On Writing Papers

When I started college I hated research papers. I found them boring and technical and entirely irritating. I took a Freshman Writing course because it was suggested, and I figured it would be good preparation for the rest of my college experience. It was relatively useless because my AP English teachers in high school had been so incredible, but I did learn something towards the end of the semester.

We were to write a research paper as our final. My teacher decided to be nice and have it due the last day of finals (even though that was technically against the rules), and I, like many freshman, procrastinated like the best of them. I had managed to make it through my entire history of schooling writing papers the day before (sometimes even the morning of) the day they were due. I suppose a part of me assumed this would be similar.

I was entirely wrong. The morning the paper was due I had two, perhaps two and a half extremely rough pages. I don't remember the topic of my essay, but I do remember deciding that the last day of finals was going to be completely devoted to writing that paper.

I couldn't do it. Thanks to merciful angels in my life like my neighbor who sat by me and proofread while I wrote, that same neighbor who drove me to campus so I could turn in the essay (which I finished writing in the car), my classmate who printed my essay off for me after several failed attempts on my part, and my professor who let my classmate throw my essay into the box as he was picking it up to leave. That was the most stressful essay of my life, and I can't tell you how many pages it was (only that it was shorter than the minimum page requirement), I can't tell you what sources I used (though I can tell you that I used a citation generator to hurriedly get my sources into a semblance of a Works Cited page), and I can't tell you what I got on it, but I can tell you that I haven't turned in a paper that close to the deadline in over a year and a half.

Flash forward to my junior year: I took a creative writing class and, at the beginning of the semester, my professor told me that what we would learn would apply to scholarly writing in addition to creative writing. He told us that if we applied the principles we learned that semester, we would never have a hard time reaching a page limit again. Rather, he told us, we would find it difficult to stay within the limit. I didn't believe him. My entire junior year I felt very similarly about research papers as I always had, and I was always relieved to be at the minimum page requirement.

This year, though, something is different. I took another creative writing class from the same professor and, while he didn't give us the research paper comparison this time around, I feel like I finally understand what he was saying last fall.

As an English major I write a lot of papers. I take tests too, because that's what the university requires, but I write papers. And, because the university requires it, I write at least one research paper per class every semester (with the exception of Creative Writing). I always dread that assignment a little bit, but I've been surprised this semester by how much easier writing has become.

I have two 8-10 page research papers due this semester, one of which I have already turned in, the other of which I am currently taking a break from writing (so I'm obviously still not perfect at the no-procrastination deal). In the one I turned in already, I found myself cutting things out because I didn't have room to explore them in the allotted space. From how this current essay is going, I think I'll find myself doing the same thing. I guess my professors do know what they're talking about. I'm so glad to find out that they were right.