Part IV Common Writing Assignments

In Chapter 3: What Is Academic Writing?, we introduced the overarching purposes of academic writing, emphasizing that these purposes set academic writing apart from other styles of writing you might encounter at work or in daily life. As Table 3.1 illustrated, there are many different forms of writing you might be expected to do in university. Now it’s time to turn our attention to the specifics of some of these sub-genres of academic writing.

Part 4 introduces five of the most common types of writing assignments you will encounter in your post-secondary studies. Table P4.1 compares the requirements for these five kinds of assignments. This overview highlights key differences in structure, formality level, point of view, tone, and content. You might want to take a moment to review Chapter 6: The Importance of Tone before carefully examining Table P4.1.

Understanding the conventions of each kind of assignment is the first step to success—especially if this is the first time you’ve written this type of assignment. In Part 4, you will learn strategies for mastering each of these five assignment types so that you can become a more confident writer.

If you have not read the chapters on paragraph essentials and essay essentials in Part 3: Building Paragraphs and Essays, take some time to do so now before proceeding. The discussion that follows assumes that you are knowledgeable about standard essay structure.