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The Writing Center is part of the Division of Student Services. Our service is free for all current KUMC students and residents. Success in your field depends on constant improvement—and writing plays a major part in that process.
Writing an assignment is a learning process, which involves understanding the assignment question, reading the research literature, planning, constructing and then reviewing and editing your work.
While you must explicitly answer the assignment question, your writing will need to do more than re-present information, as you are expected to discuss and analyse issues and perspectives. Your writing will demonstrate this with your academic opinions supported by evidence which comes from what you have read in the research literature.
Through the act of writing you actually learn a lot more about a topic, so by the time you come to the end of the essay you will know a lot more than when you started. It stands to reason then, that you will need to review some of your early writing and even rewrite your introduction. Don’t be dismayed if your first drafts are messy, and don’t postpone starting because you don’t know exactly what you want to say.
To work out what you are expected to do for an assignment, you can start by asking some questions about the task:
You could turn some of the statements in the assignment question into questions. This will help you to see what you need to focus on and what you need to find out about.
To start planning, you will need to have some knowledge about the assignment topics and issues. Ask yourself:
Make questions about the assignment topics in order to direct your reading. This will help you to focus on learning about the topics and, most importantly, to come to some conclusions.
An initial plan would include:
This plan could be developed further to include:
Questions? Contact the KUMC Writing Center!
Phone: 913-945-8477
Mail Stop: 1050
Location: G011 Dykes Library
Writing Specialist: Andrés Rodríguez
Email: writing@kumc.edu
Kind acknowledgements are given to the following:
La Trobe University - Learning & Research Services (Library), and Dr. Julianne East for permission to use content from their guide.