With each new term come fresh term papers. Common among social science and humanities courses, these papers often replace the final exam and serve as a culmination of the material covered in the course. Professors assign these papers early in the term often during the first class giving students ample time to research and write. Despite this, most Dartmouth students do not begin their research right away, opting instead to cram the research process into the last few weeks or days of the term.
Many students think that it is fine to cram, and some students even argue that their creativity is better while cramming. Nonetheless, cramming is not a healthy academic writing practice. Every detail in a paper must be subjected to proper scrutiny and critical evaluation of its relevancy. Likewise, the arguments and facts to be presented must be researched from a variety of credible resources. Every step in this process requires time and thought.
With only 10 weeks in a term, there is little time to waste in writing a research paper at Dartmouth. For many students, however, the beginning of the term is just too early to start working on or even thinking about papers due at the end of the term. Only in the last few weeks, when students begin to feel the pressure of finals period, do they start thinking about their term papers. By then, however, it is too late to fully research and analyze different arguments and facts.
Under an increasing amount of stress, students are unable to fully take advantage of the limitless resources the library has to offer. They simply do not have enough time, for example, to search through the countless online databases available to students or wait for a book to arrive from another library. Instead, students use whatever resources they find first, which are in almost every case not the best ones. Furthermore, the longer students wait to start researching, the more likely they are to take shortcuts in the research process. These students are more likely to not only use sites such as Google and Wikipedia as their main places for information and sources, but also to plagiarize.
This is certainly a drawback of the short terms we have here at Dartmouth. Students at other colleges with 15-week semesters can afford to spend the first five weeks not thinking about term papers. Five weeks into a semester, when students are more likely to start thinking about the end the term, these students still have ample time for the research process. Dartmouth students do not have this luxury.
To be sure, the College has taken important steps to address this problem. The first-year writing program goes a long way to ingrain healthy writing and research habits into Dartmouth students. Given the rampant nature of cramming at Dartmouth, however, students seem to quickly forget these habits after the first year.
Another resource which professors often use particular in introductory classes is the library tutorial. While these tutorials help students learn how to use library resources, the main problem here is not students' inability to use library resources, but rather their tendency to procrastinate to utilize all the library has to offer. Solving this problem will undoubtedly make the tutorials much more helpful for students.
As a result, professors should find more ways to encourage students to start researching and writing earlier, beyond just gentle reminders in class. Students must also learn how to pace themselves in the research process a skill professors could help students learn by setting deadlines throughout the term or having one-on-one meetings with each student to discuss their paper at different stages in the research process. To be sure, some professors already use these methods. Most, however, do not. These tools should be applied to not just first-year and introductory courses, but intermediate ones as well. Finally, it goes without saying that professors at all levels should reward students who draw from a variety of different sources and go beyond just skimming the surface of a topic.
Researching and writing papers is absolutely one of the hardest and most important things students learn how to do in college. Being able to write a well-researched and persuasive paper is a skill that is applicable to any career field. The cramming mentality that exists at Dartmouth, however, prevents many students from acquiring this routine. A Dartmouth education should be worth more than just learning how to pull an all-nighter to write a paper.
