Incorporating Larry’s emendations, the next week of work looks like this:
Discussion—Thursday, July 9
Great ExpectationsLecture—Friday, July 10
Quiz: Great ExpectationsLecture—Monday, July 13
Due: Essay 2, draft 2
Due: Essay 3, draft 1Discussion—Tuesday, July 14
Due: MidtermLecture—Wednesday, July 15
Quiz: The Comedy of Errors
The crush of work has not been alleviated: it has merely been shifted to the weekend. This is no especial kindness.
Two notes on working thoughtfully this weekend:
Use caffeine smartly. Unfocused writers write unfocused essays. The pharmacology of caffeine is pretty straightforward: caffeine has no meaningful effect on whether or not you are sleepy, though it can dull the feeling of sleepiness. Its significant effect is that, taken in controlled doses, it helps you control when you are focused.
The caffeine you drink in a sip of coffee reaches peak efficacy at 30–45 minutes. As soon as you get past this peak you begin to feel tired, even though the caffeine stays in your bloodstream around 24 hours. You want to sip coffee slowly over the course of a 6- or 8-hour period. Because coffee is disgusting as all get out once it grows cold, this means you will want a few small cups of hot coffee or a thermal mug that will keep coffee warm for hours.
For me, a Thermos Nissan coffee mug is as important as nearly any other learning tool.
Revise. You cannot write a paper; you can only rewrite a paper.
That might look like an epigram, but I mean it earnestly: there is not a single paragraph in the 160 pages (so far) of my dissertation that has not been rewritten from the ground up. I have to write two or three dumb things for every reasonably intelligent thing I have to say.
By rewriting an essay, you do something central to the development of your argument: you take the conclusion of the first draft of your argument and you are able to begin with it as a premise. When you reach a new conclusion, that new conclusion will be by definition more sophisticated.
Another way of thinking about it is simply as a competition. How many of your colleagues are drafting and then rewriting the essays for the midterm? If you draft and then rewrite, you will at least be ahead of them in the quality and subtlety of your work.
