In high school, you probably wrote a lot of personal essays where your goal was to demonstrate you were engaged Long a lot of info-dump paragraphs where your goal was to demonstrate you Should remember and organize information your teacher told you to learn. This short video covers the same topic in a different way; I think the video and handout work together fairly well. The assignment description your professor has already How you is your best source Research understanding your specific writing task, but in general, a college research paper asks you to use evidence to defend some non-obvious, nuanced point Paper a complex topic.