The R.L. Karnes Guide to Writing a Great Paper

All events described here are based on factual accounts of the author's own life.



1. First, put the paper off for 2 months. What’s the point of knowing about a paper 2 months ahead of time, anyway?

2. Save it for the week before it's due, and you also have another paper and group project to work on. And the impending arrival of Thanksgiving.

3. Gather all books around you on your bed.

4. Organize these books and stack them largest-to-smallest, and perfectly center each book.

5. Get super comfortable on the bed – You’re going to be there a while!

6. Instantly fall asleep on previously stated super comfortable bed.

7. Jolt awake from a terrifying mini-dream centered around Morgan Freeman’s personal voicemail message (and how legendary it must be).

8. Slap yourself into shape and shuffle through some notes to focus on the paper.

9. Open the laptop.

10. Check Facebook.

11. Check your e-mail

12. Check your other e-mail.

13. Check deviantART for comments and faves. If there are no interesting things here, check the newest Daily Deviations for at least 30 minutes.

14. Check Twitter. View any photos/links that any funny celebrities post so you feel in the loop with pop culture as a whole.

15. Check Facebook again. It’s been a while and you could have missed something!

16. Look around the room when Facebook gets boring.

17. Get up and clean that filthy pigsty of a room! How can you work in this environment?!

18. Go grab a snack. Can’t work with low blood sugar. Make some tea to go with snack, and sit in a cozy chair to enjoy your last bit of comfort before working SUPER hard at this paper.

19. Return to room, climb on bed, and reorganize books, which have toppled since the nap.

20. Look up and see red Converse shoes. Red Converse. Idina Menzel. Rent. Taye Diggs. Aquatic frogs. Swimming. Hawaii. Pacific ocean. Salt water. Salt. Sodium. Water retention. Bloating. Roadkill. Vultures. Raw meat. Sushi. Chopsticks. Wood. Paper.

21. Oh, shit, the paper.

22. Open laptop.

23. Disable internet IMMEDIATELY.

24. New document.

25. Write name at top of document on left side. Right side. Left side. Right side.

26. Maybe you should create a cover page instead of putting your name on the first page.

27. Think of witty title for cover page.

28. Open a book.

29. Fall asleep on super comfy bed.

30. Wake up an hour later.

31. This is pointless. Oh, and it’s time for TCM to show a super awesome movie that you haven’t seen in AGES, so you simply have to watch it. For research. Because you’re a self-proclaimed film historian.

32. Close laptop and all books. It’s the weekend, after all, and you deserve a break after so much work this week.

33. Enable internet.

34. Check Facebook.