caffinated

General Plan:

Weeks 1 and 2: Purpose:

Learn the fundamentals sentence construction

Learn how to spell and count

Start building a phrase stockpile with basic greetings

The Alphabet

Numbers 1 - 100

Subject Pronouns

Common Greetings

Conjugate the Two Most Important Verbs: to be and to have

Basic Definite and Indefinite Articles

Weeks 3 and 4: Purpose:

Learn essential vocabulary for the day-to-day

Start conjugating regular verbs

Days of the Week and Months of the Year

How to tell the time

How to talk about the weather

Family Vocabulary

Present Tense Conjugations Verbs

Weeks 5 and 6: Purpose:

Warm up with the last of the day-to-day vocabulary

Add more complex types of sentences to your grammar

Colours

House vocabulary

How to ask questions

Present Tense Conjugations Verbs

Forming negatives

Weeks 7 and 8: Purpose:

Learn how to navigate basic situations in a region of your target language country

Finish memorising regular conjugation rules

Food Vocabulary and Ordering at Restaurants

Money and Shopping Phrases

Present Tense Conjugations Verbs

Weeks 9 and 10: Purpose:

Start constructing descriptive and more complex sentences

Adjectives

Reflective verbs

Places vocabulary

Weeks 11 and 12: Purpose:

Add more complex descriptions to your sentences with adverbs

Wrap up vocabulary essentials

Adverbs

Parts of the body and medical vocabulary

Tips for Learning a Foreign Language:

Learning Vocabulary:

What vocabulary should I be learning?

There are hundreds of thousands of words in every language, and the large majority of them won’t be immediately relevant to you when you’re starting out.Typically, the most frequent 3000 words make up 90% of the language that a native speaker uses on any given day. Instead try to learn the most useful words in a language, and then expand outwards from there according to your needs and interests.

Choose the words you want/need to learn.

Relate them to what you already know.

Review them until they’ve reached your long-term memory.

Record them so learning is never lost.

Use them in meaningful human conversation and communication.

How should I record the vocabulary?

Learners need to see and/or hear a new word of phrase 6 to 17 times before they really know a piece of vocabulary.

Keep a careful record of new vocabulary.

Record the vocabulary in a way that is helpful to you and will ensure that you will practice the vocabulary, e.g. flashcards.

Vocabulary should be organised so that words are easier to find, e.g. alphabetically or according to topic.

Ideally when noting vocabulary you should write down not only the meaning, but the grammatical class, and example in a sentence, and where needed information about structure.

How should I practice using the vocabulary?

Look, Say, Cover, Write and Check - Use this method for learning and remembering vocabulary. This method is really good for learning spellings.

Make flashcards. Write the vocabulary on the front with the definition and examples on the back.

Draw mind maps or make visual representations of the new vocabulary groups.

Stick labels or post it notes on corresponding objects, e.g when learning kitchen vocabulary you could label items in your house.

How often should I be practising vocabulary?

A valuable technique is ‘the principle of expanding rehearsal’. This means reviewing vocabulary shortly after first learning them then at increasingly longer intervals.

Ideally, words should be reviewed:

5-10 minutes later

24 hours later

One week later

1-2 months later

6 months later

Knowing a vocabulary item well enough to use it productively means knowing:

Its written and spoken forms (spelling and pronunciation).

Its grammatical category and other grammatical information

Related words and word families, e.g. adjective, adverb, verb, noun.

Common collocations (Words that often come before or after it).

Receptive Skills: Listening and Reading

Reading is probably one of the most effective ways of building vocabulary knowledge.

Listening is also important because it occupies a big chunk of the time we spend communicating.

Tips for reading in a foreign language:

Start basic and small.  Children’s books are great practice for beginners. Don’t try to dive into a novel or newspaper too early, since it can be discouraging and time consuming if you have to look up every other word.

Read things you’ve already read in your native language. The fact that you at least know the gist of the story will help you to pick up context clues, learn new vocabulary and grammatical constructions.

Read books with their accompanying audio books. Reading a book while listening to the accompanying audio will improve your “ear training”. It will also help you to learn the pronunciation of words.

Tips for listening in a foreign language:

Watch films in your target language.

Read a book while also listening along to the audio book version.

Listen to the radio in your target language.

Watch videos online in your target language.

Activities to do to show that you’ve understood what you’ve been listening to:

Try drawing a picture of what was said.

Ask yourself some questions about it and try to answer them.

Provide a summary of what was said.

Suggest what might come next in the “story.”

Translate what was said into another language.

“Talk back” to the speaker to engage in imaginary conversation.

Productive Skills: Speaking and Writing

Tips for speaking in a foreign language:

If you can, try to speak the language every day either out loud to yourself or chat to another native speaker whether it is a colleague, a friend, a tutor or a language exchange partner. 

Write a list of topics and think about what you could say about each one. First you could write out your thoughts and then read them out loud. Look up the words you don’t know. You could also come up with questions at the end to ask someone else.

A really good way to improve your own speaking is to listen to how native speakers talk and imitate their accent, their rhythm of speech and tone of voice. Watch how their lips move and pay attention to the stressed sounds. You could watch interviews on YouTube or online news websites and pause every so often to copy what you have just heard. You could even sing along to songs sung in the target language.

Walk around the house and describe what you say. Say what you like or dislike about the room or the furniture or the decor. Talk about what you want to change.This gets you to practise every day vocabulary.

Tips for writing in a foreign language:

Practice writing in your target language. Keep it simple to start with. Beginner vocabulary and grammar concepts are generally very descriptive and concrete.

Practice writing by hand. Here are some things you can write out by hand:

Diary entries

Shopping lists

Reminders

What could I write about?

Write about your day, an interesting event, how you’re feeling, or what you’re thinking.

Make up a conversation between two people. 

Write a letter to a friend, yourself, or a celebrity. You don’t need to send it; just writing it will be helpful.

Translate a text you’ve written in your native language into your foreign language.

Write a review or a book you’ve recently read or a film you’ve recently watched.

Write Facebook statuses, Tweets or Tumblr posts (whether you post them or not will be up to you).

Write a short story or poem.

Writing is one of the hardest things to do well as a non-native speaker of a language, because there’s no room to hide. 

There are lots of ways to improve your writing ability, but they can be essentially boiled down to three key components:

Read a lot

Write a lot

General Plan:

Weeks 1 and 2: Purpose:

Learn the fundamentals sentence construction

Learn how to spell and count

Start building a phrase stockpile with basic greetings

The Alphabet

Numbers 1 - 100

Subject Pronouns

Common Greetings

Conjugate the Two Most Important Verbs: to be and to have

Basic Definite and Indefinite Articles

Weeks 3 and 4: Purpose:

Learn essential vocabulary for the day-to-day

Start conjugating regular verbs

Days of the Week and Months of the Year

How to tell the time

How to talk about the weather

Family Vocabulary

Present Tense Conjugations Verbs

Weeks 5 and 6: Purpose:

Warm up with the last of the day-to-day vocabulary

Add more complex types of sentences to your grammar

Colours

House vocabulary

How to ask questions

Present Tense Conjugations Verbs

Forming negatives

Weeks 7 and 8: Purpose:

Learn how to navigate basic situations in a region of your target language country

Finish memorising regular conjugation rules

Food Vocabulary and Ordering at Restaurants

Money and Shopping Phrases

Present Tense Conjugations Verbs

Weeks 9 and 10: Purpose:

Start constructing descriptive and more complex sentences

Adjectives

Reflective verbs

Places vocabulary

Weeks 11 and 12: Purpose:

Add more complex descriptions to your sentences with adverbs

Wrap up vocabulary essentials

Adverbs

Parts of the body and medical vocabulary

Tips for Learning a Foreign Language:

Learning Vocabulary:

What vocabulary should I be learning?

There are hundreds of thousands of words in every language, and the large majority of them won’t be immediately relevant to you when you’re starting out.Typically, the most frequent 3000 words make up 90% of the language that a native speaker uses on any given day. Instead try to learn the most useful words in a language, and then expand outwards from there according to your needs and interests.

Choose the words you want/need to learn.

Relate them to what you already know.

Review them until they’ve reached your long-term memory.

Record them so learning is never lost.

Use them in meaningful human conversation and communication.

How should I record the vocabulary?

Learners need to see and/or hear a new word of phrase 6 to 17 times before they really know a piece of vocabulary.

Keep a careful record of new vocabulary.

Record the vocabulary in a way that is helpful to you and will ensure that you will practice the vocabulary, e.g. flashcards.

Vocabulary should be organised so that words are easier to find, e.g. alphabetically or according to topic.

Ideally when noting vocabulary you should write down not only the meaning, but the grammatical class, and example in a sentence, and where needed information about structure.

How should I practice using the vocabulary?

Look, Say, Cover, Write and Check - Use this method for learning and remembering vocabulary. This method is really good for learning spellings.

Make flashcards. Write the vocabulary on the front with the definition and examples on the back.

Draw mind maps or make visual representations of the new vocabulary groups.

Stick labels or post it notes on corresponding objects, e.g when learning kitchen vocabulary you could label items in your house.

How often should I be practising vocabulary?

A valuable technique is ‘the principle of expanding rehearsal’. This means reviewing vocabulary shortly after first learning them then at increasingly longer intervals.

Ideally, words should be reviewed:

5-10 minutes later

24 hours later

One week later

1-2 months later

6 months later

Knowing a vocabulary item well enough to use it productively means knowing:

Its written and spoken forms (spelling and pronunciation).

Its grammatical category and other grammatical information

Related words and word families, e.g. adjective, adverb, verb, noun.

Common collocations (Words that often come before or after it).

Receptive Skills: Listening and Reading

Reading is probably one of the most effective ways of building vocabulary knowledge.

Listening is also important because it occupies a big chunk of the time we spend communicating.

Tips for reading in a foreign language:

Start basic and small.  Children’s books are great practice for beginners. Don’t try to dive into a novel or newspaper too early, since it can be discouraging and time consuming if you have to look up every other word.

Read things you’ve already read in your native language. The fact that you at least know the gist of the story will help you to pick up context clues, learn new vocabulary and grammatical constructions.

Read books with their accompanying audio books. Reading a book while listening to the accompanying audio will improve your “ear training”. It will also help you to learn the pronunciation of words.

Tips for listening in a foreign language:

Watch films in your target language.

Read a book while also listening along to the audio book version.

Listen to the radio in your target language.

Watch videos online in your target language.

Activities to do to show that you’ve understood what you’ve been listening to:

Try drawing a picture of what was said.

Ask yourself some questions about it and try to answer them.

Provide a summary of what was said.

Suggest what might come next in the “story.”

Translate what was said into another language.

“Talk back” to the speaker to engage in imaginary conversation.

Productive Skills: Speaking and Writing

Tips for speaking in a foreign language:

If you can, try to speak the language every day either out loud to yourself or chat to another native speaker whether it is a colleague, a friend, a tutor or a language exchange partner. 

Write a list of topics and think about what you could say about each one. First you could write out your thoughts and then read them out loud. Look up the words you don’t know. You could also come up with questions at the end to ask someone else.

A really good way to improve your own speaking is to listen to how native speakers talk and imitate their accent, their rhythm of speech and tone of voice. Watch how their lips move and pay attention to the stressed sounds. You could watch interviews on YouTube or online news websites and pause every so often to copy what you have just heard. You could even sing along to songs sung in the target language.

Walk around the house and describe what you say. Say what you like or dislike about the room or the furniture or the decor. Talk about what you want to change.This gets you to practise every day vocabulary.

Tips for writing in a foreign language:

Practice writing in your target language. Keep it simple to start with. Beginner vocabulary and grammar concepts are generally very descriptive and concrete.

Practice writing by hand. Here are some things you can write out by hand:

Diary entries

Shopping lists

Reminders

What could I write about?

Write about your day, an interesting event, how you’re feeling, or what you’re thinking.

Make up a conversation between two people. 

Write a letter to a friend, yourself, or a celebrity. You don’t need to send it; just writing it will be helpful.

Translate a text you’ve written in your native language into your foreign language.

Write a review or a book you’ve recently read or a film you’ve recently watched.

Write Facebook statuses, Tweets or Tumblr posts (whether you post them or not will be up to you).

Write a short story or poem.

Writing is one of the hardest things to do well as a non-native speaker of a language, because there’s no room to hide. 

There are lots of ways to improve your writing ability, but they can be essentially boiled down to three key components:

Read a lot

Write a lot

I thought to write down the “script” to one of my most viewed videos, with 40 study tips & tricks. It’s easier to read them and pass on the word!

Organization Tips:

1. Incorporate homework and classes in you daily planner – that will give you an overall glimpse of how your week will be about and how much time you need to spend in your studying sessions!

2. Color coordinate classes – be it notes, your planner, your textbooks or binders, pick a unique color for each class and work around the hues of that color to get more organized!

3. Make your own syllabus – if your professor doesn’t provide a syllabus for your class, try to make one before the school year working around your given textbooks or other given material.

4. Make study guides – make a study guide from your syllabus and draw before each topic two boxes: one for a midtest and one for the final test. When you have one of these tests, check the boxes when you’ve finished studying the chapter so you won’t miss anything!

5. Reference your material throughout – most of the times, we students work with in-class notes, textbooks and a syllabus. Since we get small bits of information here and there it’s important to reference every page throughout all your material so you can quickly access your information without having to flip endlessly through pages!

6. Keep a dashboard nearby – Whenever you use a notebook or a binder, make a dashboard on the first page with post it notes so you can quickly scribble any questions, homework or page numbers. When you get home, you just need to open your dashboard and attend those notes.

7. Print any tests, exercises and exams you can find – keep those in the end of your binder. These are perfect to practice before exams and tests because they really reflect what you will be tested about. Set an alarm clock for the deadline and start working on those!

8. Condense – organization disappears when you have too many of everything. Working with more than one planner in your life will make everything chaotic. If you think you need a second planner because you don’t have enough space to write in the first one, it’s because you don’t have available time as well. Don’t fool yourself and set achievable goals!

9. Customize your textbooks – most of the times, textbooks are formal books where information is hard to come by. Make your own tabs and write every chapter on them so they stick out – flag any charts, tables or graphics. Everything needs to be incredibly accessible!

10 Print a special planning sheet before finals: Organizing your studying by chapters and/or topics before finals is tremendously important since it lets you organize the amount of time you dedicate to each subject,

Study Sessions and Time Management

11. Save at least one afternoon or one morning a week for intensive studying. These is your “life-saver” – when you get so full of homework and projects that you can’t incorporate them into your daily academic routine, one free afternoon to organize your school life will really come in handy! Make an appointment with yourself!

12. Prepare in advance – although most professors may not ask you to prepare a class in advance, if you have the means to, go ahead. Grab a sheet and make a summary of the chapter your class will be about. Write the major topics and key information and take that guide to class. When your professor repeats previously studied information, you will be able to understand everything much better!

13. Never leave something behind – Even if you have a more light class, where professors don’t request homework or any side projects, don’t let that fool you! Be disciplined and be your own professors! Make your own projects and learn everything you can so you can nail those finals when they arrive.

14. Write your questions – most of the time, in a heavy study session, we come up with tons of questions and sometimes we just leave them behind. Write them down in your dashboard or a small notebook and ask your professors (personally or via e-mail). You can also ask your schoolmates in a facebook group created for that purpose!

15. Set an alarm clock and reward yourself – even if you study during an entire afternoon your studying will be pointless if you don’t take regular breaks. Set an alarm clock for one hour/one hour and a half and then take a 15 minute break. Never study for more than 2 hours straight! Even if you don’t notice, you’ll get less and less focused.

16. . Make a list – before each study session I like to grab my notepad and write down everything that I need to do before my session ends: the chapters I need to read, the pages I need to go through and the homework I need to complete. Sometimes I even write theses lists when I’m in college so I’ll have more determination to complete those tasks once I get home.

17 Work on the least interesting thing first. There are always classes or projects that we like the least – and those are the ones that we need to tackle first. You will start your studying session concentrated, which will let you go through the worst tasks faster.

18 Print, print, print. try to print everything you can and never study from your computer. Having your PDF files printed at hand will let you concentrate better, highlight and write some notes in the margins. You can take these everywhere with you and even turn them into small guides for future classes!

19. If you finish ahead, don’t quit. Perhaps the time you’ve saved for your study session has come to an end way before you have planned. That doesn’t mean you should stop right now – Take that time to review what you’ve learned so far or prepare other classes ahead of time!

20. Study in an organized space – make your own studying corner – bring everything you will need, from textbooks, binders and notebooks, to a cup of coffee and your computer. Keep them neatily organized on your desk so everything is at hand and on sight. Put on some soft background music (links down below) and adjust the lightning.

In class notes

21. If your professor provides PowerPoint slides before each class, print them (six or four per page) and bring them to class. Write in the margins and more throughout information in the back so it’s all condensed and tight. This is where you’ll take your notes. If you prefer to write on lined paper, think about copying some ruled paper to the back of your printed slides.

22. If your professor asks you to prepare your class in advance, try to make a small guide for each class. Open the comments column in MSWord and print the pages with that column. When you go to class, incorporate the in-class notes in that column, next to the relevant information so everything is nice and condensed.

23 If you are in a information-heavy class, try to adopt the Cornell method, which is the best, in my opinion, when you need to be a fast writer. There’s a video right here on how to use this method.

24. If you are in a bits-and-pieces class, which is that kind of class where the professor just gives a few key points and then gives practical examples or makes you work in group, try to adopt the box method – you can draw these boxes yourself or make them with post it notes – these are way more visual and perfect to memorize information.

25. Write in-class flashcards – if you don’t have flashcards around, make tiny flashcards on the top of your notes, where you cover the definitions you’ve written with the name of the definition. Each time you open your notes, try to remember the hidden definition. Automatic studying, every time!

26. Participate in class – nothing better than to be actively involved in your class discussion. For most of us, shy creatures, participating can be dreadful – but once you get out of your box, you’ll see how participating really makes you understand the subject!

27. If you have any questions during class, raise your hand and ask them. If your professor doesn’t like being interrupted, write them down and approach them in the end of the class. Sometimes, the little things we don’t understand are exactly the ones that come up on the final exam!

28. Ask for examples. Examples are probably the thing that makes your brain connect the information faster. If your professor isn’t keen on providing examples, suggest your own and see if your answer comes up right. Sometimes, examples are the thing that really makes us understand our material and our definitions, since they transform formal information into relatable events.

29. Sit at the front. It sounds too straightforward but sitting at the front really makes wonders. You won’t get distracted by what you classmates are doing, you will focus on the professor, who is right in front of you and you will resist the temptation of going to Facebook and Instagram during a boring presentation.

30. Write a brief summary at the end of the class. During those five minutes where everyone is dismissed and leaving the room, write a brief summary of that classes’ key points in the back of a page – this is fundamental in the Cornell method but can be used in any other method as well.

Finals Guide

31 Skim through your material two times: at first, you should start by studying your material starting from the end. The last lessons will be fresh in your memory and it’s very important to reinforce your knowledge on these while you can. In the second reading, you should start from the beginning, as usual. It’s important to make these two readings so you can go through the information in a much more flexible way.

 32. Make a mindmap of each chapter. A mindmap is a chart that relates key words and important information, making it easy to understand the relationship and hierarchy between such key words. Use colors and images to memorize your material better. Oh, and don’t forget to check out my video on how to make mindmaps!

33. Read each of the titles and try to say out loud its contents, explaining each concept and the relationship between them. Imagine you are the teacher and are lecturing that subject to a crowd. If you skip any of the subjects, do it all over again. The more you repeat, the better you will memorize.

34. It’s time for some flash cards!  Write the topic or the title on one side and the meaning or the explanation on the other. Try to cover as many topics or titles as you can and go through your cards while memorizing as best as you can each of the concepts. Try to do it backwards if you have time to do so!

35. On the day before the exam, skim through your mindmaps and flash cards again and always try to study while talking. Saying your content out loud will force your brain to relate information in a much more cohesive way and you’ll memorize everything much better.

36. Read the entire exam from top to bottom. Underline or circle any important words that you think will be crucial in you answer. After that, calculate how much time you should spend answering each question: this simple calculation will take only twenty seconds and will help you organize your time. Try to save five minutes at the end for revisions.

37. If you are solving a written exam and not multiple choice, try as much as possible to organize each answer in a structured way, saving two lines just to present your line of thought and writing each different argument in a different paragraph. Draft a conclusion at the end to underline the centre of your answer. Sometimes softly underlining some keywords is important to make your professor notice that you’ve correctly given importance to certain concepts.

38. Use these symbols for each question: one dot if you aren’t sure of the answer, two dots if you are sure of your answer and a circle if you are completely unaware of your answer. Start by answering any question with two dots; after those are all answered, go on through the two dots question. Leave the circle questions to the end – and ALWAYS answer them! Even if you don’t know what they’re about, who knows if you will be able to come up with something right?

39. Review your test one final time – many times, we make a lot of mistakes under stress and now is when you should spot them and amend them. This can be the difference between a B and an A!

Heyo, so school is fast approaching, and seeing as Tumblr is made up of a lot of younger users who will soon be shipping off to college or university soon, I thought I would take it upon myself to help spread my knowledge of essay-writing. Essay-writing is my thing. I love it. I live for it. It’s how I make up for my shitty test marks, and still get by with an 85 average+ in University classes. I’m a historian by trade, so perhaps this information will seem a bit off from what you’re used to, but hopefully, It’ll help you out. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an ask.

1. Consider your question and find your thesis.

      I know, I know. People always say, no! Never start with your thesis/intro paragraph! Go to the body!! Well i’m here to say forget everything you’ve been told. Forget that, forget the stupid hamburger shit they teach you, forget it all and start reading. 

I ALWAYS start with my thesis. Why? Because you cannot make good paragraphs without knowing what you’re researching. You need direction, and a thesis is your map.

So, the question we’ll use shall be: What is one way in which the Union won the American Civil War?

Now remember, your thesis is your map. It shows you where to go, what to look for. The thesis is the heart and soul of all your work. You want a good, solid thesis. What does that include, you ask?

An idea

A reason for said idea

Evidence to support said reason, and thus validate the        idea.

So, lets do an example. Let’s say I’m writing on the use of media during the American Civil War. I like photography, and wrote a paper on this in my second year, but im gonna be doing this example freehand(idk where I put that essay lol) so lets work with how I got an A+ on that paper. This will be my idea:

                “Photography during the American Civil War influenced the war’s outcome in the Norths favour.”

This is VERY vague. This is an example of a thesis in bloom! Let’s take it further. Look at the above. What questions would you have from this thesis?

-Who was taking photos at that time?

-Why did it influence the outcome?

-How did it influence the outcome?

-Who consumed photography as a media at that time?

This is where you STOP, and start the next step.

2. Research

                Start your basic research with your idea, and the above questions in mind. Look at libraries, ask your professor or TA or librarian, or just do some basic google searches to get to know the subject(but for the love of god if you include a google link in your citation I will personally hunt you down and castrate you.)

I like to start with the basics of any inquiry: WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY, HOW. Who was taking photos? Where were they displayed that caused influence? ect…These, in relation to your beginner thesis, will help guide you in what form your thesis will take.

Once you’ve finished that, and have a general feel for the time period, go back to your thesis.

3. THESIS 2.0

Go back to your original question: What is one way in which the Union won the American Civil War? Now look at your thesis again. It’s too vague, isn’t it?

As you can see, our original thesis was too vague to be a real thesis. So, we NARROW IT DOWN using our WWWWWH progress we focused on during early research!

                “Photography during the American Civil war influenced the war’s outcome by providing a visual for ordinary citizens about the horrors of war, and thus helping to increase donations and awareness to the cause.”

Great! But once again, too vague! Questions that may arise include:

Who was taking the photos

Evidence for donations?

Evidence for social awareness?

So, we NARROW IT DOWN again. I’m going to use Andrew Gardner’s photography during the Civil war, as he was one of the most famous and influential at the time.

                “Andrew Gardner’s photography during the American Civil war influenced the war’s outcome by providing a visual for ordinary citizens about the horrors of war, and thus helping to increase donations and enlistment in the Union through awareness to the cause…”

The above then gives us the following(why and how are sometimes grouped together):

Who: Andrew Gardner

What: Photography helped the north win the war.

Where: Union-aka northern states

When: American Civil War

Why/How: Because Andrew Gardner’s photography raised social awareness through this new and budding medium

Use this sort of outline to guide you in the next step!

4. Now that we have a thesis, you need to do some more research and evidence gathering.

The way I like to do this is to go check out a few books from the library(look for text books in particular), and leaf through the index for matching terms. Our matching terms would be:

                Photography, civil war, Andrew Gardner, media

From there, you read over the pages, and see if any of the info relates to your subjects. Copy down quotes, page numbers, book title, author, publishing date and publisher. You need these for your bibliography. Pick and choose relevant information. The filter for relevant information relies entirely on your thesis, because it decides what you need to be looking for—this is why I hate when people tell me to start writing paragraphs before I write a thesis! It’s simply impossible and counter productive, and will cost you hours in revision.

So, gather your information from the library, and cross-reference with peer-reviewed articles and data. For our thesis, we would need data on enlistment numbers in an area after a date of Andrew Gardner’s photography exhibit showcases. No matter what type of essay you’re writing, you can always back up your evidence with data, and it won’t hurt one bit. Don’t be afraid of the numbers, kids!

So, if we were to go back to our thesis, we could now expand on it like this:

             “Andrew Gardner’s photography during the American Civil war influenced the war’s outcome by providing a visual for ordinary citizens about the horrors of war, and thus helping to increase donations and enlistment in the Union through awareness to the cause. An increase in  donations and enlistment in relation to exposure to Gardners work is seen in data/evidence point A, as well as in data/evidence point B, which will be fully outlined in the points below.”

This gives you an example of how to lead from a thesis, to your opening paragraph.

5. Data and Evidence Justifications–Paragraph making

This is the section where you can branch your essay into your data and evidence points you gathered in steps 2 and 4. You can have as many paragraphs as you like, just make sure your evidence and data is strong and supported. I personally like to work with my thesis copied and pasted onto the top of every page I write on. This keeps you on track, with your clear goal in mind, and will help you from straying. I will give you an example of how a paragraph might sound.

                Andrew Gardner’s photography during the American Civil War became heavily influential upon the American population at the time, particularly the north, wherein which his work was showcased. The influence of Gardner’s photographic works is seen in the _____, which shows us that without the influence of Gardner’s media influence, war efforts and awareness may not have been as successful as they had been.

This is an alright opener for you to work with. The ___ is where you could put in your data point or evidence piece. The point of the paragraph is to show your support for your thesis by confirming it with evidence.

Your paragraphs should take this form:

Present, Confirm, Conclude, Lead.

You present your evidence, confirm its relation to the thesis and confirm the validity of the thesis, conclude by brief revision of evidence, and then lead into your next paragraph. 

6. Conclusion

        Your conclusionary paragraph should be a look-over of the above paragraphs. Restate your thesis, present a summarized version of your paragraphs(one or two sentences only), and perhaps take the time to look at your own views on the subject. An example might look like this:

        “Taking a moment to step away from the above mentioned evidence, I believe it to be scholarly acceptable and even necessary to state my own views on the subject presented. In drawing conclusions, I felt that the above information was correct in that it presented a reality of the time period, in which photography was becoming a medium to be embraced by popular society. People were not only astounded by Gardner’s photographs on a social level, but also a technical level. The astonishment people held at seeing the war-torn battle fields spurred them into action, and even today can still present feelings of dread, fear and loss when looking at his photos…blah blah blah”

Why is it scholarly acceptable and perhaps necessary to state your views? Oftentimes, it is to reassure the reader of your own personal bias’, which exist whether you like them or not, to the subject at hand. Having a small tidbit on your own thoughts about your research ect, breaking away from the third-person droning of an essay can be refreshing and welcoming for a prof at the end of his stack of essay reading. 

7. In summary

Thesis

WWWWWH

NARROW IT DOWN

Data and Evidence

Present, Confirm, Conclude, Lead

Self opinions/Conclude

there are days where i’m an organized little dandelion. i can float through with minimal effort: i remember everywhere i need to be, everything i need to get done, and i can manage my time like it’s my superpower. it’s glorious. 

there some days, though - nay, weeks, and maybe even months - where i am in dire need of a little (occasionally a lot of) structure. during those trying times, when i am convinced my superpower is actually the ability to flail my way madly through life, google calendar is my best lil buddy. it helps me practice time management and self-awareness, and support self-care and healthy habits.

if you, too, feel the urge or the need to schedule because you’re tired of flailing madly, here’s how my scheduling system goes on a typical (hopefully-sunny-and-caffeinated) sunday morning: 

gather your lists. i start with gathering (or making) 3 lists: my priority-organized academic/work to-do list (ie. RA hours, marking, writing, etc), my life to-do list (ie. make a doctor’s appointment, go grocery shopping, meal plan), and my daily and weekly cleaning list (ie. wash dishes, wipe down counters, sweep, clean bathroom, empty fridge)

plug in the non-negotiables. i pop open google calendar to the upcoming week and i plug in anything that is a non-negotiable commitment (things like teaching and office hours i schedule to appear weekly, but i add in meetings and planned social activities (birthday parties, dinners with the fam, etc) on a weekly basis). i also try to include, in this category, a ‘sunday reset’ (inspired by muchelle b on youtube!) that blocks out a few hours specifically for weekly planning, list-writing (this is where the above lists usually come from!), and organizing my digital workspaces. i also indicate my cleaning & catch-up day, which is typically on a friday or a saturday.

what’s your damage? i figure out what i’m struggling with this week. am i behind on schoolwork? do i have a serious load of academic work to do? have i overscheduled myself to the point where i’m convinced i’m going to miss something deadly important and run out of time to get my work done? am i lacking routine (and feeling like a frazzled, flailing mess)?

if your focus is academic work… i start by blocking out my most productive periods of time as ‘work hours’. (i’ve mentioned before that it’s important to know your productive hours: if you’re most productive in the evening, block those out! if early mornings are your thing, take those! following your own schedule, created around your best work times, is far more efficient than following someone else’s.) i am as specific (10-11, research for my 310 paper; 11-12, draft intro & outline for 310 paper) or as general (8-12: work on 310 paper, 404 readings, and start 313 research) as i like. when i’m feeling intensely overwhelmed, i’m more specific; otherwise, i tend to remain more general and use my prioritized list of academic to-do’s as my guidance during my blocked out work hours.

if your focus is all of your commitments… i plug ‘em all in. every last one. then i doublecheck: do they conflict with any big deadlines? if yes, i see if i can get an extension or i adjust my commitments accordingly. do i have time next week to play catch-up if my work needs to fall to the wayside this week? if not, i make adjustments to this week or next to balance it out. i try my best to make it so that i go into my commitment-heavy week with a calm(er) sense of ‘i do have time to get all of this done’. 

if your focus is routine… focus on consistency. i start with making my daily routine as consistent as possible: i schedule in the hour where i’m doing my morning routine every day, and i list the items that should get done in that hour (morning routine: wake up, start coffee, drink water, wash face & do teeth, pour coffee, make smoothie, 10 min journal, 10 min meditiation). i do the same for my night routine. i try to schedule my work blocks, my reading hours, my breaks for meals and relaxing, and my workout at roughly the same time each day. it’s less about the specifics of every hour, and more the general structure: providing myself with a routine to follow throughout the day removes the stress of ‘omg so much to do and i haven’t done anything and wow i’m a disaster what do i do’ and replaces it with ‘right ok i’m going to follow this and at the end of the day i’ll still be a bit behind but i’ll definitely be more organized and further along than i was before’.

don’t forget your life to-do’s. it’s super easy to forget about the life admin things when i’m caught up in scheduling work and routine things. at this point, i take a look at my life to-do’s and start figuring out where they fit best in the week i’ve set out for myself. i like to attach things like grocery shopping to other outings, for example, so attaching it to the end of my planned coffee date with my sister is ideal. if i have a bit of a list happening - say, i need to make phone calls and go to appointments and get an oil change - i try to find a morning or an afternoon where i can get it all done in one go.

& do the same with your cleaning list. i have a daily and weekly cleaning list that i keep in googlekeep (also inspired by muchelle b! she’s a wonder), and i incorporate them in two ways: the things i do daily get squeezed in during breaks (or during a scheduled hour of cleaning), and i always write those directly into my google calendar items (ie. break: tidy kitchen, sweep, flip laundry, grab a snack). for the things i do weekly, i try to schedule a day or partial day each week for cleaning and catching up. having a cleaning day gives me the chance to get caught up on things around the house, so even if i’ve let things slide with the daily cleaning to-do’s (which can (and does) happen during busy weeks!) it doesn’t build up past the end of the week and become an enormous, wow-i’m-going-to-avoid-this problem.

google calendar works for me because it’s easy to use, easy to check, it can prompt you with reminders, and you can set it up to repeat scheduled items daily, weekly, or monthly. (edit: A just informed me that it also has a new ‘goals’ setting that i’m absolutely going to check out.) i go through phases with it, but when i’m in need of some structure, google calendar is always what i reach for.

& just to clarify, real quick, before we start panicking about just how structured this post makes my weeks look: the purpose of this, for me, is never to set up a schedule that doesn’t allow for flexibility. i view it, instead, as helping me stay aware of the amount that i have to do and the hours i have in which to do everything. at a glance i can see how busy my week is, so when i’m tempted to throw the schedule out the window for a day at the lake, the schedule doesn’t tell me “no” - it tells me i can if i want to, because i’ll know what i’m throwing out the window (aka: i’ll know exactly what i’ll be re-working into my schedule later). 

Hey guys, so just as a heads up, I don’t think that highlighting your already made notes is that effective unless it’s for aesthetic. However for many subjects like English classes or humanities, you are often given a bulk amount of readings and I believe that highlighting not only helps you digest the content but it also makes note taking easier afterwards. Though some people find it hard to figure out what they need to be highlighting so I’ve come up with a few ideas.

Terms often come into play when digesting a lot of textbook readings where ideas are being explained to you and often you will want this definition to be readily available when revising too so its good to highlight these when you come across them.

Key concepts can be really good to highlight when trying to understand scientific concepts within research articles or when reading persuasive texts as you can relate the material back to your core unit of work. Alternatively you can use concept to highlight the main idea of paragraphs or chapters to give you a quick reference of summary when studying.

I find examples to come particularly handy in studies which are applied to everyday situations, for example a law textbook may discuss a concept and give an applicable example which I would then highlight. Or in math you may highlight an example problem to help you if you get stuck later.

This highlighter was a godsend in my last exams, especially for history because I’d be reading so many historians and articles and when it came to writing essays it would only take me seconds to find a good reinforcing quote as I’d been highlighting them all along. Or even in English you can highlight quotes from reviews or scholars to be used to back up your argument.

This one is mainly for English and literature studies because when analysing devices and giving examples of these it helps when they are already highlighted. It’s all about studying smarter not harder and getting things done efficiently so this step really has helped me out.

Again another more humanities point as you often have to create a mental catalogue of people involved and the context of situations to understand the severity of moments in history. Though in science and other subjects it’s always good to know what pages are talking about what professors or scholars or historical figures.

Finally, in many subjects you are expected to produce a mental timeline of events especially in history and it becomes confusing to pinpoint events and dates together so this step helps to take the labour out of that situation.

When I was in school I thought I had figured out how to study. In fact I wasn’t studying at all. The amount of information to remember was quite small and if there was something to practice we would have done it in class so many times already that in preparation for the exam I didn’t need to anymore. 

Then I started studying biology in university.

The amount of information to remember can be crushing when you look at your folder full of notes or the presentations of your professor three days before the exam. And practicing a thousand different calculations or mechanisms is hardly possible at this point. 

1. Set your own classes

What was different in school (except the range of knowledge expected from you in the exams)? The learning pace. 

While in school every little topic got a detailed explanation, repetition and ten worksheets the same topic in university will get two slides on a presentation and will still be gone through way more in depth. 

And that’s because you are expected to do everything else yourself. You have to go through the topics yourself. You have to be your own teacher.

Take your schedule and set specific times for all your subjects to revise the lectures, rewrite your notes (if you want to), read some additional literature (and take notes on them) and start to memorise the important information weekly. 

Personally I try to set a period of three hours for studying one subject. I have some periods with a set subject and some that are buffer periods for when I didn’t have time during another. I also use them to do some stuff ahead of my schedule for weeks I know I won’t have a lot of time or to do some additional reading. 

This is my personal schedule. I currently attend six lectures (the coloured boxes are the actual lectures) and I write three additional exams at the end of this semester. Some subjects require more time and effort which is why I gave them two periods. Personally I like to have my buffer periods on Sundays. 

2. Do you need to rewrite notes?

I feel like the studyblr community is full of notes that look less like real notes and more like art. And that’s fine. I enjoy looking at pictures of perfectly drawn diagrams, handwriting that looks like Times New Roman and calligraphy headlines. But it’s not realistic to make all your notes that perfect without wasting a lot of time. 

I still rewrite my notes. 

Many of my professors just use power point presentations and I take some notes during the lecture that explain some of the slides better. After the lecture I rewrite the power point notes and my personal notes together in a way I understand them. 

In other lectures we have to write down a lot of stuff in a really short amount of time and also maybe draw some diagrams. I feel like it’s helpful to rewrite those notes because it makes me actually think about the information and I can also use some colours to make the diagrams better comprehensible. 

But I don’t try to make every page a piece of art! I think some people need to rewrite notes and some can use their original notes to study. It depends on the amount of notes you have to take and of course personal preference.

3. Colour code

For my notes I use a colour code system. I use highlighters in different colours for different kinds of sub-headers and for the main topic I use a coloured felt pen (each subject has it’s own colour). On top of each page I write down the subject, the date, the name of professor and the number of the lecture (so in the end I can tell if one is missing).

I use purple for the first sub-header, green for sub-sub-headers, blue for sub-sub-sub-headers and pink for highlighting important words. 

For example:

I use the stabilo pastel highlighters and also the stabilo pens (thick for headers and thin for diagrams).

4. Additional literature

This one is the easiest. Grab a book about a subject. Set a goal: How many weeks/days/months until you want to have it finished? Chose one or two days per week on which you want to read that book and calculate how many pages you have to read on these days to meet your goal. If some topics aren’t important (or of any personal interest for you) you can skip them but I recommend reading as much as you can: Even if you don’t take notes, it does make a difference. You will understand the lectures way better, you will get the mechanisms instead of just learning dry facts and you will find some interesting stuff along the way that might be important later on or will simply make you learn something new. 

Also: Papers. This one is important for science majors. Be well informed about what’s going on in science and read a paper once a week. Even if it doesn’t directly benefit your exam grades, it does benefit your overall knowledge and shows you interesting fields of research.

5. Set a study schedule

When it comes to the actual exams, planning on enough time is important. Plan  on as much time as possible for each topic and: Repetition is key. Also keep the day before the exam free for repetition only. That way you have a little buffer and don’t panic as easily. 

When I study I try to use roughly one day for two lectures (depending on how many lectures I’ve had and the amount of content per lecture). I get up early and try to memorise all new information before noon, so I can spend the afternoon on revising the lectures I’ve memorised the days before. In the evening I revise the stuff from the morning (I feel like this works best right before going to sleep). Personally I say everything out loud but that’s up to you. 

Between each revision cycle I have a reading break and look up some of the topics in my books. Even if I’ve read the book during the semester, rereading it before the exam can freshen up the knowledge. Also looking up the same topic in another book might be helpful.

Breaks are important! Sometimes I have a longer break and I watch an episode of a show I like or watch a YouTube video or something like that. But when your head feels like it’s exploding or you feel like there is no way you can get new information in without the old information dripping out of your brain again you need a real break: Set a timer for ten minutes, lay down, close your eyes and think about nothing. Whatever comes to your mind just push it gently away again. For me after the ten minutes the pressure in my head is gone and I can continue studying.

I don’t think summaries really work for me. In biology you don’t really get to sum stuff up, I basically have to study everything. The summary wouldn’t be that much shorter than my actual notes I guess and since I like to keep my notes tidy and organised, they wouldn’t even look neater or be better understandable. I feel like it uses up a lot of time you could use to actually study but maybe for other subjects summaries are more suitable. Whatever works best for you.

These are my personal absolute basics I learned in university. Maybe some of it is helpful.

English isn’t my first language so I apologise for any grammar/spelling mistakes. You’re very welcome to point out my mistakes so I can get better! (I never learned anything about English comma placement so please be gentle with me.)

It’s been a while since I’ve made a post, and I figured that these tips might be extra helpful with exam season approaching. As someone who struggles a lot with procrastination, I do everything I can to fight the urge to put assignments off until the last minute (even though I’m not always successful). 

Keep lists of what you have to do, and put them in a visible place. When a new task surges, write it down as soon as possible or you’ll forget it. Use neon signs, I don’t know. You know that voice in your head that says “I don’t need to do it, I’ll remember later”? Yeah? Don’t trust that snake.

When starting a task that you find boring, focus on where you want to get, and not the progress of it. For instance, no one wants to spend hours typing an essay, but if you focus on the feeling of a receiving an amazing grade, it will be a bit more easy to endure.

Don’t study or work in your bed. It can make it harder to fall asleep at night. Your brain can be like a teenage girl getting mixed signals, don’t make its job harder than it has to be. Correlate your bed with sleep. That’s about it.

If you “can’t” learn a subject, become so fucking pissed at it that you use the force of your anger to motivate your learnining progress. Sooner than you think, you won’t force yourself to get better because you have to, but because you’ll WANT to be better. That’s a game changer.

Start studying for an exam at least one week before, no matter how big or small. Your future self will thank you for the extra time to prepare.

Show, don’t tell. Envy is real, and some people don’t like to see progress. So, let them see you when you’re already on top. It’s funnier like that too.

If you start having intrusive thoughts, just imagine they are coming from someone you hate. It’s suddenly a lot easier to see that they’re wrong & very annoying. Get a life, Karen.

You might not know where you’re heading towards right now, but that’s okay. Most of us are just floating like a confused leaf in a forest of despair. Take your time and, most importantly, try new things. New interests are just waiting around the corner, and a lot of amazing things can be discovered by mistake. If you don’t dip your feet in the water you’re never gonna swim. That sounded poetic.