Anatomy of an 11th Hour Research Paper

Six pages. A topic of your choosing as long as it relates to Air Contaminants and Industrial Ventilation. Sounds simple enough, right? Let's break this down by the hour...

Midnight. (T-minus 13.5 hours)

I Google my topic and open Academic Search Premiere through the MSU Library website. I begin reading articles and making notes. I'm really making progress and this paper will be knocked out in no time! I open a Word document and begin typing a bibliography for my paper, Water Utilities and Homeland Security Compliance.

1:00 AM

My progress is slowing a bit, as I've been stuck on my first three sentences for about 15 minutes. I begin absent mindedly doodling on a piece of paper hoping that perhaps the words will start to fall out of my brain and on to my Word document. I'm a bit worried because I'm not quite sure where I want this paper to go. However, I work to "power through" the slump and continue reading on my topic.

2:00 AM

I'm now two pages into the paper. It's slow going, but I'm doing okay. I've got a chat window open and I'm talking gun control, movie trailers, and procrastination induced fatigue with Patrick. My doodles have now taken over an entire sheet of paper.

3:00 AM

I'm four pages in and suddenly I realize I don't know what I'm talking about any more. I paint my fingernails red (Essie Scarlett O'Hara) and drink some cappucino (thanks Allison!) to fortify myself for the long night ahead of me. My doodles are now on a second and third sheet of paper. I don't know what else to say in this paper.

4:00 AM

I take off in a different direction on the paper. It looks like my paper may actually run a bit longer than the eight page limit. I'm disgusted with myself that it's taking me this long to write a paper. I can't focus and I'm starting to get hungry. Suddenly I am aware that in an hour, it will be 5 in the morning and I could go get a McDonald's Breakfast Burrito, one of my favorite things in the world (this week, anyway). I have a new goal: finish the paper and go get some breakfast.

5:00 AM

Everything is complete except for some citation and a conclusion to the paper...which I declare a total hack job. I don't like my topic, I don't like what I've written. However, this is what I'll hand in 8 hours from now. I hop in my car and head across town for breakfast burrito goodness...only to find the golden arches are dark. So, I head toward Burger King hoping to get a good (though slightly inferior) Crossan'wich (where does the appostrophe go anyway?). Much to my chagrin, I realize Burger King is still closed as well. My only two choices are Arby's and Hardee's. I choose Hardees, the breakfast solutioln of my high school years. The menu frightens me-everything looks like "soul cooking" between two biscuits. These days they even have pork chop biscuits and fried chicken tenderloin biscuits. Looking at the low-carb breakfast bowl gave me chest pains, so I opted for a Frisco Breakfast sandwich, reasoning that I like Frisco burgers, so I'll probably like this too. In my youth, I wouldn't eat egg on sandwiches...even when older, I wouldn't do it. This summer, however, I discovered that I could and would one early morning when given a breakfast sandwich (with egg!) upon returning from a 5 am out of town air sampling job. I've been eating breakfast sandwiches with egg ever since-go figure. As soon as I returned home, a strange thought hit me: though we touched on Safe Drinking Water Act briefly, the paper topic was suppose to cover an Air Contaminant Issue. I loudly say an expletive (the 'mother' of all explatives) as I realized that I've written a paper on the wrong topic. It's almost 6 am and I have to start over. Motherfucker indeed!

6:00 AM

Write what you know. Write what you know. I begin typing a paper on Air Sampling Strategies. Hey, it's what I did all summer, I should know how it works. I grab a reference book on the topic of Air Sampling and get to work. The words just ooze out of me. I think the grease from the breakfast sandwich is helping.

7:00 AM

I'm nearly finished with this paper. I have a page and a half to go. I'm referencing like a madwoman. I am very awake, which I'm attributing to adrenaline. My back is starting to burn and I attribute it to my chair and desk layout.

8:00 AM

I've hit 6 pages. And they are 6 strong, quality pages. This paper blows my first one out of the water. Three to four more paragraphs to completion.

8:50 AM

9 pages total. 9 quality pages. 9 pages that I won't be sheepishly handing in. I think I shall take this up to school, turn it in, come home, and pass out.

In conclusion...guess you could say it has been a productive evening. I've completed not one but 2 research papers. Who knows-perhaps the water security one could be used for a later class or article submission of some sort. To accentuate the positive, I'll go with it being a good thing that I can't follow directions-it may have saved my grade.