Biologist in the making

Two   h e a v y   h e a v y   h e a v y   lectures! 

How I Plan and Write Literature Papers

I got a couple of requests for a post covering my process for writing literature papers, and I’m happy to share. I’m an English major, but I have always struggled with writing literature papers, which have comprised the majority of my graded work in college. I’m good at writing and I always do well, but it used to take me so long to get from blank Word document to finished paper! It was frustrating and discouraging. Finally, though, in my senior year, I’ve figured out a process that works for me and cuts down on the time I spend staring at a blank screen. Here it is!

Programs I Use:

Scrivener

Microsoft Office - Word

The Process

First, I open a blank project in Scrivener and go to the notecard view. You don’t have to use Scrivener (though it is excellent for all kinds of writing). There are other programs that let you set up notecards like this. You can also use non-digital notecards! But I like Scrivener. So I open a blank project and set up a bunch of notecards with the questions I’m going to need to answer in my paper. Sometimes, these are provided by the professor. Sometimes, they aren’t. In that case, try to come up with some on your own, or just skip to step 3 if you already have an idea of what your argument is going to be. 

Next, I just go through and answer all the questions. I answer in complete sentences (most of the time) and with as much detail as possible. Ideally, I’ll be able to just copy and paste at least some of this into my outline in step 4.

Once all the questions are answered, I create a separate set of notecards for my outline. The basic parts of this are: Introduction, Thesis, Topic Sentences, and Conclusion. As I’m creating these cards, I usually jot down notes for what each point of my argument (i.e. what each topic sentence) will be, just so I don’t lose track.

Then I work on filling in the outline cards. I usually start with the Thesis card and then fill in all the Topic Sentence cards. I refer back to my question cards. Everything I write in this step is in complete sentences, etc, so it can go directly into my paper later.

I add a card for each piece of evidence I’m going to use, as well, after its corresponding Topic Sentence card. In a literature paper, evidence means quotes from the work I’m writing about, so I find the quotes I need and type them onto a card, formatted properly (page numbers included), so I can just copy/paste them into the paper later.  Sometimes I’ll jot down a bit of my close reading of the quote on the card if I feel the need, but not always.

After I have all the topic sentences written and all the quotes copied out, I fill in the Introduction and Conclusion cards. Intros and conclusions are tough for me, but they are easier if I remember to set up the big picture in the intro and “zoom in” to my argument with my thesis, and then pull back out to the big picture in the conclusion and answer why the argument is important.

When all the outline cards are filled out, I open a Word document and copy/paste in everything that I’ve written already. Most of the time, everything on the outline cards is ready to go directly into the paper. I just write on the cards first because it keeps things more organized, allows me to move points of the argument around easily, and lets me avoid that “staring at a blank document for an hour” stage of writing.

Then I go through the paper one paragraph at a time and revise to fix transitions and better integrate my bare-bones quotes, and I add close reading (i.e. explain how the quotes I chose are evidence of the arguments I make in my topic sentences).

Once I have all of the close reading done, I take a break and come back to give the paper a once-over with fresh eyes and do further revising. If my professor is giving me the opportunity to turn in a rough draft for revision comments, then I turn in the paper at this point. If I don’t have a chance to ask the professor for feedback, I’ll ask a friend to read it and give me feedback, and then I use that feedback to help me improve the paper another time (or two) before I submit it for a grade.

Tips for Using This Method

Each paragraph should start with a topic sentence that argues something, followed by a piece of evidence that supports that argument, followed by close reading of the evidence that explains why it supports the argument.

When outlining, consider any length requirements and try to come up with enough points to make in your paper to hit any minimum page or word counts you’ve been given.

Copy/pasting from notecards into a paper can mean that the paper doesn’t flow as smoothly as if you’d written it all at once, so make sure you read over the paper and fix parts where it seems disjointed.

Btw Excedrine migraine is acetaminophen, caffeine, and aspirin. So for some people, yeah, it works great. Also, being a blood thinner, aspirin on its own will help some people with migraines. Then again, I’m pretty convinced that thinners might have an off-label use for migraine treatment. I get fairly bad headaches on a semi regular basis, and I didn’t have one the entire time I was on Coumadin. It was glorious.

There are a couple of different techniques for visual/practical learners to study so I’ll list them for you here. I’ll also provide links if I’ve made any posts about that technique before.

Mindmaps

Turn your written notes into diagrams (this is also a really active form of revision because you have to really think about the material to do this).

Watch videos; Youtube and TedTalks are great.

Flashcards are great for kinesthetic learners, but if you use diagrams and charts instead of words, they’ll be really useful to visual learners as well. (There’s an entire tag of flashcards here; it’s probably one of my biggest tags.)

Make your study area visually appealing and you’ll be more likely to spend time there but don’t make it so visually full that you get distracted.

Use posters.

Stick up post it notes with key ideas/concepts/diagrams so that you see them when you wander around the house/room.

Make sure that you’re looking at the diagrams in textbooks; a lot of people skip over these.

When you’re trying to remember something close your eyes and visualise it.

More biology notes. Reviewing my old notes on Ecology, Evolution and Population Ecology for my Biology final exam.

How to make an awesome study guide / make notes on your computer

Writing by hand can be great in class or for jotting down notes from skimming through the text book. A great way to combine those notes are typing them up on your computer, and then print them out. Neat perfect notes with less paper wasted. Well printed out you can work with them even more to really get that information to stay. 

Go from 100 pages in the text book + a pile of handwritten notes to just a couple of pages of typed notes.

When typing them:

Layout. For each paragraph I make a headline in bold text. After that I use bullets and italicize terminology. I format the body text to be in two columns to save space and easier reading.

Keep it short. I  never write full sentences or grammatically correct. Write as short as possible while still getting the important information through. Making up abbreviations are an easy way to keep things short. It doesn’t have to look pretty, just make sure you understand it.

Simplify. Use arrows, dashes, colons, equal signs to indicate how different subjects and explanations are connected. Avoid “unnecessary" words like "meaning…", "such as", "is the same as". Use symbols instead. 

Tables. Making tables is an excellent idea for comparing things with different parameters. In your word processing program you can make your own pretty table designs or use pre-made ones. Sometimes simple ones are better though.

Paginate. Obvious but extremely useful!

Print on both sides of the paper. With half the amount of paper it kind of psychologically feel that you have less material to learn. 

Example:

What not to write:

Different species have different niches. You can define a niche as a species specialty, like its job.

Instead, try to remove unnecessary words that don’t contain much information.

Niche = a specie’s specialty, job.

When you have them on paper

All freshly printed and done? Great! Take your pens, pencils and highlighters and let’s go through the material. The first time I go through it I let it take a good while and I read it very carefully with my highlighters and pens handy.

Highlighting. If you’re into highlighting I have some tips for you. Don’t use one colour. Use several and assign each colour a different task or role. For me it really makes a big difference and I can see what’s what. Here’s an example of how I do it:

Pink: Headlines and headings Blue: Terms and words Green: Definitions and meaning of the term. (Green explains blue) Yellow: Examples and misc

Drawing. It’s helpful if you couldn’t draw said thing on the computer. What I like to do though is to make small doodles related to the terms, definitions, examples or the paragraphs in them selves in the margin. 

Notes. Take notes or mark off things you find extra hard or confusing.

When you’ve done all of that and your notes are a colourful clusterfuck I read them through again and again. You can also hold over the paragraph and try to either write down or explain verbally what the paragraph is about. Try not to completely memorize the paragraphs, instead really try to understand the concept.

I hope that was helpful for some of you :) I know exams are coming up and this can be a fun thing to try out. After I’ve made my study guide I almost exclusively study from it. I don’t use the textbook from that point on except for answering practice questions. 

If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message.