how do you plan for big research papers? specifically how do you cut them up into more manageable parts and plan when to get things done? thank you - love your blog!
how to plan for big research papers.
ok here is the deal w big research papers: unless yr professor is completely awful, you will have plenty of notice that they are happening. it has taken me years to learn & accept this fact, but here it is: you can dramatically reduce your stress level if you start planning ahead. i know that i will have at least two massive final projects due at the end of each quarter. i also know that i will have many other important things happening at the same time (grading my students’ final projects, the flu, social events, existential crises, etc). these are the steps that i go through; ymmv depending on the kind of project & your timeframe.
pick a topic!! it does not need to be super narrow yet. if you can, pick one you actually give a shit about. it helps.
make one general pass through the library catalogue for some books. don’t place them on hold - make a list and physically go to the shelf. see what else is there. you will find twice as many as you wrote down. check them all out.
make one general pass through the databases for some articles. save the ones that look like they might be interesting/relevant.
read that shit. tips on how to do it fast here.
take notes as you read! i usually use one single word doc; i use each source title as a heading and just take bullet-point notes of quotations i want to remember and argument summaries.
important note: if, in your papers, you often find your own voice being subsumed by the arguments of other people who have written on the subject, only read primary sources at first. skip ahead to prewriting, and once you’ve done that, go back and read some secondary and critical sources and figure out how they relate to your ideas. this is a big problem in my own writing that i’ve been trying to fix - often, defining your own argument first, without input from other critics, can make a paper stronger.
freewrite. this is the most crucial part of the entire process for me: moving from a bunch of nebuous ideas/”interesting facts” to an actual argument. i accomplish this by acting like a blank word doc is a very patient therapist, and just… writing it all out, stream-of-consciousness style.
once i’m wicked hyped up abt my prewriting, i try to explain it to an innocent bystander. bonus points if they’re interested enough to be actually critical of your thoughts and offer feedback. do this multiple times. usually to friends, but also parents are like, obligated to listen to you when you talk, so they’re good hostages.
take many long showers, or go running, or whatever you need to do to keep your body busy while your brain pieces things together.
when you feel pretty good about all of that, outline the shit out of it. the more thorough the outline, the easier it is to actually write the thing. i start with a (generally bad) thesis, fill in the “chunks” of information i want to talk about (aka the body), and then take some notes on potential conclusions. i usually ignore the intro until dead last, when i’m actually writing the paper.
it’s ok though. break it up into idea chunks, or a daily word count.
write the chunks. they don’t have to be in order. i write body paragraphs first, in a random order, and then the conclusion, by which point i have mostly worked out what i’m actually talking about, and then i go back up and write the intro. (tips on intros & conclusions here.)
when you have pretty much finished, put it down and walk away for a MINIMUM of 24 hours. don’t look at it, don’t think about it, don’t talk about it. brain palate cleanser.
a day before the official deadline, pick it back up again. READ IT OUT LOUD. this is the trade secret. better: have someone else read it out loud to you, while you mark up a copy with the bits that sound weird or wordy or ought to be moved.
submit it on the due date knowing that you are on top of your shit and that everyone can tell by the lack of caffeine shakes and tearstains.
scheduling: work backwards. take the due date, then pretend it’s due 3 days earlier. that’s when your “final” is due, sans proofreading. based on the word count, figure out how long you actually want to spend writing it, and how much is reasonable for you to write in a day. my usual guesstimate is 700 words a day, because i am inevitably behind/have other things to do/am busy crying. by this estimate, i usually give myself about a week to physically write a longish paper. i give myself a day or two to outline, and a week(ish) to read. all told, being generous and leaving room for those days when you just can’t bring yourself to put on pants, let alone form coherent thoughts, about 3 weeks in total is perfect.
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