so there is this little handy thing on the library website called the assignment planner.
it is very helpful. you just type in a start date and a finish date for a paper you have to do, and it will give you a day by day plan to finish it on time. it will even e mail you a little reminder deal. here is my plan for my 15 page paper due april 30th. I want you to know i am ahead of schedule. but look at the last day.
Ending on: 4/30/2009
According to the dates you have entered, you have 58 days to finish.
Want to try a different date?
Start Date: - -
Due Date: - -
Step 1 By Tue Mar 03, 2009: Get Started
• Understand your assignment (UNC-Chapel Hill)
• Plagiarism - What is it? How do I avoid it?
Step 2 By Fri Mar 06, 2009: Topics
• Select a topic (Purdue University)
• Refining your topic (Duke University)
Step 3 By Sun Mar 08, 2009: Plan your research strategy
• Do some general web searching - not Library-related
• Determine what sources you are going to use
• Work out the technical details
Step 4 By Tue Mar 17, 2009: Find Resources
• Journal and Magazine Articles
• Scholarly Journal Articles in a Subject Area
• Books
• Websites (that are relevant and authoritative)
• Other resources
• Use Refworks to organize and cite your references
Step 5 By Mon Mar 23, 2009: Evaluate Resources
• Evaluating websites
• Evaluate non-web resources
Step 6 By Mon Mar 30, 2009: Write working thesis
• How to Write a Thesis Statement (Indiana University)
• The Thesis Statement (University of Richmond)
• Examples: The bad thesis statement and the better thesis statement (University of Pennsylvania)
Step 7 By Sat Apr 11, 2009: Write 1st draft
• Keep careful notes, with source clearly indicated
• Essay-Writing: the Essential Guide (.pdf) (University of Leeds)
• UW Planning and Writing a Research Paper (University of Wisconsin)
Step 8 By Sun Apr 19, 2009: Additional Research
• Take a look at that assignment again
• Have you met the minimum resource requirements?
• Did you get enough scholarly, peer reviewed, or refereed sources?
• Do you have evidence to support all of your main points?
• Need help finding more stuff? Talk to your Subject Librarians
Step 9 By Tue Apr 28, 2009: Rewrite & revise, placing paper in final form
• Don’t forget to use RefWorks to create your cite list/bibliography. Review that plagiarism information.
• Proof-read and revise your assignment (Purdue)
Step 10 By Thu Apr 30, 2009: Reflect and review
• Bake a cake for yourself
are you kidding me?!?! It is TELLING me to bake a cake for yourself?!??! HECK YES I WILL. i mean, i would anyways but now that it is on this plan, and i have to abide by it, right?
so come april 30th find me. i will have cake.
that is all for now.
This is all well and good, except there needs to be a procrastinators version that would look something like this:
ReplyDeleteSteps 1-6: Think about the fact that you have a paper due, but don't work on it quite yet
Step 7: Go through some sources. Decide on a topic. Go play basketball.
Steop8: Tell yourself you are going to work on your paper tonight, then instead play around in the internet and comment on your friend's blog :)
Step 9: Bust a move. Sit down and cram all your research, idea development, comprehension, and creativeness into one jam-packed night, of hours and hours of writing and researching.
Step 10: Bake a cake? Who has time for that? By the time you're done with step 9, you should only have anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours left before you turn in your fresh off the press paper. Go buy yourself a cup of coffee so you can stay awake for class.
See, that's how we do it in Sam Land :)
tata.