Your paper should have a clear structure and flow logically from one idea to the next. Writing in College: A Short Guide to College Writing by Joseph M. The best place to begin thinking about any assignment is with what you don’t understand but wish you did. Drawing from your personal experiences, knowledge, observations, and analysis, state and explain what you believe are the main qualities of a good teacher. It will tell you how and why to move beyond .
What almost never accomplishes this is to say: “My point is terrifically interesting and significant. This handout will help you figure out what your college instructors expect. ArraySeven Rules of College-Level Writing By Holly Bailey-Hofmann, Language Arts Dept. The best place to begin thinking about any assignment is with what you don’t understand but wish you did. By “point” or “claim” (the words are virtually synonymous with thesis), they will more often mean the most important sentence that you wrote in your essay, a sentence that appears on the page, in black in white; words that you can point to, underline, send on a postcard; a sentence that sums up the most important thing you want to say as a result of your reading, thinking, research, and writing. Seven Rules of College-Level Writing By Holly Bailey-Hofmann, Language Arts Dept.
“Women and the Negativity Within” by Jana Casale (research paper)
(This paper can also be found in Writing Across the Curriculum & In the Disciplines: A Journal of Student Writing from Middlesex Community College; available in electronic form). ” This point of view both misunderstands the nature of argument and ignores its greatest value. For questions like these, you start (but it’s only a start) by considering two opposing claims: Freud understood the feminine mind or did not , Lear was or was not justified, Socrates did or did not answer the charges against him. ” After all, if the instructor has asked you to discuss how MoliËre used comic patterns, she presumably already believes that he did use them. None of these assignments implies a main point or claim that you can directly import into your paper. In the next few pages, we’re going to walk you through a process of creating an argument in a Humanities or Social Science paper. For reasons we will discuss below, you will not want the claim of your paper to be merely yes or no, he did or he didn’t. Your paper should have a clear structure and flow logically from one idea to the next. The Guide to Grammar and Writing is sponsored by the Capital Community College Foundation, a nonprofit 501 c-3.
If you’re unclear on the basic rules of grammar, pick up a grammar guide or take a class in remedial writing or college grammar. For questions like these, you start (but it’s only a start) by considering two opposing claims: Freud understood the feminine mind or did not , Lear was or was not justified, Socrates did or did not answer the charges against him. This handout will help you figure out what your college instructors expect. Preparing to prove your point: the process of gathering evidence
Planning your first draft: styles of outlining
Beginning your first draft: the draft introduction
After your draft introduction: a common danger
Two styles of drafting: fast vs. But an assignment like this can make it easier to get started because you can immediately begin to find and assess data from your readings. Now by “argument” we do not mean a dispute over a loud stereo. • They expect to see that you’ve thought about limits and objections to your claim. ” This isn’t going to work. You must shape and focus that discussion or analysis so that it supports a claim that you discovered and formulated and that all of your discussion and explanation develops and supports. Note that we’re describing “a” process and not “the” process. A question just as important as what a point is, though, is what counts as a good one. They ask you to identify parts of things–parts of an argument, parts of a narrative, parts of a poem; then show how those parts fit together (or work against one another) to create some larger effect. Puses and in particular learning communities.
About college level writing read more
A third kind of assignment is simultaneously least restrictive and most intimidating. Much more often, you discover good points at the end of the process of drafting. Not only must you credit each source, you also must use the citation style your professor requests. Now by “argument” we do not mean a dispute over a loud stereo. Seven Rules of College-Level Writing By Holly Bailey-Hofmann, Language Arts Dept. Some of the criticism is easy to understand: it’s easy to predict that standards at college are going to be higher than in high school.
How, if at all, do standards of college-level writing change if faculty from . You’ll need to provide in-text citations for direct quotes and should clearly separate your ideas from a source’s ideas. ” But that kind of sentence names only your topic and an intention to write about it. Most of us begin our research with a question, with a puzzle, something that we don’t understand but want to, and maybe a vague sense of what an answer might look like. Each following paragraph should be dedicated to a sub-point in this thesis.
We conclude with some strategies for drafting and revising, especially revising, because the most productive work on a paper begins after you have gotten your ideas out of the warm and cozy incubator of your own mind and into the cold light of day. Readers look for answers to questions like “But what about. If you asked someone to show you how your computer worked, you wouldn’t be satisfied if they simply summarized: “This is the keyboard, this is the monitor, this is the printer. But few of us work that way. ” Again, your readers probably already agree with this, and if so, why would they read an essay that supported it. Not all of your instructors will be equally clear about what they expect of your paper. This page provides links to resources for non-Purdue college level instructors and students. There may be times when you’re invited to use writing to react to a reading, speculate about it. *Practice Exercises follow at the bottom of. • “In this paper I discuss Thucydides’ account of the Corcyrean-Corinthian debate in Book I. ENTERING COLLEGE: WRITING PLACEMENT ESSAYS
The ACT system is one that many colleges around the country use for placement testing.
The essays are then read by two different English instructors who grade it as passing or not passing based on the following Basic Writing essay criteria for an in-class or timed essay:. ” This isn’t going to work. But other students are puzzled and frustrated by their experiences in writing for college classes. You do not want to end up with a claim that says nothing more than “Freud did (or did not) understand the feminine mind. Part of the difficulty preparing high school students for college-level writing is that there is not an. This guide is intended to help first and second year students at the University of Chicago write effective papers in the Humanities Core and Social Sciences Core.
When speaking, we can pause or change the tone of our voices to indicate emphasis. There may be times when you’re invited to use writing to react to a reading, speculate about it. Follow this link to an electronic copy of this complete journal. Yet almost everything we do in a university starts with someone being puzzled about something, someone with a vague–or specific–dissatisfaction caused by not knowing something that seems important or by wanting to understand something better. You do not want to end up with a claim that says nothing more than “Freud did (or did not) understand the feminine mind. But even if more research supports that developing idea, we aren’t ready to say that that idea is our claim or point. This handout will help you figure out what your college instructors expect when they give you a writing. This student’s research paper was written in her second semester composition course at a college in southeastern Massachusetts (courtesy of CONNECT: A Southeastern Massachusetts Public Education Partnership, which includes Bridgewater State College, Bristol Community College, Cape Cod Community College, Massasoit Community College, Massachusetts Maritime Academy, & University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth). Van Thompson is an attorney and writer. If that’s the case, then you won’t succeed merely by being more intelligent or more skillful at doing what you did in high school.
In an Age of Information, what most professionals do is research, think, and make arguments. We’re not describing the way that everyone does go about writing an argument. Welcome to the Purdue OWL. But it is not just a matter of higher standards: Often, what your instructors are asking of you is not just something better, but something different. You’ll find occasions where you’ll succeed by summarizing a reading accurately and showing that you understand it. Here are the detailed scoring guidelines that indicate level of writing proficiency, from 1 (low) to 6 (high):
http://www. While you'll have to follow basic rules of good writing, there's no standard college -level essay. We conclude with some strategies for drafting and revising, especially revising, because the most productive work on a paper begins after you have gotten your ideas out of the warm and cozy incubator of your own mind and into the cold light of day.
Writing at the College Level Ways to improve your writing skills for the classes ahead
In college, an argument is something less contentious and more systematic: It is a set of statements coherently arranged to offer three things that experienced readers expect in essays that they judge to be thoughtful:. How, if at all, do standards of college-level writing change if faculty from . Make sure that your sub-points clearly and convincingly argue on behalf of your thesis, then add a concluding paragraph summing your arguments or suggesting future research or action. • If it is true that. If, during your first draft, you find yourself using words like “important,” you should make a note to yourself to come back during your revisions to replace “important” with more substantive language. CONNECT Writing Outcomes and Rubric for First-Year Writing
CONNECT is “A Southeastern Massachusetts Public Education Partnership” of Bridgewater State College, Bristol Community College, Cape Cod Community College, Massasoit Community College, Massachusetts Maritime Academy, & University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.
One note on the language of point sentences. ” First, what significant thing does this point tell us about the book. Writing in College: A Short Guide to College Writing by Joseph M. Writing at the College Level Ways to improve your writing skills for the classes ahead. What this handout is about. By the time you begin college, your professors will expect you to know the basics of sentence structure, grammar and paper organization. Use specific examples (but please no names) and clear explanations to support your general ideas about what makes a good teacher. We begin with the assignment that gets you started; then we discuss some ways to plan your paper so that you don’t waste too much time on false starts.
Read also college level writing:
After your first year, you may take the Writing Program’s advanced course in academic and professional writing, the Little Red Schoolhouse (aka Academic and Professional Writing, English 13000/33000). This handout will help you figure out what your college instructors expect when they give you a writing assignment. NOTE: Sample Essays #1, 2, & 6 below were in response to the following assignment option:
Though opinions may vary greatly, after at least twelve years of school, most college students know an excellent teacher from a poor one. Note that we’re describing “a” process and not “the” process. An Essential Question: What Is "College-Level" Writing. You don’t want to spend time doing something different than what you’re being asked to do.
When most of your instructors ask what the point of your paper is, they have in mind something different. The papers may not be entirely free of errors, but overall, they represent excellent student work at the college level. From high school to college
Argument: a key feature of college writing
Interpreting assignments: a guide to professors’ expectations
Another key feature of college writing: what’s your point. Punctuation – This resource will help clarify when and how to use various marks of punctuation. Almost by definition, an interesting claim is one that can be reasonably challenged. But universities hold as their highest value not just the pursuit of new knowledge and better understanding, but the sharing of that knowledge. Some will tell you in detail what to read, how to think about it, and how to organize your paper, but others will ask a general question just to see what you can do with it.
The papers may not be entirely free of errors, but overall, they represent excellent student work at the college level. Seven Rules of College-Level Writing By Holly Bailey-Hofmann, Language Arts Dept. ) and the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing (2nd ed. By the time you begin college, your professors will expect you to know the basics of sentence structure, grammar and paper organization. After your first year, you may take the Writing Program’s advanced course in academic and professional writing, the Little Red Schoolhouse (aka Academic and Professional Writing, English 13000/33000). Much more often, you discover good points at the end of the process of drafting. The following samples are meant to provide new college students with some helpful context. But what’s a good point.
We also know that whatever it is we think, it is never the entire truth
Far more often–like every other week–you will be asked to analyze the reading, to make a worthwhile claim about it that is not obvious (state a thesis means almost the same thing), to support your claim with good reasons, all in four or five pages that are organized to present an argument. Now by “argument” we do not mean a dispute over a loud stereo. (If you did that in high school, write your teachers a letter of gratitude. • “In this paper I discuss Thucydides’ account of the Corcyrean-Corinthian debate in Book I. Now that advice may seem almost counterproductive; you may even think that being puzzled or not understanding something testifies to your intellectual failure. Instead, write to discover and to refine it.
