Every assignment you receive will have requirements to be met. Some will be spelled out in your assignment sheet, some will be implied. Most teachers, unless they say otherwise, expect your writing to follow all given assignment details about length, due dates, making reasonable font choices, and other particulars. Most teachers expect--and for most this goes without saying--that your writing will be proof read and edited. When you write in a particular field--say journalism, or botany, or marketing--most teachers will expect you to use the correct vocabulary and terms and concepts associated with that field. Some assignments may even tell you which concepts or terms to use in your essay.
The goal in this exercise, then, is to make yourself aware of all the assignment requirements by doing the following:
Make a check list of all the specific requirements associated with the assignment:
Due date
Length
Terms or concepts that must or should be used.
Whether outside sources (assigned essays, independently researched writings) must be used and how many.
How outside should be cited (MLA, APA, and so on).
Make sure you have the following in the upper left corner of the first page --or only if instructed to-- on a cover page:
Your name
Your teacher's name
Your course name and section number
The date you are handing the work in
Make sure you title the assignment. Don't do anything fancy to your title, such as underlining, italicizing, or using bold letters. If you are not using a cover page, the title can be centered for an essay, two spaces below the your name and the other information indicated above, and then start your essay two spaces below your title. If you use a cover page, place the title above your name, the teacher's name, etc.
Number all your pages.
Underline all the verbs in your assigment. Typical writing assignment verbs might include, but aren't limited to:
Observe Define Propose Compare Recommend
Dispute Revise Create Explore
Agree Describe Analyze Explain Detail
Write down and complete these prompts:
How does this essay [Insert the assignment verb here] [Insert the assignment topic or question here]? Highlight elements in the paper which meet the assignment verbs.
The thesis of this essay is that [Restate your thesis in new words, not by using your thesis statement(s) from the essay.]. The essay fulfills the thesis's expectations by [Describe the essay's argument, its evidence, and evidence analysis.].
If these questions can't be answered clearly or if the essay does not do each as well as it could, make a note of that and let the writer know.
After creating the list and statements described above, do three things.
Apply them to your essay on your own by checking to make sure you did everything on the list, and by completing the statements with detailed examples from your essay.
Without letting your peer review partner see what you came up with on your own, ask them to check your essay against the same list and by completing the same statements.
When your reviewer is done, compare their analysis of how you met the assignment requirements with your own. If things don't match up, then you should find out why, and revise accordingly before handing the assignment in.
The Benefits
A lot of times you will think you've done something, but in truth, you either haven't or you failed to do in a way that's clear to others. You may have thought, for example, that you used an outside source, but it may not be clear to your reader where you used the source because the documentation might not be complete. You may think you have used a term or concept, but you may have only used it by implication and may not have made that explicit.
Using this Activity to Revise
Reconcile any differences. Whatever you do, follow the assignment details as much as possible. Remember that teachers may be collecting and reading literally hundreds of essays, and that they need to read efficiently to read fairly. If your essay doesn't meet the requirements they set, it will cause them extra work and will make it harder to assess your work fairly.