Microtheme 2

    When I write papers, I usually write the bulk of it at once. Most of the time I find myself starting with notes, and outline, and potential topics, and then going straight to an almost final draft. Because I normally work like this, it's much harder for me to work on something a little bit at a time, and peer review or work checkpoints become more of a hassle than helpful. I also tend to procrastinate a lot, so combining both these things leaves me writing most of my papers a few days before they are due. I still value and need someone else to look at my paper, but that usually involves me messaging my parents to edit it at 11pm the night before it's due. Even with this post, I’m writing it a few hours before midnight on Sunday because I couldn't convince myself to start it sooner. In addition to my questionable time management skills, I also like to wait until I have a clear idea in my head of the criteria for the assignment I'm doing. Over the course of the microtheme workshops, there was a lot of helpful feedback and examples to help me write a better paper, so instead of writing a whole draft and ending up having to cut most of it, I’d take notes and write a higher quality draft closer to the deadline. If all that wasn’t already enough, the hardest part of writing a paper for me is usually choosing the topic. I frequently find that I spend more than twice the time thinking of a topic (or trying to forget I have to) than I do actually writing the paper. The only saving grace for me is that once I actually manage to start writing something I can usually write it to completion and to a point I'm satisfied submitting it. Luckily, this has managed to work for some of the papers I've written, and I hope it continues to work going forward.