Once entering college, students hear that they will have to handle assignments as well as homework. Most of them are amazed, ‘Isn’t it the same notion?
One of the situations that merely every student will understand is when you place your urgent order with a helping service and need to mention all the essential requirements, but you get stuck because you have no idea whether you need help with homework or with an assignment. This could be crucial when every minute is valuable, and you need your paper to be done in a few hours.
In this article, we will not only help you understand when you are to say, ‘do my homework for me’ or ‘do my assignment for me’ once placing your order with a writing service. We will help you figure out the main differences for yourself so as not to get confused with such a question in the future any more.
The Definitions
As both notions refer to the academic field, who can give us better meanings of these words than one of the best representatives in the academic sphere? According to Cambridge Dictionary, homework is a task that teachers give their students to do at home (outside the class). In turn, an assignment is a piece of work given to someone, typically as a part of their studies or job.
Well, today, much debate is focused on the question of whether homework is worth the hassle and whether teachers should reconsider the pros and cons of such assignments and refuse this troublesome experience.
These dictionary definitions still do not answer our question adequately. So, let’s figure out the deeper contrasting features of these two notions.
The Nature
Assignment
An adjunct in the brackets near the ‘homework’ notion says that the nature of these two concepts differ a lot depending on the place where they are done. Assignments can even be a part of classwork where students work on a project or research a particular issue. This can also be a practical task run in class to comprehend some new theoretical information, for example, that was presented by a professor.
Homework
Again, the adjunct in the brackets says that this particular task is to be done outside the class, at home. Of course, you may say that students do not always go home to complete their tasks; they can do it anywhere – at a cafe, in a park, and even in college. Yes, and even if a student stays in college after classes, he/she can still work on their homework.
The Purpose
Assignment
Assignments usually need deeper research of the issue that a student has just learned in class. These are often global pieces of work that discuss a certain problem from different perspectives and are targeted at understanding the practical side of the learned information.
Homework
Homework is usually aimed at simply absorbing the information learned in class. For example, having discussed a book, a professor can give their students a sheet of paper with extra questions to help them recollect the information at home and make sure they have comprehended everything right.
The Process
Assignment
Assignments usually need much effort to be completed. One may need to research the question, collect some information and evidence, then do some practice to make sure their theory works well, and in the end, draw conclusions and present their work to a large audience.
Homework
Homework, in turn, is a task that requires just some knowledge of a certain question. The process of completing is usually very simple and fast: one opens the homework task (often, these are papers with questions/tests/exercises), works with it, and that is it.
The Research
Assignment
We have slightly covered this question earlier; assignments usually need a deeper level of research, practical skills, and analysis. Such tasks often require a group of people to be involved. These may be classmates who were gathered to solve the issue as well as the project may need some people from the outside to complete an experiment.
Homework
This kind of work may need some research, but it is quite precise and usually aimed at recollecting the information studied before to use it in practice.
Creativity
Assignment
Similar to research, this task usually requires a creative attitude to hit the main idea of the job. When working on assignments, students are more likely to use their creative skills to do research and come up with hooking results that will impress the audience.
Homework
On the contrary, homework often does not need much creativity, but it needs enough theory to check how well one has absorbed the material covered in class. Actually, homework is targeted at a student who completes the task because the main purpose of the homework is to assess how certain material was grasped.
Volume
Assignment
There are no certain numbers to show you because all assignments are different, and a one-page task may take a student several days to complete it. We can provide some examples to help you understand what projects can be considered ‘assignments’.
- Essay. This is usually a small writing piece on a particular topic. Simple essays can be from 500 to 1,500 words. The exception is an undergraduate essay that could need up to 5,000 words.
- Research paper. In this kind of writing, you, as a researcher, need to present a certain issue from A to Z. It means that when you complete a research paper, you should mind those listeners who know nothing about the topic, and in your research, you have to cover all the necessary information to help those people stay involved in the issue.
- Presentation. This is a visual assignment aimed at showing a particular point. The presentation can also be of different sizes, which is why it is quite difficult to name certain volume requirements. Various factors, like a topic, purpose, time restrictions, etc., can impact the presentation size.
- Literary analysis. This is usually quite a large assignment where a student has to read a book and provide an analysis to present the key idea to the audience. Just imagine that you have to read a 400-page book and discuss it to help your audience learn the plot. We definitely understand that this is not a one-day task.
Of course, this is not the full list of possible assignments, but we hope these examples will help you understand the key idea.
Homework
Homework is usually a short-term small task. Here are some examples of homework projects.
- Practice exercises. Having learned a certain topic in class, your professor may ask you to practice your knowledge at home.
- Reading assignments. You may be asked to read some material at home to have an overall understanding of the issue that will be discussed in class the next time. For example, in a Psychology class, you are to learn a new topic, and your professor asks you to read the material so you can get down to practice during the class, not wasting time on the introductory part.
- Worksheets. Foreign students will definitely catch this idea as they know pretty well how worksheets perform. For example, in an English class, you have learned a new grammar tense, and a practical worksheet is one of the best ways to absorb the material and polish your knowledge.
Hope this article helped you feel the differences, and now you can easily distinguish these two terms.