Here’s a survival guide to writing 3,000 words in 48 hours as a student at King’s

While some may see an essay deadline as a reminder to stop doomscrolling and lock in, I take it as a challenge.

If my last three years at King’s have taught me anything, it’s that any essay can be submitted in time if you’ve got enough cans of Red Bull and the threat of disappointing your parents.

Now whether you get a decent grade is a completely different story, I can (almost) guarantee that it’ll be handed in at least two minutes before that deadline if you follow my nine stressful steps.

1. Mental maths

Now that the severity of the situation has settled and we’re past the point of being able to write without feeling like there’s a WMD pointed at you, let’s assess how fast you’ve actually got to work. For example, if the word count is 3,000 and you’ve got two days to complete it then that’s only 1,500 words per day.

Assuming that you’ll be writing at peak speed and definitely NOT touching your phone, 500 words per hour should sound doable. Now while that may sound exhausting, you should’ve already come to terms with the fact that failing is not an option so you won’t be sleeping for the next 48 hours anyway.

2. Bargaining

This is arguably the most difficult stage. You’ll find yourself trying to figure out how often you can take breaks and the answer is that you’ve already taken a three week long break so tough luck. The impending doom may tempt you to use your phone, clean your room or basically do anything but start working to distract yourself from the consequences of your own actions.

3. Surrender! (your electronics)

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But alas, we must persevere. Give your flatmate your electronics, whether that’s your phone, iPad, headphones, or basically anything you don’t need to complete this essay. And yes you must surrender your AirPods, nobody *actually* works better while listening to music and you definitely don’t have the time to daydream and imagine TikTok edits of your favourite show right now.

4. Actually starting

Actually starting is half the work, if you don’t already have a rough plan to work from start one there’s nothing worse than typing half the word count just to realise you’ve been contradicting yourself the whole time.

Don’t spend more than an hour on it, but I’d recommend finding your evidence first. Whether that’s clicking on the first article that pops up on JSTOR or stealing quotes from lecture slides just get it down on one page so you’re not clicking through 10 open tabs.

The last thing you need is getting your sources mixed up while you’re already panic typing. To make this a smidge less stressful, dedicate half of the first day (assuming you’ve at least got that long) skim reading your sources and summarising them.

Pro tip: If you don’t have the time to read the whole source, read the first and last sentence of each page. This will give you a rough idea of what the page is talking about and now you know if it’s worth reading, or if you need to look at another page.

5. Blocking

Now to master what I call the art of “blocking”.

By this I mean, write the parts that you feel the most confident about first which you’ll likely find will result in a mammoth of a blocky paragraph which essentially chants Fee, Fi, Foo Fum in comparison to the whisper of a sentence you’ll have for the sections you’re completely clueless about.

The point is to hit majority of your word count with these “blocks” to delude yourself into believing the assignment isn’t as bad as it actually is. Before you know it, you’ve got 1k words down which is definitely more than you had three weeks ago. Just make sure you proofread, remember that you’re being graded and waffling is an art not to be taken lightly.

6. Sweet treat time

After shedding blood sweat and tears to write down more than your essay question, it’s finally time to reward yourself! This is when you have to convince whatever flatmate had the soul-crushing job of holding your phone hostage to let you savour 40 minutes of mindless scrolling.

If you’re able to admit that you have no self control, (and let’s face it you obviously don’t if you’re here) set a timer and get back to that essay ASAP! Sweet treat time includes going to the corner shop and getting yourself that blueberry ice vape and a Dr Pepper. It rarely comes around, so use it wisely.

7. Filler time

Time for filler, and not the kind that every other girl in your hometown suddenly has the licence to do. Remember those mammoths you were cooking up 40 minutes ago? Yeah it’s time to actually make them make sense and get you those precious marks you’re desperately in need of.

Since you don’t have the time to properly engage with those critics you found 20 seconds ago on JSTOR, go pop some of their quotes in. If you want this essay to look like there was at least a whisper of thought going into it you’ll find a way to make it relevant. Where there is a will, there is a 2:1.

8. The immaculate inception

At this point majority of the body of the essay should be done and you’ve likely only got a couple hours before the deadline. Notice how we haven’t mentioned anything on an introduction? Time to cook up what is essentially going to carry this essay. This is when you write the introduction AND conclusion because you now know what the essay is ACTUALLY going to talk about.

Just summarise what each section talks about while making it sound like you *totally* haven’t just rushed the whole thing and actually thought it through. The trick is to over-explain so that you can splice your rambling and make that your conclusion. Now it sounds sloppy and it likely will be, but do you really have the time to be a perfectionist night now?

9. Proofread, proofread, proofread

After following my expert advice, you should now almost be at the finish line but don’t relax too soon. If you’re anything like me and leave spellchecking until the end, now is the time to take those final sips of Red Bull and make sure this essay is legible.

The secret to rushing an essay, is to make it look like you wrote it in three days rather than three hours. By proofreading and putting those SPAG skills that seven-year-old you worked so hard for, the marker can’t outright call you out (although they’re definitely secretly judging) on being sloppy.

Use a spellchecker, but ABSOLUTELY check those references specially if you have succumbed to the seduction of using ChatGPT to find those sources. Considering you’re probably sleep deprived, this is when you may ask one of your many generous friends and ask them to triple check the piece is at least legible.

Now, all you’ve got to do is submit. I’m not saying that these tips and tricks will get you published on JSTOR but a badly written essay is better than no essay at all. That being said, how about mitigating next time?