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The Stages of Essay Writing, As Told By The Office

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UBC chapter.

The end of the term is nearing – which means, papers, papers, and more papers! Despite four years of writing term papers in university, I have found myself falling into the same patterns every time. Since I am taking a break from my papers to write this article, I thought, why not write about my paper writing experiences? Here are my stages of paper writing, as told by my favourite show, The Office: 

1. Read essay requirements in the syllabus at the beginning of the term – and then forget about it 

In what world would I want to think about writing a 15 page paper at the beginning of the term? I can totally think about that in a few months! 

 

2. When you knew the deadline all along, but it still takes you by surprise

Is it really already the end of term?

 

3. Research everything you possibly can in the shortest amount of time 

 

4. Start writing – and worry that you aren’t going to have enough to write 

Queue adding in extra paragraphs and therefores. 

 

5. Finish writing – and realize you wrote way too much 

Why do I always worry that I won’t have enough to write again? Why do I always over compensate and research way more than I need to? When will I learn?

 

6. Read your essay over and realize that it sucks 

That is why you always leave a couple days to edit, my friends!

 

7. Finish your citations, aka. the. worst. part. 

 

8. Then the best part – turning in your essay! 

Always the best feeling, whether you feel confident about the paper or not! 

 

10. But then realizing that you still have three more papers to write…

Well, at least the brief period of relief was nice while it lasted?

 

Here’s to paper season, HCUBC cuties! We can do it!   

Emily Morehead is a fourth-year Honours Political Science major and a Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice minor - and the current co-Campus Correspondent for Her Campus UBC! :) She hopes to pursue law in the future and run for office someday. Emily loves taking long hikes up mountains, traveling to new places, and obsessing over cute corgis.