The Art of Writing Assignments- Part 1

Assignment- The Merriam Webster dictionary defines it as "a specified task or amount of work assigned or undertaken as if assigned by authority".

In school days, we used to call it homework...take down a few problems dictated by the teacher with a cute "H.W" written on the corner of that page...These were meant to be completed during that day's study time...and it was almost always diligently done so.

Then we grew up..we went to college and we needed a new name for homework, as calling it by its old name made it look childish...thus we entered the era of "Assignments".

Anyone who has an Engineering degree knows how these assignments are tackled during the course of the semester.(Warning: The views below are written solely from the viewpoint of a boy and might not be always applicable to girls).

Before I get into the theory of tackling assignments, let me tell you about the demographics of any Engineering class..

Firstly, there is one category of people whom I'd like to call the Do-Gooders (DG)...these are the students who almost always take up the first two rows of the class (though there are exceptions....I'll come to that later). Their note taking capability is beyond belief....Even the forced jokes that the lecturers make to wake up the rest of the class, might find its way to their notebooks. They often get ridiculed for this fact, but all that is till the exam time draws near...once the exams are at your doorstep, these Do-Gooders obtain the status of the Hollywood superstars....Their notes which were ridiculed before are so much in demand that the photo copies of the photo copies of the notes are being photo copied.....Even during all this demand, these DGs never try to get even for the ridicule....they selflessly offer the notes and never do they utter a word to the tune of "You should have thought this before...."

98% of the Do-Gooders are Girls.

Next category is what I'd like to call Do-No-Harmers (DNH)...these are the people who populate the middle to back rows of the class and they are not as meticulous in taking notes as the DGs. DNHs take notes of the points that they feel are important and can be often found sleeping in classes which bore them to the hilt...When the exam time comes, they are most of the times happy with their own notes and do not bother others.

DNH population is often split 80-20 with 80% being boys...

The last category is called We-don't-cares(WDC). This category is almost always completely made up of boys and these guys rarely populate the class (coz they prefer populating the canteen or the juice shop instead). These are the guys who create the huge demand for the DG's notes.

So now, let's see how the assignment is tackled by various groups..

DGs find it difficult to sleep unless they complete the assignment on the day it has been given. Even if there is a week before the submission date, DGs would like to finish it off as soon as possible.

DNHs find it really difficult even to think about the assignments before the due date. Then on the day before the due date, they borrow a few DG's assignments and engage in honing their CP (copy-paste)skills....The CP technology is perfected by the DNHs to such an extent that no proffessor ever accused a DNH of copying an assignment....the original matter of a DNH's assignment would be spread across maybe half a dozen DG assignments....

WDCs rarely submit an assignment on time....if they do, rest assured that it was written for them by a DG friend....(Some DGs are always in a crusade to convert WDCs to DNHs....I've seen them succeed and I've seen them fail.....Oh the good old times)...

Let's move on....from the individual submissions in Engineering college to the group work in MBA...