#I will probably be crazy as per usual but- my prof assigned a book with a bunch of heavy subjects and

[spotaus]

Ah, I'm in my 'everything I'm doing is wrong' week. I do believe it's the Female Hysteria. Trust me, I'm a doctor.

[charlies-crashcourses]

Charlie’s College Crash Course #1: How to write a 10-page paper in 1 day

Background info first: I’m in the last year of my English undergrad degree and I’ve had to write at least 3 dozen 10+ page papers in that time. That being said, I’ve never once started writing a paper more than a few days in advance, and 9 times out of 10 I go for one day only. Honestly, this should be considered my trademark at this point because after all my high school AP courses and my English degree, it’s been going on 7 years of 1 day papers.

and so, dear friends, I would like to pass on this skill to you all. I should mention, none of this will work if you’re not already pretty solid on paper writing, i.e. if you only ever get C’s on your papers now this isn’t magically going to get you up to an A with one day. This is just to streamline the process, allowing for more time for other things or, more commonly, allowing you to not freak the fuck out when you realize the deadline is tonight at midnight and you’ve procrastinated all month on the final paper for your class.

(I should also mention that I’m currently procrastinating a 2.5k word paper due tomorrow night that I’ve only read one of two books for, so. There’s that.)

Anyway, without further ado, here we fucking go:

Step 1: Prep for the Day

this is going to be a marathon, not a sprint, so make sure you prep the day accordingly. Ideally, you’d wake up before noon, make sure there’s nothing else planned for the day, and tell your roommates/parents to leave you alone until you officially reemerge at midnight (or, if you’re in college and have a 24 hr library, try going there. Mine has closed off study rooms that I can chill in, but if you’rs doesn’t just find a relatively comfy quiet spot). If you’re at home, pick one spot, clear it off super quick, grab some snacks and energy drinks, make sure you have everything charged and ready to go. I don’t recommend cafes or the like simply because there’s lots of distractions and also those places close before midnight, so you can’t stay there the entire time and therefor waste time moving halfway through.

Also, I would recommend taking a break between all the steps after this one. Don’t let the break take too long, but just long enough to walk the block, or grab another snack, or do some stretches, or watch a ten minute video, something like that. I personally never break at a natural stopping point, because then I’ll never get back to it, but how you break is up to you.

Step 2: Preliminary Research

now normally I do some preliminary research beforehand. Basically looking into the topic, figuring out generally what resources would be best, etc. That can usually be done in five to ten minute bursts throughout the week or so before the due date, whenever the topic comes to mind.

But then again, I’ve also procrastinated that until the very end as well, so. Usually all that takes if you go for the day of is some quick google scholar searches, or if you have access to the MLA database that works as well. Or, if you’re more like me, you could just deep dive on wikipedia and check out what relevant facts pertain to what numbers in the bibliography, then go ahead and cite those wherever possible.

Basically, get a good base knowledge of the big facts. This step should be quick and dirty. For instance, for my paper my sophomore year on Robespierre (14 pages written in a record 6 hours) I combed through his wiki, some websites on the French Revolution, and watched the Crash Course youtbue video on the subject. The rest of the research was done after I did my first outline. 

Step 3: Outline #1

This is just a basic “What the fuck am I talking about” outline. It can be bullet points, numbers, stream of consciousness, i don’t care as long as it works for you. 

For the Robespierre paper, my first outline was something to the effect of: -born poor -school -elected to govt -took over govt -killed people -got killed

and that was it. It’s like, before you build a house you have to clear off the right amount of land, make sure there’s nothing in your way, and give yourself a vague area in which to build. Super simple stuff.

I did get some advice, from somewhere I can’t remember, that a paragraph is basically equal to half a page, and so (excluding one page length for your intro + conclusion) you should have around two paragraphs or ideas per page. So my outline above would need some more points, there, to keep me on track for my page count. I eventually added a whole paragraph about how he was chosen to read for a visiting King Louis at his school and was then ignored which made him hate the monarchy, and another about what happened after he died what with the government in shambles, etc etc. So two bullet points per page should do it.

Step 4: More Research

This is where you get a little more in depth. Look at your bullet points and learn everything you need to about them. 

For my first bullet, I found stuff like: “Robespierre was born in France in 1758 as Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (the third of this name), to a lawyer and the daughter of a brewer, he had two siblings, and he could read by age eight. he also loved pigeons and started a lifelong feud with his sister over one that he gave her that she let die."

and then I would move on to the next bullet point, and so on and so forth, filling in the gaps. Make sure to keep track of where your info comes from, as well. It doesn’t have to be a full citation, but just the hyperlink after the fact is going to save you so much time, i promise

Pro Tip: don’t throw out anything as irrelevant just yet. Just gather all the facts, no judging. Trust me on this.

Step 5: Better Outline

this is where you start to have fun with it. I would like to remind you that no one, unless you have some crazy micromanaging professor, sees your outlines. This is for you and you only, so write it in whatever way makes sense to you. It can be colorful and fun and whatever you need it to be.

 I actually took screenshots of my outline for that robespierre paper (hence why i chose that one as an example) so here’s a look at what I do:

so, really, honestly, as shitty as you need this to be, or as many jokes, or whatever works for you my dude. Explain it like you would if it were a story you were telling, not a biographical/argumentative paper. Get informal with it.

Step 6: Write the Damn Thing

Okay to now that you did the research and wrote your fun outlines and all that, all you have to do now is write it! I tend to do this in the same doc as I do my outline, but starting again from the top so I can see what I need to add next right under where I’m typing, then delete it once I’ve covered the material. 

If you did your outline well, this is really just cleaning that up so it’s “school appropriate” and “not an affront to people’s eyes and sensibilities” or whatever. At this point, it should go super quick, maybe 2 hours max to finish up writing what you need to write, here.

Pro Tip: do your citations as you go. Better yet, make your bibliography first so that A its already done and B you know what your in text cites will be from the start so that you don’t have to add them in later. If you kept your hyperlinks next to your research, just open up citationmachine and get those cites, then replace the links in your outline with the actual citations so it’s easier to line them up with in text cites while you go

Step 7: Fudging

oh, you thought we were done after writing the paper? nah fam. Chances are, you didn’t hit the page count you wanted to, you’re probably around 1 full page short, unless you love long sentences. This is where my pro tip from all the way back on step 4 comes in.

First, before you do anything drastic, make sure your formatting is correct. If your prof wants the big long “name, date, class, assignment, etc” in the top left then that adds a lot of length. Fonts will also change your page length, and so will footnotes and citations.

If you did it right and saved all the less relevant details, congratulations! Just sprinkle a few of those in there and you’re magically at your page count. This is the only reason I included the pigeon story in my paper (and this post), because I was about 3/4 of a page short of passably saying I got to 14.

If you didn’t save those inane details, don’t go looking for them now. Trust me, it’s much more pain than it’s worth. Your best bet, then, would be to either A. Add one more point if you can think one up, B. do some more research for relevant details to add in, or C. expand on the details you already have with more examples or effects or whatever applies.

do not, i repeat do NOT, just try and expand the words you use, like changing “to” into “in order to” or whatever those deflate your phrases charts tell you Not to do. They tell you not to for a reason. 1. it sounds stupid adding them in after the fact, and 2. your professor absolutely 100% will know and will mark you down if you do that in excess. Inflated phrase charts like that are well known by professors, and also adding them in after the fact won’t fit in at all with the voice that the rest of your paper was written in, so it’ll stand out like a sore thumb. just don’t do it unless it’s your last possible “i have ten minutes to turn this in” effort.

Step 8: Celebrate!!

And that’s it! If you did it right, this whole process should have taken you around the equivalent of 1 hour per page you had to write or so, so in a regular twelve hour day you’ve got time to take breaks and eat and all that shit. Go turn it in and celebrate your victory!