One of my students was thrown for a loop when he received a low grade on his term paper. “I put a lot of thought into that paper,” he said. “I thought I did a pretty good job on it.” I believed him. Almost 7 pages, five solid references, interwoven with personal experiences working at a software company − it certainly had the potential to be a good term paper. However, this student could not recognize his own poor writing, and this lack of communication skill doomed him. He could do the research, but he could not present it effectively. I hope this missive prevents other students from falling into the same trap. Here are three pitfalls to avoid when turning in a term paper: 1. Remember what they say about first impressions. If there is one section of your paper that deserves more attention than the rest, it’s your opening paragraph, even your opening sentence: As technology grows at a rapid pace, so do the projects that use them. Wow. I haven’t even reached the second line of this opus and I already need to uncap my red pen. As technology grows at a rapid pace, so do the projects that use them. it. Your opening paragraph should introduce your work and convince me that I am in for an enjoyable, interesting read. Every university requires you to take Composition 101 as a freshman for a reason: when you walk into my classroom, I presume you can write. Sadly, however, you may have passed Composition 101 without becoming a proficient writer − or even without improving your writing skills at all! Nevertheless, you must eventually learn to recognize the flaws in your writing and learn how to make improvements. Be sure your opening paragraph doesn’t send a bad first impression. 2. Don’t be overly informal. “Write like you speak.” Your English professor may have exhorted you with this advice, because students often write in an overly stiff tone. However, the “write like you speak” adage can be, like, totally overdone. Avoid trite expressions that remove an air of scholarly research from your paper’s tone: NO: Let’s talk about what quality assurance is and why it is important. NO: Why is quality assurance important, you ask? YES: Quality assurance is very important. 3. Proofread; revise; repeat. Learn to look over your writing − sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph − and spot areas that need improvement. Be prepared to revise every sentence you write. Change passive voice to active voice, eliminate word overuse, rephrase awkwardly worded segments, combine fragments and break up run-ons, select more engaging words, and eliminate unnecessary clutter. Your professors do not want to do this work for you; they would much rather savor your work than proofread it. (As a side note, I revised every paragraph on this web page at least twice before I wrote this sentence, and I later revised this sentence!) Back to the student who was surprised by his low grade. I spent one Saturday morning explaining why I was unhappy with his paper, in hopes that he would be enlightened, and avoid making these same mistakes in future classes. I hope this feedback is beneficial for other students, too. Far better to learn these lessons before turning in your papers, rather than afterwards. (However, by publicizing this information for my future students, I will be even less tolerant of similar shortcomings in their work. Read and heed, and learn to write well!) A website called 10 Ways to Ruin a College Paper listed my biggest peeve at #7: 7. Including sentences that do no work. All the sentences in your paper should make some definite contribution to developing and proving your thesis. Sentences that do something, that have some muscle, play a real role in advancing your main argument. Sentences like: "The Civil War was an important event in American history" or "In this paper I will be discussing a number of issues relating to the Civil War" should be eliminated without hesitation. I informed my student that his paper had wayyyy too many such sentences: - "These non-technical issues will be discussed below when reviewing the researched articles." - "...the reasons of why some companies will eliminate the testing process all together [sic] will be explained below." - "All of the points that are explained below are from the above article." - "There were some obstacles that would have eventually resulted in poor QA practices which will be explained below." Instead of telling the reader that you are about to tell them something, simply get to the point and tell them directly. When proofreading and revising your work, aggressively remove all such sentences. Next, I put one paragraph from the student’s paper through the proofread-revise-repeat cycle: BEFORE (the original version): In an article titled "The 1992 London Ambulance Service Computer Aided Dispatch System Failure" [1], a slew of issues caused the AVLS to lose track of ambulance locations and statuses in the system. All the facts below concerning the London dispatch failure were taken from the above article. Before creating this massive automatic system, all ambulance calls were created manually. That is the dispatcher answered calls requesting ambulances dispatched to specific locations. The dispatcher would then proceed to write the request on a paper form and then put it on a conveyer belt. Then another employee would study the location of the call and the need for the ambulance request and locate the closest ambulance in the caller's location. This employee would then call the ambulance and make them aware of the location of the caller. CHANGE 1: Eliminate the needless sentence. ("All of the facts below... were taken from the above article.") In an article titled "The 1992 London Ambulance Service Computer Aided Dispatch System Failure" [1], a slew of issues caused the AVLS to lose track of ambulance locations and statuses in the system. Before creating this massive automatic system, all ambulance calls were created manually. That is the dispatcher answered calls requesting ambulances dispatched to specific locations. The dispatcher would then proceed to write the request on a paper form and then put it on a conveyer belt. Then another employee would study the location of the call and the need for the ambulance request and locate the closest ambulance in the caller's location. This employee would then call the ambulance and make them aware of the location of the caller. Do you see how eliminating the needless sentence improves the paper, by getting more directly to the point? Moreover, the rather lengthy title of the article need not be included, either, because the reference provides that information: CHANGE 2: Eliminate the double-citing of the reference. A slew of issues caused the AVLS to lose track of ambulance locations and statuses in the system [1]. Before creating this massive automatic system, all ambulance calls were created manually. That is the dispatcher answered calls requesting ambulances dispatched to specific locations. The dispatcher would then proceed to write the request on a paper form and then put it on a conveyer belt. Then another employee would study the location of the call and the need for the ambulance request and locate the closest ambulance in the caller's location. This employee would then call the ambulance and make them aware of the location of the caller. However, there's another problem: the paragraph begins by talking about a "slew of issues," but the student never talks about the issues. Instead, he rambles on about the previous system. Perhaps the "slew of issues" sentence belongs somewhere else in the paper, like in a paragraph which describes the slew of issues (a paragraph, by the way, I could never find). But let's presume it exists − the introductory paragraph would now look like this: CHANGE 3: Add focus to the paragraph. Before creating a massive automated system for the London ambulance service, all calls were created manually. That is the dispatcher answered calls requesting ambulances dispatched to specific locations. The dispatcher would then proceed to write the request on a paper form and then put it on a conveyer belt. Then another employee would study the location of the call and the need for the ambulance request and locate the closest ambulance in the caller's location. This employee would then call the ambulance and make them aware of the location of the caller. However, this is still not a well-written paragraph! It has punctuation flaws (the clause "That is" should have a comma after it); it has a spelling error (it's "conveyor" not "conveyer"); it uses poorly-chosen verbs ("all calls were created manually?" or "all calls were handled manually?"); and it is an awkward series of sentence fragments ("this employee would do this, that employee would do that, yada, yada, yada..."). CHANGE 4: Fix grammatical and spelling errors; eliminate sentence fragments. Before creating a massive automated system for the London ambulance service, all calls were handled manually. That is, a dispatcher would answer calls requesting ambulances dispatched to specific locations, then write the request on a paper form and put it on a conveyor belt. Another employee would then examine the location of the call and locate the closest ambulance to the caller's location. This employee would then contact the ambulance and make them aware of the location of the caller. This paragraph is much improved from the initial version. However, I still don't think it fits very well in the paper. The student was not writing a report about the old ambulance service, he was writing about software testing. Therefore, I ultimately recommended the entire paragraph be reduced to a single sentence: AFTER: The previous London ambulance dispatch system used a time-consuming and cumbersome manual process [1]. Thus, after five iterations, a poorly-written, unnecessary paragraph is reduced to a single, pithy sentence. This process is the key to good writing; very few people can write coherently on the first or even second draft. Students who consistently receive high marks on term papers are usually able to differentiate between good and bad writing; they recognize weaknesses in their own paragraphs, even in their revised paragraphs, and they are willing to invest the time required to transform a mediocre paper into a well-written work. This student had done some good research. He understood the old system; he was aware of problems with the new one. However, he failed to communicate his findings succinctly and effectively. His paper was literally painful to read (I was unable to work through it in one sitting, even!) Nearly every term, I’ll work through a handful of term papers of poor quality. One such paper was handed in by an ROTC cadet about to graduate. I told him, “As a future leader in the Air Force, the livelihood and careers of several enlisted servicemen could very well hinge on your ability to write effectively.” (All too often, awards and promotions go to personnel assigned to supervisors with the ability to write the strongest justifications, rather than to the most qualified). All college graduates should have the ability to write coherently and forcefully. Did you become a better writer as a result of your freshman English courses? If you are have not yet mastered the art of effective writing, I hope this narrative will help. I hope this narrative will be enlightening. I hope this narrative will enlighten you. Another highly recommended essay is How to Say Nothing in 500 Words, by Paul Roberts (easily found using your favorite search engine.)