Understanding Assignments

What is this professor asking for?   Have you ever read an assignment but not understood what kind of paper you were supposed to write?  Have you ever thought that you were supposed to answer a set of questions, only to find out—a bad grade later—that you were supposed to conduct your own analysis? And what does it mean to analyze something, anyway?  How do you know when your paper should show both sides of an issue or when you’re supposed to take a stand?  How can you tell if the assignment is asking you to compare and contrast two things?  

The first step in writing an effective paper is understanding what the assignment is actually asking you to do.  You can learn how to read assignments more effectively here:

http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/readassign.html