Step 1: Analyze the Assignment

Look for key words. Read the assignment over and then over again. If the assignment was given orally, be sure to write it all out. You should have memorized the question by the time you've finished your answer. Pay particular attention to the procedure of thought your instructor expects you to use. Often it's captured in a single, key instruction word---or a set of key words: Also look for what form your paper is expected to take. Most of your assignments will take one of these forms.

Step 2: Consider the Writing Situation

Successful college writers look beyond the assignment itself to make sure they see the larger picture, understand the purpose and audience for the assignment. Purposes: Why has my professor given me this assignment? Is it intended primarily to test my knowledge of the reading for the study, or is it asking me to go beyond the reading? Am I expected to break new ground? What might I hope to accomplish in this assignment? Why is the subject important? Audience: Who is the intended audience? (It's often more than just the instructor, and the instructor ordinarily reads your paper from several perspectives: as critic and as interested reader, for example) Who will be my audience beyond the professor? Who else might be interested in reading this paper? Why should my reader be interested in what I will do in this paper?

Step 3: Ask Questions

If the assignment's purpose or subject or audience is not clear ask your professor questions. Don't ask the worst question in the book: "What do you want in this paper?" Ask more specific questions like: "What would you like me to learn from writing this?" "Who is the target audience?" "What form do you want me to use?" Keep asking until all your questions are answered. Be sure you know what kind of thinking and what type of paper is expected. College instructors sometimes need your help to clarify an assignment. Everyone will be happier with the results!

Step 4: Ask to See a Sample

Ask to see a sample or a model of what the instructor wants. Student models are often the most help. Sometimes instructors forget how important it is to be able to experience a certain form of writing before you can write it. Sometimes they need you to ask. No one can write effectively if they haven't seen examples of the kind of discourse they are writing in. Check out the File Cabinet in the Writers' Complex to find samples of student papers.

Step 5: Make the Assignment Your Own

After you are pretty sure about what's expected in an assignment, turn the question around: Not "What does the instructor want?" but, "What do I want to say about the assigned subject, or question?" Ask yourself about your knowledge and experience of the subject. What are the limits of my knowledge? How can I learn more? Write down what you already know about the topic and why you care about the topic and why you think you reader should care about it. You will be answering the question, Why write about this, anyway? Look for a special angle, a different slant on the question that reflects who you are. Relate the assignment to something you're familiar with. (And don't be afraid to ask your instructor if you can change the assignment a little so you can do something you really want to do.) After you have written some things down, read over what you have written until you can "hear" it. When you begin to hear a voice and can let it flow through your hands onto the screen or paper, in a comfortable rhythm (and this takes practice!), you have begun. You have found your voice. Take dictation from that voice, it's the real you and you're controlling it. It may sometimes lead you to dead ends or to places too uncertain to incorporate in your writing right then, but it will lead you, and direct your paper. It will teach you and surprise you. It's a kind of music that can tell you what you feel and think and what you want to say to others.

Suggestions, comments, ideas?