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Picture your poor professor, sitting down to grade a stack of essays that have just been handed in. Suppose the class is biology and the assignment was to write a biography of a famous biologist.

Professor Jones picks up the first essay:

"Gregor Mendel was a very famous scientist. He was born in 1822 and died in 1884. He was famous for discovering heredity in peas..."

Bored already, Professor Jones flips through the next essays.

"James Watson is best known for discovering the structure of DNA. He and Francis Crick did this in 1953..."

Next.

"Gregor Mendel is sometimes called the Father of Genetics. He discovered the laws of heredity..."

Next.

"Gregor Mendel was..."

Gregor Mendel is prominent among Professor Jones' personal heroes, but this is getting monotonous. Next.

"James Watson discovered the structure of DNA in 1953..."

Not much of a relief. Besides, didn't Professor Jones tell the whole sordid tale of how Rosalind Franklin's contribution was conveniently ignored?

Paper after paper reads pretty much the same way. Blah blah fact, blah blah fact and fact, blah blah another fact.

Blah.

They're mostly adequate, most of them have accurate information, and they're all about as exciting as window putty. But then, just as Professor Jones is reaching for the No-Doze to get her through her grading, and is wondering why she assigned this paper in the first place, she comes across this:

"Picture a thin, gray-haired, elderly woman in a plaid shirt, jeans, and rubber boots, stumping through a corn field. She stops and inspects a particular corn stalk, checking to see if the ears are ripe yet. Not your usual picture of a scientist, but this woman, Barbara McClintock, won the Nobel Prize for her work on 'jumping genes' in..."

Ah, now this is getting better.

Now, out of that stack of essays, which do you think is going to get the best grade? It's probably not going to be one of two dozen "Blah blah James Watson blah blah blah" papers. It's going to be the one that brings the subject to life, the one that makes Professor Jones wake up and take notice.

So, how do you write such a paper? Try these tips:

1) Chose your subject with care
If the topic you chose to write about bores you, no doubt your paper will bore your professor. So even if the assignment isn't particularly stimulating, find some way to approach it that is interesting to you. You might:

Go for the unusual: If like Professor Jones' students you're asked to write a biography of a famous person, don't write about the first famous

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