1) brain dump (get down all you ideas) 2) the research process (Wikipedia, google scholar etc.) 3) annotate the important parts of the material (two sources for each main point) 4) first draft (don't be a perfectionist just finish the draft) 5) Edit (make sure it communicates the message as effectively as possible, and edit by printing the paper) 6) Get FEEDBACK (ask if statements make sense)

You didn't have to drag me in the first 10 seconds of the video 💀

i rely on future me too much

T minus 9 hours. Word count 65/1600. Wish me luck!

Another thing that I would recommend: if one of your professors will look over your paper before you turn it in, DO IT. I have had many professors who will look at the paper and annotate it with things they thought needed improvement. I made all A's in college (with the exception of one class) and a big part of that was having professors looking at my work.

wow... i actually use the brain dump method myself. i call them writing dumps and fill it with every point,idea or whatever i think of relating to my paper. and then later on i just build on them and paste it into the actual document organizing them together like a puzzle piece. i'd have a hard time starting my papers before i started doing that but now i don't really stress as much as i use to.

Wow, I wish they spent more time teaching you how to actually *write* in middle school and high school English classes instead of settling for basic literacy and trivia about Shakespeare.

don't worry, I'm not procrastinating an essay...I'm procrastinating a lab report, 2 math assignments, and a midterm :) (also, I too find it really useful to use different places to write different stages. If I start my brain dump in the same doc. that I intend to write my final draft I freak out and try to make it perfect first try)

This is just a suggestion, but I would love to see a video on Presentations. Stuff like, Professional slides, and speaking as well as maintaining posture and Clear speaking.

Wow schools can’t even teach us how to write essays😂

It's 2019 and CC is still as helpful as ever!

I find brain dumps a good way to kick start the process (and I try to do this asap after receiving the assignment) so that the task isn't so intimidating/off putting, then I'm less likely to procrastinate on it (lol). It seems to subconsciously reassure me that hey, you actually know a fair bit about this topic. Or hey, you at least know what you don't know about this topic. Some thoughts on alternative ways to brain dump: My brain dumps aren't that structured - most of my big writing tasks are in humanities subjects, so mindmaps work best for me since i can draw arrows all over the place and make the links I need. I'm also better at explaining and developing initial ideas when I'm talking to someone, so I turn on a voice recorder and literally talk (to myself or someone else). If you're talking to someone else, they can also challenge you or help you develop things if they're good at asking questions. This is great for stuff with more abstract ideas, or bigger projects.

I read that Bill Bryson book, "A Short History of Nearly Everything", while I was in the hospital in labor waiting to give birth to my son. I figured it was my last chance to read a grown-up book for the foreseeable future. It certainly helped pass the time.

Bull sh*tting essays is a true art form. And I get plenty of practice.

SIMON... YOU’RE ONE OF THE BEST TEACHERS IVE EVER HAD

Gotta say thanks for posting this one. I've always struggled with writing papers. People have tried to tutor me how to since I was in junior high. I have never had the process laid out to me quite like this before. It seems so much simpler than what I have been taught over and over again. For the first time, I think I'm actually somewhat excited to write my next paper. Thanks for helping me start to get through my mental block.

Ooh my goodness. This will help me so much. Thank you

Perfect timing, thank you guys! I would usually go through stacks of research papers and then think about their arguments and look for more and more research without writing a single word, and I can attest it is a bad strategy, so I follow your approach this semster for sure. thanx!

This serious is truly a blessing, thanks for all your hard work!

I just wrote myself a simple step-by-step guide to writing essays, based on this video. It's going to help me a lot in the future! Thank you!

''Sorry Professor, my friend Mario was impaled by floor spikes while trying to save a kidnapped woman. I have to visit him at the hospital''.

Question about your prewriting section: how do you handle the situations where: 1) you don't know what the goal of an assignment is and can't get clarity on it? 2) you don't know how to do the analysis of the data you have access it? (For example, if you are given the assignment to predict the outcome of a war between two nations when given statistics on their military forces, info about the terrain, weapons, doctrine, etc...)

Thank you so much for this video. It's freaking awesome, and I relate way too much with the idea that everything has to be perfect on the first try. It was really encouraging to hear that you struggled with the same thing, as well as how you worked to overcome it :) Thank you.

I've always struggled with trying to do multiple things at once, and I still can't overlook my spelling mistakes even during writing, but I did get much better about the separation of these phases the longer I've worked in a job where my writing gets reviewed by other people and I get to review others' writing. Plus, I started using a plain text editor to write so I couldn't get distracted by formatting, and I absolutely love it.

This video began to give me the inspiration to start thinking about setting aside some time to consider thinking about how I'm going to decide to think about laying out the plan for the first draft of the paper I have to hand in tomorrow

Aw great show you fit right in!!! I LOVE THE GREEN BROTHERS THEY HAVE GOTTEN ME THOUGH SOOOOO MANY CLASSES!!! TY TY TY CC!

This is legitimately helpful! THANKS!❤

I paused the video on "you are watching a youtube video, look at you life look at your choice." I just had an intense conversation with my dad. We were taking about my grade, the stress he and my mother give me, and how they are bad parents. How they can't hold a grudge expect me to be there for them when im to busy and dont respect them. I'm currently doing weeks of homework for a advance class i dont need to take in the span of a few days. I'm taking classes i that are way advance and i dont have a leghole in because of how i was raised. That's my life. That's my choices. I did my worst and i did my best. I'm currently doing homework, and i'm watching this video.

these series are really great thanks a lot for all these good videos. i just love crash course

I have an essay due tomorrow (the day after this video was posted) papa bless

Really glad there are video like this! In my major I haven't had to write a paper in over two years with works cited pages.

Absolutely love these advices - I use them each time I write the papers by myself. When I don't, I totally rely on the academic writers with experience. I prefer small companies as big and popular websites are too pricey for me. I recently used @t, and I am totally satisfied. They treated me really well and the paper was great.

5:20 I'm doing school work right now and a part of it is watching this video and I just wanted to say you're doing an amazing job because a lot of videos that they make me watch are boring and they're trying way too hard to be cool like bring up video games and stuff and it just makes it cringy but you're doing it right keep up the good work dude 💪

This is really helpful for writing my first final paper in class, thank you!

I really like Crash Course and this is the first time I've seen you on here, you did a good job!

OK BUT WAY TO HIT ME WITH THAT TRUTH IN THE BEGINNING. Dang. ok but honestly, thank you for this, it's so helpful & informative I love it

i wish i saw this video sooner. i always do the research then rough draft. hopefully with these techniques i can turn my B paper into an A paper.thanks thomas!

Yes! I've been spending so much time on research!

I KNEW YOU WERE ON CRASH COURSE! I love your personal channel too!! GRIND ON MAN!!!

i never new how useful this could be😱

You're really helping a lot of us. Thanks!!

I really loved this video it helped me plan for my research paper!!!! Thank you Crash Course!!!!

This came out exactly at the time i need these advice Thanks!

Great! I can use this advices for my future thesis writing. Thanks for the vid :)

I returned to college for the first time since 2013 this January. I did about two pages of freewriting before I took a real attempt at my first written assignment. Now I have the term Brain Dump, and that's awesome.

I wish I had these tipps before my bachelor thesis >.< but I'm so thankful for this video!

I’m having trouble with brainstorming, but I guess I’ll get it eventually. This video is really helpful!

Thank you crash course for saving my first job lol. Love this channel!

I love this study series.. You guys could'nt have posted this at a better time.

Okay but this actually helped me so much. Thank you.

Nice to see you on Crash Course Frank!

i love this series

thanks so much. as a uni student trying to grasp the jump from hs papers, this was extremely helpful. hoping i get an A!

you certainly succeeded btw, i do find this series perfect

This was really helpful and your good-looking face kept me interested. Thanks!

Your Breath of the Wild reference hit me in the feels... It's so true.. :(

This is awesome. Thanks!

Great content! Thank you so much!

And yet Crash course saves us again

This helps so much! I wish I had found this video earlier!

Loved the way You tell how much you wanted to be here on Chrash Course Felling like a proud momma ♥

Thank you crash course, and Thomas Frank!

WOW the citation section of wiki. Genius. As a writer I related 100% to the sculpting metaphor. It's true for all art.

Watching this... *after* emailing an article lol

This reminds me of The Martian written by Andy Weir. He published the story on his blog and was given editorial advice by his readers until he "finished" the book. Because of its popularity, excellent story due to obvious meticulous research, the "book" was bought by a publisher. They helped him clean up a few issues with the rough spots and edited the story further to create a book that even Andy recommended to people who had already read the story online. BTW, Andy's next book, Artemis, comes out on Nov. 17.

I loved the intro!!!!!

Was really hoping a video like this was going to come out sooner. I just handed in an essay I am really not proud of bc I did horrible planning.

Thanks for telling me about ebsco. I didn't knew about it. When I looked it up I thought that I literally struck a gold mine!

oh god that giancoli physics textbook is giving me a reminder to do my ap physics homework ;_;

this saved my english essay, thank you!!!!

I actually have a long essay due tomorrow for APUSH THANK YOU!!!

Yaaassss! Thank you! My goodness, I always ALWAYS would start out writing without doing research. My current instructor got mad that I had already started writing before doing research for my current paper, but ahaaaa Anyway, This is awesome advice thank you!

I need more videos to start out with that!

Great overview of what goes in a paper. I wonder if there’s any way to use a graphic organizer to help with adding structure when pre-writing.

THANK YOU I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO DOES THE WIKI CITATION THING

This video will help me out

So helpful

This video depicted me and now crash course became life! I wish the mythology onw was around when I took the class but oh well good things take time.

Nice tips. Some times I need good grads. That time I go for essay writing service.

Teachers are too busy pressing their own ideology’s in school to teach us useful things that you guys show on this channel. Thank you

*Hamilton Wrote the Other 51!!*

i just watched this video at 1.5x speed, sat down, made a hot mess of a brain dump, and now i almost have a complete outline of my 8-10 page mid term paper in my head thats due in 4 days. thank u so much

Great advice, I agree 100%. Although I prefer writing stoned and editing sober. Although I find the best method is writing stoned and hiring an editor lol.

wow thanks for the advice

This is perfectly timed I have an ap euro essay today

thank you this was super helpfull

Thank you so much

very cool advices to write best writing paper

Watching this roughly two months before my essays and papers are due.

nice methods they are amazing

my favourite part of this was the part where it was pointed out that the first draft does not have to be perfect. made so many new documents (very unorganized) due to the fact that my research went out of direction a couple of times..

THANK YOU LIFE SAVIOR!

Thank you for sharing your story about wanting to become a Crash Course instructor! One day if there is a Crash Course Cannabis...I would love to teach the general public about this prevalent topic from a scientific and public health focused approach.

I don't have a paper due in twenty-four hours; it's due in two weeks and I'm quoting this video.

I always feel bad when the intro happens because I just like watching the videos 😂😂

This would of actually been kinda helpful if I saw it when it was released. But I was busy working on a 1500 word essay that was due on Thursday, that funnily enough i didn't start until it was due in 24 hours.

I want to work for Crash Course one day too!

Thank you

Great content and something I will definitely use in my master's thesis this year. However, there are a few things I would like to add from my personal experience. Science/Engineering majors, the advice from my lectures when trying to find constants and variable from literature is to use three independent sources of information for that variable. This mitigates the impact an extream variation of that variable may have and lets to build confidence in the accuracy of the variable. A personal example is when I have had to find a U value for a material ( a U value is a measure of hard it is for heat to go through a material) and multiple sources provided different answers, this method allowed me to take an average value from the sources and gave me evidence if I had to argue the accuracy of the value. Mabey most useful to science majors, but a bit less are word counts. These were and are a bain of my life. While writing without regard to the word count probably works for some, personally, it puts a lot of stress on the latter editing stages (this is mainly because I'm not a great self-editor, I explain this a bit further in my last point) My advice would be to (if you have a way to) split the word count into smaller word counts for each section of the essay/report. e.g. 200 for the introduction, 300 on methodology, 400 on results and discussion, 100 for a conclusion. Personally, my university provides a briefing document which layouts what it wants from an assignment which can help with this, but I can sometimes be tricky generally speaking through in my experience you want your discussion to be the largest section. By splitting the word count up into these smaller sections I find it easier to be concise and minimise on the waffle, in relation to the advice given by Thomas, this may work best for a second draft, but personally, I find it useful on my first. Next, if your assignment warrants the use of a logbook USE ONE. Again typically used on the science and engineering fields but for long-term assignments like dissertations or thesis that can span the year, these are exceptionally useful for tracking your thoughts on the project, key information, and changes in the project. Lastly, Word has an inbuilt tool to which can say back to you what you write (otherwise English to English Google translate cane work). As someone who has mild dyslexia presenting itself mainly in speech often when I read back to speak back my own work I often put in words which aren't actually there. getting something like Word or Google to speak the work back to me lets me listen and check for things like a good flow that way. Applogies for the large wall of text, but I hope I may be helpfull.

2,000 words in 24 hours? Relatively easy in most cases. Having ADD is a bit tricky, as you often do your best work when under the gun, so ironically it's easier for me than having 48 hours. Three hours is going to be about the highest time compression I could work with for a research paper of this length (assuming I am worried about getting an "A"). For whatever reason, my writing is far better under these conditions as well.