Here are more suggestions. These are
tried and true and have helped me out in times of sheer and utter "I can't believe I waited this long"
panic.
Just remember, if you choose to BS your term paper, you may not really learn anything except for how to BS your way through life. This is very useful in some occupations, and quite detrimental in others. Think long-term.
1. Use Courier instead of Times New Roman for your font. Unless the syllabus for your course specifically defines a font to use on your papers, your professors will usually accept a monospaced font as well as a variable-width font. Courier is bigger. It can make a 13 page paper into a 15 page paper.
2. Be redundant without being obvious. In the tip above, the phrase "on your papers" was completely unneccessary. But it added three words, and if your paper has to be x amount of words, three here and three there will add up.
3. Skim. If you don't have the time to read all of your primary source and all the secondary sources, skim the research to find quotes that could support your thesis. Write them down. Use them. Do not overload your paper with quotes, but it shows that you used your sources (in the cheapest sense of the word "use") and each sentence that someone else wrote is one less sentence of your own original thought. Parenthetical documentation also takes up more space than footnotes. In fact, it is now recommended in the MLA handbook that parenthetical documentation be used. Good for you.
4. Do your research first. Can't think of a thesis to write about? Check out some books in the library and see what everyone else had to say first. Instead of having your research support your thesis, have your thesis support your research. Get some quotes from some critics that are interesting that, when combined with one another, can form a thesis for you, or a focus on your paper, such as the role of machismo in Latin American literature, or what Jean-Jacques Rousseau thought of the idea of democracy.