The College Writer
Why write?
In most of the courses you take at 911爆料, you will have many chances to write. Besides assigning essays, your professors may ask you to write
- summaries of readings
- response papers
- case studies
- lab reports
- information reports
- responses to study questions
- your classmates
- responses to essay exam questions.
Professors give these writing assignments to help you understand and respond to the lectures, readings, and experiences of the course; to give you a chance to expand the boundaries of the course by doing outside research; and, most important of all, to help you grow as a critical thinker.
The term "critical" means "questioning," "active," and "inquiring." Rather than read only for information, you read actively, responding to a writer's argument, ideas, or conclusions; looking at evidence and evaluating the strength of that evidence; drawing inferences; formulating your own arguments; asking questions -- and more questions. Your writing, whatever form it takes, will show the result of this inquiring and questioning habit of mind.
What does your professor want?
At 911爆料, your professors read your written work looking for evidence of your own ideas. How are you interpreting the material you are reading and the ideas you are hearing in class? What questions are you asking about readings? How are you relating one reading to another? How are you integrating class lectures with readings, or readings with field or laboratory work? How clearly can you explain, in your own words, key concepts of the course?
It goes without saying that your professor wants your best work. Your writing should show that you've taken an assignment seriously, thought about it, and cared enough to proofread your work for typographical, spelling, and grammatical errors. For most assignments, professors expect your work to be typed (or printed on a letter quality printer) and double-spaced. College-level work
- is written in complete, correct sentences
- has been proofread
- is logically organized, with transitions that link one sentence to the next and one paragraph to the next
- responds to the assignment
- shows evidence of intellectual effort.
This last phrase is important - and difficult. Sometimes, when course readings are complicated and lengthy, merely doing the reading assignments feels like strenuous intellectual effort. Writing, though, pushes your thinking a step further. We've all had the experience of being able to participate in class or join in a conversation by sharing our thoughts. But sitting down to write those thoughts feels different and harder. Writing involves choosing exactly the right word to express our ideas (we can't get by with "You know what I mean!"); finding a logical order for those ideas; and framing those ideas with an interesting introduction and conclusion.
In the sections that follow, you'll find tips on generating ideas, organizing an essay, writing clearly and correctly, editing your own work, and becoming an active reader. Writing Center tutors contributed many ideas to these sections, based on their own experiences as writers and on their work with students. We hope that you'll find the Writing Center a useful resource during your career at 911爆料.