HOW TO WRITE A SIGNATURE ASSIGNMENT
Generally, a signature assignment will begin with a topic that is tied to your major or the course that you are taking. You will be asked to relate the material that has been learned in your course or program to the signature assignment that you are writing. Sometimes you are provided with a mandatory topic and sometimes you are given latitude in choosing the topic that you will write your signature assignment on. Regardless of which situation you are in, you should find an area of your field that you feel comfortable writing your signature assignment in and that you feel that you can optimally relate to your own life and the world around you. From there, it is time to form the thesis statement that will guide the writing of your signature assignment.
Writing a signature assignment must begin, like writing a research paper, with the choice of a thesis that ties what you have learned to your life or to the world around you. Once you have determined the thesis statement that you will use to write your signature assignment, it is time to engage in a literature review. In conducting the literature review for your signature assignment, try to choose sources from all of the disciplines that you have studied that not only tie in with your topic but which you can also relate to yourself or to the world around you. This will dramatically simplify the main task of the signature assignment which is to think critically about how what you have learned affects you.
You should then break your signature assignment up into sections by using headings Given that writing a signature assignment is like writing a research paper, you will use these headings to allow the reader to better understand your argument. Using headings to separate the different elements of support for your signature assignment’s thesis is a critical part of writing a great signature assignment. Using headings when writing a signature assignment allows the reader to better understand the structure of your signature assignment. The conclusion of your signature paper will be very different from the conclusion of a traditional research paper. Given that you are applying this material to your life, you will likely be using the first-person perspective to reflect on what you have written and ask open-ended questions for future research. It is important to remember that your conclusion will be vastly different from that of a traditional research paper because of the unique nature of the signature assignment.
Finally, and depending on your university and the guidelines you receive for your signature assignment, it is very likely that you will either be writing most of it in the first person or switching from the third person to the first person throughout the signature project. This represents a significant departure from the approach that you take in writing most essays and research papers in the third person. You must be prepared to use the first person strategically to relate the information from the scholarly literature that you are using in your signature assignment to your own life. Using the first person when writing your signature assignment is critical for achieving an excellent grade.