Okay, despite your best intentions to start on your research paper early, you just didn’t quite get around to it. Now it’s due next week, and you’re a little panicked! Here are some tips that might help:

• While your first impulse might be to rush in and start writing, don’t! Your best bet is to take a minute and plan out your strategy. Look at the assignment, making sure you understand what you are supposed to do. When you don’t have much time, make sure you’re not having to go back and redo things because you didn’t read carefully the first time.
• Your first impulse might be to go to the library and check out five or six books on the topic, but once again, this is probably not your best bet. For one thing, at this stage, most books on the more popular research topics have already been checked out. Second, journal articles will probably give you the most bang for your research buck. You can search databases either on campus or at home. You can limit your search much more efficiently with a database, which means you can find information directed at supporting your thesis without wading through quite as much material.
• Ask the librarians for help. Sometimes students are embarrassed to ask because they have waited so long to start their paper. Don’t be. The library staff won’t judge you, but we will help you find some good sources. We can also save you a lot of time if you are new to searching library databases.
• Take good notes on your source material. Once again, because you’re rushed, you might be tempted to print off material without getting all the information you’ll need for your works cited page. DON’T!!!! Taking a minute to write down the author, title, publication, date, and page numbers when you find the information will save you time when you’re writing your works cited page. And since most of us write the works cited page last, that’s the very time that we don’t have a moment to spare to go back to a source to look up an author’s first name. (Two strategies that I’ve successfully used: I make a notecard for each source when I use it in the paper. When I do the works cited page, I just put the notecards in alphabetical order. The other is to keep a running works cited page as I write my paper. But if you take a source out of the paper, you have to remember to remove it from the works cited page as well.

The main message here is don’t panic or beat yourself up. You can still get that paper written. And renew that vow to start earlier next semester.

Also, Emily Bush is offering another research skills workshop this Saturday, April 18, from 10-11 a.m. in the Kisber Library.