Speaker 1: It's final season, which means that your final papers are just around the corner and I am here to help you prepare. For those of you that are looking how to write a research paper in a quick 24 or 48 hours, this video is for you. However, if you have a little bit more time and you're thinking ahead, then go ahead and check out this video and skip to around two and a half minutes, which is where the actual information of the video starts. But I'm going to keep this video short, sweet, and to the point and show you how it is that you can write a research paper in 24 to 48 hours. Quick disclaimer, this is not something that I personally recommend that you do, though I am a graduate student. I've been in school for many, many years, did college, a master's degree, and I'm now doing my PhD. I know what it takes in order to write a paper in a quick 24, 48 hour turnaround. We've all been there. I've done it. My friends have done it and I'm going to show you how to do it, but still land that A. Whether you've been reading for the paper the entire term but are just now starting to write, or you're just now ending your cycle of procrastination and need to start from square one, I've got you covered. Now grab a cup of coffee or tea, whatever works for you, and let's get to work. Step number one is to assess the prompt and jot down some initial ideas. Let's say for the sake of this paper, your professor said that you could write about anything within the course material. I want you to select a week or a lecture topic you found most interesting and begin to narrow that down in order to make sense of an interesting paper topic. For the purpose of this example, I'm going to say that the week on slavery and the law was the most interesting in my American Legal History class. Therefore, I'm going to ask myself what I found particularly interesting and what I might want to focus more attention on. For me, that is enslaved women and the law of slavery. This is a good starting point, and while it will not be the end-all be-all of your thesis, it will allow you to begin the next step, which is to begin your literature review. To begin, for a standard research paper, I typically recommend around 10 to 15 sources by scholars in your field and between 1 and 10 primary sources, such as archival documents, pieces of art, data sets, demographic data, or whatever suits your subject. However, with the short amount of time that we have to get through these sources for this piece, I recommend reading five articles or books and begin writing. You'll likely need to consult other works later on, but this is a good starting point. Now you might be thinking, but wait, how the heck am I meant to read five books in less than 24 hours and write a paper? Well, that brings us to step number three, which is the art of skimming. After you've identified a few sources, perhaps those you read in class, it's time to learn how to skim effectively. To start, you need to work out what it is you're looking for. You've selected your general topic already, so now it's time to come up with some keywords that you can use in order to begin your search. For example, I selected enslaved women and the law of slavery, so my initial keywords are going to be African women, enslaved women, enslaved women plus slave law, freedom suits, reproductive labor, slavery plus women. Also, one other quick comment about search terms is that if you put a term, comma, another term, then it's going to look for things that have either or, but if you say term plus sign, another term, then it'll specifically look for sources, including articles and books that specifically have both of them in the title, especially if you're using your library's online sources and websites such as WorldCat, ArchiveGrid, or JSTOR. For articles that are word processed, I recommend reading the introduction first and then searching for your terms using ctrl f. For books, you must master the art of selective skimming. While we may not be able to consciously process everything on a page of text, our eyes and brains are actually capable of quickly scanning for keywords. Read the introduction thoroughly and then identify chapters and sections which may have the information you're looking for. Scan your eyes quickly across each line and only stop when you come across a key term or phrase which appears relevant. From there, read around the paragraph before, during, and after where the phrase arose and see whether there are any relevant quotes you might want to pull from. After getting a sense for the primary arguments and copying some quotes, it's time to move on to step four, which is outlining. To begin our outline, we're actually going to take a piece of scratch paper and write down your preliminary ideas and arguments as well as any ideas presented throughout your readings. This is what I like to call a mind map. After getting a sense of the paper's primary argument, take a blank sheet in Word or Pages and write out an introduction, section one, section two, section three, and conclusion. You may need more sections or even subsections depending on your paper, but this gives you a general structure. Go ahead and write up any information from your mind map and notes into the outline and write out your argument under the introduction and conclusion. Quick disclaimer here is that the argument may change as you begin writing and that is 100% okay. Now it's time for step number five, which is to begin writing. For this step, we begin with the most challenging part. While everyone has their own system that works for them, I personally prefer to write chronologically through my paper. For the introduction, I always recommend presenting a hook. As a historian, I prefer to dive into primary source or archival document materials in order to begin my paper with a story, but you're welcome to begin however you like. My only suggestion, however, is to have a strong hook, which you can then use to connect seamlessly into your primary thesis or argument. For the body paragraphs, consider how each example and discussion ties into your primary thesis. Include topic sentences at the beginning and or the end of each section in order to ensure the reader is following your argument and so that you do not lose sight of the primary goal. Additionally, each statement should be supported with evidence either with a direct quote, citation, or general discussion which connects to current scholarship. Whether you're a seasoned pro or first-time essay writer, it is important not to make claims or broad generalizations which are not based in fact or the work of a peer-reviewed scholar. For the conclusion, summarize the primary points of the paper and how they connect your wider argument. And lastly, always ensure that you connect your work to current literature. Ask yourself, what have other scholars said and how does your work build upon or perhaps discredit their statements? Now on for the sixth and final step, revise. While you may not have time to have your work reviewed by a peer or even to thoroughly reread the entire piece, it is important to have a once-over before you submit in order to check for any silly mistakes you may have made while writing at two in the morning. If your brain is too exhausted, use the dictation feature in pages or word or even read it out loud. Once you're satisfied, format and hit submit. All right, so now you've received all of my best tips. You now know how to write a paper with a solid argument and with evidence within 24 to 48 hours. This is ideally for a paper that is around 10 pages or less, but if you are ambitious, I'm sure you could probably extend this to a longer paper. I don't personally recommend it. Again, the disclaimer in this video is that you should be taking the time to do your research and in order to collect enough evidence to really support your argument. However, if you are crunched for time and this is the last resort and this is what you are left with, then I hope that this video was helpful. Best of luck with your finals. May the odds be ever in your favor and I will see you all in the next video. Remember to hit that subscribe button and like this one so I know that you guys are watching and you enjoy these types of videos, as well as any recommendations for future videos that might be helpful to you. So, see you in the next one. Bye, everyone.