Intervention I: Reading to Write in 5 Easy Steps

I hope to have an accompanying YouTuberVideo to add some spice (and fashion!) to this Intervention, but for now I'll just have to rely on the power of the written word. Ha, irony. Because if the written word had any power left, there wouldn't be so much paper-cheating! Hah. *Sob.* Anyway.

INTERVENTION I.

This is designed for the Not-So-Desperate (we'll call you DEFKON 1). If you have more than a few days to put together a paper that allows or requires secondary sources, here's how to go about getting the most out of your time. Future Interventions will be designed for the more-desperate.

Here goes.

Here's a great secret, direct from me to you, one I learned to rely on while in grad school and reading up to 900 pages a week (in ANOTHER LANGUAGE, bitches!). When you read for a class, you need to read in a different way than you read for fun (even if you don't read for fun--though if you're reading this, then you read something for fun. Anyway). You need to read to write.

How do you do this?

1. The first thing you need to do is let go of this text as a source of entertainment if it isn't immediately entertaining you the first second you pick it up (if it is, then bless you, you're a natural and the paper will come naturally). Stop caring immediately what happens in it. If it's a work of literature, spoil the plot AS SOON AS YOU CAN. (Pace to my grad-school BFF E. who has managed to retain a love and interest for the plot of every single thing she read in 6 excruciating years. You're one in a million, E). Look up a brief plot summary on a reputable website or "Spark it," but know that this is just to guide you through actually reading, and that any "insight" from Dr. Wikipedia or Dr. Spark will be immediately recognizable to your instructor. This is a PRELIMINARY STEP to make reading through the text faster and easier.
2. Once you have the plot down and before you even read 10 pages of the text, do some presearch. Go on JSTOR or MUSE and look at the two most recent journal articles about your text. (Undergrads beware: AVOID ALL SOURCES OLDER THAN YOU, they are irrelevant and usually embarrassing). What are the main themes these professionals have identified in the text? What are the quotes they used? Jot those themes down (20 min. max!) and then flip to the quotes and underline them in your text and make a little note, so that when you get to them you'll know they're important.
3. Now that you are armed, read smart. You've got no time to develop a nuanced "take" on this text from scratch, so instead, react to the other "takes" of smarter people who have come before you. Scholar X from your presearch says that The Great Gatsby is all about the struggle of optometrists for equality? USE THIS legimately! That is: don't pass the idea off as your own, attribute it to Scholar X and then set off on a reading of the text that reacts to it! Open The Great Gatsby and read it through on the lookout for passages that relate to your pre-chosen theme. Aim for approximately one good quote per 25 pp. of texts. Do not overmark! And once you have hit ten good quotes, START SKIMMING. You already know how the plot ends (spoiler alert: Gatsby dies. There, don't say I never did anything for you). Although, to be fair, the last sentence of The Great Gatsby is one of the most wonderful collection of words ever committed to paper, so if you skip or skim it you are missing out. But I digress.
4. Take your quotes and extract them onto your computer, taking great care to keep them notated at all times (with page # and author's name). Take about half an hour to 45 minutes to dash off a few sentences about each quote. Do you find it interesting? I hope so! If so, why? How does it relate to your pre-chosen theme? (If it doesn't, stay tuned for a future Intervention about How to Make Anything Relate to Anything). This will turn into your paper body and will make your professor weep with joy that you have actually taken the time and effort to analyze some text.
5. If you have to incorporate more than 1 or 2 secondary sources, poach a smart person's bibliography. Rather than head off on a JSTOR wild goose-chase (I'm going to assume you are too lazy/pressed for time to set foot in a brick-and-mortar library), find the most interesting-looking journal article you can from the past 6 years, and then look at its bibliography. Instead of wasting your time with some bullcrap from 1935, let this very smart published peer-reviewed scholar do some of your work for you! Read what s/he read! 

Well, kiddiez, that's it for my very first inaugural (redundant!) Intervention. Like this? Comment and tell me! Hate it? Also comment and tell me. Want more? Email me. And "like" me on Facebook. And like me in real life! I'm needy!