<p>I know it varies. But for those of you who have written papers around 15-20 pages, about how many hours would you say it takes? Any thoughts on process/advice ? I have a few weeks and I just want to know how much time per day I should be spending on this to be on the right track.</p>
<p>depends on:</p>
<p>a. how much info there is on the subject
b. your talent level
c. if you are using pencil pen/typewriter/computer
d. how much grammatical errors are enforced</p>
<p>I’m a procrastinator and I always did my big papers the day before. I’d go to the library and just spend the entire day there. Counting breaks and intermittent procrastinating activities, 12 hours (all-nighters and last minute proofreading).</p>
<p>That’s if and only if I’m already familiar with the material I’m writing on and am up on all of my readings. I don’t have a problem with reading. It’s the writing part that’s difficult lol. I think I have ADD.</p>
<p>If I add up all the hours it took me to write my last paper which was 14 pages I would say around 8 hours, 2 hours a day for 4 days.</p>
<p>Depends how interested I am in the subject.</p>
<p>If I am interested, I could probably finish it in a couple of hours and go over the page limit.</p>
<p>If I’m not interested, it would be written the night before and take all night, with a lot of pointless rambling just to make the page quota.</p>
<p>Which is why I think setting a page requirement is probably not the best idea for instructors. Quality is certainly risked being sacrifice.</p>
<p>last semester i had a big 20+ pager due. i worked on it for about three weeks, two or three hours a day for the first couple, then five hours a day or so for the last week. it was something i was really interested in and was planning to use as the basis for my senior work so i got really into it.</p>
<p>I think that the last research paper that I did that was about 10 pages took me only two hours to write, but like 5+ other hours of finding the right info etc.</p>
<p>Platts - “If I’m not interested, it would be written the night before and take all night, with a lot of pointless rambling just to make the page quota.”</p>
<p>I am the exact same way and I don’t think page quotas are a good idea either…we should be graded on the content. I always appreciate the teachers who say “write as much as you feel is needed to answer the question/explain your topic” it makes so much more sense and I think everyone writes better that way.</p>
<p>aube - for 15-20 pages you’re definitely going to need to find a lot of information and in my opinion, that takes way longer than actually writing the paper. If you start your research now and take good notes, the writing should only take 1 or 2 days. Don’t forget to leave time to proofread though!</p>
<p>The writing is the easy part. It’s the research that takes time. How much time depends on the subject and how strict your teacher is. If you can pull most of your sources off the internet, it shouldn’t take very long. If you have to use professional journals, it will probably take a lot longer.</p>
<p>I think length guidelines make a lot of sense. Otherwise I would never know whether I am expected to write 2 or 20 pages about the topic I am assigned.</p>
<p>Hmm. Well, I’ve done about 5 hours of research so far (I’m using the notecard system and have about 40 notecards), but I don’t want to start writing till I’ve done more research cause of the nature of my paper; but I have a hard time guessing how many papers my research/# of notecards will actually fill up… thoughts?</p>
<p>I take a long time to write papers. Two years ago it took me maybe 12-14 hours to wright a 10 page paper. That time includes all the research. I went to class one day and saw everyone handing in papers, and only then realized it was due. I went back to my house and cranked one out. I didn’t even know what it was on, haha. Emailed it later that night. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life.</p>
<p>I am too using the note-card system, aube88. I’m taking this World Civilizations course at my community college that has two 10 page research papers. I spent about 7 hours of research doing 60 notecards and 4 hours writing the paper. This next research paper is looking to work out exactly the same.</p>
<p>Thanks, that was helpful! That’s around what I’ve been thinking but it’s nice to see it confirmed by someone who has been through the process. I guess I’ll aim for 5+ additional hours of research and 50-60 more note cards and hope ten hours of research and around 100 notecards will suffice …and leave a day or so for writing it</p>
<p>if you have the research… writing is not hard.</p>
<p>At least, once a semester. Usually towards finals week. Sometimes more than that if the professor chooses to have the longer research paper in place of an in-class exam.</p>
<p>I was in the business school at my university but I had a history minor, so I had roughly 2 big papers due each semester. I’d assume more if you were a liberal arts major.</p>
<p>I don’t recommend people use notecards in doing research, I think that’s highly inefficient. I personally type up notes under topic headings that I have created for my paper outline, it’s much faster that way.</p>
<p>Again, I see organization and research as the most difficult step in writing a paper, besides cranking out that first rough draft. If you’ve completed all your research and created an outline - thus knowing exactly what you will cover and have all quotes and sources neatly organized - actually writing the paper should not take long at all.</p>
Wow what’s this notecard thing?
There are first graders today who were born after the post you responded to.