Languages and Education Consultant

Writing a paper can sometimes seem like a daunting experience and something that some students dread. Some students prefer the hands-on approach to learning, for example through placements in posts that will provide them with valuable work experience. But, even when you are lucky enough to be placed in a good post where you can actually learn about the day to day of your chosen profession, you still have to reflect on your experience. Most academic papers aim to consolidate the knowledge you have acquired through lectures and work experiences, and make you reflect deeply on several aspects of your experience. So, don’t think about them as only an obligation, or a way to achieve better grades, think about them as a record of your academic path!

“But I’m not smart enough!” or “I don’t know how to write” or “I don’t know where to start” are some of the sentences I hear when students come to me struggling with producing good papers. And what I always say is: “No matter how smart you are (or aren’t), to write a good paper the most important thing is to be organized”.

The benefits of organization are tremendous: first of all you will be able to meet deadlines, if beforehand you think about how long every stage is going to take you, and strive to keep up the pace. Then, you will save time by thinking ahead, for example, instead of writing first and getting the references later, you can do both in the correct formatting needed and save yourself the trouble of having to go back to every sentence and see who said what and when.

Start by reading the question properly and deconstructing it as much as possible; in order to know for sure all the point you have to focus. Look for keywords that will help you research papers and other literature. Focus on getting to the smallest particle of an idea or a concept and talk about every particle that is part of the question.

Regarding structure, save around 15% of the word count for an introduction and around 20% for the conclusion. The introduction should consider the problem, the need for analysis and reflection and should also define the specific points you are going to cover (therefore you need to already have thought the paper through). The conclusion will be a summary of the aspects you have covered and when critical analysis is included, should note main critical thinking results and connect them whenever possible with real life use.

Disorganized ideas make a text difficult to read and often put the reader in a position where he just wants to skim over it and try to make sense of it. Often this happens because people tend to write from the heart or get really excited about what they are writing about. It may seem like a strange advice, but if you are really passionate about something, think before using that as a topic for a paper. A dissertation yes, it should be something that can keep you motivated for months, but if it’s one of those papers that you feel you just have to do, and with deadlines that are close to other paper’s deadlines, then you might want to skip the passionate subject and focus on one that you enjoy enough but doesn’t make you ecstatic. Why do I recommend this? Well, when we love something too much we tend to feel it instead of thinking it and many papers don’t ask that or even give room for it. And it often leads to texts where you skip words and ideas just because they are so clear in your mind you assume unconsciously that they are also clear to others.

So, deconstruct your ideas as much as possible. Imagine you are talking about group dynamics, for example. You would need to start by talking about theories on what constitutes a group, authors that contributed to the theory, and even the notion of dynamics, plus the literature framework on the beginnings of group dynamics as a study field, and then the real application of it in real life situations. It’s always valuable to reflect on the theories’ applications to real life and practice and you can easily do this by using examples to illustrate your ideas.

Some papers also require you do to a critical analysis and that is generally a point that is scary for many people who have difficulty producing papers, although it can be seen simply as reflecting on your opinion, better yet, a conclusion that you take from all you have noted before. Think: is this (whatever aspect you focus on) an important process/phenomenon? In what does it have an impact on? Is this impact positive or negative? What are the specific areas of impact? Is there any suggestion that I can make with basis on this reflection? Remember to keep yourself within your field of study. If you are talking from a clinical psychology approach, you won’t suggest that the company develops better HR policies, for example.