Summaries of essays from Harvard

How to read an assignment

Assignments evaluate students ' understanding of the course material . As a result , the questions that assignments consist of are usually related to s that have not been covered in length in class sessions . The question might arise as to why assignments habitually focus on obscure areas of the course content . The answer is that assignments try to make the student engage in independent thinking and exhibit originality of thought . Students habitually engage in independent thinking when they have taken the time to really get into their course material

. Therefore assignments reward those students for having taken the time and the trouble to really get to know the material

It is important that discussion and analysis in an assignment are confined to the scope of the . Therefore it is important to reread the of the assignment repeatedly while drafting an essay . An analytical frame of mind is required to effectively discuss the of an assignment . Several problems have to be taken into consideration in the discussion . As a result it is easy to lose one 's way in deciding where to stop . For this reason , reading the purposes of the assignment repeatedly is important . Also important is to understand where the assignment is located in terms of complexity in relation to previous and upcoming assignments

Discussing the of an essay means constructing an argument out of a broad range of arguments . It goes beyond simply restating the of the assignment . A well-constructed discussion presents an original finding based on what is already stated in the assignment and in the course material . The purpose of analysis on the other hand is to develop an overview of the subject material . This involves a critical approach that avoids excessive attention to detail in the reading material and instead develops an overall interpretation

Further clarification for the of the assignment , if required should be requested from the instructor

Moving from assignment to

The writing of an academic essay is difficult to start because of the writer 's block . However the important thing to keep in mind is that responding to an assignment is in effect entering the conversation on that . Experts and scholars have their views on the of the assignment and the assignment allows the student to throw his or her own views into the mix . In to contribute effectively to the conversation , it is important to research the of the assignment extensively in to narrow it down . The importance of conducting research on the cannot be overemphasized because responding to an essay requires presentation of an argument on the of the assignment . Therefore , the approach to the assignment has to be well-informed . Research requires sourcing information and this can be done either from primary sources or from secondary sources . Primary sources refer to material that has not been analyzed by someone else Novels , poems , autobiographies , transcripts of court cases , and data sources such as the...