Beat the night-before panic with a 3-day plan

This plan assumes the paper is due in three days, you haven't started, and you have maybe two focused hours a day. That's not ideal. It's also completely workable.

Day 1 — sources only (no writing)

Spend the whole session collecting: find 5–8 sources that plausibly relate to your prompt, save them with author/date/URL, and pull one quote or fact from each into your notes. Do not start writing. Writing without sources produces confident paragraphs you'll delete tomorrow.

Day 2 — outline, then the ugly draft

First 30 minutes: turn your prompt into an arguable thesis and 3–4 claim sentences, and attach yesterday's sources to them (the outline guide covers this). Remaining time: write the ugliest complete draft of your life. Every section exists, nothing is polished, citations are just (Author) placeholders. Complete beats good today.

Day 3 — revise like a reader, then format

Read the draft once out loud — you'll catch more in ten minutes of reading aloud than an hour of staring. Fix the argument first (does each paragraph actually support the thesis?), sentences second, and leave the last 30 minutes for citations and formatting, which always take longer than you think.

Why sources come first

Every hour of writing rests on the sources under it. Collect them first and the draft assembles itself; collect them last and you'll bend your argument to fit whatever you can find at 2am. That's the whole trick.