Here is some advice on how to write a paper:

1. Please read the assignment carefully. Spend a good amount of time on thinking and understanding
every detail of the assignment. What is it I am asking you to do? What is the purpose of the
assignment? (Don’t give me a summary when I ask you for an application; don’t explain basic
concepts when I ask you to supplement) Please check BLOOM'S TAXONOMY OF THINKING (see
below) and VERBS REPRESENTING COGNITIVE TASKS IN BLOOM'S TAXONOMY (see
below) for better understanding and classification of my questions.
2. Do what I am asking you to do. The most common mistake students make is to pick a few keywords
from the assignment and then write a paper that is only slightly related to what I want them to do.
Apply appropriate discipline. You must retain a disciplined focus on the assigned work, and not allow
yourself to be carried away with issues that especially interest you. It is easy to get lost in project
details, descriptions of organizations etc. A paper that is excellent but doesn’t exactly meet my
assignment will not earn a good grade. Again, think about what the assignment exactly is about and
then apply discipline.
3. Give your paper an appropriate structure. 1. An introduction (here you announce what your plan is for
the paper). 2. The body of the paper. (here you do most of the work). 3. The conclusion (does it relate
to the intro? Or did you wander off?). Produce an outline before you start writing.
4. The required length of a paper: Whatever you write that I didn’t ask you to do doesn’t count. On the
contrary: If I have to read a lot of stuff I didn’t ask for I take off points. Papers that are much longer
than required usually miss the point.
5. Very carefully apply the Universal Intellectual Standards (see below) throughout your whole paper.
6. If I ask you to give me a summary of concepts or readings, please do so. But I never ask you for that.
So please never give me a summary. I usually ask you for an application, analysis, or reasoned
judgment. That means that you understand and comprehend all the necessary concepts and then work
with them. I always want a critical reflection on the issue. What I am really looking for in my
assignments is your own thinking. Of course you can only reflect critically on subject matters you
have a thorough understanding of.
7. I am asking you to go through a thinking process in my assignments. That means the
outcome/conclusion should be open. In other words, don’t start your paper with an opinion and then
defend it. Rather ask a question and be open to find an answer that might contradict your opinion.
8. When you are done writing the paper, let it sit for a while (a day or longer). Then go back to it and
double check if your paper is doing what I asked you to do. Use the assignment as a check list. Use the
Universal Intellectual Standards as another check list.
9. Leave time to improve your paper.

I can only accept papers which

a. have a title, course number, student’s name and are paginated

b. are in Microsoft Word
c. are submitted to the assignment tool in Moodle
d. are submitted before the deadline
e. please do not waste paper on a cover sheet
 Using Questions to Enhance Learning

Material for this page was adapted from

Eanes, Dr. Robin, Content Area Literacy: Teaching for Today and Tomorrow, Chapter 5,
1997, Wadsworth Publishing, ISBN# 0-8273-5954-3 .
Permission to use this material may be requested from the publisher at
http://www.thomsonrights.com/grant/index.html

Developing Higher-Order Questions

Bloom's Taxonomy of Thinking

Bloom, Benjamin S. Taxonomy of educational objectives: Cognitive domain.

New York: David McKay and Company. 1956
LEVEL COGNITIVE SKILLS
Knowledge Recalls information accurately and in appropriate context

Comprehension Demonstrates understanding using examples

Application Uses abstract concepts and ideas in specific and concrete situations

Analysis Separates constituent elements or parts using meaningful categories

Synthesis Combines constituent elements or parts in meaningful construction

Evaluation Makes judgments using appropriate criteria

Verbs Representing Cognitive Tasks in Bloom’s Taxonomy

Knowledge cite, label, name, reproduce, define, list, quote, pronounce, identify, match, recite, state
alter, discover, manage, relate, change, explain, rephrase, substitute, convert,
Comprehension give examples, represent, summarize, depict, give main idea, restate, translate, describe, illustrate, reword,
vary, interpret, paraphrase
apply, discover, manage, relate, classify, employ, predict, show, compute, evidence, prepare, solve,
Application
demonstrate, manifest, present, utilize, direct
ascertain, diagnose, distinguish, outline, analyze, diagram, divide, point out, associate, differentiate,
Analysis
examine, reduce, conclude, discriminate, find, separate, designate, dissect, infer, determine
combine, devise, originate, revise, compile, expand, plan, rewrite, compose, extend, pose, synthesize,
Synthesis conceive, generalize, propose, theorize, create, integrate, project, write, design, invent, rearrange, develop,
modify
Evaluation appraise, conclude, critique, judge, assess, contrast, deduce, weigh, compare, criticize, evaluate
Universal Intellectual Standards

by Linda Elder and Richard Paul

Universal intellectual standards are standards which must be applied to thinking whenever one is interested in
checking the quality of reasoning about a problem, issue, or situation. To think critically entails having
command of these standards. To help students learn them, teachers should pose questions which probe student
thinking, questions which hold students accountable for their thinking, questions which, through consistent
use by the teacher in the classroom, become internalized by students as questions they need to ask themselves.

The ultimate goal, then, is for these questions to become infused in the thinking of students, forming part of
their inner voice, which then guides them to better and better reasoning. While there are a number of universal
standards, the following are the most significant:

1. CLARITY: Could you elaborate further on that point? Could you express that point in another way?
Could you give me an illustration? Could you give me an example?
Clarity is the gateway standard. If a statement is unclear, we cannot determine whether it is accurate or
relevant. In fact, we cannot tell anything about it because we don't yet know what it is saying. For
example, the question, "What can be done about the education system in America?" is unclear. In
order to address the question adequately, we would need to have a clearer understanding of what the
person asking the question is considering the "problem" to be. A clearer question might be "What can
educators do to ensure that students learn the skills and abilities which help them function successfully
on the job and in their daily decision-making?"
2. ACCURACY: Is that really true? How could we check that? How could we find out if that is true?
A statement can be clear but not accurate, as in "Most dogs are over 300 pounds in weight."
3. PRECISION: Could you give more details? Could you be more specific?
A statement can be both clear and accurate, but not precise, as in "Jack is overweight." (We don't
know how overweight Jack is, one pound or 500 pounds.)
4. RELEVANCE: How is that connected to the question? How does that bear on the issue?
A statement can be clear, accurate, and precise, but not relevant to the question at issue. For example,
students often think that the amount of effort they put into a course should be used in raising their
grade in a course. Often, however, the "effort" does not measure the quality of student learning, and
when this is so, effort is irrelevant to their appropriate grade.
5. DEPTH: How does your answer address the complexities in the question? How are you taking into
account the problems in the question? Is that dealing with the most significant factors?
A statement can be clear, accurate, precise, and relevant, but superficial (that is, lack depth). For
example, the statement "Just say No" which is often used to discourage children and teens fro using
drugs, is clear, accurate, precise, and relevant. Nevertheless, it lacks depth because it treats an
extremely complex issue, the pervasive problem of drug use among young people, superficially. It
fails to deal with the complexities of the issue.
6. BREADTH: Do we need to consider another point of view? Is there another way to look at this
question? What would this look like from a conservative standpoint? What would this look like from
the point of view of...?
A line of reasoning may be clear accurate, precise, relevant, and deep, but lack breadth (as in an
 argument from either the conservative or liberal standpoint which gets deeply into an issue, but only
recognizes the insights of one side of the question.)
7. LOGIC: Does this really make sense? Does that follow from what you said? How does that follow?
But before you implied this and now you are saying that; how can both be true?
When we think, we bring a variety of thoughts together into some order. When the combination of
thoughts are mutually supporting and make sense in combination, the thinking is "logical." When the
combination is not mutually supporting, is contradictory in some sense, or does not "make sense," the
combination is not logical.

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