How Not to Write a College Writing Paper
I trot into the computer lab in the middle of the Pledge of Allegiance, flinging eye boogers from the harsh morning battle against my eyelids and alarm clock. The sight of an essay topic on our monitors would have made me vomit, had I taken the time to nourish my growling stomach. The teacher and I are in a staring contest over my tardiness, in which I quickly decline because I could not even keep my eyes open long enough to see the police behind me at the stop sign I ran on the way to school. After logging in, I swiftly draw attention to myself by defying the minesweeper game multiple times with the cheat code “x,y,z,z,y,[Shift],[Enter],[Enter].” The teacher immediately puts an end to my skill show and gives me a, “you better get started on your essay” death stare. “Yea…about this paper I’m not really feelin’ it,” I thought. Now, take a step back from the writing process and clear your mind to ensure you go about not writing a college writing paper properly.
First of all, the writing process takes a long time and you have several days to complete the assignment. So be honest with yourself, you have so much time and so little to do. Start off by picking a small blemish on a wall and gluing your eyes to it. This will make it appear to the teacher that you in fact are pondering an idea. After about half of the class, the teacher may become suspicious of your progress. It is time to move on in the slow motion writing progress.
Now just before any questions are asked, think of something interesting and write it down as a title. For example, I am thinking of my cold car this morning so I may write “Cold Leather.” Now that progress has been made, it is time to take a break while still appearing busy. A great way to do this while socializing is to speak with others around you, only pertaining to topic when the teacher is in range. You are now successfully on your way to not writing a college writing paper.
The next step can be tricky and takes complete and total concentration. If the teacher really starts to press for progress, copy a paragraph or two from an old paper underneath your spectacular title. Next, use the find and replace feature in Microsoft Word to quickly and efficiently add words and phrases pertaining to your topic. For example, replace all the “the” words with your topic “how not to write a college writing paper,” because “the” is commonly an overused word. This will make your progress appear as a reality and the title, “how not to write a college writing paper,” will jump out at the teacher in a quick scan. Below is what your progress should look like so far. DO NOT BE ALARMED. THE FOLLOWING WILL CONFUSE YOU. It will also confuse your teacher enough to walk away contemplating a mid-life crisis.
How Not to Write a College Writing Paper
You dribble down how not to write a college writing paper court with three seconds left in how not to write a college writing paper game, and throw up a desperate last attempt at victory. How not to write a college writing paper buzzer sounds and how not to write a college writing paper crowd goes wild after realizing you won how not to write a college writing paper game for how not to write a college writing paper with your three point basket. At practice how not to write a college writing paper next day, how not to write a college writing paper shot replays in your head and practice becomes a second priority to fame.
So, you did not understand that one bit? Good. After this step, your progress appears to be ninety-nine percent greater and you are almost finished.
While you have been working very hard to delay the paper, obviously you do not want to fail the course, so in the end some form of a paper must be submitted. But if you are new at this, you may want to make an attempt at claiming insanity from a mental break down and pleading for exemption. When the teacher tries to comfort you, propose that he/she averages your next two essays to make up for this road block. If the teacher will not hear of this, then it is time to get writing. Write something. Anything. Tell a story from your past summer. Use many words to make a sentence like “The dog ate.” to “The little, smelly, black and grey, smart dog ate all the kibbles and bits in its gigantic, red, plastic food apparatus.” In the end, a page or two full of words must be turned in. This should earn you at least a “C”, and hold off the excruciating pain of writing yet another essay in about two weeks.
You are now an expert on how to not write a college writing paper and while it may be a helpful skill, it may only be a short term fix to laziness. Hopefully the directions are clear and specific because, not only will your next college writing paper grade count on them but mine will also.
2 comments:
Hey Mr. Ruggieri I was making the corrections and I guess I didn't look at my paper when you passed them back because some things I didn't understand. In paragraph just before the conclusion with the "C" in it there is a line but I wasn't sure what was wrong. Also, in the introduction you wrote "why the conditional tense here" next to "would have made me vomit" and I had it that way to show that I did not have time to eat. I'm not sure if that is correct, but just wanted to check.
Your introduction is brilliant. This sentence is very well written: “The sight of an essay topic on our monitors would have made me vomit, had I taken the time to nourish my growling stomach.” I love your sense of humor. :-)
There’s this other sentence in the intro that doesn’t work very well, though:
“The teacher and I are in a staring contest over my tardiness, in which I quickly decline because I could not even keep my eyes open long enough to see the police behind me at the stop sign I ran on the way to school.”
It seems you were so eager to fit in that bit about not seeing the police that you jumbled up the meaning of your sentence. I mean, I understand what you’re trying to say, but it just didn’t come out right. You are declining in this staring contest with the teacher because you can’t keep your eyes open…not specifically because you couldn’t keep them open long enough to see the police behind you at the stop sign. You see what I mean? Try separating the ideas…maybe like this:
“The teacher and I are in a staring contest over my tardiness – a contest in which I quickly decline because of my inability to keep my eyes open. This visual impairment reaches back to earlier this morning, when I ran a stop sign on the way to school and failed to detect the infuriated policeman behind me.”
I think “Minesweeper” should be capitalized, by the way. And no comma before “you better get started on your essay.”
Here: “ ‘Yea…about this paper I’m not really feelin’ it,’ I thought,” you should have “think” instead of “thought.” Remember you’ve been writing in present tense this whole time; you gotta stick with it.
A suggestion for this sentence… “You are now successfully on your way to not writing a college writing paper.” You’re talking about not writing a College Writing paper PROPERLY, yes? Not just flat-out NOT writing it (you even say below that you gotta turn in SOMETHING). So maybe change this to, “You are now successfully on your way to not writing a college writing paper correctly,” or the like.
Ha! I love this sentence: “It will also confuse your teacher enough to walk away contemplating a mid-life crisis.”
If I were you, I would change this sentence (from that same paragraph): “For example, replace all the ‘the’ words with your topic ‘how not to write a college writing paper,’ because ‘the’ is commonly an overused word.”
“The ‘the’ words” doesn’t sound good. So maybe rewrite this sentence simply as, “For example, replace every ‘the’ with your topic, ‘how not to write a college writing paper,’ because ‘the’ is commonly an overused word.”
“But if you are new at this, you may want to make an attempt at claiming insanity from a mental break down and pleading for exemption.” -- Nice. :-) “Breakdown” should be a single word, though, not two.
“Use many words to make a sentence like ‘The dog ate.’ to ‘The little, smelly, black and grey, smart dog ate all the kibbles and bits in its gigantic, red, plastic food apparatus.’” Also awesome (you could make a living as a humorist) – there’s just a minor grammatical error: there should be a comma instead of a period after “The dog ate.” And the beginning of this sentence could be worded less blandly…maybe, “Overkill the sentence by using an excess of words; for example, change the measly sentence, ‘The dog ate,’ to . . .”
The conclusion could be stronger. I like how you defy the reader’s expectations by remarking that this whole process “may only be a short term fix to laziness” (should be “short-term,” not “short term”). But I just don’t feel like you really wrapped it all up…it’s still floating…
Up to that point, though, this is a superb paper. Thanks for sharing. :-)
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