I have always loved to write. Short stories, history essays, literally anything and everything I could get my hands on. There is just something so powerful about writing, how just a string of words can invoke emotions out of people. Why do you think I’m on the editorial team? ;)
However, I realize not everyone shares this love of writing. Lots of people loathe writing, especially in academic settings. They hate the outlines, the bullsh*tting, the word counts. And I get it, sometimes the process for academic writing is a bit much. And academic speak is one of the worst things.
But there is not a feeling in the world quite like turning in a paper that you know you absolutely killed, especially if it’s something you’re passionate about.
I’ve had to write a fair share of papers myself — all throughout high school, college, and now in my grad program where I will graduate with a Master’s degree in May. Crazy, I know.
Along the way, through all those assignments, I learned quite a few things about writing papers. So I’m here to tell you all my secrets of writing a good paper.
Thesis Statement
I know… I know. We’ve all heard of a thesis statement before and we hate it more and more each time we hear it. Some of my teachers in high school were very particular about thesis statements. I am here to tell you that you should not be. A thesis statement is important but it does not have to be formal. At the top of each of my papers, before I do formatting or anything extra, I write my thesis statement so I can refer back to it. It may be as simple as ‘The framing of Hong Kong in English language and Chinese language articles is different’ (this is really from a thesis from a paper I wrote my first year of grad school).
You can fill in the because later, once you have done your research. It is so insanely difficult to write a paper when you don’t even know the core reason of why you’re writing it.
Research
That brings me to my second point. There is literally no paper without research. My favorite way of research is to just go to JSTOR (or whatever database you need specifically), type in key words, and see what shows. And mix up the key words too. Like ‘China,’ ‘Chinese,’ ‘Asian,’ ‘Eastern Asia,’ etc. You will be surprised by what comes up.
And my favorite: if you’re reading an article, and the author cites another author, find the second author’s work! Go down a rabbit hole on the references or bibliography because they’re all related at some point. That saves me tons of time of having to read through different works to see if I actually will use it. If I find the perfect article, and that author has a reference list ten pages long, you bet I’m looking through every single one of them.
I then type all of it up in a Google doc. There is no formatting, no formalities, nothing. Just bullet points under the title of the article and the author (so you don’t have to go back and try to remember who said what).
outline
Lots of professors say to use an outline to support the research you find or vice versa. To be honest, I never do an outline. Really. I write whatever flows and organize it later. I have the key things I want to talk about (methods, arguments, points, etc.) but I leave that for later. Throw the whole outline away. Just write what you want — lots of transitions come naturally. And your paper isn’t set in stone. You can go back and switch paragraphs around if it doesn’t flow in a reread.
the body
This is similar to the outline section, but the key to writing a good paper is to literally write it. Just sit down and knock out a couple paragraphs at a time. You know more than you think. A train of thought is good at getting you where you want to go. Who cares if it is incoherent or informal? That’s what proofreading is for. The most important is to get your thoughts on paper, whatever those thoughts may be. Just write and write until you can’t anymore. Then write some more. You might have new ways to combine your research, or you may have a new thing to add.
Something that stuck with me from my favorite English middle and high school teachers was their opinion on quotes. When you put a quote into a paper, it has to be for a reason. Same with a statistic, a fact, anything. You have to explain why you put it in there. Even if it is something as bland as an author explaining a certain theory. Of course, you don’t have to just rewrite the explanation given in the quote. Instead, explain why you chose that quote, or that author, or even how you understood it differently. It adds a little something.
Those are the biggest takeaways I have gotten from years and years of schooling. Writing isn’t for everyone but it is an important skill to have. So now that I’ve spilled my top secrets, I’m ready to see how y’all will use them to tell your own!