In Defense of the All-Nighter
by David Langlieb '05

I love a good all-nighter. There’s nothing quite like tucking into a 24-ounce coffee and box of Krispy Kreme® while frantically plowing through hundreds of pages I’ve never seen before in a vain attempt to produce a readable essay by the time the sun comes up.

Like most colloquial terms in the English language, “all-nighter” arose from a functionally literal definition, signifying the plain act of staying up all night in order to finish school work. And most Haverford students, at one time or another in their academic careers, have taken part in such primitively defined all-nighters.

Recent trends in ’Fordian vernacular, however, have produced a modified definition. The new all-nighter connotes the act of staying awake from dusk ’til dawn, but also acknowledges a highly specific brand of laziness and irresponsibility that spawns necessity for the act itself. To be clear: A student who studies all day and works all night has studied all day and worked all night. A student who spends the entire day rummaging around the Internet for nude photographs of Cristina Ricci and then throws together a 15-page paper on Robespierre at four in the morning has pulled an all-nighter. There’s a difference.

Some of the older alumni are shocked to hear that such intellectual lassitude exists at Haverford. But then they recall their own experience sifting endlessly through Collier’s for an especially racy cartoon of Greta Garbo before throwing together a 15-page paper on Robespierre at four in the morning. The all-nighter has been around for a long time.

Unsurprisingly, the all-nighter rarely produces excellent work. This is not the point. The all-nighter aims to reach a threshold of respectable mediocrity becoming of a Haverford student. Reaching that threshold in an extraordinarily short period of time while one is drowsy and unfocused is a genuine accomplishment. Any Haverford student can assemble a well-researched, tightly argued paper over the course of a month. We proved that with our application essays. But only a select few can vomit something moderately coherent onto our computer screens half asleep, in between shots of espresso and heroin.

All of academia’s dirtiest tricks manifest themselves during an all-nighter. Tangential, irrelevant information works its way into half-page footnotes. Pointless citations are inserted whenever an extra couple characters will earn the author a new line of text. Twelve-point fonts become 12-and-a-half-point fonts. When such modest efforts are not enough to meet the required page length, a cover page is added. Then a dedication page. Then an “About the Author” page. Whatever it takes.
The oft-debated question is whether or not professors can tell the difference between truly excellent work and the product of an all-nighter. The obvious answer is yes, but it’s far from the whole answer. In an alcohol-induced confession, a professor once admitted to me that he assigns grades by tossing all class papers onto his lawn and giving As to the first six the neighbor’s dog pees on. He deemed this practice “industry standard.”

Still, if you can find a sober professor, he will undoubtedly tell you that quality is easy to spot, and that educators are deeply insulted by anything else. Which is why Haverford students all too frequently opt out of the all-nighter and opt in to her ugly stepsister, the extension.

Extensions, quite frankly, disgust me. There is no better paean to the surreptitious depravity of Haverford than its lack of extension oversight. Obviously, there are circumstances under which extensions are perfectly appropriate. But an alarming number of Haverford professors offer students an “extension on demand” policy, under which work is due not when it is ostensibly due, but rather whenever a student feels like handing it in. Frequently there is no grade penalty. And no death in the family is needed, not even an imaginary one.

All-nighters may involve astonishing lethargy and irresponsibility, but they are gritty and difficult. Extensions are for weak students who prioritize beauty sleep over all else. Extension-lovers are cowards who cannot bear to hand in anything besides their very best work and are willing to make special rules for themselves if necessary. Believe me, there are no extension-lovers in the foxholes.

Unlike extensions, students pay for all-nighters. A student who has just completed an all-nighter cannot simply go to sleep. He remains drugged and jittery, and forced to endure the new day with a thin white crust on both sides of his mouth. He cannot drive, swim, or contribute to a meaningful conversation. All he can do stumble around like an idiot, grunting mindlessly at his radiant classmates who all got extensions.

I know what you’re thinking. Why does it have to be one or the other? Don’t Haverford students know how to budget their time? Why can't you produce quality work and hand it in when it's due? What the hell are you doing with you life?

Shut up, dad. You don't own me.

David Langlieb is a senior at Haverford.

Submissions for Moved to Speak can be sent to Editor, Haverford Alumni Magazine, 370 Lancaster Avenue, Haverford, PA 19041 or via e-mail to Steve Heacock at sheacock@haverford.edu