Steps in writing a term paper

1. Sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a well lighted place with plenty of freshly sharpened pencils.

2. Read over the assignment carefully, to make certain you understand it.

3. Walk down to the vending machines and buy some coffee to help you concentrate.

4. Stop off at another floor on the way back and visit with your friend from class. If your friend hasn't started the paper yet either, you can both walk to McDonald's and buy a hamburger to help you concentrate. If your friend shows you his paper, typed, double-spaced, and bound in one of those irritating see-thru plastic folders, drop him.

5. When you get back to your room, sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a clean, well lighted place with plenty of freshly sharpened pencils.

6. Read over the assignment again to make absolutely certain you understand it.

7. Check your e-mail; reply to everyone who sent you letters.

8. You know, you haven't written to that kid you met at camp since fourth grade... You'd better write that letter now and get it out of the way so you can concentrate.

9. Go look at your teeth in the bathroom mirror.

10. Listen to one side of your favorite tape and that's it, I mean it, as soon as it's over you are going to start that paper.

11. Listen to the other side.

12. Check your e-mail again.

13. Rearrange all of your CDs into alphabetical order.

14. Phone your friend on the other floor and ask if he's started writing yet. Exchange derogatory remarks about your teacher, the course, the university, the world at large.

15. Sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a clean, well lighted place with plenty of freshly sharpened pencils.

16. Read over the assignment again; roll the words across your tongue; savor its special flavor.

17. Check your e-mail to make sure no-one sent you any urgent messages since the last time you checked.

18. Check the newspaper listings to make sure you aren't missing something truly worthwhile on TV. NOTE: When you have a paper due in less than 12 hours, anything on TV from Masterpiece Theater to Sgt. Preston of the Yukon is truly worthwhile, with these exceptions: + Pro Bowler's Tour + any movie starring Don Ameche + Star Trek.

19. Catch the last hour of Soul Brother of Kung Fu on channel 26.

20. Phone your friend on the third floor to see if he was watching. Discuss the finer points of the plot.

21. Go look at your tongue in the bathroom mirror.

22. Look through your roommate's book of pictures from home. Ask who everyone is.

23. Sit down and do some serious thinking about your plans for the future.

24. Open your door and check to see if there are any mysterious, trench-coated strangers lurking in the hall.

25. Sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a clean, well lighted place with plenty of freshly sharpened pencils.

26. Read over the assignment one more time, just for the hell of it.

27. Check your e-mail.

28. Scoot your chair across the room to the window and watch the sunrise.

29. Lie face down on the floor and moan.

30. Leap up and write the paper.

31. Type the paper.

That describes me to a T. :rofl:

Y'know, I have a paper due on Friday. Anybody wanna do it for me? :D

Ohh that is so true.

Originally posted by Miss Vicki
That describes me to a T. :rofl:

Y'know, I have a paper due on Friday. Anybody wanna do it for me? :D

No thanks. I have just had to write a total of 20 pages in papers in the past 3 weeks. But I am finished now...:D

My style is more like this:

Write a paragraph or two, go to print preview, admire my progress toward that page limit, go do something fun, go back write a couple more paragraphs, go to print preview, admire my progress..........

:lol:

i always just write the papers right away, i dont see why its so hard for everyone else to :grr:

Originally posted by safety pin
i always just write the papers right away, i dont see why its so hard for everyone else to :grr: Because they're hard and I don't want to and I put it off for as long as I can. :)

Originally posted by FamilyTiesGOP
No thanks. I have just had to write a total of 20 pages in papers in the past 3 weeks. But I am finished now...:D

My style is more like this:

Write a paragraph or two, go to print preview, admire my progress toward that page limit, go do something fun, go back write a couple more paragraphs, go to print preview, admire my progress..........

Aw, come on. I'll pay you $20 for doing it for me. :winkgrin


Ahaha, that's how I am too. :D

Dutabi84's guide to doing term papers:

1. Tell yourself that you're gonna do it well before the deadline.

2. Don't do it until the last night before it's due.

3. Do other stuff while you're supposed to be writing your paper, such as participating in "arguments" in online forums.

4. Watch TV.

5. Finally get to the dirty work at about 2 a. m.

6. Finish up at 4:30 am.

7. Wake up at 6:30 am, and turn in your half-assed paper.

8. Barely pass your classes.

If all 8 steps are complete, mission: accomplished.

Originally posted by Dutabi84
Dutabi84's guide to doing term papers:

1. Tell yourself that you're gonna do it well before the deadline.

2. Don't do it until the last night before it's due.

3. Do other stuff while you're supposed to be writing your paper, such as participating in "arguments" in online forums.

4. Watch TV.

5. Finally get to the dirty work at about 2 a. m.

6. Finish up at 4:30 am.

7. Wake up at 6:30 am, and turn in your half-assed paper.

8. Barely pass your classes.

If all 8 steps are complete, mission: accomplished.

HAHA!!! :lol:

That is so me. MAJOR PROCRASINATOR. I am like that with anything that requires work that I don't like(which is a lot of things). I would always wait til the last minute to do projects, and then slap something together WHILE THE TV IS ON!!! :rotflmao:

The original post was also great. :rofl:

That is exactly how I did it. :D

Originally posted by Miss Vicki
Y'know, I have a paper due on Friday. Anybody wanna do it for me? :D

No way in hell. :D

1. Start typing it.
2. If you run out of things to put and it's not long enough increase the font size a little, or copy and paste info from sparknotes.com or something and use a thesaurus. if it's still not long enough, oh well.
3. Take a break if you need to. Then get back to work.
4. Finish.

how hard can that be?

Originally posted by safety pin
1. Start typing it.
2. If you run out of things to put and it's not long enough increase the font size a little, or copy and paste info from sparknotes.com or something and use a thesaurus. if it's still not long enough, oh well.
3. Take a break if you need to. Then get back to work.
4. Finish.

how hard can that be?

Scale of Hardness

Not Hard [--------|--] Hard

:lol: Oh yes, both guides listed here are me. There's nothing I hate worse in school than writing papers.

I was never a procastinator. When I had a term paper (million yrs ago) I would gather everything and started typing in my good ol' typewriter(electric of course); there was no internet or computer back then and I wanted to get it done right away. Is that bad this days? :D

Originally posted by I'maDESIlover
I was never a procastinator. When I had a term paper (million yrs ago) I would gather everything and started typing in my good ol' typewriter(electric of course); there was no internet or computer back then and I wanted to get it done right away. Is that bad this days? :D

The internet is so addictive(not to mention games and of course, these messageboards, lol) and now most people have more than 60 or 70 TV channels. :lol:

I have a my senior economics paper due next Monday...nothing like being told "if you dont do this, you dont graduate high school"

that list is me...especially watching the sunrise and organizing CDs...

Originally posted by safety pin
1. Start typing it.
2. If you run out of things to put and it's not long enough increase the font size a little, or copy and paste info from sparknotes.com or something and use a thesaurus. if it's still not long enough, oh well.
3. Take a break if you need to. Then get back to work.
4. Finish.

how hard can that be?

All my teachers in high school wanted me to use the exact same font, font size, margins, etc. that they assigned us...so we had no way out of it =/

Don't they talk to you about plagarism in school? That's a MAJOR thing...They grilled us on that in school...

Originally posted by Miss Vicki
All my teachers in high school wanted me to use the exact same font, font size, margins, etc. that they assigned us...so we had no way out of it =/

Don't they talk to you about plagarism in school? That's a MAJOR thing...They grilled us on that in school...

Yeah, it is called EXPULSION in college...

Yeah, I remember in my Research English class that we had font and MARGIN requirements. I had to change Word's default margins to make them smaller (which meant more writing!)

Originally posted by FamilyTiesGOP
Yeah, it is called EXPULSION in college...

Yeah, I remember in my Research English class that we had font and MARGIN requirements. I had to change Word's default margins to make them smaller (which meant more writing!)

Exactly.

See, I'm only in my first semester of college (just now finishing up, by the way) and we haven't had to do anything serious yet- I've had to do four 3 to 5 page-long papers for my English class, but that's all. It's unspoken, but everybody knows you have to do your paper in Times New Roman...you get off really easy in high school. College is the real stuff...All my teachers so far have had me do my paper in MLA format, and I ABSOLUTELY MUST follow that. No straying from it or anything like that...

Originally posted by Miss Vicki
Exactly.

See, I'm only in my first semester of college (just now finishing up, by the way) and we haven't had to do anything serious yet- I've had to do four 3 to 5 page-long papers for my English class, but that's all. It's unspoken, but everybody knows you have to do your paper in Times New Roman...you get off really easy in high school. College is the real stuff...All my teachers so far have had me do my paper in MLA format, and I ABSOLUTELY MUST follow that. No straying from it or anything like that...

ohno: ohno: ohno: ohno:

Originally posted by Brent88
ohno: ohno: ohno: ohno:

You better believe it. High school's a piece of cake...College. WOW.

I'm gonna have a kickass schedule for my fall semester (I get Fridays off), but I also have one night class that meets Wednesday nights, and I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT miss my night class AT ALL. If I do, I'll be in a lot of trouble for it. It will be soooo worth it, though :)

I have to give a speech in my speech class tomorrow, and it has to be between 2 to 5 minutes. My teacher told the class that if your speech is 1 minute 55 sec long or 5 minutes 5 sec long, you get a 0 for it, instead of getting points subtracted from your overall grade. That should tell you something about how serious college is.

I love it so far, though...it has its ups and downs, like high school...:)

Originally posted by Miss Vicki

I have to give a speech in my speech class tomorrow, and it has to be between 2 to 5 minutes. My teacher told the class that if your speech is 1 minute 55 sec long or 5 minutes 5 sec long, you get a 0 for it, instead of getting points subtracted from your overall grade. That should tell you something about how serious college is.

I love it so far, though...it has its ups and downs, like high school...:)

I had a public speaking class in high school. The guidelines for doing speeches were similar, except if you didn't have a long enough speech, you had to just stand up there and not say anything, making yourself look like a complete idiot. Some students did that, but I found it super easy to just drag something out for an extra few seconds if needed. Public speaking was pretty stressful, but was one of the easier classes I ever took.

Originally posted by Dutabi84
I had a public speaking class in high school. The guidelines for doing speeches were similar, except if you didn't have a long enough speech, you had to just stand up there and not say anything, making yourself look like a complete idiot. Some students did that, but I found it super easy to just drag something out for an extra few seconds if needed. Public speaking was pretty stressful, but was one of the easier classes I ever took.

Haha, yeah...I'm the queen of BSing in my speech class ;) It's been easy so far...I didn't take speech class when I was in HS, but I had to make a LOT of speeches in high school.

I REALLY hate my speech teacher, though. OMG...don't get me started on her...:eek:

Originally posted by safety pin
1. Start typing it.
2. If you run out of things to put and it's not long enough increase the font size a little, or copy and paste info from sparknotes.com or something and use a thesaurus. if it's still not long enough, oh well.
3. Take a break if you need to. Then get back to work.
4. Finish.

how hard can that be?

step 5: accept the F you recieve.


In response to other posts, I hate listening to college students tell me how easy high school is compared to college. High school isn't easy and college isn't easy. Neither are cakewalks. You could not succeed in college without high school so I say don't knock it as just being cake or fluff.

Originally posted by Idol Fanatic
step 5: accept the F you recieve.


In response to other posts, I hate listening to college students tell me how easy high school is compared to college. High school isn't easy and college isn't easy. Neither are cakewalks. You could not succeed in college without high school so I say don't knock it as just being cake or fluff.

You don't pay to attend high school. You DO pay to attend college. Then let's not forget the fact you also need to PAY for your textbooks, 75% of which you will never use and you get a crappy buyback when you try to sell your textbook. It IS true. Kids have it easier in high school.

Originally posted by FamilyTiesGOP
Yeah, it is called EXPULSION in college...

Yeah, I remember in my Research English class that we had font and MARGIN requirements. I had to change Word's default margins to make them smaller (which meant more writing!)

Yeah I did that too. 1 1/2 margins suck. go 1 inch.

Originally posted by Miss Vicki
You don't pay to attend high school. You DO pay to attend college. Nuff said.

What does paying have to do with anything?

Originally posted by Miss Vicki
You don't pay to attend high school. You DO pay to attend college. Then let's not forget the fact you also need to PAY for your textbooks, 75% of which you will never use and you get a crappy buyback when you try to sell your textbook. It IS true. Kids have it easier in high school.

What does paying have to do with anything?? I'm not talking about price at all. (Which we do pay book rentals by the way). I'd like to think that all the work and stress I have in high school right now is for something. My success in high school is the deciding factor in what college I'll go to and there's no way I'd have the skills or desire to succeed in college without it. I KNOW college is hard, but high school is as well and I'd like to think I won't view my four years in high school as waste.

Originally posted by Brent88
The internet is so addictive(not to mention games and of course, these messageboards, lol) and now most people have more than 60 or 70 TV channels. :lol:

That, and in my 4th and 5th years of college, I was so bloody sick of writing papers over every subject imaginable I could pull out my hair. ANYTHING was better than research and writing.

Ugh... I'm doing a research paper on Woodrow Wilson. I'm doing a lot of reading about him to subconsciously put off the writing :D .

Originally posted by dawsongirl
That, and in my 4th and 5th years of college, I was so bloody sick of writing papers over every subject imaginable I could pull out my hair. ANYTHING was better than research and writing.

Don't remind me. :eek:

Yup, that describes me to a "T". I do not miss college one bit. Well, I miss the social aspect of it, but that's it.

Originally posted by dawsongirl
That, and in my 4th and 5th years of college, I was so bloody sick of writing papers over every subject imaginable I could pull out my hair. ANYTHING was better than research and writing.

I know, I'm majoring in Accounting/Business and I STILL cannot escape from writing papers!!