The first rule of good communication is to know who you’re talking to. At this point, it starts to feel strange to write papers for class. Writing for a teacher usually means going against the flow of how people talk and write in everyday life. The most natural way to talk to someone is to explain what you know to someone who doesn’t know it. But when you write an essay for a teacher, your goal is usually to explain something to someone who knows more about it than you do. Most of the time, you write a letter or an email to one person. On the other hand, college papers are written in the style of articles for a group of people you don’t know. The people you write for and the way you write are fundamentally at odds with each other. It’s pretty strange, to be honest.

It’s important to keep in mind that the university model is based on the idea that you are a new member of the academic community. The academic paper is the lifeblood of the academic world. It spreads important ideas and information to all parts of the academic corpus and gives researchers a place to share the results of their research and thinking. Unless the assignment says otherwise, you should write as if you’re talking to a group of peers who have a basic understanding of the field but don’t know much about the specific issue you’re talking about. Try to write something that is worth the time of your readers, who are likely interested in your topic but also very busy. By thinking about an audience like this, you can figure out what people already know about the subject and what you need to explain and talk about in your article. This kind of audience understanding also takes care of the audience mismatch that Elbow talks about. He points out that you don’t write to teachers, but for them.

Another important part of good communication is being clear about the message’s purpose and letting that purpose guide your decisions. Your professor is interested in how you deal with hard ideas and learn more as you write the paper. Every assignment, like an argumentative paper, a reaction paper, a reflective paper, a lab report, a debate question, a blog post, an essay exam, a project proposal, or anything else, is meant to help you learn more. To do well on writing assignments and get the most out of them, you need to first understand how they help you learn. As you write for the made-up group of junior scholars, you show your professor how much you’ve thought about the topic.

Writing assignments are not given by professors at random. The hardest and most time-consuming thing for teachers to do is to grade student papers. 3 When professors give you a task, they also give themselves hours and hours of hard work. This is on top of preparing for each class meeting, doing research and creative work, helping students, and serving on committees.