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Making the Most of College Writing By Emily O’Brien, Jane Rosenzweig, and Nancy Sommers of the Expository Writing Program, Harvard College Edited for Duquesne University by Greg Barnhisel This pamphlet was written for the use of first-year students at Harvard. However, its insights hold true for first-year college students at universities everywhere. Introduction The things that I understand, that I remember, that make a difference to me are the things that I have written about. When the students of the Harvard class of 2001 were asked, as part of an intensive, longitudinal study, to reflect on why college writing was important to them, most of them reported that it helped them make sense of the material in their classes. As one biology major put it, “I don’t feel like I can understand what’s going on in lab unless I do a lab report.” Another student explained it this way: “When you are not writing papers in a course, you take more of a tourist’s view of a subject because you don’t have to think in depth about any of the material.” This idea—that writing is the way that you do much of your learning in college—is voiced by faculty members as well. As Lizabeth Cohen, Professor of History, comments, “Writing is the best way to figure out what you think. In my own work, I always learn what I think—or what I haven’t thought through sufficiently—when I sit down to write a paper, essay, or book chapter. It is with that in mind that I give students writing assignments: to help them figure out their views on a topic.” The best way to become a strong writer is to practice, and you will have plenty of opportunities to do so here at Duquesne. In the meantime, we hope you will find this guide a useful introduction to what lies ahead. When asked what advice she would share with future students, one of the students in this study said this: “See that there is a greater purpose to writing than completing an assignment. Try to get something and give something when you write.” By writing in depth about a subject, you will “get” more from your writing than just a grade; you’ll gain a sense of accomplishment from having developed your own ideas and a new understanding of the material you’ve grappled with. At the same time, by sharing your knowledge and ideas, you’ll “give” something to your readers. You will be contributing to an ongoing conversation, and your professors will have the opportunity to learn from you. Part one: freshman year Something else is being asked of us: something more and something deeper. I thought I had gone as far as I could go analyzing a poem, and my professor wanted me to go deeper. During their freshman year, the students in the Harvard study were asked what they found most challenging about college writing. Although many had come to college with extensive writing experience, most students discovered that in college they were expected to meet even higher standards than before: to delve deeper into the topics they wrote about, to tackle more complex issues, and to focus more attention on developing their own ideas. On the one hand, they said, such complex and demanding assignments could be intimidating; on the other hand, they found it exciting that professors were genuinely interested in what they had to say. Writing successfully in college will require you to add new skills to the foundation you built in high school. For example, you may be accustomed to writing essays in which you describe or summarize ideas put forth by others, but you will now be asked to explore such ideas in greater depth and use them as a launching pad to develop your own insights. Similarly, you may be used to writing essays in which you interpret texts, but in college you’ll probably be expected to come up with more complex interpretations. And while you are most likely used to supporting your arguments with evidence, at college you’ll be asked to consider other—and sometimes opposing— interpretations of the same evidence. There is no magic formula for writing college papers, but by keeping the following points in mind, you can make a smoother transition to academic writing. Look Beyond Formulas One of the things you’ll discover freshman year is that the five-paragraph essay and other structures you’ve relied on in the past will not be flexible enough to meet the more complex demands of college writing. For example, if you’re asked to write a ten-page paper, you won’t be able to structure it in five very long paragraphs. So what should you use instead of the five-paragraph model' The real challenge of composing college papers is that no single structure will serve all of your purposes. There are no substitute formulas—in fact, structuring an essay is not about formulas at all. The categories you use to organize your ideas should be determined not by a pre-established pattern, like the five-paragraph essay, but rather by the argument you are putting forth: what and how much you have to say. There are advantages to taking this approach to writing: allowing your ideas to give shape to your essay will give you room to explore your insights thoroughly and present them clearly to your audience. At the same time, it can be challenging to work with new structures and let go of familiar formulas. Some of your classes, Core 101 and 102 in particular, will offer guidance as you experiment with essay structure. Focus on Ideas In college, professors and TFs (Teaching Fellows) will expect—and reward —ambitious topics, interesting questions, thorough analyses, and convincing arguments. This is not to say that accurate spelling, good grammar, and fluent style are insignificant to good college writing; on the contrary, they are essential, and your readers will expect to see these elements incorporated into all of your written work. But don’t be surprised if they address these issues only briefly when evaluating your writing—or not at all. Your professors and TFs are primarily interested in your ideas and their presentation. One freshman recalled how she learned these priorities from a TF: “A key moment in my freshman year was the comment I received on my first English paper: ‘What you say, you say nicely, but you don’t say very much.’” In general, the most successful college papers are those that put forth original ideas and still say something “nicely.” to say during the process of writing. Because your ideas develop as you Rethink Your Study Strategies In order to write essays that grapple with ideas and articulate complex arguments, you may need to rethink some of your study strategies. It’s not that your old ones are “wrong,” but rather that shifting expectations and responsibilities often require new approaches. Most of your professors and TFs will not tell you how to organize your time, and they are unlikely to monitor your progress as you write, so you’ll want to figure out what writing process works best for you. As you experiment with ways to manage your time, consider these strategies: • Set aside time to think write, it’s important to revise your essays before turning them in. Writing drafts can feel discouraging at times—especially when you find yourself discarding whole paragraphs you’ve written and completely rewriting others. But your struggles at this stage of composing are not an indication of your skills as a writer. As one professor puts it, “We rarely say all that we mean on the first try, and we rarely say it as we wish. Revision gives us second, third, and tenth chances to say it differently and thus to know more of what we hope to say.” If you approach writing as a process rather than as a product, and if you invest the time necessary to see through several revisions, you will become a stronger writer. In fact, as Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology, remarks, “Writing in multiple drafts makes the whole task less daunting. You aren’t faced with having to write a perfect paper on the first pass.” • Seek feedback Keep in mind that the process of writing an essay involves much more than just the actual writing. When you are asked to examine texts closely, weigh conflicting ideas, draw conclusions, and put everything together into a cohesive whole, you will need time to read and reread your sources carefully, to brainstorm, and to organize your thoughts. You’ll need time to experiment with essay structures and to anticipate objections to your argument. And you’ll need time to allow your ideas to evolve. • Write drafts, and plan to revise While writing an essay is ultimately an individual activity, and while your name alone will appear at the top of the page, it is valuable to get feedback at all points in the writing process—whether you are brainstorming, outlining your argument, or drafting. By trying out your ideas on professors, TFs, classmates, or friends, you can find out what potential readers find confusing or intriguing, and sharpen your ideas before you even start writing. Once you’ve written a draft, readers can suggest new paths to explore and raise One student in the study described a typical writing experience when she said, “You may begin writing one paper and end up with another.” All writers—college students, professors, novelists—figure out what they want interesting objections to your argument. Because they have no personal attachment to your work, they’ll be more objective than you about what in your draft should stay and what should go. Seeing how others respond to your work can also help you hone your own skills as a critic—and use these skills when revising your own writing. • Take Intellectual Risks The most exciting intellectual experiences are those in which you challenge yourself and move beyond familiar ideas. You’ll be taking an intellectual risk if you attempt to defend a controversial claim, if you question an authority on a particular issue, or if you pursue an idea even though you’re unsure where it will lead. If you feel as if you’re learning something new as you write, exploring an intriguing topic, or answering a question that genuinely interests you, the experience will be more rewarding for both you and your readers. Repeatedly, the students in the study reported that the times they chose a challenging path led to their most memorable and gratifying writing experiences in college. One student remembered being inspired to tackle more adventurous essay topics by a TF who told her, after reading a draft of one of her papers, “I think you can try something harder. Pick the thing that you actually care about, what doesn’t make sense, and write about that. Have more guts.” Students who described taking intellectual risks didn’t talk about these accomplishments in terms of final grades; rather, they noted the satisfaction they received from figuring out something unexpected. part two: getting started The hardest part of writing is when you get the assignment and you think to yourself, there is no way I’ll be able to write this paper. It seems so impossible. You clench your teeth, throw yourself into it, stay up late. Sometimes it is all you can think about. Then, all of a sudden, you have something in your hand. You have actually produced something that you care about. You thought you couldn’t do it, and you did. Before you draft an essay, you will need to figure out what is expected of you, who your audience is, and what ideas you want to pursue. You will receive writing assignments in a variety of disciplines over the next four years, and each discipline has its own conventions and expectations. Even so, you will find considerable common ground. Most disciplines, for example, put a premium on argument and ask you to focus your essay with a thesis. Academic arguments depend on analysis of evidence, although the types of evidence and methods of analysis may vary. And essays in all disciplines are written for audiences that will expect clear, well-organized prose. This section of our guide offers some general hints for decoding assignments, writing with an audience in mind, and coming up with something to write about. Since it’s impossible for us to provide advice for every occasion, we remind you that it’s always best to check with your professors or TFs if you’re unclear about their expectations, especially if you’re new to a discipline. or “how” are not stated explicitly—share the expectation that you will respond by making an argument. So, for example, although the question “Do you agree with Nye’s argument about American soft power in international affairs'” could be answered with a “yes” or a “no,” you would still be expected to go a step further and specify why you agree or disagree— and whether you agree or disagree with all or only parts of Nye’s argument. Similarly, while the question “In what ways are online communities similar to or different from traditional communities'" seems as though it could be answered with a list of facts (“online communities are based in technology while traditional communities are not”), implicit in this assignment is the expectation that you will take a position and make an argument to support that position (“because they draw members from different races and economic positions, online communities are more likely than traditional communities to break down the walls of prejudice”). • Directives Reading an Assignment One of the first ways your professors and TFs will communicate their expectations is in the phrasing of their assignments. Initially, the language of these instructions may seem unfamiliar to you. You may wonder, for example, what you’re supposed to do when an assignment suggests that you “discuss,” “analyze,” or “weigh the strengths and weaknesses” of an idea or topic. To help you get started, we’ve collected and translated some of the common phrases used in assignments. • Questions Many of your college essay assignments will come in the form of a question or a set of questions. Often these questions will clearly require you to take a position and build an argument in support of your claim. For example, most “why” and “how” questions (“Why has the U.S. space program lost so much public support in the last 15 years'” “How did gaining the right to vote affect women’s political views'”) cannot be answered with facts alone. Other times, you’ll be asked questions that appear to invite a simple “yes” or “no” answer, or a description rather than an argument. It’s important to remember that all question-based assignments—even those in which “why” Some assignments will be phrased as a set of directives or instructions. Many of them will ask you to “discuss,” “consider,” “analyze,” or “answer with reference to.” While these requests may sound different, they are actually quite similar. In each case, you are expected to interpret, evaluate, and make an argument about your sources. When you encounter an assignment that offers a directive, try turning it into a “why” or a “how” question. For example, an assignment that asks you to “Discuss Margaret Mead’s argument that war is not a biological necessity” could just as easily be phrased as “Do you agree with Margaret Mead’s argument that war is not a biological necessity' Why or why not'” Similarly, the assignment “Write a ten-page analysis of Picasso’s Guernica that takes into account the interpretations of Neumann, Fisch, and Gervereau” could also be phrased like this: “In a ten-page paper, make a case for how we should interpret Picasso’s Guernica. Be sure to evaluate the alternative interpretations of Neumann, Fisch, and Gervereau.” • Open-ended topics you’ve been allotted. A good way to turn a broad subject into a manageable topic is to focus on a single text or a collection of texts that have something in common and to pose a “why” or “how” question for yourself. Take, for example, the third option in the sample assignment above. Rather than trying to write an essay that addresses the role of science in all science fiction, you might narrow your focus to ask how Jules Verne incorporates scientific principles into his novels about space travel. Writing for an Audience Because your professors and TFs are often the only people who read your essays, it might be tempting to approach an assignment by trying to figure out what a professor or TF is interested in or what he or she wants to read. But there’s another way to think about your audience when you write: besides making sure that you understand the course material, your professors and TFs are giving you a chance to explore that material in some depth. They want you to develop and express your own ideas, not cater to their interests. Instead of focusing on your professors and TFs primarily as evaluators or as people to entertain, you might view your writing as an opportunity to exchange thoughts with them. Remember to “try to get something and give something when you write,” per the advice of a student we quoted earlier. Or, as David McCann, Professor of Korean Literature, recommends, “Think of writing as a way to start and continue a conversation with someone who Sometimes only your subject will be given to you. You might, for example, be asked to “Write an essay of 2,000–2,500 words on one of the following topics: 1) The Impact of the Scientific Revolution on Literature; 2) The Character of Galileo; 3) The ‘Science’ in Science Fiction.” Beyond simply writing, it isn’t immediately clear what you should be trying to accomplish in this assignment. Most professors or TFs who assign open-ended essays have the same thing in mind as when they design more specific prompts: they want you to make an argument—to take a stand on an issue or offer an interpretation of a source or group of sources. Open-ended assignments allow you to focus on something you find interesting. Yet open-ended topics can be daunting because they usually map out extremely broad topics—too broad to cover fully in the space that wants to follow your lines of thought.” In other words, when you write, aim to engage, not to please. Focus on cultivating an idea, not on demonstrating what you know or impressing your audience. And when your professors or TFs offer their comments, look at their feedback as a contribution to an ongoing exchange of ideas. • Pick the thing that doesn’t make sense and write about that Think of writing not as a process of putting down on paper what you already know, but as a way of exploring what you don’t know. Is there a question you can’t answer right away when you read your sources' Something that puzzles or confuses you' Something that doesn’t seem to make any sense' One student in the study told us about her first college paper, for which her TF gave her a “B,” calling her ideas “safe and bland.” For her next essay, she told us, “I decided that my approach should be something that bothers me, something that I don’t know the answer to, something I hadn’t sorted out.” The fact that you can’t answer a question right away doesn’t mean that you should ignore it—in fact, its difficulty is precisely what makes it such a valuable path to explore. Chances are that other people can’t answer the question immediately either, and so by wrestling with it yourself, you have the opportunity to teach them—and to learn—something new. • Write about something small and go deep Finding Something to Say Argument is the defining feature of the academic essay and will be the primary consideration of almost every paper you write. While summary, description, and synthesis will play a part in your essays, your argument will bear the greatest weight of all. When you make an argument in an academic paper, your task is not to win a debate, but rather to put forth an idea and support it with evidence or reasoning. Think of your argument as the heart of your paper. With it, your essay has strength and vitality; without it, your essay has no creative energy—it is simply a restatement of your sources. It can be daunting to be asked to write an essay about a painting, a work of Your essay’s argument will be stated in a thesis: the main claim or central idea of your essay. Sometimes you won’t have any trouble crafting a thesis; it will come to you almost naturally as you read and think about your sources. But other times, it may prove to be more elusive, and you may find yourself staring at a blank computer screen, unsure of what argument you can make. In situations like this, consider the following approaches: literature, or a century’s worth of history. With such a large topic, it’s hard to know even where to start. The best way to take on a broad subject is to start with something small. As Steven Biel, the Director of Undergraduate Studies for History and Literature at Harvard College, advises, “Start with a rich particular, not a generality. Work out from a curious detail, a striking passage, an intriguing anecdote, into your larger questions and claims.” It may seem counterintuitive at first that something small will yield a rich assortment of ideas. But if you think hard about a short passage in a text, an individual figure in a painting, a writer’s assumption, a theory, or even a single word, you’ll be surprised by the ideas, observations, and implications that will occur to you. Focusing on a “rich particular” will also do your writing the service of grounding your argument in facts and evidence, rather than in unsupported generalizations. And because you are digging deeply for these ideas, you will likely be revealing something to your readers that is difficult to see, rather than just making an obvious point. In other words, your idea will be a real discovery—both you and your readers will learn from your analysis. part three: making the most of college writing • Choose topics and questions that matter to you Writing about topics and questions that are of interest to you will make an enormous difference both in the process of writing and in the final product. If you’re not interested in writing the essay, you probably won’t learn as much—and you certainly won’t enjoy doing it. And if you’re not interested, your readers won’t be either. Imagine, for example, that you need to write a final paper for your Shaping of the Modern World course. You’ve been given a broad range of topics to choose from—the British military in World War II, American influences in European culture, the night the Berlin Wall came down—but none of the offerings really grabs your attention. As a result, you choose the topic that seems easiest, put off your research until the last minute, and pull a painful all-nighter writing the paper. An alternative approach is to try to connect the assignment to something that does matter to you. Then you can pose a question that you’re genuinely curious about. For example, if you’re interested in women’s history and none of the suggested topics focuses specifically on women, you might reshape the first topic so you can look at women who joined the British military during World War II. Or if you’re interested in journalism, you might find it compelling to examine how the New York Times covered the fall of the Berlin Wall. By tailoring your essay to your own interests, you’ll find that you aren’t just writing an assignment for class. You’re reading and If I hadn’t written so much in college, I would have felt as if I was just being fed a lot of information. My papers are my opportunity to think and say something for myself, a chance to disagree. Writing successfully in college is about more than just receiving good grades on your essays. Writing helps you to become intellectually invested in a particular topic, idea, or issue; it allows you to pair your own intellectual interests and passions with those of others. Above all, writing papers provides you with a chance to shape your own intellectual experiences and to influence the path of your education. So how can you ensure that you’ll make the most of these opportunities' The suggestions on the following pages will help you find your way. writing to fulfill your own intellectual curiosity and to cultivate your own passions. Your professors and TFs understand the importance of writing about something that you find interesting, and most of them will be amenable to your requests to narrow a given topic or even to design a question of your own. In fact, if you show that degree of interest and motivation you might make them very happy. • Ask questions that interest other scholars a larger purpose to your work. • Build expertise By taking the opportunity to immerse yourself in a certain topic or to become comfortable with the ways of thinking and writing in a particular discipline, you open the door to a richer, more rewarding writing experience. You will navigate your sources more easily, read your texts more deeply, write with greater confidence and intellectual independence, and give shape and coherence to your education. One student described it this way: “The more you know about an idea or tradition, the more you are able to seek alternative interpretations.” Another remarked that knowing more about a subject means “I can stand back, not be pushed back and forth, and look at things critically.” When you first arrive at college, you find yourself in the position of a novice —someone who is being invited to learn about subjects for the first time. But you won’t remain a novice for long. Your years at Duquesne will give you ample opportunity to develop expertise in both content and methods, especially those of your major. One student described his transformation from novice to expert like this: “At college, I’m the expert on the role of wheat and the Great Plains. This is my area. When I was a freshman, I walked into college and admired everyone. Now, as a senior, I have started to feel that I have an area of expertise as well.” The experience he described Writing in college is about following your own intellectual path, but it’s also about sharing ideas within a larger community. When you write, your goal should be not only to teach yourself, but also to communicate with others. In general, then, the best questions to ask when writing an essay are ones that balance your personal interests with the interests of other scholars in your discipline. When you write about something that interests you and other scholars, you have the chance to make your own contribution to a larger conversation or debate. As you become acquainted with the conventions of a particular field, you will become more familiar with the questions and discussions that discipline considers important. The more you read and write about a subject—and the more invested you are in your idea —the greater your desire will be to participate in the dialogue. When you engage with the ideas of other scholars, you are joining real debates and contributing to important discussions. In so doing, you will be challenged to think harder, to defend your own position more fully, and, ultimately, to see was common among the students we interviewed, and so was the path these students followed to gain expertise. • Make the most of feedback writing. Tips To Help You Gain Expertise Cluster your courses. This doesn’t mean that if you are interested in the psychological effects of poverty, you should take only psychology courses. Rather, try to build a program of study that allows you to explore this issue from a variety of angle—in sociology courses, in history courses, in economics courses, in government courses, and in the Core. Write about a topic or text more than once. While you can’t turn in the same essay twice, you can certainly explore the same text or issue with different questions, thereby building on a foundation of knowledge and ideas. For example, you might encounter Nietzsche in a philosophy course and again in a religion course or a history course. The more opportunities you have to interpret a text, the more comfortable you will become developing your own ideas. Pair your interests in a particular discipline with the appropriate language. If you are interested in Sicilians in Pittsburgh, consider studying Italian. If you plan to concentrate in medieval history, learn some Latin. And if you are passionate about the poetry of Pablo Neruda, take up Spanish. Reading texts in their original language adds immeasurable depth to your We mentioned earlier that it’s a good idea to seek feedback at all stages in the writing process. While it makes sense to try out your ideas on a willing audience and to use feedback when revising drafts, it may seem less useful to pore over comments on final papers that you are not planning to revise. But even if the comments focus specifically on a subject that you won’t revisit, try to look at them for what they say more generally about your writing. When you receive the same comments more than once, you can begin to identify your strengths and weaknesses as a writer and focus your energies accordingly in future essays. Sometimes feedback isn’t easy to swallow, and if you’re not used to your professors or TFs reading your work so closely, you may be surprised at how much room they find for improvement. It’s important to remember that improving your writing is a gradual process. It’s also important to keep in mind that your readers are evaluating your essays and not you, the writer. If you don’t receive feedback on a final paper and you would like to know what your professor or TF thought of it, ask. Go to office hours, make an appointment, or send an e-mail. If you don’t understand a comment, ask that it be illustrated with specific examples. It might be intimidating at first, but faculty members are generally happy to discuss your work with you and welcome your interest in improving your understanding and appreciation of them. Write research papers. Research papers are excellent opportunities for you to orient yourself in a particular field or topic and to build confidence and experience, so you can tackle future assignments in the same general area. Be patient. Expertise will not come to you overnight. It will take many courses and many essays before you feel you can call yourself an expert—but it is worth the time and effort. Six Tips to Help You Gain Expertise