Didjastudies @didjastudies - Tumblr Blog

writing an essay in college is very different from writing an essay in high school. personally, i write more research/history papers than literary essays (the liberal arts life and curse), so this is going to be a post on how a general research-y essay that has a thesis and arguments.

intro

don’t open with a quote and don’t be overly broad.

avoid generalizations

your intro should address the topic of your essay (ex. the significance of gardens in renaissance society), and then narrow down to what you want to talk about in regards to your topic (ex. the political influence of the Medici gardens during the renaissance)

thesis! it should include the argument you want to make about the narrowed down topic, and three (or however many your class requires) reasons to support it. I like to think of it as W = X + Y + Z.

your thesis explains who, what and why in a concise manner.

body

topic sentences should not be a word for word copy of your thesis.

the order of arguments in your thesis is the order of your paragraphs

depending on the length of your essay, there should be at least two justifications to your argument.

so, just as the intro has a formula, X = A + B, and so forth.

A and B should be backed up with some sources/quotes. don’t forget that if you are quoting from class notes to put either the prof’s last name, or (class notes)

be sure to have clear and concise arguments, don’t be flowery

USE WORDS THAT ARE ACCURATE. thesaurus is great but if you use a word that sounds cool but doesn’t capture the meaning you want to convey then don’t use it, because it may just change the meaning of your argument

quote whatever isn’t yours. it is completely fine if 90% of your sentences are quotes. its weird to get used to, but don’t worry about it.

conclusion

the worst part in my opinion.

synthesize don’t summarize. show how your arguments relate back to the thesis.

try not to copy paste your thesis into the conclusion, word it so that the readers understands that through XYZ, you were able to conclude and support argument W (referring back to the thesis formula)

do not add any new information, do not add quotes.

your final sentence should tie up the essay in a pretty bow, but try to avoid clichés

protips

when writing the body paragraphs, your ‘weakest’ paragraph should be in the middle, strongest as your last, and the second best as your first.

if you’re stumped on the intro, skip it. write out the body first, then the intro and you’ll be able to concisely word your thesis

think of your essay as an infomercial. your intro is the loud and clear HERES MY PRODUCT, the body is blasting information on why the product is so cool, and the conclusion is the final push for the viewer to buy that product. make your teacher want to agree with your thesis!

use a mix of paraphrase and quotes!

don’t forget your works cited lmao (the MLA Handbook is a gr8 tool, also OWL Purdue)

prime time for essay writing is in the morning or at night, but make sure you edit it meticulously

EDIT ON PAPER NOT ON YOUR SCREEN

stay humble, study hard

#uni

tbhstudying

a recent snapshot of my bullet journal from my instagram (tbhstudying) !!

you can see more in my summer flipthrough / september set up video <3

colormecosmic

ya girl needs to learn how to use Sketch for work and what better way to do it by (attempting) to take on the 100 Days of UI Challenge! Let’s see how long I can keep this up (-:

rainbowcolouredstudies

How to study hundreds of pages in the shortest time possible

First of all a disclaimer: No, you can not study them in one or two days. But depending on the topic and how fast you can read, you can do it in one or two weeks!

Factors on which your needed time depends on:

How complex the topic is

How long you need to read a page

How fast you can write

How easy it is for you to understand the text

Basic explainations before I go into detail:

There are two ways of studying: global and and analytical studying

Analytical studying means you really go into detail, try to understand every single word and try to get as much information in the topic as possible. You are studying the topic very precisesly and need the small details to understand it. This is great to understand the topic profoundly.

Global studying means you barely go into detail, but rather try to get an overview over the topic, its most important aspects, and the basic connections. This is great to realize what the most important connections and facts of this topic are, and in what relation the facts stand to each other.

Studying in four steps:

1. The first thing you need to do is read through the whole text and make an excerpt. This step will take you the longest, some days or even some weeks. Basically the best way to do this is to follow these steps:

Look through what you have to study. Hopefully it has chapters, if not, try to split it up into chapters of about twenty pages. This amount works at least for me best. If you have a short concentration span, rather make more chapters with less pages. If you have a long concentration span, make less chapters with more pages per chapter.

Set a realistic goal how many chapters you can read and excerpt in a day. Try to stick to this goal. If the text is easy to read and the font a normal size, one needs about one to two minutes to read a page. If it is difficult to understand or a small font, you may need three to five miutes, so keep this in mind when setting your daily goals.

This goal can vary from day to day. If you know that one day you have a long and exhausting lecture, set the goal lower than for a day were you won´t have any distractions.

Make sure you make this plan early enough. The later you do it, the higher is the chance you have not enough days to get through the text!

Now read a chapter and try to understand as much as possible of it. Focus on it as best as possible, because this is one of the most important steps. If you have problems staying focused, here is my masterpost on how to stay focused.

If your concentration is lost after reading this chapter, take a short break. Then, and it is really really important that you only do it afterwards you read the whole chapter, do an excerpt of this chapter. If you do not know what an excerpt is or how to make on, click here.

By doing the excerpt at the end of the chapter, you revise it for the first time already.

Do this for every chapter you need to study. If you have time left, you can revise the excerpts you already made, but your focus should be on getting through the whole text once.

2. Read thoroughly through your whole excerpt. While doing this, try to recall as many details of the original text that you didn´t write down. Not only read the excerpt, but focus on the relations and connections, realize the meaning and consequences of what you are reading, understand their impact on the subject matter and the topic. Don´t learn it by heart, instead understand it and try to comprehend it with a logic that allows you to recall the realtions without studying them intensively. Do this at least once, if you have the time better do it twice. The harder the topic is for you, the more often you should do this step. This step should take you about one or two days.

3. Skim over your excerpt. Set your focus on the keywords you wrote down in colour and try to recall the most important keywords associated with them. If you have enough time, repeat this once or twice, but you do not have to if you feel you are already very good.This step should take you some hours or a minimum of one hour.

4. Skim over the headings and subheadings of your excerpt. While doing this, try to recall the words you focused on in step three. Only the most important keywords, realtions and connections should cross your thought in this step. This step should take you less than an hour.

After step four, you will be prepared for your exam! Just try to calm down, and most importantly, do not try to recall every little detail now. It will only stress you and give you the feeling that you cannot recall them, which is more often than not totally false. Everytime I used this strategy, I could recall most of the details when writing the test! Also do not revise right in front of the test. You will only confuse yourself and start to panic.

The concept behind this method:

Remeber I tought you the basics of global and analytical studying in the beginning? Well, these are exyctly the background for this method.

Step 1 = analytical

Step 2 = semi - analytical

Step 3 = semi - global

Step 4 = global

Pretty easy once you see it this way, right?

Tip for revising

It helps a lot of people to walk around while doing step 3 or 4!

Good luck everyone and hope this helps!

isthsnametakenyet

100 Days of Productivity - Day 82/100

December 29th, 2017

I finished reading Burial Rites! Oh my gosh it was so intense and emotional, and so beautifully written as well! When I came back from work I continued notes on symbolism in Jane Eyre which was really interesting :)

studygram

acaedmic

setting up my first monthly spread of 2018

cuppa-studies

Today was one of the most productive maths classes I’ve had in a long time. Now it’s time to relax and recharge for the next school week. Have a nice day everyone!❤️

theproudbooknerd

[3/58 days of motivation]: Chemistry revision

once again, i chose to focus on enhancing my understanding of topics in chemistry. you’ll notice that i will be focusing on chemistry revision during this motivation streak as i am striving to improve my grades. this semester since they weren’t very good.

given that i am discussing this topic, i thought it would be great to address how i personally deal with “failure” or simply not achieving my goals. before anything, i just want to point out that i am no expert, i am only hoping that my personal experiences will help you guys out as this is something that i still struggle with.

so here goes nothing:

Dealing with failure setbacks

1. don’t panic

when you don’t reach your targets or receive disappointing grades, you should not panic thinking that it means that you’re horrible at the subject, that you will fail in the subject, that you’re going to fail in school, fail in life, bla bla bla… believe or not, in bad times our minds can imagine some pretty far-fetched and terrible things. this one test will not determine your life, your dreams, your fate or define you! so don’t overthink or panic because there will always be another chance and in this case another test. rather, take it as a challenge to prove yourself next time. i know its easier said than done, but you can only move forward by

2. at the same time don’t bottle up your emotions

meanwhile, trying to stay calm doesn’t mean you should keep your emotions in and just angrily reject it all. instead, let it all out and come to terms with your feelings as well as taking complete responsibility for what has happened. remember. keeping those emotions inside will only be destructive in the future and lead to sudden outbursts/mood swings/pessimistic attitude later on, which affecting your life in general as well as future grades for example.

3.. hustle harder

once you accept your feelings and are composed, it’s time to get your ish together. this is not a “failure”, it is just a setback from your goals. in fact, it is one that you can learn from. so sit down, pull out your bujo, a piece of paper or just your mind and write down the answers to the following :

what can i learn from this?

how can i avoid this next time?

what should i do differently?

you have just sketched out your masterplan towards achieving your goals. remember that not achieving a certain target that contributes to fulfilling your dreams does not meant that you should change your goals, because trust me the thought of changing subjects or my dream career has crossed my mind a billion times whenever things don’t go as planned. rather, if the initial plan doesn’t work out, change it.

change the plan, but not the goals.

supplies:

cello Finegrip (in black, blue and red)

Super U Felt-tips (in beige; these have cornrow tips & are super inexpensive but very effective)

Artline Stix Brush Marker (in black)

Pilot Hi-Tecpoint V5 (in purple and pink)

Pritt micro correction roller

21/11/17

officiallystudying

You will be so much happier in 2018

reblog to share positivity

caesarstudies