Slides to accompany the Planning and Writing Assignments Class for DBS students (Arts Question Example)

1. Planning and Writing
Assignments for DBS
Students
6 Steps to Success!

2. Understand
the
Assignment
Get
Organised
Conduct the
Research
Take & Make
Notes
Plan the
Structure
Write
Reference &
Proofread
The Six Steps to Success

3. Step One (Understand the Assignment)
Social Care workers are one of several allied helping
professionals. Write an essay outlining your knowledge of what
social care work is, and what doing social care work involves in
contemporary Irish society.
Terminology Synonym/Clarification
Outline Give the main features of a topic
Social Care Social care is separate from social
work
Involves Role
Contemporary Modern/current

4. Step Two (Get Organised)
You could be required to work on more than one assignment at the
same time, be realistic and give yourself enough time for each.
30 Day
Schedule
Example
2 Days:
Understand
and Organise
8 Days:
Research
9 Days:
Reading
1 Day: Plan
10 Days:
Write

5. Social Care
(Central Theme)
Modern/Contemporary
Ireland
Family(s)
Social care
and Health
Juveniles
Step Three (Research - Strategy)
What does
doing this role
entail?/Its
features
The elderly

6. Section Topic Search Terms
1 Introduction
2 Social care work(ers) Social care OR social work OR social care workers
3 Social care workers
and Irish families
social care and families and Ireland
4 Social care workers
and the health
system
social care and health and Ireland
5 Social care workers
and juveniles in
Ireland
social care and juveniles and Ireland
6 Social care workers
and the elderly in
Ireland
social care and elderly and Ireland
7 Conclusion
Step Three (Research – Search Terms)

7. Step Three (Research – Resources)

8. Discovery
Search A
Step Three (Research – Discovery)

9. 
Section 5
Social care workers and juveniles in Ireland
WORD SYNOYM/ALTERNATIVE/FOCUS
Social care workers social care/social worker
Juveniles adolescent/teenager/youth/teen/
young person
Ireland Not Northern Ireland
Step Three (Research – Synonyms/Clarify)

10. 
These are simple words or symbols that allow us
to broaden or narrow our searches
Three words used are
 and
 or
 not
Boolean Operators

11. 
Use AND in a search to:
 tell the database that ALL search
terms must be present in the resulting records
E.g. social care worker AND juvenile AND Ireland
Google automatically puts an AND
in between your search terms.
AND (Narrows)

12. 
Use OR in a search to:
 connect two or more similar concepts (synonyms)
 broaden your results, telling the database that ANY of your
search terms can be present in the resulting records
 E.g. social care worker OR juvenile OR
Ireland
OR (Broadens)

13. 
Use NOT in a search to:
 exclude words from your search
 narrow your search, telling the database to ignore
concepts that may be implied by your search terms
 example: Ireland NOT Northern Ireland
NOT (Excludes)

14.  These are used when there are different spellings of the
same word.
 We could use OR to list each spelling of a word
organisation OR organization
 Wildcards allow us to use a symbol to replace the
different letter(s).
 In Discovery the symbol ? is used to replace 1 letter. and #
is used to replace 0 or 1 letter
organi?ation = organisation/orgainzation
behavio#r = behaviour/behavior
wom?n = woman or women
Wildcards

15. 
 Phrase searching used to specify that a group of
words/phase must be in exact order.
“purchasing power”
 Truncation is a technique that broadens your search to
include various word endings and spellings.
• To use truncation, enter the root of a word and put the
truncation symbol at the end, Discovery uses *
• Discovery will return results that include any ending of
that root word.
• Examples:
child* = child, childs, children, childrens, childhood
genetic* = genetic, genetics, genetically
Phrases and Truncation

16. Discovery
Search B
-
Boolean
Applied
juvenile or youth or adolescent or teenager
or teen or young person
Step Three (Research – Discovery)

17. Step Four (Active Reading and Note Taking)
• You will be primarily sourcing your information from
books, articles (PDF) and credible websites.
• Active reading is taking notes as you read the source in
order to understand and evaluate it.

18. Active Reading and Note Taking
• Once notes have been taken and you’ve decided to
incorporate this source into your own work, you need to
make sense of the notes.
• Gather the notes taken from various sources and
compare/contrast them.
• At this stage you can add your own interpretation.
• Notes will be used as evidence to back up
your argument/interpretation.
• The most effective way to use others’ views
/ideas to back up your argument is to
paraphrase them.
Tip
Once
downloaded,
you can
highlight and
add notes to
PDFs

19. (Paraphrasing – A Worked Example)
1. Read
the
Original
2. Take
& Make
Notes

20. (Paraphrasing – A Worked Example)
3. Write
in your
own
Words
4. Add in
the
Reference

21. Step Five (Assignment Plan/Blueprint)
Structured
Each plan
has an
introduction
& a
conclusion
Sections
Divide your main
ideas into separate
headed sections.
Paragraphs
Within sections,
give each concept
discussed its own
paragraph

22. Step Five (Assignment Plan/Blueprint)

23. Step Six (Writing)
Frist Draft
• Basically you are trying to provide much more insight into the
ideas/theories/viewpoints that you mentioned in the
Assignment Plan.
• Provide evidence (citations) as you articulate or describe
somebody else's ideas (paraphrasing is most effective).
• Pay careful attention to the verb instruction
that was given in the question.
• Begin to write a selected section.
Treat each section as a mini essay
in itself.
Tip
Writing the
introduction
last, means you
know what’s
been discussed

24. Step Six (Writing)
Second Draft
Refer to your Assignment Plan, have you covered all of the
topics listed?
Yes!
• Confirm your argument follows through logically.
• Change paragraph/sentence order if required.
• Ensure all outside ideas/theories/concepts are referenced.
No?
• Check that you have not gone off topic.
• Summarise and refer to viewpoints/studies/theories,
describe less.
Tip
If a sentence
seems too
long, it
probably is
too long
Tip
More
citations =
more
evidence

25. Step Six (Writing)
Edit, Reference & Proofread
Edit
• Make sure the structure adheres to the Assignment Plan.
• Ensure that you are not repeating the same word (“therefore”
“however”), use a thesaurus to assist you.
• Confirm that you have used the appropriate language for
your subject and that you used it consistently.
References
• Check that in-text citations have all information required.
• Compile a Reference List using the proper referencing style.
• Ensure that each in-text citation has a corresponding reference list entry,
and visa-versa.
Proofread
• Ensure that all punctuation is correct,
save as Word/PDF.
Tip
Keep your
Assignment
in cloud
based
server:
Dropbox
Tip
Use PDF ‘read
out loud’
function to
review
finished
version

26. The 4 ‘S’s of Good Assignment
Sources
• Good quality academic
sources used.
• Lots of sources used.
• Different viewpoints
articulated if possible.
Substance
• Has the initial question been
answered?
• Has the assignment been an
investigation of the topic, rather
then a mere description?
• Has the stance taken by author
been argued effectively?
Structure
• The assignment should follow
in the same structure as the
question.
• Is there an introduction and
conclusion.
• Does one section follow
logically to the next.
Style
• Use the academic language
style, never in the first person.
Write as a narrator.
• Use the terminology of the
subject area.
• Write objectively.
• If possible open and close with
a snappy/stylish sentence.