How to Write a Research Paper in Only a Day

Research comes from the Latin words "re" and "search." Re means to do something over again, such as looking for your phone charger or making the minimum payment on your Visa bill. Search is what we do when we go online to find something. The ancient Latins had it right: research is a vital component of any research paper.

If you have any hope of passing college courses, research must be mastered. A typical college curriculum will include numerous papers to be shared and written by you and your classmates. Without question, waiting until the last minute to start crucial assignments is as common as poorly written run-on sentences, and Google probably won't index this exposé,

Although a research paper can come from your head, that's also called fiction and most teachers can tell the difference. You need sources. Italicized sources are also nice.

Online offers numerous opportunities for sources because no one goes to the library any more. Sit down on the couch with your iPad and connect to the neighbor's insecure wireless network: you're ready to begin locating sources.

Real researchers prefer authoritative sources. These are anything without the words blog or Wikipedia in the web address. Wikipedia.com represents about 93.6% of the web conveniently copied into easily digested snippets, but try not to rely on it. Real researchers frown upon anonymously written sources. Their facial expressions aren't usually a big deal, but bad grades almost always follow.

So, you've connected to the 'Net, checked Reddit, Facebook,Tumblr, Twitter, and Pintrest. You're ready to begin surfing for sources. Start with Fox News: they never lie and their site is always up. Their facts are straight and they use small words that are easily understood by English teachers. You can't go wrong.

After exhausting FoxNews.com, browse over to The Huffington Post for more stellar facts. Your research is almost complete because now you have two sources.

Citations make your research paper seem official. There are many ways to implement citations including MLA, APA, Turabian, and Chicago. Any format you choose is fine because your teacher will expect something completely different.

In the old days of pen and paper we researchers were obligated to actually compose properly formatted citations by hand. We struggled mightily with correct comma placement along with abbreviations and capitalization. Writing our assignments consumed about 10% of our time: the remaining effort was devoted to accurate citations.

Times have changed. Happy writers such as yourself can go online for convenient sites automatically generating correctly constructed citations. All you must do is copy and paste, which you probably learned in Kindergarten or at the Senior Center.

Knowing that your research paper is due tomorrow provides tremendous impetus for completion. We all work well under pressure: that's how diamonds are made. Recycled cans are also made that way, but not as romantically as diamonds.

Waiting until the last minute to begin writing is perfectly OK. In the real world we operate under the same conditions. We purchase birthday presents and we rent tuxedos that way. We only change our oil when the little red light comes on. There's no reason for you, as a student with massive loan payments looming, to plan ahead for a piddling research paper upon which your entire college career hinges.

How do you write fast? Spinning works. The advent of high-speed copy and paste features in modern work processors allows us to conveniently transfer entire paragraphs of text from our sources into our original papers written by us. Simply change every other word to a similar but different word. Thousands of words are out there: just pick a few of them and get to work. Words such as 'and', 'the', and 'Quiznos' can be left un-spun. Every other word is relatively up for grabs.

Here are more handy tips:

• Read your paper backwards. Your brain will process your words differently. This strategy removes implied meanings and nuances from your composition. You'll have a much better shot at identifying misspelled words.
  
  
• Get help. Show your work to your best friend/roommate/significant other/nameless drifter. Another set of eyes always makes a huge difference. Don't be offended when they find a grammar error in the first paragraph.
  
  
• Get professional help. Take yourself and your research paper to the college tutoring center. Put your work in the hands of the writing tutor, then stroll away for a luscious latte at the Student Union. If you're truly fortunate the tutor will rewrite it for you.