Nine ways to stretch that term paper you should have written weeks ago

Even when you can’t make it stronger, you can still make it longer. Nine ways to stretch that term paper you should have written weeks ago.

Eleventh-hour paper-writing can be a cruel ordeal, especially when it’s 4 a.m. and the five-page brain fart you coughed up just won’t do. But don’t despair! Your late-night labors may have come up short, but these crafty tips will prove that in a pinch, size doesn’t matter — it all depends on what you do with it.

1. Inching In The Margins
Everyone’s tried it, but don’t scoff: With some finesse, you can make this cliched con work. The key is subtlety. Try knocking in the left and right margins a quarter-inch or so-it’s virtually unnoticeable, and if you’re starting with a half-decent number of pages already, the accumulated buildup can puff your length by a whole page.

2. Bumping Up Font Size
Another delicate maneuver that, if played too strong, could blow your cover. Regulation size is 11 or 12, but see where a 13 will get you. Some word processors even let you input decimal font sizes, giving you free reign over everything between 12.01 and 13.99. That may seem like splitting hairs, but over four or five pages those hairs add up. And unless your prof reads assignments with an electron microscope, odds are he or she won’t even notice the difference.

3. Changing the Font
Obviously, an essay typed in Olde English script isn’t going to be much of a bluff, but a secret weapon does exist: Courier, a font which mimics the style of traditional manual typewriters. Those old-school clunkers allot an equal amount of page space to every letter of the alphabet, meaning that thin i’s take up as much horizontal room as fat Q’s. Just one click on this heaven-sent typeface can turn you into a desktop David Copperfield, allowing you to magically materialize multiple pages out of thin air.

Space Management: Turning form into content

4. Inserting Page Headers
They’ve commanded you since kindergarten to “always put your name on everything” — now turn the tables by proudly crowning every page with a lengthy header. It should contain between three and five lines (double-spaced for clarity, of course) of “important” info such as your name, the title of your class, the title of your paper, the date, your professor’s name, and the page number. Seal your sheaf with an appropriately loosened staple, and not only have you added lifesaving inches to each page, you’ll also come off as a conscientious pupil who’s merely concerned with keeping your work organized in transit (as opposed to the desperate, Vivarin-addled hack you are).

5. Spacing Between Paragraphs
Writing one paper may be hell, but how about reading 30 of them at once? Yes, teachers have troubles too. Show your professor you care: Make your essay easy on the eyes by double-spacing between paragraphs. The more paragraphs you have, the more beautiful white space you can exploit. It’s like rewarding yourself for what little work you did eke out between Sega hockey matches and Simpsons reruns.

6. Block Quoting
Quotation is a beautiful thing: It gives the erroneous impression that you actually conducted research, while allowing you to legally fill your paper with someone else’s thoughts instead of your own. Block quoting, however, is even better. Not only can you lift much more of the source material than usual, you also get to showcase your intellectual larceny in its very own double-spaced paragraph, indented an extra inch on either side! Profs eat this up, so savor the irony, beef up those quotes and watch your page count grow.

Professional Padding: Heavy-duty solutions for seasoned slackers

7. Footnoting
Did you know that technically, every single point you make that’s not wholly original must be cited, even if it’s not a direct quote? Well now you do, so crack those books back open and reference everything you possibly can back to a source. No statement is too vague, no fact too obvious — if it wasn’t in your head when you left the womb, cite it. Rack up several citations per page, then fill precious vertical real estate by listing them as footnotes. Profs generally prefer a separate “Works Cited” sheet, but no matter how exhaustive it is, it won’t help a whit with your length problem. Footnoting will, and it looks classy too.

8. Rewriting Your Introduction
Never before in the history of the English language has anything of substance been said in an introduction. Why start now? Personal anecdotes, lame jokes, unsubstantiated generalizations, movie quotes, dictionary excerpts, stream-of-consciousness ramblings, rap lyrics, whatever in god’s name happens to be going through your sleep-starved mind at this moment-with some creative massaging, it’s guaranteed to function somehow in your introduction. It might take two pages to meander down to a thesis statement, but hey-isn’t that the point?

9. Inserting Extra Media
They say a picture says a thousand words, but if all you need is an extra couple hundred here and there, a chart or graph should suffice. Thanks to the Internet, you have easy access to a near-infinite reservoir of graphically organized factoids perfect for plundering. And if you think this tip only applies to business majors, think again: One enterprising student successfully integrated a chart tracking bookselling trends into an analytic essay on Jane Austen. A good graph can knock out half a page or more of space single-handedly, so that should motivate you to “think outside the box.”

Any of these suggestions should help bail you out of most academic predicaments, but bear in mind that successful fluffing is an art, not a science. A ruse that works magic on one batch of midnight musings might fizzle on another. The important thing is to have a bagful of tricks at your disposal. Sure, there’s plenty to be said for simply getting your work done diligently ahead of time, but this was just a one-time mistake, right? Good. Glad your priorities are straight. Now make room on the couch — the Simpsons are on.

When Alex Smith started this article, it was only 40 words long.

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