What College Professors Expect from Students' Essays

You are on edge. You are a new college student. You are under pressure to do well in all of your courses and please your family.

In addition to having exams that have questions in the format of a multiple choice, true-false, fill-in-the-blanks or matching structure, you will at some point have a test that features essay questions. Although this might sound daunting, you can handle this if you put your mind to it. You will learn the things college professors are looking for on the essays they assign to their students.

The First: They want you to do your own work. It is more difficult to cheat on an essay than it is to cheat on other types of tests. If you copy a classmate's essay or an essay you found elsewhere, you will be caught and possibly expelled from school.

The Second: They want a detailed response. They do not simply want you to answer a particular question. No, they want you to thoroughly answer the questions and explain how you came up with your answers.

The Third: They are checking your ability to think critically. They want to see if you can be creative and read between the lines, not just learn something when the answer is directly given to you.

The Fourth: They are trying to measure your problem-solving skills. Taking this type of test can force you to dig deep to find the answer.

The Fifth: They would like to see what you are made of. By giving you this type of assignment, they can discover how well you can handle pressure. After all, you must be able to think relatively quickly and complete all of the questions before the class period ends.

The Sixth: They are interested in learning what you have to contribute to the world. They want to see if you can come up with solutions to different types of problems.

The Seventh: They need to find out how well you can answer questions objectively. Essay questions do not really have right or wrong answers - it's what you think about the topic that matters.

The Eighth: They want to see how well you think on your own. If they always wanted you to reply based on what they said during class, they would only give you an exam in the other formats.

You have learned what college professors are looking for on the essays they assign.