Procrastinate vs. putting off doing something until a future time. [In Latin: pr ô cr â stin â re means "to put forward until tomorrow."]

Tempted to put off studying for the particle physics test? Or writing that 35-page research paper on future uses of nanotechnology? Sure, you are—and who wouldn't be? But it's still dumb to procrastinate at college. Here's why...

Tomorrow won't be better. It'll still be the same task. It won't be any more fun and you still won't want to do it.

The semester's winding down—just as you're winding up. Four weeks left and you've still got two papers, five finals, and a classroom presentation to boot. How to manage? Here are 20 tips for taking control of your courses—and your life—during the crucial last month of the semester:

1. Plan to work harder. You might be used to thinking of college as a two- or three-day-a-week job. No more. Come the last month, you'll need to turn it up a notch—or for some, a number of notches—to get done what you need to get done.

Don't get us wrong. Professors consider "cram" to be a four-letter word. We don't think pulling an all-nighter the night before the test is the royal path to success. But sometimes cram happens. So if you're going to do it—like 99.9947 percent of other college students—at least do it right. After all, we'd hate to see you blow off all that sleep and still wreck your GPA.

Most black college students attend "majority campuses"—schools with whites as a majority of the student body (and faculty and staff). The dropout or transfer rates for black students at some of these campuses can be as high as 60 percent. This week, visiting blogger Charles Robinson, professor of history and director of the African American Studies program at the University of Arkansas, contributes some tips for success for African-American students attending historically white institutions:

1. Identify resources. Find out about your college's resources for academic performance, such as enhanced learning centers and writing centers. See, too, what possibilities are offered for social networking in the African-American programming units, the multicultural center, and Greek life.

Like an architectural masterpiece or a well-crafted symphony, a perfect college paper is carefully constructed—rather than barfed out onto the page at 3 in the morning. Each part is meticulously selected and polished up, then assembled with the others into a coherent and convincing whole. We should know. Between us, we've read tens of thousands of college papers—some perfect, others not so perfect—from which we've gleaned our 10 best tips:

Professors are going electronic, which means that, in addition to the one-on-one office hour, professors are increasingly willing to communicate with their students by E-mail. Here are some things to consider before clicking the "Send" button:

• E-Mail is forever. Once you send it off, you can't get it back. Once your professor has it, he or she owns it and can save it or, in the worst case, forward it onto colleagues for a good laugh—at your expense.

• E-Mail goes where it's told. Check, and double check, to see that the right address appears in the "To" line. Just because your mom and your professor are both named "Lynn" is no reason to send all your love to Professor Lynn.

Eighth week of the semester and you thought you were doing great. But you just got back your midterm and, OMG, it's a C (or worse). Panic sets in. Drop out of college? Jump off a bridge? Here are some better ideas:

• Figure out the real score. Sure, you know you got a 75 on the midterm. But have you considered the impact of that mess-up on your total grade in the course? Though you may not have thought about it in your shroud of despair, in many courses the midterm counts one quarter or less of the whole course grade. That's because most professors want to give students a chance to screw up and still have some motivation to keep working throughout the course. So all is not lost—yet.

One of the best resources for students thinking about college is the college website (or portal). Here you'll find the most distinctive and best features of each college—or at least what the college would like you to think are its best features. But no matter. With some skillful surfing, you'll be able to examine the underbelly of that beast you're about to spend the next four years of your life in. Here's what to do:

1. Surf the college. You might think you're going to the University of X, or X State, but actually all universities are made up of different entities called colleges (or sometimes schools). So for the best information, navigate to the college page of the university website—for example, the college of liberal arts, engineering, or business or the school of visual arts, hotel management, or buffalo herding. Sometimes these colleges will be named after famous people, in which case you'll have to look for the name of the guy who put up the $100 million for the naming rights—e.g., the John G. Hoofalos College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.

This year, the first paper at many colleges comes just at the time of the presidential and vice presidential debates. So, as we were grading the stack of papers (all the while, glancing at the 32-inch TV), we couldn't help noticing that what scores points in debates wouldn't cut it in a college paper. In fact, some of the debate tactics most praised by pundits would be seriously dissed by professors. Wanna know why electoral success ≠ grade success? Read on:

Political debate: Style is as important as—if not more important than— substance. If you sweat, have a five o'clock shadow, or roll your eyes and sigh when your opponent says something stupid, you're in major trouble. If you look presidential or young, wink from time to time, or directly face the camera, you'll do just great.

1. Bring a beverage. A nice drink enables you to relax and concentrate on the task at hand. You might even be able to convince yourself that the next 50 minutes will be a productive and satisfying work-hour. And even if you don't convince yourself of that, at least you won't be thirsty.

2. Start working right away. Don't waste lots of time constructing meticulous outlines. A couple of minutes plotting your answer should be enough. And if you have a choice of questions, avoid false starts. Don't choose one question, start your answer, and then decide to go with door No. 2 instead.

"For some college students, nothing will match that moment of terror when they look down at their test and find questions they never dreamed of staring back at them. At that very same moment, there's usually some student somewhere else in the room feeling smug satisfaction at having figured out the questions in advance. (Lynn even admits to once wasting valuable exam time shooting "I told you so" looks at her BFF and study partner.) How can you figure out in advance what's going to be on the test? Here are some tips guaranteed to work:

• Professors test what they talk. Students often think professors are out to trick them by testing some picky, obscure issue. But professors usually try to teach the most important material—and then test it to see if students have mastered it. Kind of makes sense once you think about it, doesn't it? So look over your notes and see what the prof spent the most time on. That's likely to provide fodder for the test.

1. Pick for a reason. The foreign language requirement is one of the very few two-year requirements at many colleges. Select your language for a reason. Good reason: Arabic will be useful in your career at the State Department. Less good reason: I took Spanish in high school and kinda, sorta—well, now that I think of it—didn't really like it all that much.

2. Attend all the classes. The foreign language course is one of the few classes that are truly cumulative: Every lesson includes some content that, together with the other classes, builds your knowledge of the language. Your usual "cutting allowance" won't cut it in foreign languages.

Most college students think they're pretty good at note-taking. And yet, not one in 10 students takes a good set of notes. Here are 10 tips for taking excellent lecture notes—from the professors' perspective:

1. Write more, not less. You should be writing for most of the lecture. Rule of thumb: 15 minutes = 1 page of notes.

2. Write down the professor's ideas, not yours. Some students lard their notes with their own questions, reflections, opinions, and free associations. But the point of taking notes is to get a good rendition of what the professor is saying. That's what'll be on the test. Leave your own thoughts for afterward or for your personal journal.

Each year, more than 17 million students enroll in college—5 million for the first time. For many, the difference between success and failure depends on what their parents do—and don't do. Here are our 10 best tips for parents of new, and returning, college students:

1. Don't pick your child's courses. Many parents feel the need to help their kid select from among the thousands of choices. Don't. An important part of getting settled into college is finding the courses that best suit the student's interests and best satisfy the college requirements. Let the academic adviser do his or her job.

With the start of the academic year, it's time to switch out of vacation mode and into work mode. Pronto. Not in a few days, or a few weeks—or, horror of horrors, a few months. Because what you do the very first week of the semester can have a major impact on what comes out the other end gradewise. So don't skip these must-do's for the first week of college.

1. Take charge. At college, there's no one looking over your shoulder or holding your hand to make sure that you get off on the right foot. It's all up to you—and your foot. So, do it.

2. Get your a** to class. In a class that meets 35 times in a semester, each class has about 3 percent of the content. Blow off the first week, and you're already 8 percent behind.