College Level Expectations for Writing
The following offers a description of writing features in college writing.  The purpose of this description is to highlight what high school graduates will have to know and be able to do in order to successfully complete college writing assignments. The web pages that make up this site (including the ones listed here) will help prepare young writers for the rigors of post-secondary reading and writing tasks.

College writing tasks require…

- the integration of sources.  Even if this requirement is not mentioned in the prompt, students are expected to integrate class readings, lectures, and discussions into their writing.  This integration must demonstrate that the students understand the readings and know how to bring sources into their own texts for a variety of purposes.

- concise, impersonal, academic writing. Writing should be straightforward, precise, and efficient…and backed by appropriate evidence.

- deep understanding and analysis of class objectives and concepts, as well as an understanding of the academic discipline, the readings, and the lectures. Assignments and timed writings are contextualized; faculty admire intellectual energy and disciplinary orientation in texts.

- critical reading and thinking at a number of levels—summary, analysis, synthesis and critique—based upon a deep understanding of the readings, lectures, and concepts.

- students to identify arguments in texts, compare arguments or concepts, respond to an author’s thesis, and summarize.

- students to have an appropriate level of sentence level competence.  If the writing is timed, faculty may be forgiving.  However, if students have opportunities to edit out-of-class papers, grades may be lowered for carelessness.

Online Resources:
Purdue's Online Writing Lab (OWL) at mrlemaster.com
or visit this resource at Purdue Univeristy Online

PowerPoint Tutorials
Sentence Construction
General Writing Concerns
Parallel Structures
Appositives

Grammar and Mechanics
Source: Purdue Owl Lab
Adjective or Adverb
Preposition of Direction: To, On(to), In(to)
Preposition of Location: At, In, On
The Apostrophe
Comma verses Semicolon Exercises 1-2
Commas with Nonessential Elements Exercises 1-3
Using Commas Exercises 1-5