Every term, I oversee the MBA orientation course for our new students. I recently redesigned this course, including a focus on helping students with more advanced writing skills needed for writing at the graduate level.
Grad school is reading, writing, research, and repeat.
Learning to do that well and effectively from the start is a key part of success in a program. There are two questions I push students to answer when writing: (1) Says who? and (2) So what?
These are essential questions in academic writing, and questions I push myself to answer in my work as well. First, says who?
Learning to consistently ask this as a writer helps ensure you are properly attributing facts, research, and support for your conclusions. I constantly remind students to cite while you write. Failing to do that leads to costly errors in terms of quality at best and to reports of plagiarism at worst. Thinking you will go back and remember who said that is very unlikely to be successful!
Second, so what? Students are often excited to share alllllll the things as they learn. Graduate work demands a higher attention to self-editing. For students, I advise a rigorous editing process that includes multiple re-reads of all writing assignments. For every assignment written, students should ask, so what? Is this important? Am I repeating myself? Is this a fun fact but not truly vital to this work? Do I love this quote personally or am I including it for clarity?
New graduate students are often surprised and challenged by the rigor expected of them in writing for a graduate program. Whether students are freshly-minted with an undergraduate degree or returning to school after decades in the workforce, the challenge of writing well must be faced.
Graduate students who focus on asking “says who?” and “so what?” while writing, editing, and revising, will ultimately strengthen and improve work.
More advice for grad students and graduate-level writing can be found here.
Faith + Work + Life 
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