For those who are rising seniors in high school: in less than 5 months, you will have completed and started sending out your college admissions applications. Both liberating and terrifying, the idea of college looms on your horizon whether you’re ready for the transition or not. Chances are, you’re excited about the prospect of going away to school (no parents! no curfews!) but there are probably still lots of reservations you are experiencing, one of the most stressful being the process of figuring out which college is right for you.
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5. Interpretation.
Unlike high school book reports, college papers require in-depth interpretation of readings at hand. The term close reading is one that doesn’t often come into play in a high school environment, though in college, close reading is the expected norm. Close reading is the careful reading of a text that considers everything from syntax to structure to, basically, everything about the language down to the minutiae of a single word. Not only are college students expected to do close readings of texts, but they are also expected to interpret the text — not just describe what happens. College papers are very much “show, don’t tell.” College writers don’t repeat synopses of chapters in their papers; they interpret the text and only write, in their papers, about ideas, not action.
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