COLLEGE PAPERBUDDY IS NOW AVAILABLE!

Are you feeling down? Did it take an hour to type your name on your paper? Are you asking yourself, “How the heck am I going to survive the next four weeks of classes?” If you answered “yes” to any of these questions then you might have a case of the Spring Break Blues.

The Spring Break Blues (SBB) are those gloomy feelings you get when you return to school after a vacation from academia. Whether you partied your butt off in Mexico and drank gallons of tequila each night or simply stayed in to catch up on your favorite TV shows, you probably didn’t do much studying over your Spring Break. This is awesome . . . until you start classes again. Just like the kinetics lesson you learned in high school physics, it’s easy to study and write papers when you’re already in the academic zone. When you mentally pull over to take a break from studying, it becomes much more difficult to get going again. Starting a paper might take you twice as long as it normally does (cue picture of a three-toed sloth sitting in front of a computer).

So, is there a way to overcome the SBB, or should we just continue to party and hope we have better luck next year? While the latter seems more fun, there are definitely ways to overcome SBB and get back on track for writing A+ papers. The following sections offer tips to help you prepare for the final weeks of the term. The main idea for all of them, though, is organization. Getting your academic life organized, as well as your personal life organized, will help you adapt quickly to your regular academic routine.

Make a To-Do List: Before you begin any homework assignments, it’s important to make a to-do list. Gather all of your class calendars and syllabi and type out everything you need to accomplish by the end of the year, including the specific dates of when assignments are due and when exams will be taken. You can arrange your tasks by their importance or in chronological order. You can then turn this into a checklist in which you cross off items as you finish them.

Create a Schedule: Once you know all of the tasks you need to finish by the end of the school term, you can create a schedule. Whether you prefer to use a planner or the calendar on your phone, you can mark all of your deadlines and important dates and then schedule time for work. You should also mark down any personal or social commitments so you can plan around these times and make sure you leave yourself room for studying.

Gather All Class Materials: Before returning to school, or soon after classes resume, it’s usually helpful to gather all of the materials for each of your classes and place them into groups. This is important for two reasons. The first is that by simply seeing all of your classes organized into neat piles, you might feel less stress and a sense of control and organization. And the second reason is that if you have everything you need to finish the term, then you won’t waste valuable time searching for something later on—especially if it’s at the eleventh hour!

Create a Reward System: Just because classes have started again it doesn’t mean you have to go cold turkey on having fun. You can still spend time with friends, watch TV, and even drink those gallons of tequila if your heart so desires. We all need a break once in a while. Therefore, you can use those fun times as an incentive for getting work done; you can think of them as rewards. For example, you can make a pact with yourself that if you finish writing a paper then you can go out to dinner or hang out with your friends.

With a little organization, it’s easy to successfully finish the remaining few weeks of the school term. From to-do lists to rewards, there are easy ways to stay on track and avoid unnecessary stress. Cheers to being organized!

In a land far, far away, at a magical place called college, there once lived a student named Anna. Anna had spent many tiresome hours researching and writing a term paper for one of her freshman college classes (hours she’d rather have spent hanging out with her friends!).

Later, when Anna was a sophomore, she was assigned a term paper that covered the same topics that she had researched and written about in her freshman term paper.

“Yes!” Anna thought to herself. “I already have most of the sources—this won’t take long to write!”

If Anna could re-use some of the sources she had compiled freshman year, then she would save herself valuable research time. So, about two weeks before the due date, when it was time for Anna to begin writing her paper (OK, it was more like a few days before the due date), she opened her bedroom’s closet door to pull out the plastic container where she stored papers from previous classes. She carefully opened this chest of information and began sifting through its academic treasures: the program for an interpretive dance performance she had watched for her “Beginning Tap Dance” class, notes for an essay on The Phantom of the Opera, articles about Mariah Carey for her “Stars and Star Makers” class . . . there were dozens of class papers. Unfortunately, none of the sources for that freshman paper were in the container.

“This is OK,” Anna told herself. “It’s just a minor setback. I can use the paper’s works cited page to find the sources’ publication information, which will still save me time. This is still better than researching from scratch.”

Anna quickly hopped over to her computer. She logged in and began searching through the folders on her desktop. After searching through the folders, she performed a search through the entire harddrive. She typed in dozens of variations of the title and subject of the paper—she even typed in the instructor’s name and date. Nothing.

“Aaahh,” cried Anna. “Where’s my wonderful (stupid!) paper?” And then (like suddenly remembering something embarrassing you did the night before) Anna regretfully realized she had deleted the paper before the school year had started.

“Woe is me (WTF!),” Anna sighed (shouted) to herself. “If I had saved my sources and the paper, then I wouldn’t have to go to the library this weekend (I’m a stupid idiot!).

The moral of this story: It’s worth saving your papers and their sources, because they could save you valuable time when you have to write papers in the future.

Class Handouts: Jewels or Junk?

If you've recently finished writing a research paper, then it might be difficult to think about writing another research paper next term—the words research and paper might even bring back a few nightmares for you if you had to pull an all-nighter (or a few all-nighters) trying to meet a deadline.

However, as a new term approaches, it's important to discuss the importance of in-class handouts when writing research papers. In-class handouts include scholarly articles, essays, and random periodical excerpts that your instructor passes out throughout the semester. Even if your instructor doesn't require you to store these items in a class binder, it's still important to hold on to all of the handouts you receive throughout the semester, as they can significantly help you when it comes time to research and write a paper. Class handouts are important when writing research papers for two reasons: they save time and they show your instructor that you're an awesome student.

Class Handouts Can Save You Time

Class handouts can save you valuable time as you look for sources to include in your paper. One of these handouts might be perfect for your research paper, which eliminates a source that you have to search for at the library or in the research databases. If the instructor describes your research assignment(s) at the beginning of the term, you can place those handouts that you think will be of interest to your paper(s) in a special folder.

Referencing a Class Handout in a Paper Will Impress Your Instructor

Also, incorporating a class handout into your paper shows your instructor that, not only were you in class that day, you read the material and reflected on its meaning, which enabled you to incorporate it into your paper. You have to be a super smart student if you were able to weave into your paper an important class handout, right? (Wink wink)

The important point to note about using class handouts for your research papers is that it has to be done in moderation. A paper that incorporates one or two class handouts is great. On the other hand, a paper that only uses class handouts as sources is not so good. Just be mindful of the types of sources you use and you'll do fine. (And don't forget to recycle those class handouts at the end of the term!)