Almost everyone who has attended high school or university has found themselves staring down a deadline that approached them far more quickly than they had expected. Sitting in front of a blank screen at 6pm the evening before the paper is due is one of the most stressful academic experiences a student can endure, and sometimes the pressure just gets to be too much. Why is it that some students can manage to create a good paper under these conditions, while others simply buckle under the strain? It's because they know some or most of the principles to efficient essay construction.
The first step is to enter the right mental space. At this point, the time for procrastination is over, and you have to resign yourself to spending as long as it takes in front of the computer screen. Lock your door, turn off your phone, log out of messenger, ignore your email, and tell your friends and roommates to leave, or take it upon yourself to find a place away from them. At this point, every moment counts, and distractions will sabotage the best efforts before they even begin.
Next, find the specific instructions of the professor, and look to see what the minimum requirements are: how long does it have to be? How many sources does it require? Can you base it on one book, or must it be two? It is also important to figure out the specific question that is being asked. Often, students will try to reveal all they know about a given topic in the term paper or essay, but this is not necessary: the more focused you make it on answering the specific question, the more efficient your writing will be. Getting this straight in your head before you begin is the first step toward effective prioritization. Ideally, you could merely begin writing, adding sources and details as you went, drafting and re-drafting the paper as you learned more. However, that is no longer possible so close to the deadline. You need to focus on what is necessary, not on what might be nice.
At this point, it is very useful to seek out electronic copies of the texts you want to use. The 20 minutes you spend looking for them will potentially save you hours in the process. Not only does an electronic copy allow you to cut and paste quotes rather than typing them out, but it also permits you to search huge texts for relevant information. Rather than reading an entire sourcebook you have never seen before, you can search for the relevant terms, and then just focus on those sections. Remember, if you cite a secondary source a single time, that counts toward your total number of required sources; at this point, looking for much more than this will be counterproductive.
Choose the sources and extract the relevant quotes before you begin writing the actual paper. Having a list of these quotes will help you order your essay, and makes it easier to think of what you will be writing next in your paper. It is far easier to create a good paragraph based on the explication of a quote than it is to make it up from scratch and then find a quote that fits it. Also, don't be afraid of long quotes; any quote over 40 words must be indented 8 spaces according to MLA formatting, meaning you fill more pages more quickly. Also, a long quote can require two or more paragraphs to explain thoroughly, and this will focus your writing, allowing you to spend more time going in a single direction than constantly shifting from one aspect of your topic to another. Once you have all of this done, the paper will move along far more quickly than you expect, meaning you can avoid that dreaded email, phone call, or meeting with your professor to explain why your paper was late.
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The first step is to enter the right mental space. At this point, the time for procrastination is over, and you have to resign yourself to spending as long as it takes in front of the computer screen. Lock your door, turn off your phone, log out of messenger, ignore your email, and tell your friends and roommates to leave, or take it upon yourself to find a place away from them. At this point, every moment counts, and distractions will sabotage the best efforts before they even begin.
Next, find the specific instructions of the professor, and look to see what the minimum requirements are: how long does it have to be? How many sources does it require? Can you base it on one book, or must it be two? It is also important to figure out the specific question that is being asked. Often, students will try to reveal all they know about a given topic in the term paper or essay, but this is not necessary: the more focused you make it on answering the specific question, the more efficient your writing will be. Getting this straight in your head before you begin is the first step toward effective prioritization. Ideally, you could merely begin writing, adding sources and details as you went, drafting and re-drafting the paper as you learned more. However, that is no longer possible so close to the deadline. You need to focus on what is necessary, not on what might be nice.
At this point, it is very useful to seek out electronic copies of the texts you want to use. The 20 minutes you spend looking for them will potentially save you hours in the process. Not only does an electronic copy allow you to cut and paste quotes rather than typing them out, but it also permits you to search huge texts for relevant information. Rather than reading an entire sourcebook you have never seen before, you can search for the relevant terms, and then just focus on those sections. Remember, if you cite a secondary source a single time, that counts toward your total number of required sources; at this point, looking for much more than this will be counterproductive.
Choose the sources and extract the relevant quotes before you begin writing the actual paper. Having a list of these quotes will help you order your essay, and makes it easier to think of what you will be writing next in your paper. It is far easier to create a good paragraph based on the explication of a quote than it is to make it up from scratch and then find a quote that fits it. Also, don't be afraid of long quotes; any quote over 40 words must be indented 8 spaces according to MLA formatting, meaning you fill more pages more quickly. Also, a long quote can require two or more paragraphs to explain thoroughly, and this will focus your writing, allowing you to spend more time going in a single direction than constantly shifting from one aspect of your topic to another. Once you have all of this done, the paper will move along far more quickly than you expect, meaning you can avoid that dreaded email, phone call, or meeting with your professor to explain why your paper was late.
EssayForum.com