The discussion board post is a common writing assignment for college and university students. This type of writing is popular with many instructors who want to regularly test their students’ understanding of the weekly coursework. Furthermore, the discussion board post is a great tool for developing student’s communication and teamwork skills. Interacting with peers and exchanging ideas and evidence on the assigned discussion prompt is a critical aspect of writing the discussion board post. The weekly discussion posts contribute considerably to your final grade. However, many students tend to adopt a casual approach when writing the discussion board post. Some students use informal and offensive language while others totally disregard the need for references and citations. Such substandard discussion posts adversely affect the student’s final grade. This post will discuss the key requirements of a discussion board post to help students write quality discussions and reading responses and thus improve their grade.
A discussion post should adhere to all the rules of academic writing including proper grammar, punctuation, referencing, and formatting. You must acknowledge the rules and guidelines used to write essays and term papers when writing the discussion board post. For example your post must have page numbers, a reference page, and in-text citations. Another important requirement of the discussion post is professionalism. The use of words or statements that belittle or humiliate your peers is unacceptable. For example, stating that your colleague is stupid because she provide inaccurate data or information is unprofessional. In such a case, your reading response should politely indicate the problem(s) with your colleague’s weekly discussion board post and recommend the sources of evidence and data that the writer should have used. The other crucial requirement of the discussion board post is the use of valid references to support your remarks and comments on the discussions posts by your colleagues.