The Value of Research in a First-Year College Writing Course

Aaron R.

The Value of Research in a First-Year College Writing Course

            Research is essential to writing courses. In order to be able to write several paragraphs about a topic, you must fully understand it. This takes the time and effort of reading up on the topic and searching the internet for more information about the topic. Once this is done, an assignment for a writing course can be completed accurately.

            Having a writing course during the first year of college can be overwhelming sometimes. Every professor is different and has expectations that are different from those of another. When writing, it is hard to tell what to include or exclude in a paper for different professors. This may be true, but when someone knows enough information about what they’re writing about, he or she should be able to meet every professor’s requirements. In order to know the information, research must be done. There are specific word count requirements for almost every paper that is written in a writing course. Some requirements are small, being 100-300 words, and some are larger scale, 500-1000 words. If you sit down to write a paper on a topic that you know nothing about, chances are you aren’t going to be able to write a large scale amount of words about the topic. Research also comes in handy in this situation because once you are informed about the topic, writing about it will become much easier.

            After really thinking about it, I see that research is of very high value in a writing course. How could anyone write a paper and please a professor with a paper without knowing about the topic? It isn’t possible. That’s why research is valuable to writing courses. I’ve always looked into something before I began writing about it, but I now I can see why I do so. It’s almost impossible for someone to fail a paper if they are fully informed on what they need to know about their topic, and that’s how there is value.