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Essays, stress, failure and balancing limited time
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31-10-2015 1:35am#1
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I've been there. Well probably not quite to that extent, but I can fully understand how you feel.
Sitting at my desk right now, it is littered with academic papers, pens, coffee and a very empty writing pad. I have 5000 words to write before Christmas. I have about 250 written.
First things first - get talking to people. I appreciate what you say about the fact that you are strangers, but one thing you can be pretty sure about is that they are most likely going through the same thing. We have e-mail, forums (like Boards.ie), Viber and so on that you can keep in touch with. Does the college have a Moodle or Blackboard page? They have forums (though admittedly, getting people to post on them is a nightmare - I've tried with my fellow students and it has not worked). So get talking - you won't believe how much it helps.
Secondly - be clear on what you have to do. Be clear on the topic of the essays. Be clear on what the lecturers are looking for. Get the detailed marking rubric (every assessment will have a marking rubric to show how the marks are allocated. If they do not, that is a serious concern and one for the institution management). And be clear on what resources are available to you to answer what they are looking for. If you are not clear on what you have to do, you cannot do it.
Third - now that you are talking to people and you are clearer on what you need to do, what resources are available to you? Books, library, online journals and so on. Have you actually gone into the institution and spoken to someone about resources?
Fourth - your learning space. Is it conducive to good learning? Is it bright, comfortable, away from distractions, yet not too far away from people? Do not underestimate the need for a good learning environment. Get yourself a good chair and a good desk, with plenty of lighting. One thing I do is take regular breaks. Every 10-15 mins (that's why I am writing this. I'm on a break. Seriously.
).
Fifth - the writing. Once you have all your ducks (above) lined in a row, it's time to start shooting. Not everybody likes writing, but it is a necessary evil. I start with headings - usually Intro, body and conclusion. From that I then add further sub-headings and from the sub-headings either more again, or, start writing a line or two. Don't just sit there at the screen, use your time. Do something. If you feel the frustration setting in, walk away. Grab another coffee. Worst case scenario, switch to a different topic/essay. Make sure there is a logical progression of your ideas. Try and get a flow. Look at the big picture, and break it down.
I don't know if any of this helps, but it helped me.
Two other, slightly contradictory points - booze and exercise. Do you get enough exercise? Seriously, it helps, big time. Do you get enough booze? Ok, not serious on that one, but here's something that worked for me. In the evening time, I would come in from work, have a glass or two (absolute max) of wine and start writing. You would be surprised at how effective this is.0 -
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Reading your advice is just making me realise how disadvantaged I am attempting this course. I have sat here since 9am and have literally achieved a couple of paragraphs of unsubstantiated waffle. My head is splitting and I'm starting to lose my mind.Sitting at my desk right now, it is littered with academic papers, pens, coffee and a very empty writing pad. I have 5000 words to write before Christmas. I have about 250 written.
I have five assignments at 2000 words each so it feels like 5 battle fronts
First things first - get talking to people.
I'm absolutely certain you're right. However, I spent all of last year trying to create contacts or arrange some kind of mutually beneficial interactions in person or digitally but they all came to nothing. We even failed to appoint a class rep. We are just too disjointed in location, availability and demographic. We do use moodle but it's really just a repository for material. They're rolling out Office 365 but not all of the resources are present yet. They keep talking about Skype conferencing but I just don't think it's a realistic proposition for our group as much as I'd be in favour of pushing for it.Secondly - be clear on what you have to do.
This is grand. The one thing the college is good at is making it clear what they want from us. It's the how-do-you-get-there is the difficulty
what resources are available to you? Books, library, online journals and so on. Have you actually gone into the institution and spoken to someone about resources?
The answer is easy. EBSCO and Google Scholar. The institute is in Dublin, I'm in Cork. We have access to Griffith College's library during business hours, effectively. They have offered nothing in the way of support for using online resources so when I try to use them I get psychobabble hence massive swathes of time passing with no results.Fourth - your learning space. Is it conducive to good learning?
I'm not too bad here. It's the least of my problems.Fifth - the writing. Once you have all your ducks (above) lined in a row, it's time to start shooting. Not everybody likes writing, but it is a necessary evil. I start with headings - usually Intro, body and conclusion. From that I then add further sub-headings and from the sub-headings either more again, or, start writing a line or two. Don't just sit there at the screen, use your time. Do something. If you feel the frustration setting in, walk away. Grab another coffee. Worst case scenario, switch to a different topic/essay. Make sure there is a logical progression of your ideas. Try and get a flow. Look at the big picture, and break it down.
I don't actually mind the waffling once I get going. It's really just the lack of feeling that what I'm writing is useful to answer the question or when I go searching for facts to flesh things out or find a table with some relevant data that hours pass and I'm drowning in irrelevant waffle and no information.Two other, slightly contradictory points - booze and exercise.
Lifelong t-totaller but this course could easily drive me to drink. Stay tuned. I do go for regular walks.Anongeneric wrote: »I finished a degree last year and like yourself it was a good 15 years since I had done my leaving cert. I'm doing a postgrad now online and as you say it does regularly feel like you have no support from the institution and that every question you ask is answered with a standard sound bite and doesn't seem to relate to you, so don't worry on that score- it's not just you, everybody feels that way at times, or in my case so far on this postgrad, pretty much all the time.
I have felt exactly this way at every hands turn all of last year and all of this year so far but it's nice to know that I'm not alone. Of course, all of my classmates say the same thing but after every tutorial we all return to our respective lives.
I believe they could or should offer an assignment/ research techniques seminar or even a room for a day for the purpose of brainstorming. It all just boils down to the institute not taking the angst we all appear to be going through over these essays and the blockage to learning they create.Anongeneric wrote: »1 important thing to remember is 40% is a pass and that is all you really need. When I started the degree I was sure I would be aiming for a 1st, in the end I managed to scrape a 2.1, and from conversations I had with 2 of my lecturers after the fact, it was pretty clear I didn't really deserve it, they just liked me. On the postgrad now and I am focussed on passing it, if I get a good grade, great, If I don't and just squeeze a pass that's great too.
I'm on the verge of just regurgitating the course materials with a few examples at this stage. I know this will get me a pass and I feel like I'm going to expend 1,000% more energy trying to expand on the course content in an academic fashion.
Lads, thanks for the replies. A part of me is just ranting but I know I'm going to mull over your advice and try to think of ways to make it happen. I'm just under intense pressure in this moment having wasted another day spinning wheels and getting nowhere.0 -
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cantdecide wrote: »I am devoid of confidence in essays, mainly because we are pretty much left alone with them between the tutorials and are given little assistance with them apart from tidbits or a small portion of time within the 2 hour tutorial. The only essays I've ever seen are my own.
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I just get no sense of when the assignment question is being answered.cantdecide wrote: »The one thing the college is good at is making it clear what they want from us. It's the how-do-you-get-there is the difficulty
That is in essence the difference between second level and third level - you are required to think for yourself. Nobody is going to hold your hand and tell you what to write and when to write it, you have to figure these things out by yourself.
You're given a topic - formulate your own essay on that topic given the guidelines. It's answered when you feel it's answered (within the word limit). As you said, they've already made it clear what they want from you.
I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but forming your own thoughts on subjects is the main point of third level education.
see:above. It's up to you to figure out how to interpret the topic. Tutors really aren't there to spoon feed you like teachers did at secondary school. In fact if they did, it's actually counter productive as then you'll never learn how to think for yourself - if you want to succeed you're going to have to rid yourself of that mentality entirely.Virtually everyone else in the class feels the same and what little advice we were/ are getting about them from tutors was pretty irrelevant to me when I'm looking at a blinking cursor and having the course content as a starting point and seeing infinite tangents to explore.There is no physical library to consult. The online library resources (which we only got access to this year) are confusing and seem mostly useless. I've spent days looking on Google Scholar trying to find something useful but most of it is irrelevant or to specific. There are no people to buddy up with as most of the class are nowhere nearby (and frankly, we're still practically strangers to each other).
Physical libraries vary in their usefulness depending on what department you're in anyway - so don't let that hold you back.
The big problem here sounds like you've got issues in how to address the essays. You don't know how to answer something that's open-ended, and this is following through into your endless and aimless online resource searching.
Secondly - be clear on what you have to do. Be clear on the topic of the essays. Be clear on what the lecturers are looking for. Get the detailed marking rubric (every assessment will have a marking rubric to show how the marks are allocated. If they do not, that is a serious concern and one for the institution management). And be clear on what resources are available to you to answer what they are looking for. If you are not clear on what you have to do, you cannot do it.
This is key to the OP. He really needs to figure out and define what he's writing.Fourth - your learning space. Is it conducive to good learning? Is it bright, comfortable, away from distractions, yet not too far away from people? Do not underestimate the need for a good learning environment. Get yourself a good chair and a good desk, with plenty of lighting. One thing I do is take regular breaks. Every 10-15 mins (that's why I am writing this. I'm on a break. Seriously.).
This depends entirely on the person tbh. Your writing space needs to be whatever is most productive to you writing. Whatever or wherever you are most productive at writing - that's where you spend your time when you need to write. Some people like libraries because of the clean space and silence, yet the lack of distraction and motivation to do work while in the space. While the OP may not have access to a physical library of resources - public libraries provide the same environment. But - if you work well at home, then that's where you need to be.
Personally I've found that I can churn out words in cafés. Grab a coffee and get to work..
Regarding time spent writing - again it's probably a personal thing, but during my M.Sc. we had a guest lecture on scientific writing from a retired academic. His advice was that there's almost like an inverse law of diminishing returns when writing. If you have 1 hour to write - it's probably not worth your while, because by the time you get back into your writing 'mojo' and back to where you left off, you'll write maybe a few sentences and then your time is up. That hour is better spent preparing to write. The more time you have to spend writing - the more you will actually get done.
You need a long period of undisturbed time to get any significant writing done. If you're in a flow of writing - do not stop writing! If you hit a brick wall, then take a break and come back to it.
Essentially what Tom has already said:I start with headings - usually Intro, body and conclusion. From that I then add further sub-headings and from the sub-headings either more again, or, start writing a line or two. Don't just sit there at the screen, use your time. Do something. If you feel the frustration setting in, walk away. Grab another coffee. Worst case scenario, switch to a different topic/essay. Make sure there is a logical progression of your ideas. Try and get a flow. Look at the big picture, and break it down.
There's also another reason for doing this though. The blank page. It is the most soul destroying and counter productive thing to look at for any writer. At all costs - you need to put anything down on the page so it looks less barren.
In Science the easy way around this is to start with the "methods" section as it's all factual, past tense and requires little to no actual thought. If you can find the equivalent easy to write section/paragraph for your essays and start there it should help.
The one last piece of advice I got that was immensely useful is the word blah. Sometimes whilst writing you don't hit a brick wall, you hit more of a "word wall" - where you can't think of the right word to use for what you want to say. If you let it, it will very easily turn into 10 minutes of starting at where that one word is supposed to go and then you're stuck in a rut, all progress has stopped and your day of writing is down the swannie.
This is where blah comes in. If you can't think of the word - put in a "blah" in its space and then keep writing. Finish the rest of what you were already writing and just keep going. You can always come back to it later and fix it later or another day, in fact when you re-read it you'll probably instantly remember the word you wanted. The main point of the blah is that you do not stop writing to obsess over putting the perfect word in its place, in the process derailing the entire thought train.Ok, so here's some advice - spend one period of time on one assignment, rather than jumping between them. I suggest developing a plan:
Day 1 - Morning X, Afternoon Y
Day 2 - Morning A, Afternoon B
Day 3 - Morning C, Afternoon X
Or something like that. Flapping around like a fish out of water is only going to further frustrate you - it will be a negative spiral that can be very difficult to get out of.
Forming a plan is a great idea, but too much hopping between topics makes it difficult to stay focused. The Op has until January which is at least 2 months. That's a huge amount of time if used properly.0 -
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