Step 1: Read the assignment question and underline key words

It is crucial that you actually answer the question that has been given to you in an assignment.

For example, say you are given this assignment question: “Describe the role and application process of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal”.

The key words in this question are:

Role of Administrative Appeals Tribunal – you need to describe what function is performed by the AAT.

Application Process of Administrative Appeals Tribunal – you need to describe how a person can apply for help from the AAT.

These key words will help you when searching on the Internet in step 2

Step 2: Start researching for each section of the assignment

As the Internet is available so widely now, most students will conduct their research through the Internet.

Checklist for researching on the Internet

Use the keywords from your assignment question to search for information. Using our example from above, the search terms would be “Role of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal” and “Applying to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal”.

Websites that end with the following are usually the most reliable:o .edu or .edu.au – Educational Websites

o .gov or .gov.au – Government Websites

o .org or .org.au – Non-Profit Organisations

DO NOT use information from Wikipedia. However, you can click on the links at the bottom of a Wikipedia page and use them as research sources.

You can also use Books and Newspaper articles in your research.

How to conduct Research

Step 3: Avoid Plagiarism by summarising major points from the Internet in your own words

DO NOT just copy and paste information from the Internet and use it in your assignment. This is called plagiarism, which occurs when a student copies another person’s information and pretends it is their own work.

To avoid plagiarism, you can design a table in Microsoft Word as seen below.

In the left hand side of the table, you can type in the name of the website, its web address and the year it was last updated (usually found at the bottom of the web page).

In the right hand side of this table, you can type in your own words, the major points you have found from the website.

Website Major Points

Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) Homepagehttp://www.aat.gov.au/

Year Published: 2011

AAT reviews government decisions Individuals and government can use the services of AAT

In the next step, you can then use this information to write your final assignment.

Step 4: Start writing your final assignment

In this step, you start writing your final assignment. A way to do this is to list a number of headings in a Microsoft Word Document. From the example above, some headings could be:

IntroductionSection 1 – Role of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal

Section 2 – How to apply for help with the Administrative Appeals TribunalConclusion

In each section, you need to write in paragraphs. As seen in the example below, a good paragraph has three parts:

One of the key roles of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) is to resolve disputes between individuals and government departments. This involves the AAT reviewing all documentation and conversations that occur between the individual and government department and then making a ruling. For example, in 2011 the AAT resolved a dispute between a community

1) A topic sentence that informs readers what this paragraph is about

2) At least one sentence which further explains the idea in the topic sentence

3) An example that supports your

member and Centrelink by ruling in favour of Centrelink.

Step 5: Include references

Whenever you use information that has come from the Internet or any other source, you need to reference the source in your assignment.

There are two places you need to include references:

1. Throughout your Assignment

When you write a sentence that is based on information from a website, you reference this by writing the name and year of the website in brackets at the end of a sentence. For example, the paragraph below has 3 sentences which are based on information from the AAT website. So for each sentence, AAT and 2011 appear to let the reader know where this information has come from.

One of the key roles of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal is to resolve disputes between individuals and government departments (AAT, 2011). This involves the AAT reviewing all documentation and conversations that occur between the individual and government department and then making a ruling (AAT, 2011). For example, in 2011 the AAT resolved a dispute between a community member and Centrelink by ruling in favour of Centrelink (AAT, 2011).

2. At the end of your Assignment

At the end of your assignment, you need to include a reference for each website you have used. Each reference needs to appear as follows:

Administrative Appeal Tribunal. (2011). Welcome to the AAT Online. http://www.aat.gov.au/

Your reference list must be presented in Alphabetical Order and have the heading of “References” at the top of the page.

3) An example that supports your

1) The full name of the organisation appears first followed by a full stop

2) The year of publication appears next in brackets followed by a full stop

3) The name of the actual page appears next followed by a full stop (you can find this at the top

4) The website address appears last