Blog Post 8

I have had a wide variety of experiences writing about literature between high school and college. High school demanded the 5-paragraph model or the 8-paragraph model, although the former was always the preferred structure. They stressed the use of evidence, requiring us to use multiple pieces of evidence from the literature we were writing on, and at times, other scholarly sources. We were often allowed to pick our own arguments about the texts we had to choose from. They usually wanted these papers to sit anywhere between 3-5 pages, which meant the paragraphs had to be quite beefy typically.

College was a very interesting and unexpected change. Many of my papers and essays have been significantly shorter in college. Professors demand brevity, clarity, and specifics. Instead of pushing us to use more evidence, many professors have focused on choosing the right and best kinds of evidence for our arguments. Essays and papers may be five paragraphs, but most professors have emphasized a word count or page count over requiring a particular structure.