Writing academic essays?

[Ezekiel]

I’m one of those people that don’t like doing academic essays. I believe that if you enjoy doing them then there must be something wrong with you. This isn’t because I can’t do them – when I manage to sit down and do them I never have a problem, I just find them so unpleasant that I do what many other people do without ever admitting it:

I devise elaborate ways of not doing them in a doing them fashion.

I’ve been doing this for years, and I’ll admit that it is possible for me to prepare for an assessment essay for two months and still be no closer to knowing what I’m doing when I finally sit down to write it. Two months of flicking through books in the university library and looking at online journals as a method of avoidance. I always end up waiting until three days before the submission date, then spend two days getting very drunk – in the back of my mind I harbour a small hope that I’ll come in from a club smashed and fall asleep, only to wake up the next day to find a disk on the kitchen table containing a perfect essay.

This never happens, so in a frenzy of last minute panic at 1am on the day of the deadline I spend four hours off my tits on god knows how many cups of coffee lifting quotes from a pile of books while I type out the entire essay on the fly, relying completely on caffeine induced inspiration. I have a sneaky suspicion that I’ll be doing this on Thursday. It hasn’t failed me yet, but I’m pretty sure that one day it will, and the only way out of this trap is getting my head around the idea of not avoiding it no matter how much I hate it.

Plenty of you are either currently at university or have attended in the past: how did you manage to get things done?

[DiscoDave]

Im currently at uni but im on a computing course, so a lot of my work is practical and exam based.

I do get the odd essay to write, but normally i take some time out and structure what im going to write in short bullet points on a rough bit of paper, and then finally get to it.

[Grandpa Stu]

hehe i'm almost the same way. cept i don't even pretend to be working on it. i just wait till it's due in a few hours and start working on it. i was talking to someone about this today actually. i find that if i try and pace myself from the very beginning I actually do half-assed work because i tell myself i have shitloads of time to work on it later and make it better. i'm one of those people that prefer to do it right the first time too, so i find it annoying and uneccisary to do mutiple revisions.

a great deal of my assignments are art based though. i actually just finished this piece here and turned it in yesterday. this isn't the final final version but it's pretty damn close and gives you an idea--i did this all in about 10 hours max (mind you this is the first time doing anything like this at all). a cookie to whoever can guess which artist i'm paying a tribute too. *hint* this piece is in the size and format of a postcard.



i dunno, perhaps the procrastination has something to do with the fact that i find it easier to harness and use all my creative energy in a single burst rather than staggered out over a period of time.

[Transient]

a cookie to whoever can guess which artist i'm paying a tribute to

Damn, I think I know who it is, but the name escapes me.

[Guest]

If the paper is just something I can write in a few hours, I'll just wake up at 8 am and type it up before my 11:30 class.

[Foo]

At least find some comfort in knowing that most other university students, at least in the UK, suffer from the exact same weakness as you.

Include me in that list.

[[xeno]Julios]

Essays to me are fundamentally no different from long and articulate posts on a messageboard.

they can be great fun to write.

I try to rarely use quotes either. Prefer to develop my own ideas.

Then again, i'm in psychology and philosophy - may be different depending on your major(s).

but yea, i tend to leave em till the last minute...

[werldhed]

I always used to procrastinate while at college. I didn't usually have problems writing papers; I just didn't like doing it. Now, though, I always have a number of things on my plate at the same time, so I don't have time to put it off. At this point, if I'm not working on some sort of paper or reading journal articles at any given time, then something's wrong. That's how I keep myself on top of projects.

I also prioritize the time I need to spend on projects based on how much thinking I have to do. For example, I recently had to write a paper on the pathogenesis of Helicobacter pylori. That was straightforward, so I did it in one or two sittings. I also recently had to write a paper on why vaccinations should be given, with specific reference to the current state of influenza, HPV, and hepatitis vaccines. That required a couple extra days to weed through journals and formulate arguments.

[Guest]

..I try to rarely use quotes either. Prefer to develop my own ideas...

I wish I could do that, but I'm majoring in poli sci. I always need to cite sources to make a convincing paper.

[[xeno]Julios]

yea - actually come to think of it, when doing literature reviews for research papers, it's all about sources...

[Ezekiel]

they can be great fun to write.

Get out of my thread, you twisted mofo! :icon33:

[Grandpa Stu]

a cookie to whoever can guess which artist i'm paying a tribute to

Damn, I think I know who it is, but the name escapes me.

i think I'LL PHONES a friend and go get some MOCHA while i get ready for my next assignment...

i actually have a 3 page paper to write by 7:00 tonight and i havn't even started. it's double spaced so that's not t0o bad, but the fact that i have to write it on an advertisment that uses a piece of art from the late 1800's to present makes it rather hard. i havnt even bothered to flip open a magazine or search the web for a piece of marketing hehe.

[menkent]

i have 20 pages to write in the next 48 hours. \o/

[Grandpa Stu]

i have 20 pages to write in the next 48 hours. \o/

olay good luck with that! if you think about it that's only like 1 page every two hours (you gotta use that extra 8 hours for sleep and food and stuff). have you ever tried slipping in things of complete randomness in your paper to see if your instructor really reads it through or not? in highschool someone i knew would randomly drop "chicken nugget" in his papers and he never got caught for it. it was amusing to say the least.

[Turbine]

I am the kind that goes trough at least 3 copies before writing the final.

That was the way I was first thought to do essays, followed by every other time, and that is the way I do them now.

I write out a very basic idea for every paragraph and then I write them out, then I go trough them, edit stuff out and in add in some lines, add in some more quotes and arguments.

The re-write it, and as I am writing it, I come up with more ideas, then I edit that, adding and removing stuff, then do a final copy, and as I am writing it, I allso add in some stuff, removing very little.

Then, its done, but it takes max 2 days, the last 2 days.

I find this to be the easiest, stress free and most idea inducing method of them all. And one sugessted by essay books.

[mjrpes]

I have always started writing assignments at the same time: the moment I realize I will need to spend all my time to complete it before the deadline. This translates roughly into:

1 page = 15-30 minutes
2 page = 30-45 minutes
3-5 page = 1-3 hours
5-10 page = 3-6 hours
10-20 page = 6-12 hours

There has never been an essay I started working on before this moment.

[Nightshade]

i have 20 pages to write in the next 48 hours. \o/

Two words: Big font.

[mjrpes]

Courier New 12pt. 1.5in margins.

[Turbine]

ha ha ha ha ha ha :icon25:

I remember when that worked in grade 9. Pricless.

[mjrpes]

ha ha ha ha ha ha :icon25:

I remember when that worked in grade 9. Pricless.

That was the formatting I used on my first ever college essay. Not because I wanted to, but because the teacher was black

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

I’m one of those people that don’t like doing academic essays. I believe that if you enjoy doing them then there must be something wrong with you. This isn’t because I can’t do them – when I manage to sit down and do them I never have a problem, I just find them so unpleasant that I do what many other people do without ever admitting it:

I devise elaborate ways of not doing them in a doing them fashion.

I’ve been doing this for years, and I’ll admit that it is possible for me to prepare for an assessment essay for two months and still be no closer to knowing what I’m doing when I finally sit down to write it. Two months of flicking through books in the university library and looking at online journals as a method of avoidance. I always end up waiting until three days before the submission date, then spend two days getting very drunk – in the back of my mind I harbour a small hope that I’ll come in from a club smashed and fall asleep, only to wake up the next day to find a disk on the kitchen table containing a perfect essay.

This never happens, so in a frenzy of last minute panic at 1am on the day of the deadline I spend four hours off my tits on god knows how many cups of coffee lifting quotes from a pile of books while I type out the entire essay on the fly, relying completely on caffeine induced inspiration. I have a sneaky suspicion that I’ll be doing this on Thursday. It hasn’t failed me yet, but I’m pretty sure that one day it will, and the only way out of this trap is getting my head around the idea of not avoiding it no matter how much I hate it.

Plenty of you are either currently at university or have attended in the past: how did you manage to get things done?

this was my method in university. I'd do little to prepare and do it all last minute and on the fly. I couldn't stand editing in those days either so I'd do a brief read through and would rarely make changes.

i found if i tried to prepare and work on it for a while my marks turned out about the same. (my marks were pretty good for the most part and i wrote a few worthwhile papers in uni i guess)

it's harder in 3rd and 4th year to get away with that shit though

[Ezekiel]

it's harder in 3rd and 4th year to get away with that shit though

That is the joy of doing an HND - the third year is optional. :icon32:

[tnf]

writing is easy.

[Ezekiel]

writing is easy.

You won't be getting a shiny apple from me, you cheeky sod!

[Guest]

Man, should you have spare the time you took to write this topic may be you would already be half trough with your essay.
Just take a pile of sheets and a pen in your hand, write anything that pops up in your head even if it has nothing at all to do with your essay and somewhere sometimes the light will come on and
all of a sudden you will write it straight in a matter of time.
Good luck