Tips on How to Write an Effective Paper

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Writing papers is one thing you can guarantee yourself that you will have to do in college, along with other educational requirements. For some people, it might be a frustrating experience or a great opportunity to show their knowledge on a given topic; or sometimes both. Everyone has methods that work better for them than others and they learn to embrace those specific methods. Simple strategies such as outlining and good research can make writing a paper a more pleasant and less nerve-racking experience. The first thing I do when I have to write a paper is I try to determine what exactly the prompt is asking me to write about. This might seem obvious but, on occasion, I might misread or simply misunderstand a prompt which could result in writing a completely different paper than what was asked of me. Once I completely understand what is asked of me, I start to think about what I already know about the topic and what I need to know in order to write my paper. I then start my research on the topic and start taking notes on what I will need to incorporate into my paper. Once I feel I have an adequate amount of information to use in my paper, I draw up an outline which has many little points. Sometimes taking a topic and turning it into a paper is difficult because I feel like once I state the main point, there is nothing else to write about. But a well written paper requires an elaborate and detailed response to the prompt so these bullet points that I make help me keep the flow of my paper going as I discuss each point in its own paragraph. Typical outlines aren't the only way I prepare to write my papers. I often tend to simply start writing random paragraphs about my subject, in no particular order, and slowly begin to bu... ... middle of paper ... ...it to make sure that it makes sense to someone other than me. After my paper is written and finalized, I begin my works cited page. This is simple because as I research my topic, I take note of where I get my information from and keep the sources typed in the same file as my paper. To create my works cited page, I simply take the sources I actually used in my paper and I format them onto my works cited page in MLA style. I am just beginning my college career and that means many more papers to come. I may not always be so enthusiastic about writing them but as long as I use this strategy to tackle the assignment, it will be fine. Learning to break down a paper into small parts instead of looking at it as one whole, big, daunting assignment has helped me a great deal and allows me to put more focus into each paragraph or topic, resulting in better written papers.

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