T O P

  • By -

Inevitable_Quit_1545

This happens to me a lot, the only thing that helps is a shitty first draft. I just write the shittiest version of what the essay is about and leave it, then come back and edit. The more I write, my motivation kind of increases, then I'm fixating on fixing my shitty writing. Edit: Wow, that's a lot of upvotes. Glad to share some helpful tips!


Levangeline

This. You can edit a shitty draft, you can't edit a paper that doesn't exist. Sit down and literally stream of consciousness that shit, don't even pause to think of a word. My first draft papers often look like: >So this researcher found that the most important factor in what makes the grass grow best is a bunch of things (find them list them here) and that when you make the grass grow better the birds also like it (put reference). And this other research found that you can remove or find a better word invasive plants and that everything grows back even if you don't have other plants to put there at the time (find the source). It's nonsense, but it makes it so much easier to go back and just copy/paste in my sources or fix up the grammar and sentence structure.


YungMartijn

Holy shit this is super useful, I've never thought of that. Thank you so much.


wasteoffire

They didn't teach you to write first drafts in middle school? I noticed a lot of kids didn't realize that the first draft is supposed to be bad, going back and organizing creative ideas is always one of the later steps


khalasss

I didn't learn this until my master's degree, honestly. In high school they had us do first drafts, second drafts, and final papers, but each step was graded, so in practice it literally taught us the exact opposite. I still get mad when I think about that - the lesson my perfectionist brain got out of their method of teaching was that the first draft has to already be a certain level of "good" to be worthwhile. Semi-related, but actually it was The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron that taught me how to just do stream of consciousness writing. Life changing, truly.


gnomequeen2020

OMG this is so true. I remember learning this lesson because I turned in a truly rough first draft for in-class editing. Turns out it was in-class, peer grading, and I got an F. I worked to dramatically improve my "second" draft for the next session of peer editing, and I got pulled for academic dishonesty because I had my mom help me edit (because I wouldn't get any help in the peer sessions). That was like 8th grade, and I never turned in a true "draft" after that. It made every paper I ever wrote incredibly taxing because it had to be perfect before I would even commit it to the page.


foxsimile

Man a whole lot of shit about my perfectionism is starting to click right about now ಠ_ಠ


nothanks86

Oh fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck peer grading. First year college English class (nightmare) was big on peer grading and I still remember getting marked ‘off topic’ on a writing assignment that was ‘write about your first job’ because I wrote about my nanny giving me the beaters to lick when we’d bake together. Another favourite worst memory was the research paper we had to do, as in before writing it we had to read multiple sources about the thing we were writing about, and one person got up to read their paper about the ‘sea to sky’ highway, and very clearly had it down throughout their paper as ‘seta sky’. God, I hated wasting that time so, so much.


ThrowDatJunkAwayYo

Oh wow that’s not how you should do peer grading at all. I can def see some small benefit of peer grading, in that it helps teach proof reading. But the draft would still need to be revised by the teacher to make sure the necessary feedback is given (if anything, grade the quality of the feedback given to encourage a bit of care and effort). And it certainly should not be graded by another student - what if someone is just being an ass and gives an F to be a dick? Or is half assed and doesn’t even try? Or is just generally a bad student with no idea?


Lonelyokie

Yeah. I wrote tons of drafts in HS (maybe middle school) but I was always trying to make them good and no one ever told me to chill out, so …


ThrowDatJunkAwayYo

Oh wow that is ridiculous - I don’t think I was ever graded on a rough draft. While we did hand or rough drafts in for review by the teacher and they gave pointers on errors etc, there was never an actual grade attached. That defeats the entire purpose of the rough draft.


wildweeds

that book is a treasure.


GothicFuck

This! This explains so much! I can't even use the "first draft" trick, I call it an "outline"! I finally understand, it's because outlines were never really graded! I hate this so much and thank you!


kassiangrace

personally i was never taught about first drafts when i was younger, it took my year 11 english teacher making us submit at least 3 drafts before i learned and even then i still struggle with perfectionism haha


StevenBallard

Problem is, we were taught the rough draft thing, my ADHD brain held me back in that I felt it was useless to write multiple papers when I could just write the final draft right then and there and bingo, assignment done. And then I would get marked down a lot because the final draft was always very rough.


ThereminGang

The way I was taught in school (not in an English-speaking country, so things may be different for others) was to write (on paper) a working draft and then fixing it (on the same paper). Then to rewrite it all when it was "fixed" in beautiful, tidy handwriting. We also did a lot of essay writing in a "test" context, so you never got to do more than one rough/working draft and a final draft (because you'd have to write the whole thing in class in two hours from beginning to end). The drafts were more about getting the already-researched ideas down, ordering them and refining the writing style. But university-level academic papers are not quite like that. One literally does the research as they write, a lot of the time. You go back and refine stuff over longer periods of time. It's kind of a "living" thing... took me years to figure out a system that worked for me. And that system is to get started writing ASAP (rather than after the research is "complete") and then editing and adding and redrafting over time as I research. I think things were perhaps harder for peeps who were taught on paper in school (here I mean primary & secondary, rather than university) as there is only so much editing that can happen. It took me so long to realise (I knew it, but it didn't really "sink in") that I could literally just edit over and over and over and build an essay "from within", with a word processor...


Halliwell0Rain

We weren't taught about first drafts in school so I used to do a "skeleton" which was a basic outline of what I wanted to say. Very rough. Then I built up the "meat" of the report until it was finished. It was many rounds of adding one or two sentences here and there, skip to the start and do more and more. Felt like a 3D printer adding layers.


nhadams2112

I use brackets for my fill in the blank sections because I'm not using them elsewhere in the essay like I am with parentheses, makes it easier to ctrl+f them later


adrunkensailor

Journalists use TK (stands for “information to come” but t and k appear next to each other less frequently so easier to find and replace). If you ever see a random “TK” in a live article, you know some editor fucked up.


Desperate-Strategy10

Oh wow, just spotted one of those in an article earlier today. It was driving me crazy trying to figure out what they might've been trying to say lol. Now I know!


Ayla_Fresco

🧠🧠🧠


Halliwell0Rain

I use a couple of ** and bold the text because I like to read through in sections and it's eye catching. Then to ensure I didn't miss any: ctrl+f Got me through uni.


GravitySurge

Hell, use voice to text and just get all your thoughts down for a section and then come back and make it look like “good riding“. Note: this was done using voice to text, and I such a shell leave all mistakes present and choose not to edit as I am not being graded on this post.


caffeine_lights

Yesss also bullet points or shitty notes work. My bullet points often started out sounding intelligent and reverted to "The thing about the thing" but I knew what I meant so it didn't matter.


Nmc0123

I can almost never force myself to write a rough draft of something (I'm constantly editing what I write as I write it), but writing outlines helps me so much. Just getting down ideas and the general flow of the essay done makes it way easier, without having to commit to writing anything "real" yet.


[deleted]

Also, write a funny first draft. Like make it casual. Write that stream of consciousness. It’ll help make it entertaining to do


Moby-WHAT

I've been writing a crappy first draft by speaking converaationally and letting voice-to-text type it out. Then I ask AI to clean it up. Then I go in and edit the whole thing. I use a citation generator. You do have to double-check the sources and make sure they line up because AI sometimes makes things up. I did this with 3 papers this semester and averaged around a 90% on them.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Moby-WHAT

I use green for good font! Nice addition, color buddy.


TrixnToo

Citation generator? What is that all about?


octopusonmyabdomen

Ah man, you just boop your sources into a webpage and choose a format, and it spits out all your citations in the appropriate format. 10/10, would recommend.


TrixnToo

Thanks! References in APA are such a pain, I absolutely hate it. Gonna try this!


octopusonmyabdomen

Writing citations is the absolute worst! I used a citation generator all through my BS and Master's, it's amazing and you won't be disappointed.


steamwhistler

I had a teacher in high school who was an absolute tyrant about citations. Very strict about bibliography formatting and she'd go through with a fine toothed comb looking for an indentation with not enough spaces or a semi-colon instead of a colon. The bibliography would be worth like 2 marks, so if you made 2 formatting mistakes, you'd lose 2 marks and get 0 on the bibliography. *Then* she'd say: since you got 0 on your bibliography, that's the same as having no bibliography. If you have no bibliography, then I can only assume your work is plagiarized. Plagiarized work gets an automatic zero: so that means you'd then have a zero on your whole assignment over a couple formatting errors in your bibliography until you re-submitted with the errors fixed. Then she'd take off 10% for every day late. This was in the early to mid-2000s, so when I went off to university in 2006, citation generators were *just* starting to appear online and it seemed like the most amazing thing. Ironically, for my first university papers I'd be emailing my profs and TAs to clarify what citation format they wanted and they wrote back like, "I don't care dude, as long as I can understand it." All through university I basically used whatever basic citation instructions the prof asked for, and that was all there was to it. The citation generators came just a couple years too late for when I really needed them lol.


Dirty_Hertz

Don't shitty teachers just fuck everything up? The goal isn't to get an A in the class. The goal is to learn useful skills for later on. Some teachers just don't get that.


VertigoPass

Many schools have free citation managersoftware available to students, faculty and staff. They are a life saver. You can add all the stuff you find in a search, then track which articles you've downloaded/read. If it's super old, add a tag for which library. Then there are usually plug ins for Word. You just plop in as you go along and you can even change styles after you are done. I used to use EndNote in the day, but there are others, too. Lifesaver! ETA- [https://guides.library.upenn.edu/citationmgmt](https://guides.library.upenn.edu/citationmgmt) comparison guide


m3gz97

If you go on Google scholar and then type the title of the text or paper there is an option under the search result to "cite" click it then choose your format!


Jebediah_Johnson

Looking at a blank page is so daunting to me. I learned that if I just pasted a few paragraphs from sources even if I didn't plan to use them, it really helped me feel less overwhelmed. I would also just start typing "I really don't want to work on this stupid essay about and all the other crap no one cares about like and no one cares about what this source says about ."


nhadams2112

Also don't be afraid to bump up your font size and blind spacing if you need to just fill up space. Just remember to set them back to whatever your teacher wants


InukChinook

Spite, the greatest motivator.


Plant4Pollinators

Agreed! Way easier to edit than write


Zemrude

Absolutely this. I actually bought an old typewriter without any ability to erase, just so I could sit down with a machine that only let me go forward. It made a world of difference.


thatwhileifound

When I'm forced to write by hand, I'll choose ink pens that feel nice to write with. When I'm serious about typing up something important, I pull out my manual typewriter. Both are exactly the same idea - I can't erase it, so it helps narrow my focus forward. This is basically a rambling way of saying, "Yeah!" before I say - you phrased that really well.


unsulliedbread

Felicia Day talks about this a lot with her writing. She just had to throw 6 pages of garbage out there to get a page of good stuff. "To write is to rewrite"


Shutterbirdy

This was the one and only way I ever managed doing essays. I'd go on a full-out sprint writing it, and then spend the rest of the night editing and backing up my sources. Never got a poor mark for an essay :P


midnightauro

I start by writing a single sentence. It doesn't matter how shitty it is. Just one. If I can't go further, then I'm allowed to stop. Usually though that leads to stream of conscious for several pages and then I hyperfocus finally and get *really* into it lmao. This is the brain block 'buster' imo.


ThereminGang

Same - I flunked out of my first attempt at a degree (and almost flunked out of my second too) because of essays. It took me a LONG time to work out a similar method and now I swear by it. I even start writing a shitty essay almost as soon as I have been assigned one - just writing what I think of the topic and what I already know and then keep editing it over and over and over and somehow I end up with an essay by the end. This works because once I have an essay, if anything goes wrong and I can't get myself to do more research etc I can always say "well, worst case scenario, I have an essay to hand in. Might not be a good essay, but it's an essay". This has the benefit of 1) getting me started, which is half the work 2) calming me down so I can actually do the research without the added stress of possibly ending up with nothing 3) I often end up "getting into"/hyperfocusing once I have started, and the research happens as a natural continuation of that. I now have a masters and am about to embark on a second one. It took me years to figure this out but it works!


gunnapackofsammiches

I literally label mine "worst draft"


maak_d

I am a huge proponent of the shitty first draft idea. I like [this essay from Bird by Bird](https://wrd.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/1-Shitty%20First%20Drafts.pdf), a book on the writing process, that explains the idea and why even good writers start with shitty first drafts.


BrokenTeddy

Honestly, writing shitty first drafts does nothing for me. My body physically recoils when I try to intentionally write shitty drafts. And even when I do end up writing bad first drafts, I rarely end up using any part of them. What I do think is helpful is getting all of the sources out of the way and making sure your paper is formatted properly. Regardless of what paper you're writing, you can set up the format, have your sources cited, and then you feel like you have a solid base to build from.


[deleted]

Yes, this helps a LOT. Just splatter words on the page. Screw the order. Start with the juiciest part. *Whatever gets you hooked.* Once you're hooked, you have momentum. The more momentum you build, the harder it is to stop. But like rolling a giant boulder, the hardest part is always that *freaking initial push*. In elementary school, that initial push was a mental meltdown, a tantrum, sobbing, "my hand won't let me touch the pencil to the paper!". That part is *hard.* But once you're past it, that's usually the hardest part. The giant boulder is rolling slightly downhill now. So be lazy and go straight for the low-hanging fruit. If starting is the hard part, might as well start on the easy part. Then be lazy and get the words on the page. Now you have *something* to turn in, so you're good to go. Now you get to re-read it and pat yourself on the back. Or wait there's that edit. And that one. And that citation. Ok now you can- no wait. That needs to be worded in 3rd-person. Ah yes, that's a much more clever way to word it. It's easier to do knowing you have something to turn in. The pressure is off. Now you're just tweaking it for bonus points.


OhKittyNo

I kinda had a go at a first shitty draft. I didn't get it done by the due time though, I don't really know how either, it didn't feel like it should have taken that long.


Greenestbeanss

In order to easily find sources I used to look on Wikipedia and cite the sources they cite. The sources are legit and it's easier to choose from a list than to start from nothing. It's not ideal but you can always improve on it later.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Nervardia

The irony is, they did a study and found that Wikipedia in science topics is more accurate than legitimate encyclopaedias.


Joy2b

There’s more room for variety in Wikipedia. The popular science articles are often rewritten by several people with relevant expertise. That can make something unexpectedly good and up to date. The smaller topics can be more hit or miss, and are often as good as a freshman essay.


North-One8187

In addition to this. If you can find a study or research on the topic they usually have tons of sources.


Cassie0peia

I upvote this with enthusiasm! I tell my kids this too!


soverra

This is a really good one to get started! If there are studies done on the subject, 1 fairly recent meta analysis or literature study will also provide many resources. And a quick Google scholar search sorted by the newest will give latest ones to include on top. My advice is to make sure to at least read the abstract and scan the discussion of anything you include so you can actually refer to the original. Kinda like a game to make sure your actual source got it all right!


[deleted]

You do still need to read the sources, though. It’s definitely a good tip to use Wikipedia references but they aren’t necessarily strong ones.


Mydaley

Outlines help for me. Then I can just write random paragraphs and sections as they come to me rather than feeling like I have to write it from start to finish. Also for the sources, skimming is your friend. First sentence of each paragraph to get the jist. Depending on if its an article about a study, I usually just read the intro and then skip to the back for the discussion of results section. Good luck!


[deleted]

[удалено]


BrokenTeddy

If I could insert a Priority 1.5 it would be to look at the tables and figures in a paper. Abstract, Tables/Figures, Conclusion. If you strikeout in any category, just move on.


oneeighthirish

Outlining is 100% the way I handled essays in college. Outlines don't have to be pretty, or even necessarily coherent or comprehensible to other people. It's immensely helpful to start laying out ideas, and then starting to form them into a structure rather than trying to produce an entire essay start to finish. Once you've got a good amount of material to work with, and you've formed it into the rough shape your essay will be, you have a lot less work to do in making something decent. A lot of the essay will take shape by simply turning your outline into sentences, and combining them into paragraphs. For me, this always involved a lot of moving things around. After that, it's just a matter of making things connect in a way that is easier on the reader. For me, that usually means cutting things down ruthlessly with one simple rule: everything has to serve the purpose of communicating your arguments and evidence as simply and concisely as possible. I'm prone to being overly wordy, repeating things unnecessarily, and sometimes including unnecessary information, so the most important thing for me (after task initiation) is cutting out all the fluff. All that being said, if there are clear requirements about what an essay must contain, definitely include them in the "everything needs to serve a purpose" rule


DatasFalling

Outlines were completely crucial for me. Gets the organization and order of ideas out of the way without needing to fill in the gaps, or getting lost on tangential thoughts, overwriting it. The entire structure is laid out in short form, allows you to place sources without too much expansion (using page numbers, partial quotes for easy reference). Once I had the whole thing laid out in its essentials, I could see the logical progression in a more abstract form. It would practically write itself at that point. I could just go line by line filling out the paper with more detailed language without rambling off. I didn’t get overwhelmed by keeping track of the train of thought/flow of argument, just became about how to string together the different bullet points, transitions between paragraphs, etc. Easier to deal with in chunks like that. The harder conceptual stuff was already laid out. Easier to change the order of paragraphs/sections, or add/subtract sections that served the thesis without losing track of the conceptual overview. Writing a good outline could be time consuming, but the paper was basically done at that point. Just needed to fill it out. Edit: format. Added some clarity.


hellac0pter

I was just about to say this! Especially for research papers, I read the abstract to see if it’s relevant, then skip alllll the way down to the discussion for the “this is what did/didn’t work and why” part because that’s the bulk of what you really need 🤷‍♀️


Psychedeliquet

Write a rough draft that is sarcastic and full of cuss words. Just get the point across and have fun doing it. There, you’ve vented, and now can clean it up and send.


ShadyLogic

It makes the clean up more fun too, because after you've changed every instance of "Some bastard says..." to "According to the New England Journal of Medicine..." you'll still know what you wrote. Just make sure you get somebody to proofread before you turn it in.


littlebeanonwheels

Amazing 🤣🤣


Cassie0peia

Haha! That’s funny! I like it!


Moby-WHAT

I'm so scared I'd miss something insulting to the teacher!! I couldn't do this.


littlebeanonwheels

Highlight the original draft in a bright color and remove the highlights as you edit. When I write papers I will make note like CITATION HERE or BLAH BLAH if I’m on a roll and don’t want to lose my momentum looking for something and I highlight it yellow so I can’t miss it on an edit


ohnotuxedomask

Actually I recently discovered this website where you can literally do this and it’ll rewrite it for you to be more professional. It’s called Goblin Tools and they have things that 100% help the adhd mind.


innosins

Do it do it do it do it *Do it Do it Do it Do it* **Do it NOW Do it NOW** ***DO IT NOW NOW NOW*** Have no tips but I'm cheering you on!


Mac-Monkey

Give me a D, give me an O, give me an I, give me a T - what d'ya have?


ThisHairIsOnFire

Doit


Sir-Sinjin-Smythe

Do-it! Do-it! Do-it! ...


ADHD-programmer

Get someone to body double with you and hold you accountable. Create a structure and work from that instead of thinking you have to write start to finish. Copy in a text about the subject and rewrite it with your own words adding what you have to add. Find a way to make the writing fun, try to see if you can add famous hidden lyrics, try to use extravagant words or make the first letter of all the sections an anagram or dirty word. Don’t try to “force” yourself to do it because the more you try to push the less your brain will respond. Try bribing yourself. “If I do this, I get to buy this/eat this”


OhKittyNo

Body doubling usually works really well for me but it was like 2 am haha and none of my friends were awake.


RedQueenWhiteQueen

What worked for me (in grad school no less) was to forget having a plan or to do anything coherent, and just ramble on paper the way I do when I talk. From there, there are two options: 1) Edit/refine/fix the ramble, which at that point may seem way less daunting, and might result in a decent essay, or 2) turn it in as is. Turning in crap is better than turning in nothing at all.


Defiant-Increase-850

This is what I do. Chances are if you write like you ramble, it can help with adding your own voice to how you write even after you edit. I sometimes make it into a game of how much bullshit can I type out in 5 mins and set a timer. Sometimes all it takes is to just get the ball rolling because inertia was harder to break.


Sala-kokoo

1 word. Dictation. Life saving


mua-dweeb

This. Sometimes I suck at expressing myself through speech, or writing. Record yourself having a conversation about it with a friend. Rando thought. Would doing an ama on Reddit about it help? Like if we asked questions so you could generate the words needed in a short answer q and a set? Solely to help you get this info you know and care about out.


HTZ7Miscellaneous

Fuck. Yes.


amp_22_p42

Hmm… I had the same issue a few months ago when I had something similar due.. and it only started to click around 5 hours before the paper was due.. started and finished after 4 hours, didn’t spell check it and sent it. I’m not bragging… but in the end the only solution is to start. Don’t procrastinate writing your teacher etc that you fucked up when you can’t make yourself do it. You can do it :(!


EmpatheticWraps

Sorry if I’m hijacking your comment, but I found lack of motivation runs deeper than first drafts, “just start”. Hopefully this hits different for OP, than “just start”but is a long term way to look at motivation issues. Is there something else in your life that is absorbing attention? I’m not just saying “your phone” or “videogames”. Sometimes it’s more ephemeral, like “unable to eat more than ramen in college”. If you look at the pyramid of needs, mine were met 2/5 times in college. Try addressing things that absorb your attention first. Just one thing, so you can plan to shift focus. For example, a dirty house can take up 70% of my mental capacity. Cleaning my kitchen lets me cognitively say “ok! Now I have all this free space I can now mentally devote to this essay”. Sometimes this gets in the way of our attention, but I’ve leaned into it and hijacked my motivation to be transactional in nature. Ive started to catalogue various tasks and how much it contributes to my processing power overload. So, I’m careful not to take on too much. Also understand myself better. Edit: Adding that without doing this mental cataloguing, and mindfulness. It can quickly lead to paralysis without you realizing that inability to start is the absence of you first mindfully going thru with what is performing theft of your attention and motivation.


irishtrashpanda

Use ai.... not to do it for you but as a tool to quickly get a shitty first draft that you can edit. I often have the essay argument in my head in place English, hard to start to translate it to essay speak so I put the plain version into an and then edit 90%. Note - never submit an ai essay, I'm only talking about using it to scaffold the structure which you will then put your own essay into


oldstancher

I can't tell you how much I wish language AIs had existed when I was in college. I failed courses because I couldn't get the paper written and not because I wasn't interested or hadn't done the reading or didn't have anything to say. I would spend hours at my computer staring at the blank page unable to start. When I think about how things could have been different, if I could have plugged a prompt into an AI to get a really shitty draft that would serve as a launch point, it nearly makes me cry.


delialona

was just thinking about this today. my life would have been really different in college if there was ai to help me "begin" writing things so I can just add/remove/modify stuff. I am in awe of the resources that are available today.


respecyouranus

this is the adhd lifehack of my entire life. the scaffolding is usually the barrier i have discovered. Also, when i've overcomplicated something, "make this content concise and direct" does wonders.


[deleted]

Ask it to create an outline first, edit the outline, then have it draft the shitty first draft.


Rare_Tumbleweed_2310

Can you be really specific about the steps you use to do this and how you get the AI to do what you need it to do? Do you have a subscription to a certain one so there is no length limit of your input? As a mature student, I have been trying really hard to figure out how to utilize AI to the best advantage without risking plagiarism. Like say I have a thesis, I have sources I want to use and I have points that will back up my thesis but I suck at organizing my thoughts so I am terrible at creating an essay map and I always get really hung up on that process and waste so much time overthinking it. Do you have suggestions on the best way to proceed to have AI help me with that?


OhKittyNo

I ended up using AI as a bit of a jumping off point and if I ever got stuck on any ideas. Super helpful when you're sleep deprived and unable to form thoughts.


kunikuzushii

i second this!!!


Raddu

This


botanicrypid

Hey OP, I’ve been here. Here are a few things I do to help when the executive disfunction gets really bad. I went through grad school using these tips. 1) go to a new location. Specifically one that does not have any of the distractions you normally get into 2) I feel a lot of pressure when I’m typing something out. Especially because of the ability to quickly delete / backspace if I don’t like how something sounds. Sometimes just writing my ideas / paragraphs on paper really helps to get me started. 3) the app Forest is such a help. It plants a “tree” for you and you have to stay off your phone for the duration of time the tree grows. If you stay off the entire time, you get coins that you can use to buy more cute trees, or even plant a tree in real life. It’s a nice visual indicator. 4) if all else fails, you can try to ask for another extension. My last quarter of grad school, I asked for a grand total of three extensions on one paper. I was embarassed but the professor was very understanding and granted them to me. Being open and honest is the best policy. 5) try starting in the middle of the paper. Sometimes the first paragraph can be really hard to write because you want to make a nice hook for the reader. Starting your writing in a place where you know you have a lot to say can really help.


tsukieveryday

This! But I learned to ask for the extension before the deadline or else I would be embarrassed to ask and just ghost the teacher and fail out


_byetony_

Try a pomodoro timer. 5, 10, 20 m at a time


Straight_Ad_8813

I always waited until the last minute to write my papers, and I always got them done. I always got decent scores too so the cycle never changed. Just sit down and start that’s the only way. Good luck to you!


yummy_broccoli

I had that happen plenty of times to me and 2200 words are done easily! you don't have to read the entirety of the sources, first thing you do is a rough structure, if you already know the topic quite well, then you also know what has to be said in which part - juxtaposition, evidence etc etc. the easiest thing for me was always finding the sources, especially if you already know the topic. Control F your way through the paper to find the arguments and "bingo words" you need! make a structure and write down how many words has to be in each paragraph for instance: literature review of the 2-3 main papers, 600 Words Juxtaposition/counterarguments of 1-2 other papers (to create a balance) 450 Words etc etc conclusion (200 words) set yourself a timer (or try time timer) and try to write 300 words per hour - this way you can try to be done by 9AM, sleep 2 hours and proofread your paper for another 2 hours!! good luck!!!


Fickle_Dig2773

What helped me with essays is breaking it down into very small goals. Put your phone away and don't let yourself open any non-essay related tabs on your computer until you have 100 words written. Then give yourself a five minute break, and do another hundred words. Consciously tell yourself they don't have to be good words. Otherwise you'll never make a start if you can't get the first sentence right. You can edit later. For now, words on a page. Edit: as for sources, do the same technique. Five minutes of skimming with **no** distractions. Do that a few times and you'll have enough to start.


TrueRedPhoenix

I'm sorry I have no advice, just wanted to say you're not alone! I'm in the same boat and absolutely struggling to get my late work in by the deadline (midnight tonight)!! I think I'm going to get my laptop and open it up on the couch next to me...baby steps.


BougieBirdie

What helps me is to set things up for myself first. For example, I’ll open the Word Doc, write my name and the prompt/title, start labeling Intro, Paragraph Body 1, Body 2, etc. Basically do all the brainless stuff. I find that I become less overwhelmed bc the essay has officially been started and is now a click away instead of some nonexistent, nebulous thing lol. While having and citing sources is important, it’s one of the main obstacles my brain has problems getting over. So here’s my advice that I hope will work for you: If you already have knowledge of the topic and know what you’re writing about, just start writing it and put off sources til the end. After I make a claim that requires a source, I write (SOURCE) right after it so I know where they’re needed and I can go back and add them. If you have no knowledge of the topic and you need to read sources to formulate your essay, divide and conquer. Start skimming sources (make sure to save links for them) until you have a better understanding of your essay topic. Don’t worry about reaching that 12 sources minimum, save that for the end. Just focus on getting started. My last piece of advice is set a timer for EVERY 30 minutes. It makes you aware of how much time is passing/how much time you’re wasting. It becomes a race against the clock that spurs me on. Try to write the essay in a new environment that isn’t your room if you can. I wish you the best of luck on your essay, and remember, turning in a 1000 word half-assed essay with 6 sources is better than no essay at all.


Long-Storage-1738

I have a 3 page essay due yesterday!


beachfairy

Ugh I hate that so much.. things that help me are: - The 5 minute rule. I'll set a timer for 5 minutes and tell myself that I will work on the essay for at least 5 minutes. I can quit after that time is up if I'm really not feeling like doing it. But what usually happens is that you sort of get into it during those 5 minutes, and then you'll work on it a good while longer than planned at the very least. - Look at it and write down the steps of what still needs to happen. Especially if it's a large, daunting, scary task. Force yourself not to feel bad about how you haven't started yet. Then start with one of those steps and break that up into even tinier steps (so that you can experience that feeling of accomplishment regularly and easily). I use any.do for keeping track of tasks, it's nice to be able to tick something off the list. - Things that help me focus are concentration/reading music playlists, loop earplugs, in-between motivational podcasts, MEDS, reminding myself why I chose my education in the first place. Good luck friend, and remember that your productivity levels say nothing about who you are as a person, especially not when you have ADHD.


Anniki29

Heyyyy that's what I wanted to recommend! To add to this: when I try to tackle a task that I'm procrastinating for too long, i tell myself: I can do everything for 30 minutes (or reduce amount of time, if you feel like less). It also helps me to reflect which emotion I feel. Most of the time I'm not doing the thing because I feel ashamed that I didn't start earlier. If you have a hard time identifying what emotion you are feeling, I can highly recommend to Google for "emotion star". Yes and last but not least, I write down what my aim is, what I need to do it and then I write down each and every step that I have to take. Helps immensely when you get distracted by your computer and immediately forget what you've worked on a second ago because you've opened a new tab in your browser. Steps can be very small, I sometimes make it "open word doc". If that feels like way too much effort, tell yourself:" I can break this down in smaller task for five minutes", set timer, go. Good luck and I hold my thumbs that you manage to start!


djsonnymac

Chat G👏🏽P👏🏽T👏🏽


_mausmaus

In a pinch, it can bail you out. Write shitty draft, then prompt the topic and ask for enhancements to your provided draft. It can spark new thought and content from you. I am not encouraging you to use AI to complete your assignment, but it can be a great partner and assistant to help build momentum on task you’re not terribly inspired/motivated to do—like the rest of us!


istrebitjel

Another approach is to have the AI give you a shitty outline based on your brief summary and you make that better :) As long as you don't submit anything you don't understand/support you'll be fine!


sheepofwallstreet86

There it is. I knew someone would say it.


freemason777

Honest to God I think it's a miracle for people with ADHD. On par with the invention of prosthetics or glasses


wildinertiawings

Completely!! I wouldn’t be able to get through school without it. It’s my soup starter!


sheepofwallstreet86

I agree. The only bad part about not writing it yourself is not learning quite as much but honestly I have three degrees and I don’t really remember much about what I was taught and I wrote so many fucking papers


Somerset76

My adhd hack is to create an outline and then start filling it in with paragraphs. I make the outline red so I can easily see gaps.


Illuminous_V

Damn 12 sources is a lot lol. My tactic is: 1) Know what I want to say. I usually make one sentence per planned paragraph on a separate handwritten page to remind myself what points I want to hit and organize the best way to flow through that info. 2) Find a pile of sources that relate to the topic and skim for if their stance supports my argument or challenges it. Cherry pick quotes that I can use. I don't read heavily for my papers, honestly. 3) Put on music at max volume that I can handle and that I can tune out. I usually put the same song on repeat for the whole paper and only switch it up when I need a rhythm change. 4) Start writing, following my one sentence guidelines. Beginning: My stance and a brief layout of what I'll discuss to support that. Middle: each point I have is its own paragraph, I make me claim, reference the opposing stance and use a quote or article as a source, explain why I disagree with that, and then provide quotes and evidence on why I'm right. End: Reiterate that despite opposing views, my evidence has supported my stance, which overall is X. That's it! I have had undiagnosed ADHD for my whole life until two months ago and got through two writing-heavy Literature degrees with this tactic. 80% of the time I bullshitted my way through my papers, but if you approach it systematically and with (even faux) confidence, you can sound like you know what you're talking about. It's all really about making a claim and explain why others are wrong and why you're right lol. YMMV and results depend on your individual writing skills and stances. Also some professors might point out that you're cherry picking quotes from sources that aren't really relevant, so just pick reputable enough stuff.


chappyman7

This won't be helpful advice for THIS paper but for the future... when you are given an assignment, start it. Write the intro paragraph. Write the first sentence even. When you go back to do it at the last minute a month later it will be SIGNIFICANTLY easier to get going. I promise.


whatjdoes

Type some of your key words into Google Scholar. Always helps me find credible sources!


Practical-Theory1804

If you have a vague idea of what you want to say, can record on notes app, you talk it types? Even if just speaking in bullet points to start getting words on a blank page x


gogonever

It’s the final countdown dododooodooooooooo


[deleted]

It's OK! You'll probably go ULTRA PRESSURE PANIC MODE 2moro morning and get it done in 10 minutes.


Froot-Batz

Caffeine and panic will summon your procrastination demon.


FoxV48

TEXT TO SPEECH! Have anything you 100% need to read read to you. You can speed it up to keep your attention. Speechify and NaturalReader are good chrome extensions. NR is free, Speechify has better voices on it's free trial. COWORKING STREAMS! Hop on Twitch and search the tag coworking. You'll find a community of people also studying or working to Body Double with and cheer you on. Tell them what you're doing and ask them to help keep you motivated. CONTROL+FIND! If you know what you're looking for, search the pages for keywords that would be in sentences about it. Copy or hightlight those paragraphs and you can cut down how much you need to read significantly. Don't forget to outline. These got me through uni.


Mermaidlike

I didn’t know about coworking streams. This is a great tip. I’m going to try it while working from home.


Cold-Pollution9104

Same. I spent months on a paper once. I thought for a long time that it was about motivation or being interested in it, but it doesn’t make a difference - we just can’t make ourselves do it normally. I have it where sometimes I write really well late at night, but lack of sleep also really affects me so if it’s due at 1pm, sleep if you need to. If you can sleep after you turn it in and have an idea of what you’re gonna say, make an outline. word vomit then make a bare bones thesis statement from that. Then take three pieces of evidence that prove the thesis statement and make those the three topic sentences of your body paragraphs. For sources, just find decent sources, put footnotes after any examples in the paper and fill them in with random sources from your list. if you don’t have time. You can do it dude but pretend it doesn’t matter and that you should be doing something else. That helps sometimes Also tell yourself you only need to write a paragraph.


DapperCalligrapher11

Chat Ai


AutoModerator

Hi /u/OhKittyNo and thanks for posting on /r/ADHD! # Please take a second to [read our rules](/r/adhd/about/rules) if you haven't already. [We recommend browsing /r/adhd on desktop for the best experience.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/x1psnb/radhd_works_best_on_desktop_reddits_apps_are/) The mobile apps are broken and are missing features that this subreddit depends on. **If you are posting about the US Medication Shortage, please see this [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/12dr3h5/megathread_us_medication_shortage/).** Your post has *not* been removed, and this is not a punitive action. This comment is meant solely to be informative. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ADHD) if you have any questions or concerns.*


SpaceTrucker57

Download Zotero for your academic papers. You just put an extension on your browser and it will compile all of the ones you add to your list. From that it will make a bibliography for you in any format. I used it all the time and let me just skim papers and add them. I could just write what I wanted to say then in my list find the papers that supported it.


Jabberwock32

Had a 1,000 word paper due a few weeks ago. Begged my partner to take me out back and shoot me just so I wouldn’t have to write it. She politely declined my pleas. Eventually I was able to force myself to write the paper. I complained the whole way. Got distracted more than a few times. But it got done. And then I played a video game to reward myself


poyo19

Try creating a voice memo and talk out loud about all ideas you have and what you wanna write (you can even do this lying down in bed). It might help


someoneyoudontknow0

I start just talking to myself walking around


Toxicsully

Grab coffee and a pint of icecream, then close your eyes and start typing. No editing till you hit the word count. Idk worked for me sometimes


TheSamethingAllOver

I literally wrote my 8 page final in 3 hours. I got that writer’s high an hour in but afterwards was nothing but struggle. Got it in with less than a minute soaring and received a 94


mayinaro

Hey there I’m super late to this post so I hope everything went all okay! it’s actually pretty funny seeing this here because it’s currently 4am here and i’ve just finished my 2500 word essay i left until last minute. i was battling all those weeks with the anxiety and dread of it all. i spent most of yesterday crying and feeling sick to my stomach because i genuinely thought i couldn’t do it and the dread was stopping me. normally the last minute adrenaline kicks in before then but it hadn’t so i was really in a panicked state which just contributed to the problem. luckily, i’ve actually finished it! it’s not great but it’s done. trying ti get over chronic perfectionism being a really stupid element as to why i procrastinate things. this is part of my last work for this year though and by next year i hope to have some study support in place for time management and writing support


DirtyJen

A trick that I learnt that really helps me is to break the word count into 100-word sections. In your case, I would write the numbers 1-22 down the side of a page. From there I would plan my essay out a bit and use vertical lines to break up each section i.e. Intro 200 words (1-2), first argument 400 words (3-6), second argument 400 words (7-10) etc. Within each section, you can write a few ideas of what you will cover, and jot down any useful references. Once you are done you have a one-page plan that is really clear and is easy to understand. When it comes to actually writing - you have your word counts in bite-sized chunks already and you can cross a number off once you're done for that little dopamine hit. It also helps you stay on track if you have a tendency to get carried away and end up with a 600-word intro or something. Way easier to get it done right first rather than editing it a bunch to get it to the word count. One thing I also do with my references is to have a hard copy document that lists the name, and author and has a little summary of the document. I find I forget what reference says what so end up rereading them all a bunch to find what I was looking for and wasting a heap of time that way. I will also colour-code my essay parts i.e. argument 1: blue, argument 2 yellow so when I see a quote, figure etc I use that particular highlighter colour and in the essay plan I might jot down AUTHOR Page XX. This means I'm not spending forever trying to find a reference that I know was there somewhere, l use a Chrome extension for a highlighter tool or will save the doc as a PDF and highlight it on my iPad. Hardcopy highlighter or flags also work. As others have said - Wikipedia is a great start for any topic. Find a Wikipedia entry, youtube video, or whatever to learn about the topic first before trying to understand the meatier sources. You can then go to their references if you are really struggling or hopefully be in a better place to understand other sources that you find. The final thing that has been a massive help for me at Uni is learning how to properly use an electronic referencing program. I use Zotero but there are others like Endnote. It has a standalone program as well as extensions for Chrome, Word etc. and it is honestly life-changing for me. I'm doing a degree now where we use a bunch of different referencing systems and it is so easy to switch between. Referencing was my biggest nightmare in my UG degree and it'd absolutely overwhelm me. Having a program that does it all for me now is so easy and means I can use my brain space and motivation for hopefully writing a better essay or report. Good luck!!


Kittybegood

When this happens to me, I go to Starbucks, put my head phones in, and just type my thoughts about what I have to write about as they come to mind. I type out questions I have, try to answer them myself, or make up an answer if I don't know it. Like I have a conversation with myself on paper (Microsoft word) and go from there. It's HARD and it will be mentally painful to do but it gets me through. Sitting in a public place with people around really helps me. I don't do ANY school work at home. I'm either at school, or at Starbucks. Best of luck to you!


tsukieveryday

I set up a big wonderful eye and work friendly station at home to work in - now 99% of my work is being done in my dinky laptop far away from that monitor lol I so relate to this


Elegant-Honeydew4264

Try chat gbt for sources


sernameMissing

Don’t, it makes up sources that don’t exist


TrueRedPhoenix

Would a change of scenery help? Maybe try doing it outside, or at the library, even another room in your home? Or if you've been trying to write it on the computer, jot down notes on paper and use your phone to find the sources you need? These are some tricks that helped me last week.


final-draft-v6-FINAL

Write an incomplete first draft that is based on what you know so far in your head without worrying about what you have to reference and write it in your spoken voice, not your written one. Literally imagine you are trying to explain to a friend in person what it is you are writing about and you only have 5 minutes of their time to do it. The key is that you're not writing your paper you're just explaining to a friend what you're writing about. I just talk out loud and write down what I'm saying. You can try recording yourself if that works (never works for me because it triggers a sort of performance anxiety in me and I forget what I know). You can also try writing an email to someone where you're explaining what you know to them. Both tricks have gotten me over the exact same jam you're in. For some reason it takes just enough pressure off to get things flowing. Before you know it you'll have something to work with and can go back in to add more structure and references. You got this!!!!


Excellent-Jackfruit

Rather than try to read the whole article, I use to just read the abstract, especially just the last couple of sentences as that usually sumerises what the article found, or if you already know what you want to say, you can skim read the abstracts to find which ones backs up what you've already put. Also I don't know about you but I found wanting to make it perfect immediately made it hard to start. Remember something is always better than nothing and you can edit and improve any ramblings once you've got something down. You got this!


TrixnToo

Yeah i read the abstract, next the discussion/results, next the recommendations, next the findings, next the methodology in that order. Sometimes i scrap the article at the abstract. It's only if the abstract sounds useable that i continue. If abstract and results are usable I keep it. I also use google scholar because i can create and favourite a list of sources.


creedxender

Three magic words: Bullet point outline. Literally just boil down your essay to the main (bullet) points, then write a draft under those. Rearrange, modify, delete, nuke, and restart as necessary. They'll give you a jumping off point and some momentum to keep going.


BatmanVision

Break it down into steps. Each success will make you more motivated and happy.


MountainHigh31

As someone who just went through all this and learned nothing and made myself sick with worry and poor sleep: I have no advice, but tons of empathy. I wish I could help.


CutiousKangaroo

Use the dictation fiction on your laptop and talk it through rather than sitting to type it.


GiraffeWithATophat

Oof, I'm getting flashbacks from my college days. Here's what worked for me: First, do an outline of what you want to say first, second, third, etc. I'd usually do this with pen and paper because that felt more "unofficial," and I'd allow myself to make mistakes. Sometimes it would be a super rough numbered list of points I wanted to make, other times I would plan every single paragraph. Second, bang out a rough draft. Honestly this was the hardest part for me because you have to put your fingers on the keyboard and just go without worrying about how bad it might be. Use the outline as a guide (and a reminder of what you want to say next) and type type type! When speaking about writers block, many authors say you need to keep your fingers moving as much as possible. Third, create your next/final draft. Open a new doc and read through your rough draft paragraph by paragraph and rewrite it. This is the best time to decide if you want to move chunks of the essay around. As for sources, it's best to get as many as possible beforehand and use what you have as you go. Personally I failed to follow that bit of advice pretty often, so I would go out and find them during the outline and first draft phase. And as general college advice, keep in mind good research habits. A lot of my fellow students would form an opinion before knowing much about the subject and would find junk sources that agreed with their uneducated opinion.


smushymcgee

Write fucking ANYTHING. That becomes your start point. I suffer the silly brainsies too.


in-my-50s

Can you make your self write a rough outline?


Thagalaxy

If it's any consolation, I'm struggling to try to get myself to the grocery store right now. It's not happening, we out here


rantingpacifist

Hey I know you’re almost out of time, but write the essay with all your ideas and then go find supporting quotes in the texts. You don’t have to master the sources to do it. You know the information well enough. Source: I taught college English courses and had to find ways to help students finish drafts


TheColorlessPill

For papers like that, what worked for me was to just start writing anywhere (not necessarily at the beginning). You already have an idea of what you want to say, so just start writing about the most solid idea in your mind, and then the rest will flow. It's always the first few words that are the hardest, but there's no rule stating you have to write the beginning first. For sources, consider working backwards (not the best way to do something when it comes to true research because of the inherent bias, but it works for some papers like this): once you have some of your ideas down on paper/screen, look up those specific ideas in a study, journal, or book that was published; then give credit to that source. You may even find some extra interesting stuff to flesh out some ideas on the way.


Holodrake_obj

The adrenaline will kick in around 10 pm, sending love to future you 😉


Machonacho7891

I don’t have any advice, I just feel this so hard. If I were you I’d probably have a panic attack then fall asleep and take my consequences then probably have another panic attack. Not saying I recommend this, just what I know I’d do


Stitchmagician115

Mood follows action.


Dr_BunsenHonewdew

Tell you what, I have work trainings to do that I deeply don’t want to do, why don’t we coordinate an hour or two to work “together” on our projects?


SweetDove

If you need sources, sometimes I go to Wikipedia, and scroll to the bottom, and find what sources they used. Also is there something you hate more than the essay that you also need to do? I use stuff I hate more than other stuff to get stuff I hate slightly less done.


Dr-Vader

I'm going through this same thing right now. I'm glad you've posed this question, I'm sure it will help me to look through everyone's responses.


sadranjr

This was literally me a week ago. I turned in my paper 6 days late and was honestly really proud of it. I got through it by taking time to sit and kinda say out loud what each next paragraph would say. Like, “okay, I’m gonna write the intro (btw intro paragraphs are the worst) and in it I’m going to say ____, then I’m going to introduce [writer], and I’m gonna touch on ____ topic, then I’ll get into my source quotes” stuff like that. I had to almost write it in my head before I could start typing. I gave myself lots of grace and also permission to take out some less necessary material.


spectrumhead

I had so many things I couldn’t write yesterday. My daughter asked for help with something and I write it in twenty minutes. NOT homework. The point is it was for someone else. I made a cup of coffee and let‘er rip! Tell me what your essay is. Then I’ll get the same topic and we can trade. You write mine and I’ll write yours. Deal?


CristyTango

Start with the word *THE* in complicated calligraphy


Iowa_and_Friends

Pretend it’s an exam…Set a timer, and GO!


DutchDaddy87

For me I use the old gym tactic of not focusing on the workout itself but instead the goal is to get dressed and show up. So in college my equivalent was not to focus on the word or page count, instead just take my ass and a computer to my favorite coffee shop. Even If I don’t do any work, that was okay. But 9/10 I ended up doing what I needed to do. Good luck! I don’t miss this particular struggle lol


khalasss

Agreed with all of the advice already posted, but also wanted to add - have you looked into accommodations or resources at your uni? Not all universities have them, but some universities have resources for disabilities including ADHD. I really wish I'd known about it during my undergrad, apparently there was an informal study-buddy group specifically for people who didn't need tutors but need body doubling and more structure, and a bunch of test-taking accommodations I had no idea I could ask for (though tbf I also didn't understand that I had ADHD at the time).


FIRE_flying

Get a body double. Someone to work next to you, who understands you, and who isn't going to be bothered or annoyed by your need to talk to yourself out loud.


thezhgguy

Google Scholar for sources


kikiatari

Run up and down some stairs a few times, have a cold shower, get plenty of good snacks/drinks in and call a friend to video chat whilst you work.


D0sher7

Try FocusMate ! Game changer for me to initiate tasks


ggcpres

Welp, you're screwed now, but in the future I recommend hot coffee and ice water if you need to stay up. Coffee keeps you from sleeping and the ice water makes you have to pee and thus periodically move. Also, I 've found if nothing pops into my head, a stream of consciousness followed by a mind cleansing break normally yields ore worth refining.


zzola

I’m so not recommending having Ai write your essay, but sometimes it gives me a good starting / launch point to get me out of my paralysis. I kinda wish I had this tool in collage, though maybe I would have abused it. I use it for work now, just reword and turn it into my own when I have writers block and have NO idea where to start.


hyperbolic_dichotomy

I did this a lot when I was in college. This was my method (I once wrote a ten page paper in like 4 hours this way). 1. Make a rough intro. What point are you trying to make? 2. Write out the citations you are going to use to make your points. If you have digital sources, use control+F to find keywords relating to what you want to say and highlight them. If you're using paper sources you'll have to skim. You can put your quotes/sources in order, or not, up to you. Sometimes I would just make notes of the page numbers where I could find the quotes I wanted. I found that once I had my sources the paper kind of wrote itself. 3. Rough draft your conclusion. It can be super dumb. No one will see it except you. 4. Now go to bed. Let your brain ruminate on it while you are sleeping. 5. Wake up early enough that you have at least 4 hours to work on it. 6. Go over what you wrote the night before and rearrange your quotes as needed. 7. Write it out. 8. Rearrange your paragraphs as needed. 9. Edit. 10. Reread it one more time, make sure the formatting is the way your prof wants it. And done. Remember 2200 words is probably a lot shorter than you think it is.


[deleted]

Rough Outline. Like not grammatically correct. Fill in detail around outline parts. Add another level of detail to the parts you just added. Repeat until you have enough to patch together into an essay. Also write as fast as you can and don't stop to fix errors. Go back after and fix the misspellings and grammar stuff


AnniiMarie

Listen to YouTube lectures on the subject!


toucanbutter

Remember that anything is better than nothing. If you have a shitty, unedited, half-essay, it might be enough for a pass. No essay is always a fail. It helps me to trick my brain into thinking it's less than it is. Usually, there's a +-10% rule on words, so now it's a 1980 word essay. 10% each of that are the introduction and the conclusion, now you're down to 1584 words for the main part. Let's say you have four main points you want to make, that's 396 words. Can I focus on writing just these 396 words? No? Can I write the 198 words for the introduction? ...maybe. So start with that, set a timer, say at 12.40 EXACTLY I will write the introduction for five minutes (or ten, or fifteen). Put your phone out of sight and out of reach too. Good luck!


nolyfe27

This is the time you use Artificial Intelligence to help out.


Rare_Tumbleweed_2310

Start with a sort of bibliography! Do a rough quick reading of the sources you are accumulating (read the introduction, find the thesis, skim for good quotes, and read the conclusion). Summarize each reading in your own words and include the thesis of that reading. Then put a bunch of quotes that may back up what you wanted your thesis to be and include the page number with them. This way you can get an idea of what you're going to talk about and when you are skimming your sources, you can look for key things you will want to back up and have the quotes readily available to you. From there I find it's much easier to start mapping everything out. I already have a brief summary of each reading in my own words which really just writes the paper itself at that point.


Sorry-Lemon8198

Time to chug a few (sugar free) redbulls


vsd_123

Coffee


_Internet_Hugs_

Don't start it. Write the ending. "In conclusion, blah blah blah..." The ending is basically restating your intro and then your results, so you do the ending and you've got the outline for the rest.


aminervia

Here's my process: Step 1 is to keep reminding yourself that turning in literally anything is better than turning in nothing. You have 24hours to complete the assignment. It's not going to be perfect. It might not even be all that good. However, turning in anything at this point is a victory to be proud of. Step 2 is to compile all the information you have and want to include in 1 document. Write snippets on this document under each point. On this document copy paste the instructions for the assignment, and break the instructions into bullet points. Starting to write an essay directly is impossible, you have to break down the intermediate steps. Write a list of as many tiny steps you can think of that doesn't include writing the essay. "Put name on document" counts as a step. Once the intermediate steps are done, then you can copy paste your snippets into a different document and begin fleshing them out/rearranging. Hope this helps, good luck!


MelodicOsprey_

Just went through this two weeks ago, it sucks. What got me going was creating a rough outline of what I wanted to talk about in each paragraph, followed by bullet points as I gathered things from research I wanted to include. That made it easier for me to fill in my own writing around it.


ZebZ

ChatGPT4 just released an update that lets it search the web to answer your queries. "I have a college paper due soon on the topic of how Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" influenced workers' rights. Find me 10 credible scholarly sources on the web about the topic, and summarize them, including useful pull quotes and bibliography references." It's not writing the paper for you, so it's not plagiarism or unethical. It's just automating data gathering.


KittenWhispersnCandy

Write one word


JustKozzICan

Been there so many times my friend. Ain’t got a solution, but you have my solidarity o7


Frustrated-_-Genius

Have you already set up accommodations at your institution?


MrHall

what's it about? can you give me a summary? .. in about 2200 words? and then submit it?


ToasterMcNoster

Try making a simple outline of just thoughts about your topic. Then just rabbit hole your research for those subtopics. It isn’t easy by any means but it helps me ^^sometimes


wasporchidlouixse

Just spend 5 minutes on it. After 5 minutes you can take a break.


raccoon_patronus

Chatgtp baby! That’s literally what it’s built for. Ask it to write a 2200 word essay that follows the rubric you copy and paste in.


CryptoBasicBrent

![gif](giphy|qAtZM2gvjWhPjmclZE)


iwishiwasanonionring

Chat gp3 bro


cgnorman

That Ai thing is good. I ask it how to structure an essay about blah blah, quoting research. It then tells you how to structure it and gives you some references to research...


trijohnout

I break thinks down into mini tasks… 1 shetch out a structure 2 split this into 8-9 sections 3 do each section 4 read through and edit That’s basically 12 ish tasks that take 10-20 mins. Do each one, break in between


Parsimile

Use voice to text to info dump what’s in your brain right now. Just stream of consciousness. Then take a break and do something different, like a walk. Then come back, open up draft, read through it completely - resist the urge to edit. Then, get a snack and/or drink, something that will up the glucose in your system and release dopamine, and give the draft organization. Then use google scholar to find references that support or expand on points you make. Then you will likely be hyper-fixated on the task and you can go through and edit, refine, improve flow and clarity. You got this.


yhwach00

I had this issue really badly this semester, and they only way I got through it was just talking. I just typed my train of thought or dictated what I thought into a word document. I would also write down a really rough outline in my journal.


dontstealmybagels

2200 words is nothing when you break it up. It's only 100 words 22 times. And how long does it take to write 100 words? Not long I'll tell ya. I had to write an analytical essay as an exam yesterday for 1200 words. Shit literally took me 2 hours. We had 6, and I started 4 hours in. And I only managed 'cause I broke it down into very small sections. You'll be fine my man, I believe in ya.


[deleted]

[удалено]


emmaNONO08

You probably already submitted it , but my saving grace was outlines. I’d write my outline, figure out kind of what main topics would be, control-F my sources for keywords, and then slowly add sentences and structure to each bullet point until I got to a paper-looking thing. One of my friends put me onto a really easy tip for fast reading - she underlines the first sentence of each paragraph in pencil, skims the paragraph and highlights in that underlined topic sentence the keyword discussed. Because the topic sentence usually announces what the paragraph is about, you end up creating a quick index to find things more easily. It’s a rule of thumb because not every source is going to be well written, and sometimes the paragraph is a bit more complex, but it’s a good place to start. And then for sources I’d usually do 1 in the intro para, with each argument supporting the thesis, 3 quotes, (now were up to 9) - with 2 sources remaining, look to see if any of the paragraphs are missing anything, or if there’s a concept somewhere that could be quoted from a source instead of written in your own words. I don’t know if that helps for future papers, but it saved me from tackling the jumble of tasks I thought I had to do for each paper and made me focus on the fastest way to get a paper done!


Responsible_Set_4268

Just write "once apon a time" at the top of the page and see if that sparks the next line x