There's a reason they call it PRO-crastination.

[kiralamouse]

This is not a game for amateurs, after all. But since my first attempt at starting my paper resulted in some potentially amusing incoherent ranting instead, I thought I'd post for posterity.


A Well Thought-Out Englilsh Paper Rant By Kirala "The Yellow Dart" Mouse
(with thanks to Homestarrunner.com and Shel Silverstein)
"I do not want to write today,"
said little [insert-name, okay?]
"I have so much I'd rather do
And homework makes my face turn blue.
I have a short attention span,
And - ooh, is that some new linkspam?
My laundry and my cleaning call
Financial documents appall
(They've been set on "procrastinate"
Since early spring two thousand eight.
Surely they are first in line
When productivity's online?)
But most of all, I cannot lie,
I have my awesome reasons why:

First: Double-space. Word keeps using that word. I do not think it means what it thinks it means. Times New Roman is obviously ignorant of what “double-space” means. I demand the right to write in Courier New, darn it.

Second: Format. I have been writing in MLA format for my entire academic career. Do not dangle this APA format as an alternative. Sure, it’s wonderful to have in-text citations which refer only to author and year instead of requiring that I look up the specific page number of the reference, but switching the lovely four-line space-occupying header for an uncounted title page is simply not a good move.

Third: Purpose. There is no purpose to this assignment. It will be of no benefit to me, because I intend to promptly bury this atrocity to avoid psychological damage, and of course I cannot benefit from something I cannot remember. It is unfair to ask me to write a coherent 8-10 page paper on an incoherent journal. It is more unfair to ask an untrained English major to evaluate the quality of social-scientific writing, since by English-major standards all social-scientific writing tends to be below par.

Fourth: I object.

Fifth: I object.

Sixth: I object. As an American, I believe this gives me the right to sue liberally until a liberal interpretation of the Eighth Amendment proves that it is unconstitutional to inflict this assignment on me. I should then be awarded large sums of money by the court.

Seventh: In conclusion, there have been many opinions about hustle and bustle." Now it is my intention to go off and play disgruntled/unwillingly industrious student for several hours.

Comments

[trevel.livejournal.com]

Huzzah for Courier New!

-- although I think I like it for different reasons than you do. In the meantime, try to take advantage of Times New Roman -- use more words with w's in them, like walrus or weather. Walrus loses points for the l, of course, but should be net positive all told.

I'm actually writing this in Courier New right now! Good for Firefox and LJ. Hooray for fixed-width fonts!

ha!

[dypsidollierats.livejournal.com]

Very clever. And I agree, all social-science writing is below par. I hope the paper got done... I remember the panic you inflicted upon me when you came back from London for Christmas and should have been relishing the fact that school was over but instead you were procrastinating on a PAPER that your teacher mercifully let you turn in who knows how late.
And then the time when you finished college; that is, finished minus a PAPER that you had to write that you just kept putting off.
Oh, you stress me out. But they bring back fond memories of my relief when you finally DID, in fact, get them done. :)