Bullshitting a Research Paper

[User Name]

I wasn't sure of where to put this, Gen. Dis. or Knowledge, but I chose this due to higher traffic.

I have a research paper due in two weeks in a class that is a guaranteed A, regardless of how good it is, as long as it is done. By bullshitting, I don't mean plagiarizing. I would never do that. Bullshitting to me means making it seem longer by stretching out sentences, making margins a little bigger, etc. I'm sure all of you have had to do one at some point in your lives. Please share your bullshitting tips and experience with me.

[rsl12]

1st tip: bullshit is ez to spot. don't think you're getting away with anything.

[ratbastid]

The best paper I ever wrote in college was for an English course, on the novel Sister Carrie. I researched the way individuals inhabited social spheres, the way space was used in the novel to represent that, and the way spacial apertures (windows, doors) were used to demonstrate characters looking at another sphere from their own. For a lot of the novel, the main character spends time looking out the bedroom from her squalid bedroom onto the opulence of the people in the street below, for instance.

Brilliant paper. I got an A on it, and the prof asked for a copy for her files.

Thing is, I never read the novel. I picked up all that stuff from class discussions.

[qtpye4u84]

LOl thats what I did some times, During class discussions I would write notes or just remember then If I really had no time to read it I would read a chapter or 2 towards the end I was always an A student im glad I can remeber things in my head as if i were watching a movie so I can remeber things.
Best way to bull shit is to write in my opinon I think so and so did some thing what ever they did for some reason you think of and blah blah

[User Name]

Originally posted by rsl12
1st tip: bullshit is ez to spot. don't think you're getting away with anything.

She is <i>very</i> easy to please.

[User Name]

Originally posted by ratbastid
Thing is, I never read the novel. I picked up all that stuff from class discussions.

I assume this was before the age of Sparknotes.

[monkeysugar]

Try using the Courier New font. It is slightly larger than many other fonts, and it makes a big difference if you are trying to reach a page quota.

Otherwise, just relate what you are writing about to something differnt. Go off on a tangent, and bring it all together. This may take a bit of finesse, but it accomplishes two things: It makes your paper longer, and it breaks up the monotony for instructors. I'd imagine at least 90% of people write about the same thing in any paper that is given a specific topic. Bring in personal experiences, make shit up, etc. and you should be fine.

[MSD]

Expand character spacing by .7

[celaeno]

I recently did my term paper for English--a 10 pager on "The Wizard of Oz." Whew. I wrote the entire thing the night before it was due, and it took me 7 hours.

By the end, I was tweakin' on Mountain Dew, typing away mindlessly, no longer aware of what I was writing... Lots of BS in there, I'm sure.

How's this, for example?:

" It is possible that, since Baum's mother-in-law was an active leader in the women's suffrage movement, that he chose to exploit Dorothy as an advocate for the downtrodden housewife through her remarkable liberation from domestic drudgery."

Uhhh...

My favorite line is this one, though:

" Though the task of killing the Wicked Witch of the West seems a prodigious one ("No one has ever destroyed her before," one character remarks), the unlikely band of heroes bravely ventures forth to meet the challenge. "

I swear my teacher's gonna toss that one in the trash.

[djtestudo]

Quick ones:

- Use Courier New font. Even if there are font guidelines, this is almost always a legal font.

- Whatever the font size is supposed to be, increase it by .5.

- Make sure you double-space, unless you're told not to.

- Finally, do all that AFTER you finish your paper. That way, you know what you need to add to extend it to a proper length. Also, you may find you don't need to add anything.

As for the content, just find as many sources as you can that relate to your subject, and use them. Use your thesaurus to get longer words, and make sure you explain everything.

I wrote a 10-page paper on a Sunday night for a Monday morning class once, with only a couple sources and a very obscure subject. I got a perfect score for what amounted to me wiping my ass with the paper and handing it in.

I still have that paper too. Stinks a little though...

[guthmund]

Sometimes I like to see how far I can take alliteration. It's usually good for a couple of extra words every other sentence. It really adds up.

I also like to string together adjectives. "The poor, downtrodden, broken and repressed....."

And for chrissakes use the thesaurus. I can't stress this enough. Always pick the longest and most obscure word to use. If she is as easy to please as you say, she'll think your brilliant and misinterpret the bullshit as genius.

[Peryn]

Have you listened to class discussions on your subject before? If so, there are always a few phrases or terms or way of thinking that the prof seems to point out quite a bit. Find a way to throw those in. They give you points. You don't even really hafta mean it, and it doesn't always hafta make sense. Just toss em out there and bs some stuff the prof talked about. They recognize that as you "paying attention" and just start tossing in points. So much of any paper is subjective, that you hafta make them like you, rather than making a good paper. If you can show you were paying attention or whatever, they are much more likely to forgive mistakes, or overlook logic flaws.

Make the teacher WANT to give you a good grade, and you dont ever actually hafta say anything in your report. Also, font size needs to be increased by 0.5. Not quite enough to be noticable, but in the long run it increaces length quite a bit. Margine bring in by about 1/8" each side. Also makes a long term affect, and a 1/4" total difference can be explained to printer differences or soemthing.

[mystmarimatt]

BS isn't just a way of getting through papers, it's an art form, man.

Took me years of practice, and now i'm awesome at it.

And, if done well, isn't easy to spot.

[Fremen]

Why don't you instead of bullshitting your way through the paper, do some actual research for it and learn something?
That way, you and/or your parents get your money's worth.

[soccerchamp76]

The font stuff is crap advice at best. Anybody with a pea-sized brain can pick out the margin differences, character spacing, and font differences. If the teacher has to read a bunch (you never mentioned how many) and they are all 12-point Times New Roman, you are screwed.
Best way is to use the thesaurus and be very broad in your talks. As mystmarimatt said, bullshitting is indeed an art form and you can't start on one paper, you have to have experience. Good luck

[kl0pper]

Originally posted by MrSelfDestruct
Expand character spacing by .7

i use .3
but im paranoid

[User Name]

I never knew about character spacing. It's awesome. Thanks for slightly easing the life of a fellow bullshitter.

[grayman]

Use long quotes from your sources, anything can longer than four lines can be put in block quotes which can be indented something like 2 inches. This trick eats up pages like crazy.

[Lasereth]

I don't think it really matters, because research papers are bullshit anyway. It's just someone else's opinion used to backup opinions you never had until you read theirs. I *hate* research papers.

-Lasereth

[ratbastid]

Originally posted by User Name
I assume this was before the age of Sparknotes.

Back in my day it was Cliff's Notes, but the idea was the same.

[H12]

Have a long GOOD introduction and conclusion. It will help your paper start off sounding like it's going to be magnificent, then the teacher will have a great sense of satisfaction when the conclusion is read. Whatever is inbetween will be helped out tremendously by this...not just because it helps the info look better, but because it takes up alot of the space in your paper; the less space you have left, the less you need to bullshit.

[Cynthetiq]

my wife is proud of her paper that the professor wrote back a great grade and then commented, "I don't know if you understood what you wrote, I'm not sure I understand what you wrote,what you said, but it sounded great"

[Derwood]

Being a good writer to begin with certainly helps. I used to get at least B+'s on papers in college just because I didn't sound like a dope. I didn't realize how good a writer I was until I started TEACHING in college, and had to read terrible paper after terrible paper

[User Name]

Originally posted by Cynthetiq
my wife is proud of her paper that the professor wrote back a great grade and then commented, "I don't know if you understood what you wrote, I'm not sure I understand what you wrote,what you said, but it sounded great"

I think my language is what helps me through writing classes, rather than the trite content. I basically repeat the same thing several times. And besides, my teacher will have about 150 papers to grade. A quick glance is the only practical way to evaluate so many.

[sailor]

Forget all the font sizing, spacing, and changing tips. Anyone will be able to notice them, and you are likely to be penalized for them.

[User Name]

Originally posted by sailor
Forget all the font sizing, spacing, and changing tips. Anyone will be able to notice them, and you are likely to be penalized for them.

You were probably the kid who told the teacher when she forgot to give homework .

[Jesus Pimp]

I'm not that great of a writer but I have found that just citing a lot of examples and quotes saved my ass on many BS papers.

[sprocket]

As a couple of people have pointed out already, use a thesaurus!!!! I always tend to write my papers very quickly, and in a simplistic way. Then I open up the thesaurus and replace small simple words with *bigger*, more intelligent words. This can seriously double your paper length. If you still come up short, you can add a bit of redundancy by illustrating the same point youve already made, but rephrasing it slightly. The thesaurus is key.

[Jam]

i am... not i'm.... you are... he was... can not

[Lebell]

I agree about the font spacing being BS, (noticible, that is), but different fonts WILL take up more space. I know that Arial will eat up more page than Times New Roman.

[BigGov]

Originally posted by jam161
i am... not i'm.... you are... he was... can not

That is a great tip. Not only does it take up more space, but it sounds a heck of a lot better.

[rat]

Am I the only one here who thinks turning in a quality product when you put your name on something is worth doing?

You want to bullshit, it'll only last you so long, especially out of school. If you refuse to put your name on substandard work, and therefore refuse to do substandard work, it'll pay off far more than any of the little bs'ing tips you'll learn--it'll also streamline your writing process to the point of taking less time than it does to bullshit.

Knocking out big papers is a cinch if you took the time from the start to do the job right. The people who waste more time on papers than they should ever have to are the people who refuse to learn how to write effectively. Had our senior research paper due the last grading period that mattered prior to graduation. I spent 13 hours with a friend getting our papers together--I took the time to do the research ahead of time (ie, the day before for 2 hours in the library) and so writing mine took 4 and a half of those thirteen hours (including the time it took me to revise, as I incorporate it in the drafting process. Check twice, write once. to make rough drafts, I have to write a complete paper then butcher it down). His took the other eight and a half hours to write, and he was literally plaigiarising (via paraphrasing without referencing) so he had to take the time to find an idea he felt like stealing, copy it out, then rewrite it so it seemed to come from his head. That prevented him from using that source as a cited one, and therefore, wasted MORE time finding new ones.

I wish at this point in my education I could write more papers--if you do it properly, anything below an A is not possible. Instead, my business classes are all huge and thus, our tests are multiple choice for ease of grading (425+ workout exams would kill my accounting prof and her TAs). Simply take the time to become efficient at the writing process now, and it will save you so much time and effort down the line. I promise.

[sapiens]

Originally posted by Fremen
Why don't you instead of bullshitting your way through the paper, do some actual research for it and learn something?
That way, you and/or your parents get your money's worth.

Good advice. BS'ing your way through school is a good way to waste a lot of money and years of your life.

[Yakk]

High school english Fractal (or recursive) structure to essays:

Start with what you want to say.

Break it down into:
A
B B B
C
where A introduces what you are saying, the B's are each sub points, and the C explains how A is implied by the Bs.

Now, in each of those 3 sections, you have something to say. Break it down:
A
B B B
C

use exactly the same rules. Repeat the process on the sub points, as many times as you can. You'll end up with
AA
AB ABA ABB ABB ABB ABC AB
ACA
BA BBA BBB BBB BBB BBC BCA BB BB BCB BCB BCB BCB BCC
...
CCCC

Do that enough times, and do some rotations (moving Bs up from lower levels because they are more key than an upper level point, etc), and you'll end up with an outline that is large and poofy, yet the entire essay has structure and flow.

Given half a brain, at least one clue, and a few hours, you can write up an outline for a mediocre papier that isn't all bullshit. Then, simply fill in the gaps.

When the outline is longer than the number of pages the essay requires, you know you have gone too far... =) Which means you can write it out and pare out unimportant stuff. Because everything was structured recursively, cutting out great big chunks is easy. So, cut out the weak stuff. . .

Possibly the above is just kids stuff: I blame my lack of english courses at university. But, when I learned that the rule-of-three could and should recurse forever, the part of my brain that delt with writing exploded.

[Bill O'Rights]

Originally posted by rat
Am I the only one here who thinks turning in a quality product when you put your name on something is worth doing?

And you, sir, are the one that'll be getting my business, five years from now. A research paper doesn't mean, or amount to, shit. But, it is somethng that you have to put work, time and effort into. Just like you're going to have to out in the "real world". It's to teach you how to develop a work ethic. It's to teach you how to manage your time. It's to teach you good work habits. I think that I can see the habits that User Name is developing.

[User Name]

Originally posted by Bill O'Rights
I think that I can see the habits that User Name is developing.

May I send you the first two pages of my research paper, so you can see my "habits"?

[Frowning Budah]

Don't forget Indexes, Bibliography's and foot notes lots of footnotes. They give the paper a professional look and eat up lots of space.

[Iliftrocks]

Shoot bra, just kiss up to one of the teacher's pet themes. Expand on it as it relates to the paper theme. They love that shit. And they don't care that it's an obvious play...... We all need an ego stroke every now and then

[mr sticky]

Good tips mostly, but as for turning in quality work...one sentence can be as powerful as a book depending on the author, and if you have to turn in an uninspiring work...why not bullshit your way through. I have had english teachers crying over stuff I wrote within hours prior to deadline.

My favorite tip: Use personal interview as a source. It saves loads of time, the subject gets an ego stroke, and the opinions are someone else's and you really can't take the blame for them.

Quality work is always inspired.

Drudgery is what is usually graded.

Learn and master the system!

[wipeout]

i trick that i learned that adds a fews lines is to bold the entire paper--if the entire thing is bold then the teacher cant tell that the words are a little bigger and darker--if they do question it --say it was the printer--