Secrets to Writing Great Papers (Study Smart Series) - Softcover

Judi Kesselman-Turkel; Franklynn Peterson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0299191443 ISBN 13: 9780299191443

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003

Synopsis

Secrets to Writing Great Papers illustrates how to work with ideas&;develop them, hone them, and transform them into words. It provides techniques and exercises for brainstorming, choosing the right approach, working with an unknown or boring assigned topic, overcoming writer&;s block, and selecting the best point of view.

About this title

About the Author

Judi Kesselman-Turkel and Franklynn Peterson write and publish the newsletter CPA Computer Report. They have written hundreds of articles and more than twenty books including The Author’s Handbook, Good Writing, and The Magazine Writer’s Handbook. They live in Madison, Wisconsin.

From the Back Cover

Secrets to Writing Great Papers tells how to work with ideas--develop them, hone them, and transform them into words. It provides techniques and exercises for brainstorming, choosing the right approach, working with an unknown or boring assigned topic, and selecting the best point of view.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

STEP 1

Decide on Size Before you take a dive into a strange pool, you're wise to check the depth of the water. And before you think about putting your ideas on paper, you should know how much paper to aim to fill. So the first thing to do is to decide on size. It stands to reason that a paragraph on cars has less to say about cars than a paper on the subject, and that neither one is as complete as a book on cars. Yet few teachers stop to make the point that a brief paper on cars has to be written differently from a long paper. In order to write a paper that the grader considers outstanding (or even adequate), the first thing you must find out, or decide for yourself, is the length to shoot for. The most specific way to describe length is in terms of word count. In some ways, it's too specific. It seduces you into counting words instead of focusing on ideas. But you can avoid that trap if you keep in mind that if you're assigned a 700-word paper, no grader counts every word to see if you've gone over or under by 52 words. Writing up to 10 percent over or under the suggested length is usually safe. Because many students misunderstand what's meant by an 800-word paper and count every word before they hand it in, some teachers prefer to assign length by pages rather than word count. Figuring a paper's length by the number of pages is an extremely variable measurement. It depends on whether you type on a computer or write in longhand, on the width of your margins and the space between your lines, on whether you write big in longhand or choose a word processing font size and style that takes up more space. If you're given a length by pages ("Write a three-page paper"), try to get the paper-assigner to suggest how many words he'd like to see. If you can't get a word length specified, ask whether computer-processed or handwritten pages are meant. If you re assigned a certain number of pages, it s generally safe to use the old standard assumption (left over from typewriter days) that a page contains approximately 250 words. It does if you set your computerized page margins so that they're about 75 letters (columns) apart and then type 22 double-spaced lines to the page. Handwriting varies a great deal. So if you turn in hand-written papers, count some pages of a previous paper to establish your usual words-to-page equivalent. If you can't memorize the number, write it down here: I write an average of _________ words to the page. A warning: Don't write extra-large or skip lines if you turn in handwritten papers (unless you're specifically told to do one or the other), or the grader will assume that you're padding a skimpy paper. There is one place that you are always permitted to skip a line when writing in longhand, and that's between paragraphs. 1ST PROBLEM: No specific length is assigned SOLUTION: Determine from clue words Often, you're not told how long a paper to write. Instead you're assigned a "short theme," a "brief description," or a "term paper." Sometimes you can find out what length is expected simply by asking a direct question. Sometimes you have to make assumptions based on past assignments. If you have absolutely no other guideline, use the following table. It s based on the experience of many students. Average Expected Word Length for Papers Paragraph: 50 to 150 words Short paper: 150 to 350 words Medium-sized paper: 350 to 750 words Long paper: 800 to 1,250 words Term paper: 1,500 to 2,500 words Thesis: 3,000 words or more Notice that we ve purposely left out some numbers (like the numbers from 751 to 799), and overlapped others (like 150). That s to remind you that no suggested word length even ours should be treated as a hard-and-fast rule.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0299191443
• ISBN 13: 9780299191443
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 96