Teaching feedback helps you improve a skill. Completing coursework means someone else produces content that you submit as your own. The first is learning. The second is not allowed, and it also leaves you unable to repeat the skill in an exam room.
This lesson sits in assessment route and independent work. Whether you have coursework at all depends on your route, which you confirmed in checking the core option and depth study.
Where is the line?
Think in terms of who produces the thinking and the words.
| Activity | Builds your skill | Completes the work for you |
|---|---|---|
| Explaining what the task command word asks | Yes | No |
| Teaching how to structure an argument using other material | Yes | No |
| Marking-style comments on a practice answer | Yes | No |
| Supplying a paragraph you copy into your submission | No | Yes |
| Rewriting your sentences so the final text is the teacher’s | No | Yes |
| Choosing your conclusion for you | No | Yes |
The exact rules for assessed work come from your school and Cambridge. When in doubt, ask your centre.
How do you keep your work your own?
- Practise on separate material. Use different questions or invented sources to learn the skill, then apply it yourself to the real task.
- Write first, ask second. Produce your own draft before seeking feedback.
- Use feedback as questions. Turn comments into things to think about, not text to paste.
- Keep a help log. Note the date, who helped and what kind of help it was.
- Make the last edit yourself. Every sentence you submit should be one you can explain.
Worked example
An invented student, Daniel, has an assessed task and a draft that lists events but does not argue anything.
Helpful feedback from a teacher: “Your paragraphs describe. The task asks you to judge. What claim would you make, and which of your events supports it?”
What Daniel does: he decides on his own claim, rearranges his events as support, and writes two new sentences himself.
Unhelpful help: “Here is a paragraph that makes the argument, add it after your second paragraph.”
Why it fails: Daniel would submit someone else’s argument. Even if it reads better, it does not show what he can do, and it breaks the rule that assessed work is his own.
What is a plausible mistake?
Mistaken view: “If my tutor only fixes the grammar and rewords a few sentences, it is still my work.”
This goes wrong because rewording changes the voice and sometimes the meaning. The line is easy to cross by small steps.
Correction: ask for comments that identify problems, such as “this sentence is unclear”, and fix them yourself. Where the rules allow only certain kinds of help, follow those rules.
Check yourself
1. A teacher says “your second paragraph does not use the source”. Is that feedback or completion?
Show answer
Feedback. It names a problem and leaves you to decide how to fix it.
2. A friend offers to send you their conclusion “for ideas”. What is the safest response?
Show answer
Decline and write your own. Their conclusion belongs to their argument and would blur authorship. Discuss approaches in general terms if you like.
3. Why keep a help log?
Show answer
It gives you an honest record of what support you received, which makes it easier to answer questions from your school and shows you kept the work your own.
Where does this lead next?
Test the whole module with the integrated practice set. To see how skills transfer into written work, read writing and answer development.
Our teachers at online one-to-one History tuition can teach the skills with separate practice material, so the work you submit stays yours.