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How long are uni assignments?

I’m starting uni in a few days and I haven’t much of a clue about what I can expect when it comes to assignments. I’m doing politics so I’m uncertain about how long or difficult assignments assigned will be to complete.

Reply 1

Anonymous #2

Original post by Anonymous

I have not done a degree in politics (nor would I ever want to do one - personal preference), but having been to uni you often get assignments with word limits. They tend to fall into the following categories:

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1500

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2000

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2500

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3000

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10000

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25000

Anything above 3000 words tend to be dissertations and would give you a lot of guidance and help with. 2000 words tend to be most common.

Anything in the 1500-2500 word range can usually take 2 weeks whilst fitting around your other modules, lectures, seminars, assignments, etc.
Dissertations are often in blocks of 6 weeks or 3 months.

There are theses that have more than 25000 words, but they are for doctorates usually.

The word limits above aren't indications of how easy or difficult the assignments are. That would depend more on the module and who is teaching the module. The word limits are there to also test you to be concise whilst squeezing everything you need to say in - if you're not being stretched or challenged, then you're probably not doing it right.

What I generally recommend in terms of assignments is:

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Look at the specific lecture notes that is relevant to what topic you want to write about - the relevant bits can be as subtle as a couple of sentences, so you would need to go through the notes for the lecture with a fine toothcomb

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Look through the references in the relevant lecture notes

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Look through the references at the end of the chapters relevant to the relevant lecture notes

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Look at the recommended reading in the unit outline for further sources

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If you want to be cheeky, look up the relevant sections of/articles on WIkipedia, then look up the references mentioned in those sections/articles.

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When you have found those relevant references, look up the references used in the relevant parts of those references.

Do the above before you go on Google Scholar or your uni's journal article database and go full blast on finding all articles that contain the keywords you are looking for.