<p>I think it’s safe to say that very few people know how to write a proper academic paper when they first get to college. In college, it’s all about research, synthesis, support, and clarity.</p>
<p>And as long as I’m on the topic: One thing I despise about the general high school English curriculum is how it teaches many students to sacrifice clarity for elegance. “This paper will address Topic X,” is more than good enough for most professors. Clarity, clarity, clarity. Ditch the fluff, and for god’s sake, nobody really cares about your “personal style,” so long as it doesn’t get in the way.</p>
<p>It’s totally up to the professor. Last semester, in English 276, my professor only assigned two papers roughly 7 pages apiece–most of the work was active participation in seminar-style discussion.</p>
<p>However, in GE English classes students seem to write papers more frequently than upper-division classes. While the volume is lower in these upper-division classes, the quality is expected to be much higher.</p>
<p>I asked my boyfriend whose in college this very same thing a couple of weeks ago when my teacher started up with the same threats. </p>
<p>He said you could very well have to write as often as a paper a week in some classes. But because you’re writing so frequently it’s not graded as strictly as in high school, when you had a month to write a paper and your teacher may only have had a few chances to get a sample of and help you improve your writing.</p>
<p>Of course, it all just depends on the school and even the teacher.</p>
<p>ginab – oh, i see what you mean. i’ve never actually <em>had</em> to use/refer to secondary sources in papers. so not looking forward to it in college now…</p>
<p>i shouldn’t have said ‘prompt’. my teacher literally says “pick a motif or theme and write”. we’ve complained, but still have to come up with our own theses + support. on my first paper, i tried, ‘the writer uses such and such a structure and the blank is a symbol for blank’, and received a poor grade.</p>
<p>ooh, procrastination – sorry for providing a distraction (; sounds like an interesting topic, though…</p>
<p>That is more than I’ve ever heard of most high schools doing (most of my papers in AP were along the lines of “I the most pompous English teacher in the world thinks this. Explain why I am right.” ) but it’s still more guided than papers English majors (or even CORE literature classes) have to do. </p>
<p>That isn’t the paper topic, that’s the class. My paper topic is castration in Medea by Christa Wolf (as opposed to the original Greek myth).</p>
<p>Never listen to what a teacher says about the successive level of schooling. They always exaggerate. Teachers did it in elementary school, middle school, etc.</p>
<p>It depends on the professor, but I’ve had 2-4 research papers for each semester of an English course that I’ve taken. Those papers can vary in length. Longest I’ve had is 8, shortest is 2.</p>
<p>I’m still waiting for that threat of “In … school you will have to write only in script” or “Next year your teacher won’t write your assignments down at all.” to kick in. Either that or for a professor to say “In grad school…”</p>
<p>@nne719 #27
That’s true. Thanks for reminding me that. Middle School was SUPER exaggerated in 5th grade, then it turned out to be really easy. Same with High School. High School is no different then Middle School except older kids. (Though the maturity doesn’t seem to change sadly.)</p>
<p>You will actually get a slight (and I mean slight maturity change) in college, but you will also meet people you can’t believe know how to function without their mommies around. But the people who grow from being on their own for the first time, plus the people who have actually lived (vets, older students returning, people who took time off, people from rough situations to begin with) combined for a small maturity increase as a whole.</p>
<p>Also if you’re a girl, you will probably have at least one guy friend who, at least once, you will have to make his bed for after the first time he washes his sheets…and you will be entitled, if not expected, to mock him mercilessly and tell all his female friends about it so the mocking can continue.</p>
<p>@ginab, my professor complained about high school writing as well. The way they teach in high school- the very structured 5 paragraph essays- is just not going to cut it for college if you’re trying to write a decent 3 page paper. There has to be a bigger thought process involved, and many times I was asked to analyze the same article, book or paper from multiple points of view in the same paper.</p>
<p>Yeah, I have not heard the end of the complaints on the 5 paragraph essay. I hated writing that way even when we were supposed to though. It always seemed so juvenile.</p>