Informative Essay Sample about Procrastination

An informative essay is a well-known type of a paper that is used to evaluate the knowledge of students in schools and colleges, and its main task is giving the reader detailed information about the unknown subject. The informative essay should not have many unknown terms, and if they are used, their simple explanation should be given. The structure of the essay is standard – the introduction, the main body, and the conclusion, where the main body should express the general history of the concept, historical event, person, or object, approaches to its study, and the importance of the described object. The topic of an informative essay sample should not cover too broad concepts, or, conversely, too narrow field of knowledge, and must be interesting for both the author and the reader. Before starting to work, the writer has to find reliable sources of information, properly study them and emphasize the main points that should be mentioned in the essay. At this point, many inexperienced writers find themselves stuck not knowing what resources to avail of. That is why looking for professional tips from an essay writing service could help write a quality and well-researched academic project based exceptionally on credible information. This type of paper involves the presentation of the main facts of the topic without additional analysis and personal conclusions – only information for the reader. To clearly understand the structure and writing features of the essay, one could consider the informative essay example given below.

‘The Procrastination’ Essay Sample

The habit of postponing important cases to the last moment often becomes a huge problem for people since it affects the quality of work, financial situation, and personal life. One can hear the common myth that the prevalence of the Internet, TV, and electronic devices exacerbates this problem even more than decades ago. Moreover, it is known that people under pressure work better and faster, that makes procrastination a good thing, but numerous studies show the other side of this habit, and scientists include it in the list of mental diseases. In this regard, one should mention that the main reason why people postpone everything until the last moment is not hindering factors, laziness, or inability to manage time but psycho-emotional problems of a person.

In simple words, procrastination is a phenomenon of people choosing quick and less critical tasks to perform instead of significant ones that take a longer time to complete because they want to get results faster and self-assert them. In other words, a person is not just lazy or does not want to do the necessary task. Instead, he/she is subconsciously afraid to proceed to the work realization because of its importance or scale. Moreover, scientists noted that in any country and at any time there are 20% of people who are marked as chronic procrastinators or procs. The main problem of procs is that they cannot emotionally overstep themselves if they are faced with a difficult task and postpone it until the deadline or even after it. Procrastination is a phenomenon that is mistakenly attributed to the problems of modernity, but its existence was noted centuries ago, in the times of ancient Greece. One of the evidence of this statement is the words that were written at 800 BC by the Greek poet Hesiod, who said: “Put your work off till tomorrow and the day after.” Similar trends can be noted in various books and films of the past, and that is why blaming modern technologies for the intensification of procrastination is incorrect.

At the same time, the scientists note three main traits that are inherent for chronic procrastinators, for instance, they usually suffer from their inaction, postpone difficult tasks because of their emotions, and do not learn from past mistakes. The first feature is expressed in the fact that postponing important tasks, the procrastinators are aware of the consequences of their actions and feel fear, anxiety, or torment of conscience but still do not proceed to the task. The second trait is expressed in the fact that people feel insecure in their desire to complete a task and explain this by a bad mood. Therefore, they postpone it in the hope that when the mood improves, they are able to return to the task. Consequently, the rapidly approaching deadline makes the person more stressed and reduces the ability to resist emotions that lead to the worse mood and another postponement. The third feature is that despite the experience gained in past cases of procrastination, people do not learn to avoid unpleasant consequences but only feel more stress caused by understanding future complications. Thus, these manifestations are, at the same time, causes and consequences of procrastination and are associated primarily with the emotional problems of the person.

While for ordinary people procrastination remains a reason for jokes, scientists have approached this issue with all responsibility having conducted diverse researches on the topic. One of the most effective methods was empirical tests on groups of volunteers, which clearly showed manifestations of procrastination associated with various external factors. The good example of the study was published in Psychological Science when one group of students was told that at the end of the lesson they have to write unimportant and fun math test, and another group thought that the result of this test would seriously influence their further education. The time before the test could be used for preparation or entertainment. As a result, the second group of chronic procrastinators deferred studying knowing that the test results are significant. The experiment clearly showed that procrastination is associated with the control of emotions and not time.

Another method that scientists tried to apply to research this issue is neuropsychology. Since some parts of the frontal lobe of the brain are responsible for human self-control, the study of the connection between procrastination and reactions in this part of the brain is expected to conduct. Nevertheless, the outcomes of the study were unexpected since chronic procrastinators had powerful connections with all the parts that are responsible for the different manifestation of self-control. These results most likely connect with the fact that the people themselves explained their feelings, so they were aware of their behavior. However, the research has led to the development of the methods that procrastinators can effectively use to solve their problem.

First of all, it is worth noting once again that the influence can and should be exerted primarily by controlling emotions, but not thorough concentration on time-management skills. It is useful to observe one’s personal reaction to procrastination and analyze one to overcome the problem. For someone, it is a problem of self-control, for another person, it is the importance of the task or its complexity. In the first case, it may be useful to limit all distractions, such as calls, TV, or the Internet, but without the proper attitude for overcoming procrastination, this method does not give a positive result. Another effective way is dividing a massive task into several small ones with the establishment of personal deadlines for their implementation or a rewarding for early delivery of work instead of punishment after the deadline. In addition, dealing with procrastination may require seeing a therapist who will help to overcome the emotional barrier and realize the importance of completing tasks on time for the person due to his or her specific problems.

Therefore, it can be noted that the study of procrastination on the part of science has led to the realization that this phenomenon can be a serious problem that threatens the mental and physical health of a person. In spite of this, not every postponing is a manifestation of procrastination, as well as not every person is a chronic procrastinator, but almost every person experiences this phenomenon at least once in the lifetime. In addition, the researches made it possible to understand the origins of this problem and, consequently, the ways of its resolving. Procrastination is primarily a problem of a person’s perception and the ability to overcome one’s emotional barriers, while the correct approach to solving this problem and therapy if needed could give fast positive results.

Post-writing Tips

This example of an informative essay includes the main parts that are necessary for writing academic work that includes an introduction with a clearly formulated thesis, the main body with precise explanations and statistical data, and a conclusion that summarizes all the information proposed in the essay. The informative essay sample presented above does not contain generalizations or personal interpretations of the author but only solid facts that explain the essence of the chosen topic to the reader. The conclusion of the essay does not contain new information or a personal response of the author but briefly summarizes the main ideas.

In order to create an informative essay, remember that the vocabulary should include simple definitions and emotionally neutral terms. At the same time, one can make an exception and use direct quotations, so that the reader can easily get acquainted with the presented information. Writing an informative essay does not require analysis or synthesis of the obtained data since the main task of the author is to explain the main issues of the chosen topic briefly and clearly, revealing its essence to an uninformed reader. We hope that the tips and example of the essay are useful and will facilitate the task of writing this type of academic work.

References
Jaffe, Eric. “Why Wait? The Science Behind Procrastination.” Association for Psychological Science, 2013, https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/why-wait-the-science-behind-procrastination
Council, Forbes Coaches. “10 Ways To Beat Procrastination And Get Things Done.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 22 Mar. 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2018/03/22/10-ways-to-beat-procrastination-and-get-things-done/#2d6307f02902
Murphy, Heather. “What We Finally Got Around to Learning at the Procrastination Research Conference.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 July 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/science/procrastination-research-conference.html
Herrera, Tim. “Why Your Brain Tricks You Into Doing Less Important Tasks.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 July 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/09/smarter-living/eisenhower-box-productivity-tips.html