10 Page Papers: A Tutorial

In honor of finishing grad school and, as a result, of never again needing to write a research paper against my will, I offer this tutorial, drawn from the well of my experience, for future and present paper-writers. Please take with a grain of salt.

When confronted with a 10-pager, one is likely to panic. There are three sure antidotes:

1. If confrontation occurs at the beginning of the semester in the form of a syllabus, one may shove thoughts of the paper to the back of the mind.*
2. Having exhausted the first option, Wikipedia is a reliable source of inspiration. Search all wherefores and whodunits and become thoroughly distracted clicking from link to link to link investigating your potentially awesome subject.** 
3. Make an outline of points, each to cover a single paragraph (see below for details). Include the introduction and the conclusion to make it look longer.

One should plan to have each paragraph take a whole page. This leads to only having to discuss, at most, eight points, having at least two of which are merely extensions of their predecessors (i.e. "in the past century" and "in the future century" or "outside of a cow" and "inside of a cow"), and having one of which covers controversies.

The addition of controversies to one's paper is quite beneficial. They nearly always have the marvelous effect of taking two or more paragraphs to hammer to death since there is an ample and affordable supply of opinions, many of which can be reworded in half a dozen ways. This also has the convenient effect of making up for those inevitable half-page paragraphs (however well-intentioned to be a full page) caused by sudden attacks of indifference.

It is well known that the introduction and conclusion, being nearly void of facts and requiring much original thought, are the two most difficult paragraphs to write. The so called "body" of the paper is less trying. Please take note of the following:

Introduction:
One must always begin with a quote or a story. Nearly any quote will do, as one only needs to follow up with the correct sentence, smoothly rolling out the words to bring the reader around to the topic. For the creatively inclined, stories from out of one's head are easiest. Those of noncreative natures should not venture to attempt this as requests for "crackers to go with all this cheese" may result. Instead, a conveniently poignant and/or comical fictional or factual story may be borrowed from someone else. Additionally, in the thesis statement, one must be careful never to acknowledge the existence of either the paper or of oneself.

Body:
If one has in hand a large hoard of facts, quotes, and theories to paraphrase, one should be feeling a sort of jostling of thoughts and opinions to get out of the head and onto one's virtual paper. If said jostling is not felt, not enough research has been done. It is dangerous to continue in this state as it commonly results in sudden pointlessness. Keep in mind that one source per written page is a generally agreeable amount. Correctly and carefully citing all sources is equivalent to settling a variety of ducks into a neat straight line. It is well known that professors of higher education especially appreciate pupils who present fowls-a-filing.

Conclusion:
If one arranges the topics in the correct order and covers enough controversies, the last topic may itself merge into the conclusion paragraph and one's concluding remarks need only take up as much as two sentences: one to summarize and one to place the quote or story one used at the beginning of the paper within a new frame of thought. This not only makes one appear intelligently contemplative but also causes the paper to appear as though neatly tied up with a bow. If one is in need of extra space, the conclusion may be stretched to a full paragraph by rewording previous points, emphatically emphasizing one's thesis, and adding a few curls of ribbon to go with the bow.

Lastly, it is desirable to extensively proofread one's paper (If one has no time for proofreading due to prolonged shoving-of-thoughts, please see footnote.*). This may be difficult since one will be self-assured that nothing is wrong. Never fear. It is usually easy to enlist a friend or acquaintance to proofread since people are generally secretly gleeful at the prospect of employing socially acceptable criticism and of using a red pen.***


*In doing this, one knowingly and willfully assumes the risk of procrastination and agrees that writer, Rose, is not held responsible for any damages resulting from said procrastination.

**Please note that I am merely advocating the use of Wikipedia as a bearings-getter and jumping-off-point, not as a bona fide reference source. Don't get your knickers in a knot!

***Customarily, sweet-tempered girls make the best proofreaders.