Planning and Structuring Assignments

Planning your content

Prior knowledge and resources

As you start to plan your answer, the first step should be to consider what you already know about the topic. Think about what has been covered in your lectures/seminar/labs/reading – you may already have quite a lot of relevant information to help you. Likewise, check to see if there are any online reading lists available as these are a very useful starting point.

From here you should have a good idea of what aspects of the question you will need to research in greater detail and where to focus your reading.

When you are reading, your note taking should be an active process. This means engaging with the text rather than just being a passive reader mindlessly highlighting large chunks of text. Here are some key tips to make sure you are an active reader/note-taker:

• Keep your notes selective and concise
• Write notes in your own words as this will help your understanding of the topic
• If you do want to use any direct quotations, keep them short and purposeful. Also, remember to note down the page number straight away so you don’t struggle to find it later!
• Look out for links between what you are reading and what you’ve previously read - do authors agree/disagree? Are theories/models well supported/poorly supported? Are there key challenges?
• Use sub-headings to organise your notes as this well help when you come to write your essay plan.
• Don’t be afraid of making your notes memorable – use colours, underlining and highlighting to draw attention to important information.

For more information, visit our online study guides for critical writing and effective reading.

Throughout this process you should try to reflect on your position in relation to the question and start thinking about what your conclusion might be. This is especially important for questions that are looking for you to give your verdict or opinion on a topic/debate. To help support this it can be useful to try and sum up your argument in one or two short sentences; this helps to ensure that your argument is clear and will help keep your response well-structured and coherent once you start writing.