College Writing That Gets Results

In this lecture, we cover why writing is part of college courses in the first place.  The hope is that by understanding the "why," the "how" will make a bit more sense. 

In this lecture, we talk about how "audience" is more complicated than many people (including teachers) realize.

This lecture describes the overall approach taken in this course: a practical, concrete, realistic one that tries to steer clear of generic, vague directives but provides specific guidance.

Here, we look at ways to generate an interesting and specific question, which is the best way to start the writing process.

Here we talk about how to make a topic specific and focused--something that will serve both you and your reader. 

In this lecture, we talk about how to go further into a topic by digging down deeper into it.

A discussion of why many of the usual things done in academic writing to simply fill up pages don't work well.

Describes a technique for methodically and mindfully developing plenty of possible ideas for a topic, no matter how narrow it might seem.

This lecture and the attached resource provide a specific example of how to use Socratic questioning to develop ideas for a typical paper.

An overview of what a thesis statement is and what makes a good one in college-level writing.

Here, we go through examples of sentences that many might say are good thesis statements but talk about why they fall short of what we want.  We'll also talk about how these can be improved on with just a little work.

This lecture provides an overview of a time-tested organizational pattern that serves well in many writing situations.

A deep dive into what makes for a good introductory section of an academic paper. 

This lecture discusses the often-overlooked "background" section that sets up the rest of a paper.

This is an overview of the centerpiece of most academic papers: the argument section where the author offers support for the main claim of the paper.

Examples of how observation can be used as evidence in a paper. 

A description of what "logical" argument means in the context of college writing and examples of it.

A discussion of using specific examples to help support your argument.

How to use the words of others to help support your own claims. 

A discussion of various ways statistics can be used in a variety of writing contexts and why they can be a particularly powerful type of evidence. 

Describes ways to find and use already-agreed-upon principles or ideas as  basis of your argument. 

How to use personal experience in college writing, including research writing. 

A discussion of how and why including a specific "counterargument" section helps strengthen your own argument.

Tips and examples of how to wrap up a paper successfully rather than simply stopping. 

A brief look at other typical organizational structures besides the five-part model discussed here.

A brief overview of why a paragraph should be thought of as a meaning-making unit, not simply a block of text with vaguely-associated sentences grouped together.

A specific discussion of what makes a good topic sentence and why it helps you write strong paragraphs.

This lecture walks through the use of the template covered in the previous lecture to create a paragraph for a sample essay.  The handout that goes with the lecture shows how the "template" model can be expanded to create a fully-formed five-paragraph essay.

This lecture provides guidance on using transitions effectively to link paragraphs (and the ideas in them) in a way that makes your paper more cohesive. 

This is a free pdf of the book this course is based on. 

This is a sample paper by a real student in a college writing course with commentary to illustrate principles in the course.