Jill Maschio, PhD
June 23, 2023
So, your instructor asked you to write a paper for a class. You might be wondering where to begin. Writing at the college level is a real struggle for many students. And writing for a social science, such as psychology, can be particularly challenging. But, with some guidance and practice, you can become a better writer and produce papers that will impress your professor. I’ll explain four easy tips that may help you be more successful writing social science papers. If you follow these tips and practice, you can start writing better papers.
Tip # 1: Know what good writing looks like
Not all writing is equal. It’s important to understand what good writing looks like. Good writing is clear and concise, and it is free from grammar mistakes. A good paper will exhibit what information you retained about a topic, and it explains your understanding of it in writing. By doing that, your instructor should be impressed.
Tip # 2: Know your goal
Keep in mind that your goal is to write your paper as your expression of how you understand the material in general as well as how concepts and theories apply in hypothetical or real-world scenarios. By doing that, you avoid merely regurgitating facts and theories.
Tip #3: Focus on exploratory writing
This type of writing involves exploring a concept more thoroughly and analyzing it from different angles. Getting started begins with reading. Read your textbook and read outside sources to help you understand the material to a higher level. Many textbooks write small passages about a concept but are not explained in detail. Because writing a good paper for class entails being able to explain the theories and the research, you must do extra research on your own. Research the meaning of psychological terminology so that you can write clearly about psychology using the appropriate terminology. It is through reading and research that you will come to improve your understanding of theories and the research about your topic. It’s important to remember that when you are writing for a social science, your paper should be based on research and evidence-based material. Anything less is not a quality paper.
Tip # 4: Expanding your content
Getting good at explaining things is the key. If you write that biology can explain human behavior, you must explain your statement. Think of explaining it by answering why, what, or because. Never leave a statement open ended like the sentence above. Provide more content that tells the reader details about the topic. If you write that biology can explain human behavior, tell your reader how so based on experts in the field.
Once you have researched the material and you feel confident you have a pretty good understanding of it, you can begin writing. Once you have a good understanding, it is important to practice writing in order to master the techniques of crafting your thoughts and ideas into an essay. Social sciences follow APA formatting. If you need help with that, the APA Publication Manual has all the guidelines. For writing content, you have to write clearly about the topic using credible and scholarly sources to help both develop and support your writing.
Good writing is not an easy feat, but it is achievable with practice. Aside from reading and researching to better understand concepts, theories, and arguments, it also takes time to get the content out of your head and flow onto paper; so, give yourself enough time for the assignment. If you take all these steps, you’ll be able to produce papers with content and depth.
So, remember to be exploratory in your writing. Focus on providing evidence-based material and using clear, concise language that conveys your understanding of the research and concepts. If you do this, you will be producing quality content for your social science paper that will be impressive.
