How to Write a Term Paper

The combination of thinking about how to write a book review and the stack of papers I am about to receive from one of my classes today has prompted the following dissertation on how to write a term paper or any other type of paper.

But, first, the grouse:  students are not taught how to write papers anymore.  It is really obvious that few students in high school or college are taught the basics of the proper construction of a paper.  It is really depressing, because it really isn’t all that hard to write a competent paper.  Writing a great paper is hard work, but to write a great paper, one must first know how to write a competent paper.  And for reasons explained below, it is easy to teach someone how to write a competent paper; writing a competent paper is simply following a set of rules.  If everyone graduating from high school could write a competent paper, then students could learn to write great papers.  But, high school teachers, and truth be told, most college professors, forget that it is impossible to write a great paper without knowing how to write a competent paper. 

A competent paper meets a few rather simple requirements: 1) there are no serious grammatical or structural problems; 2) the argument is solid throughout; and 3) the paper is focused and makes its argument.  In other words, a competent paper has a point, and makes its point in a structured fashion following all the rules of grammar.  Each paragraph has a structure to it, and the sentences in each paragraph belong there.  The paragraphs have a natural flow.  The reader never feels lost in the paper and at no point does the reader ask, “What is this doing here?”  To write a competent paper is then merely the exercise of developing a structure before writing and rewriting the paper to make sure that all the parts fit.  The biggest problem with most papers which are turned in as schoolwork is that they are the first draft of something which was written without any structure in mind—they are, in other words, more or less a stream of consciousness.  A good competent paper will generally be at least the third or fourth draft, but even the fourth draft generally requires some work.  (This blog post for example took four drafts, and the Reader (don’t laugh—let’s pretend someone is reading this) will easily notice multiple ways the prose could be improved). 

Grading a paper for its competence is really not all that complicated, but it is time consuming.  The teacher needs to note all the failures of grammar, structure and logic.  Those sorts of problems can easily be fixed by a student who actually cared to write a competent paper.  That is the tragedy—since few teachers care about enforcing rules of minimum competency, students habitually turn in lazily written papers.

Once someone has mastered the ability to write a competent paper, then and only then can someone master the art of writing a great paper.  A great paper is first competent and then second has something interesting to say.  It makes a novel argument or an old argument in a novel way.  It demonstrates literary style.  It is pleasant to read and thought-provoking.

This presents a problem; while anyone with an ear for the English language can teach someone else how to write a competent paper, there is no formula for writing a great paper.  In order to write a great paper, the writer (not the teacher) needs to do a lot of work reading and thinking about the subject.  The writer (not the teacher) needs to play with ideas and try out arguments.  The writer needs to attempt writing arguments to see how they work, and then abandon the failed attempts.  The writer needs to be bold and thoughtful.

Students are taught to pretend they can write great papers without ever learning a) how to write a competent paper or b) that they really need to do a lot of work before they have any hope of saying something interesting.  Students are taught to avoid being boring writers, but they have no idea what good writing is like because they have not read enough Shakespeare or Milton or the King James Bible.  If one’s exposure to prose is the Blogosphere and Facebook and Twitter and textbooks, then there is no possible way to learn how to write well.

So, if you want to write a good term paper, first master the art of writing a competent term paper, then read volumes of the Greatest Writers Ever, then read and think long and hard about the subject matter about which you intend to write, and then, and only then, will it be possible to write a great term paper.  That will take a long time, you say?  Uh, yeah.  Why does anyone imagine writing well is an easy skill to master?  Why does anyone imagine that it is possible to write a great paper the night before it is due?