If you don’t reference as you write your essay, you’re an idiot

You’re tapping away at your essay, pretty sure you’re almost done, then it hits you. You haven’t referenced yet.

Cue hysterical panic as you try to find the right pages and sources you need to reference the sodding thing, but it turns out that someone has taken the book you need out of the library, so you end up posting in your subject’s Facebook group, desperately hoping someone, somewhere, will be able to tell you which page of King Lear it is that Gloucester gets his eyes plucked out, all the while you’re watching the minutes tick down to the deadline and everyone in the library is staring at you, the oddball in the corner wailing about MHRA or Harvard and how you tell yourself every damn time that it’s probably better to do it as you go. (It is.)

Most people realise the error of their ways in first year, before it actually starts counting for something, and that’s fine. Some people claim they prefer it, although I’ve got a sneaking suspicion they’re lying.

But some people never learn, and those people are idiots.

It’s just logical

Each reference takes literally about a minute, less if you’ve used the source before in the essay. So why some people think it’s easier to leave all the referencing to the end is beyond me.

It makes you look more clever

When Arabella from your seminar comes over and to chat about how much of her essay she’s done, and how she’s so worried about this one but you know full well she’s on track for a first, at least your essay makes it look like you know what you’re doing. She never has to know you’ve only done 400 words.

Procrastination at its finest

It’s a nice little break when you’ve been sat in the library for the last 16 hours, staring at your screen until you’ve started questioning whether the words you’ve written actually mean anything or if you’ve lost all ability to spell.

When you’re done, you’re actually done

If I had a quid for each time a friend told me they were “basically done, just a few references to add” and when they’ve finally made it to the pub to celebrate hand-ins, everyone else is six pints deep looking for a kebab, I’d be set for life.

Computer clutter is over

Finally, you can close those 1,783,257,292 tabs you’ve kept open for weeks, and save yourself the heartbreak of the moment your computer inevitably shuts down for no reason, resulting in you spending the next 4 hours of your life trawling back through your internet history to find that obscure article on cybernetics and feminist identity politics.

We all know one

Everyone knows someone who always, consistently, unfailingly, leaves all of their referencing until they’ve finished their essay, then panics and swears they’re going to sort themselves out for next time. They never do, and they always complain about it.