How long have you known you had a term paper due? Three weeks? A month? Even longer? If you’re anything like most students, you probably put off starting your term paper until the deadline was way too soon; if you’re starting your term paper a week before its due, consider yourself in good shape. At least it’s not the night before! Writing a term paper in a week is absolutely possible, especially if you follow these 3 tips.
Make a time budget. Before you even get started writing and researching, make a plan. Block off a few hours of each day for working on the paper; during those times, you should turn off your phone, your TV, and anything else that can distract you (it’s a good idea to go to a library or somewhere else that’s designed to help keep you focused). Plan to spend at least one day researching, at least one day planning your paper and gathering your thoughts, and at least two or three days writing. You want to make sure that you don’t try and do research while writing your paper, because you could discover something critical in your research that can change your whole paper.
Use an outline. An outline is a great way to structure your paper, get some initial ideas down, and help keep you focused. You can spend a whole block of time writing an outline; it’ll save you a lot of time over the long run. When creating your outline, try to think about how you want your paper to flow, and how to keep your ideas neat and focused. The day you choose to do your outline would also be a good day to perfect your thesis; your thesis is the most important sentence in your paper, and having a good thesis statement can really make all the difference in your grade.
Be sure to allow time for editing. You’ll want to give yourself at least a day to edit, revise, and re-write your paper. You might have amazing ideas in your paper, but they won’t come through if your paper is sloppy and full of errors! Some say that the editing process is the most important part of paper writing, so it’s worth budgeting extra time for revision. One good trick to help you edit your paper is to read the paper aloud to yourself; this helps you notice any errors that you might have missed, and it will also tell you if a sentence or paragraph sounds awkward or needs more development.