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Understanding the question

 What is your task?

Your assignment has two parts, explicit tasks such as topic and focus and implicit tasks which involve critical thinking and applied theory. We'll start with explicit tasks. You need to analyse the question so you should ask:

 What is the topic?

The topic should be easy to identify. It is always related to the course you are studying, sometimes to one particular aspect of it. For instance, communication theory might be part of your course. You will need to demonstrate that you have identified the topic correctly, probably by writing a few sentences about it in the introduction to your assignment.

 Keep focused!

What is the focus? Some assignments are more academic than others. More practical assignments ask you to link course materials (workbook and recommended readings) to an aspect, task or document from your professional practice. Both practical and academic assignments should be linked to your professional practice.

An example of the focus of an assignment could be 'language and genre', and how one differs from the other, even if the topic is the same. Again, you need to show that you understand the focus in your introduction and make sure that the critical commentary of your essay has that particular focus and no other.

 What are the instructions?

Instructions will vary. Sometimes you will be asked to provide examples of technical writing, sometimes you will have to design a document. You always have to write a critical commentary. The instruction words for the commentary tend to be 'analyse', 'review', 'evaluate'. These are important as they will determine the overall approach you take to your assignment. To find out what these words mean in an academic context look in the Study Guide (doc) (1mb).

 Critical thinking and applied theory

Not all you have to do is as clear and obvious as topic, focus and instruction.
It's likely that you can:

•  Use course materials
•  Use personal experience, and
•  Organise materials.

On a postgraduate course you are also expected to expand on what you already know. To do this you need to be able to apply theory to your professional practise. You also need to critically review the essay question.

 Critically reviewing the essay question

This means looking at the underlying assumptions made in assignment questions. You need to pull apart all assignment questions and identify what sub-questions and topics are involved. These will vary between assignments. For more information on identifying topics and sub-questions see the Study Guide (doc) (1mb).

  The fundamentals!

All Masters level assignments tend to make one fundamental assumption which students often forget about quite quickly. You must include a context/audience/tasks analysis as a foundation stone for your discussion and assignment commentary. If you don't how would we know that the document design decisions you have made have any objective validity?