(Now I'm all distracted because I just spent an hour on Gawker Personals and I fell in love with at least two people and they won't let you contact anyone without paying them money! Now I am so distracted by online romance I cannot think of my paper. So I shall print it, finish it at home (500 w) and type it in the morning. Disturbing: the first person on my list of compatible Gawkers is me.)

I've just spent half an hour procrastinating on my paper by writing and filling out a survey about papers.

All my college readers, please enlighten me as to your unique Paper-Writing Method.

And in the interests of posting a semi-real entry, I paste my responses below.

1: Should you be writing or researching for a paper right now?
Yes. I am 2210 words into my 3000-word paper on elite class gender identity in Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth. It's only 2pm, and this is by far the furthest along I've ever been in writing a paper of this length. I deserve this break and then 10 more.

2: What's it on, or what's the last paper you wrote?
Oh. I just told you. I created this survey not 2 minutes ago, you'd think I could remember the flow of my own questions. I use the word "subversive" a lot. And I think Thorstein Veblen was a hottie.

3: Do you procrastinate and finish your papers the night or hours before they are due, or are you a freakshow who goes through several drafts weeks in advance?
I usually procrastinate. I cannot write papers before the day before they are due, even this one. I need a sense of urgency. Usually I write all through the night and finish about 3 hours before class. If I sleep at all.

4: What is your favorite procrastination method?
Diaryland is a big one. And at Marietta my best friends are huge enablers -- god knows, we're all bound to be writing a paper at the same time and procrastinate together. Hortons runs, idle chitchat, alcohol, whatever.

5: What's your best paper-writing environment? Do you need food, company, music, silence &c?
I don't know if this is actually best for me, but I'm so used to it: on my terribly uncomfortable chair in front of my computer in my dorm at Marietta. Lani will usually be there and I like to laugh over random quotations with her. If anyone else is there, and there is continuous talking, I can't concentrate. Music is probably a bad idea. Food will distract me too -- food is for breaks, and there are copious amounts of those.

6: Do you like to type your papers directly on the computer, or do you write it out on paper first?
I used to think I wrote better on paper, but I've so adapted myself to just typing them directly that it seems best to me. Sometimes I will write some, print what I've got, revise it on the couch, repeat.

7: Do you take notes on your research? Or just make copies and underline articles? Or start writing cold and search frantically for quotes at random to back up what you're saying?
I've done all the above. Writing this paper, I think I've perfected my Method, although I may never allow myself this much time again to continue it. Lots and lots of research. Notes in the margin. 3 days before: cull together the most useful facts & quotations. 2 days before: put it all together in a meaty outline. day before: simply connect the dots.

8: What was the best paper you ever wrote?
I think this might turn out to be it. Although it's very much in a draft stage, and I never write in drafts, so we'll see how this goes. I'm still most proud of the papers I wrote in honors lit -- though they are distinctly freshmany, they were my best effort at the time, which is more than i can say of most papers I've written. Plus anytime DHS uses the word "brilliant..."

9: What was the longest paper you ever wrote?
Probably Katy's for European Feminism on Emmeline Pankhurst. It was, I think, 18 pages.

10: Any catastrophes?
Only once have I seriously concluded I could not get an assignment done and asked for an extension: a zoology lab report last fall. That's not really what I meant by "catastrophe," but I've never really gotten a terrible grade on a paper.

11: Did you ever cheat or plagiarize or fudge something by?
Cheating -- once I sent a blank email to a professor saying my paper was attached, but it wasn't, to get an extra night to work on it. Plagiarize, no. Fudging, yes, I have used some pretty weak, even made-up, arguments and facts -- you get a sense for what you can get away with.

12: Would you rather write a paper all in one go, or space it out over several hours/days?
All in one go. Because I really cannot start writing before the day before. Today I've allotted myself all day to write this, so I suppose I'm spacing it out over hours. It's write a page, and take whatever's left of the hour off. It will still be finished by 6, and then I'll revise.

13: Do you like to collaborate on papers or write it yourself?
I hate group work with a passion. Because honestly, your average college student, or at least Marietta College student, cannot write at any acceptable standard at all. Even when we divide sections up, I hate to have my work associated with theirs. I would much rather write twice as much myself.

14: Are you a perfectionist, mulling over every word, or do you just spit it out as it comes to you?
I tend to be a perfectionist. Today I've been trying to force myself to just get the ideas out and I'll revise later -- also, it is kind of easier knowing non-native speakers will read this. They speak fine English, but I know will not be able to instinctively tell a crap sentence, or even a slightly awkward one, from an orgasmically brilliant one. But usually, I slave away at perfection, word by word.

15: Define "bullshit," as in "a successful college paper-writer must first learn the fine art of bullshit." What percentage of your papers would you say are bullshit?
Haha. I don't know if it can be defined: you either have it or you don't. I am a master of the bullshit paper. It's not really "making things up," but making something that sounds profound out of something that is actually very weak, or even irrelevant. You have to be able to write well, and convincingly, but it's more than that. It is a finely-honed sense for what you can pass over and how to do it. Quite a bit of what I write is bullshit, and it has served me well.

16: Do you write better during the day or at night?
Night, usually. I have conditioned myself to do all my work at night. To be sitting next to a window in the middle of the afternoon right now does actually throw me off a bit.

17: Do you make an outline first? or have any other helpful pre-writing strategies?
Usually I just dive in with whatever research I've got, my sources being in 20 different places. This time I made myself a hellofa outline which is twice as meaty as my paper will be -- I think I should continue to do this, as my thoughts are more organized than they have ever been.

18: Would you rather write an 8-page paper or give a 10-minute speech?
8-page paper. TWENTY-page paper even. I hate giving speeches. I am very comfortable writing papers.

19: Would you rather write an 8-page paper, well-researched & argued, or take an in-class essay test with more lenient expectations but with a time limit?
8-page paper. But perhaps not a 20-page paper. I cannot write under a time limit. I need to be able to organize my thoughts and think out my argument. I rush during in-class essays and leave out finer points that I really do know. I'd much rather take the extra time to write an out-of-class paper.

20: Anything else you'd like to share about your Paper-Writing Method?
Just that I rock hard, and am currently 8 minutes late in starting my 2 o'clock hour page. But as the pages have been flying by in 20 minutes or less, I forgive myself.