It's ten at night, and you haven't started your five-page paper that's due the next morning. Maybe you've been working full-time. Maybe you've been molding in front of your X-Box for the past three days and small rodents are starting to nest in your hair.
However, there is hope. When done correctly, one can write a medium-size essay in less than two hours and still hope for at least a B.
The best thing is to start with a clear mind and a clear workspace. Take an arm and brush all the excess junk off your desk in a long, sweeping motion. You can pick up the stuff tomorrow, or whenever.
If you're given an open-ended essay question, think of what the major theme should be for your paper. There are several timeless themes that can always be B.S.'d to the fullest: love, hate, war, death and rebirth, people excluding other people, people trying to control other people, nature kicking everybody's ass in the end.
If all else fails, almost anything can be attributed to technology. How was Christopher Columbus able to sail the ocean blue? Technology. How was he able to exploit the Native Americans? Technology. What was the Native American word for corn? "Technology."
Side Note: Every World Civ professor thinks that they're the first person to tell you that Columbus was actually a tyrannical jerk; run with that theme in your paper.
Think of an argument for or against your chosen theme. Rack your brain for any specific opinions that the professor may have expressed. Make an argument for that idea. Chances are that you're scouring Sparknotes at 11 at night, so you probably don't have an informed opinion on anything anyway.
Make an outline with three important points for which you can actually present a solid page worth of information for that argument. Then make some fluffy sub-categories. For example:
Christopher Columbus and Skeletor: Long Lost Brothers?
A. Evil intentions
a. Emerged from the Dark Hemisphere to try and overtake all that was good.
b. Both under the impression that "might makes right."
B. Similar wartime tactics
a. Both shot bolts of deadly power from their "lightning sticks."
b. Used small armies of disposable characters to fight off the locals.
C. Terrible taste
a. Sallow skin and ugly mantights
b. Sold out to the glitz of the Hollywood silver screen
Even if the professor doesn't ask for quotes (which they always do), find two coinciding scholarly quotes that don't completely contradict what you just said. This will come in handy later when you've run out of ideas to discuss and are starting to get desperate.
Next, go to sleep. It's more effective to sleep for five hours and then wake refreshed than to spend an entire night trying to write an essay on no sleep. Besides, the effort you put into the last step was probably very draining.
Wake up with at least half an hour to spend on each page. Don't hit the snooze button.
Tips while writing:
Don't get stuck on one sentence. This is just one piece of busywork in a long line of unnecessary essays, so just go with the flow.
Sound confident in what you're saying, even if you really have no idea what you're talking about. Confident stupidity can be very convincing (insert trite political joke here). Use fancy writing to kill some space.
Vague Biblical references are fail-proof. If it happens to be a paper about a novel for an English class, it is guaranteed that at least one character in the book will have their innocence shattered by some horrible, sexually perverse event. Compare it to Adam and Eve and the Tree of Knowledge.
Put your energy towards making a couple of witty comments. People get the impression that you're really smart and know what you're talking about when you're able to make a couple jokes, even if you're dumber than a tree stump.
Don't forget the Works Cited! Do a quick once over, just enough to delete any glaring mistakes.
If you choose to opt out and put the paper off for another day, tell the truth. Saying something like, "I'm sorry I didn't hand in my paper, but several of my family members died last night," might as well be, "I couldn't write my paper because I drank so much last night that I passed out and woke up face down in a puddle of my own urine, which is made even cooler by the fact that I'm 17."
Snooze in class. Don't snore, though.
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
