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A STUDENT’S PROCESS ANALYSIS ESSAY
A student writer named Emily Bliss wrote the following essay about procrastination. See if you can follow her steps as you read her first draft.
You Too Can Procrastinate
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My name is Emily, and I am a procrastinator. But I have discovered over the years
that procrastination is not all bad. Especially when I have to write. At my college, the
English instructors requires rough drafts. I have somehow mastered the art of procrastinating but still meeting deadlines with my papers. So I have perfected a successful
plan for procrastinating that I now want to share with the world.
You will know the dreaded day you have to write has arrived when you wake up
with a start. This day is different from the rest. You actually have to do something
about your paper today. But whatever you do, resist the temptation to sit down and
write early in the day by following two more steps. First (step 1), to avoid sitting
down to write, you can clean, take a bike ride, do the laundry, rearrange the furniture, dust the light bulbs, and so on. But don’t write. Then (step 2), when you finally
think you are ready to start writing, call a friend. Talk about anything but your paper
for about 15 or 20 minutes. This final delay is what creates the tension that a real
procrastinator needs to do his or her best work.
Whether you want to or not, you will naturally think about the assignment from
the moment you get it. If you have two weeks or two months, you will spend most
quiet moments haunted by your paper topic. No matter what you do, your paper topic
will be bouncing around in your head giving you headaches, making you worry, wanting attention. But that’s OK. Don’t give in and write. Ignore it until the day before it
is due.
At this point, your third step is to prepare your immediate environment for work.
You need to get ready for serious business. Sharpen your pencils, and lay them in a
row. Get out the white paper if you can’t think on yellow, or get out the yellow paper
if you can’t think on white. Go to the kitchen for snacks. Whether or not you actually drink or eat these item’s is irrelevant—as long as they are by your side. You
can’t be distracted if you don’t have them next to you. My stomach growls really
loudly when I’m hungry. Some sort of bread usually takes away the hunger pangs.
Step 4 is to sit back in your chair and stare at the computer while you think long
and hard about your paper. Fifth, brainstorm, list, or cluster your ideas on the
coloured paper of your choice. Sixth, put all your procrastination strategies aside.
Its finally time to write.
If you follow these six simple steps, you too can become a master procrastinator. You can perform your very own procrastinating ritual and still get your first
draft in on time. If you go through the same ritual every time you write. You can
perfect it and get your own system for writing essays down to a science. The trick
is just to make sure you start writing before you has to join Procrastinators
Anonymous.