While obtaining my AA I wrote several essays a week. Writing academic papers became second nature to me. In fact, since graduating I have found myself having the desire to write them again so you could say that writing them was not only a requirement for class but also a creative outlet. During the first week of class my essays were not of the caliber as the ones I had in the last week. I owe this to a number of tips that I used during school when it came to writing academic papers. I hope that by sharing these tips with others that readers will benefit from improved writing skill, increased ability to easily complete school assignments, and improved grades.
I found that is essential for a student to familiarize themselves extensively with the required format of an academic paper. When I started class I did not have a clue about the requirements of APA style writing, which was the particular writing style that was required, and I was overwhelmed by all of the various aspects of it. I had to learn all the rules regarding in text citations, the title and reference pages, and the dos and don’ts of the body of the paper. I found it incredibly useful to read up on the format of writing that was required. After studying it a bit, things became a lot clearer. If you are not sure what the rules are before you start writing you may waste a lot of time revising your paper so it fits into these rules, or even worse receive a poor grade because you have forgotten to change something. So again, familiarizing yourself with the required writing style is essential and is not very difficult. Do not feel bad if you find yourself reviewing the format constantly, eventually you will know it well. The web is full of great resources on the various writing formats and styles that exist and usually schools have useful tools for learning about which they require.
Next I think that it is important to remember to be creative when you write your academic papers. This is something that I wish someone would had emphasized when I first started writing school papers. Not only does it make your writing livelier and thus more enjoyable to read but it also makes it so much more enjoyable to write. In fact, I found that it made writing easier too. If your paper follows all of the rules but is dry it will not be easy to write or read. However if you are creative with your wording and formats, as long as they stay within the required guidelines, then your paper will be more enjoyable and easier to read and easier and more enjoyable for you to write. Creativity always makes things better. Keep this in mind when you are choosing topics too. I found that some topics are a lot harder to be creative with, even if they seemed like a good choice at first, and that definitely made them more difficult to write about. The last thing that any one wants to do is make a paper more difficult to write.
Through trial and error I discovered that there are some simple things that you can keep in mind to make your academic papers even better. I found to have very readable documents the use of sufficient white space, an inviting page layout, and consistency with styles is very important. The more I kept this in mind the better my grades were. Also, I found that it was useful to aim for an interesting piece of writing. This can be accomplished with well researched and well written material in the paper. It helps to have informative elements that help give the reader a break from the traditional paragraph and to help them better understand the material. In addition to giving the reader a brief mental break to absorb the material having a picture or graph can help emphasize something you particularly want the reader to understand or remember. Keep in mind though that too many images in a paper can be distracting, as can any images that are not relevant enough or any without enough impact to strengthen the paper. I found these tips to be useful when writing any kind pf academic paper, but especially for science and history ones.
The final thing that I would like to add is to know your reader and to know your assignment well. The guidelines that I mentioned above are good to keep in mind with any teacher but teachers definitely vary in what they prefer in a perfect paper. Therefore, it is helpful to learn if a teacher is particularly fond of the use of images or not, or if he or she is comfortable when you go over the word requirement. It is always a good idea to carefully read the requirements of an assignment and while you are completing it to reference the requirements repeatedly to make sure you are not misreading anything or forgetting to include something. I would consider this most important because it can make or break the overall quality and feel of a paper, which of course affects your grade on the paper and in the class. If you do feel overwhelmed at first, do not feel discouraged. With every paper that you write the better you become at writing them. You can find more tips like these on OnlineSchoolandStudentLoans.com.