Why we should dissect a paper

A big question is what should be taught in college writing. In an article “What should colleges teach? Part 3” By Stanley Fish, he talked about what high school teachers are not teaching and what students should already know when they get into college. In this article he wants college professors to focus on sentence structure to make up for poor writing skills in high school. Stanley states “ You have to start with a simple but deep understanding of the game, which for my purposes is the game of writing sentences.” When he said “understanding of the game” it caught my attention because understanding a paper as a whole is very important. Writing a good sentence and understanding the structure of the sentence is a very good skill to have but, understanding the components of a paper are key to successfully writing in college.

 Stanley has a very good idea with teaching sentence structures but I just don’t think that is as important as understand a prompt, analyzing sources, and revising the paper. I have conducted various types of research pertaining to college writing to come up with my idea of what is most important. This includes an observation of a tutoring session at Ohio State Newarks writers studio, I emailed a professor from OSU Newark, had 10 college students participate in a survey monkey, and did online journal and book research on college writing. After doing all of this research, analyzing really stuck out.

Don't be like this guy, if you can't figure it out
always ask your professor!

Understanding an assignment prompt is one of the first and most important things to do beforewriting a college paper. In high school I was never given an actual assignment prompt other than a 5-paragraph form layout. Prompts have very important information such as what the paper needs to look like and the deadline. Analyzing the prompt gives you a good start for the essay because you already fully understand what is being asked of you, now you just have to research sources and understand the topic you are writing about. Analyzing sources can help you come to find a better understanding of the topic you are writing about. After you conduct research and have primary claim you then want to break that claim down into smaller detailed paragraphs.

Something to keep in mind whole writing a college essay is the difference between summarizing and analyzing. In an essay you want to analyze the topic you are focused on. Ashford Writing Center gives us a good understanding of the difference between them “ To summarize is to take ideas and present them again in a more concise way. But to analyze is to reach your own conclusions about how the elements of a topic...fit together to create something that may not be evident at first glance.” This gives more insight to analyzing in a college paper. Teachers should be teaching students how to analyze a topic and really understand it to make your own conclusions and present them professionally in a college essay.

We use analyzing in our daily lives, maybe too much analyzing for some...

                                   

The most important thing from all of my research was emailing another OSU professor. Her name is Professor Boeshart and I emailed her after I came to the conclusion of analyzing being the most important. My questions to her were very specific to analyzing in college writing and she gave me very good insight to what is the most important from a professors point of view. Analyzing can be seen as revision if we are talking about an essay as a whole so I asked her “Why is it important to revise a paper?” The key things she told me was “it may make sense in your head, but not as clear to an audience...we haven’t questioned the conclusions we’ve come up with yet on our first draft.” These are key steps for analyzing a paper after a first draft. Whenever you revise it means to look at it again with a fresh set of eyes.

When following my advice this is how you
should feel about college writing.

College writing is much more than writing a good sentence. Fish said that sentences were the most important and the rest of college writing skills will just follow, I think knowing how to analyze is the most important to do. College professors should teach analyzing to students. Not just analyzing the prompt but to analyze and revise the essay as a whole. When you write an essay, think about the topic and research the topic so you have your own conclusions on that specific topic and not just what others say. Take what others say to form a new and better understanding of the topic. Knowing how to read a prompt is also very important to do when you first get assigned an essay. Read over the prompt, read it out loud if you have to and really understand all the key points that are being asked of you to complete.