I'm A King

More precisely, I'm a master. I have transcended the plane of procrastic mediocrity and become a bullshitting master. Not a pro, not an expert, but a master. I have reached Yoda-like status in the force known as bullshitting papers. I picked up the art in Mr. Pittman's AP English 11 class, and have since perfected it through constant procrastination. This is hardly something to call good, but I write much, much better on impulse, instinct, and pressure. Well, honestly, in all actuality, I don't know whether I work better if I work ahead, because I never have. Never. The earliest I'll start a paper is two days before the rough draft is due, and that's stretching it. After the rough draft is done and peer critiques are over, I won't work on the final draft until nine times out of ten, the night before it's due. I'll make minor changes, usually surface errors that I find on the rough drafts, and maybe throw in a quick paragraph or two if I feel something needs extra emphasis. But I am mostly content and confident with so little changes and I usually do well. My english teacher happens to be a self-proclaimed grading Nazi, but the fact I'm getting B's in her class lets me know my shit will fly with a more lenient one.

In Comm 102, there are two written paper assignments and four exams. This second assignment is worth nearly triple the first, so it would make sense if I had worked way ahead of time. I wound up doing the assignment the night before it was due. Because this isn't an english class, you aren't given pre-determined rough draft time. I had to write on two online videos and an extra scholarly source, describing how William L. Bennett's four media biases - personalization, dramatization, fragmentation, and authority-disorder, relate, all from scratch. This was Sunday night. I work on Monday morning from 8-11, but don't have class until 1, so I would have some extra time to work on this essay.

The only problem was that I also had to finish a final draft for english. But you know how I handle those already, so I worked all night on the Comm paper. Getting the content down was no problem, even though I had to keep myself mentally focused to prevent burning out. The aggravating difficulties I had were working with the APA format and keeping the paper under the predetermined limit.

APA format sucks, blows, takes it from behind, and every other insult American society has used to make homosexuals synonymous with uncongeniality. I've only dabbered with APA use, and haven't had to write a paper with such technicality before. If we didn't display the citations correcly, they threatened, our papers would be graded superharsh. On Ctools were examples of APA, but not everything I needed to know was available, most especially on how to cite stuff in-text. My favorite source on the APA style is Purdue's OWL website online, which is a vast vat of information, but the site was down the whole night. Fucking Murphy. So I half-did right, half-bullshitted my in-text citations, hoping for the best.

The next dastardly dilemma of inconvenience I ran into, which haunted me up until the next morning, was the page requirement. The paper had to be a minumum of four pages, but could not exceed five pages, and papers that ran onto the sixth page wouldn't be looked at. I hate limits because it impinges on my creativity, and I had to continually cut out things I felt were great points. I sat at the computer for an hour, slashing things out to meet the requirement, then hit the sack.

I woke up, went to work, then got back and fired up the Dell. I had to add a header with page numbers and for some odd reason my UMID as well, and when I did that it bumped down the text even more, running onto the sixth page. Already tired, exhausted, and just plan fucking infuriated at this requirement, I wanted to dropkick my computer in half, even though it clearly wasn't the Inspiron's fault. I had to cut out even more stuff, getting rid of more support and reinforcement for my information. Shit.

Two weeks go by, and I find out I don't do so well on the third exam. I need to do well on this paper to pick up the slack, but I no longer have any power to change anything. I just have to sit back and wait, expecting the worst. I honestly would've been content with a 'C' on this paper, considering the time frame I did it in. I get the paper back today in section, look through it, and find there are some grave errors.

Apparently I was supposed to make a "running header" or something like that, where you abbreviate the title of your paper before the page number. Irish luck abound, basically everyone did this incorrectly, so they let it fly. My GSI told us the information was given in the APA handouts, but they never told us that, and they made us think the handouts were strictly for reference. Next, even though apparently the running header was supposed to contain my page's title, the title I put for my paper was crossed out, I guess since the paper is stricly technical. I flip to the second page, and find out the scholarly source that I used "isn't appropriate for the assignment". At this point I'm freaking out, and am relieved to find the rest of the marks are few and are only surface errors. I am confused when I'm asked to quote a page number when I'm citing an online video, and I scoff at the marks saying I should use regular text when citing a website, because Microsoft Word automatically makes those links into blue.

I get to to the final page, and am damn near flabbergasted to see the B+ marked dark blue ink. Either the teacher was drunk when she graded this (she told us stories of how she barhopped during Thanksgiving, which was the same time she graded the papers), or I just happen to be one of the best goddamn bullshitters ever.

I should get a medal for this.

OWL at Purdue University: Using APA Format