Peter's Guide to Long Paper-Writing

Assuming you're writing a 20-page paper, here are the necessary steps you need to take to never do any research, never do any critical thinking, and barely even use Google or Wikipedia.

First, start off with an introduction. The introduction doesn't contain any useful information, but it should give your reader a taste of what's to come. It's like a preview at a movie, or that first whiff of shit in an outhouse. A good introduction, though, will pass itself off with greatness without actually conveying any knowledge. Consider:

People have always debated the great questions of 'why' and 'how', and have supported their ideas with the 'what' and the 'where'. Overlooked, however, is the 'who' and the 'when', integral to such diverse studies as anthropology, engineering, jumping rope and gold-digging (in the Greek sense of the word). Never in human history have such questions been debated more intensely or with such interest than in the modern context, though this might change in the future.

Start out broad. If you specify too soon, you'll lose your audience. They don't care about the specifics, because they know they'll come later. Also, speak in broad generalizations. Use the rule of thumb that, if what you're saying can't be applied to at least a billion people, or one of the seven continents, then it doesn't bear mentioning. An introduction should also set up what is and what isn't, but the difference should be ambiguous enough that you could pilot an oil tanker through the gap without any difficulty. Your reader will think its airtight though, with the right wording. It's important also to bring context into it. Most things going on right now have either never happened before, or have never happened before in such a big or small way. The words 'globalization', 'modernity', 'imperative', 'paradigm' and/or 'deconstruct' are choice words to add substanceless gilt. If whatever the hell you're talking about has happened before, or you can't think of a covert way of saying nothing, quote Foucault . It'll serve the same purpose.

Next comes a summation of everything you're going to talk about in the paper - a kind of roadmap, so if your reader will know what's coming. This way, he or she can skip to the good parts, or, if there are no good parts, not waste their time and find a different paper to read. A good roadmap goes like this:

This paper will first discuss what people are doing. Next, this paper will analyze who these people are, and where they are doing these things. Following this will be a comparison of when people do things and how they do things. Finally, this paper will conclude with an overview of why people do things.

Standard fluff, but you know what's coming. It's like a table of contents, or that same bitchy rant your landlord gives you about how if you don't pay him he'll evict you. In other words, it's predictable. If you're not discussing specifics ever, consider 'a survey of the literature', which just means you're gonna summarize what other people have said. Another strategy is 'a critical analysis according to so-and-so's perspective', which is you taking what you've studying, putting it in your own crack-addled words and attributing the ideas behind it to someone much smarter and hopefully much more dead than yourself. This all should take about a page, maybe a page and a half. Next comes statistics.

Everyone loves statistics, because they signify things that only you can understand. No one looks at statistics, and if they do, they will hate themselves for having made the effort when THEY KNOW you will analyze the data for them. Make sure your statistics are especially convoluted in their display, and make the font really small so nobody can be sure of what they're reading. Summarize the statistics in broad sweeps, like '20% of people eat a stick of butter every hour' or '74% of Iowans are gay'. The actual statistics won't matter, but the analysis will, so the reader will gloss over your recapitulation. Your analysis will have to involve some thought, but don't put too much effort into it, or you might go blind. This is the appropriate moment to include a pie chart as well. For your analysis, be brief but profound, like 'and those people eating butter will all be on Oprah next year' or 'those gay Iowans correlate to a drop in oil futures in Dubai'. Be sure to mention that you'll discuss more later. It'll hook your reader better. In total, especially with graphs and figures, you've taken up another two to three pages.

Following your statistics should come something based off of a quote. The best kind of quotes are ones in foreign languages that have been translated into English. Include both the original and the translation - it's double the space, and double the fun! Remember, Japanese and Mandarin are written vertically, so they take up more room on the page. Include a photo of the person being quoted as well. If you can't find a photo of the person, attribute it to JFK. No one can resist JFK. Once you have your quote, you should mention how profound it is, like 'and we, as a society, can learn a lot from this message of hope and inspiration' or 'and the tragedies of the past ring true today in the suffering of unheard millions'. Include both if you really want to screw with your reader, but it might be a good idea to put one before the picture of JFK and one after. That way, your reader will have forgotten the first bit by the time they get to the second.

You should be on page six or eight by now. Now comes the 'so what' statement. Whatever you're talking about can usually be applied to poor people, women, unborn children, the future, or the environment. Bear in mind, all of these groups have strong positive associations tied to them, so don't say anything bad. If you say something like, 'and it should be kept in mind that because the environment is irrevocably ruined, poor people will all starve to death tomorrow', your reader will burst into tears and kill themselves. This is a light reaction compared to if you were to say, 'and because women murder unborn children by not submitting to baby quotas, the future has been irrevocably ruined'. This will likely get you dumped, castrated and lynched if you're a man, and dumped, castrated and lynched if you're a woman. So, be positive. Say something like, 'and because the environment is going to rebound, poor people will all become billionaires!' or 'all women were unborn children once, and now they are the future!'. You must be sure to include an exclamation point, or your statement will be misinterpreted, and you will be dumped, castrated and lynched.

If you're not at page 10-15 by now, it's time to employ creative methods in formatting that the human eye can't identify. These include making line spacing 2.1 instead of 2, or increasing all punctuation to size 13 instead of 12. Double-space your title as well, and reduce your margins by 1/8 of an inch on both sides. Leave gratuitous spaces between sections, and if you can, use those really fancy giant capital letters they have in Newsweek at the beginning of paragraphs.

Finally, your conclusion. Remember, it's always safe to blame political gridlock, white supremacists, the legacy of colonialism and carbon dioxide emissions. Some professors will give bonus points if you can blame all of the above in one swoop. Regardless, you should either blame - or congratulate - someone or something. Bear in mind, the aforementioned topics are safe to blame, but rarely congratulate. Certainly, if you find yourself in a position where you can honestly congratulate all four, you are going to Hell. Delete your paper and swallow some Draino. If you're not in that position, blame blame blame away! And remember, at this point, your reader wants to be done so he or she can eat, go home, have sex or go to sleep. 99% of the time, you want them to get done with your paper, disregard it, and give you a B-. For that 1% of the time though, you need something spectacular to catch their attention one last time. A diagram of a horse and a dolphin copulating, for instance, will work, or a proclamation that you have found Incan gold in Antarctica. The more absurd, the better, but be careful because since your reader is now interested once again, they will also be attentive to the plausibility of your final argument. You had better make sure that horse/dolphin porn is graphic enough to arouse them, or indicate that some of that Incan gold will find its way into your reader's wallet.

Finally, finish with a bibliography copied from any work in critical theory or the humanities. The papers in these fields are wealthy graveyards of citations that no one in their right mind would check up on, but will take for granted that the authors words are profound acts of intellectual masturbation. Your index, if needed, can similarly be copied from a telephone directory, or from the back of a mid-priced cookbook.

Once you're all done, return to the top, and craft yourself a title. Feel free to steal a headline from last week's British tabloids. They are usually provocative, and your reader will likely not have read them. Something like 'Sussex man drowns in lorry full of dog urine' or 'Local council declared corrupt beyond redemption; sentenced to deportation'. If you want to try your hand at originality, just think of something your racist great-grandparent would say if you told them you were marrying interethnically. Something like 'Jesus H. Christ on a Whale, the hell you are you bastard retard' or 'Say one more word and I'll belt you worse than I did your nana when she tried to vote'. For additional effect, remove every third word.

Your paper is now complete, and ready to be handed in to your professor. Be sure to wait until the last minute. You should be sweating when you hand it to them (in person), and be bleeding freely from some visible part of your body. If you can arrange for a destroyed bike to be placed in view nearby, all the better. Even more to your advantage is if you can get a friend to pretend to mug you moments before your professor leaves their office for their car. Hand it to them directly, then excuse yourself to get your wounds treated at the ER. See if they won't pity you and spring for cab fare as well.

The End.