Writing College Papers

In My Humble Opinion
1

I mentioned awhile back that I had decided to go back to school (at age 41) to get a degree in exercise physiology. Well, I made it. I’m currently enrolled in a community college on the AS degree track and taking the basic social sciences, math and English courses.

Already, I’ve had many papers, albeit short, to write and my grades so far are about what I expect (perhaps higher). Though I think I write fairly well, I’m struggling with it and it’s not as enjoyable as it should be for me. It feels more like a chore and I’d like to change that considering I’ve presumably an enormous number of papers to write over the next several years. I have a solid command of the English language, grammar, and punctuation. I try to be very thoughtful, but most of the time I feel like I’m either struggling to string together two sentences on a topic or I’m unable to write concisely resulting in rambling 1400 word papers when 300 words will do. Further, I often struggle because I find myself focusing on how I’m writing something to the exclusion of the greater idea that I want to convey. Forest for the trees syndrome.

All this is making it very painful to write and I’m beginning to lose steam. I plan on signing up for the next free writing workshop through student services, but in the meantime I’ve got papers to write that are due now. I haven’t been drafting much because I don’t think I know how to do so. Basically, I write and edit as I go. It is tedious. I find myself losing train of thought often. My sentences are often tortured.

I come to beg this wonderfully eloquent group that is the Dope for some quick and dirty tips to get me through the next few essays.

As an aside, I wasn’t sure where to post this, so I won’t be surprised if a mod determines it’s better suited to another forum.

2

I forgot to mention that I just realized there’s a serious problem when I “escape” an essay in progress to do math homework, as Algebra has traditionally been my albatross. There’s irony in that. I’m also a long-suffering mathephobe. Is there an actual term for this? :smiley:

3

I more or less write professionally. My writing is generally evaluated pretty well. I still find it to be a very painful process! Nevertheless, here are some tips that work for me. (Caveat - I’m going super basic here, but these are still the general steps I use with every project.)

When you’re staring out and you have a bunch of things that you want to include and you don’t know how to structure them, get some Post-It notes and a blank wall. Write an idea down on a post-it and stick it on the wall. Repeat until you have a bunch of ideas out there. Stare at them for a while. Start grouping them together. Then start ordering the groups. Which one goes first? What flows well from that first group? There will be some post-its that, no matter how interesting, just don’t have a place. That’s OK. There will always be another paper, and maybe that one will have a home for the poor lost post-it…

Label your groups, and turn those labels into an outline. Write an introductory paragraph. It doesn’t need to be eloquent - it just needs to tell the reader what they can expect to read about. Turn each group of post-its into paragraphs.

Now, read your essay as a whole. For each section, ask yourself, “Does this section further the point I’m trying to make?” If the answer is yes, great, move on. If the answer is no, either delete the section or rewrite so that it more directly addresses your thesis. Don’t forget about transitions. If you’ve just been writing about apples, it’s too sudden to jump into a paragraph about citrus orchards. You need a link between those ideas to guide the reader from one point to the next. “Citrus orchards do not have the same set of challenges as apple farms. Instead, orange and lemon growers have x, y, and z obstacles to overcome…”

Make sure that your intro and conclusion reflect one another. The intro says, “I’m going to show you x. Here’s how.” The conclusion says, “See? I showed you x!”

Finally, never underestimate the usefulness of a roadmap paragraph near the beginning. “This paper proceeds in three sections. First, I’ll talk about x, then y, and finally z.” Or something along those lines.

I hope something in here was helpful! Good luck with your writing!

4

You mentioned that you tend to ramble a bit. Do you write a good plan before you start writing? I’ll write into the plan how many words each paragraph can have.

What really helps me, is that I discuss the topic with my flatmates. It helps me sort out what I think the crux of the issue is, it helps me argue my point and hopefully it helps the eventual eloquence a little bit. You write better when you* feel *that you really know what you’re talking about, and explaining it to someone else can help with that.

Sorry if this is not really what you’re looking for. Perhaps you can expand even more on what you find difficult? Like the planning, maybe you actually always write a really good plan already. If not, dopers could help with tips for writing plans?

5

In other words, write last, not first. Whether you use notes or scribble, an outline is the way to go, and to do the outline you need to determine the issue you are addressing, your conclusion, the steps you take to get your conclusion, and the evidence to support those steps.

For instance, the engineering papers I write have the following structure:
Introduction, which outlines the problem, gives a preview of the solution, and ends with an outline of the paper.
Prior work: Referring to other attempts to solve this problem, and also giving why my method is innovative. You don’t need this part, probably.
The method: Usually several sections stepping the reader through the solution in a good amount of detail.
Experiments and results: showing the method actually worked.
Conclusions: Summarizing what has been said.

You could probably build a similar outline for each subject, or maybe just one. In addition, for each paragraph figure out why the paragraph is there, and begin it with a sentence that describes this, possibly after a transition sentence. Sometimes I like to put the transition at the end of the previous paragraph or section as a kind of cliff-hanger.

If you do it this way, you’ll never get lost in the middle of the essay.
My motto is: write in haste, revise at leisure.

6

The above suggestions are excellent. I’d like to add, however, that this seems to indicate your real issue:

You need to find someone else in the class/classes to discuss the assignments and topics before you start, to help you flesh out information that you want to address. Then–well in advance of the due dates–you need find a way to present this information to your instructor/s so that he/she/they can give your further guidance/questions to focus your ideas.

It’s could be that the instructors aren’t really providing writing prompts that facilitate good results. As a writing instructor who has helped many students (college and high school level), this is what I see over and over again.

7

I hope you don’t think that writing papers is enjoyable, ever, for anyone anywhere. The research that goes into them can be a lot of fun; the process of writing is never anything but excruciating.

8

Woo-hoo!!! :cool:

My best tip would be that you should take this up with the professors who are assigning the papers.

Which puts you 'way out in front of many students. “problems writing papers” is a difficulty that the instructors are used to seeing. They may recommend the

Or, given your decent basic skills, they could steer you to a more advanced, for-credit course.

Such a course will help you in every course for which you have to write papers (not to mention client evaluations and instructions when you qualify), so it would be a good investment in time and money even if not formally required for graduation.

ETA: Remember what posters on your old thread kept telling you: hit the basics; a solid foundation makes everything easier down the road.

9

Did you have any difficulty writing the OP? Cause it seemed pretty well written to me. Whatever you were doing there, it works.

10

Let me preface this by saying that I am currently back in undergraduate classed while I am getting my teaching certification. Writing assignments *are *painful, so don’t let that sweat you. They are something that I am pretty good at and I still hate them and put them off to do other things. They are time consuming and take a lot of energy. Nature of the beast.

That said assuming you do have a problem I have a question. After reading your OP and thinking about the problems some of the kids in the classes with me have had, and I honestly hesitate to ask this because I don’t want to insult you but this is a BIG problem for almost everyone I have met in my return to school, were you ever taught how to properly write an essay?

I ask because you say things like:

and to me that sounds like you are having structure issues IF a) you know what you are supposed to write about (i.e. the professor has given an understandable prompt) and b) you know what you want to say.

If those things are true, then you might be genuinely helped by stuffing your ideas into a strict essay format. Even if you know about Introduction, body, conclusion, you can extend the structure further. The introduction should contain a brief synopsis of everything you intend to present in the body as well as a thesis statement. The body should contain specific points about the topic at hand, proof of those points and connections between the points and the thesis. The conclusion should(ish) restate the thesis, as well as say why this is something that anyone cares about.

I know the above is really really frighteningly basic, but I had to sit through at least one “how to write an essay” lecture in almost every single class that I have taken that has been heavy on written work, and I am not taking any 1000 level classes. IF this is your problem, that you need a structure to hang your ideas onto, the above is a good one. It doesn’t make for the most interesting essays, but it will get you B’s almost automatically at the least, better if your ideas are good.

If this sounds like it might be in the direction of the help you need I can expand on the above structure more and the writing workshops will likely help too. If this is not *your *problem I hope it helps someone else because clearly MANY people have this problem.

11

It doesn’t have to be true given enough practice and experience. I can turn out publishable 550 word columns in an hour that are +/- 10 words from my word limit without even trying. But I’ve been doing them for 15 years.
If you don’t know what you are saying, or writing something out of your depth it can indeed be excruciating. But if you are in control of your material it can be a delight.

12

For better or for worse I never write rough drafts. I pretty much shoot from the hip and go back to spell check and do minor edits. I can’t remember ever doing a major rewrite of anything.

13

This is usually my method as well. When I have done drafts and then rewrites the work is not as good. That being said, it takes a lot of confidence to do a college paper as a one-off. I usually give myself permission to write a really crap paper, with the goal being to just finish the dang thing, and then I go back through it and realize it’s not actually crap after all.

For a beginner, or someone who can’t just plow through and be done with it, I would suggest sectioning the paper into smaller writing tasks. Over the course of however long you have to do the paper try to write one idea (or answer one prompt) at a time. So maybe you write your introduction and then go off to do laundry, then come back and write your next section, take a break, come back and write a transition that connects the two pieces…like that until you’re done.

Also I think writing about something that fascinates you can be a lot of fun, but that’s only going to be a small percentage of your assignments. The rest of it is just work so don’t feel too bad if you hate it :smiley:

14

I just want to quickly thank everyone for their replies and let you know I’ll be back. There are a few suggestions that I plan on putting into practice. Some I’m already doing. I’ve got to get back to work on an essay due tomorrow. It’s a summary and response on a very short essay. I have my summary and first paragraph as a response and have no idea what more I want to say. Gonna read it again with post-it notes in hand.

sigh

15

Your posts here show that you can write sentences, even paragraphs, even several paragraphs in sequence, that all make sense and hang together coherently. As a former college teacher who had to grade these things, let me tell you that you are already well ahead of the game here. So long as you also have some clue about the topic you are supposed to be writing about (and you do not seem to be saying that that is the problem) you will be fine. Don’t sweat it too much. At this level, writing standards are not that high.

16

Don’t feel bad if you can’t do this. I can’t. I need to do an outline (it’s insanely messy and others can’t read it) but I spend a good hour or two on it.

Remember: every paper needs a thesis. A thesis is a point. What are you arguing?

An example: RandMcnally is awesome. Even better: RandMcnally is awesome because…

And for my outline I label the top: “What am I arguing? Ok, RandMcnally is awesome.”

Why is he awesome?

1: He is awesome because of his altruism.
A: He saves kittens (pg 72)
B: He volunteers at the homeless shelter (pg 48)
C: He works at the puppy shelter (pg 199)

2: He is awesome because the ladies love him.
A: Dates all the time (pg 47)
B: Mothers adore him (pg 55)

3: He is brilliant.
A: Won Nobel Peace Prize (85)
B: MacArthur Grant (74)
C: Wrote 17 books (462)

Conclusion

17

Edit yourself brutally. Be concise. Work on recognizing flowery language (modifiers, weasel words, the passive voice), then eliminate it from your paper-writing.

Outlines are truly essential. Limit each category you choose to an appropriate word count, and don’t exceed it by more than 50 words. This will help with concision over time.

It also helps to finish your penultimate draft a few days before the paper is due, then put it aside and forget all about it. The night before it’s due, go back to the penultimate draft and edit one last time. It’s easier to be brutal when you have some distance from the subject.

My high school AP English teacher was truly gifted, and I credit her for my paper-writing abilities. She had a saying: “Kill the puppies.” Everybody, even skilled writers, falls in love with his own words. Your task is to brutally take a machete to the words you fell in love with… it’s sure as hell not easy.

The writing class is a good idea. It might also help to hire a tutor. A dispassionate eye is going to spot your flowery language and unnecessary supporting details much more quickly than you will.

18

Or an alternative to a tutor: trade papers with a friend and grade each other. I did this a lot in high school, and it was very helpful.

19

Make sure you clear this with the tutor first! See threads about plagiarism passim.

20

I think Rachel had some good points - it can be very helpful to read someone else’s work, and to get constructive feedback from others in the same boat - but I want to address the above. Opinions about passive voice vary from field to field. In the writing I do, it’s mandatory. I can’t speak to the OP’s field, but she should probably have a sense for that already.