dragonbook

40 3. Jot down ideas for your paper as you read/do research. Mark any passages that you think you may later cite in support of your thesis . DON’T MARK LIBRARY BOOKS!!!! 4. Be sure to have a thesis: some point you are trying to prove. State this thesis clearly. Usually, your thesis statement will be the last sentence of your first paragraph. Lack of a good thesis is almost always the reason students have trouble with this assignment. Also, once a student comes up with a good thesis, the paper almost writes itself. 5. Be sure to give your paper an interesting title. A good title reinforces your thesis and will often help the reader see the logic/organization of your paper. 6. Be sure your paper has a clear thesis. It's almost impossible to get credit for logic or analysis if your thesis isn't clear. Said this before, didn’t I? Do you suppose there’s a reason for 7. Now try “brainstorming,” i.e., jotting down a list of things you may want to include in your paper. 8. If necessary, revise your thesis. 9. Outline your paper. 10. Write your paper. Don’t worry if everything’s not perfect the first time. You can always go back and revise. And speaking of revision…. 11. Don’t fall in love with your first draft. First drafts never represent your best work. If at first your paper doesn’t seem like “A” work, revise and revise again. During the course of your revisions…. 12. Make sure each paragraph of your paper contains a clear topic sentence. Each topic sentence should relate to your general thesis. Most often, the topic sentence will be the first sentence of the paragraph. 13. Make sure everything in each paragraph supports your topic sentence. The fancy name for this is “coherence.” If your professor tells you your paper lacks coherence, he/she means that the sentences/paragraphs are not properly joined together. 14. Proofread your paper carefully. Errors in spelling and grammar make your work look second rate. Take advantage of the spelling and grammar checkers in your word processing software. Those in WordPerfect and Microsoft Word will catch almost all of your errors, and there’s really no excuse at all these days for turning in a paper with grammatical or spelling mistakes. It is a good habit, by the way, to look at each highlighted mistake and be sure you know why your word processor tells you it’s a mistake.