How To Write A Term Paper: A Trail-Blazing Guide

By Guest Author: Joanna Young

Got a paper to write, deadline to meet and no idea where to start? Get on top of the task by shifting the way you think about it.

Don’t get hung up thinking about your paper as an important piece of academic writing: you’re likely to waste time and energy worrying about writing style and grammar rules – and put off getting started.

Instead try thinking about your writing as as a path that will take your reader – your teacher - quickly and easily from A to B. Here’s how:

1. Organize your stuff. Just like going on a hike, make sure you’ve got everything you need before you start – reference materials, notes, mind-maps, sources, the question.

2. Check your instructions. Are you clear what you’re expected to come up with? Take some time before you start checking out the question or title (are you sure you know what it means?), the word limit, referencing guidelines, what style of language is expected (how formal or academic). Sticking to these guidelines can help you get better grades.

3. Know where you’re going. It’s easy to get lost in a flurry of words. Think before you start about where you’re heading – what’s your main argument? Where do you want to end up?

4. Get started. This is often the hardest part of writing a paper. If you’re agonizing over the introduction, start a little way in then go back and write the intro later. It might save you hours of procrastination.

5. Make a clear path. You want to write the paper so it’s easy for your teacher to follow on.  Think about it like a path or a trail that you're leaving behind, showing how you’ve got from A to B – and how someone else can get there too.

6. Remove obstacles. Writing the paper’s only half the battle – then you need to go back and edit it. Look out for obstacles that trip your reader up: long sentences, unwieldy paragraphs, lots of jargon, academic language that even you can’t understand – and you wrote it! Break up long sentences (and paragraphs) and make them shorter. Swap complex words for plain English wherever you can.

7. Avoid detours. We develop ideas as we go along, so you might find that you took a few detours when you wrote the paper. When you edit it you’ll need to think about whether they get to stay or not. Do they help you to develop your argument or just make things more confusing? What would happen if you swapped the order round a bit?  Think about the path you’re creating – make it as clear as you can.

8. Use signposts. Headings and bullet-points help to break up the text, make it easier for your teacher to scan as well as close-read your work, and to signpost where you’re going. They can help you to write and organize your work too, as they map out the different sections of your material.

9. Check your trail. You might not have ended up where you thought you would – especially if your ideas have developed as you went along. No worries. Just go back and check there’s a path that goes from A to B. Edit the introduction if you need to so the whole thing makes sense.

10. Make your path stand out. Don’t forget that your teacher’s going to be reading a lot of papers. You can make your work stand out by making it clear and easy to follow – and by adding bit of ‘you’ into the mix. Your own words and ideas, your conclusions and perspective. It’ll make your paper stand out from the crowd.

Flickr Photo Credit: Troy Mason

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Joanna Young is a writing coach from Edinburgh (Scotland).  She coaches people to write with confidence – including free writing tips and a weekly podcast at the Confident Writing blog.

If you’ve got a question or comment about how to write a paper just leave it in the comment box below.  Joanna will do her best to answer your question there, or pick it up and develop it in a follow up post at College Students Rule!

Comments

[tim]

Joanna:
Just wanted you to know that this post is getting a little OFF-line love. I had someone at my University comment on how she is going to use these tips with her students. I encouraged her to leave a comment, but haven't seen one yet. So I'm doing it for her. Great job and thanks for your contribution here.

[Joanna Young]

Tim, thanks for sharing that feedback. It means a lot to me.

If you pick up on any specific questions or stumbling blocks that students (or their teachers) have about writing do let me know - I'd be happy to come back and share more material here, but it's much easier to write in response to specific issues, questions, problems, ideas and queries.

I love the way the site is progressing - and the design is phenomenal.

Joanna

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