The Mail Star

Righting Essays:
Prof Shares 'Secrets' On How To Avoid Common Pitfalls, How To Write Better Term Papers

By Virginia Beaton

'Tis the season of term papers. For students who hate to write, that means a time of anxiety and procrastination until a marathon writing session finally churns out the required paper at 4 a.m. on the day that it's due.

Prof. Bernie Gaidosch believes he can help panicky students find a better way.

"I've been teaching writing for 25 years," says Gaidosch. "I can help students find a bridge between the skills they already have and what they need to do to write better academic papers."

Gaidosch's book The Professor's Secrets: Breaking the Silence, is subtitled How to Write Essays and Term Papers.

It outlines the writing techniques he's taught in his English composition classes and workshops.

"So many students tell me that they can't write papers and instead, can they talk about their ideas to me? They know how to explain things verbally. But if I have 300 students, that won't be possible for each of them."

He adds that while writing a paper, the student must work to substantiate that point of view by connecting it to evidence.

To illustrate that point in the book, the author invents a casual conversation between two students named Tom and Tina. When Tina asks Tom about the world's most popular rock group, he responds that in his opinion it's the Rolling Stones.

When she challenges him for the reasons why he thinks so, he goes on to list them: the Rolling Stones have nearly 40 years in the music business with massive record sales, 50 No. 1 hits on the charts and many successful world tours.

The structure of that reply is comparable to what students must do in their papers, Gaidosch asserts. "I tell them to look at an essay or paper as an answer to a question."Once the student decides on an answer and can state it clearly, that statement becomes the paper's thesis, or point of view.

The job that remains is to explain the underlying reasons and find backup evidence such as quotations and statistics to support the view.

Instead of working in the classic order of introduction-body-conclusion, Gaidosch suggests that students should write the conclusion first, then backtrack and write the introduction and body.

It makes more sense "because your reasons have led to your conclusion."

He compares this technique to the ways that lawyers build their court cases in legal dramas on TV.

He has found that the problem with other texts about essay writing is that they're often too long and the writing samples are excerpted from literary giants such as Alice Munro.

That style can be intimidating, says Gaidosch. "In my book, I use student essays to demonstrate the style."

Throughout the book, Gaidosch's concern is to keep the text lively and readable.

In focus sections, he suggests exercises to improve specific skills. "I ask people, Have you seen a movie recently? Did you like it and why?"

While structure and clear expression are important goals, Gaidosch doesn't neglect the nuts and bolts of writing.

He covers topics such as sentence and paragraph structure, formal versus colloquial language, and how to correctly quote from sources and list them in a bibliography.

There's even a short section with a quick brush-up on grammar.

Gaidosch recalls the episode that clinched his decision to write a book summarizing his ideas. During a conference with a third-year history student, he looked over the young woman's 15-page paper and asked her to tell him in her own words what it was about.

"She burst into tears. She'd been guessing and faking it, just loading words on the page and she'd been getting C marks. There was no clear thesis, no clear shape, no beginning , and no end."

Writing isn't an abstract skill that's only useful to pass college courses, Gaidosch says. He's concerned about the number of students who smugly assure him that once they get into the real world, they won't ever need to write anything again.

Untrue, Gaidosch says. Clear expression is vital to effective business communication such as letters to clients, memos, reports, and even job applications. He says that in college advisory meetings with Bay Street executives, he asks them what they look for in university graduates.

"What they've told me is, 'If you can graduate students who can read, write and think at a superior level, we'll teach them the rest.'"

Gaidosch knows what it means to struggle with new learning skills. His family emigrated from Europe in the 1950s and Gaidosch learned English as his second language through TV, comics and books. Later he acquired bachelor's and master's degrees and is completing a Ph.D.

Currently he teaches English at George Brown College.

While The Professor's Secrets describes skills that Gaidosch would normally teach over a university term, he thinks that with serious study, students should be able to put the ideas into practice within a few days and see the results in higher marks.

"I've known students who went up from a D to a C, a C to a B or a B to an A."

And since the only thing that inspires more fear than a term paper is an examination, Gaidosch has a small bonus for everyone who buys a copy of his book. With it, he includes a brochure with 25 tips for getting better marks on tests and exams.

"I'm already working on my next book, which is going to be a guide on how to study for exams."

The Professor's Secrets is available by calling toll-free 1-877- 439-3999.

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