No matter what your major, you'll have to write some papers while you're earning your degree. All UCF students need to complete the first-year composition sequence (ENC 1101/1101), two other "Gordon Rule" courses (which require at least 6,000 words each of evaluated writing), and the CLAST test (which includes an essay exam). At least a few additional courses in your major will undoubtedly include writing assignments. And if you plan to earn Honors in your major, you'll probably have to write a thesis.

All of this writing will help you when you graduate, because good writing skills are so important to employers. But knowing this doesn't always make you feel better when you're sitting at your computer, staring at a blank screen! Writing is hard work. After all, in order to write a paper, you need to think high-level thoughts and organize them and support them and explain them so that other people will be convinced. The more advanced your classes, the more challenging the writing you will do.

That said, writing does not have to make you miserable. Here are some ways to make writing those papers a little easier:

1. Get the facts in advance. Your teacher will probably give you written guidelines for your writing assignment. Check to be sure these guidelines include the following information; if not, ask:
   • Audience: Are you writing to your teacher? A general group of educated people? Do these people know about your topic, or will your topic be new to them?
   • Purpose: Are you supposed to explain your original ideas about the subject? Demonstrate that you've understood the material in the class? Argue for a position? Describe outside research? All of the above?
   • Content: What is the main question you're supposed to be answering? Sometimes an assignment will contain a list of questions, and you're supposed to answer every question. Sometimes an assignment will contain a list of questions, but you only need to answer one question--the rest are there just to help you think through your ideas.
   • Format: How long should the paper be? What supplemental materials should accompany the paper (e.g., drafts, copies of sources, data, etc.)? How should you cite your sources (using MLA, APA, CBE, or some other format?)
   • Deadlines: Will your teacher expect you to turn in the work in sections? In drafts? All at once? When is the deadline?
   • Grading: What criteria will your teacher use to evaluate your paper? Will drafts count? Will grammar count? How much is the paper worth in your final course grade?

    

2. Learn from other people's mistakes. Ask your teacher what other students have done wrong on the assignment. Take notes. Not only can you use this information when you write, you can use it after you write, when you ask for feedback from others. For example, often teachers want to know your opinion on a controversial issue, but students make the mistake of explaining other people's opinions and never taking a stand themselves. When you've finished your draft, you can ask someone else, "Can you tell what my opinion is from this paper?" If the answer is "no," you know you need to revise.

   Sometimes teachers will show you examples of papers other students have written. Take the time to look at these papers--they can really help you figure out what the teacher expects. Expectations for writing will vary from discipline to discipline, or even from teacher to teacher, so what works in one class may not be right in another.

3. Start early. Yes, you're a busy person and you don't have lots of extra hours to spend on your paper in advance. Fortunately, you don't need to start writing your paper the day it is assigned (though if you want to do so, by all means, go for it). The trick is to complete little bits and pieces of work as you're taking care of the other 999 things on your "to do" list.

   For example, when you get your writing assignment, don't just stuff it in your notebook and forget about it. Keep your mind open to ideas about what to write, and jot the ideas down whenever they occur to you. Many people find that their best ideas occur when they're taking notes in a different class, or when they are driving to campus. If you make a habit of writing your ideas down as they come to you, you'll have more to work with when you do start to write. Just be sure to put your notes somewhere where you can find them again.

   Another example: The next time you're online, take a few minutes to check out the library catalogs and databases to see what sources are available. Then, stop by the library so you can look at the resources you've found. The library is in the middle of campus, so it has to be on your way to somewhere. Even if you photocopy only one magazine article per visit, you'll eventually have a folder full of information when you sit down to work on your paper.

   Finding your sources early will help you avoid one common catastrophe. Sometimes students will find a few titles online, and they'll figure they can get the articles any time. But when they actually look for the articles, they realize that the articles don't really fit their paper, or (even worse) that some criminal has stolen the articles from the library. These problems can be solved, but they can't be solved the weekend before a paper is due.

   If you are the kind of writer who thinks best under pressure, or who needs a whole weekend to concentrate on your paper, you will benefit the most from advance preparation. When you do sit down to write, you will need all your materials at hand . . . otherwise you waste valuable writing time chasing down library books and standing at the photocopy machine. Research consistently shows that writers who take advantage of short periods of time--an hour here, 30-minutes there--to make plans and gather information will ultimately write more, and better, than people who try to do everything at the last minute.

4. Feed your brain. You need to put ideas in to get ideas out. So don't starve your brain! Make a point to keep up with your assigned class readings, to watch intelligent TV shows, to look for books and articles related to what you're studying. Even if you just skim the class materials, you'll be more likely to generate new ideas.

   Heck, even ideas which are completely unrelated to your topic can help. How does the information you're learning in psychology illuminate the novel you're writing about in English? If you give your brain a chance to think about it, you'll probably come up with something useful.

Your brain doesn't need a steady diet of intense academic prose any more than you need a steady diet of broccoli. But if you feed your brain nothing but candy bar music videos, you'll have a harder time getting your brain to perform when you need it to.

5. Let others do some of the work. You can't let someone else do all of your work for you--that would be cheating! But you can share the burden in legitimate ways:
   • Ask reference librarians to help you find sources at the library. The librarians are there to help, and they can save you lots of time and frustration by showing you where you're most likely to find what you need.
   • If your teacher offers to read your draft, let her. Some teachers will require you to show them drafts; others will offer to read drafts, still others will read drafts if you ask nicely. Whenever possible, take advantage of this opportunity! The time you spend to write a draft early will be more than repaid in the time you'll save in the end. While your classmates are struggling with their papers, trying to figure out what the teacher wants, you'll know exactly what to do to your paper to earn that grade.
   • Arrange for a consultation at the University Writing Center. At the UWC, students who are trained as writing consultants can help you every step of the way, even if you don't have anything written yet. Not sure where to start? Bring your assignment to the UWC and brainstorm. Not sure if your paper makes sense? Bring it to the UWC and see if the consultant can follow your ideas. Writing consultants can help with any kind of writing, in any subject, as well as out-of-class writing like traffic appeal letters and graduate school applications. You'll get the best help if you ask for specific types of feedback, such as, "Can you think of any objections to my argument that I overlooked?" or "How can I conclude this paper without just summarizing all my points again?" or "My teacher says I have trouble with wordiness--do you see wordy sections, and how would you suggest I fix them?" (rather than just saying, "Just read it and tell me what you think").
   • Talk to your friends about your work. Having trouble writing? Call a friend and tell him all about it--what kinds of trouble you're having, why the assignment is so hard, what you would say if you could only get the words out, etc. Even if your friend doesn't have many suggestions for you, sometimes the act of talking about your paper can help you get started. If your friend does have good suggestions for you, so much the better. (Choose your friends wisely, though. Try not to confide in the friend whose answer to everything is, "You can think about that later. Let's go to the beach!")
   • Take advantage of computerized assistance. Your word processor probably has spell-check and grammar-check software. These programs aren't perfect. They will mark "errors" that aren't really wrong, and they will skip some errors that do exist. But if you use them carefully, they can be a huge help. The UWC also has some specialized software for student use, including brainstorming programs and an advanced grammar-checker. Contact the UWC (http://reach.ucf.edu/~uwc) for details.

    

6. Be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of your preferred writing process. Every writer has a favorite way of working, just like every writer is either right-handed or left-handed. And every preferred writing process has its strengths and weaknesses. By paying attention to the strengths and weaknesses of your preferred writing process, you can take steps to capitalize on your strengths and play down your weaknesses. Which of these processes (described by Lisa Ede in her book Work In Progress (2nd ed. New York: St. Martin's, 1998)) sounds most like you?
   • Heavy Planners (AKA Think-Write Writers): These writers consider and plan their ideas so carefully that their first drafts are often more like other writer's second or third drafts. As a result, they revise less intensively or less frequently than other writers. Many of these writers are extremely disciplined, so they are able to think productively about their writing in unlikely places: e.g., shower, driving to school, etc. Some write this way out of preference, others write this way out of necessity.
   • Heavy Revisers (AKA Write-Rewrite Writers): These writers figure out what they want to say by writing. (They may explain, "How can I know what I think until I see what I say?") Heavy revisers do plan, but they plan as they write/revise. Often, they discover their main points when they are writing their first drafts (especially the conclusions to their first drafts). Rather than endlessly debating what they might say, heavy revisers prefer to just sit down and get it out-as they write, they are reassured to see how many ideas they have! These writers can and will write anywhere: on napkins, on the backs of envelopes, in the margins of books, etc., whatever is handy when the lightning strikes.
   • Sequential Composers: These writers spend equivalent amounts of time planning & revising. They have a system. They make and plans, but they also have a system for producing ideas as they write. They rely heavily on their system whenever they have to write anything, and they don't like to skip steps.

    

   It's important to note that all of these types of writers go through the same stages (planning, writing, revising). What varies is the relative amount of time they spend on each activity.

7. Know your "enabling circumstances." Just as every writer has a preferred process, every writer has a preferred writing environment. Do you like the room to be quiet, or do you prefer background noise? Should the background noise be music? TV? People talking? Do you like to write at the computer, or with pencil or pen? What color pen do you prefer? What about your clothes--do you like to wear sweatpants or shorts or a lucky hat? Do you write better if you can eat or drink at the same time? Do you write better first thing in the morning, or late at night?

   Writing specialists call these details "enabling circumstances"; the details may sound trivial, but they can be an important factor in your success. For example, if you prefer to write with pen in a quiet room, you can probably accomplish a lot in the library. But if you can't write a word without eating something, you might do better at a table in the student union.

   What if you don't know your enabling circumstances? Try to experiment with different circumstances until you find what works best for you. You might discover that Sousa marches are the ideal accompaniment for that political science paper, or that if you start writing as soon as you wake up, you'll write more (and feel better about it) until you wait till evening when your favorite TV shows are on.

8. Know where to look for more information. Here are some useful reference sources for you:

Kirszner, Laurie G., and Stephen R. Mandell. The Brief Holt Handbook (Rev. 2nd edition with MLA Updates) with Why Writing Matters: A Guide to First-Year Composition. New York: Harcourt, 1999.

The introductory section of this handbook is written by UCF students about writing at UCF. In addition to providing information about first-year composition, this section also offers advice on everything from using email to getting along with your professors. The rest of the handbook gives information about grammar rules, writing effective papers, citing sources in different formats, and special kinds of writing (such as essay exams and business letters).

Cazort, Douglas. Under the Grammar Hammer: The 25 Most Important Grammar Mistakes and How To Avoid Them. Updated edition. Los Angeles: Lowell House, 1997.

Rather than explaining every possible error a person might make, this handbook concentrates on the most common errors college writers make, so you don't have to dig through pages of materials to find what you need to know. Even better, this book lets you know which errors are likely to be most offensive to readers. You can save time by first correcting those mistakes you make the most often that cause the most problems, and working on the occasional minor errors later.

 

Clouse, Barbara Fine. Working It Out: A Troubleshooting Guide for Writers. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997.

This book is more of a coach than a handbook. Information is organized according to problems writers encounter, rather than according to rules writers should follow. So if you have trouble with an assignment, you can simply look up, "I don't know what to write," or "How do I back up what I say?" for useful advice. You'll probably find this book handy for those 2:00 a.m. emergencies when the University Writing Center is closed.

 

The University Writing Center website

The UWC website offers UCF-specific information about writing in different disciplines, helpful handouts on various aspects of writing, information on citing sources (including online sources), and other useful information. You can also make an appointment with a UWC writing consultant from the website.