Written Comm

Structure of Written Communication

When you are a college student, you will need to read textbooks and write essays. In the beginning, you will be asked to write essays that discuss, describe, compare, contrast, or explain. Later, your essays will be answers to questions, as on an exam. Even later on (Eventually) in your college career, you will be asked to write research papers (5 to 10 or more pages, typed, double-spaced).

This program of study focuses on the fundamental skills of reading and writing essays. Once you have learned this skill, you can enter learn to write research papers.

College-level essays are different from other forms of writing: they are not poems, plays, fiction, news, letters, or e-mails. These essays have an expected form, length and style. You are expected to produce essays that conform to these guidelines (rules).

If you do, your college professors will think highly of you and your work; if you don't, your professors will think that you have not yet learned what you must and your grades will reflect this.

This is an important point to emphasize. It is difficult for a teacher to assess how well a student has learned, other than by testing the student: asking the student to perform, to demonstrate the skills and knowledge that he or she is expected to have learned.

For this reason, tests, by their nature, ask students to confirm that knowledge has been received and understood by the student. A good grade demonstrates that the student understood and appreciates what has been taught.

Consequently, in the beginning of your college career, most teachers will ask the students to give back to them in writing what they have said in class.

This means that you should be able to present the ideas in writing, if not the exact words that the teacher has presented in class.

There are teachers who view the experience of taking a test as a learning experience; however, certainly at the start of your studies, you will be asked to demonstrate your skill at conforming to educational standards and the chief standard is proper use of formal language.

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