So I have a little problem. It is called the research paper and its supposed to be about a topic that we were supposed to pick and relate to Iran. I also have another little problem I sort of contracted that procrastination disease that seems to come from time to time where you say your going to work on it and then you don't over and over and over again. It seems to infect most college students and high school students because for some reason we seem a little more susceptible to it than the average person. Okay Okay I admit it I have not gotten very far on my paper at all. I am working on it more today so it will still be done earlier than the due date, but I know that I should have done more on it sooner. This morning I was dreading the fact that I still have so much to do on the paper and wishing I had been one of the smarter people that had finished the draft a while back.
I want to do my paper on women's rights in Iran because I think that it will be the easiest topic for me to relate to. At first I started writing my paper on the prompt that we were given that compared The Great Gatsby with Reading Lolita in Tehran, but then I realized that I could not find my Rlit book because it had gotten lost in the confusion when I had moved two weeks ago. I didn't notice that it was gone until I needed to find a quote and did not have the book there to look at so I was back to square one. One thing that I am not looking forward to is writing the works cited because like I've said before a number of times, MLA format is not one of my expertise. I am actually not very good at it at all even if I use the citation machine generator. The things that I type into the boxes to create the citation end up being wrong. I think I just need to practice a little more because practice makes perfect.
So far my biggest problem in writing the paper besides procrastination was creating the outline. I did something called brainstorming and wrote down everything I could possible thing of on a scratch piece of paper and just went from there. I had a hard time deciding what I was going to put where and I was and am still scared that I am not going to reach the five page minimum. I tend to write more in an essay than what is required, but I still worry about it because I don't want to sound redundant. As I sit here and sip my coffee at this very moment I am looking for even more sources to add to the paper to avoid that situation.
I think once I get started on the paper again and into the full swing than everything will come out smoothly. I think that I just have a little bit of worry wart in me, but I guess you could say it's in my genetics. Good luck to everyone on your papers! I hope we all do a great job and reach that page requirement.
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Hi Amanda. I really liked your blog and the way you used sarcasm. I have the same problems you do, the research project and procrastination. lol. I have not started the research project yet, but like you, i will be doing a lot today to catch up. I also wish that I did it before, however, we are college students and we have other classes to be worried about also, not saying that this is the least important of our classes. We all have different ways of prioritizing assignments either by due date or difficulty. Apparently, I have left this assignment until the end because I feel that it is the most difficult one I've had to do yet. Like you said, I also think that the outline is the hardest thing to accomplish. I believe that once the outline is created, then the essay will fall into place becomes everything else follows. Well, I just want to wish you luck on finishing your essay and hopefully you will get it done without be stressed. Not only do we need to get to the page requirement, but we also have to be able to answer and discuss the prompt by supporting our claims. AHH! So scared! Good Luck!
ReplyDeleteDear Amanda, I love your title by the way but i feel it would be better for the paper to go away and not come back any day. Oh man, I thought that I was the only one that has not really started it. I actually worked on it only two days so I have some stuff. But I started with an idea and recently had to change it because I was talking about the broad topic and not relating it to Iran. I know as college students procrastination is our bst friend not only because we are lazy, even though some of us are not, but also because we have other classes to study for. I mean my time is pretty much taken by Anatomy, it sucked up every minute of my life this semester, it sucks. And not only that class but I have a chem class, a math class (trig by the way), the devil of a class anatomy and this class. Oh and actually one other academic class, not to metion i play soccerso I have to fit in those 3 classes into my day which is never an easy task. I wish I was ablt to manage my time better because then I would already have it done. But you it is all going to work out for us because we are all smart and gifted students so this will be a breeze, hopefully.
ReplyDeleteHello again,
ReplyDeleteHow wonderful would it be if there was only a vaccine for that panic-inducing, nightmare creating “procrastination disease”? Although I had given my subject some serious thought weeks earlier, I had been reluctant to start writing until a week ago. I just couldn’t get the structure of my arguments clear in my mind. Perhaps it is a combination of “Summer-itis" and procrastination disease that has plagued my brain and hindered the flow of words on paper like an overdose of nighttime cough medicine.
And please don’t feel bad about being “MLA-challenged”. You are not alone. Strict adherence to MLA guidelines (or any guidelines for that matter) has never been my strength either. In fact, I’m willing to bet that you are among many many friends in that respect. The good thing is that I have found peer reviewers to be very skilled (and generous) at spotting, and suggesting great advice for, MLA-based errors in my past essays. For that I have been very grateful because I tend to overlook those little technical details.
On a final note, a great source for academic reference is also your public (or school) library. There are numerous books that could help you strengthen your arguments or evidence surrounding Gatsby, Lolita, and even Iranian Revolutionary history. Ebscohost has also proven to be very helpful for insightful analysis of women’s right in a post-revolution Iran.
Best of luck on your final push this semester!