Budget Your Time When Writing a Paper

You have just received your writing assignment and you see it is not due for another four weeks. Great, you have plenty of time to get this done right? Wrong! The biggest mistake students make is they do not allow themselves enough time to write an effective high-quality paper. Four weeks may seem like a long time away but in reality it isn’t. There are many reasons you need to allow yourself time to complete your paper; take a look at the list below:

  • What if you get sick? It is not unheard of that students fall ill and fall behind in their school work.
  • What if you can’t find enough material on the topic you picked? There is nothing worse than waiting until the last minute to write your paper and finding out there are not enough sources to do your research.
  • What of you need to change topics? This could be a case where a student did not approve their topic right away and now they need a new topic. Or, once they start the research they realize there is too little or too much.
  • Writers block! It is impossible to combat writers block if you are a short deadline.

Allowing yourself ample time to write your paper gives your brain the opportunity to refresh itself. Yes, your brain needs a break from all the research. It is common practice to start a working outline then leave it alone for a few days. During that time you are likely to get fresh ideas and different viewpoints on your topic. It also gives you the chance to speak to others about your topic and see what they have to say. All of this is important in the writing process; the more viewpoints you hear the better.

Another important reason to allow yourself time is because you will need to make edits and revisions. Take your paper to the writing center or have a fellow classmate look over it and pick their brain. They may see things you did not such as grammatical errors or whether or not it even makes sense. In addition to fresh eyes reading your paper, make sure you read it a few times over the course of time. You may see something on the third time around that you did not see the first two. As you can see, there are many viable reasons to give yourself time when writing a paper.