As college students we’ve all been given the same advice over and over again on how to achieve that perfect, well-written paper. You need to start working on it way in advance. Talk to your professors. Revise, revise, revise. Write your introduction only after you’ve finished the body of your essay. We’ve all heard some version of these trinkets of wisdom. But what if I told you that none of that works? Seriously, they don’t. Throw out everything you’ve learned so far. And what if I told you all you needed to do is follow my 6 easy steps to get the grade you deserve?

Step 1: Procrastinate.

Procrastination is the key to success. You definitely do NOT need to work in advance and should actually take your time starting it. It’s actually best to forget about it until the night before. You can put your mind off work by watching cat videos or taking a hundred selfies and then proceeding to only keep one. Once you’ve found your ideal procrastination technique, you’ll be more than ready to handle the writing process.

Step 2: DON'T talk to your professors.

It’s okay to leave your questions unanswered. No one has the answers to everything in life, so you won’t be expected to have any answers, either. And professors aren’t as helpful as you might like anyway. What’s the point of talking to them if they won’t do your work for you? Exactly.

Step 3: Get caffeinated.

Now that you’ve remembered your paper is due tomorrow, you’ve come to the lucky realization you’ll need to pull an all-nighter. Scientific studies have actually proven that students perform better with 0 hours of sleep than with 8 hours. The only complication is staying awake without crashing. The best way to get through an all-nighter is to drink all of the caffeine you can get your hands on. And then go buy some more. The more jittery you are, the better. It will stimulate your brain and have ideas flowing left and right onto your laptop screen. Your professor won’t know what hit them.

Step 4: Write as fast as you can.

Don’t bother looking up quotes now and forget outlining. Just regurgitate what you talked about in class. Professors aren’t actually looking for originality; they really don’t want to hear your voice. This is the time to shine with your summarizing skills. Talk about the plot for three pages. And if you happen to remember that fancy term the professor brought up in class, you should definitely spend three hours reading about it on Wikipedia. It will be worth it.

Step 5: To Quoteth, or Not to Quoteth

At this point you don't have a lot of time and just need to fill up space on those empty white pages. This is the time to put gravity to the test. Throw your books-- preferably one at a time-- into the air and let the pages fall where they may. Whatever sentence your eyes first land on will be your quote. Repeat as many times as you need to until you've reached your page limit. Easy, breezy, beautiful.

Step 6: Finishing Touches

Now that you're done with the bulk of your essay, it's time to get philosophical. Feel free to bring those existential questions you have at 3am and include those both in your introduction and conclusion. Teachers want to know that you're as confused about life as they are. As for your thesis, you'll want to include about 10 of your favorite SAT words and have them form the longest, most convoluted sentence you've ever written in your entire life. The goal is for no one to understand what the point of your essay is. That's what the rest of the essay is for.

And there you have it. You've written a paper worthy of being published in any journal and you will definitely get the grade you deserve.