Deadline season is coming up once again and while coursework can seem like an overwhelming task, in the end, it does have its benefits believe it or not. Coursework can allow you to gain a deeper knowledge of the topic you’re exploring – making the topic much more digestible for you. On top of this, it will help improve your overall essay-writing skills!
Here are our 5 top tips that we suggest to help you improve the quality of your coursework:
Understand and plan what needs to be done
Once you’ve been assigned your coursework, make sure you actually know what you need to answer. See if your lecturer has given you any specific points to cover, and always check against the marking criteria! Make sure to ask yourself questions like “how many words do I have to write?” and “do I have to follow a specific structure?” to ensure you know to tick the boxes of your coursework’s requirements.
Planning your structure can allow you to understand how much research is needed for a certain section. This also allows you not to ensure that you don’t go off-topic and waste your word count. Your lecturer has likely provided information during your lectures that will help you out throughout your coursework, so make sure to keep note of what is being covered! And remember, your lecturer is always there to answer any questions you have, so don’t be a stranger!
Manage your time effectively
With planning your coursework comes time management, which is key when working on a piece of coursework, and can definitely be the difference between an average assignment and an excelling one! There’s no point spending hours researching only one part of your assignment when the rest of the coursework ends up being subpar. Even if you only find one topic really interesting, try not to fall into a rabbit hole of research and neglect other topics that need to be explored. And, it’s easier said than done not to write everything at the last minute, but the extra time to research, write, and amend can truly improve the quality of your coursework. Overall, managing your time well will reduce your stress levels and higher levels of productivity!
Research from reliable sources
Your coursework will not perform all that well if you cite unreliable references. Academic texts are great ways to ensure you have a reputable source that can back up your point of view. Kortext can provide over 2 million digital textbooks covering countless topics which students can use to enhance the research experience, as you can highlight and annotate directly from the eTextbook, as well as customise the appearance of the textbook to your preference (amongst many other handy tools). Make sure to note anything you include in your coursework in your bibliography, even if it is just a sentence, which leads us nicely onto…
Cite and reference properly!
Speaking of bibliographies, in university, citing and referencing is key to perfect when writing your coursework. There are many different approaches to effective referencing such as Harvard, Vancouver, MHRA, and more, so it’s important to know what your university prefers, and how you are supposed to format that within your assignment. Make sure to cite and reference everything that isn’t your own opinion, as that information isn’t yours! Referencing helps you to avoid plagiarism as you would make it clear what are and are not your ideas. Kortext can also help you out in this department too, as you can cite and reference directly from your digital textbook in any referencing style you like, so definitely make use of that tool!
Make sure you give yourself a break
There’s no point putting in all this effort towards your coursework if you’re just going to be burnt out by the deadline! It’s especially important to rest during deadline season, as we know you likely have more than one assignment submission to juggle and the stress of all of that can be detrimental to your mental health. It’s always best to come back to your work with a refreshed and more energised mindset, when you are more focused, and who knows, maybe you will pick out a mistake or think of a completely new perspective of your coursework!
If it does get a little too overwhelming, don’t forget that you have a direct link to Student Minds’ Student Space through your Kortext bookshelf, giving you support when you need it most.
Once you’ve done all this, you will be on your way to producing and submitting a high-quality piece of coursework, and there’s nothing quite like the feeling of closing all those tabs after a deadline, so be prepared for that after all your hard work!
