Hello All! As a chronic procrastinator I know first hand that while it’s not the best idea, with enough coffee anything can be crammed out in time. Right? However, as I have learned throughout my college experience there’s a big difference between “cramming something out” and spending an appropriate amount of time on something.
When it comes to something like writing there are many stages to creating what one would call a “well-written” essay. Throughout my CTW course, my English teacher has required us to write our essays in a series of steps, to prevent idiots like me from waiting until the last minute.
When first introduced to the concept of peer editing I was extremely essay. I personally believe that I am a fairly good writer and was naive enough to believe that my peers would add little to my papers. As a procrastinator I usually wait until the last minute to write and essay and then just pump it out, read it over, and call it quits. However, I never realized how much better my papers would be after going through several rounds of revising.
Additionally, this course has broken up our research assignment into numerous steps. Because I was required to do extensive research including an annotated bibliography, a survey, and 2 papers building up to my final argument, I was forced to dedicate the proper amount of time to formulating my thoughts.
Although I never realized it in the past, procrastination was keeping me from reaching my full writing potential. Since discovering this I have noticed that this translates to my other classes as well. Cramming may work for a simple quiz or test bur it keeps you from actually retaining the information and/or creating something to it’d full potential.
I say this as someone who has repped procrastination her whole life: STOP.
