Looming Term Paper of Doom (TM)

[tarigwaemir]

Lowell House, on the Feast of St. Joseph

Have been in throes of paper writing since yesterday night. Ran into a huge snag this afternoon when I momentarily lost track of the connection betwen my subpoint and my first main point, which is what happens when you forget to put the .doc file containing your outline on the USB drive. Well, to be honest, I did make up that outline off the top of my head early in the morning on Friday, a few hours before I had to turn it in at section, and it was a vague and blurry outline to say the least, but strangely enough, as I started writing my paper, I've been adhering to its essential structure. My ideal outlines are usually planned out to a certain resolution, but since starting college, I've rarely managed to do enough work beforehand to figure out that level of detail. I like to have the order of quotes and paraphrases from primary sources determined for each subpoint, you see, before I start writing because then I can concentrate on the actual analysis and transitions. It's a little easier for literature essays, which are only 5-6 pages, but considerably more difficult for research papers where one also has a wealth of information: breadth in addition to depth of analysis. In any case, I think I've resolved the snag, although Minor Demi-deity of Academia help me if I run into another one.

Some conclusions I've reached from this paper experience (although it is by no means concluded yet):

1. Stick to notecards! I have a deep-seated love for notecards, which was how my third grade teacher taught me to do research. This time around though, I gave up on notecards about halfway through my sources because they were taking so long. What a mistake! The passages I've recorded on notecards are the most accessible and the easiest to write about because I've already partially processed them on paper.

2. The number-code system for preliminary referencing really works. I took a break just now to go ahead and replace my preliminary references with proper footnotes, and it went so smoothly and elegantly that I was nearly flabbergasted. It helped of course that I also created a file with all citations in their proper bibliographic and footnote forms--all I had to do was copy-paste. Mindless productivity is fun.

3. Coffee really, really keeps me hyper-alert and awake, but it also reduces circulation in my hands and feet, which have been permanently cold since I started dosing myself with coffee on Saturday morning. It doesn't help that the heating's off, and my room is kind of cold. Well, at least my hands aren't shaking from the caffeine influx this time around. I guess I'm starting to develop a tolerance?

4. Lowell House library is not the place to write papers. The place is quiet, but the sense of isolation is insufficient. I kept getting distracted by the people sitting at the other end of the table. And the windows! A pleasant place for reading, I suppose, but not for writing. Lamont on the other hand puts me to sleep when I have reading to do, but has just the right ambience for sprint-writing.

Two more single-spaced pages, and I'll be done! Well, actually, no, because my outline suggests that in fact I have about four more single-spaced pages to write. But at least after the two-page mark, I'll have the reassurance of having written the 15-page minimum. I think though that this is going to end up a 20-page paper after all. I'm still not quite satisfied with my thesis, which is still too broad, but at least I've managed to focus it a little. I think.

You know, I would feel a lot more confident in this paper if I knew how to read Latin. I mean actually know how to read Latin, not dissect little phrases using rudimentary etymological knowledge and texts of Church prayers. And I wouldn't have had to pull off so much analytical backflips to prove points that I'm sure would have found straightforward support in all those untranslated treatises and epistles. >_<

Yours &c.

Comments

[schwimmerin.livejournal.com]

Good luck, my dear ribosome! :-*

[schwimmerin.livejournal.com]

PS I read the title of your post and was like, what does your paper have to do with transmembrane proteins??? LOL >_>

[troisroyaumes]

Hee, an hour-long nap, two snags and a whole lot of last-minute revisions later...I'm finished! XD

That officially took three times as long as I expected, and my paper isn't even as long as I thought it would be.

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

What's the number coding system?

And sorry to bother you (don't respond if you don't have time), but how does one do citations in a science paper? I'm writing one for the first time in my life tonight. When using parenthetical citations to reference studies, is it (Author's Name, Year) or (Author's Name, Page #)? I have a bunch of studies by the same people in different years, too. *exasperated*

What are you writing about that requires Latin? You're right, by the way. Being able to read a language makes it immensely easier to do analysis and leads to fortuitous discovery of all sorts of subtleties that don't come across in a translation, however adept it is (unless it's a literal translation with copious commentary). I was reading Germania and Agricola for my Civ paper and the Latin text was much more helpful than Birley's translation of it.

[troisroyaumes]

Oh, the number coding system is just a method I use to keep track of my sources. It proved to be especially efficient this time, for some reason.

I think it's probably too late to reply, but scientific citations are always (Author name, year). I don't think there are ever two scientific papers with the same set of authors published in the same year, but if you do come across that situation, I think the next thing is to specify journal title (and volume if necessary) to distinguish the two.

I'm writing, or rather was writing, about a theological controversy in ninth century Carolingian Europe, and most of the main sources are untranslated. It was particularly exasperating because although I was focusing on the historical context of the controversy rather than the details of the debate, I still didn't have a good sense of what the specific arguments were. Also, there were many places where a source would refer to another source for more information, and while I did have the text, it was largely useless since I couldn't read it. ::sighs::

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

Much thanks. My TA jokingly suggested in section that we use parenthetical cites rather than endnotes because it would make our papers longer, and I didn't realise how true that was. I have since seen the light. Two citations = one whole line of text.

That's tough - Carolingian is late enough that it's not considered Classical and therefore doesn't receive enough attention outside of academia to be translated much.