3 Types of Writing Assignments and How to Deal With Them | Magical Educator
College writing assignments come in all shapes and sizes. And since you are going to be doing a lot of writing in college, you should definitely take your time to familiarize yourself with those and prepare for the challenges to come. Here are some of the most common types of writing assignments you will be faced with in college and ways how you can deal with them.
Formal writing is by far the most common type of writing assignments out there. It is used as a robust tool to assess the skills of the students in just about any field. It will put your writing skills to a real test as they require not only a solid understanding of the subject you are writing about but also the structure and style of academic writing.
Formal writing typically takes more time and effort to complete than its less serious counterparts. The topics it deals with are complex and layered. This also means that you will be allowed more time to complete these assignments. Although considering there may be a dozen more deadlines breathing down your neck it might not be that great of a trade-off.
Since time is a luxury, many college students look for ways to save as much of it as possible. One of the most common ways to do so is to have a reliable source of well-organized information you can fall back to whenever you need it. Luckily there is no shortage of academic websites and apps like proofread paper that can provide you with complete and comprehensive writing guides. And you don’t have to ask “help me with my homework“.
There are plenty of step-by-step guides on how to approach formal writing. But in order to be able to follow them efficiently, you should give yourself as much time as possible. Don’t delay dealing with your assignment until the last possible moment.
Start as early as possible. Space it out. Ideally, you should also make about day-long breaks in between every step. This will help you polish your writing and turn in the best version of it you can create instead of presenting your professor with a rushed and poorly edited paper.
With this type of writing, you can usually hang back and relax a bit. These types of assignments are as freeform as you are going to get in an academic setting. There is no specific time frame within a semester when you typically get those. There are fewer rules and limitations on the style and structure of your writing in this format. And the grading criteria are usually way more lenient.
Informal writing is typically used as a stepping stone in the students’ learning process. It helps them get confident in their writing skills without subjecting them to the pressure of overly strict guidelines and limitations. It is also frequently used as a communication device by professors that want to gain some insight into the students’ thoughts.
So the best thing you can do is to have fun with it. It’s a rare opportunity to let your creativity loose. Don’t be afraid to express your opinion on a topic even if it is subjective. Of course, there may still be some rules to the writing and you should absolutely honor those. But otherwise, it’s all fair game.
These types of paper writer assignments usually follow the same theme as the previous two. But with one crucial difference – you are faced with some serious limitations. You will most commonly run into this sort of work on exams where you will be asked to cover a certain topic in a limited amount of time. It may indeed seem like the most difficult form of writing. But if you manage to keep your cool, it’s actually pretty easy.
Don’t get fixated on the timer. You should be aware of the time you have left but not to the point where you can’t focus on anything else. You also won’t have an opportunity to start over so make sure your first draft is as good as you can make it. In order to minimize the amount of time spent idling, always have a solid plan of action that you follow step by step:
Familiarize yourself with the task;
Write a short and concise thesis statement;
Create a rough outline of your writing’s structure;
Fill the outline in by writing the paragraphs;
Proofread until it’s time to turn your assignment in.
Each of these steps is equally important. Familiarizing yourself with the task may seem like a waste of time. But it is actually vital to double-check that you understood everything perfectly. It is very easy to misread something when you are in a rush. And if that first step goes wrong your entire works will be absolutely worthless.
Another important thing is proofreading. With bigger assignments, you usually want to have a break between finishing your last draft and proofreading. With timed writing, you can’t afford this luxury. However, you should still make use of the time you have. If you finish writing early, don’t rush to turn it in immediately. Use the entirety of the remaining time to read through your work several times over.
Writing is not a skill you are born with. It can be developed just like any other. And even if you don’t have a particular affinity to writing in general, you absolutely can and should take your time to learn how to do it. Academic writing isn’t really as hard as you might think it is. All you need to know to be good at it is how to properly structure and express your thoughts while following a set of very clearly written guidelines.
The skills you develop through the course of writing (academic or otherwise) can be critical for your success later down the line. There is a reason this type of work is so popular in colleges. It really helps you grow academically and professionally. So don’t be intimidated by the next huge written assignment you get. Deal with it one step at a time and you will finish it in no time at all.
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