English 101
Everything You’ll Ever Need to Know About Writing a Paper

If you’re like me, when it comes to writing a paper, you may feel nervous, unconfident, or just not sure what you want to say. The task of putting your thoughts down onto paper for someone else to read and judge, may seem scary. But if you have the right approach, attitude, and some simple guidelines, you may find that writing can be much easier, and much more enjoyable than you had originally anticipated. Jerome Beaty has put together a list of tips and suggestions that can help you get those creative juices flowing, and produce a well, developed paper. We all know it can be extremely easy to get stuck in an ineffective rut when it comes to the question of, how to start an essay. Beaty states that the best approach, is to start preparing for the paper the moment you know you will have to write one. As enticing as it may sound, you should never make two of the most commonly made mistakes. Putting it off for as long as possible, which will just hinder your confidence in writing the paper, or going to the other extreme, and diving right in. Deciding what to write about, contrary to what many believe, is actually not the first step. Planning the paper the instant you know you’ll have to write one, and building the confidence that you actually have an opinion that deserves to be heard by others, are the first two steps in the right direction for building an excellent paper. Building confidence is not always the easiest task, but you will soon come to realize that the more prepared you are, the more courage and tenacity you will have towards your writing. Read, read, and reread. Getting familiar and comfortable with the material you are planning on writing about, will easily strengthen your ability to express your true thoughts and feelings in an organized manner. Beaty suggests that the first time you read the work, read it straight through in one sitting, but read slowly. Give yourself time to absorb the story, and to consider how you are reacting to it. Keep rereading and taking notes until you have a knowledgeable opinion on who the characters really are, whats going on in the story, and the true meaning behind the story. The more you read, the more perceptive and intimate your notes should be. Once you have found that you have collected a fair amount of data, go through it and try to pick out the topic on which you have touched upon the most. This should help you in the last bit of note taking. Write a few last paragraphs. What would you like to convey about the story to someone else? what did you really enjoy about it?, and how did the whole story seem to have come together? You have chosen your topic! Your ability and desire to communicate with someone about the work is an excellent source of inspiration and should help your paper grow. After choosing a topic you will need to come up with your thesis statement. Another tip from Beaty, is to try to combine your factual evidence with your personal feelings about the story. This will help you to create an “objective statement about the work and help you to produce your thesis statement” (Jerome Beaty). Keep in mind that your entire paper should stem from your thesis statement, so make sure that you have enough information to support your main idea. Once you’ve gotten your topic and thesis statement out of the way, it is time to start writing your paper. Beaty lays out three fairly simple steps to follow when starting your paper. Step number one, gather your evidence, number two, sort it into order, and the last step, is to develop your evidence into a convincing argument (Jerome Beaty). Gathering your evidence. Go back to the story and reread it again. This time while rereading, you should keep your thesis statement in the back of your mind. Collect all the information that has to do with your thesis statement. Take as many note as possible. Be sure to take notes as your reading, so as to not