There are a lot of things that can lead to missing your deadlines when writing your college or university assignments. It is much harder to consistently work on a single project than your teachers would have you believe. It would get so stressful at times I used to pray that someone else can do the assignments I have to do assignments, I have to write my assignment.
So if you don’t wanna end up like those students who are begging the professor for an extension, here are a few problems you need to keep an eye out for. If not you might just get a handsome deduction for a late submission. Also, I’m not going to be talking about obvious things like procrastination or not making a schedule. These are problems that first-time assignment writers do not consider.
Writer’s Block
Yeah, you will get writer’s block as you work on your assignments. Just think about it, you’re trying to complete 2000 to 3000-word paper that all hinges on a single line, i.e. your thesis statement. That line is not going to offer you much when it comes to structuring your study and finding ways to write about the topic in an informative manner.
There will come times when you will feel stuck or that you are moving away from your research aims. When that happens, you have to stop yourself and take a few steps back so that you can center yourself before moving forward. Think about it, it can take up to a month to make an impressive academic assignment. You’re going to have a few times where you’re banging your head against the wall. Most of it will be from your fear and anxiety since you don’t want to mess it up. But now that you know that it happens, maybe you won’t freak out about it.
What Scheduling?
You might think that making a schedule and having an application on your phone might help, and to an extent, it does there are still a lot of problems you have to deal with. For one, you can’t just stop going to work for your assignment. The boss doesn’t care that you’re under a lot of stress, you need to do your job.
Also, we all have friends and social life so it is your responsibility to tell them no if you are falling behind. But how do you know that you’re falling behind…will always assume that you are. It is better to finish early, than being late since it gives you time to revise and edit your drafts. Just know that there will be days when you can’t work on your assignment, and other obligations will take priority no matter how good your schedule was.
Literature Betrayal
Has this ever happened to you? You had hand-picked all the studies and sources that you were going to use for your assignment. It was foolproof in your head, the studies were from a credible journal or online library and the information in the abstract matched your topic of research perfectly. Sadly, it can happen that you might be mistaken. It is often the case that the study you have selected is not a good fit for your research. You have to properly read through the paper to see if it is even talking about the problem you are discussing.
Imagine all that time you wasted thinking that you will use a study to provide an important point and now you can’t. Now you have to frantically search the internet, or any resource to find a study that meets your needs. Not only are things going to be uber stressful, but you are not put into a position where you might choose a subpar study just to not waste any more time.
I would not recommend that you do that, rather it is way better to ask for help at this point. So you can ask a friend or have the wonderful people at assignment labs create you a premium quality assignment in a few days.
Off-topic?
This might not seem like a probable issue but it can happen that you forget the core argument of your thesis. It doesn’t seem professional if your assignment isn’t cohesive throughout. This often happens to people who don’t have a lot of experience writing long papers. A quick fix for this is to keep your research questions with you on a separate paper or on your phone as reminders of where your paper should go next.
The Supervisor Hasn’t Replied Yet
Your supervisor is supposed to help you by going over the drafts you send. And they are supposed to do that, but the reality is they are super busy. It is hard being a college/university professor. They have a lot on their plate and can easily miss an email or text from a student. Just imagine the number of emails and messages they get on the regular from how many students.
So relying on the supervisor too often leads students to waste a lot of time. But what can you do? Well if you want someone to have a look at your draft ask someone from your class who you think is a good student. If that isn’t something you feel comfortable with, you could always risk it can move forward with the draft or contact an online service that provides editing and proofreading like assignment labs. So there’s always the I have to do my assignments route.
Just remember don’t wait around for your supervisor to get back to you since you can always make changes to your current draft. Continue with the research just keep in mind that you may need to make slight changes later on.
Let me introduce you to Plagiarism
So well all understand what plagiarism means and want to avoid it. But for those students who want to add quotations and empirical statistics, this can be an issue. A lot of these details will show up as plagiarism and you may have to talk with your professor about what percentage is allowed. The green zone is often between 10 and 15%, so you have to keep your eye on that. The best way to overcome this issue is to learn the appropriate method of in-text citation in the format that your teacher specifies (you know APA, MLA, Harvard, etc.).
You could try simply paraphrasing the material but you still have to show where the original idea came from or offer evidence to support your argument. So there is no getting around learning how to properly cite your sources.
If you want to learn more about in-text citation, both direct and indirect, as well as how to master citation in the various formatting styles you can check our friends at assignment labs, they can help you get a better grasp on how to format your paper or to remove plagiarism.
These were some of the key things that you will come across as you start writing your academic assignment for college or university. Hopefully, now you’re better equipped mentally to deal with these challenges as they arrive. If not there is always the I have to write my assignments option we discussed at the start.
SEE ALSO: Dissertation Writing Techniques for College Students