1. How to write an assignment
Dr A Barai
MBBS, MRCS, MSc (Critical care)
Registrar in Emergency Medicine

2. What is an assignment
• An essay on a particular problem
• A review of contemporaneous evidence
• An elaboration of a particular aspect of a
research

3. What an assignment is NOT
• Not a copy and paste of previous studies or
publications
• Not a fiction
• Not an undergraduate essay without
references or supporting evidence

4. Basic framework
• Content page
• Introduction
• Search strategy
• Review tools
• Literature review
• Discussion
• Conclusion
• References

5. How to start
• Read the question carefully
• Look for the key words
• Ask the tutor what exactly is asked for

6. Initial planning
• Search the key words to see what evidence is
available
• Read original papers that will guide you to
write the assignment
• Write up the plan and get it checked by tutor

7. Search
• Search is the most important part of gathering information
and literature. It needs special care.
• Search through all sources: Google, google scholar, Pubmed,
Medline, CINAHL, EMBASE, Scopus etc. That will reduced
source bias.
• Contact library of your institute to gather evidence
• Look into bibliography and reference section of original
papers to gather more evidence
• Contacting the authors would be way beyond the scope of an
assignment. However, in Dissertation and PhD Thesis that can
be justified.

8. Writing up the real thing
• Search again
• Write up the assignment in all relevant sections
• As you go through the papers, you would be able to
modify the whole thing
• Write and re-write
• Give it to someone to look at for correction

9. Common mistakes
• Delay in starting
• Poor planning
• Lack of adequate search
• Grammatical error
• Plagiarism: a big issue among academic circles. It’s
like a crime!

10. Special attention
• Overall look and style of the assignment
• Grammatical errors: use spell checker
• Stick to word count +/_ 10%
• Follow referencing style as has been advised by your
institute. Commonly, Harvard style is used. But your
university/ college might a have a modified version.

11. Final word
• You are at the driving seat to write up the
assignment
• Please stick to the time frame and work hard
• Reward yourself for the hard work and punish
yourself for laziness

12. Wish you a good luck and every success!

13. Please contact me if there is any further queries:
drbarai@gmail.com