The Assignment Sheet

Instructions Should be one of Your Best Friends

 By Randee Baty with The Lukeion Project

Students, when a professor gives you an assignment sheet, he isn’t just repeating what he told you in class. The sheet will have lots of useful information and essential details that must be observed. Use it well to your benefit. Never adopt a “too long, didn’t read” approach to assignment sheets. That never pays off.
Professors put quite a bit of time into creating clear assignment sheets with everything he or she thinks you need to know to finish the assignment just as it needs to be done. Nevertheless, even good students continue to submit assignments that violate clear instructions and therefore lose points or miss out on learning lessons the teacher wants you to learn.
Along with the parameters of the assignment, the assignment sheet will have additional information, possibly including the rubric the professor will use for grading, issues they want you to specifically avoid, tips for completing the assignment correctly, and what they will look for as they grade. They expect assignments to be completed in a specified format and they always expect it to be published to the instructor using a particular file type or link. Guess what? This is vital information if you are concerned about your grade on that paper.
Here is my suggestion to students when using an assignment sheet. Read the sheet a minimum of three times. I don’t mean read it three times before you start. I mean read it at three different points in the writing of the paper.  
Obviously, read the instruction hand-out carefully before you start. Read it however many times it takes for you to understand what the professor wants. Once you think you get the idea, read it from start to finish again. Make notes on it if you choose. Underline and circle important instructions or tips. Email the professor at once if there is anything you don’t understand. Then start the paper. There’s nothing worse than finding out you’ve taken the wrong approach right before the deadline. Most of us can't afford to lose hours of work.
About halfway through the paper or maybe when you finish the first draft, pull out the assignment sheet again. Re-read it from top to bottom, beginning to end. Is there anything the instructions mentioned that you may not have done yet?  Anything they told you not to do that you are drifting into? Are you staying relentlessly on topic? Are you avoiding fluff and padding? Do you have citations in place if needed? It’s a good time to self-check before you spend a lot of time on something and then realize you had neglected a basic instruction or reminder.
Once the paper is finished and polished, read the instruction sheet again. Don’t hit “submit” (or click that submission link) until after that third reading session. The process of writing and polishing can drive other factors from your mind, and you might send in a paper that that took an immense amount of work but isn't at all what was assigned. If you ignore the instructions, there are not fairy-tale endings in which your professor is suddenly OK with a submission that is way off the mark, even if you spent many hours perfecting it.  A perfected error is still just an error. A big part of your grade is accounted for simply by following instructions.
When you are concerned about getting an assignment right, the assignment sheet is your best friend!  Hang out with it, spend time with it, get to know and understand it. Mark it up with notes and underlines. Your professor and your grade transcript will thank you for it.