5000 words to produce by Monday. What's the most work you've ever done in a few days?

[OhBloodyElle]

Anyone else trying frantically to meet a deadline that's fast approaching? Mine is for a degree but I imagine the feeling of pressure is pretty much the same whether you're writing an essay for uni or for a report or brief etc for work. I cannot afford to fail this degree.

I'm struggling but need to crack on tonight and expect there won't be much sleep for a few days. Thought it might be good to hear tales of success to stay cheered up and positive!

Maybe not a word count but I drove 910 miles in a hired fiesta (Aberdeen to Leicester, Leicester to Aberdeen) in 23 hours.

It was for the interview for my Masters.

I was a student at the time (doing my PGCE) and I could afford to get there, OR,Spend the night.

My friend came with me - she couldn’t drive but she was amazing company.

I’m of the camp that believes if you want it you can do it.

(I got my very exclusive masters place and the masters a year later)

My friend and I stayed up for 3 days writing our 12K word dissertations. I took pro plus and she took speed, we both got 2:1. Wouldn't recommend it!

I'm also a lemon! I need a deadline but that has to be a deadline I believe in. If I think there is any wriggle room I will procrastinate. Most recent boss hasnt quote figured this out yet and keeps setting overly generous deadlines.

On the plus side my skills of producing work under pressure which were honed at uni has proved very useful in my chosen career.

You will be fine!

I'm currently more than a year late with a 70k book. I am frantically writing but it's feeling relentless.

I wrote a 6k article over two very focussed days last November when my DD was 5 months, and then I was furious because the people I wrote it for thanked me, but in public they only made a fuss of the woman who'd written her article over several weeks while getting married - because clearly that was a harder thing to do!

Bitter, me?

I think the thing to remember is: it does not have to be perfect; it does have to be done. As someone who marks dissertations, I would say get your structure and argument sorted out first, then flesh out the details.

Haha these are great, I have a Masters essay to do ... 3k.... argh! Have till Monday too, OP!

I work much better under pressure. Would regularly do 1,500-2000 word assignments over a weekend. That's research and everything. Write up in the early hours. You've got loads of time!

I've calculated that I write approximately 100 words an hour. This is an average and includes references. So a 3000 word essay 30 hours (just in case no one could figure it out ) you have plenty of time if you pull your finger out.

I wrote my 8000 word dissertation over 2 days (3 days if you include research). I was a disgrace at university! I wrote every other essay of 2-4000 words in a night. I always got good marks.

You’ve got plenty of time! I’m another one who would regularly churn out 3k word essays overnight whilst at uni.

5k words is about 10 sides of A4 on font 12. I’d say somewhere between 50 and 60 paragraphs.

Try to get as much down in writing as you can first. Bullet point topics you need to expand on or research. Try to do that tonight or tomorrow then friday concentrate on researching anything that’s missing info-wise. This leaves you Saturday and Sunday to write up and edit. Good luck - I bet you’ll find by Sunday evening that you’re over the word count!

I did my 14000 word dissertation in basically 4 days, although I had done the research and some reading. I’ve always done essays in all nighters and it’s workes, but it’s horrible and stressy! My ankles and feet were bloated for several days after my dissertation because I’d been sat at a desk for so long and there were stressy tears!

I’d say put the time in with the reading and then write up on the weekend, it’s so much easier when you’ve got research/quotes ready! Good luck!

Im another who did every uni essay I ever wrote the night before the deadline. I couldnt do it in bits and pieces. I would lose my flow and the finished result always sounded stunted and wrong. I think different people work best in different ways. People used to eye roll but I dont think the cram it in a night approach is wrong!

I did a 2000 word essay in 12 hours although that was just writing my research had all been done. I got 92%. Although I hate the stress of it and at the time hate myself for being this way with deadlines I do find I have to “feel the fear” in order to do my best work.
Regardless of what time I finish I have to go and get massive McDonalds straight after and just sit on my own stuffing my face and feeling somewhat traumatised by it all. This why I’m not going to do my masters!

I also think as long as you’ve kept a good record of your references with your note taking that’s half the battle. I always had a very specific system for note taking and referencing so I was never frantically trying to find sources, references and page numbers which can take a long time.

10,000 in a weekend, got a 1st . I never could write unless under pressure. My tactic was to have my plan in place and all my journals,references etc saved in a folder so I had already done the leg work of planning and resourcing so I had everything ready in advance. I could only then put pen to paper a few days before!

I can if pushed do the reading, research, planning and writing of a Master's level 5000 word essay in a long weekend (fri- Mon)...I often end up 'pushed' I'm a terrible last minuter....

Laughing so much at these, you're all brilliant

Love the friend taking speed, the poster whose ankles swelled up and the traumatised McDonald's breakfast

I have so far written a grand total of 150 words. Feeling a bit panicked as not sure what sort of direction I should be going in. I've sort of split it into 2 chapters to make it more manageable.

I have to critique and analyse 2 journal articles and having a brain freeze - how can I do that without basically just regurgitating the articles in a summary?

I wrote a 21,000 word dissertation in 5 days for my undergrad. I got a high 2.2 for it and was very pleased considered I was 8 months pregnant and working 4 days a week in a bakery at the same time!

It's easily doable but if it's anything like my old uni, the work had to be submitted through 'turn it in' the plagiarism checker, and it could only be submitted once every 24 hours. For us this knocked off at least two days because it needed to go through the checker twice!

Good luck

I wrote my 20.000 word dissertation in 3 days! Obviously I had done the research before that but was still hard work but manageable! In fact, a fair amount of my essays at uni were done in a couple of days. You can do it just get started.

Oh fuck. We do have to use Turn It In but I've used it once before and nobody said anything about needing to do it twice?

FUCK. Have I arsed it up already then? Can anyone confirm if this is how Turn It In works?

I submitted an essay through turnitin three times, in 45 minutes able was able to get similarity score straight away. Used to be upto 24 hours ago, last year but I think system has had an update.

Thank you. My similarity score was low when I used it, so I felt ok about it doing it just the once.

Sorry I didn't mean to panic you.

Yes the system used to be that once you had submitted and received your score, you couldn't resubmit for another 24 hours. It's much better if they have changed this.

My similarity score had to be less than 5%

I like to think though if you do need to use turn it in for this piece of work they would have told you

X

We used turn it in. I think you can resubmit within 24 hours of your last submission you just won't necessarily get a plagiarism report for a while. I only ever used to submit mine once anyway but I was always fairly confident with referencing, plus somethings there is only one way to say it so it's going to look similar to a hundred other people who've written about the same thing!

Resubmitting a Paper

Some assignments may allow students the ability to overwrite their previous submissions until an assignment's due date. This option is activated by an instructor on an assignment-by-assignment basis. If resubmissions are not enabled, your instructor must manually delete your previous submission to allow you user to submit your second file.

Just found this on the turnitin site:

""If resubmissions have been enabled or an instructor has deleted your first submission, resubmitting a paper is handled in an identical manner as a first-time submission.
Similarity Report Generation after Resubmission

You are allowed three resubmission attempts where the Similarity Report will generate immediately. After three attempts, you'll have to wait 24 hours before a new Similarity Report can be generated.""

guides.turnitin.com/01_Manuals_and_Guides/Student_Guides/Turnitin_Classic_(Deprecated)/09_Submitting_a_Paper