You've come to the right place! You'll find a wealth of information that can help you write awesome essays, term papers and other writing assignments. We will cover topics ranging from the basic elements of writing to choosing the best topic, conducting thorough research and organizing your content to come up with a shiny piece of writing that is sure to wow your teacher. Happy learning!
Occasionally an instructor may ask you to write a preliminary proposal defining your topic and analyzing the writing situation for a course paper. Even when it’s not assigned, such a proposal can help you to refine your ideas about your topic, audience, purpose, and tone early so that your conclusions can guide your research and [...]
You’ve done your research and now you have a great topic. What’s the next step? It’s to push your idea further by exploring its implications, finding supporting evidence, and filling in specific details. Since classical times rhetoricians have looked for ways to stimulate this kind of thinking. They came up with the term invention to [...]
Once you have found a promising topic, you’ll probably need to narrow it down. If you don’t focus your efforts, you may end up writing a superficial paper of little interest to anyone, no matter how promising your initial subject seemed to be. You may have read professional articles that seem out of focus. Their [...]
Sometimes you will start a writing project knowing exactly what you want to write about. When you don’t have to find your topic, you can begin immediately to generate ideas, plan, and start a draft. Often, however, college instructors encourage students to choose their own topics, believing that students write better when they can investigate [...]
Knowing what kind of impression you want to make on readers is just as important as audience and purpose. Readers respond most favorably when they trust and respect the person sending the message. This is why we see Olympic athletes pitching tennis shoes on television and successful entrepreneurs selling books about investment strategies. But presenting [...]
Suppose that you are concerned about the lack of after-school programs for children in your city. You decide to write a research paper for a government course, documenting that such programs help prevent juvenile crime. The next week, your city council debates whether to enter into a partnership with the local YMCA to pilot an [...]
When you begin a writing project, consider why you are writing in the first place. Do you need to show an instructor that you’ve mastered a difficult concept or reading assignment? Do you have an idea you care about and want others to care about too? Is there an ongoing debate you wish to enter? [...]
It’s tempting to believe that there’s a secret formula for writing well and that if you could just discover it, your life would be much easier. We assure you that no such formula exists—there’s no quick or foolproof way to turn an initial idea into a polished final paper. Nonetheless, researchers agree that most people, [...]
To take full advantage of the opportunities writing offers, you first need to see yourself as a writer. Many people underestimate their potential as writers because they don’t realize that writing is a skill that almost anyone can master. Resist myths that can discourage writers. The following myths about writing have been around for a [...]
Writing is not a mysterious activity at which only a talented few can succeed. Nor is it a purely academic skill that you will leave behind at graduation. On the contrary. In our information-based society, almost everyone writes. Through writing, people share what they know, debate issues, promote their beliefs, and advocate change. Whether you [...]
