Writing an assignment brief that answers the questions before they are asked
Deadline, length, format and marking criteria on one page, and the ambiguities that generate a week of emails.
Every ambiguity in an assignment brief is paid for twice: once by students who guess, and once by you, answering the same question fifteen times.
A brief that takes ten extra minutes to write saves more than that in the week after it goes out.
The six facts, in a block
Put these together, near the top, in a form that can be found without reading prose:
| Field | Example |
|---|---|
| Due | Friday 22 May, 4pm |
| Length | 800 to 1000 words |
| Format | Typed, A4, submitted on paper |
| Weight | 20% of term grade |
| Group or individual | Individual |
| Late policy | 5% per day, 5 days maximum |
A table, or a short labelled list. Not a paragraph. Students check these facts repeatedly over two weeks, and each check should take five seconds.
Give the deadline a time
"Friday" means 8am to some students and 11:59pm to others, and both will argue their reading was reasonable. "Friday 22 May, 4pm" cannot be misread.
Include the day name as well as the date. It halves the number of people who miscount.
Be exact about length
"About 1000 words" produces submissions from 600 to 2500. A range with both ends stated, and a statement of what happens outside it, produces submissions in the range.
Say whether the count includes references, titles, appendices and quotations. This is the single most-asked question about any written assignment.
State the task as an instruction
Start with the verb, and use one that names a specific operation.
Compare the two approaches. Explain why the reaction proceeds this way. Evaluate the argument.
Avoid "discuss", which means everything and therefore nothing, and avoid stacking three verbs in one sentence. If the task genuinely has three parts, number them.
Publish the marking criteria
Not a mark scheme with answers. The criteria: what you are looking for, and roughly what share each part carries.
- Understanding of the concept — 40%
- Use of evidence — 30%
- Structure and clarity — 20%
- Referencing — 10%
Students who can see this write to it. That is not gaming; it is the point. A student who spends their effort on presentation because they could not tell that understanding carried twice the weight has been misled by the brief.
Say what "good" looks like
One or two sentences describing a strong answer, in general terms.
"A strong answer will identify the tradeoff between the two methods and support the comparison with at least two worked examples."
This does more to raise the standard of submissions than any amount of exhortation, because most students are not withholding effort, they are unsure where to put it.
Answer the predictable questions in advance
You know what they will ask. Put the answers in the brief:
- Can we work together on the research but write separately?
- Do diagrams count toward the word limit?
- Which referencing style?
- Can it be handwritten?
- What if I am absent on the due date?
Five lines under a heading like "Before you ask". It reads as helpful rather than defensive, and it empties your inbox.
Keep it to one page
A two-page brief gets read once and then only the first page gets re-read. If it will not fit, the assignment is probably too complicated, or the brief has drifted into teaching the content.
Hand it out and read it aloud
Ten minutes, in class, taking questions. Whatever question comes up in that ten minutes is a gap in the brief, and worth fixing before the next cohort.
Docraft's assignment template sets the fact block, the criteria list and the one-page constraint, so the structure is there before you start typing.