It’s officially May which means it’s officially buckling-down time as we start knocking out projects and reports that we’ve known about for months  but oh so conveniently forgot about until right now.

But, my fellow students, let’s not forget that we practically wrote the book on how to churn out a decent grade with three weeks to go. While I can’t help with salvaging an entire semester’s worth of grades, I can, however, offer some advice on how to knock that twenty-page research paper down.

Awesome Monkey’s Research Paper Tip Numero Uno: Change up the order, Break It Down, Outline.

Just because the paper has to be arranged in an intro, body, and conclusion format doesn’t mean that’s how you have to write it. My suggestion is to start with the body and break it up into your bullet points. What are the main ideas that you have to discuss? Each one gets a paragraph, and you can start your outline. Now I know that writing up an outline can be a pain in the you-know-what, but brainstorming and having an idea of how this paper is going to look like, will help when you finally sit down and write it. Like building a house, you have to lay out your blueprints, or else you’re tackling this paper blind.

Awesome Monkey’s Research Paper Tip Numero Dos: Do The Research.

Don’t skimp on the research. If you do the research properly, and add on to your outline accordingly, you’ll find that the paper starts to write itself. Then, when you finally sit down in front of the empty word document, you’ll see that the body paragraphs are already written down in the outline, you just have to string the sentences together and add in those transition words.

When you’ve got the research in front of you, it can seem like an impossible task to narrow it down, but just start somewhere. Put the research into piles, with each pile indicating one of your body paragraphs, and then start on one pile. Take notes, color code, add the info into your outline. Yes, eventually, you’ll get into the rhythm and move on from pile to pile until you’ve got your entire body section more or less noted and outlined. And then, all you’ll have left to do is put it together.

Awesome Monkey’s Research Paper Tip Numero Tres: Go Get Pizza. Or Ice-cream. Or Cake.

This is the most important tip, right here. Two words. Reward. Yourself. Seriously. I mean it. Before you start, tell yourself that you’re going to order a pizza after you finishing outlining one paragraph. Make a goal that you’re only going to outline today and when you finish with your outline, reward yourself. Go meet up with a friend. And don’t. think. about. the rest of the paper. You’re done for the day!

Tomorrow, you set another goal that you will only write two of the four body paragraphs. You write up the first body paragraph, and when you finish, you will save the document and step away. You hear me? You will step away and make yourself an ice-cream cone. Then, after a nice break, you go back and tackle another body paragraph and when you finish, you close that document, and enough is enough for the day.

And so on, until you finish the entire research paper. If you set little rewards for yourself throughout and make goals that are reasonable, it makes the research paper seem less like torture and more like, well not fun, but tolerable. Personally, I’ve found that food works really well for me as the little rewards, but you can always substitute pizza for one episode of your favorite TV show, and when I say reasonable goals, I mean reasonable goals. Don’t tell yourself that you’re going to do the entire body section in one day, come on now, you’re supposed to be knocking this paper down, not the other way around!

Finally, when you’ve put that last period down on your paper, in that moment of equal exhilaration and unbelievable fatigue, you tell yourself:

Well! Congratulations to all of us for making it thus far. Good luck in this final stretch, good luck in all the research papers, final projects and studying galore.

Come on guys, we’re almost done!