Recommending college classes
By Lawrence | April 14, 2008
English Literature: Obviously, this discipline can’t get a negative recommendation from me. I could wax poetical on the virtues to be gleaned from living for a time in the universes of the Great Books, and drawing your friendships, ideas and solace therein (well, golly, I guess I did just wax) But enough sappiness, we’re not making pancakes. We are talking about the practical, real world uses of college courses.
Practicality can come in many forms. A class can benefit a student because it fulfills a requirement for a major or minor, or because it satisfies an elective demand of an arbitrarily insistent university. There is always that. A class can be also be a benefit by being really easy, or being somewhat challenging.
A really easy class can be good because it lets you bring up your GPA without, in many instances, having to even attend the lecture all that often. Introductory classes in every discipline are often conducted from a commanding lecture podium and overhead projector in a very large, stadium shaped room. Obviously, if you are fairly intelligent, you can coast off the book and just show up for the midterm and final. If you use this strategy, however, I do advise that you attend at least some of the TA sessions, where much of the nuts and bolts work of comprehending material comes in. You may not even need a supplement to the course text to know what’s going on, but TA sessions are also often where they hand out the assignments. If your knowledge of the subject has any weak spots, be sure to ask your TA for help as he/she will appreciate explaining something that is basic for them. TA’s are also often nervous in front of these classes, as many of them are just dedicated graduate students that are not cut out for the flair of public speaking. You can help set their mind at ease by moving the session along with a good question or two.
But we were talking about English Lit. What I advise, even if you cannot sit for hours on end and thoroughly digest the book you are assigned to read, is to make a determined proxy effort via Cliff Notes. Many people will rant and rave about how AWESOME it is to sit down in a cafe, or on the beach, and just read a book. To put yourself in the intricately painted scenarios, to stand side by side with a character as the writer’s world congeals and whips around him/her, to cherish every word of a genius, world class author…
But not everyone is cut out for long reading sessions that require absolute focus, concentration and sitting still (at least in body). So the natural reaction is to reject and resent the advice to really ‘feel’ the book and let it sink in- this is what gives the liberal arts the fairy rap that it has. Well, I am telling you that those feelings are REAL and that you can get much the same feeling for the text by reading cliff notes.
Your feeling and sense of the text is what will allow you to come up with a good paper topic. Your thesis should be somewhat creative, but not off the wall crazy, and should be logical and well ordered. But your inspiration to write a good thesis has to come from the feelings you distill over the reading of a long text.
Take the ‘Old Man and the Sea’, for example. Hemingway’s brief treatise on an old man determinedly hanging on to the catch of his life while sharks mercilessly whittle away his gains is sad and triumphant all at the same time. Even though the Old Man came back to shore with only a gigantic skeleton, and relentless sea vultures had stolen away every tangible (edible) bit of sustenance from his journey, the Old Man was left with a great story and a whopper of a trophy. And the reader is invariably left with a profound moment of reflection on human perseverance, while at the same time poignantly cognizant of the evanescence of all achievement.
But, of course, you would not know that if you didn’t read the book.
Or would you? Actually, if you give the Cliff Notes version a serious and heartfelt rendition in your brain, you might get enough of a sense of it to pull an A.
Cliff Notes are great because they are written by dedicated scholars and phD’s who are deeply in love with their subject. They know the Great Book inside and out, and it may have even changed their lives or added some valued bit of perspective to them as people. Thus, they are seriously relating every important bit of plot development while relating what it all means to the society at the time, the writer’s other works, etc. You can draw from this knowledge (in your own words, don’t copy their words or their ideas!) You can use their ideas, throw in a little here and there to your own argument, but do not make a straight linear transition of their doctoral thesis to your paper. That will not sound right to your professor.
Instead, just sit back with the Cliff Notes, and pretend you are reading a novel. A really fast moving novel that gets right to the point, and doesn’t waste any time on setting the scene as great writers are wont to do. If there is something important about the setting or time period that is vital to the larger work as a whole, or perhaps symbolic of something, you can be sure the Cliff Notes will not hesitate to tell you! They love that stuff, really.
So if your are in an English class but you are limited in time/energy, go get the Cliff Notes and give them the serious, tender loving attention you would give to the book if you were a wealthy aristocrat with a huge library and infinite leisure at your disposal. There is no shame in it. The glaring yellow savior is NOT a hack or slacker’s tool, if it is truly used with respect and discretion. The WRONG WAY to use Cliff notes is to read them as fast as possible and try to throw their ideas into a random mishmash of hackneyed prose. You still have to make a thoughtful outline for your paper, and you still have to know what you are talking about.
Just please, before you begin on the yellow and black booklet, say a prayer to the Lords of the Great books and let them know that you do perceive their truth and beauty. Just mention as an act of contrition that like the great poet John Keats, you are really pressed for time.
Topics: Term Papers and Essays, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
How about some college advice for a change, Lawrence?
By Lawrence | April 9, 2008
“All you do these days is write weird imaginary scenarios about something nobody cares about. Plus, it’s probably personally insulting to at least some of your clients.”
Oh. okay. Well, I wrote alot of stuff about how to write a term paper, but nobody commented, so my ego lost interest and sought other ways to satisfy my innate, magnetic, powerful vanity.
But I can tell you some stuff about college, particularly yinz guys who are into the humanities. Or ‘arts and sciences,’ is that what we are calling them now? What is that, like paintings and test tubes?
Well, today, I am going to tell you all about what courses to take and not to take in college.
Logic- awesome, but you’re gonna have to work. Logic is alot like high school geometry, in that you have assumptions or axioms that you live by, and use them to tackle a problem and construct a solution. It is not like algebra, where the equation is simply missing something and you are called upon to guess what it is, and only one answer out of about 400 billion possible answers is actually right. In logic, you get to build a proof out of interesting symbols, which may indicate negation, if A then B, or either or.
Logic is a foundation upon which many beliefs are built, and its strictly, well logical structure can make an opinion absolutely unassailable. For instance, lots of women believe that “all men are scum.” Then, maybe a woman who believes that meets Stan. If she can bring herself to believe that he is a man…well, you know. So logic can really help you in holding popular opinions.
Logic is really rigorous, as befits a discipline committed to “dead certainty” (my old Logic teacher’s favorite phrase, actually it was ‘dead cert’). It can be a challenging course that you will have to attend (or at least closely follow the textbook), but the reward is that you can get a huge whiteboard and magic markers, then go around and ‘prove’ to your friends that they are really dumbasses, or drunk, or even ostriches.
Sociology- Ooh, I am gonna have to give this one a no-go. I took one class in this, vaguely I remember it was about health, welfare and politics in communist China. The instructor was great, but the course was a challenge, and I just have to ask, ‘to what end?’ I was a freshman trying to prove myself in upper level disciplines, but I had no motivation to pursue this line of thinking any further. I remember studying VERY hard for the midterm exam, which was essay. I spent many, many hours studying charts and graphs, and then committing to memory the implications that those numbers held. And then constructing a coherent argument from those. It is possible, but why?
More to come minyana…
Topics: Term Papers and Essays | No Comments »
Jackie Chan can get that torch…
By Lawrence | April 9, 2008
He is the mutant of choice, no doubt. I don’t even have to go through the possible ways that Jackie Chan could get that torch. You know it would change hands two dozen times, as fists, legs, heads, shirts used as restraints, police clubs, mace, police dogs, helicopter blades, mace (medieval kind with the ball and chain), and the torch are all used in a glorious canvas of fisticuffs and brouhaha (kind of like a Jackson Pollack’s guide to the martial arts).
But can Jackie break through the security on the bus?
Better yet, can we call ‘the bus’ something else? How about, The Chariot of the Flame.
Can Chan breach the Chariot’s shiny walls and tinted glass? Come on now, people. You know he can… Shirt wrapped around the forearm, smash through the glass. Pull out one of those blowing accordion things used to blow up the embers in the fireplace. Fight off the shocked athletes and trainers with the accordion thing. Chan loses the accordion weapon thing, but then, while wrestling with a large German shotputter, ends up sitting on it with the nozzle pointed at- you guessed it-The Eternal Lantern aboard the Chariot of the flame.
That is just one of many, many scenarios…
Topics: Politics | No Comments »
This is going to be more complicated than I thought
By Lawrence | April 7, 2008
from the AP :
France’s former sports minister, Jean-Francois Lamour, stressed that though the torch was extinguished along the route, the Olympic flame itself still burned in a lantern where it is kept overnight and on airplane flights. A Chinese official said that flame was used to re-light the torch each time it was brought aboard the bus.
Whoa! Hey hold up now! That is cheating! So let me get this straight: it is NOT the handheld torch conveyed through busy city streets and (traditionally) cheering crowds that is the undying symbol of Olympic glory. No, the handheld is just an auxiliary symbol, a mass produced thing, free to be snuffed, relit and snuffed out again. Like a vampire served up a garlic flavored soy-burger in a lame attempt to kill it, it is just going to keep coming back. Clearly, what is needed in this case is to get close to the ORIGINAL VAMPIRE.
The original vampire is the master, the sire, the one whose act of wanton bloodlust gives all subsequent vampires the gift of the night. In this case, the OV is an itsy bitsy flame in a candy ass lantern aboard a bus closely trailing the torch procession.
In order to cancel the Olympics like I said in my last post, it turns out that we will need to actually board that bus and extinguish the LANTERN. The torch itself just won’t do. In fact, torch route officials were themselves smugly blowing it out in order to preempt a successful act of protest, then retreating to the bus secure in the knowledge that the real flame was safe in a little glowing glass and wire enclosure. Which, of course, is itself ensconced in a metal and glass protective shell casing known colloquially as a bus.
So the blanket idea is a no go- it is just going to get some poor souls arrested, imprisoned and branded as terrorists for nothing. Instead, what we really need is some kamikaze lunatic with thick bones and skull and powerful leaping abilities, who can generate enough upward and sideways force to smash through the bus glass and annihilate the lantern before anyone can stop him (or her. or IT!).
To pull off this maneuver, it might help if our volunteer mutant has a distraction. Maybe some of the protesters can continue acting as if they really believe the handheld torch is the genuine article, and can occupy security forces with their catcalls and fire extinguishers. Then, a group of Asiatic protestors who appear to be sympathetic to the Chinese cause can make their way nonchalantly to the bus. To pay homage to the real flame, perhaps. But in their midst, our mutant will lie in wait! And as soon as he/she/it senses the opportunity, whammo! Say sayanaro to the flame, baby! Those javelins will have to wait till 2012!
Now that the real secret of the flame is out, I expect the Chinese to use any and all methods to protect it. So it would also be strategically viable to have a backup mutant. Telekinesis is not out of the question; a spoon-bending Neo could simply levitate the lantern and smash it to bits on the walls of the bus. Or more subtly, just produce a cool, soothing breeze directly adjacent to the flame.
I am a strong proponent of the mutant line of attack because it is essentially non-violent and will not cost any human life. The Dalai Lama would want it that way. It might be possible to simply take control of the bus and drive it off a bridge and into the forceful currents of a river, but that would violate the Buddhist Precepts.
Topics: Politics | No Comments »
Let’s put out that torch people! Here’s how!
By Lawrence | April 6, 2008
Watching the news today, it was interesting to see two shining, symbolic beacons of freedom working at complete cross purposes. In the red corner, weighing in at 11 incarnations, the Dalai Lama! In the blue corner, fighting out of 3000 years of history, from Athens Greece, the eternal Olympic flame!
Now we all know that if the torch goes out, the Olympics will have to be canceled. That means that China will be left with a very embarrassing stadium bill, and all that work to de-smog the air of Beijing will have been for naught. So in the spirit of bringing China’s economic hopes and dreams to a standstill, here is the absolute, foolproof method for putting out that damned torch!
In London today, one man clearly had hold of it. He had gotten past the cordon of cops, then the inner layer of protectors, running right up to the bearer herself and grabbing hold of the beacon. He had it in his hands! Now, if that man would have just had a blanket…
a nice, flame retardant blanket or similar piece of cloth. Something that is not going to go up in flames itself, but smothers flames like a good cloth should. Surely, it would have taken little extra effort for this brave soul, accepting certain arrest/police beating, to carry a blanket on his person…
unless, of course, enough souls in the world don’t really want the torch to go out. In that case, a protective psychic shield of sorts could end up surrounding the torch, preventing perpetrators from using simple, effective means for extinguishing. Perhaps the world’s souls are of two minds- they do want it to go out, but also, they don’t. It is a confusing thing. I mean, there are so many memories with the flame, Muhammad Ali quivering from Parkinsons but bravely lighting it in Atlanta jumps to mind for me. Plus there is that whole thousands of years of tradition and history. But then again, the Dalai Lama…
Well, Paris is up next. If ever there were a group who could find the vive la verve to douse the flame…I think it is the French. Maybe some greasy fries in mayonnaise would do the trick.
I promised my wife I would mention her idea: a giant parachute landing on the torch from the sky. I tried to explain the multiple problematic aspects to this plan, but she really wants this crazy parachute idea ejected out there into the ether. I think it’s really dumb, but there you have it.
My wife and I do agree that it is time people stand up for something that stands for freedom. And in this case, the Dalai Lama wins out. It is time those smug Chinese government officials stopped getting away with violating the civil rights of whomever they please, then lying through their teeth and congratulating themselves for it.
And the same definitely goes for a certain illegal, unelected junta that has gripped the soul of America like a poltergeist. Just to be fair about it.
Topics: Politics | 1 Comment »
Defining and really getting at the thesis and the thesis statement
By Lawrence | March 13, 2008
Before you read this, you should have a strong blueprint in place for your papers thesis, evidence and presentation.
We know what a thesis is: the idea your paper purports to prove. The thesis statement is actually quite different; it is a literal (literally here, meaning, well, literally, based upon words) representation of the idea of your paper, born actually in your magical mind.
Like the big bang, the thesis is a momentary perception, a flash of insight in which the entire panoramic beauty of the paper, the tangled relationships between the ideas, is fully and completely apprehended in all its splendor.
When you ‘get it.’
You actually ‘get’ your paper in an instant, and no guide or piece of advice can ever substitute for that moment or do it in your place. If you choose to enlist the services of goodtermpaper, somebody else will carefully research your assignment and then ‘get’ your thesis for you. They will capture a unique idea from the universal currents. They might read up on Plato in the afternoon, jotting down idea for an outline. But it may be over dinner, or the next morning, that the flash of insight occurs. The flash is really a reward for hard work and careful consideration- some ‘portion’ of your being, your mental focus, must be invested in the problem.
The universe will only tell you a solution if you are paying attention! And in the case of Einstein, Newton, Rembrandt, and the like, the universe really does insist that you be paying a great, serious, awful big amount of attention to it. But how else to appreciate its beauty? Newton was so attuned that he ‘got’ the inverse relationship between gravitational bodies. He just ‘realized’ that every rock, gas giant and nuclear furnace in the sky is exerting an attractive force on every other.
Of course, Newton’s real work then commenced- plotting the trajectories and positions of these bodies! But it was that moment of insight that unfurled a lifetime blueprint of work and commitment for Isaac. Newton didn’t know why gravity existed, he only said, ‘I have described it. We cannot ever pretend that we actually understand why it is that two seemingly inert bodies possess this tremendous innate force. That’s just the way it is baby!’
So that is what a thesis is.
It is pretty obvious, also, what evidence is. That is the anecdotes, stories, statistics, quotes, history and interpretations that all, in some way, add to your growing and compelling case that you are right about your topic (or left, if you like). Although they come in varied forms, they maintain a thematic coherence by being related to each other. As your paper’s author, it is your job to ’set’ the thematic coherance and all relationship aspects between a group of elements. These elements may appear loose, disjointed on a mere surface examination, however- they are the elements that you chose for your paper, so they better have something to do with each other! 
You are the codemaster for your project. Think of it like a safe, as in, to keep valuables. Then, in turn, think of a safe as a filter, because that is really what it is, isn’t it? A safe ‘filters’ out access from those individuals who know the code on the lock. If they know the code, and can physically maneuver the mechanism, then they get to access. If they don’t, then they don’t. A safe is a very strong filter and attempts to break its code, like for instance with crowbars etc, will probably meet with failure if it is a good, strong American safe made out of real good metal. If it’s a good safe like that, then the molecules themselves will form a virtually impenetrable code that hammers et al will not be able to overcome. Molecules interlock, attract and repel one another in a code that is almost beyond comprehension. I think it is called organic chemistry and while my Dad and sister excelled and are excelling at that, my knowledge of the field stops at tinker toys. But that is why we have droves of experts at goodtermpaper.
Now, a nuclear explosion could easily break the code even on stainless steel, and the explosion would be granted access. Let’s just say that God holds the codes to all things, so the less safes you construct again Her/Him/It/They/Yoda, the better.
So in your paper, you are basically the god. But are a god venturing out into unfamiliar terrain, where information will attack you, appeal to you, seduce you, betray you and leave you for dead (well, maybe that’s a tad extreme, but you could get an F). That is because the information itself is sentient, alive, and strongly related to other pieces of information in its environment. Today, Hilary Rodham and Barack Obama stories contest, wrestle with, hunt and stalk one another on the seething digital saranghetti. It is every term paper god or sound byte for itself, as river access (real, substantial, truth telling, grounded and informative journalism) is at a dear, vanishing premium.
Now it is not really all that bad. Your teacher is aware of the environmental perils that await your god like expansion into knowledge, and everyone in your class is competing in the same plane.
And just to be clear, you are competing. Depending on your professor’s pedigree, length of tenure, temperament and ‘office political climate’ of his or her department, your teacher will grade the students along a predetermined scale. Now to be sure, the actual quality of the class in general will be taken into account, but past history and the above factors will have created some grading habits in your prof’s mind. They are human too, as you probably have realized by now (unless you subscribe to the killer robot theory).
So you are competing with your classmates, each of your trying to pull unique, substantial and creative interpretations of information out of pretty much the same resources, and sometimes for the exact same assignment. If you have a term paper or some freedom to choose- that is better in some ways, worse in others.
As you do this, you should strike a balance. An introduction is a good place for a story, compelling anecdote, bleak fact- depending on your assignment. An environment paper? Bleak fact is perfect. Paper on Mary Lou Retton? Definitely story. Politicans and government? Some juicy, telling anecdote (although bleak fact also comes to mind…inspiring, transcendent truth…?nah) These things all have strong emotional connotations for readers. However, you are conducting an orchestra, and you don’t want to linger on the sad, enraging or even upbeat notes forever. You want a change of pace, like a slider and a fastball (I am playing fast and loose with the blog, but you should never, ever mix this many metaphors in a term paper.)
Usually, an emotional or controversial introduction is best served by deploying your hardest, best evidence immediately following your thesis. A term paper is a fight for your teacher’s attention- they are bored, tired, and reading at least some papers from kids who don’t know a lick about how to write- so hit hard and fast with the best you’ve got.
As always, your paragraphs should follow the PIE format- present your idea, illustrate with evidence, and explain how it all relates.
After your hard evidence paragraph, the next paragraph could be more evidence to back up your thesis. It could also be exposition, where you expound upon your topic. To do this, your evidence paragraph will need a good concluding sentence as a lead in to your expoundatory topic sentence. This is extremely important and is probably the number one underrated, specific reason for why papers get marked down to Bs or Cs. No transition game. The same thing that dooms basketball and hockey teams- passes through the neutral zone. They can’t get broken up, they have to connect, just like your transition sentences- those sentences at the beginning and ends of your paragraphs.
Honestly, I can’t stress this enough. You can say almost anything- well, you have so much more leeway for creativity, speculation, if your transitions are airtight. This is a psychological and comfort issue with your professor. If your paper flows smoothly among its ideas, there is far less traction for the Red Pen of Death to grab onto. Grammar mistakes are part of this too- your paper should be free of them, and run a grammar AND spell check on a word processing program that has one (Open office doesn’t, for some damned reason). If you are free from mistakes, and you transition well, your paper will have a distinct voice that gets an uninterrupted reception in your teacher’s mind. She won’t be stopping very much to correct, to think to herself sternly what should be there, if you were a good writer. Everything good WILL be there, if you transition.
Topics: Term Papers and Essays | No Comments »
Term Papers the Expedited Way!
By Lawrence | March 10, 2008
Last we left off, we were discussing how to go about constructing a very large project and all of the elements you would require for that. However, if you are working on a short deadline and you are also stressing over the assignment, chances are your paper falls somewhere in the 3 to 8 page range. This is a common middle ground for assignments that teachers love to inhabit. Not coincidentally, it is around the three page threshold that your paper will start to demand a little more than a haphazard jotting down of your thoughts. As you are expected to expound upon your topic at some length, you will find it useful to organize your points.
Lacking organization, you might start off well with a very cogent piece of writing that tackles your subject head on. Still, the chances that you will run out of steam, or put down a paragraph in the completely wrong place, go up if you do not organize.
How can a paragraph be in the completely wrong place? Don’t I, as the author, enjoy poetic license?
No, you do not, because you are writing a report, not a poem. Creativity is valued at university, but it must know its place for most assignments. For term papers, creativity is the hand-maiden to Queen Organization. Creativity must wait for the Queen to finish her point before jumping in to add sparkle to the writing, or to steer the paper into an unusual line of pondering, etc. The Queen must be a stern monarch and not let her servant get out of hand.
A paragraph or passage can be in ‘completely the wrong place’ if it obviously writing that is appropriate for one area of the paper like intro, middle or conclusion, and it finds itself in the wrong section. Like a bra on the magazine racks at Wal-Mart, it stands out.
Let’s say you have an 8 page paper on Medicaire, and your thesis is that “…the hospitals, insurance companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers and the government contribute to the dysfunctional expenditure that is crippling America.” If you had a thesis like that, you may want to apportion out the responsibility to your four primary contributors in succession. That is, you would fully discuss hospitals’ role, then insurance companies, and so on.
If you just start right in on an 8 page paper like this, without planning, it is pretty likely something to do with pharmaceuticals would end up in the insurance section. This is not such a big deal if it happens once, or twice, but a paper filled with a random recounting of facts is going to lead your teacher to conclude that you did it in a hurry.
The trick is to do the paper in a hurry, but make it look like you took your time.
There are lots of ways to organize the medical paper; you could go by date, listing the relevant actions, legislation and scandals chronologically. Or you could come up with a list of core events or issues that have most strongly shaped the outcome of Medicaire, and ‘cross reference’ them with your primary actors. For example, one core event could be the rise in cost of malpractice insurance. You could do an italic header The rise of Malpractice, then explain how hospitals, drug and insurance companies and the government contributed to malpractice.
There are lots of paths to take with your paper. Whichever one you choose, make certain that you define it well, and then stick to your own plan. Bad grades happen when creativity gets out of hand. If Maid Creativity lowers your grade, then she is a haughty poseur whose masque has been stripped away and true identity revealed- Sloppiness! And people who cling to their right to be sloppy in the name of creativity are fast and loose thinkers. They do not realize what is in their own best interests. Don’t be one of them, kids! Do your papers the right way- the GoodTermPaper way!
Topics: Term Papers and Essays | No Comments »
Barack Hussein Obama
By Lawrence | March 7, 2008
Oh man. Did you know this? I did not, until recently, when someone introducing McCain at a political rally let it slip. Barack Hussein Obama.
Oh woman. This is terrible news. That Barack, the quintessentially eclectic savior of modern American politics, he just had to be THAT eclectic. Oh, Barack. Hiding nothing from your past. The marijuana use. Born in Hawaii, lived in Indonesia. Muslim Grandfather, chiefly agnostic father who you never knew…a Christian conversion in a huge metropolitan American church, to sanitize that history and make palatable to Americans…
‘No,’ I can picture Barack saying. ‘I will NOT go to the courthouse and get this middle moniker dropped, or changed. I yam what I yam.’
Great. just great. Let me ask you all something: why haven’t we heard of this middle name before? (or have we, and I am just ridiculously out of touch? I have missed entire pop culture and musical epochs while being ensconced in a cocoon of self inflicted emotion before, but…) Barrack Saddam Hussein Obama Bin Laden. Why isn’t Hilary harping on this?
I will tell you what I think: this little tidbit is being saved for the general election. We heard it first from the McCain camp after all, but the announcer just let it slip a little early. When this little nugget comes out…
will we be doomed to another Republican and perpetual war in the Middle East just because the guy is white with an Irish name?
Americans will see past that, not judge the book by its cover? hmmm, show me. show me when we have seen past something like that.
Topics: Politics | 2 Comments »
Hurry up term papers, part three
By Lawrence | March 4, 2008
Once you have committed to following your prof’s instructions, the best way to fulfill that commitment is through an outline. This does not need to be an elaborate document with Roman Numerals governing your margins; I have scribbled hasty, barely legible outlines on scraps of paper, the back of a business card, even. Sometimes, three or four phrases are all it takes to suggest to your mind what it should be accomplishing.
Remember, this is your blueprint for your own mind to follow- so of course, it must be written in your language! Scribbled phrases, abbreviations, and suggestive arrows, exclamation points and ellipses work for me. This is an ad hoc ‘language’ that I can compose on the fly, take down, and then refer back to and remember- at least for those brief couple of hours in which I will be writing the paper! I might not be able to make sense of it next month, but that doesn’t matter.
Some ideas for outlines for the way in which YOUR mind works:
color coded post it notes. If you had an assignment on Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo, you might use red for the character of Martin Decoud, blue for the fate of the imaginary republic, grey for notations about the author himself.
note cards, or alternatively, sheaths of butcher paper. note cards allow you to put down distinct ideas on each card, and you can use different colored pens to create the same concept differentiation in the Nostromo example. If you are having trouble organizing your paper, you can just write down all your ideas on cards, randomly, and then sit in front of them and figure out how they all fit together. Obviously, you need some time to to really ‘feel’ the cards, hovering and savant like on the floor, but if you’re in a hurry, just tear up a few scraps of paper and hastily move them around until they make sense.
Hey, you’re not making any progress just sitting there, tapping your pencil into the tab key, are you?
The butcher paper is a trick I heard about from writers of long, involved novels. Maybe that’s not your assignment, but 10 or 15 page research papers are not uncommon even at the undergraduate level. For a study of that magnitude, you need to have a clearly delineated relationship between all of your data bits. A large paper needs to be constructed on a wide, convincing base of various kinds of evidence. Some of this evidence should kindle the reader’s emotional side; for a persuasive paper, an introduction that tells a horror story about a troubling problem or an inspirational tale about something positive is very effective. But of course, this should be quickly followed up with hard facts and statistics.
Topics: Term Papers and Essays | No Comments »
Writing a term paper in a hurry, Part Two
By Lawrence | March 4, 2008
So what kind of game plan takes into account stress, hurry, fatigue and distractions? Let’s call it the GoodTermPaper bare necessities plan.
First, read your teacher’s instructions for the paper front to back, several times. Highlight, underline or otherwise indicate important points to follow. Even if you read nothing else, read those instructions! They are your best chance at getting an A, especially under time constraints. Even if your paper is sloppy, transitions poorly, meanders and bullshits its way through important points about which you have limited knowledge, you MAY still get a B or C IF your paper adheres to the teacher’s instructions. If the instructions say to discuss Napoleon’s military genius AND his economic and political blunders WHILE reflecting upon his legacy and contributions to the modern world, then:
You should open with a discussion of a battle and talk about the tremendous gains Napoleon made through that and other battles. Then you should move on to mistakes, and how it was such a shame that a great genius was so dumb about other important points. Throughout the paper, you should mention the Napoleonic law codes, which were a great boon to civilization. Even if you get some facts or interpretations wrong, your teacher will respect the fact that you respected HER plan for the paper. There is a very important reason why this is true:
The human brain has expectations. Your teacher has already seen the perfect paper for this particular assignment in her mind’s eye. She knows the essential story that it tells, and how it moves from one portion of that story to the next. The closer you can come to emulating this internal mental model of your professor’s, the higher your grade will be.
Of course, you could try to blow your teacher away with an outside the box concept- that might work and get you an A+, it might get a C. Some people admire creativity, while others consider it a nuisance and impediment to what they wish to accomplish. You should definitely try to formulate a judgment about your teacher’s character before going outside the box!
Topics: Term Papers and Essays | No Comments »