1. Choose a thesis that your professor/teacher cannot disprove, no matter how hard he or she tries. For example, take an inanimate object from the story and demonstrate how it is significant to the entire theme of the novel. You can also do this with a quote taken at random, or by proving that one of the main characters is gay. Stereotypes of gay behavior are so vague, that if the main character prefers the company of women to men, prefers the company of men to women, or is overly concerned about his appearance or reputation, your argument is already made. Remember that you can easily take the idea of machismo and translate it into homophobia. If all else fails, a lot of mileage can be gotten from Jesus imagery. Any nice guy character, even the triumphant ones, can be seen as a Jesus figure.

2. Now that your thesis is in place, inflate it with language and syntax. The glorious thing about the English language is that there are literally hundreds of ways to say the same thing. If you repeat yourself using different synonyms, you will take up more space in your paper and sound more intelligent. When you continue to vary your vocabulary, the length of your paper will increase and your ideas will look better. Using a wide variety of words has the disguising feature of making your writing sound important.

3. Use lots of foreign words, long words, adjectives and adverbs. When done properly, a sentence such as "Achilles hated Hector" can easily be expanded to "The noble warrior Achillies loathed his enemy, Hector of Troy." In subsequent sentences, replace "noble warrior" with "brave Greek fighter", "tragic figure", "rage-filled soldier", and so on. Obscure foreign words are aso useful, because you can use up an entire sentence just to explain them.

4. When adding words, pay attention to their sound and rhythm. This gets into the professor/teacher's unconcious, and they will give you a higher mark because they like the "poeticism" of your sentences. Alliteration is always a handy standby, as is subtle rhyme. Compare the sentence "The girl took off her pants", to "The sorority sister slithered out of her outfit." Notice the "sorority sister" alliteration, and the subtle repetition with "out of her outfit".

5. Use these word at LEAST once (but no more than 4 times) during your paper:

  • plethora
  • theme
  • persecuted
  • tone
  • injustice
  • diction
  • culture
  • ambiguous

Any other buzzword that your professor/teacher likes should be on this list as well.

6. Don't forget to put a title on your paper. The easiest way to create a title is to take a proverb, slang saying, or other witticism and make a parody of it. Such examples include:
"I am not a Crook: The Politics of Ancient Rome"
"I Have not Yet Begun to Write: The life of Edgar Allan Poe"
"Did Somebody Say McDonalds?: Why History Continues to Fight Land Wars in Asia"