Finals time is here, and for many students in school that means that they are studying for exams that cover at least half or more of the content of the course. However, a good majority of students do not have exams. Instead, they have pages and pages to write for final papers, all due within a week. People seem to think that writing is easier than taking a test, but writing can be difficult and challenging, especially when your paper is research based and also needs to incorporate some of the reading from the semester that you didn't get around to doing because there was already 300 pages of reading to do for another class that week.
What people seem to forget or not know is that writing is not as simple as cramming for a test. You cannot just stay up all night to write a paper and expect to get 100 percent on it. Here are 5 difficult things that you might not have realized are a part of finals for those who have to write papers, and things that those who always are writing can identify with.
1. You have so much writing to do in so little time
In past years as an undergrad, at least one class a semester I had a twenty to twenty-five page research paper as the final assignment, on top of a few ten to fifteen page papers due for other classes. In grad school, this is also sometimes the case, and at the least each class has a ten to fifteen page final paper that needs some extra research outside of the course. This makes it difficult just to finish one paper, because you have another one that is just as long and complicated due the next day, and two more the following week.
2. Research is time consuming and difficult
Research is an important part of many final papers in humanities and social sciences. This requires you to look through many online databases and online journals, via your school's access. Sometimes, this also might require checking books out of the library if they are that old, and that is something that needs to be done weeks in advance of the paper being due since you might have to request it from a library all the way at a university across the state. Plus, you have to add time to actually skim through the book to see if it is even useful. And the material is not always something you are interested in or particularly exciting, making it even more difficult to read through all the research and to formulate your argument.
3. Writing can take a long time
It isn't easy to sit down and pound out 8 pages in one sitting. You reward yourself for the small accomplishments like finishing one page or one section. But you have to be careful because this can lead to procrastination as you reward yourself for getting something accomplished, but then somehow end up on Facebook again or on youtube watching music videos for the next fifteen minutes. You need to schedule out your time to write based on how you like to write. Personally, I do better with long periods of time where I can sit down and take half a day to write as many pages as possible. Other people find it easier to write just one page a day and start earlier, but it really just depends on how you like to write.
4. Formatting/editing can take up half your time![]()
For those people who are studying different disciplines, the formatting for papers could be very different. You might have one paper in APA, or another in MLA or Chicago style. When you are constantly working with so many different formats and rules, they all start to blend together as you cite your references even though you have written papers in that format all semester. Editing also can take forever, and is often the worst part of the process. Reading through your own work is grueling, especially if it is a paper you rushed through and didn't invest in. You really don't want to re-read your work and just want to be done. This is the point where you decide if you want to gamble with your grade or not by turning it in once you have finished the formatting without reading it through again or not.
5. You're left in suspense about your grade for days or weeks, but you don't care because you finished
Many times, professors have more than one class and that means a lot of papers to grade. Papers are not as easy to grade as tests, and depending on the professor they might take a long time to read through each one. Some could be quick and get them done within days, others might take up until the final deadline for grades to be due.
It's stressful to wait for the grade, but at the same time you are so happy that you finished it in time and at least turned in something that you are just happy it's over and will accept whatever grade you get.
So good luck to everyone who has finals in the upcoming weeks, especially to the people who will be spending the majority of their time researching and writing nonstop for the next few weeks. Don't ever think that your work is less difficult or challenging than studying for tests, because that is not true. Some people are better at one or the other, and some might have a combination of both and find that writing is easier than taking tests. But writing can be difficult, and makes finals just as hard and stressful when there is so much writing to do as studying for tests can be. So know that if you are one of the people who has endless writing to do before the semester break, you are not alone and have every right to complain and be stressed as those who are studying for exam.
