headers and subheadings.
• Try mind mapping or free writing as a means to uncover the links between thoughts.
• Write out bullet or numbered points of all ideas or arguments, evidence, or questions that come to mind related to your topic. 
• Take the old Q&A formula, Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How, and use it on your topic or narrower areas of your topic.
• Develop counterarguments or second thoughts to anything that comes first to your mind. 
• Priority of quality over quantity in this stage. You can organize and narrow it down afterward. Some contrived ideas that appear to be failures may be the catalyst for brilliant ones.

Step 4: Create an Outline

The second most significant challenge is to develop a detailed outline. An outline would be like a blueprint for your assignment; it gives you a systematic plan to follow, which helps you to organize your thoughts, study, and arguments systematically. This aids the idea of consistency, wholeness, and flow of ideas so that you avoid jumping around and rambling incoherently with information.

• Write a working thesis statement based on what you know about the assignment and what little research you have done so far. This is the argument that you want to prove or argue out.
• Determine the significant parts of your assignment. An academic assignment typically consists of an introduction, body, and conclusion. 
• Cluster your central ideas. Make sure that the outline meets all the assignment requirements and learning objectives.
• Split up between sub-points, and under each main point, figure out the key ideas, arguments, or snatches of evidence.
• In points within the sub-points, provide certain examples, facts, statistics, quotations, or even theoretical frameworks that you have found in your research and that will justify your statements.

Step 5: Write the First Draft

This is the step in which you transfer your well-planned outline to a flowing prose. The key attitude to adopt during this phase is to focus on recording your ideas rather than striving for perfection. This concerns turning your outline points into sentences and paragraphs and framing your arguments while integrating your evidence. Do not waste time on perfectionism yet, and realize that you will have plenty of time to showcase your creative writing skills or to work out and refine it afterward. Look after a few of these points: 

• Proceed methodically through your outline, point by point, section by section. It serves as your road map, making sure you cover everything and keep things coherent.
• Avoid the temptation to correct every spelling, punctuation, or awkward sentence. This will cause you to slow down and interfere with your ability to think clearly.
• Make a brief note and continue if you are unclear about a sentence structure or word choice.
• It's acceptable if the first draft isn't always good. It's supposed to be challenging and will require a significant amount of work.
• Include the proof you found throughout your initial research and brainstorming sessions. Ensure that you properly introduce each piece of evidence and discuss its significance.
• Leave your work untouched for a while, as it will give you a fresh perspective on your writing. 

Step 6: Revisiting and Editing 

The sixth step now is revising and editing your assignment. This is where you take that lump of clay and make a final, polished, coherent, and competent piece of academic work. This is a reiterating procedure and can be lengthier than you would expect:

• Revision is the rewriting in order to change the content, structure, and logical flow of your argument.
• Make sure that each and every piece of information that you have borrowed, quotes, paraphrases, summaries, and data includes the appropriate in-text citation based on the style required.
• These are some of the important questions you need to ask yourself in regard to your assignment. Have you covered every aspect of it? Is your paper satisfying all the requirements?
• Go through the assignment prompt again. 
• Make sure that the consecutive paragraphs/sections make a logical flow of ideas.
• Transitional words and phrases like however, therefore, in addition, consequently, etc. will help the reader in order to transition between ideas as well as paragraphs.
• Make sure that it is attractive to the reader, gives them background information, and, most importantly, gives a clear introduction to your thesis. 
• After you have done enough tinkering with the major structural and content changes, start editing, which involves working on grammar, spelling, punctuation, and formatting.
• Check the proper use of commas, semicolons, colons, apostrophes, quotation marks, and periods.
• Slowly read your paper, even backward, to get spelling mistakes that cannot be detected by the spell-checkers.
• Make a comprehensive and correctly structured list of sources that you used at the end of your paper, keeping to the required style of citations. Always compare all the details and make sure that they are accurate and consistent.
• It would be a good idea to read your paper aloud to detect some awkward wordings, faults in grammar, and interrupted sentences.
• Have someone that you trust, or someone who is your friend or writing tutor, to read your paper.

Step 7: Proofread and Review

After putting in a great deal of effort to comprehend all the 7 steps of writing process, research, plan, draft, and then carefully revise and edit your work, the last step is to give your project one last comprehensive review before turning it in. This is your last chance to make sure everything is flawless and to catch any previous mistakes. Take a few hours or perhaps a day off from your work after drafting and editing it, and then proofread it. Errors are much easier to identify with a new perspective:

• You can identify odd word choices, grammatical mistakes, and missing words that your eyes might overlook when reading silently by reading your complete project out loud.
• Pay close attention to common errors, words that are used repeatedly, or words that are misused.
• Sometimes, mistakes you missed on screen become apparent when you examine your work on paper.
• Verify the general layout, page numbers, paragraph breaks, and headings for uniformity quickly.
• Make sure you have a backup copy of your assignment in at least one other place, both before and after submitting it.
• Check whether you fulfilled all the requirements of the assignment that were mentioned in the prompt. 
• Examine whether you meet the maximum or minimum work requirement. 

Tips for Success

Apart from these seven steps to writing, there are some tips you must consider to enhance the quality of the work:

• Be very keen on what your instructor talks about concerning the topic and which specific points they seem to be particularly interested in, beyond providing examples.
• Write a powerful, distinct working thesis statement as early as possible to act as the basis of the whole argument and offer a direction. 
• Learn your audience because it will affect your tone, the kind of details you give, and the background information you suppose your reader to possess.
• In the first stages of writing, do not be afraid of seeking the input of other writers at your own university writing center on your drafts. 
• As long as it is possible, take samples of assignments that scored very well in the past semesters from your professor. 
• It is not just to read or listen. Participate in the course via questions, thorough notes, and making connections to other issues. 
• Make sure you sleep well, eat well, and have breaks. Burnout may be devastating to your productivity and quality of performance.
• Do not forget to check your graded work. Know in which areas you lost points. 
• Realize that writing is not always a straight line. After taking a draft, you may go around again to research or outline. 
• Be adaptable and ready to improve your strategy when new concepts come up.
• It is, therefore, vital to complete or save your work often and plan accordingly to turn it in happenings earlier before the deadline.
• Sometimes, you loose the deadline and how much work you have completed, but with the help of assignment tracker you can manage your assignment. 

Common Mistakes to Avoid

There are specific mistakes students make in different phases of the writing process that impact the overall performance of the assignment.  There is no doubt that you must avoid these common mistakes to enhance the quality of your writing: 

• Alluding to a claim without proper backup of credible sources or based on weak/irrelevant evidence.
• Using words or ideas of another person without scrupulously acknowledging them.
• Many spelling, grammatical, and punctuation mistakes seem to diminish professionalism and readability.
• The inability to thoroughly read and comprehend the instructions in an assignment may lead to off-topic and unfinished pieces of work.
• It is an undoing of the paper to have a generalized, too broad, or lack of a thesis.
• The hard-to-follow assignment is characterized by disorganized paragraphs, illogical development of ideas, and the lack of clear topic sentences and transitions.
• Failure to use the required style (e.g., APA or MLA) of in-text citations and reference lists.
• Last-minute preparation of the assignment results in poor work and more errors.
• Failure to consider and discuss the contrary argument dilutes the entire argument.
• Employing slang, contractions, or a conversational pattern when mere form and objectivity are called upon in an academic paper.
• When borrowing a lot of other people's quotes, it means that they have no idea.
• Completing the initial draft without a proper review of errors, clumsy language, and incomplete information.

Practice Exercises

• Exercise 1: Read a sample assignment brief and list its key requirements, such as word count and structure.
• Exercise 2: Create a one-page outline for a hypothetical essay topic, including a thesis statement.
• Exercise 3: Write a paragraph with two citations in APA style, then check for accuracy.
• Exercise 4: Proofread a short draft and identify at least five errors, such as grammar and punctuation.
• Exercise 5: Start describing your surroundings, form stories, and read them from time to time. It enhances writing skills. 
• Exercise 6: Edit someone else’s work and check everything from statements to grammar and punctuation. 
• Exercise 7: Get a picture and write a story on it that perfectly goes with the image.

Conclusion

Writing assignments are a task that requires a proper understanding of format, styles, and the prompt, with 7 steps of writing process. Each step from preliminary research to writing a draft to proofreading everything plays a vital role in bringing perfection to your writing. Enlighten yourself about the basics of writing and avoid some common mistakes that may have a huge impact on your assignment, and keep exercising to bring clarity and focus. During the process, getting stressed and having several issues is normal, and seeking help and advice from the trusted ones will provide guidance.