Notes

I am writing this letter to inform you of my best tips so that you may be rescued from the academic exile I suffered. Procrastination is your enemy and as any good general will tell you, you must study your enemy and know the battlefield where you will meet them. In combatting procrastination, you shall also try to fight its offspring, plagiarism. If you allow your enemy to roam free and not cage them from the onset, they will grow stronger leaving you with fewer resources like time and increasing your obstacles like stress. The best way to conquer your enemy is to plan early and plan right. As such, utilize the divide and conquer strategy that has been proven to be fruitful in battles and divide large projects and assignments into smaller tasks and accomplish the smaller tasks frequently. Be sure to start your divide and conquer plan early to leave you with more time. Early and consistent wins the race before the late sprinter. The sprinter who is “rushing through it at the last minute almost guarantees problems” [1]. This technique circumvents cramming which breeds crude work, rushed revision and neglected citations. The coup de gras to any of plagiarism’s efforts is to document all your sources keeping a code to demarcate the quoted from the paraphrased text from original ideas for plagiarism includes not only failing to cite direct quotations but also to “present as new and original an idea derived from existing source” [2]. Use this advice carefully in defeating procrastination and its offspring.