How are you when it comes to writing academic papers?

Night Owl said:
Perhaps some questions to consider:

Are you speedy and efficient? Or do you take ages to write an essay?

A last minute kind of soul? Or do you get right in there?

What do you like or dislike about writing academic papers?
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I think I'm some sort of hybrid based on those questions:
  • I take ages writing and rewriting what I have written in between, trying to come up with the perfect word.
  • I need to do tons of research beforehand, although what I mean to express is something I can never find in books.
  • I'm neither speedy nor efficient, but I have to write everything at once if it's supposed to have any consistency/fluency.
  • I need the deadline in order to be more speedy, but my efficiency suffers. If I'm efficient and use the time well, I don't write well.
My best paper was a 15-page debut written in 3 days, with another 2 days of editing. My second best was taking longer (25 pages, a month with about a page each day), but I had a clear structure and idea. My worst was the Bachelor thesis, with which I lost what I was going for - this one took the longest to write, with one (and a half?) months of writing, at which I wrote a portion each day.

I dislike about academic writing that it doesn't allow for a more individual style - I always excel in style, but it is inhibited by the form of speech that you have to resort to in order to make a credible academic. Although that is actually a myth.
 
I've always been good at writing academic papers, and usually got As for them, but in hindsight, I think they often lacked the spark of originality.

I remedied that to some extent with my masters in international relations, during which I think I wrote my best papers.
 
Night Owl said:
Perhaps some questions to consider:

Are you speedy and efficient? Or do you take ages to write an essay?

A last minute kind of soul? Or do you get right in there?

What do you like or dislike about writing academic papers?
Click to expand...

It would have to depend on the topic. One of the most challenging part of writing a paper/essay. Is coming up with the proper thesis or antithesis.

If the paper is just one page long, then it would be simpler versus a 10 page paper. Of course, citations and quotations also come into play when analyzing and interpreting various works.

I usually do better when writing if that topic is related to my life somehow. In which, I'll be able to extract life experiences and convey it with whatever I'm writing.

One of my best paper was about Langston Hughes' poem and an economic paper about the world economy that was part of my final grade.
 
Academic papers... hmm.

I have this love/hate relationship with them. I love to write, may it be stories or poetry---I just absolutely love it. But when it comes to academic papers, having to cite in APA format, referencing sources to a certain particular format---especially since I am a Psych major--- it can be a total major pain in the ass. It's really this finite and concrete, lack luster appeal that makes writing academic papers quite dull.

But other than that, it is easy for me to write as long as I did some preparation and brainstorming techniques before hand---such as writing down certain quotes/paraphrases I want to include later in the body, good transitions, reliable sources, etc.

My best paper was when I had to do this 7-10 paged research/persuasion paper last semester regarding the sensitive and controversial issue of Euthanasia and religious and culture factors that are involved.
 
JennyDaniella said:
But when it comes to academic papers, having to cite in APA format, referencing sources to a certain particular format---especially since I am a Psych major--- it can be a total major pain in the ass. It's really this finite and concrete, lack luster appeal that makes writing academic papers quite dull.
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Agreed. The citation formats are quite dreary to work with, but they're a necessary evil which needs to be combated. I myself had to cite in the MLA format, which is commonly used in literature to make the text more fluent. Yet it is still a pain to cite correctly. Linguists on the other hand resort to the Harvard citation, iirc - never wrote any papers on this subject, though.

What would be your preferred way of handling it?
 
Ginny said:
Agreed. The citation formats are quite dreary to work with, but they're a necessary evil which needs to be combated. I myself had to cite in the MLA format, which is commonly used in literature to make the text more fluent. Yet it is still a pain to cite correctly. Linguists on the other hand resort to the Harvard citation, iirc - never wrote any papers on this subject, though.

What would be your preferred way of handling it?
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Hmm, it's a bit different here in the states. Particularly we use either MLA, APA, or AMA format. Personally, I prefer to use MLA since it is actually quite simpler in comparison to APA---which is more extensive and formatted in the way researchers would write their own work; and would involve a title page, abstract, body and references---citing quotes is a bit different as well.

Eventually I will have to grow to like APA since it will be a constant use in the research I am eventually going to have to get myself involved in.
 
JennyDaniella said:
Eventually I will have to grow to like APA since it will be a constant use in the research I am eventually going to have to get myself involved.
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You don't have to like it - you are free to even hate it - but I believe it shows just how determined you are to do something that you consider important when you do things that are part of it but which you don't like or which are difficult to do. "The liver grows with its chores." May you grow with yours too :)
 
It depends on what the paper was for, especially so for undergrad. The more I care, the better it will be, which might add a small tax with regard to time spent on polish. Even then, I tend to be decisive and efficient even with my Ne turned to full blast. Some NTPs are pure math-brains with a compromise on the verbal side of IQ. I am thankful to not have that compromise in play. My ENFP daughter is better at her age than I was, but she is also a bit slower in execution time. Her 4w5 vs my 8w9 is the likely behavioral source of both situations.
 
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