Finishing is its Own Reward…But Chocolate Would be Good, Too

I have finally finished writing my paper, and I feel so good, I just had to keep up the writing high by typing up another blog post! 

You know, finishing a paper--especially a long paper with the ability to sap all of your energy and make you feel like a zombie while writing it—is one of the best feelings in the world for a college student.  Or any student, I would guess.

Throughout the duration of paper writing, it’s often hard to keep focus and push through the road blocks.  So what do you do to keep up the momentum?  What keeps you from going slightly (very) mad?

Well, it always helps to have a reward system.  I know many of my friends use this system while writing papers, and though I sometimes slip and take a break regardless of whether or not I have actually reached the page count I told myself to reach before eating that Milky Way bar or watching that television show (oops), it is still an effective method of getting work done.

So if you ever feel like you just cannot make it through a paper (or whatever it is you’re working on at the time), just set a goal for yourself.  Make them attainable goals, as well.  Tell yourself that if you finish writing a full single-spaced page, you get to read a chapter of that Power Rangers fanfiction you love so much.  Treat yourself to a pomegranate when you reach the halfway mark.  Go for a victory run on the treadmill while listening to “For Now” from Avenue Q (fitting, considering the circumstances) after you finish completely.

Whatever you do, reward yourself.  After writing a 20-page paper, you deserve it.

Happy writing, and happy 3^rd day of the 10 Days of Christmas!

Shannon

Why a Prospectus is One of the Best Things Ever…Sort of

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve had research paper stuff on the brain.  Not only have I been working on my paper for The House on Mango Street, but I’ve also recently been revising my paper on monstrosity as it pertains to Batman’s female villains (which, I just found out, I’ll be presenting at the National Popular Culture Association Conference!).  

Today as I was working on my annotated bibliography and prospectus for my House on Mango Street paper, I realized two things: a) I am a complete English nerd because b) after I finished writing up my prospectus, I got really excited about writing the actual paper.

For those unfamiliar with having to write a prospectus, it’s basically a summary of what will be discussed in the research paper and is useful for mapping out the structure of the paper.  The information does not have to be exactly what will be in the final paper, but it should give you a good idea of where the paper is heading.  It typically includes the paper topic, a tentative title and thesis statement, and discusses the primary source and secondary sources being used to support the thesis.

While the idea of writing one of these seems tedious, I have found that it is actually much easier to write a research paper after having written a prospectus.  Why, you ask?  Not only does it help you formulate your paper ideas, articulating what will be used in the paper and how it will be structured, but typically, everything that goes into a prospectus will also be going into the paper’s introduction. 

Think about it: if a typical prospectus is about two double-spaced pages in length, and if the prospectus is basically the basis for your introduction, then when you go to write the paper, you will already have two pages of the paper written.  Furthermore, since the prospectus should map out how the rest of the paper is structured, you can just follow that structure to write the rest of the paper.

So, yeah.  If I didn’t already know that I was an English nerd, I definitely have proof now.  Then again, there are certainly worse things. J

Happy writing,

Shannon