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Getting A’s on Papers
This tip is so good that you may only want to take classes that assign papers from now on. My roommate in college was a pre-med student. He wasn’t the smartest person in the world but he worked very hard memorizing everything he could.
He just didn’t know what he would do if he didn’t become a doctor. He did well in all the science classes but he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to make the grade in the English classes he needed to take.
His strategies for success only applied to science, English on the other hand required skill in writing papers. He came to me and said, “I just don’t know what I am going to do.”
I had taken a few English classes and had cracked the code for getting A’s in paper writing courses, so I said to him “Don’t worry I’ll show you how to get an A in English.” I told him exactly what to do and he followed all my advice.
At the end of the semester he came to me and said with surprise and wonder “I got an A, I still don’t know what I did, the professor looked at my final paper and said “you’ve done everything I asked you to do…so you get an A”
Boy was he happy! He went on to medical school and is now making $250,000 a year. I’ll show you what I taught him.
Applying the Paper Writing Strategy in Detail
The day your professor assigns a paper, go up to him or her after class or whenever the best time is for the professor, and schedule a meeting to talk about your paper topic. You should have some topic ideas in your mind to speak about to get the conversation started. You can say something like this to the professor:
“I want to do a good job on this paper, I have some ideas about a paper topic but I would like to meet with you to talk about them.”
Your meeting with the professor is your opportunity to do some basic marketing research. In marketing, the key is to know what your audience wants and deliver it to them – supply the demand. Your market is the Professor and what the professor thinks is a good paper is what he or she wants. How will you know what that is - just ask! Say something like:
“I really want this paper to be the best I can make it. What would be the elements of a really good paper for this assignment?”
Make the paper the focus! Do not … I repeat do not give the professor the idea you just want to pump him or her for information to get a good grade!
The professor will like the idea that you want to do a good job, and that you have thought about it, and are asking for help.
When meeting with the professor try to understand what the professor thinks is a good topic. You can start off by telling your professor about your idea for a paper topic by saying something like:
“I would like to write something on “--------------“ but I don’t know how I would go about making a whole paper out of it”
Or you can start with saying something like:
“I thought a lot about it and tried my best but I just can’t seem to come up with a good paper topic, can you give me some ideas?”
The professor may give you one or a few ideas. Alternatively you can say something like:
“I would like to write something about either “-----------“or “---------“but I am not so sure which would be best for the paper?
You can also use reverse psychology and say something like:
“I would like to write about “----------“or “----------“but I really don’t think that either idea could be developed well enough.”
Either the professor will respond by saying you’re right and try to help you find a topic, or he or she might tell you they are good topics and start telling you about them.
The whole key here is to put out something general to start the ball rolling so that the professor can guide you to what he or she thinks is the best paper topic.
Your next step is to try and understand why the professor thinks a certain topic is a good topic. You can learn a lot from understanding the way the professor thinks. You can then ask the professor:
“What makes this topic a better one than say, Topic A, B, or C.?”
If you can get the Professor to tell you his ideas of what good paper topics are and why, you have the beginning of a winning paper.
After the professor guides you on the topic of your paper, you want to find out how to develop the topic into an outline and eventually into a full paper.
If the professor hesitates on giving you ideas for developing the topic then you can lead the discussion by saying something like:
“Oh I see what you mean I could talk about ________ or ________. What do you think is better, if I develop the topic like ________ or like ______ or some other way?”
Or you could say something like:
“I really like that topic, but I can’t really see how I can develop it, can you give me some ideas?”
If you haven’t caught on by now, what you are doing is a cross between investigative reporting/journalism and research marketing. The best questions you can ask will be open-ended questions, which are impossible to answer by just saying “yes” or “no.” If you say, “Is ________ a good topic?” the professor can just answer “Yes” and you won’t find out why the professor thinks it is a good topic.
You don’t just want to know what the professor thinks is good you want to know how the professor thinks about something and why. That’s why it’s better to ask something like “What makes this topic better than others?”
If you learn the art of asking good questions you will get good answers. Click Here the 'A' Papers Good Questions Chart. You can use some of these kinds of questions when asking the professor for a topic and for how the topic should be developed.
Keep the meeting short unless the professor is in a good mood and wants to talk, sincerely thank the professor for helping you and your mission is complete for now. Immediately after this, write down all the ideas you were given while they are still fresh in your mind (even if you recorded the meeting).
Good Relationships
Developing a good relationship with a professor is very valuable. By establishing such a relationship you can find possible mentors and coaches among the faculty of the school, college or university. Good relationships like these can be tremendously beneficial and can last a long time.
You now have begun what could be the beginning of a valuable mentor-coach relationship with the professor and you have a perfect paper topic that you know the professor likes because he or she gave it to you.
Furthermore, since you’ve talked about the topic and how to develop it with the professor, this will be in the professor’s mind when the paper is read for a grade. This will help put everything that you will write in perspective for the professor when the paper is read for a grade.
Instead of having to read what you have written to get the idea of your paper, the professor will already have the right idea and then will read that into your paper. The professor will be reading-in good ideas about your paper that you never could have imagined were there.
The next stage in writing you paper is to come up with an outline, a skeleton or blue print of the final product. One of the absolute easiest and best ways of writing the paper is to look for outstanding quotes that really hit the point about the topic.
Look for all the best quotes to put in the paper and organize them into an outline and then write the paper around them. It makes everything sooooooo much easier! If you have a quote that really hits the nail on the head you can use it as your title…after that, write a rough draft.
If the paper involves any sort of research, there is an awesome online library called Questia that is totally unbelievable! They made it so easy to do all your research and write the paper on your computer.
I would expect to see this kind of technology on Star Trek but not on my computer! You enter a search term and all your books are right there in digital form for you to cut and paste, you push a button and it writes your bibliography.
Try out the Questia online demo (near the bottom 3rd of the page) on this page it is completely amazing! They have a small fee for a month subscription but they will never know if you chip in with a few of your friends in the class and all use the system at different times. If you go in together with a handful of friends from your class (who also have to write the paper) you can cut down the cost to about $5 each. If you are good with persuasion, you might be able to convince your school to invest in the Questia Online Library and it will all be totally free.
Even if you don’t use their subscription service, they let you use their search for free and they let you see a free sample of each book. You can find all the resources you need for any paper in minutes through books, journals, newspapers, magazines, and even encyclopedia articles on their web page absolutely FREE. Click on this link to You can actually Search over 400,000 books and journals online!
Putting the Rough Draft Together
Don’t worry if the rough draft is not perfect! See if your school, college or university has people who help students write papers, most do. After your meeting with the professor about the paper topic, schedule to have your rough draft looked at by someone in one of the student writing support programs. If it’s convenient for them you can e-mail it and they can write in their comments and then e-mail it back to you.
In fact, through e-mail you have an unlimited amount of people you could ask for constructive criticism. Choose wisely so you don’t get bad or conflicting advice. Also engage people in conversations about your paper and listen to their ideas and feedback (everyone has a different perspective in life and seeing from those perspectives in addition to your own is priceless).
Not everyone will have good ideas but a few people may have very good ideas for you to incorporate into your paper. Get all the good ideas and feedback you can about what and how to write.
If you want some professional help then one service stands out, EssayEdge. The New York Times has called EssayEdge "the world's premier application essay editing service." So if this is the route you want to take then don’t wait to the last minute plan ahead and Order Now!
Aim to finish your rough draft in half of the amount of time given to write the paper. That means if you are given two weeks to write the paper, aim to finish your rough draft in one week, if you were only given one week then aim to finish it in three to four days.
Finally when your rough draft is finished ask the professor if he or she can look it over and give you suggestions for improvement. This is also a good reason to have chosen your professor and not your class. The good professors who are good graders are usually only too happy to help you out (Also on www.ratemyprofessors.com there is a rating for how helpful the professor is).
Write down on the cover of your rough draft questions from A to E that we discussed earlier so the professor can answer them for you. For an example of what to write to your professor on the cover of your rough draft Click Here.
You should also be ready to meet with the professor if he or she suggests that to you. It would not look good if the professor invites you to discuss your rough draft and you turn down the offer, so have your questions written down somewhere you can read them as well as written on the cover of the paper for the professor to read.
Make sure you understand the professor’s comments and how to apply them and then follow his or her instructions.
This is key! You will not only be getting good grades because the professor gave you the topic, how to develop it and put together the rough draft you will also be getting good grades for following the professors instructions.
On average, just showing that you followed his or her instructions by itself will raise your grade at least half a letter grade. Everything else you have done should have already put your paper at the very least in the B range but most likely in the B+ range, with the added bonus of following instructions that makes it at least an A- and most likely an A. This is exactly what happened to my friend remember, the professor looked at the finished paper and said “well you did what I asked you to do so …you get an A.”
Review
The basic strategy is this:
1.) Discuss the paper topic with the professor. Let your professor know that you want to write the best paper you can. Strive for excellence or at least look like you’re striving for excellence! Everyone wants to help someone who is trying their best to do something of quality! Write every paper like you were going to publish it (It makes it exiting to write too) and if you really do it that way you really can publish it.
2.) Write the rough draft ASAP! At least start the rough draft right after your meeting with the professor when the ideas are fresh in your head. You can come back later and fill in the details
3.) Finish your rough draft half way to the due date then ask the professor to look over your rough draft and give you comments. Write questions B through E on the top of the cover of the rough draft for your professor to answer and write a copy of those questions for you to keep for yourself.
3a.) If you really want to work the system after applying the correction given by the Professors comments ask the professor to look it over again to see if you followed his or her instructions right and ask him or her the ways you can still improve the paper.
If for some reason your professor doesn’t help you out, ask another professor who will, even if you’re not in their class. If no professors will help, either change schools because all the professors have hearts of stone or ask a top student to help you. That’s the technique in a nut shell: Works all the time! But don’t try it until you understand how to apply it in detail!
Don’t forget to write in with your Success Stories!
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Copyright 2004 All Rights reserved.
