A Procrastinator's Guide to Essay Writing and the Services Available

Select network

                   

Most of us have been there: an essay is due in a few hours and you have not even begun to start writing your first draft. What are you supposed to do? As a leader in essay writing services, we are here to help you answer that question by providing you with a thorough guide.

This is the guide to essay writing you need if you're a procrastinator—a person who puts off doing work until the last possible minute. This guide will not help you stop procrastinating. Rather, this guide will assume you are a procrastinator, and it will try to help you from there.

Running out of time

 

If you're a procrastinator, then you're likely always in a rush to get your work done on time.

This post will cover the following areas:

• Taking stock of where you are
• Tips for quick research
• How to write without an outline
• Tools for editing
• Seeking assistance with essay writing services

By the end of this guide, you will feel more confident in your ability to get decent essay writing done even if you are a procrastinator.

Taking stock of where you are

There are many steps to writing a high-quality essay. If you're a procrastinator, then exactly how many of these steps have you put off doing? Maybe you’ve thought about what you’re going to write, but you just haven't started writing an actual draft yet. Or maybe you just haven't thought about the assignment at all, and now it’s due in a few hours.

In general, there are four main steps to writing an essay.

1. Research
2. Conceptualization
3. Writing
4. Editing

The first step to writing an effective essay as a procrastinator is to take stock of exactly how far behind you are. This will determine how much time you will be able to spend on the various steps of writing an essay.

This guide will address the four main steps to writing an essay for a procrastinator and how to seek assistance through an essay writing service if you have run out of time.

Tips for quick research

If you have been working on your essay for a long time, then you have had time to carefully read a lot of research material. If you have procrastinated the research step, though, you will not have that luxury. You will have to pull together information as quickly as possible. Here are some ways to go about doing that.

Wikipedia—but not how you think

Most of your professors have probably told you to never cite Wikipedia as a reliable source. The reasons for this are somewhat unclear: most people who use Wikipedia could probably testify to the general accuracy of the information found there. Nevertheless, rules are rules, and academia almost always forbids using Wikipedia as a source.

There is a loophole, though. Maybe you cannot cite Wikipedia, but you can cite the sources cited by Wikipedia.

For example, say you are writing an essay on the psychological theory of Carl Jung. You are not allowed to actually cite the Wikipedia articles on the theory. However, those articles themselves are filled with citations, most of which are usually scholarly. So, you could scroll to the end of the article and look at the references. You can use those references for your own essay, and no one could say anything against that.

Here is the reference list at the end of the Wikipedia article on "Jungian archetypes."

Jungian archetypes articleSource: Wiki

 

This Wikipedia article has 31 citations, most of which are scholarly in nature.

If you have procrastinated the research phase of your essay, then it would be a good idea to go to Wikipedia articles related to your topic. You are not allowed to cite the articles themselves, but you can cite what the articles have cited.

Also, there are footnote indicators in the Wikipedia articles, which means that you can even figure out what information can be found in what sources.

This is clearly not the ideal way of doing research. But if you are a procrastinator, then you are probably not worried about the ideal; you are worried about just getting a workable draft done. And for that objective, this method of scanning Wikipedia articles can come in handy.

Alternatives to reading or buying books: Amazon and Google

In this day and age, you almost never need to go to an actual, physical library. Rather a lot of information—and probably even more than you think—can be readily found online. One easy way to conduct research involving books is to use Amazon and Google.

If you have an Amazon account, then you have huge access to many books through the Amazon preview feature. Many (not all, but many) of the books on Amazon have a "Look Inside" feature that allows the viewer to peruse substantial amounts of content within the books. Moreover, there is a search feature so that you can find pages that contain the words of phrases you punch in.

The same is true with Google Books.

The "Look Inside" featureSource: Amazon

 

Here is an example of a book on Amazon.

So, you can first find books on your topic by punching in words that may be in titles (or using Wikipedia reference lists as a guide). And then you can find passages that are relevant to your topic by using the "Look Inside" and search features. This is a good way to find key quotes for your procrastinated essay.

For articles, read only abstracts

If you are looking for academic articles to cite in your essay, then do not read the articles in entirety. You don’t have time for that. Rather, most articles have an abstract: this is a short paragraph at the beginning of the article that provides a basic summary of the article and its argument/findings.

If the abstract fits with your essay, then just cite the article without bothering to read the rest of the article. You don't have to worry about specific page numbers, either (unless your instructions say that is required). Just cite the articles where the main ideas make sense, and leave it at that.

This is not cheating. Rather, this is probably what even professional researchers do as well. There are so many articles out there that no one could possibly have time to read all the articles they cite on a given subject.

Essay writing without an outline

If you weren't a procrastinator, then you would have had time to develop a detailed outline for your essay. As it stands, though, you are not going to have time for that. You will have to write your essay on the wing, without a wing.

Nevertheless, you want to have at least some basic ideas prepared before you jump in.

Your essay will need to have a coherent thesis, or a main idea that it will pursue and/or try to demonstrate. If you are a procrastinator, then it’s important to not become too ambitious about your thesis. You want something that meets the requirements of the assignment, but also something that can be defended or argued well on the basis of quick research.

The TerminatorSource: Amazon

 

When trying to come up with ideas fast, try to go with the first associations that come to mind. For example, when writing an essay on AI, then perhaps the Terminator movies come to mind.

It is good to start from what you know. For example, if you are writing an essay on AI (artificial intelligence), then perhaps the Terminator movies come to mind. They are about how machines take over the world and threaten to drive humans extinct.

So, if your topic is AI, then you could write about how machines could turn on us. You could perhaps also write about how people are losing jobs because of machines. The point is to think fast about your topic and just run with the first couple ideas that come to mind.

Basic essay structure

To write a procrastinated essay, stick to basic structure and don't get too creative. The most common essay structure has five parts:

1. Introduction with thesis
2. Claim #1
3. Claim #2
4. Claim #3
5. Conclusion

Even if you don't have an outline, you should break your essay down into about three easily manageable parts. Each of these parts should focus on one aspect of your thesis. Then you can write each of the parts almost as if each of them is a separate short essay inside the essay.

This method can help you make sure your essay makes sense even if you haven't had much time to think about it. Now you can just jump into the stream of consciousness, throwing in citations where they seem to make sense. You'll be done with your draft in no time.

Tools for editing

The final step of writing your procrastinated essay fast is to run a quick edit on it. Your draft does not have to be perfect. (Indeed, that would be unreasonable, since if you are a procrastinator, you will probably have to just turn in your first draft.) However, you can use some tools in order to do some basic editing in a matter of minutes.

Spell check

All major word processors, including Microsoft Word and Google Docs, have built-in spell-check features. You can run a spell check at the very end of the writing process, or you can have it set on autocorrect so that the fixes are made in real-time as you are writing your draft. Either way, there is no real excuse to not run a spell check on your essay. It will only take a minute or so.

Grammarly

Grammarly is a more sophisticated tool that checks various aspects of your writing. This is how the service is described on the Grammarly website:

"Grammarly's algorithms flag potential issues in the text and suggest context-specific corrections for grammar, spelling, wordiness, style, punctuation, and even plagiarism. Grammarly explains the reasoning behind each correction, so you can make an informed decision about whether, and how, to correct an issue."

If you are a procrastinator and have to write an essay fast, then Grammarly could prove to be an invaluable tool. This is not only because you are more likely to make spelling and grammar mistakes if you are writing fast. It is also because if you are an expert at writing, then many of the suggestions made by Grammarly could improve the overall quality of your draft (beyond strict spelling and grammar).

GrammarlySource: Grammarly

 

Grammarly could be a very useful tool for procrastinators.

Grammarly offers both free and premium services. If you like Grammarly, check out our tool tips and technology for writers!

Seeking assistance through essay writing services

Finally, if are a procrastinator, then you should know where to find help if you need it. Your college campus probably has a writing tutoring center. You could try to use them for help, but depending on how long you have put off your work, there may be no time.

One good option would be to use the essay writing services of Ultius. Ultius contracts with all-American, college-educated writers only, and our writers have a great deal of experience with writing essays on all subjects and at all difficulty levels. Many of them do this all day, every day —so, writing an essay fast would be no trouble for them. By ordering a sample custom essay from us, you can get ideas quickly for your own essay, and you can also see how the essay should be structured.

We also order several timetables for custom essay orders, and you have the option of ordering a sample essay that will be delivered to you in a matter of hours from when you place your order. If you have procrastinated your essay, then this is an option that you should surely keep in mind.

Afraid a writing service might be scam? Avoid online writing scams with help from our step-by-step guide!

Conclusion

Between the advice that we have provided above in this guide as well as the custom essay writing services we can offer to you directly, we hope that you have everything you need in order to feel confident about turning in a quality draft even if you have procrastinated all aspects of the essay writing process. If you want to learn more tips on how to write A+ papers, check out our essay writing services.