If you are a lazy person, this situation will be familiar to you: you have to deliver in a few hours a report that your grade depends on and you have not yet started writing it. Do not be afraid! Follow these simple steps and you'll be well on your way to saving your academic career.
Steps
Method 1 of 3: Prepare for Work
Step 1. Don't panic
You need to keep a clear perspective, a calm demeanor, and avoid lingering over what you should have done. Make it clear to yourself that you can do it and stay focused, determined to finish.
Reduce the workload on your mind. To stay calm, you'll need to understand that you don't need to write a novel. You will often be able to write double-spaced college or high school papers, so the number of pages to write will actually be half of what is required. Suddenly the work will seem a lot less scary
Step 2. Go to the library right away
If you can't, go online and use Google Scholar or any other database you have access to. Do some simple research. Remember that you don't have time to delve too deeply, so try to make the most of a quick search.
Step 3. Avoid all distractions
Whether you're in the library, or glued to your desk at home, take out anything that can make your mind travel. Put away your iPod, cell phone, to-do list, television, music, radio, games, etc. Unless you absolutely need it to do research, turn off your internet connection.
Step 4. Feed your brain
Keep healthy snacks on hand to keep your energy and desire to work high. Choose protein-rich foods such as peanut butter or soy and complex carbohydrates, such as fruits and vegetables. Don't just fill up on refined sugars and caffeine - you'll eventually have a meltdown and feel worse than before.
Step 5. Take breaks from time to time
Every hour or so, get up and stretch for two to three minutes. Walk around the room, do some aerobic exercises, and get your blood pumping. You will concentrate better than if you sat for 5 hours.
Step 6. Treat the report like a written exam
Write under pressure - no drafts, no second chances, you just have to write. Imagining that you are taking a real exam can help you focus better on your job.
Method 2 of 3: Writing Strategies
Step 1. Think broadly
Focus on the key points of what you should say. For example, if your relationship has to be about a Shakespearean tragedy, try to understand who the main characters of "Romeo and Juliet" are and what their characteristics and motivations are. You don't have time for the thousands of subtleties and particularities. But be careful when trying to translate these general thoughts into written sentences. Write statements that you know to be true, but that aren't so trivial that they give the impression that you hardly know the subject. Write down any generalizations about the topic you can think of and look for the relationships between them.
Use sources that cover the topic you are writing about. You can draw on short plot summaries and information about the characters, ideas, events, results, etc. in the field you are writing about. Don't reuse the analyzes you found and don't copy anything, but use all possible sources to find information on topics you don't have time to study
Step 2. Focus on the conflict
Academic texts must prove a thesis, and this requires convincing support. You can resolve a conflict by agreeing with some aspects and disagreeing with others. You could or else enjoy being the devil's advocate; you may even fall short of your real personal values, only to be able to complete the relationship or write a more convincing argument.
If you don't want to deal with a conflict, compare or summarize the topic. Either way, find a minimum of three conflicts, comparisons, or summaries to fill the body of the relationship. If you can't find more than three, at least you will have composed the body of the report
Step 3. When you get the chance, use your opinion
In some cases, for example for literature or history reports, your opinion is as important as the facts. Use this element to enter the relationship. Use your views to elaborate on the actual problems and core ideas of the topic, and take the opportunity to explore different interpretations. You can earn a lot of points thanks to an in-depth exploratory interpretation, if written with good form and realism.
- Don't overdo your opinions and don't monopolize the relationship. Express a thought once and move on. It is better to write a series of statements supported by facts and opinions than to repeat the same ones over and over. At least the reader will understand that you have an overview of the topic thanks to your short quotes.
- If you want to write your interpretation of why people have done, said or achieved something, put yourself in their shoes and imagine how you would have handled the situation. Put it in your report as part of your opinion, for example "in my opinion, X did this because he was under tremendous pressure to get the job done and he just needed to find a way to do it as quickly as possible." Your ability to interpret may be overloaded with the tension of being able to write the report in time, so use this to your advantage.
Step 4. Discuss expert opinion
In addition to your opinion, you can devote much of your report to an expert opinion, writing how you agree or disagree with it. Find an expert's point of view on the subject of your report, cite it, and then dwell on writing about which points you agree or disagree with the expert. You would still do this as part of a more calmly written report, but given the limited time available, you'll need to go straight for the jugular and point out at least two good reasons why the expert's ideas are right or wrong. Then, just focus on making what you have to say interesting. Other points to your advantage if what you are going to say is an original idea about the expert's opinion. In some cases, the more bizarre the idea, the better (you'll have to be a talented writer though).
Avoid going off topic and making fun of the expert's personal traits or professionalism. This will not earn you the professor's esteem and rather may attract his dislike
Step 5. If in doubt, don't include something
At this point, you will have realized that neither talking nonsense nor writing nonsense things can help you. In some cases, you may get away with a shorter, more concise relationship, precisely because what you have to say is so insightful and original that it stands out among all other longer, more mundane relationships.
Step 6. Use some tricks of the art of writing
Focus on the presentation and not the content. To start, don't make a big mistake. Check grammar, spelling and punctuation before submitting the report. A well-written report makes a better impression and convinces the reader that you spent a lot of time writing it. Here are other things to consider:
- Use formal Italian. Always write complete sentences, which contain verb and subject. Avoid abbreviations, which are informal and inappropriate for academic writing. Try to insert phrases such as "due to the fact that", "during that particular period", "in a limited number of cases", etc., which can contribute to the shape and length of the relationship. Look for complex, long-winded formal phrases to prolong your relationship. If you are truly desperate (and even prepared to accept a bad grade), you can try spelling out the years (nineteen hundred and eighty-four instead of 1984) and writing full names whenever you mention a person (Homer Jay Simpson instead of Mr. Simpson or Simpson).
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Replace everyday words with synonyms of more syllables, which are more interesting and sought after. These words can give more precision to your writing and this is necessary if you have very little time available.
Words of Greek origin are often more impressive and formal than those of common use. They are also often long and will help you fill more space
- Avoid repetitions. If you are talking about a topic and find yourself using the word "controversial" too often, try using "controversial". Always have a thesaurus handy when writing a report.
- Including the terms used by the experts makes the writing clearer and shows the teacher that you know what you are talking about. Make sure you define slang terms if appropriate, but using an unfamiliar word can allow you to be more precise than trying to translate the same concept into commonly used words. Indeed, scientific discoveries can often be distorted if written in ordinary Italian, for example in articles in journals. Make sure your professor understands what you are trying to say, but avoid simplifying things in a way that makes them less precise.
Step 7. Change the formatting
If your professor has specified a font size or other formatting choices (almost all of them do), skip this step. Your tricks would be noticed and your vote would suffer for breaking the rules. If your professor has specified a number of pages, but has not specified the font size, font type, margins or word count, you can change these configurations and make your writing take up more space. For example, the Arial font takes up more space than the Times New Roman standard. Comic Sans MS takes up even more space, but doesn't look very professional. Expand the margins from 2.5cm to 2.75cm - if you need a 25 page report, this trick can help you a lot. Other tips:
- If you are typing, select what you typed, right click and then click "Font". Click on "Character Spacing" and in the "Of" field after the "Expand" field, click on the up arrow, no more than 3 or 4 times, then click OK. This trick will add space, very difficult to spot, between the letters of the words.
- Select all points in the report and change their size to 14. You won't notice a big change for 4-page reports, but for 20-page reports you can save a page.
- Insert a single space before each line to add hundreds of characters in a very difficult to spot way.
Step 8. Don't expect to get a perfect or even respectable grade
It will be very difficult to get top marks, your relationship will have to be much richer in substance. If you're not really a genius under pressure, the professors will quickly spot most of your tactics and give you a grade that takes them into account. You may even get a bad grade or a failure, but it will still be better than getting zero for not delivering anything.
Method 3 of 3: Quote Based Tricks
Step 1. Cite multiple works by the same author
With standard citations, entering the same author for more than one work can slightly increase the page count.
Step 2. Use introductions for a new source or author when quoting or summarizing something
This is a correct technique and can allow you to add several lines. Ex: Edgar Allan Poe, a famous critic and author of the time, said "quote" instead of just inserting the quote.
Step 3. Use Bulk Quotes
Bulk quotes are beautiful, but they can only be used for three or more lines of poetry or four or more lines of prose. Only on rare occasions, however, will you have the opportunity to insert such a long quote, and you should in almost all cases have it followed by in-depth analysis.
Step 4. Use graphics and then quote them
If this is a relevant element, you may want to justify inserting a graphic, such as a table or graph, and the necessary textual source, which can be many lines long, to increase the space occupied. As in the case of a citation in bulk, however, such an important part of the original work will have to be followed by a long analysis or summary.
Advice
- If you can use a relationship from another course without this being considered plagiarism, it might be a good option. Be sure to check before submitting your work though.
- Consider asking for a deadline extension - show off your best sweet eyes and a weepy story!
