Writing always seems to be something that everyone struggles with. I recall a time when I, myself, would step into an English classroom and await the monster lurking in the coming semester, the research paper. Throughout my studies, I have learned several things about writing that have allowed me to not become overwhelmed and anxious about any writing assignment. This is something we must all learn in our studies.
One thing I can briefly share and is one of the main things I do as a graduate student and have found it to be the most crucial thing to surviving a semester: form study groups and have someone review your writing to see if the point you are making makes sense on paper and is clearly stated as you depict it in your mind. This has been the number one thing that has saved me and my professors the struggle to understand unclear statements and awkwardly worded phrases. This may seem intimidating: having to go out of your way to make friend in your classes. But believe me! You will need that support!
One thing professors always stress about research papers is to write them as if my goal was to publish them. That was never my intention when writing a research paper. In reality, I never thought I was smart enough to publish such a paper in a literary article. I felt that my papers lacked the quality of such papers. That may or may not be true, but whatever the case may be, I will be going back to my main papers and editing them to turn them into something that looks like it belongs in a literary article. Maybe I can even actually get one published. Stay tuned to see what happen to such papers and take a look at their current snippets to see what they are about.
H. J. Ortiz 