Analysing assignment questions: Overview

This resource will help you:

• Get familiar with assignment terms like directive, content, and limiting words, making it easier to understand task instructions and rubrics. 
• Learn how to break down assignment questions into smaller steps to plan and structure your work effectively. 
• Build confidence in understanding criteria and thinking critically to improve your assignments. 

Before you start reading or writing for your assessment, you need to carefully analyse the assessment task to understand what you need to do and what the expectations are. To clearly understand the assessment task, you need to analyse the task for directive, content, and limiting words. You will then be able to develop a clear structure for your assessment through careful analysis of the task question. 

What are directive words? 

Directive (task) words tell you what you need to do in your assessment and help break the task down into manageable steps. These words direct or help you with how to structure your answer. Examples of directive words include explain, compare, discuss, analyse and evaluate.  

What are content words? 

Content (topic) words tell you WHAT you need to write about in your assessment. These words indicate the focus for the topic and research, and it is important to consider the relationships and connections between content words (Turner et al., 2011). Examples of content words include theories (e.g. ecosystem services), disciplines (e.g. public health), events (e.g. the Olympics), and topics (e.g. international business).  

What are limiting words? 

Limiting (scope) words tell you what is relevant and what NOT to write about. These words are specific details or content that provide the SCOPE (boundaries and focus) of your research (Turner et al., 2011). Examples of limiting words include only, excluding, focusing on, and limited to. 

Hint: Limiting words will help with your research when searching for credible sources. 

Consider this question adapted from Turner et al. (2011):  

Explain why reading is generally considered important at university. Assess to what extent students are required to read critically during their course work.   

• Directive (task) words. 
• Content (topic) words. 
• Limiting (scope) words. 

Firstly, you should ‘explain’ the main topic of reading at university. To ‘explain’ is to make an idea, concept or situation clear by providing the most relevant facts and details.  

This explanation would increase understanding of this concept and provide the reasons for a situation using supportive evidence. By explaining the key concepts first, you are then in a better position to justify the deeper how and why reasons for the topic.   

Secondly, you should justify the reasons how and why reading is generally considered important at university. To justify is to: 

• Give reasons or examples to demonstrate how or why something is being claimed.  
• Interpret and justify the reasons that you have identified and explained. 
• Provide valid reasons from credible sources to support a particular interpretation or conclusion. 

Thirdly, the question is asking you to ‘assess to what extent …’, which means that you should provide an evaluation, with logical, evidence-based reasons, to argue students are required to read critically during their course work. To evaluate is to apply critical thinking and logical reasoning to assess the worth, importance or usefulness of something. Do not forget to use evidence to substantiate your assessment.