1.1 College and Writing

Introduction to College Writing

Writing is one of the most powerful tools we possess. It allows us to clarify our thinking, communicate ideas across distance and time, and participate in conversations that shape our world. Whether you are composing an academic essay, a professional report, a creative story, or a simple email, writing is not just a skill. Research shows that deliberate practice—that is, close focus on improving one’s skills—makes all the difference in how one performs. Revisiting the craft of writing—especially at the early end of college—will improve your writing much more than simply producing page after page in the same old way. Becoming an excellent communicator will save you a lot of time and hassle in your studies, advance your career, and promote better relationships and a higher quality of life off the job.

At its core, writing is not about producing perfect sentences on the first attempt as it is iterative and often messy. Strong writers plan, draft, revise, and edit. This book will help you develop those habits, giving you both the technical foundations and the practical strategies needed to write effectively in a variety of contexts. You can explore the chapter and section headings to see some of the things this textbook will attempt to teach.

My other goal with editing and writing this textbook is to not only teach the conventions; but to help you enjoy reading and writing. Additionally, you should learn how to express your ideas through writing with clarity.

The Professional Benefits of Writing

To start, every major in college will require writing. At the college level, if you complete around 40 classes for a 120-credit bachelor’s degree and produce an average of 2,500 words of formal writing per course, averaging across both writing-intensive and non-writing-intensive classes, you will write roughly 100,000 words during your college career. That’s about the length of a 330-page book! Now if you invest a few hours in strengthening your writing skills, it can make those 100,000 words significantly easier and far more rewarding to produce. Good writing matters in every course. Regardless of discipline, professors rely on writing to assess understanding, evaluate ideas, and engage with your thinking. The creation and sharing of knowledge, the very purpose of the academy, depends on clear, effective communication.

In nearly every professional field, writing plays a central role in communicating your value and expertise. You may need to explain your work to a supervisor, demonstrate its potential to investors, or communicate clearly with clients who expect confidence and competence. Beyond communication, many careers also require you to create, developing new processes, producing documentation, or shaping ideas into something others can use.

College, and especially college-level writing, is designed to prepare you for this reality. It marks a shift from passively consuming information to actively constructing it. Across disciplines, this is a shared goal; not simply to learn what others have discovered, but to engage with those ideas, build on them, and contribute something of your own.

Writing is the primary tool through which that transition happens. It is how you test your understanding, refine your thinking, and present your contributions to others.

College Writing is Different

College is a fundamentally different educational model; as a result, the purposes and expectations for writing are different. You have learned many of the essential skills and practices of formal written communication throughout your schooling; now it’s time to take your writing a step further.

Professors look at you as independent junior scholars and imagine you writing as someone who has a genuine, driving interest in tackling a complex question. They envision you approaching an assignment without a pre-existing thesis. Your first draft shouldn’t be perfect, you’ll discover holes in the argument that should be remedied, counterarguments that should be acknowledged and addressed, and important implications that should be noted. When the paper is substantially complete, you’ll go through it again to tighten up the writing and ensure clarity. All writing, from essays to textbooks and novels, goes through several drafts. Writing a paper isn’t about getting the “right answer” and adhering to basic conventions; it’s about joining an academic conversation with something original to say.

Few students approach writing college papers in the way that professors envision. Many students first figure out what they want to say and then (and only then) write it down as clearly (and quickly) as they can. One quick round of proofreading and they’re done. Many students have a powerful distaste for truly revising (i.e., actually rewriting) a paper because it feels like throwing away hard-won text. Consequently, when students are invited or required to revise an essay, they tend to focus on correcting mechanical errors, making a few superficial changes that do not entail any rethinking or major changes. Professors find that tendency incredibly frustrating. Some instructors craft an assignment sequence to force a true revising process; others leave it up to you. Virtually all shape their expectations for the final project around the idea that you’re writing to learn, writing to develop, writing to think—not just writing to express.

Another major impact of this shift to a junior-scholar role is that you not only have to learn to write like a scholar, but you also have to learn to write like a political scientist, a chemist, an art historian, and a statistician—sometimes all in the same semester. While most academic writing conventions are common across disciplines, there is some variation. Your professors—immersed as they are in their fields—may forget that you have such varied demands, and they may not take class time to explain the particular conventions of their field.

College Instructors are Different

Colleges and universities today are student-centered, and most higher education faculty spend most of their time carefully crafting educational experiences for students. However, the notion of the university as a center for scholarship and exchange shapes how colleges and universities operate today.

• Most of your professors have had little to no formal training in pedagogy (the science of teaching). They’re extensively trained in their scholarly or creative fields, and well versed in relevant theories, methods, and significant findings.
• While you may view your professors primarily as teachers, your instructors are also collecting data, writing books and articles, making films, writing poetry, consulting with businesses and organizations, or inventing things. Professors also serve on several committees on campus.
• Some instructors require you to address them as “Doctor” or “Professor” and not “Mr.” or “Ms.” However, not all fields have doctoral degrees, so “Professor” is always an appropriate choice for addressing your instructors. When in doubt, ask your professor how they would like to be addressed.
• Most high school teachers in public school systems are contractually obligated to deliver a particular curriculum. Your instructor may be required to cover particular concepts and skills or even assign a particular textbook, especially if one class is a prerequisite to more advanced classes. However, they still have a lot of freedom to determine what students should learn, what they will do to learn it, and how their achievements will be measured. As a result, two different sections of the same college course could differ dramatically, much more so than two parallel high school sections.
• The assumption behind high school instruction is that the teacher is the engine of learning. In contrast, the assumption behind college instruction is that students are the engine of learning and that most of the significant learning happens outside of class while students are working through a dense reading or another challenging intellectual task on their own. The assumption is that all students have the skill and self-motivation to carefully read all the assigned texts. Professors lay out a path for learning, much like how personal trainers develop exercise routines, but it is up to students to do the difficult work themselves.

So, What do Professors Want?

One quick tip for improving your college writing, and your grades overall, is to listen to each professor. Most professors have different expectations; it can be tricky knowing what exactly they’re looking for. Pay attention to the comments they leave on your paper, and make sure to use these as a reference for your next assignment. Try to pay attention and adapt to the professor’s style and preferences. Additionally, don’t get discouraged! If you feel like you are getting low grades, talk to your professor about what you could have done differently. This will help you be better prepared for future papers. Most professors love to be asked questions and interact with students. If you ever need help, do not hesitate to ask for advice on how you could do better.

Despite some variations by discipline, college instructors are bringing similar standards to evaluating student work. Recently, the Association of American Colleges and Universities has brought together faculty members from across the country to deliberate on the core knowledge and skills that define liberal arts education.

Professors want to see that you’ve thought through a problem and taken the time and effort to explain your thinking in precise language. This goes for questions that you ask them as well.

The following chapters in this book expand on these ideas, beginning with the fundamentals of college writing, the writing process, research and source integration, and rhetorical analysis. Writing at the college level is not simply about meeting academic standards; it is about learning to communicate with purpose and clarity. Those connections, both personal and professional, shape many of the most important experiences in your life. And it’s connecting with other people, in your personal and professional lives, that shape the most important experiences of your life.