<p>I was assigned one for my history class, and I realized I never wrote one that was that long. I wrote some good papers in the past, but they usually stayed within the 3-5 pages range. Where can I learn about writing such papers (what books, sites), and do you guys have any general advice?</p>
<p>I'd like to hear some of that too. 10 pages is beyond my capabilities right now.</p>
<p>I had to write a 20 page paper for a history course last year which was 60% of the final grade. Fun stuff.</p>
<p>Get more information than you think you'll need. Stay on topic, and flesh it out after making an outline. depending on how detailed your outline is, you can translate 1 page of outline~~2-3 pages of paper. Good luck with that.</p>
<p>It's just a matter of going into more detail (since usually these papers have a more specific scope than shorter papers) than a 3-5 page paper. Like huang said, "more information than you think you'll need" is great advice. You get a lot of information/detail, then cut out what you don't need.</p>
<p>You should have had to write a 10 page (or more) paper in College Writing I or English Comp I. Papers are usually double-spaced if that helps.</p>
<p>Get your materials together and put together an outline of your plan for the paper. Go hog wild with your ideas - you can prune them later if you have too much material.</p>
<p>Talk to your professor at each stage. Present your idea and direction and see if he or she has comments and suggestions. When you have your outline done, show it to your professor and ask for comments. Many professors ask for these along the way and grade them to ensure that students don't leave the paper for the last minute. Ask the professor if he or she will review revisions where you hand in the paper, the professor marks it and returns it to you and you get to fix it up before turning in the final revision for your grade.</p>
<p>Review a writing handbook. You should have one from Freshman English.</p>
<p>I highly recommend Diana Hacker's books on papers and citations. The one I had to buy for English Comp was "A Writer's Reference" and it is the only textbook I have ever bought that I have used over and over again in subsequent courses. I went from never having to write more than a page at a time, without any citations to doing a 20 page research paper with full MLA citations... you can do it if you work on it enough. Gather information, usually it's suggested to have at least 1 source for every page of the paper (ie. 20 page paper of mine had somewhere around 25 sources) the trick is to not have too many either, as you do need detail in the information.</p>
<p>Your college should also have some sort of writing lab or resource for fleshing out your paper. I've never used mine, but I'm pretty sure at my school they don't edit any spelling or grammar, they just help with the order of the paper and making sure the ideas are clear on paper.</p>
<p>Well, well, take it from a history major who's done a fair share of 15+ page papers including a huge thesis.</p>
<p>Look at the BIG picture. Analyze your sources from every side imaginable (not just pros and cons). Consider your own argument and present your evidence and counterevidence. Use a mix of primary (which you probably haven't done yet... typically anything that's a first hand account like newspapers, oral histories) and secondary sources (written by historians who pieced together sources to create an argument).</p>
<p>Create a GOOD outline of your thesis, points, and conclusion. And... begin writing.</p>
<p>You should give yourself NO less than 2 weeks to write a thoughtful research paper of that size.</p>
<p>If you have trouble expanding, give a brief review of what you've done to your professor and your professor may have some additional suggestions/criticisms on how to fill in the space.</p>
<p>It is a sorry state of affairs that high schoolers don't have to write much anymore. I can recall writing about ten 20+ page papers in high school alone.</p>
<p>I'm surprised as well. Many of my term papers in high school were over 10 pages and it wasn't that long ago...</p>
<p>I wrote a 15 page paper in high school analyzing a literary term's use in a book. What I did was write a bunch of paragraphs that weren't connected to each other and then when I had 15 pages, I rewrote some things and everything just fit somewhere somehow... Come to mention it, I've done that for some other papers too; write two mini essays and put them together. I've never gotten anything lower than an A- in any research or composition assignment so it works well for me.</p>
<p>I'm worried about this myself. In high school, I wrote one essay that was longer than 10 pages (and the only reason it was so long is that it had a lot of headings and titles). The longest paper I've had to write in college was under 10 pages. I know soon I'm going to have to write things that are 12 pages, 15 pages, 20 pages. I'm scared!</p>
<p>Well, you can always practice now before you really have to for a class.</p>
<p>Yeah, that sounds fun. Also, I definitely have time for that. </p>
<p>: </p>
<p>I spend a moderate amount of time writing everyday.</p>
<p>It may be email responses, reports for work, my blog or a technical manual. </p>
<p>Many corporate and engineering jobs require a lot of writing. If you do it routinely, it gets easier. If you have time to write 279 posts on CC, then you probably have time for pleasure writing.</p>
<p>I never said I didn't write. I write every day as well. I just don't write 20-page research papers, which is an entirely different matter (see: this thread).</p>
<p>i blame this thread on the failure of AP classes in high school</p>
<p>/IB kid</p>
<p>seriously though... try googling around... an X page paper in one subject can be fairly different than an X page paper in another one. But basically... you research your subject... and then write about it. Obviously you will need more research than you would for a 10 page paper.</p>
<p>Haha - and I did IB....</p>
<p>quotes take up a few of the pages.</p>
<p>^ Professors certainly don't like block quotes. Go easy on them... unfortunately but it makes you a better critical thinker when you paraphrase the quote you want to use.</p>