How to Write a College Paper

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

(Or: What it Means to Write a “College Level Paper”)

1. I read first. I read all the assigned work for the class, even the boring pieces (except, I confess, for the single most boring piece). As I read, I looked for connections between essays, connections between the essays and my personal experience, and particularly for places that created “disequilibrium” – a disconnect between the writer’s point of view and the world as I understand it.

2. I took notes during the lectures. I took three types of notes: 1) content based notes; 2) ideas for my paper (both thesis ideas and supporting arguments); 3) curriculum ideas for my classroom. I identified ideas for my paper with an asterisk in the left hand margin.

3. I wrote an outline on Saturday, July 19^th. The outline identified four sections of my paper. Each outline section heading was a question. The bulk of my outline consisted of authors and page numbers where I could find textual support to answer the question.

4. I let the essay “cook” until Tuesday, July 22^nd. I thought about the essay, discussed my thesis with classmates, skimmed the class readings, and reviewed my lecture notes, but I did not compose.

5. I wrote one section of my paper each night from Tuesday through Friday. As part of the writing process, I turned the questions from my outline into thesis statements. Yes, my essay has four distinct thesis statements. The main thesis for my essay – the one that operates as an umbrella thesis for the others – first appears at the bottom of page two (not at the end of the first paragraph).

6. The writing process created new questions for me, so I turned to the internet for research. I did not use wikipedia, except to fact check one definition. Often, the websites Google provided were not helpful, but the pages contained links to other pages that met my needs. Ultimately, I found three resources that were both useful and credible: one of my sources was from Indiana State University (after I selected the resource, I googled the author to confirm that he was reliable), the Pew Research Center (a nationally recognized institute), and a government website.

7. Each night, before I began work on a new section, I reread my previous work. This helped with proofreading, maintaining continuity of voice, and creating smooth transitions.

8. On Saturday, I revised. I reread the paper from beginning to end. I fussed with my organization, particularly the transitions. I also created my Works Cited page; it took almost two hours.

9. On Sunday, I gave the essay to my wife to read (in school, this is called peer review). She’s also an English major and an excellent editor. She gave me feedback on diction and voice, audience awareness, grammar and punctuation, and a few logical lapses. She also gutted my conclusion.

10. On Monday, I made the easy revisions. I attempted to revise the conclusion, but it still needed more time to “cook.”

11. On Tuesday, I revised the conclusion. My wife reviewed the new conclusion, offered a few tweaks, and griped that I didn’t accept every single one of her suggestions.

12. Tuesday night, four weeks after I began my reading for this essay and ten days after I began the process of composing, I e-mailed my final draft to my instructor. I sent the essay as a Microsoft Word attachment AND pasted the essay into the body of the e-mail.