For the most part, professors want to see that students have a pretty good understanding of the class material. However, they also want to see students take this understanding a step further by actually taking on the ideas presented and expanding on them, to use Prof. Hart-Nibbrig's words. Every subject area can be thought of as an ongoing dialogue that includes many scholars over time and distance. By building on what has been learned, students in their own writing can expand on ideas presented by authorities. This understanding of the continuous "dialogue" is at the very heart of college-level reading and writing and pertains not only in the political sciences, but also across the disciplines.

Professors emphasize that in writing assignments which ask for student reactions, what's most important is not the information gained, but what the student does with it. Learning to speak and write about your own ideas with confidence will make a difference in your essay-writing, and it helps to avoid other errors, such as superficiality.