Journal articles are a staple for anyone in academia who is past middle school age. Whether you’re reading about the Moorish conquest of Spain, the discovery of DNA, or a study of teenage internet use, journal articles are inseparable from the education process. And, with textbooks ballooning in costs in recent years, teachers and professors have increasingly turned to article print-outs as a way of saving money.
But plodding through a dense journal article can be an incredibly tiresome affair, as anyone who has done so will probably acknowledge. When the semester starts to drag, or when you find yourself besieged by other obligations, reading that article about Latin American theater may seem more burdensome than reading the dictionary or doing medical coding. However, ideas from the article could be on a final test or paper. What to do?
Here are some suggestions for getting the most out of a journal article in the shortest amount of time:
Read the Abstract
Most journal articles have an abstract that accompanies the article and was written in order to secure its publication. As a short and condensed synopsis of the paper, the abstract can be very helpful for the hurried student. It should, in the space of one paragraph, convey the article’s hypothesis, general findings, and general conclusion.
Focus on the Conclusion
When the abstract comes up short in providing sufficient detail, you may want to check out the article’s conclusion. While not all articles will have an explicit section dedicated to the conclusion, each one should include a few final paragraphs that sum up the article, much in the same manner as the abstract, but do so with a bit more detail involved. At the same time, however, make sure to focus on the evidence presented in the conclusion and less on any broader implications of the study.
Prioritize and Pick Out What Matters
Many teachers and professors assign a journal article with the only goal being that their students understand the main idea contain therein. If this is the case in your class, reading the abstract and the conclusion should be sufficient. If the details matter, however, you can still refrain from having to plod through the whole thing. One way to do this is by focusing in on the topic sentences, which – in true expository form – often convey the fundamental point of a given paragraph. Another approach is to find a digitized form of the article online. The article can then be searched by keyword, allowing you to narrow in on those ideas that are most important to your class.
Ultimately, reading an article slowly and carefully is always the best way to understand its meaning and reasoning. But if you want to more efficiently gain an effective level of comprehension, focusing on the abstract, the conclusion, and the most important details is likely the surest way to make that a reality.
Technology has vastly changed the educational landscape in recent decades. The introduction to the classroom of tablets, easy internet access, and learning management systems (LMS) has altered the way teachers present new material and students process it. Nevertheless, some things about formal schooling show no signs of changing anytime in the next couple generations. Children will always have to read and write. They will always be taught certain basics in math and history. And, at least based on how things currently stand, they will always have to write the expository essay.
The expository essay is both loved and hated by those in the education world. Some claim that it instructs children in the fundamentals of writing, instilling in them the central abilities to analyze, interpret, and tie everything together. Others deride expository essays as limiting and formulaic, arguing that it restricts a child’s writing ability and breeds generations of youngster’s who have no love for the art.
Regardless of your opinion, it’s hard to say that the expository essay is not conquerable. By being aware of its structure and following a few key steps, there’s really no reason why you can’t excel on your expository assignment – whether you love it or hate it. Here are some tips to keep in mind:
The Thesis is Everything
The most important part of writing a successful expository essay is coming up with a strong and clear thesis statement. The thesis must be arguable, you must be able to support it with evidence, and that evidence must be able to be broken down into body paragraphs. Ultimately, every element of the essay revolves around the thesis: the introduction builds to it, the body paragraphs aggregately support it, and the conclusion considers its implications.
Build Body Paragraphs Around Your Evidence
Whether your essay discusses a work of literature or a political controversy, you’re going to want to break it down into pieces of evidence in order to support your argument and fit the expository context. When planning a body paragraph, make sure to build it around that paragraph’s key piece of evidence. Then, set-up the evidence with a sentence beforehand and explain it with a sentence or two afterwards. Then, once the evidence is in the paragraph and enclosed by your analysis, add a topic and concluding sentence that best connect the evidence to your surrounding paragraphs and to the thesis.
Separate Yourself From the Rest
In the likely case that you’re writing this expository essay for a class, there’s a good chance that you’ll come up with a solid thesis and decent supporting paragraphs and a perfectly acceptable conclusion – just like many of your classmates. To truly separate yourself from the rest, look to make your transitions as smooth as possible and your conclusion as strong and far-reaching as you can. Organize your paragraphs in a way that naturally lead to seamless transitions for example, and don’t be afraid to discuss larger implications of your argument at the end of your conclusion. It is also helpful to have a wide repertoire of transitions from which to pull. If done right, your essay will be greatly strengthened as a result.
There are many other methods and means of improving your skills as an expository writer. Although a sometimes boring and formulaic essay approach, the expository assignment certainly forces you to think about structure. In any piece of writing, it’s undeniably an important component to consider.
Every once in a while a website comes a long that we simply have to visit. The School Calendar Online website is one of them. It allows a student to create and maintain their own calendar and make notes of important events and assignments. This is a great way to keep track of your studies.
Features
Online Calendar
If you are looking for an online calendar, this is it. Its interface is nice as well as the very user friendly navigation system. You can easily change between months and get a good glimpse of all your activities.
Add Courses
You begin by adding a new course. You may add as many courses as you’d like. Once you’ve added a course you can then assign different tasks to each respective course. There’s a nice function that allows you to add multiple courses at a time, I prefer to use it as it saves me a lot of time.
Adding Tasks
You can add new tasks by using the top menu or by simply clicking on a date. Tasks can be anything from assignments, exams, upcoming seminars or any other type of event that you feel should be included in your calendar. As I said earlier, the great thing with this tool is that you can assign each task to a course and through doing so become much more organized.
Priorities
Another great feature with this site is the ability to set priorities to each of your tasks. You can choose between low, intermediate or high. The colors on the calendar will change depending on the importance of the tasks in which red marks the highly important tasks, yellow the intermediate and green those of less importance. This is really helpful to differentiate between what is important and what can wait.
View List of Tasks
This page lists all your current tasks, a nice and nifty way of getting a good overview of all the things to come.
Notify Your Friends/Classmates
You can add your e-mail contacts and then choose to notify your friends of an upcoming event. Great way too keep fellow classmates informed on shared projects.
Download eBooks
You may be familiar with our premium eBook entitled The Study Guide PRO as well as the bonus report How To Concentrate Before It’s Too late. If you sign up as an advanced user, you’ll get both of these eBooks included with your membership.
Look Inside
Below you’ll find some images illustrating some of the features mentioned above.
The Dashboard
An overview of the online calendar.
Add Tasks
The menu for adding new tasks.
View List of Tasks
This lets you view all the current tasks at hand.
Viewing Task Details
This windows is opened once you click on an individual entry.
Download eBooks
It's easy to download these eBooks once you're logged in.
Don’t Wait – Join Now
Soon to have your first day of college? Nothing to be afraid of, although it can be perceived as somewhat tantalizing at first it will become easier once you get a hold of it.
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Interested in knowing how to study for upcoming exams? In this post, we’ll go through the most important parts of the process which unfortunately tends to be overlooked far too often.
1. The urgency of NOW!
I’ve noticed a strange phenomenon pertaining to studying. For some reason, when it comes to exams, people tend to worry a lot more about their exams than they they do actually preparing. If you are currently worried about an upcoming exam, why not harness that negative energy into something positive instead? Whenever you start getting worried again it becomes time to hit the books. Do not succumb to procrastination. Do your studying and do it now!
2. A road map helps a long way
Always keep your exam date near to heart. Time tends to go by pretty fast, you may be surprised that 3 weeks left have all of sudden turned into 5 days left. Don’t let this happen to you. Organize your studies and memorize all of your test dates. Put them up on the wall if necessary.
A good way of constructing your road map is to first set the date for your upcoming exam, then outline all the major topics that you would need to have covered until then. Finally, you can divide these topics into smaller tasks, describing the everyday tedious “on the ground” “getting your hands dirty” work that simply has to be done. This could be something like reading chapter 3 or solving problem 5a.
3. Compile an I Don’t Know Paper (IDKP)
This is something that I personally like to do. Whenever you begin a new course, start out by getting a piece of paper or a text document and then start recording all of the things that you need to understand before the test date. These are the things that we intend to ask our professors but instead we put it up and thus forget about it until it’s already to late. By collecting all of the I Don’t Know’s in a IDKP, you can then, at the end of each week seek out the answers to these questions either by asking a colleague or your professor or by simply going to your local library and/or the internet.
Either way, don’t let it go unanswered or you will regret it later on when sitting during the exam only to have realized that your intended inquiry is now an exam question. The the motto is: Answer your own questions before they become exam questions!
4. Are you on track?
It’s easy to neglect work, even easier when it comes to education. That’s why you should appoint one day at the end of the week for the sole purpose of tracking your progress. Are you on track? Have you finished the tasks that you’ve outlined in your road map? Have you answered all the questions that you have been thinking about? If not, then no play for you until you’re back on chart.
Sure, missing out on one day isn’t that bad. The problem my friend, is when one day becomes two days and two turn into three and so on. Days tend to accumulate pretty quickly. If you’re behind schedule you should strive to get back on schedule as soon as possible. The longer you wait, the more difficult it will become to get back on track.
Looking for a guide on what things to bring with you to college? Well, look no further! In this post we go through some essential items that you need to bring with you on your way to college.
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In this post we’ll discuss one of the most important tools of productivity, the infamous to do list. I’ll also include a printable template for a to do list which can be downloaded by all premium members. Be sure to read the entire post as well as watch the short tutorial video to get the most benefit.
Before we can start however, we need to define the term to do list.
What’s a To Do List?
A to do list, also called task list is a simple way of organizing the things you need to get done. Most of us have some experience with writing to do lists, however few people have actually thought about how to use them in an efficient manner, utilizing its full potential. In this post we’ll cover the basics of to do lists as well as offer some deeper insights.
What you’ll need
Paper
A piece of paper, simple and affordable. I recommend you to download the to do list template provided in this post, it will save you the time and energy of doing it yourself.
A pen/pencil
It’s been around for thousands of years and still as good as always. I personally would recommend that you use a regular pencil for these purposes. That way you’ll be able to erase, edit and add new entries as you go.
Objectives
A clear idea of the things needed to be planned for. A to do list is no good if it’s only partial. If you want your to do list to be as effective as possible you’ll need to first have a very clear picture of the things that you need to have done and at what date they need to be finished. Also, you’ll need to know the scope of the project, is it small, medium or large? When is the deadline, what happens if the deadline is not met? These are important parameters that have to be taken into consideration before you can write everything down.
Further Tips
Step by Step
Don’t feel overwhelmed with all the things ahead of you. Remember the old Chinese proverb that says; “A journey of 10,000 miles starts with one step.
Be like a Train
The train keeps on moving, each day and every hour you see it travel to its destinations. Be sure to get into the habit of finishing your tasks, anyone with a hand can write them down.
Incentives
If you’re having a difficulty in getting your tasks done maybe it could be wise to start offering yourself incentives. You could for instance say; if I finish task “x” and “y” you will get “z”.
Break it up
If the tasks are too large in scope, break them up into smaller easier tasks.
See the larger picture
There’s a famous parable of two construction workers, both engaged in building the same wall but with different mindsets. When asked about what they are doing the first one says; “I am building a stone wall”. The other however answers “I am building a hospital”. You need to remind yourself of you why are doing these tasks to begin with. Are you learning Laplace Transforms or are you becoming an engineer. The same holds true for any educational or profession.
Is it possible to combine work with studies? If yes, how can this be done? This will be the topic of today’s post.
If you are reading this, chances are that you belong to either one of two categories:
- i) You work & study at the same tide.
- ii) You intend to work & study at the same time
Since the approach is different in regards to which one of these two categories you belong to, I’ll also deal with them differently.
I Already Work & Study
If you belong to this category that means that you are currently employed while studying at the same time. Your main concern is how to make this process as efficient as possible; assuming that there has been difficulties combing the two.
Measuring Your Time
Don’t limit yourself to estimations. If you truly want to know how much time your work & studies are consuming you need to sit down and calculate it on a piece of paper. Don’t be satisfied with writing down only the times that you are working or attending lectures.
Instead, write down all the necessary activities that pertain to that activity, e.g the time it takes to drive to work/school, prepare to work/school and so forth. Only when you measure all things related to that activity you can first begin to visualize how much time you’ll be left with.
Free Up Some Time
The easiest way to begin freeing up some time is to look through all the different time consuming activities (which you’ve already prepared in the step earlier) and go through each one asking yourself the same question: “Do I really need to do this?”. In many cases the answer will be yes but in some cases it will be no. Begin by locating these unnecessary activities.
Optimizing Your Time
Not everything can be discarded of course, so how do you deal with the rest of your activities? Once you’ve examined how much time is at your disposal, you can then begin to optimize your time and focus on the things that produce results. Go through each entry in your list and ask yourself the following question: “Can I optimize this somehow?”
You shouldn’t be doing unnecessary things just for the sake of doing them. If certain lectures don’t provide any benefit to you perhaps it is wiser to not attend those particular lectures and instead focus on working with the material individually, seeking out the teachers assistance when needed.
Other inquiries related to optimization include your method of transportation (can it be quicker, can you perhaps study while commuting?), lunch (can you shorten your lunch hours?) and other daily tasks that collectively take up a lot of time.
I Intend To Work & Study
If are currently either studying or working and you’re thinking of combing these two you’ll need to first investigate how much time the job/studies will take up.
Time Schedule
Create a physical time schedule filling in your work hours and the time allocated for the thing you’re currently doing. Keep one important thing in mind when you’re estimating how much time a particular activity will take up. Never bee to optimistic in evaluating time allocations. It’s better to plan for too little time than too much time. Even though something may seem ‘possible’ to do when calculating it on a piece of paper, it’s rarely as true when doing it in real life. This is because of the ever changing nature of life, things will happen that you didn’t account for. At the very least you should keep this in mind whenever you’re planning for something.
Keep the Primary Fixed
If possible, don’t go all in. I many cases one of the two things (job/studies) is your primary whether that is your studies or your current job. Either way, make sure the one that is secondary only takes up as much time as needed. If you are a full time student who needs extra cash, don’t try to fit in a full time job with once. Take it slowly, if possible part time in the beginning and more and more as you go. Likewise if you are currently working a full time job and you absolutely need this to support your family, don’t risk it all unless you feel absolutely certain that you can manage it.
In short, the primary is the constant, you can’t do much to decrease it’s size without dealing with severe repercussions. The secondary however is the variable in our scenario. Use it as you wish, a little or a lot as long as it does not decrease the size of the primary. The secondary is changed in relation to the primary and NOT the other way around, i.e if studying is your primary and work your secondary then you can work as much as you want UNLESS it hurts your studies because the primary is the key.
Everyone wants to become a good reader. The path towards improving ones reading skills isn't always easy. However once you've managed to improve your reading you'll be much more effective.
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Studying During the Weekend
Studying during the weekend is perhaps not the most enjoyable of activities. There are however times when it has to be done and there’s not much else to it. The topic for today is therefor a brief guide on how to avoid some common mistakes when studying during the weekend.
Being prepared
The most common reason for writing an assignment/studying during the weekend is due to the lack of time. This has happened to most of us. The problem however that many people don’t consider is the fact that they’ve already made plans for the weekend that are now challenged by their studies. This leaves us to two choices; either leave your study assignment and continue with your planned activity or leave your planned activity and finish your study assignment.
Combining your activities
Wouldn’t it be great if you could finish them both? Well in many cases you can. The two things can easily be reconciled if you allocate your time properly. Don’t schedule them during the same period of the day. What this usually means is that you’ll have to wake up earlier so you’ll be finished earlier and thus be able to take part in your usual activity. Cutting back on sleep for that one day can save you time you needed.
A good tip to remember is to avoid scheduling your weekend activities (if possible) during the morning and early afternoon hours. This will work as a buffer in the future allowing you to have that time free in case you’re late with your assignments.
If you have to cancel
There are times when you can’t manage to find the time to do both activities, in this case, unless your planned activity was of higher importance it’s usually the study assignment that needs to be dealt with. In this case it is important that you cancel your other appointments as early as possible. This way you won’t have to face a lot of calls from people wondering where you are.
Finally the most obvious way to avoid finding yourself in a situation where you have to cancel your plans is to simply get your stuff done in time! Quit procrastinating and thinking you’ll be able to finish your studies later. The longer you wait, the more tedious the work will be. Always try your best to finish all of your assignments as early as possible.
What to do now?
1 Check out our ebook on study techniques.
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