<p>Paper= 15 percent of my grade
Me= premed, need good grades
Grade= 78
Me= upset because Writing is a dumb prerequisite course and I got shafted with a hard grader
Writing= really subjective, how can someone take 30 points off just because they didn't think I answered the question when I followed the rubric as best as I could</p>
<p>Take the next paper to your school's writing center, or go to the professor's office hours and bounce topics and thesis statements w/supporting ideas off him/her. You're bound to do better on the next one if you pay attention to the mistakes you made in this paper and ask for help if you need it.</p>
<p>Does anybody have tips for general college writing?</p>
<p>...that someone only took 22 points off. Pre-med includes math, btw, so writing may not be your only tough course. :P</p>
<p>a 78 on something that's 15% of your grade in one class?</p>
<p>man, med school is obviously not for you.</p>
<p>chill, you'll be fine.</p>
<p>Sometimes you just write bad papers. However, if you are not good at writing papers, as is the case with a lot of premeds, maybe you should seek help to improve your skills.</p>
<p>It happens to everyone, but the solution isn't "this is a dumb prerequisite course and grading is subjective, so how can he take points of when I did the best that I could?" It's good that you put effort into the assignment, but just because grading is subjective doesn't mean that you get an automatic "A for effort."</p>
<p>The most important thing to do is to avoid making excuses and to figure out what your mistakes were. Go to office hours and talk it over with the professor...make sure you understand what (s)he's looking for. Is the issue technical (poor grammar or punctuation, sloppy organization), or does it have more to do with content? It's also possible that your writing is more or less fine but you really did fail to address the topic, and then you should find out where your opinion differs from the professor's (since you obviously did attempt to follow the rubric). After speaking with the professor, ask if you can bring in a rough draft before the next paper is due. Bring it to the professor and also to your school's writing center (if there is one). Deal with the fact that this will require an investment of time and effort (welcome to pre-med...it's not only science that you'll have to worry about).</p>
<p>Make sure you have a thesis. Make sure that it addresses the prompt. Make sure that every paragraph is clearly relevant to your thesis. Make sure that you're using (and documenting) support for your arguments. Stay within length limits, adhere to any formatting guidelines you're given, and pay special attention to concepts you've gone over in class. If you happen to know that your professor hates something, then avoid it, even if it seems lame (I once had a teacher who threatened to drop our grade by a full letter for every time we used the word "flow" in an essay).</p>
<p>As a random point, good writing skills are one of the most sought after qualities in science/math/engineering students, because the "this is a stupid prerequisite and it's not relevant to me" attitude is all too common. Be grateful that your school is forcing you to build the skill...it will eventually serve you well.</p>
<p>Also, 78 on something that's 15% of your grade is obviously not ideal, but it's not the end of the world. You can still end up with an A (even a high A) if you actually learn from this and make the effort to improve. Junior year of high school, I actually got a 78 on the first essay, too (which was devastating to me). I also hated the teacher's way of grading...it seemed ridiculously subjective. Most of my classmates just said "There's no pleasing this lady" and settled for lower grades than they were used to, but I took my next essay to the teacher, to a writing center, and to numerous peers, bringing my second grade to an 89 (still frustrating, since I didn't know what else I could possibly have done). By the end of the year, I was one of only two A grades in the class. I had also come to realize that my oh-so-frustrating teacher was one of the best I'd ever had (and the class did more to improve my writing than any other ever has). So, hey. There's hope ;)</p>
<p>if your a crappy writer, then here are some simple tips.</p>
<ol>
<li> grammar. correct grammar is soooo important. it makes reading things much easier.</li>
<li> active voice. anywhere you wrote any variation of the verb "to be", revise it. get an action verb in there.</li>
<li> short(er) sentences. count the words in your sentences. If many are going over 20 words, then you might want to consider splitting them up.</li>
<li> stay in the same tense. most papers you'll want to write in the present tense. history papers should be written in the past tense.</li>
<li> most importantly: 1 idea per sentence. 1 idea per paragraph. 1 idea per paper. Make sure each sentence has to do with the point of the paragraph. Make sure each paragraph relates to the thesis statement, which should be in the first paragraph.</li>
</ol>
<p>hope that helps</p>
<p>"if your a crappy writer, then here are some simple tips."</p>
<p>Oh the irony.</p>
<p>bye bye med school dreams</p>
<p>Thank you all for your help.</p>
<p>I gave myself time to chillax, and I am not freaking out that much anymore.</p>