D+ Doldrum; Learning to Write Essays that Professors can Read

My friend Jessica Freitas is really a nice girl. So nice in fact, that when she got a worried look on her face as she read over a draft of my freshman "Great Books" essay, I knew she was going to have problems telling me the truth. Jessica is a debater and she knew what I didn't: that an argument and an author's thoughts are only powerful if they are seen in context and able to be understood by the reader.

That day as she read through my paper, she managed to say something to the extent of "This writing is weak."

I will forever be grateful for her honestly, but at the time I was abashed, I was ashamed; I knew in my heart that it was not up to par, and that's when I resolved to become a 2-week college drop out and join the substantial Malibu homeless population.

I revised, but my fears were proved right when two weeks later, I got a "D" on my first college paper. "D+" was literally my grade, but in my head it also stood for my Great Books Professor, Dr. "D+" Ditmore. I misdirected my anger at him, but I knew that it was my writing that was the problem. In the year that I had taken off between college and highschool, I had forgotten how to formulate an argument.

Jessica continued to be helpful, she took me back to 4th grade "5 paragraph format" on my next paper, telling me that I should "tell the professor what he's going to hear, tell him, and then summarize why it matters." Slowly, I recuperated, by reading through others' papers, I internalized the natural progression of a college-level essay. By the second semester of my freshman year, "success achieved" - I wrote a research paper that another professor wanted to publish.

What I learned from reading my friend's papers (motivated purely by the fear of failure), was that each paper cannot stand alone. A persons' thoughts are only effective and understandable as they add to the tapestry of human thought as a whole; yet they are only provocative as they illuminate other threads of thought by providing contrast. This can effectively be summed up in the mantra "They say _______, I say ________." Jessica said that my writing was weak, Dr. Ditmore said that I had trouble expressing myself, and I say that they forced me to learn how to make my writing relational to other humans.