Length and Manuscript Format. Your paper must Have at least the minimum required length specified by the assignment prompt. The paper must stay within the page limits outlined by the prompt. Be typed in the correct MLA (Modern Language Association) format with double-spacing, headers with page numbers, readable font design and size. Topic. Your paper must Center on the topic (or one of the topics) allowed by the assignment prompt. If the assignment requires analysis, do analysis. If the assignment tells you to use two quotations from a certain essay, do that. Try to deal with the topic in a specific, interesting way that goes beyond obvious statements. Contain a thesis that clearly articulates the topic in your own words.

“Mechanics,” or Punctuation, Grammar, and Spelling. Your paper should Have few to no errors in spelling, sentence structure, word usage, or punctuation. Try for this goal every time, and know that mastery over mechanics will likely take you several edits to achieve—several edits per paper. Organization. Your paper must have a clear thesis, and the subsequent paragraphs must be related to that thesis, helping to support it or demonstrate it in different ways. This is known as “unity.” Each paragraph must center on a single idea, which is presented by the topic sentence and supported by the rest of the paragraph.

A paragraph in a college paper usually needs to be at least 8-10 sentences long in order to do its job well. The essay must begin with material appropriate to a beginning or introduction. It must thoroughly explain its topic throughout the middle, and it needs to bring the reader’s journey to a conclusion in some way. College writers need to recognize that the five- paragraph essay is only one way—and a pretty elementary way—to organize an essay. Very, very few professional writers use this structure, which is exceedingly repetitious and was developed to introduce children and remedial writers to essay structure.

Students who expect to pass must not take other people’s writing and claim it as their own by failing to cite where it came from. Putting your own name on someone else’s writing is plagiarism, and even a little bit of it is traceable and can fail a paper. A successful paper is fluid and smooth to read. That does not mean “simplistic.” It means that the grammar is clear. A successful paper is interesting to read. It has a title that attracts the reader. The top-notch student puts something of him or herself into the paper so that it is not a plain wrap, cookie cutter product.