Problems understanding university assessments
I have big problems when I get a task and don't get told exactly how to do it. I feel like, in university, a lot of your mark depends on whether you were able to interpret the task correctly. For example, at the moment I have to write a report for my Bachelor project. This is the list of what is required:
• Background and introduction
(discussing the context and scope of the project)
• Project aims, objectives and product specification
• Literature review
• Project management discussion
• Project plan and risk analysis
• Resource implications
(human & physical resources – costs)
• Bibliography and references
• Specification
I have real trouble grasping what my tutors expect from each point. What is the difference between product specification and Specification? What do I have to write in the literature review? How should the project plan look like? I asked a few times, but apparently we don't get any more help if we don't want our marks to suffer.
EstherJ
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Joined: 4 Apr 2012
Age: 33
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,041
Location: The long-lost library at Alexandria
• Background and introduction
(discussing the context and scope of the project)
• Project aims, objectives and product specification
• Literature review
• Project management discussion
• Project plan and risk analysis
• Resource implications
(human & physical resources – costs)
• Bibliography and references
• Specification
I have real trouble grasping what my tutors expect from each point. What is the difference between product specification and Specification? What do I have to write in the literature review? How should the project plan look like? I asked a few times, but apparently we don't get any more help if we don't want our marks to suffer.

It sounds like something they would have samples on the internet or elsewhere to illustrate. A couple of years ago me and one prof were applying for mutual grant, and there were similar sounding sections. Now he didnt even bother to guess what they meant. He simply pulled out a sample and then changed the information about sample scientist to the information relevant to our project. It sounds that is what you are expected to do. You can ask your teacher to find out for sure.
In theory, profs and tutors should be helpful. They're paid to see that you get the most out of your education, for which many of us pay dearly. In practice, as you've noted, that's not the case.
I don't know if your college / uni has a Writing Center on campus (some use the broad term "Learning Resources Center"), but they were tremendously helpful to me. They have more time to sit with you and discuss every point, and they should have a good reference library with books about every type of college-level writing which can help to clarify what goes in a "Background Statement" etc. The expectations vary with department, so it's good to find a book about writing for your field of study. Larger unis have a study center within the department, which is presumably where you find the tutors, but if they are not helpful there you might seek out a more generalized Writing Center.
It looks to me as if your task is essentially to produce, almost as an outline, a proposal for your project. Background and introduction would be a description of where you found the inspiration for the project, what is already known about the topic, what you hope to learn, and probably a sentence or two about how you will accomplish your research. "Project aims" would be your goals, in more detail than you provided in the intro; how this differs from "objectives" is a bit puzzling though. "Specifications" probably outlines things like materials you'll need, procedures you'll follow, what limits you will set on your investigation. "Literature review" is a further discussion of what literature is already available on the topic, and probably how it falls short of answering the questions which are at the core of your project. If you're working in a group, "Project management discussion" might be as simple as who is responsible for what portion of the work, and how each of you will go about that work. "Project plan and risk analysis" would involve outlining the procedure step by step, with discussion of areas where your research might be vulnerable to error or misinterpretation--consider it from various perspectives, in other words. "Resource implications"--??? Bibliography and references--there are lots of books which can give you a format, find out which they prefer. Many of my profs required either Chicago style or MLA--both of these have sample entries online for citing almost anything. And I'm stumped about the repeat of "Specification." I hate redundancies, but my guess might be that your prof wants a concise, outline-form overview of the report--an "at-a-glance" sort of thing. Check to be sure this is the case.
Good luck!
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