Assignment Presentation Guidelines

Assignment Presentation

Not all assignments will be written pieces, but some of them will be: these notes are intended as guidance for their composition and presentation. They are not intended to present you with an additional burden (nor to insult you by implying that you do not already know this!), but

on the whole, participants welcome clear guidance
you can crib this section to use with your own students (Acknowledgement appreciated)

and it is no more effort to get it right (i.e. in accordance with academic norms) than to get it wrong. So:

If an assignment needs a binder, please use the slim plastic clear-fronted "project folders" or a single plastic sleeve with a staple in the top-left-hand corner of the papers if at all possible. Carrying around a load of ring-binders and even lever-arch files does not put the marker in an appropriate dispassionate mood!

Do not put each page in an individual plastic sleeve: taking them out to annotate them is a pain. On DMU Education courses, we have decided not to annotate submissions in which each page is in a separate sleeve.

Layout

Assignments should be double or one-and-a-half spaced, with numbered pages, written on one side of A4 paper only with wide (at least 1½"/4 cm/9 pica) margins.

12-point is a good size for the text, and a serif type-face, such as Times New Roman or Century Schoolbook is easier to read (on paper) than a sans-serif one such as Arial (which is better on screen). It also helps if your name (or ID for anonymous marking schemes) appears at the top or bottom of each page (in case the marker has to undo the binder and pages get separated)

If at all possible submissions should be word-processed, because:

this is the most legible way of producing the work: tipp-exed typing is not quite as good,
it means that there is bound to be another copy available, so that tutors can write on the submitted copy.
This note is now fairly redundant: you need to be a fairly committed luddite not to comply—and if you are that, how come you are reading this?

Sub-headings are often useful for different sections of an assignment, but check their acceptability with the tutor first. If you use them, please make them identifiable as such with bold type or similar, as in this document.

In more substantial pieces of work, such as dissertations, use chapter and section divisions, perhaps with progressive numbering—1, 1.1, etc. (and full tables of contents derived from them) to indicate the shape and structure of the argument. It is well worth familiarising yourself with all the facilities offered by modern word-processors for keeping track of material, including generating automatic tables of contents and even indexes.

Numbered paragraphs make for easy reference to particular sections on a marking sheet, but whether to use them or not depends somewhat on the nature of the assignment. Some people actually cite the code numbers for specified module outcomes in the margins: not all assignments lend themselves to this, but it is a useful device if you can use it. Note that outcomes do not have to be addressed in numerical order: let the sense of the assignment dictate their order.

Quotations

Quotations should be clearly separated from the rest of the text with quotation marks. Anything longer than a single line should be indented and separated from the body of the text by a blank line.

"So a substantial piece of quoted material will look rather like this, standing in the same relationship to the rest of the text as does this paragraph." (Atherton, 1993:24)

Note that all quotations need the source, date and page number (or at least the chapter reference) alongside them. See below for the conventions.

Only use quotations when:

the author has made a point particularly well, and probably more concisely than you could say it, or
you are going on to discuss in detail what she or he has said at this particular point.

Do not use quotations simply as a way of proving that you have actually read the book or article!

Referencing

The referencing conventions to be followed in written work in the social sciences and education (known as the Harvard system) are that sources are referred to in the body of the text by author and date in parentheses, e.g. Kolb (1984), with the page or chapter number cited if direct quotes or specific allusions to the author's argument are used, e.g. Kolb (1984:47) or Kolb (1984: ch. 4).

If the references is part of an ongoing argument, you may put the whole thing in parentheses.

"It has been argued (Kolb, 1984) that..."

(Note that if the whole reference is in parentheses, then those around the date and page numbers are omitted.)

The date in question is the date of the original publication, or of the edition you are working from: reprinting dates do not count. Remember that since much research and opinion progresses by a process of debate, the date of an article or book says a great deal.

If an author has produced more than one text in a given year, snd you are drawing on several, refer to them in the main text as (Bloggs, 2000a), (Bloggs, 2000b) according to the order in which they appear in the main references at the end of the work. Make sure that you use the same "a", "b" etc. suffixes in the references section.
I'm not sure what you do if an author has produced more than 26 sources in a year!
For classic texts, page numbers may differ from edition to edition: either specify the edition clearly in the bibliography, or stick to chapter or section references

Academics are notorious for writing in droves. (What is the collective noun for lecturers? A "waffle" perhaps?) It is permissible to refer to the first author "et al." in the text, e.g. Brickman et al. (1982), rather than Brickman, Rabinowitz, Karuza, Coates, Cohn and Kidder (1982)

At the end of the project or dissertation full details should be cited (in alphabetical order of author): e.g.

KOLB, D. A. (1984), Experiential Learning: experience as the source of learning and development, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall

If the reference is to an article, the article title should be "in quotes" and the name of the journal underlined or in italics. The volume and part of the journal (or its specific date) should also be cited:

BRICKMAN, P., RABINOWITZ, V. C., KARUZA J., COATES D., COHN E. and KIDDER L. (1982), "Models of Helping and Coping" American Psychologist 37(4), pp. 368-84

MEZIROW, J. (1978), "Perspective Transformation", Adult Education (USA) vol. XXVIII No 2 pp. 100-110

If the reference is to a internet web page, then the information should be referenced as follows:

Use the same conventions as for conventional publication in the main text.

In the "references" or "bibliography" section, cite:

Author, (Year) Title, [On-line], Place of publication e.g. UK. Available from: Website address [Accessed: give date]

The date of access is important, because the net is in constant change, and the marker may well access a page and find that it has changed.

Examples of referencing from the internet is:

International Dyslexia Association (1998) "What is Dyslexia?", [On-line]; UK; Available from: http://www.interdys.org/servlet/compose?
section_id=5&page_id=95 [Accessed: 15/12/03]

ATHERTON J S (2002) Academic Practice: Assignment Presentation Guidelines [On-line]: UK: Available: http://www.doceo.co.uk/academic/
assignment_presentation.htm Accessed: 16 December 2002

Since individuals web pages may have unique URLs, it may be necessary to use the "a", "b" convention described above to cite them in the main text.

If you use a lot of web sources, why not set up a "links" page on the web which your tutor can access to view them, or simply send him/her an email which includes them as live, clickable links? (It may not directly improve your grade, but brownie points are always useful...)

Ideally, there should be two lists of references at the end of the work: one called "References" which sets out those works cited or referred to in the text as set out above, and another called "Bibliography", which includes:

Your actual sources for the references. E.g. if the Mezirow article was included in a collection of articles, although originally published in the Adult Education journal, or was cited by another author, the bibliography should include the information about the work you actually read, in which it was included or cited.

Any other books or articles which you read in support of the assignment, but did not refer to directly in the text.

This is not always necessary when the referencing is uncomplicated.

Diagrams and pictures

Diagrams can be very effective ways of succinctly conveying complex information, and there is value in developing your skill in presenting information visually, as part of your teaching, so they may be a useful adjunct to the text.

However, there is no need to reproduce diagrams of, say, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs or Kolb’s learning cycle, which are already likely to be familiar to the marker.

Diagrams may be self-explanatory to you, but they may need a commentary for a reader coming upon them for the first time.

Diagrams and tables should all have captions and index numbers, usually derived from the chapter or section number of the work, for easy and reliable reference, e.g. (see figure 2.6) or (Table 6.1)

Generally speaking, other illustrations such as photographs should be placed in appendices. Only use pictures which add something to the work: clipart decoration for its own sake may have its place in handouts, but is not appropriate here.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is not merely the unattributed insertion of substantial pieces of other people's material into your work, but any attempt to pass off someone else's work as your own, and it is a serious offence. Read the information now available in all University libraries about it.

Since it makes good educational sense for students to make use of all resources available to them, including tutors, learning support tutors, mentors and colleagues in preparing their work, the safest course is to be punctilious about acknowledging any assistance received. Such acknowledgement should also include an indication of its nature, such as:

Thanks to Fiona Bountiful (Mentor) for information on the implementation of competence-based assessment for politicians;

and to Bill Gates for Microsoft Word's spelling checker.

It is not usually necessary to acknowledge the lecturer him- or herself.

Writing Style

There is an academic convention of referring to yourself in the third person: instead of "I interviewed...", to say "The author (or the researcher) interviewed..." This is sometimes clumsy and pompous, but sometimes it provides a necessary sense of distance from the material. It is ultimately a matter of preference, depending on the form of the dissertation. Take advice from your supervisor, and whatever style you adopt, be consistent.

In any event, avoid "I think..." (and similar) phrasing to introduce an opinion—it's amateurish. Either state the view baldly, or if that seems too dogmatic, say something like, "it may be argued that...", or even (in the legal fashion) "it is submitted that..." Avoid jargon where possible, conversational colloquialisms and cliches, and be very careful about jokes!

Despite this and the preceding paragraph, the passive voice is better avoided

Abbreviations such as 'photo', or contractions like 'isn't' should not be used, but it is acceptable to abbreviate frequently occurring names provided that:

you give a list or glossary of the abbreviations used
and/or you spell them out in full the first time you use them, with the abbreviation following in brackets, e.g. Building Research Establishment (BRE).

When expressing numbers in the text, those under 12 are usually spelled, e.g. twelve, but those over 12, dates and currency are expressed as figures: e.g. 6,349, 17th March, 2000, £16.00, €20.00

Non-written Submissions

If you are submitting material on audio- or video-tape or computer disk, then:

Ensure that it is clearly marked with your name or ID and the title of the module or assignment
Use only standard VHS cassettes for video and compact cassettes for audio, and 3.5" or CD-ROM Windows or Macintosh disks for computer material. (Do make sure a CD-R or CD-RW is rendered readable in an ordinary CD-ROM drive before you submit it!)
- Sorry, but Linux is still not mainstream for submissions: unless you are submitting in a computer science department, ensure that any disc is formatted in a readily-readable format, and use a standard and compatible file format (.rtf, .htm, .pdf).
Computer media submissions should include a run-time version of the application used to generate the data, unless you have already checked that we have access to the application.
Enclose the media with any accompanying written material in a plastic wallet, and note the contents when you sign the assignment in.
Accompany the media with a brief note of instructions and contents, such as where to find the bits you want to use as evidence. Devoted as the staff are, we still do not want to plough through three hours of an E-180 video to get at three minutes of evidence.
Protect your media: break off the over-recording protection tabs on video or audio cassettes, and slide the write-protect tab on floppy disks. Although tutors take great care of your work, they will not accept responsibility for their children accidentally recording a TV programme over your assignment!

Portfolios

It is common on professional studies programmes to need to submit a lot of appended supporting evidence.

This can be put in a plastic sleeve at the back of a project folder, but even better is a separate folder which the marker can have open at the same time as the main text. (If you submit more than one folder, make sure you get receipts for all of them.)
A clear table of contents should be supplied, and each item clearly identified for cross-referencing with the main text.
Do not include things we already know about, such as handouts from the course itself
If there is a lot of material, it may well be worth booking a tutorial session to go through it and get the tutor's advice as to what to include and what to leave out. If you use a questionnaire, for example, we do not need every completed copy, nor every single cross-tabulation that your statistics program has generated.

It is not that we are inclined to refuse anyone credit for such presentational solecisms, although really sloppy presentation implies a "couldn't care less" attitude towards the work which may correlate positively with poor results: it is more that you presumably want to impress us with your command of the subject, and like yourselves we are easier to impress if our lives as markers is not made more difficult. We listen to what you say rather than being distracted by how you say it.

Reference

Hilton A (1994) Dissertation Preparation and Presentation: to BS4821:1990 and BS5605:1990 (Self-study Pack B2) Leicester, De Montfort University and Enterprise Learning Initiative