For Miscellaneous assignment 3, I asked students to read Writing in College by Joseph M. Williams and Lawrence McEnerney and to summarize key points from that reading. Here are the points they've come up with. (I've edited their comments when appropriate.)

Summaries from: Trevor Austin, Ted Cooper, Azul Freedom, Christine Gerpheide, Becca Mackenzie, Scott McIntyre, Matthew Montemore, Emmanuel Munoz, Anthony Oliveri, Siddharth Srivastava, and Sam Tape

How To Write

• Start with a rough, vauge introduction and revise it after the rest of the paper is written.
• Your writing style. The two different writing styles; fast and slow. Mistakes can be made with either writing style, but if you're organized in you own way you can still produce a good paper. Making your writing process into a ritual.
• "Creating Coherent Sections" gives a nice way to organize your paper, espcially if you're like me. It offers advice on finding major points and making sure they are heard. It breaks up the paper into sections that are less intimidating than the paper as a whole.
• Write your introduction last so you know what you've said in your draft

Points

• The point of a paper is the most important sentence in your essay (thesis sentence) and should sum up the most important thing you want to say from what you read, thought, researched, and wrote.
• When beginning a paper you dont necessarily need to know what your thesis or good point may be, but everything you do should aim at finding this good point. It is for this reason that you need to have a clear idea about what it is that youre trying to find and what makes for a good point.
• A good point should 1. Help you and the reader understand the topic better. 2. Should not be obvious, but something which is at least mildly contestable. 3. Say something significant about the given reading.

Professors' Expecations

• It's not always that college writing is more difficult, but that it's different. You can be a good writer and not write something your professor would like.
• Each professor and each assignment will have different expectations and guidelines.
• Figuring out how your professor wants you to write the paper. The hand out has an analogy of the explaing how a computer works and writing. I thought this gave good insight and helped with how the writing should look in most cases.

Miscellaneous

• Don't be too certain of what you're writing. Leave room in your papers for evidence that disagrees.
• Finish the draft ahead of time in order to have time for revision.
• Revise the paper in sections, revising each section as if it were a paper on its own.
• The best introductions and theses raise questions or puzzles to be explored in the paper.
• You are unlikely to receive a good grade simply for asserting the existence of something that is already known to exist. You should instead explain the results of an analysis, and use show how and explain to show how the reading was put together.
• Writing assignments that make you decide on what you will claim an write about/how to analysis, bring a lot of research. With this case read with an open mind and motivate yourself to understand the topic better.
• When using claims like numbers, charts, pictures, and quotations do not assume that your readers will understand the data as you see it. Write how the data is evidence for your claim with a few words just before or after you use the object.
• What convinces readers that a point is important is not the word important, but the words that tell us the substance of the point.a
• While writing a paper, you should ideally leave a few hours for additional revision after finishing the first draft, in order that you should have enough time to actually forget some of the secondary points and details of what you have written. The idea behind this is that you know too much about your work to see it as a reader will, and are hence compromising your own ability as an editor.
• In high school it was enough to be intelligent, but in college that is no longer the case. You must go past the ordinary analysis and find a worthwhile claim and create a sound argument around it.
• Evidence is at the heart of the argument.
• Do not make obvious comments that may have been stated already.
• It may be a good approach to research, write a draft, and then come up with a thesis statement.
• Use words that have real meaning (not interesting/important).
• Don't begin papers by simply reconfiguring the prompt.
• Give yourself plenty of time between revisions- you wont be able to see the wholes in your writing.
• Don't go for the obvious and always question why you included something in your paper.
• Be able to answer the question so what? in your conclusion.
• Always proofread when you believe yourself to be finished.
• Never plagiarize. If you find yourself looking at the text while you write there is a good chance that you will be unable to avoid plagiarizing.
• Use a "claim" that has more than one side, and can be argued reasonably.
• Outlines are helpful--for every one. Try to use complete sentences to specify an entire thought into the sections.
• Write papers early, because the longer you wait until final revision, the more objective you are.
• Titles, and other important sentences, should be more importantly descriptive/appropriate than clever.
• Visit writing lab when you want suggestions, and to do so, first prepare an outline, and a couple drafts in order to get the most out of the lab experience.
• If the assignment calls for "showing how" or "explaining," then the teacher expects more than a summary. They want you to "show how the reading is put together."
• Research is usually more efficient if one starts out with a question rather than an opinion. Once research progresses an opinion will form.
• It is important to have a reason to justify the order of one's arguments in the body of an essay, though there are many different reasons to position them different ways.
• Do not feel it is necessary to write word-for-word when making a first draft. Try to get key words onto the page first.
• Plagiarism can come about both intentionally and unintentionally, but avoid it at all costs, because it benefits no one.
• It's very important to realize that High school writing is very different from writing in college. A lot more critical analysis is expected of you. Papers should follow a general thesis and then support that thesis with arguments.
• Understanding the assignment is just as important as writing it. If you dont understand what youre supposed to write about, then you can write a good paper.
• Drafting a paper is the best way to get started. Make sure you stay away from certain things when writing the introduction such as simply repeating the assignment, offering a history or summary, and using dictionary definitions to start the paper.
• One of the best ways to deal with Writers Block, is to visit the Writing Lab and seek help on your paper. They can help u get back on track with your paper.
• The thing to avoid at all costs during college is plagiarism. It's easy to plagiarize even if youre not trying to, and it can turn into a bad habit.
• An arguement is a set of statements designed to present three things to the reader: a claim, evidence to support that claim, and acknowledgement of limits or objections to the claim.
• When people ask what the "point" of your paper is, they are not generally looking for your topic and what you intend to write about. Instead, those people want to know about the sentence in your paper that sums up the most important thing you wanted to say in your paper.
• The title of a paper should not be created using the same language as the assignment. A useful title emphasizes the the central elements of your paper.
• When scheduling time to complete a paper, allows several hours for revision after the completion of your first draft.
• If you go to the writing lab for assistance with a paper, be sure to write down the revisions you will be making on paper. You may think you will be able to remember them in your head, but specific details can fade quickly, and it is much safer to have your revisions written down.
• Papers should be structured as arguments in support of a central claim or thesis statement.
• Allow for revising time and try to set the paper aside for a while before revising to clear it from your mind.
• While revising, keep in mind the final concluding statement and rework the paper so that it builds to that final statment.
• Include and refute evidence that could disprove or weaken your argument.
• Make the conclusion meaningful by suggesting the significance or consequences of the claim your paper discussed.
• A point isn't just an explanation of a topic, it's a claim to an argument.
• Don't just write a summary or narrative and tack on a conclusion.
• Don't revise right after finishing your first draft.
• It is normally easier to write a "point-first" paper.
• It's a good idea to include objections to your argument, even if you can't fully rebut them.