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Essays- these again
Now’s when all that writing practice is going to pay off. What are your college professors going to expect from your essays, though?
Length
Most of the time your instructor will give you specific limitations on the length of the paper. This includes both the minimum and the maximum lengths acceptable. Always write more than the minimum length. In fact, you will probably be better off to place your paper closer to the maximum length. If you were to write a paper that ended up shorter than required, your professor will very likely take off points according to how much shorter it was.
Also, note that things like the information at the top of your paper (name, date, class, professor’s name) and titles are not going to count towards the length of your paper. If you assume these are part of the length, your instructor will probably assume you are trying to be cute about the length issue and will likely not respond favorably.
Also, be careful of going too far past the maximum length. This is probably less common than the “too short” papers, but some instructors do not care for papers that are longer than requested.
Other instructors are happy to have students who want to write more than required. As always, this varies from instructor to instructor so it is not a bad idea to just ask if it’s fine to go longer than required. Some will say it is okay and some will say not to, but at least you will know.
Documentation
Depending on the class, you will be required to document your citations according to a certain standard. The most common standard is going to be MLA but there are different standards for science papers and so forth.
Your instructor will inform you, one way or another, which standard is required. If you are unfamiliar with a standard, there are very likely plenty of available books at the college library.
Grading
How are they going to grade your paper?
The basic English courses are going to be grading you based on your grammar and mechanics. Beyond that, most instructors are probably not going to go after you for minor grammar errors, however, it really depends on the instructor.
After you get past English 101, you are going to be graded as much on the content of your paper as the grammar usage. You will have to present quality ideas and support those ideas through the careful citation of sources. Simply having a grammatically perfect paper will not get your very far with most instructors. Similarly, having brilliant content that is presented in a sloppy manner will not please your instructors either. You will have to present both quality content and quality mechanics. |
