{read clockwise from top left: machine magnet set: $12; fashionista laptop bag: $65; “geek” necklace: $25; apple magic mouse: $69; mix tape pouch: $34; Recycled Vinyl Record Cuff Bracelets: $25; 80′s ‘Bloc II’ Square Vintage Glasses: $10}

As such, I’d be willing to bet dollars to donuts that you know a certain geeky someone who deserves to own THE show he/she has been referencing and suggesting to everyone for what seems like forever. If you act now, you might be able to enjoy the first of many get-to-know me-better-than-you-ever-thought-possible marathons in time for the New Year, and finally figure out why he/she always orders tea “Earl Gray. Hot!”

{read clockwise starting at top left: futurama, $147.99; curb your enthusiasm, $169.49; battlestar galactica, $173.49; the ultimate: star trek the next generation, $319.99; and my personal favorite, buffy the vampire slayer, $166.99 }

Or for something slightly more current and a little less costly, try these smaller dvd sets for starters.

{it’s always sunny in philidelphia: seasons 1-4, $56.99; freaks and geeks, $35.49; dr. horrible’s sing-along blog, $9.49; arrested development, $44.97; flight of the conchords: $38.49}

There might have been a point in my life when I was adept at writing school papers, but that ship has long since sailed. As a student of the communication arts, my recent practice has been somewhat more visually oriented. However, it appears I may still be doing something right, as this afternoon I received this note:

Dear M,

Just a brief note to try to express how profoundly interesting and beautiful I’ve found your thesis project to be — amazing! I’ve only had a few minutes to unfold the graphic piece, and equally few to begin looking at your thoughtful reflection — they’re both splendid, and I’ve already promised myself that next week when things are a bit less hectic, I’m going to spend a wonderful afternoon looking it all over with the care and attention such a remarkable achievement warrants.Thank you so!

~LW

For a bit of back history, LW has probably been the most powerful symbol of unattainable validation to have crossed my path since me old papa bear. As the head of the honors program at my alma mater, Professor W. almost single-handedly confirms or denies the successful completion of a rigorous, graduate-level inquiry into the humanities.

LW is a man blessed with the deft ability to flip-flop between being your jolly co-conspirator and being the shrewdest, cruelest, most terrifying professor you could ever imagine. The sight of his beady black eyes dissecting a student presentation, while he simultaneously translates his native-English thoughts into Korean notes on a yellow legal pad, has been known to turn otherwise successful, intelligent students into puddles of blithering failure – this even before his piercing questions rip your research methods and indeed your entire argument agape.

And how, you must be asking, does one impress such a man to the point of receiving a personal thank you note hand written in his practiced calligraphy?! Well, I’m brilliant! Obviously. But really lovelies… you can be too. Here are some tips that I would attribute to my research and writing successes that are sure to help you with yours, no matter your paper-writing skill level.

1. Let your inner geek shine! AKA, pick a subject that interests you, and that you already know something about.

We’ve heard it before, but that’s because it’s true. If you are going to  be required to research and plan and research and talk about the same subject for an extended period of time it should most definitely be something that will hold your attention and manifest some degree of enthusiasm within you.

Also, if it’s too far outside your area of expertise, you will naturally make some missteps which your terrifyingly omniscient professor will find obvious, and gladly ream you for. If you don’t have a choice in your subject matter, try to find an angle to approach the boring ol’ subject from that speaks to your interests.

3. Research using some shmancy internet-geek tricks!

Researching a discourse community is one of the key techniques “they” expect you to master in your college years. I imagine you’re already pretty well versed in this process: first you select a topic, then maybe you check the library catalog for books that seem to be relevant. Perhaps you know to check the bibliographies of each relevant book you find to see what sources each author found essential to their discussion. Perhaps you also know to check the library’s collection of journals for relevant, peer-reviewed articles, and furthermore, how to access the library’s online database for full-text PDF versions of even more articles. (If any of these techniques are unfamiliar to you, don’t hesitate to ask your peers, your less-scary professors, and the free writing resources your school offers to get a handle on things).

But I have a few other tricks up my sleeve that you may or may not utilize.

Before I go to the library or search journal articles or do just about anything else, I Wikipedia. *Gasp!* go the teachers across the nation. But worry not well-intentioned teachers, for I don’t do this to cite the article, I do it for the references listed at the bottom. The list of references that accompany almost every substantial Wikipedia entry are as valuable as those you’d find in any published book. These often lead you to some of the most widely acknowledged and/or helpful contributors to the discussion on your subject right now.

From there, I take my short list to Amazon.com.

I know, going to an online super-store to do research?! But some of you savvies may have noticed that almost every book listed includes a summary, a collection of reviews and ratings, recommendations for similar books and even a list of the primary citations that appear in that book’s bibliography! So search for a book on your short list, and notice how simple it is to follow the links to related books. This offers us an internet-fast understanding of how useful and credible each book is likely to be without ever doing the legwork of retrieving the actual book. Brilliant!

Of course, googleScholar, and googleBooks are also invaluable remote-research tools. Check out this List of 101 web-resources for students, too.

As you jot down a list of books that seem to be most important to your specific project, be sure to be inclusive, even to the point of excessiviness. You can always weed out what you don’t need, but it’s a terrible feeling to be weeks or months into your project before you realize that you failed to gather enough information to support, or even formulate, your argument.

Finally, don’t forget to take good notes, including book titles and pages numbers. You don’t want to be looking at your notes next week wondering “where in the world did I get THAT quote from?” This little piece of advice is one that I often forget to be strict about and it has cost me valuable hours retracing my steps to find the appropriate credit. This time I built my bibliography (in MLA format!) as I went along using EasyBib.

3. Plot a first draft or outline based on your findings. Then research some more.

I mentioned a moment ago that you should try to be inclusive. Of course, we can’t always predict everything that we’ll need. I know many of us skip the “outline” part of the process, but I happen to believe it’s one of the best ways to determine whether or not you’ve got enough evidence to support your project. At this point in the process you might only have a day or two invested in the subject you’ve chosen which means you’ve got plenty of time to re-define the focus of your project and go back to step 2.

4. Write as many drafts as it takes.

In the end, I had seven rough drafts. SEVEN! My final paper was a culmination of the best parts of each (partial) draft. As I would get part way through one draft, I would get bogged down with the way I was organizing my argument, or how a sentence was structured, or how much “loose text” I had floating around. So I would open a new document and begin writing anew.

Sometimes I would start completely over from the beginning, trying to explain things in a different way than I had already done. Sometimes I would start at the end, talking about something I hadn’t gotten to yet, just to get the words out. I tried writing the way I talked to my friends about it, in casual, conversational terms, only plugging in citations after the fact. Every couple of times I re-organized my outline to suit my constantly evolving understanding of the needs of my subject.

In doing this, I realized that I knew my subject well enough to fill the needed pages, my problem was only knowing how to sew all the pieces together in a clear, organized way. And that stuff can all be addressed in the editing room after the fact.

5. Panic! Then calm down, and actually use that beautiful brain of yours.

Not that panicking is the most helpful of reactions, but to many of us it comes quite naturally. For some, it is even a practiced habit that encourages a burst of productivity after too-long procrastinating. However, it is incredibly difficult to focus and produce quality work under the influence of such pronounced anxiety. So if you’ve got to panic because x isn’t working the way it should and y is proof that you’re an idiot and z is something you should have been thinking about weeks ago, go ahead and do it.

But then take a walk around the block. Do some stretches. Get a cup of tea (because lord knows you’ve probably already overdone it on the coffee and that’s not about to help your anxiety any). And remember that you wouldn’t even be attempting this project if someone didn’t think your past accomplishments were worth letting you get this far. You’ve already proven that you’re capable of doing this.

So isolate yourself on the quiet floor of the library if you have to, organize your thoughts in a way that doesn’t terrify you again (imagine trying to explain your process, project and argument to your uninitiated best friend, if that helps), and do what you already know how to do.