Ace the Assignment
Success tip: don’t just read the assignment, analyze it!
Professors expect students to follow directions carefully, but what do they actually mean by those directions? Figure out what an assignment is really asking, and you have the key to a successful paper.
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What Does the Professor Want?This free online book offers useful insights into university-level writing.
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Purdue OWL: Understanding Writing AssignmentsThis online guide recommends starting on the right track by clarifying the purpose, audience and resources needed for your project.
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UNC Writing Center: Understanding AssignmentsThis handout shows how to grab every nugget of insight from the assignment.
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Assignment CalculatorPlan a schedule for completing a library research paper. Note: this is a general calculator, and the links to resources are not specific to EMU.
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Answering Assignment QuestionsThis guide describes how to analyze the assignment in order to understand what the Professor expects.
Choose a Social Problem
The Library subscribes to many reference and news sources and databases that address social problems. Exploring them might bring up a fresh topic of interest instead of the same dreary set that your professor sees year after year.
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Encyclopedia of Social Work This link opens in a new window
Social work encyclopedia with overviews and introductions for many topics.
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SAGE Reference & Academic Ebooks This link opens in a new windowBrowse or search the contents of 47 reference books published by SAGE covering the social sciences and education, including such areas as African American Studies, Aged & Gerontology, Anthropology, Communication and Media Studies, Criminology and Criminal Justice, Economics, Education, Gender & Sexuality Studies, History, Politics, Psychology, Social Issues, Social Work & Social Policy, and Sociology.
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Gale Ebooks This link opens in a new windowSearch across more than 50 encyclopedias from a wide range of disciplines. You can access the same set of encyclopedias through Gale PowerSearch.