No need to apologize. After all, the name makes no sense, even to me. I must have been drunk when I registered, and mashed the keyboard a few times when creating the username 
I can write papers, but I can’t come up with a decent username :rolleyes:
You’ve correctly diagnosed the problem, Viva. At some point I have to decide it’s good enough, even if it could be better.
The work I did is definitely gone. This time I’ll be saving a back-up every two minutes.
Ah-ha, thought so. I had a student who was very slow to do her assignments because of this problem. When we started doing peer editing and she saw that many of her fellow students were not exactly Shakespearean, she gained a lot of confidence, eased up on herself and started producing work like crazy. Now she’s even ahead of herself.
You can always go back and play with it all later. Just get something down, anything.
Best o’ luck,
–Viva
I use “effective writing.” It’s a simple technique, and works for just about everying. Ultimately, it’s just a refinement of the Red King’s advice.
Sit down a write a first draft off the top of your head. Do not go back and edit anything. Don’t worry about footnoting (but indicate where you are quoting to prevent plagiarism – a simple asterisk should be enough). Just keep going until you get to the end. (As a useful aide, be sure to double space it).
Take the draft, print it out, and edit it. Be vigorous. Make the pages bleed.
Enter your edits into the draft. Also, add the footnotes.
That’s it.
The key is step one. Don’t get hung up (or even bother) about how good the writing is; just finish the draft. It will be the skeleton for your paper.
This method works well for any type of writing, BTW.