The Ultimate Guide to Assignments

Michael Scott, The Office Season 5: Episode 11

How often do you find yourself staring at your device for hours or taking a break after writing the title of your assignment? Some might find the above scene relatable; describing how they feel about starting an assignment that is all Greek to them. The release of assignments might come like a bolt from the blue for some students, signalling the start of a ‘busy season’ where most of us will be stuck at our desks all day. With these assignments accounting for a big part of our final grade, Taylor’s Lexicon interviewed Dr Harmahinder, Dr Tamara, Dr Ambikai and Ms Saratha to give law students some valuable tips regarding assignments.

This article is split into parts; effective steps to take when approaching an assignment question, the big no-nos, and the yes please dos. Lately, as an added bonus, Lexicon has included some golden nuggets of wisdom that our beloved lecturers gave to us.

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Effective Steps When Approaching an Assignment Question

1. Start From Day 1

The typical dilemma of a university student: “Should I start my assignment today or can I do it tomorrow?” Assignments in law school are often given out in quick succession with the various assignment periods occurring simultaneously. Thus, all lecturers advise students to take the reins of their time. Don’t be driven by a deadline which often results in students throwing everything but the kitchen sink into their assignment at the very last minute. In addition, Ms Saratha suggested a 50:25:25 formula for students to manage their time effectively. Essentially, students will allocate 2 weeks to research and compilation, 1 week to writing and 1 week to editing and formatting. This ensures that every aspect of the assignment is well thought through.

“Don’t negotiate deadlines. When we are in court, we cannot negotiate deadlines unless there is a legitimate reason.” - Dr Tamara

2. Read The Instructions Carefully

All the lecturers we spoke to highlighted this: reading the material given to you is the key thing to do before commencing your assignment preparations. Go through the assignment question, the rubrics and the grading descriptors with a critical eye. As explained by Dr Harmahinder, the scoring criterion is your direction. It reflects the learning outcome and the parameters of your assignment won’t run very far from it. You won’t be able to give lecturers what they want if you do not know what they want. Get to know your assignment, understand what exactly lecturers are asking for and ask for clarifications and advice.

Top tip: For first-year students, Ms Saratha also suggested that you may prepare an outline of your assignment to discuss with your lecturers. This ensures that you are on the correct path moving forward.

“The substance is important but so is the procedure.” – Dr Tamara

This step will come in handy especially when it comes to the apportionment of issues in your answer. You need to know what is required of you in order to make an intelligent guess about your apportionment. If the question demands more analysis and evaluation, then that’s what you have to do in order to score well. Again, know what is asked of you.

“There is no hard and fast rule. If you have put enough thought into it, you’ll be able to find the sweet spot.” - Dr Harmahinder

3. Choose The Right Sources

Both Ms Saratha and Dr Tamara stressed the importance of choosing reliable and credible sources. They highlighted that first-year students often have the tendency to refer to Wikipedia or lawyer/student-run blogs. While these platforms are useful in providing students with a basic grasp of the law, you should never swear by these sources. Make use of the library database; we have access to most credible platforms such as LexisNexis, JStor and Westlaw. These databases help you to locate legitimate scholarly journals that you can’t go wrong with.

Top tip: Dr Ambikai advised that beyond just compiling good material, students need to compile relevant materials. For example, these journals may be sources of other legal jurisdictions. No matter how well-written it is, it may not contribute to your work if the assignment requires you to focus on your own jurisdictions.

“You can think out of the box, but you don’t need to dump everything inside the box.” – Dr Ambikai

4. Write Everything

Both Dr Harmahinder and Dr Tamara suggested that students shouldn’t worry about the word count while writing their assignment. The initial approach should be to gather as much information as you can, and secure a holistic grasp of the subject matter. Write and compile as much as you can. After fully comprehending the subject matter, re-organize it by selecting the necessary information and omitting the irrelevant.

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The big no-no’s!

1. Regurgitating Text or Given Material

All lecturers highlighted the issue they face with students regurgitating the obvious. For example, appropriating material word-for-word from your lecturers' slides or the primary textbook. It can be very dull if everybody is regurgitating the same-old, especially if a particular cohort consists of a hundred students. This also reflects a lack of effort from students parroting their lecturers' words back to them. Additionally, try not to inject meaningless material into your assignments. Don’t waffle around, adding unnecessary sentences or lengthy judgements just to meet the word count. It shows a lack of novelty in writing and demonstrates your weakness in grasping the foundational knowledge required of the particular assignment. Always understand your subject matter and think critically about it before you type out your final answer.

“Eat, Chew and Digest.” - Dr Ambikai

2. Careless Work

Lecturers can tell when students don’t put effort into their assignments. The lack of in-depth research as well as the abundance of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes demonstrate that students didn’t take their assignment seriously. This is especially obvious in legal work, where lots of case names and Latin words are often referred to in answers. Spelling these elements wrongly, or even worse, having multiple variations of the spelling in your answer is unacceptable. It clearly shows lecturers how little effort you put into your assignment and is a classic example of cut and paste work. Another indication of a lack of thought is the absence of a logical progression of ideas. Answers which lack a good flow are ineffective as they are difficult to follow.

Top tip: At the end of the day, you want your lecturer to understand and comprehend your work. All these errors make that goal unattainable.

“You get what you give. Lecturers can see and feel your effort from these details” - Dr Harmahinder

3. Exceeding The Word Count

Exceeding the word count demonstrates you didn’t take instructions seriously from the start. Dr Ambikai suggested that students can prepare a skeleton flow and subdivide the parts to find a balance for each portion.

4. Overly Complicated Jargon:

There are many ways to capture your lecturers’ interest, but using flowery language and sophisticated sentences as a strategy to impress lecturers or “sound more professional” might have a reverse effect. Simple and clear writing which conveys messages precisely is what lecturers look for as at the end of the day content matters the most. The use of good language is encouraged, but the lecturers made it clear that they know when students google words and replace them with fancier synonyms found on the internet.

Top tip: “If your lecturer needs to look into the dictionary more than 5 times, there’s something wrong with your essay.” – Dr Tamara

There are also few common mistakes that were pointed out by lecturers specifically for group video assignments.

• Presentation Skills

Both Dr Tamara and Ms Saratha highlighted that the one and ultimate mistake made by students is not maintaining eye contact with their audience. Students sound robotic when they talk to their script. Ms Saratha pointed out that students are given the opportunity and flexibility to pause and re-record themselves, which is something they can’t do in a live presentation. Make use of these opportunities! Divide your work into a few parts and film it bit by bit if you have to. Just discover a way that you are comfortable with because that will produce the best results.

Top tip: Lecturers are familiar with students’ tactic of placing the script below the camera and reading it up from there) or memorising it.

“It must be candid. When you are reading it, sometimes it doesn’t sound like something you would say. ” – Dr Tamara

• Soft Skills

Although it is true that students should look formal in their assignments, it should not be too rehearsed. You must be able to express yourself in a way where it is your own. There must be intonation when delivering an oral presentation.

“You are not a newscaster. Your presentation must not be too simplistic, nor must it be too complex, and you must look natural. Make it expressive and authentic.” – Dr Tamara

“Sometimes, you can’t see any hand movement or body language. It’s so boring and they will lose up their audience!” – Ms Saratha

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Yes, please do!

1. Strong Analysis and Synthesis

Obviously, the demands are different for different types of assignment questions, be it an essay or problem question. For essay questions, students need to demonstrate their ability to analyse and synthesise the law. Students should answer the ‘what’, the ‘why’ and behind the ‘what’ to provide good analysis within an essay. Synthesis goes beyond this and looks at the elaboration of how. The ‘how’ can be contextualised depending on the question, such as how the new law has affected society or how effective the law is. A tip here is to look at the issues from different angles. For example, in a question regarding covid-19 legislation, look at the impact it has had on the various stakeholders (Eg. political parties, governments, the layperson). This will help students round off their essay with valuable information that demonstrates their understanding of the subject matter as well as their creativity and analytical skills.

2. Novelty in Style

Dr Tamara highlighted that within the legalistic style which is expected as a law student, there are different ways of writing. Although the inclusion of interesting poems or quotes would make the assignment sound interesting and captivate the reader’s attention, the content must be sound.

For video assignments, some lecturers recall those excellent video assignments where students took extra creativity in terms of editing (Ex. Using News Reader), choosing a location, role play which could capture messages effectively. However having said that, students need to find a balance. Don’t be interesting at the cost of content. Trying too hard to make a difference can backfire as well. Your storyline should gel with the content.

3. Be Meticulous and Demonstrate Interest

A student’s passion for learning is reflected in their presentation and writing. The reader must be excited to read your essay. The precision in writing and the meticulous things such as referencing and the way students mention cases in video assignments showcase their effort and attitude towards their work.

“If you don’t like the module, learn how to love it” - Dr Tamara

4. A Strong Introduction and Conclusion

Your introduction must tally with your conclusion. Both Ms Saratha and Dr Ambikai usually read students’ introduction and conclusion first before going into the content. Ms Saratha described the introduction as a movie trailer that gives lecturers an idea or outline about the assignment. On the other hand, a conclusion is a movie review where students should emphasize back their main points not just giving two or three sentences. The inability to summarize and emphasize your points demonstrate that you have not understood the subject matter in a holistic manner. Most lecturers have developed the skill of being able to tell if an assignment is ‘“good” from reading a student's introduction and conclusion.

“Don’t give lecturers a cake without icing. That doesn’t complete it. It needs to be a complete cake.” -Dr. Harmahinder

5. Excellence presentation skills and Teamwork

Ms Saratha pointed out that more often than not the main factors which differentiate an A- and A assignments are students’ presentation skills and teamwork as students generally score well for content in video assignments. Work needs to be pieced together well and be seamless. Situations such as student A having subtitles while student B has nothing demonstrates that there’s no flow and collaboration within the group.

“Before you pass the floor to your groupmates you must introduce them and explain what they are going to discuss. A simple phrase such as “Moving on, XX will be presenting on Share capital” can demonstrate teamwork and collaboration.” - Ms Saratha

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Dispelling Myths

1. You don’t need to adopt a particular style of writing.

“Students shouldn’t be too concerned about the lecturer’s preferences. The most important thing is clarity and getting the messages across.” – Dr Harmahinder

Most lecturers are of the view that students’ writing style should vary according to the modules and the type of assignments. For Dr Tamara, modules that focus on macro-level problem solving could afford a broad-based approach and allow students to be more abstract and philosophical (Eg Public International Law, ASEAN Law). Whereas, for modules that focus on micro-level problem solving (Eg Contract Law, Land Law), there is no time for abstract points of law as you need to solve the problem for the individual parties. Dr Ambikai stressed that in problem-based questions, students need to start from the groundwork, establish the issues before going into the law.

“If you want to build a house, you need to do the piling work first. Don’t jump the gun.” - Dr. Ambikai

2. Headings

Both Dr Harmahinder and Ms Saratha highlighted that there isn’t a particular style of writing, but they do enjoy reading assignments that provide sub-headings. Sub-headings provide lecturers with a clearer picture of the assignment. Having said that, Ms Saratha stressed that it should be short and concise. Writing the whole principle and calling it a subheading is not an effective way. This defeats the whole purpose of subheadings and makes it all the more confusing.

3. Footnotes Should Not Contain Information.

Footnotes are not meant to state your points. Ms Saratha shared one of her experiences where students provided notes and definitions in their footnotes. Students do so because of the limitation of word count. However, you have to keep in mind that lecturers aren’t going to give you marks for the content stated there.

“You might see this in some journal articles but this is not an advisable method for the purpose of examination and assessment.” - Ms Saratha

4. Does the Grading Bell Curve Exist?

The possibility of the whole class getting an A is remote. This is not because there is a grading bell curve in Law School. In fact, students are graded purely based on the grading descriptors given. If every single student did well, that would be reflected in their grade. If you don’t do well for a particular assignment, it is because of insufficient practice in writing essays or presenting.

“Excellence cannot be acquired in a day or month. Excellence comes with practice.” – Dr Tamara

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Little Nuggets of Wisdom

“Enjoy everything you do. Every day is a gift. Be happy that you learn something today which you didn’t know yesterday and always appreciate having the privilege to learn.” -Dr. Tamara

“Do your best and enjoy the process. Everyone has a limitation as to what they can do the best. Just follow your heart and follow what you can do. Don’t force yourself to an extent whereby you lose yourself and stress yourself out. The most important thing is finding your passion.” - Ms Saratha

Lexicon hopes that this article has given you some valuable tips regarding assignments. We would, however, like to remind students that this article is purely based on the input of the lecturers we interviewed and is not the law. If you ever have questions, do refer them to your lecturers! On that note, we would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr Harmahinder, Dr Tamara, Dr Ambikai and Ms Saratha. Lexicon could not have produced this article without their generosity, advice, and experiences.