Discussion Assignment

Writing college-level assignments can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. This week, let’s
have a discussion on writing strategies. For this assignment, write at least 250 words - but not more
than 500 words - answering the following:
1. Imagine that you have been asked to speak to your classmates and share your most helpful
strategy for college-level writing. What would that strategy be?
2. When you write, what is the difference between writing a paper and writing a discussion
post? How does the writing process differ for these two types of assignments? Furthermore,
what is the difference between writing an initial discussion post and a response to one of
your classmates?
Your Discussion should be at least 250 words in length, but not more than 500 words. Use APA
citations and references for the textbook and any other sources used. (Last week, you learned how
to cite e-books, so be sure to at least cite the textbook in your discussion post this week.) Refer to
the UoPeople APA Tutorials in the LRC for help in APA citations.
Discussion Responses
It is your responsibility to respond to three classmates by providing comments, asking questions, or
having a conversation about their main post. Feedback should be appropriate, meaningful, and
helpful. For instance refer to how your own experience supports/contradicts the opinions developed
by your peers. If you think they are too general or not rooted enough in personal experience, you
may also ask for more detailed examples supporting these opinions. In particular make sure that the
examples provided are properly referenced and that you are able to access them. Overall, your
comments should contribute positively to the conversation by broadening or clarifying it. Feedback
should be at least 3-4 complete sentences (100 words).
Rating Discussions
After posting an appropriate, meaningful, and helpful response to your three classmates, you must
rate their posts on a scale of 0 (unsatisfactory) to 10 (Excellent). The rating scores are anonymous;
therefore, do NOT mention in your remarks the separate rating score you will give the peer. The
instructor is the only person who knows which score matches the comment given to a peer. Some
classmates may worry that some peers will not provide a fair rating, or be unable to provide
accurate corrections for grammar or other errors. It is the instructor’s responsibility to ensure
fairness and accuracy.
10 (A) - Excellent, substantial, relevant, insightful, enriching, and stimulating contribution to
the discussion. Also, uses external resources to support position where required and/or
applicable.
8 - 9 (B) - Good, quite substantial and insightful, but missing minor details which would have
otherwise characterized it as an excellent response.
6 - 7 (C) - Satisfactory insight and relevance, but required some more information and effort to
have warranted a better rating.
4 - 5 (D) - Limited insight and relevance of the material; more effort and reflection needed to
have warranted a satisfactory grading.
 0 - 3 (F) - Unsatisfactory insight/relevance or failure to answer the question, reflecting a poor
or limited understanding of the subject matter and/or the guidelines of the question.
Here are some questions to consider as we think about the feedback and rating to give our
classmates:
1. Did the peer respond to everything asked by the assignment prompt?
2. Was the peer’s overall response organized and logical? Was it easy to follow and smooth?
3. Was it easy to understand the ideas the student was trying to communicate, or did you have
to make assumptions to make sense out of what the peer wrote?
4. Did the peer use their own words, or if they borrowed from somewhere else, did they give
credit to the source they used?
5. Were there consistent errors in grammar and punctuation that made it hard to understand or
make sense out of the writing?
If at any time you suspect that a post in this Discussion Forum violates UoPeople's rules regarding
plagiarism and/or any aspect of UoPeople’s Academic Code of Conduct, please notify your
instructor immediately.
Remember that your instructor will be reviewing responses, ratings, and comments. Your instructor
will adjust ratings if he/she believes that they do not seem warranted or supportable.

f at any time you suspect that a post in this Discussion Forum violates UoPeople's rules regarding
plagiarism and/or any aspect of UoPeople’s Academic Code of Conduct, please notify your
instructor immediately.

Remember that your instructor will be reviewing responses, ratings, and comments. Your
instructor will adjust ratings if he/she believes that they do not seem warranted or supportable.

Strategy for college level writing

College level writing is indispensable to college education. It allows students to critically and
reflectively communicate their learning. It is quite diverse, and requires varied approaches
depending on the task at hand such as exam essays, papers, discussion posts, written assignments
and/or peer assessments. It’s diversity makes it necessary to develop approaches to use when
writing in college.
First, it is crucial to understand the question and its rubric if given. One needs to identify keywords
in the question, and understand their meaning to be guided in the thought process (UNSW, 2022).
These will guide the student in the search for material to study to gain insight into the question,
when not provided by the instructor. Evidently the next step is reading and researching. This cannot
be stressed enough because since college writing is academic, academically recognized sources
should be used. During studying it is necessary to take notes, reflect upon- and respond to- ideas of
interest in the material (LIBRARIES, 2022). Note-taking can be in the form of writing authors’
ideas of interest into a notebook while responding to them based on experience and past readings
which is reflective reading.

With sufficient insights, one can now start to critically think on what quite well answers the
question based on that got from the reading and research (LIBRARIES, 2022). Not all information
in the material will be helpful. This emphasizes the use of keywords to help sieve out the literature.
In this process, the student can outline their points or use mind maps to organize their thoughts.
Now writing the draft can begin, which can be done with proper citing of the sources used. This can
be shared with peers or instructors for critiquing and guidance, and if any corrections are
recommended, they should be done. Now the final copy can be written, checked for spelling and
grammar or anything else. Other nitty-gritty things such as word counts, paper formats as desired by
the instructor should be checked.

Discussion post vs papers

Discussion posts and papers are both academic writing formats. The former is shorter, precise and
needs fewer or no sources referenced, while the later should be extensive. Purposewise, the post is
for academic discourse especially in classrooms yet papers are meant to contribute to knowledge in
a field. Posts may largely depend on papers when sources are required. As pertains to the writing
process, papers may require both research and experiments based on certain methodologies to get
results which should be analyzed first, and discussed. This is not necessary with discussion posts,
which may only require reading a few or just class material.

Initial Post vs Response

The initial post seeks to answer the question provided by the instructor while the responses help
comment on peers’ works in the discussion forums. Responses are shorter and more precise to the
point.

References

LIBRARIES, (2022, Jan 4). College Success. https://open.lib.umn.edu/collegesuccess/

UNSW (2022, January 4). Answering assignment Questions.

https://www.student.unsw.edu.au/answering-assignment-questions