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The difficulty of writing a quality 5-page paper has been severely blown out of proportion. Forget outlines, thumbing through countless books, forget hours of staring at your computer, slumped over in your chair, eating the erasers off each and every pencil at your desk. Those days are over. I’m about to let you in on a secret. YOU DON’T HAVE TO SPEND DAYS SLAVING OVER A PAPER TO GET AN A!!! However, there are several key points to completing this task successfully.
The first and most important thing to do is THINK. Yes, that’s right, think. Sound too simple? Well it is. I’m telling you, writing an A paper is a breeze. From the time you receive your assignment to the time you sit down at your computer, you should be building up a mental format of what your paper is going to be. Start with your main focus or thesis. Figure out what it is exactly that your paper is going to try to achieve, what point do you want to make? Now, how are you going to achieve that? Through numerous examples? Humor? Hard facts? Once you have an idea of your paper’s direction, start thinking about chronology. If you have decided to use anecdotal examples throughout your paper, which ones will come first? Will it make more sense to use example A before example B? How are you going to tie in your conclusion to the main body of your paper?
So, now you know what you want to say in your paper and a rough idea of the order in which you want to say it. You’ve already conquered half the battle. And all this prep work can be done while lying in front of the TV, while on the treadmill or when walking to class! Now, you are going to have to do SOME research, depending on what the paper is about. However, now that you know what you want to put into it, the research you do will take considerably less time because you will be able to search for the specific information you need; rather than taking notes from 50 books and only using one third of them.
Here comes the part that most people get stuck on. Sitting down and creating the actual text. First of all, avoid writing your introduction. Although it’s the first thing in your paper, you always want to write it LAST. How can you introduce a body of writing that doesn’t exist? Doesn’t it make more sense to write the paper and then sum it up with an introductory paragraph? Instead, type out your main points, in the order that sounds most logical, with reminders of examples and facts inserts. For example, if you are writing a paper on the benefits of pencils over pens you will want to type out your points like this:
Pencils are cheaper than pens. Insert
fact or price comparison,
Writing with pencils can be erased.
Insert anecdote about trying to erase in
pen.
If the lead of a pencil breaks, you can
sharpen it, instead of throwing it away.
Insert example.
Pencils do not explode. Insert anecdote.
What you have just done is set up your basic format for your paper. All you have to do now is go back and fill in what your guide. Remember, whenever you write a sentence that declares a point, follow it with a sentence or two that contain an example or fact for support. You can’t go wrong with supporting statements. You could write that the grass is pink, not green and as long as you have support for it, it’s ok!
Remember that introduction you didn’t write? Well, it’s time to tackle that. The wonderful part about doing it last is that it can almost double for your conclusion. A sound paper should have an introduction that briefly states what the paper is about, a body with several supported points, and a conclusion that summarizes the points you just made. Therefore, with a the ideas of your paper fresh in your head, create a conclusion that says reads as follows:
Introductory sentence. Summary of main points. Restatement of thesis. Outreach statement (a last sentence that relates to your paper but adds a little bit of flare… like a quote, or a question). Once you have done that, you basically do the same for the introduction.
Introductory sentence (maybe use a question that you will answer in your paper, or start with a story). Summarize the points you are going to make in the body of your paper. Thesis.
Well, what do you know? you have just written a whole paper in less than an hour! All you have left to do now is spell check it, proof read it for typos and print the baby out! You just need to create your paper mentally ahead of time and the write it with clear points that have clear supporting statements, and standard introduction and conclusions.
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