Advice On That Last Minute Paper Extension

by cathgar

posted on 07/07/2009

Its a common occurrence in college: finals are coming up and you have three or four papers all due in the same week. This must happen to me just about every quarter. You could stress and cram all the work by pulling a few all nighters only to turn in the paper five minutes before the deadline. But why stress out when you can get an extension. Even if you don't need one, they can help space out the workload onto a schedule which works. It not hard to get and almost all professors will give them. You just need to know a few tricks about how to ask.

Get It Early:
Most professors will not give an extension the day the paper is due, because it looks like you are a lazy procrastinator if you waited until the last minute. I would recommend asking at lest a week in advice, once you have an idea about when all you papers are due and how you would like to space them out. When asking this early, it only takes suggesting a scheduling conflict with another test or paper.

Focus on the Paper not Excuses:
If you have waited till the last day, professors don't want to hear excuses. It's better to tell them "I need an extension because I would like to write a better paper" rather than because "I'm falling behind or I was doing something else." If you do use an excuse the best one which always works is, "some personal/family stuff came up" and say nothing more, because being a private matter they can't really ask and are left to imagine what happened. Often the one two combination works well: "Some family stuff can up and I'm behind but that's not why I'm asking. Its because I would really like more time to write a good paper (develop the idea etc)."

A few more tips:
Put the Professor at ease: Don't pressure the professor if they want to give you one they will. It often helps to suggest you might be able to get it from the other professor. Or by suggesting it is needed to improve the paper, they can feel its less personal and more an academic issue.
Suggest you had a plan: Some time it helps to suggest you have a plan by mentioning how many days you think it will take to complete and how you can't fit that in with your other finals.
See them in person: It really helps to show the effort and see them in office hours or even ambush them on campus. Its often harder to say no in person that over an email. However, if the professor doesn't already know you this might not help.

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