Writing the BIG Paper
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Wow…you looked that the syllabus and you see there is a large term paper. It’s the largest thing you have ever written what wasn’t a creative piece or the bullet journal. How the heck are you supposed to get this done?! Well unless you’re a badass project manager type or got inspiration from our Syllabus Blog you are probably going to be in camp – I’m not going to worry about it until it gets closer to that time or camp – OMG I’m going to need a case of redbull because I have to cram some many pages in a few hours. BGF doesn’t want you in that camp. Let us rephrase, your presence in that camp stresses the fuck out of BGF Ayrielle.
So here is a blog Ayrielle has written in attempt to show her project management skills, and maybe make all of us a little more calm and assured that you got this.
STEP 1
Write down the variables your professor is requiring from this paper.
- Is there a page count?
- How many sources does the professor want?
- How much of these sources much be journals, books, website…etc or does it not matter?
- What citation style are we using? (more on that next week)
- Is there a targeted theme or topic we are trying to explore?
- What is the due date?
Then review to see if any of these variables are flexible.
- Is there flexibility in the citation style? No title page, spacing deviations…
- Do sources need to be a certain age?
- Does graphic elements affect the page count consideration? Maybe the professor won’t count a table or a figure that takes up a page as a page (they often don’t btw).
- If there is a theme can I narrow it down?
STEP 2
Once you have the answer to these questions, it’s a matter of planning backwards from there. Here I have an example of an assignment I was given:
Assignment Requirement: Ten page academic paper using ten sources (academic journals and books only) in APA. Theme is a review of the historical problems in education. Due the 29th of April (happens to be a Friday) .
Based on this example, one variable has flexibility which is the theme – I choose to narrow my scope to Special Education in United States (K-12). With board themes, its good to narrow the topic down so you can find sources easier.
And here is a plan to work backwards:
- April 29: Due Date. Before I submit it, I will read it with fresh eyes and make any quick changes that are needed.
- April 28: Final Edit Due. I give myself one whole day to sleep on my final edit before submitting it, so I can read it with fresh eyes after working on it.
- April 27: Edit Two-Pages a Day. Estimate time for task 15 – 30 mins.
- April 26: Edit Two-Pages a Day. Estimate time for task 15 – 30 mins.
- April 25: Edit Two-Pages a Day. Estimate time for task 15 – 30 mins.
- April 24: Edit Two-Pages a Day. Estimate time for task 15 – 30 mins.
- April 23: Edit Two-Pages a Day. Estimate time for task 15 – 30 mins.
(April 23 – 29 is Edit Week)
Simple task, can do in 5 – 10 mins. If you are a procrastinator, schedule an alarm or timer to dedicate to doing the work. It may seem silly, but it honestly will cut out unnecessary stress.
- April 22: Get the Writing Lab to Review Paper. This really depends on how quickly the Writing lab can turn over the paper with their recommended edits. Ideally I want to give myself two-pages a day work of edits before my “Final Edits Are Due” due date. If they are backed-up, I have no issue using Grammarly with academic settings set.
- April 21: Write 3-4 Pages or until you get to 11. Why 11? I thought this was supposed to be ten. Yes, but you want to go over, because after edits you will go under. Estimate time for task 1 -1.5 hours.
- April 20: Write 3-4 Pages. Estimate time for task 1 -1.5 hours.
- April 19: Write 3-4 Pages. Estimate time for task 1 -1.5 hours.
- April 18: Write 3-4 Pages. Estimate time for task 1 -1.5 hours.
(April 18 – 22 is Writing Week)
You already will have citations and quotations on a word documents. Now it’s about filling-in the gaps to link the thoughts together and lay a foundation for a strong, informed opinion with a conclusion/prediction.
- April 15: Dump Draft. Dump Quotes or Citations you pulled/highlighted as important to your topic in a word processor.
- April 14: Read 3 Sources or until you get to 12. Estimate time for task 1 -1.5 hours.
- April 13: Read 3 Sources. Estimate time for task 1 -1.5 hours.
- April 12: Read 3 Sources. Estimate time for task 1 -1.5 hours.
- April 11: Read 3 Sources. Estimate time for task 1 -1.5 hours.
(April 11 – 15 is Literature Review Week)
We suggest using a highlighting pen when you are readings to capture what you want to dump into your document. In your dump draft, organize the captures to best support your narrative/argument/hypothesis.
- April 8: Collect and Organize the Final Collection of Sources. Estimate time for task 1 -1.5 hours.
- April 7: Start the Collection of Sources. Estimate time for task 1 -1.5 hours.
- April 6: Meet with Librarian. Discuss your goals of this paper. What is the theme and how far you want to scope into that theme? They will point you in the correct direction of what aisle and databases to search from, and what keywords and how the keywords should be arranged to get the best results.
(April 6-8 is Library Week)
You will collect around 10-12 articles/books to use to meet your source variable. It is better to go over than under because not all the articles will be winners when you are finally in it, but hopefully the How to Read will help weed out a lot. Also, Librarians are your best friend to help you manage your search.
You can see that with this plan, I was very generous with my time long term. It took weeks to get to the final results, but I wanted to keep weekends to myself and do the work over a few hours. I am comfortable with reading and highlighting over a sandwich during my lunch hour. I am not in love with the idea of spending upwards to 3-5 hours on readings or writing something that isn’t really entertaining to me, and I like to have free time on nights and weekends for friends and family and morning for sleep and incoherent coffee drinking. You, on the other hand, might be ok with a Monday evening writing session because – what else is going on Monday night? You might also have a better time with NOT using the pluperfect passive infinitive, so editing can happen in one sit down session without an utter breakdown. (For those that are not familiar with grammar – pluperfect in Latin is similar to past perfect in English but it’s more like past “past” action because it describes two past actions that are not happening right now, but one past actions occurred earlier in time than the other.)
The important take away from this plan is starting with the end due date and what needs to be achieved on that date. Then going back in time and asking myself what do I need to do on this date to be sure I can get to the next date/deadline? And, how much time do I have/willing to dedicate to that task? I keep following that step until I find myself at the beginning spot of the project.
Understandably the professor might not tell you on April 5th about the paper – mine told my class the week of the 18th. But it was in the syllabus, and thus fair game to email the professor or go into the office hours and get a rough idea on what that would look like and what that would all entail. If the professor is pretty lax about it, then typically the syllabus has just enough information that I can collect my sources (and maybe bump the dump to 15 sources) and fill in the gaps once more specific instructions are given to me.
STEP 3
Reverse this plan and start filling out in the scheduling device that works best for you – calendar reminders, task alerts, an annoying sticky note, whatever it is. Just make sure your scheduling device works for you and stick with the plan you set for yourself.
Now we are interested in hearing what works for you when planning big assignments! List them in the comments below!