Student's guide to writing college papers, Fourth edition - Kate L. Turabian 2010

Visit your instructor
Learning from your returned paper
Writing your paper

If your teacher's comments are mostly impressionistic words like disorganized, illogical, or unsupported and you can't see anything in your paper that earned that criticism, make an appointment to ask. As with every other step in your project, that visit will go better if you plan and even rehearse it. Do this before you talk to your teacher:

✵ If your teacher marked up spelling, punctuation, and grammar, correct those errors. The corrections will show that you took his comments seriously.

✵ Jot down your own responses after any comments about your argument to show that you've read them closely.

In the office:

✵ Don't whine about your grade. Be clear that you want only to understand the comments so that you can do better next time.

✵ Focus on the most important comments. Rehearse your questions so that they'll seem amiable: not “You say this is disorganized but you don't say why,” but rather “Can you help me see where I went wrong with my organization so I can do better next time?”

✵ Do not ask “What didn't you like?” but rather “Where did I go wrong and how would I fix it?”

✵ If your teacher can't clearly explain his judgment, he may have graded your paper impressionistically. If so, bad news: you may learn little from your visit.