Assignment Preparation Guide

University of the Commonwealth Caribbean

Abbreviations

At the very first instance of using an abbreviation or acronym the full explanation should be given.

APA Style

UCC uses the American Psychological Association (APA) 7^th Edition standard for document formatting and writing style.

Binding

Assignment- If binding is required use a transparent plastic front cover with ring or spiral binding.

• Undergraduate- Research Project- Use hard bound binding.
• Graduate Studies- Research Project- Report covers are hard bound assembled as a continuous report bound together as per guidance given.

Copyright

In the interests of maintaining academic integrity, students must keep a copy of all materials submitted for assessment, including previous drafts that may be used to substantiate ownership of his/her work and ideas.

Cover Page

The Assignment Cover (attached template) is used by students to submit all academic assignments, and guidelines are outlined herein.

Assignments would have two cover pages. The University Cover Page is necessary for the recording of the assessment grades and then the other page following would be the APA compliant cover page.

Department

The name of School/Department is found on a student’s Course Outline.

Formatting

Typed double spaced using 12 inch font Times New Roman with a 1 inch margin (unless otherwise instructed by the Lecturer)

Grammar

Sentences should be written in standard English in impersonal form.

Group Project

The names and student ID numbers of all group members contributing to the assignment must be inserted.

Page Number

Insert page number on top right of each page.

Page Selection

Use standard ‘Letter size’ paper and only white paper.

Plagiarism

Students must be guided by the Academic Integrity Policy guidelines at the end of each Course Outline.

Programme

Indicate the degree being pursued.

References

Ensure that all the resources used are properly cited and included in the ‘References’ section of the assignment. Ensure that proper in text citations are used.

Spacing

One space after a comma and two spaces after a full stop.

Spelling

Contractions such as “isn’t” and “won’t” are highly inappropriate in professional documents.

Softcopy Upload

• Turnitin- Use Turnitin which is embedded in your UCC G-Suite account.
• Aeorion- Upload on the AEorion platform
• Moodle-    Upload to the Moodle platform

Turnitin

All assignments and research documents shall be quality assured against plagiarism using Turnitin. Plagiarism and Artificial Intelligence (AI) content should not exceed 20%.

Word count

• Microsoft Word- See tab at bottom left hand corner; Or under ‘Review’ on the left in the Navigation Bar
• Google Docs- Tools tab for word count

October 2019, Revised Aug 2025; Academic Affairs Division