Ladies and gentlemen of the Internet, I write for you today a defense of a subject near and dear to my heart: procrastination. It is a quality that you’ve all, undoubtedly, heard of and a condition that may afflict many of your friends. I will provide personal experience that will prove to you that procrastination is not the treacherous monster that parents and teachers have made it out to be. At the conclusion of this article I would ask you all to find procrastination not guilty or, at the very least, consider a new perspective.

I am a serial procrastinator. I continually save papers for the night before they’re due and don’t shy away from writing papers the day of. However, I wasn’t always this way. I can distinctly remember rushing home from school as a kid to finish my multiplication tables or vocabulary homework. These assignments were always straightforward and brought about a sense of accomplishment upon completion. However, as I got older and moved on to high school, the busy work slowed down and essays became teachers’ assignment of choice. Considering I was getting older this was understandable; I needed to be challenged more intellectually and learn to articulate my thoughts and opinions effectively. However, I yearned for the days when homework was straightforward and didn’t force me to consider different teachers’ preferences for different writing styles. I disdained being criticized by one teacher for a certain aspect of my writing only to have the same aspect praised by the next. Essays were so subjective and I soon became frustrated that there was no formulaic method for a guaranteed A. I began to dread writing papers and procrastinated in doing so. If I did attempt to write an essay early, a majority of my time was spent debating frivolous stylistic choices. I’d spend less time actually writing and more time debating whether I should use “difficulty” or “hardship,” only to go back five minutes later and change whichever I had settled on. Ultimately, writing papers soon became both a difficulty and a hardship.

As my high school career continued, more and more of my essays were being written the night before they were due and were often finished on the Subway ride to school. I benefited from the time crunch. Writing with such little time to spare forced me to focus on the task at hand: writing a coherent, developed essay that effectively responded to the prompt I was given. Gone was the time to worry about minuscule details that ultimately wouldn’t have any real bearing on the quality of my paper. Besides helping me focus, procrastination has also helped me become a more decisive writer. Trying to finish a paper the day it's due doesn't really lend itself to indecision. For the most part, when I take the time to type something out, I stick with what I've written for the sake of conserving time. This level of intensity has helped me become a visual thinker. I can draft and edit an idea in my head so that, by the time it's actually written, the thought is a complete, developed sentence that effectively conveys my argument. This ability is invaluable in class discussion as I can skillfully express myself without a need to write anything down. Over time, procrastination has also made me a more confident writer. I firmly believe that I can articulate an idea in whatever time constraints I'm given; timed in-class essays have become far less intimidating.

In conclusion, I will concede that some of these arguments are embellished and, as a general disclaimer, taking time to develop an essay is preferred, but procrastination can produce some well-thought-out and developed writing. So, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for taking the time to read my defense and petition you to deliver a verdict of not guilty.