@professord I think he means that if you write a clear, to the point paper that follows the rubric, it will be easier for the professor to grade quickly and you’ll get a better grade. Not that professors don’t put effort into grading papers. (Just speculation of course)
@snowfairy137 It’s all about getting good grades. That’s how professors became professors you know ;
@VgKing Or go to a smaller school, but yeah.
Both claims are wrong. Clarity and concision are virtues in a writer…sometimes. Sometimes eloquence or the unexpected will get you farther.
And you don’t get to be a professor by “getting good grades,” believe me. You get to be a professor by being masochistically persistent.
There’s a big difference between being a great writer and being great at academic essays. It’s like the difference between being a great singer and being a great songwriter. Paul McCartney is brilliant at making songs, but he’s not a singer like Aretha Franklin or Al Green. Drake is good at making rap songs for the club, but people don’t typically say “Wow. Drake is such a good lyricist, I want to learn how to rap like that myself.” And the reason why I note this is because there are many people who are great at writing but have difficulty delivering an essay. Conversely, there are people who have written dozens of A+ papers who haven’t come close to exploring the in’s and out’s of the English language.
I’m not talking about being a writer in this thread. I’m talking about writing an essay. F. Scott Fitzgerald, for example, recieved poor reviews for The Great Gatsby when it came out, but in later decades, people realized that there were so many ideas that flew past their heads. Yes, he’s a writer that transcended the formula, but a college essayist is being graded by a different standard. If you write a brilliant paper that comes out as a B-, the professor isn’t going to read it 10 years later and say “You know what, in hindsight, that idea was brilliant”. And even if he/she does, it’s too late to get that A.
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“formula, but a college essayist is being graded by a different standard.”
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There is no universal “standard” for college - or any - writing. There is no universal “formula” to transcend. Evaluation is situational, dependent upon the material, the prompt, the rubric, and the intended audience.
There is not a fixed formula, but there are rules.
Go ahead and write an essay with:
- Grammatical errors
- Improper use of MLA
- Personal pronouns, abnormal punctation, absolute words, vague diction, word repetition, passive voice
- Thesis that cannot be clearly understood at first glance
And tell me what grade it gets.
Tell it to bell hooks
Sure, but change bell hooks to bob smith, and you’re looking at a B paper max. Lol
I am currently a Journalism/Mass Communications major at a good university, and I have learned that the key to quality writing is to be clear and concise.
Except that even the “rules” of grammar are situational. I have been tasked with writing poetry in English literature classes, for instance, and the rules for punctuation, for capitalization, for the use of metaphor of even cliche, are entirely differeng from those appropriate to an analytic essay in a sociology class, and those will be different from the rules for a lab report in physics. Eventually, one devolves to bland aphorisms like “consider your audience” or “proofread carefully.” Lists like the OP actually fo more harm than good.
I Repeats: there are no useful absolutes in composition. Pretending that there are would be like pretending that an upper block is “always” the right answer in a karate match.
While a lot of the responses discussed tips for writing, I also think that writing a great essay has a lot to do with taking the time to thoroughly edit your work.
I personally use the following three steps to revise my work.
- Take a Break
After finishing the first draft of a paper, I always take at least 24 hours away from it.
After some time away, I immediately start to notice where ideas don’t come across as effectively as I’d imagined. Perhaps a structural change is required, or one paragraph is particularly weak. During this step, I often have to make larger scale changes. After going through and re-writing and re-structuring the most obviously lacking parts, then I move on to the next phase of the editing process.
- Change Context
The second method is changing the context in which I’m viewing my paper. In other words, I get away from my laptop and print it out. This the best stage for finding awkward sentences, grammatical mistakes, and not-so-smooth transitions. I always read through my paper with a brightly colored pen and do my best not to be overwhelmed by the amount of ink on the page.
- Read it Aloud
Finally, after fixing the large and medium mistakes, I go through my paper with a fine-tooth comb by reading it aloud to myself. Sometimes I even record myself reading it and play it back to hear how it sounds. This distances me from what I think I wrote, and forces me to edit what I’ve actually written.
I also often show the essay to a friend or teacher, or even get a professional to look at it like those on my site Smart Edits (smartalec.io). Either way, this gives me a chance to really “hear” an outside perspective.
While I understand these are just a few (of many) editing techniques, I hope they help in terms of structuring the editing process and ultimately writing a good paper.