What Professors Want from A Paper- Podcast

What Professors Want from a Paper

First, I'll start with a word of warning. This podcast, like many of the others, is a generalization. That means it does not apply to every teacher. It does not apply to every discipline. The best place to learn what a professor wants is from that professor, either through an assignment sheet, through class discussions, or through meeting with that professor during his or her office hours. However, these options aren't always available. Some professors are more clear than others. Sometimes late at night it isn't possible to contact the professor. This podcast will contain some general pieces of advice about what a good paper is and what a good paper is not. You can find similar pieces of advice online from the Purdue writing lab, in handbooks like Diana Hacker, and in textbooks like And I'll provide you with a second word of warning. If you listen to this podcast, you will learn a little and forget it immediately. If you listen and take notes on this podcast, you will learn a little and remember it longer. If you listen, take notes, and review those notes during your next writing task, you will learn from this podcast. Did you understand those two warnings? Good. Now let's get down to business. Get out a piece of paper and a writing instrument. Now take two minutes to write down some of the things you think professors want from a paper. Pause this podcast and do that now. ..................................................................... Are you finished? Now the chances are that many of you have written down things like "good grammar," "proper spelling", and "the right number of pages." What I'm asking you to do is to listen to a few basic principles about good papers, and write whatever you couldn't think of the first time. These principles are things that can help you avoid making disasterous paper mistakes. The first thing to remember is PROFESSORS WANT YOU TO DO WHAT THEY ASKED YOU TO DO. Imagine that you have just come home one evening from a hard day at work. People complained to you about one thing or another all day, and as you walk up to your front door, as you reach into your pocket to grab your keys, all you can think about is having a good meal. You sit down in your favorite spot in front of the tv and relax. You order a large pizza from your favorite place, and before the next program begins on television, you hear the doorbell. You walk over to the door and open it. The pizza man stands there smiling and he hands you a plate of blueberry pancakes. Even if you like blueberry pancakes, even if they are particularly delicious, how do you think that will make you feel? After calling the pizza man, placing an order, and waiting 30 minutes in anticipation, you are going to be pretty ticked off. The pizza man will not get paid. Do you understand the point of that story? Your professors want students to follow directions. So do it. The assignment sheet is your best friend as a student. Reread the assignment sheet frequently, while you plan a paper, while you type the paper, and while you revise it. If there is no sheet, take extremely detailed notes on the professors instructions. As a basic principle, get it in writing and refer to that writing. Write that down. Get your instructions in writing and look at that writing. That's what you need to remember about this part. Get your instructions in writing and look at that writing. Write that down. The second thing to remember is PROFESSORS WANT TO BE CONVINCED BY WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. It is easy to tell me something. A student tells me that his dog ate his homework. The waitress tells me that Applebees has the best onion rings in the city. My Cincinnati Bell employee assures me that they have great coverage and rarely drop calls. But it is a much more difficult thing to convince me of something. In order to do that a student needs to do a few things. A student needs to have relevant evidence. A student needs to have credible evidence. A student needs to have enough evidence. What counts as relevant depends on the assignment, your thesis, and the subject. What counts as credible is standard. Expert opinion, statistics, and the results of experiments are almost always credible evidence. Quotations are credible, depending on the source of the quotation and the way it is used. What counts as enough evidence depends on the thesis. If someone argues that all men are crazy, it requires many pieces of evidence for support. If someone argues that all men are not crazy, it requires only one example of a sane man to prove that thesis. The third thing to remember is PROFESSORS WANT TO KNOW THAT YOU ARE DOING MORE THAN JUST REPEATING WHAT SOMEONE ELSE HAS ALREADY THOUGHT OR SAID Have you ever wondered why some professors give assignments that are.... well... unique? This principle explains it. Being able to look at a number of facts and put them together in a new way is one of the best signs a person has "mastered" a subject. It is also a very valuable and marketable skill to have. There is no shortcut method for generating good ideas, so I can't tell you a trick for that. What I can tell you is how to avoid one common mistake. Don't pick a very obvious or very common paper topic. Many students pick the first topic that comes to mind and they pick the same topics. Consider the audience. If a professor has read 30 papers about the same topic, only one paper will seem excellent. The rest will be compared to the best one. If you pick an unusual or unique topic, it is much more likely you will have something unique to say. Another common mistake is a balance issue. Some students believe that the best way to fill space in a paper is to put in more and more evidence. As a rule of thumb, I tell students to strive to keep a balance between showing us the dots and connecting them. Every piece of evidence requires some explanation, and important evidence requires much more than that. That is what to remember about the third section. Don't pick an obvious topic. And don't include too much evidence. Failing to remember these warnings sometimes leads to a paper full of words that seems empty of thought. That's it. There is no magic potion for writing a good paper, but there are some pieces of advice that can save you from writing a bad paper. Professors want a paper that does what they asked for. Professors want a paper that is believable. And Professors want a paper that is unique. To put in simply, "after reading your paper, a professor wants the main idea of the paper to seem both true and new." So read, reread, and re-reread the assignment sheet while you work. Make sure you have evidence that relates to your topic and is believable. Make sure you explain your evidence in enough detail. And try to pick a topic that is not a cliche, a topic that not many others are picking.