The following guidelines are offered as a general indication of what is expected in terms of the presentation of both assignments and research papers in flexible distance courses.
Each assessment task may also have particular requirements not covered here. Where information here is in conflict with information provided by the course lecturer, you should follow the advice of your lecturer.
Assignment Preparation and Submission
The following guidelines are offered as a general indication of what is expected in terms of the presentation of both assignments and research papers in flexible distance (Atax) courses.
Each assessment task may also have particular requirements not covered here. Where information here is in conflict with information provided by the course lecturer, you should follow the advice of your lecturer.
Assignment cover sheets
You must ensure that you include a cover page with each of your assignments that has the following information:
- your name
- your student ID
- the course code
- the course name
- the due date
- number of words
You should also include your name, ID and course code in the footer of your assignment document along with page numbers. A sample cover sheet can be found on Moodle in the Assessments section.
Abstract
An abstract is used to summarise the subject of a research paper. Abstracts are only required for research papers and should contain 100 to 200 words. Do not write an abstract for a problem-type assignment.
Margins
You should allow the following standard margins in your assignments to allow space for the lecturer’s comments: Left and right margins — 3.5 cm; Top and bottom margins — 2.5 cm.
Headings/Table of contents
Headings should be typed in bold. Only capitalise the first letter of the heading. Do not capitalise the entire heading. If you have written a long essay with many parts, a table of contents should be used. Otherwise, do not include one.
Style of presentation
Your assignment should be typed using an 11 or 12 point font. Single line spacing should normally be used, unless your lecturer tells you otherwise. Leave a line after each paragraph. Do not indent the first line of the paragraph. You should number each page of the assignment.
Footnotes and citation system
You should use footnotes as your referencing tool. Use end notes only if your computer cannot produce footnotes. Use the rules set out in a recognised citation and style guide such as the Australian Guide to Legal Citation. Footnotes are not normally included in the word limit, unless you include substantial commentary or discussion in the footnotes.
Bibliography
Details of works cited in the text are provided in a bibliography which is placed at the end of the document on a new page under the heading ‘Bibliography’. The bibliography is not included in the word limit.
All publications (books, articles, theses etc) are included in the bibliography. Legal cases and legislation are not included in the bibliography. If a list of cases is considered necessary due to the large number used, it should be in alphabetical order under a separate heading ‘Legal cases’. A similar separate list, headed ‘Legislation’, is used if needed for legislation.
Your bibliography must be presented in the following format:
Items in the bibliography are listed alphabetically by author or source.
The citation style of the item should be in accordance with a recognised and appropriate citation and style guide, except that specific page references are not included.
Assignment submissions and deadlines
This course uses UNSW Moodle for the electronic delivery and submission of assignments.
Please check your submission link – you may only be entitled to submit an assignment once in which case additional and subsequent submissions will not be accepted.
Step-by-step guides have been produced to assist students through the assignment submission process, and are available for download from the UNSW Teaching Gateway at https://student.unsw.edu.au/moodle.
Due date and time
Each assignment should be submitted via Moodle by midnight AEST (or AEDT, Australian Eastern Daylight Time, where applicable) on the specified due date unless otherwise stipulated. You are advised to to submit your assignment early if possible, and to allow at least 15 minutes for the Moodle submission process. Most assignments will be parsed through TurnItIn which will check the originality of your work. If you are given the opportunity to resubmit your assignment up until the due date you should be aware that even though you can submit more than once each day, TurnItIn will only produce one originality report every 24 hours so there may be a delay on receiving your updated originality report after the first submission. The version of your assignment that is submitted at the due date will be the version that is accepted for marking. For information on submitting assignments via Turnitin. For information on how to interpret originality reports.
Name and save your assignment documents
For identification purposes you are required to name all of your assignment files that you are submitting using the following naming convention:
Surname_GivenName_Course Code format.
For example: ‘Lawson_Henry_TABL1001As1.doc’
You must also retain both an electronic and hard copy of every assignment. No mark can be given or concession awarded should an assignment be lost and no evidence of completion is able to be provided by the student.