LINDA BERGMANN: "Essentially, it is way too simplistic to handle more intellectually sophisticated topics which involve actual inquiry."

Karen Gocsik is executive director of courses in the Institute for Writing and Rhetoric at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. The institute has an extensive library of online writing materials on its website.

So what are the qualities that make up good writing? Ms. Gocsik says there are no simple answers -- except maybe for one. That is, there is no formula that students can follow to guarantee a well-written paper.

KAREN GOCSIK: "What we try to teach students to do in college is to listen to their ideas, and that the idea should be able to tell you what form it needs to take."

She says moving from secondary-school writing to college-level writing can be difficult, but students should not be afraid.

KAREN GOCSIK: "The thinking that you are doing, and the purpose that you have and the audience you are writing to -- all of these things you will mix up together and you will come up with, we hope, an excellent college paper."

In some cultures, students organize their paragraphs to build toward the main idea at the end of the paper. American college students are usually expected to state their thesis at the beginning. And, while students in some cultures use lots of descriptive words, American professors generally want shorter sentences.

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Jerilyn Watson. Tell us about your own experience with academic writing. Go to voaspecialenglish.com and share your stories. And before you write that next paper, check out two links on our website. One is for the Online Writing Lab at Purdue. The other is for the Institute for Writing and Rhetoric at Dartmouth. I'm Jim Tedder.