Tackling Your First College Writing Assignment

Written by Anna Whitaker

Picture this: it’s three weeks into the semester and you’re facing down your first college-level writing assignment. Whether this is a research paper, a Think Piece, or a narrative essay, we’ve got some handy tips and tricks to get you started!

1. Get all the details.

Knowing everything you can about the assignment is going to make things a lot easier in the long run. Details and instructions can be found in several places; usually, they are on the assignment itself in Canvas, as well as the syllabus. Don’t be afraid to reach out to your professor, either. They want to see you succeed – they know everything about the assignment (they’re the ones who made it!) and are more than willing to share the nitty gritty details with you. Here are a few things you’re going to want to know about what you’re writing:

• Format: Does your professor want MLA, APA, or something different?
• Genre: Is this an argumentative research paper or a lab report? Are you writing an editorial piece or a lengthy literary analysis? Understanding the assignment genre will help guide your writing.
• Technical Details: What’s the word requirement? How many sources are you supposed to have?

2. Figure out your topic, and outline it.

This is a key component in the writing process, because without it, you’ll have no idea where you’re going or even where to start! First, you’ll want to brainstorm your topic. What are you going to write about? What appeals to you? What topic has plenty of sources available for you to draw on?

Once you’ve decided, create an outline of what you want your paper to look like. It can be as bare as three or four bullet points, or you can go in-depth with topic sentences for each paragraph and jumpstart your research process by including links to sources. Outlining looks different for everybody – the goal is to have some guidance that can (and will) evolve as you develop your paper.

3. Jump into the writing!

You can start with your introduction, or dive straight into the body paragraphs. Writing doesn’t need to be linear, so go with whatever flow works for you. Remember, your first draft isn’t going to be perfect. The first draft exists so that you can get all your thoughts onto the paper – polishing and editing comes later in the process. As you write, keep the assignment guidelines in mind; your arguments, claims, and use of evidence should align with your thesis (a statement, usually in the introduction paragraph, that makes a claim about your topic and outlines how you’re going to back up that claim).

4. Bonus points: head over to the Write Site before you submit your paper to get advice and feedback from top-tier writers and English students.

The Write Site is a free service open to all Texas Woman’s University students (undergraduate and graduate) that assists with all aspects of writing. They help with big-picture issues (such as structure and argument development) to smaller scale items (like grammar and formatting). You can submit your first first or your final draft. The Write Site can work with whatever you’ve got in a face-to-face or online appointment! Whenever you get stuck, the Write Site and its well-trained writing consultants are a great resource to utilize to help get you past any writing block you’re facing.

College writing may seem daunting at first, but you’ve got plenty of resources behind you to help get you were you need to go. Best of luck!

How to Ask for Help in the Write Site

Written by Cameron Henderson

The struggle: you’re sending your paper into the Write Site, and when you get to the section marked “specific questions/concerns,” you have no idea what to say. “Grammar, I guess? APA formatting? I don’t know, can you just tell me if it’s good?” If you’ve done this, you’re definitely not alone. Students often struggle to formulate questions to ask about their own writing when seeking assistance at writing centers. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of wording: “I don’t know how to say it, but I have a general idea of what I’m worried about.” Sometimes, students come in unsure of what they need at all. Here’s my main piece of advice: don’t stress too much about these feelings. Every writer wonders at some point if they’re doing it right. With a little guidance and a tiny crash course on the things we focus on here, you can start getting an idea of the kinds of questions that will best help you in your individual writing process.

Where to start:

Here’s the thing you need to know about the Write Site: we are not an editing service here to clean up your paper. We’re writing consultants. That is, our job is to give you feedback to help you improve your writing overall, not just in an individual paper. We like to look at the overall structure, or what we call the “global concerns” of the assignment, before we hone in on grammar mistakes. Our feedback is designed both to address the needs of your submission and to give you an idea of how to make your next paper even better.

With that said, here are a couple of ideas for where to start when considering what kinds of things to put in the “specific questions/concerns” section of your Write Site submission. Forewarning: these suggestions are not going to deal with grammar and formatting. Anyone can ask for help with grammar and formatting. Sometimes, I will admit, grammar and formatting are the main things that need to be addressed in a submission, though usually not. Most of the time, there is something else that needs to be addressed before looking at sentence-level errors. You may or may not already have a sense of what; following these two simple pieces of advice can help you figure out what to ask for to help us help you:

1. Check the rubric for question ideas

Your professor will often attach a rubric with specific requirements for the paper. Some of these requirements will deal with the content you need to include in your essay, but many of them also deal with the professor’s structural preferences. You can look at the rubric for inspiration for questions about argument, support, your thesis statement, audience, and purpose. Your tutors would appreciate your effort even if you take the wording directly from the rubric to check if you’ve done something well.

2. Read up on some of the writing lingo your writing consultants are using

You don’t have to know everything. Heck, you don’t even have to memorize the terms we use here in the writing center, though it wouldn’t hurt you as a writer. Being aware of some of the underlying structures of an essay will not only help you feel more confident asking your tutors specific questions, but will also improve your confidence as a writer. Knowing what’s going on behind the curtain makes the process of writing feel much less slippery. This handout here is a simple explanation of some basic terms (these are what we mean when we say “global concerns”) and a few example questions you can ask in your submissions. Feel free to save it for later and even copy+paste the questions into your submission forms.

That’s it, that’s my advice. Not too complicated, but hopefully you find it helpful. The first step, of course, is making your appointment–for that (and this next bit is specific to TWU students, though the rest of my advice is for anyone thinking of using writing center services at their school), you need to have a WCOnline account set up using your TWU email address. When you create your appointment, you have the option of selecting an online OWL, which is the type of appointment where you send your essay in and we send it back via email with our commentary and suggestions. There’s no live component to this type of appointment, so it’s great for those with scheduling conflicts. We love to have one or two specific questions to focus on during these appointments, since you won’t have a chance to refine your questions during our reading. You can also make an OWLive appointment, which is an online video meeting where we look over your paper with you in real time. It’s good to have an idea of what you’d like to focus on and what kind of feedback you want, but you’ll also have a chance to come up with more questions during your conversation with your consultant. Finally, you can make a live appointment in the Write Site and come to us in person for the same type of real-time tutoring. Again, the Write Site offers a tutoring service, not an editing service, so don’t expect simple revisions. Expect commentary and suggestions for ways to improve your writing and help you along in your process.

Thanks for reading, good luck, and we hope you have a great semester!

Writing a Conclusion

Written by Write Site Staff

When writing most papers, you will include an introductory paragraph, the main body paragraphs, and the conclusory paragraph. The conclusion is used to complete your paper. Without a conclusion, your paper will seem unfinished, like a story without the “happily ever after.” Having a strong conclusion will bolster your paper’s purpose while giving readers a satisfying ending.

Goals of a Conclusion

Emphasize your thesis.

Rephrase your thesis in a new way. This refreshes the reader’s memory about your main point and allows you to show that you have proven your thesis over the course of your paper. Many writers choose to restate their thesis for the first sentence of their conclusory paragraph.

Synthesize your argument and main points.

Synthesize – don’t summarize. You do not need to recap your entire paper point by point. Instead, synthesize the paper’s main points; show your reader how the points you made, and the support and examples you use to develop those points, fit together.

Succinctly answer the question “So what?” or “Now what?”

Why should readers care about your argument? What does your paper add to the discussion about your topic? Where should readers go from here? This is your opportunity to elaborate on the significance of your findings, suggest larger implications now that you have synthesized your main points, and even propose a course of action or questions for future study if appropriate.

Provide a sense of closure.

You can provide closure and make a clever exit by leaving the reader with a strong closing statement. This can be tricky because, depending on the paper, this may be the only piece of personal input you have. In an informative essay, your closing statement will be your only personal input on the subject – mostly being what you feel about the subject in accordance with your main points. In an argumentative essay, it will be your point of view – on which side of the argument you fall. You want to leave your reader thinking.

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One technique for restating your thesis with different language is to use a complex sentence for your thesis statement the flip the subordinating and independent clauses when you restate it. You can also use another subordinating conjunction that shows the same basic relationship between the two clauses.

For example:

• Original thesis: Most critics agree that the Harry Potter films were really well cast, although some purists believe that the films did not do justice to Ron’s character.

• Restated thesis: Whereas some purists believe that the Harry Potter films did not do justice to Ron’s character, most critics agree that the Harry Potter films were really well cast.

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Writing an Introduction

Written by Write Site Staff

One of the most intimidating parts of writing a paper can be deciding what to include in the introduction. However, it does not have to be intimidating. You make introductions every day.

• You introduce yourself to new people.
• You introduce acquaintances to each other.
• You introduce topics and stories into conversations.

Capture your readers’ attention.

Consider your ideal audience. What will capture your readers’ attention and motivate them to keep reading? Ideas to capture your readers’ attention include famous quotations, personal anecdotes, and startling statistics. For example, you might begin a paper about binge drinking in college with a startling statistic about the number of deaths caused by binge drinking each year.

Start broad but not too broad.

Begin your introduction broadly but as “broadly” as you can as it pertains to your topic. For example, if your paper is about ecotourism specifically. Avoid openings that are sweeping generalizations like, “Everyone loves to take vacations,” or, “Since the beginning of time, people have been interested in exotic environments.” You should narrow your topic as the introduction continues (and over the course of your paper, essay, etc.)

Give readers any pertinent information they need to understand your topic.

The information in your introduction should provide context and define any terms with which your readers may be unfamiliar. For example, if you are writing a paper about weather anomalies, you would need to define what constitutes a weather anomaly for your readers. That being said, avoid using a dictionary definition as “filler” for a word your reader already will know. So, whereas you might define weather anomalies in a paper about that topic, you probably do not need to define what a tattoo is in a paper about tattoo safety.

Let your readers know why you are introducing this topic (thesis statement).

If your paper is argumentative, a thesis statement should appear toward the end of your introduction, generally the last sentence. The thesis statement introduces your reader to why you are writing the paper – the position you will be taking in the paper – and can provide a preview of your argument. For example, if you are writing a paper arguing against school uniforms, you might include the thesis, “Public school students should not be required to wear uniforms, for uniforms make everyone look the same, are not financially equalizing, and disregard the needs of people with sensory processing disorders.”

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Remember:

There is no rule preventing you from writing your introduction last! Since the introduction introduces your topic, you will have a better idea of how your topic evolves after you have finished writing. Your argument solidifies by the end of your paper. Waiting until the end to write your introduction can also help you overcome writer’s block if you jump right in and start writing your body paragraphs. It is difficult to know how to introduce something that does not yet exist in its final form, so don’t hesitate to write your introduction after you have written the body of your paper.

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