Managing Your Reading

I have created a ‘Reading Book List Schedule’ as a weekly log book, that is to keep not only organised my reading, but to know what and where I am with my reading at any given time.  For even as a student or whether reading for pleasure, often more than one book at a time, it used to be read on when I felt like picking up a book if it was for pleasure, or felt the task was overwhelming with the sheer amount I’m having to read in academic texts for the subject I’ve taken. It was time to change that approach. So I decided to make it more managable to know not only how much I’ve read, but can also prove it with evidence by keeping this log book as the data knowledge that I’ve gathered over time.

So here is the template for the Reading Log Book: Reading Schedule_xls

My Writing of Essay Plans

(and the essay that follows…)

 

 

— Its amazing the assumptions that when someone does an essay plan, such as myself, its assumed that its done in the boring way; starting from the top down, ie. intro, main body and conclusion, yeah, and only the unorganised way is somehow exciting or cool. Just saying…

That I myself start the writing in whatever starting point that takes my fancy from within my Essay Plan. A-Ho. 

It could be something written within the main body’s sub-headings, or a bit of a intro, and then perhaps an expressive or expletive kinda of ending (erased after second thoughts as recovered from too much wine), but will refer back to the Essay Plan as liken to a directional map and/or an instruction manual for getting it right — eventually.

Whilst I do appreciate that some students ‘work off the cuff’, I prefer variety in cuff-links that comes attached to a body*…

Mav  

* being “on [the] pulse” of it all.

— Its always been advised to students that if they had a problem in tying things together, in a discussion essay, is to imagine having to explain it all to a little old lady in a nice cosy chair, and your conversing with her on the topic.

I dunno if this would help in an argument essay but here goes:

Imagine having to argue your points, and you want that very last word on the matter (okay you can use me in the picture, I’m used to it ), but that person ain’t a push-over neither and is just as good as giving it back, so you’re going [to] have to fight for that last summarised ending.

So I’ll start you off as an imagined opponent – your key point is what?!!  Grrrr

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ADDENDUM:

In my use of ‘Essay Plans’ for my higher education studies,  I basically start off with pen and paper, initially, then as a revised stage of the essay planning, move onto using my computer software program ‘Inspiration version 8 IE’, to thrash out any details and other things I might have missed, but now they’ve gone and given it an upgrade to Inspiration ver. 9 — great, but I’ll be sticking to version 8, its been my trusty-friend and we’ve gotten to know each other.

However, the software package is purely used for planning an essay by me, that is because as a Student it can build graphic organizers, including concept maps, webs, mind maps and idea maps, by using the ‘Inspiration’ software to brainstorm, plan, organize, think, outline and present the work well, and is very simple to use as you aren’t bogged down with anything deemed complex from the user interface, so as not to interrupt the flow of ideas.

Therefore, its a program that I would personally highly recommend.

________________________________________________________

CONCEPT MAPPING THEORY:

CONCEPT MAPPING PRACTICE: 

 

Weblink Info:
The Theory Underlying Concept Maps and How to Construct and Use Them.
Expository Writing.
The Different Structures of Essays.

 

Source: 

posted by Mavarine Du-Marie, on the subject of  the End of Course Assignment ‘Verification Procedure’, at 19:25 on 25th May 2010 and at 08:01 on the 27th May 2010*, on the DD308-09J Making Social World Course, Student (National) Forum, with the Open University.

posted by Mavarine Du-Marie, on the subject of the ‘Help-End of Course Assignment!!!’, at 13:48 on 29th May 2010, on the DD308-09J Making Social World Course, Student (National) Forum, with the Open University.

           

Keeping Up To Date

 

WEBSITES:

JISCmail 
(Email Subscription Listing) 

Zetoc Alert  
(Email Journal Alerts) 

Newsgator 
(Feedreader)

Intute 
(Academic Personalisation Service)

COMMENT:

I never knew all this was here, and available, at the Open Unversity Library!!  It took awhile to complete the individual activities for that section of the TU120 course that dealt with being aware of additional information that could keep a student informed, and having to add my comments made one think, long and hard, as to whether one could schedule in the time in to read further information in your field of study; on top of reading course materials, completing the TMAs, and ECA etc., but just having this information at one’s fingers tips ensures you won’t miss anything that could be included in your work.

So in short, its well worth knowing about these services for keeping up to date, particularly, with my up and coming subject of study, but also the fact that I could still keep updated as to the Humanities area too. Great.

WEBLINK RESOURCE:
Open University Library

 

Advice on Online Student Forums

 

Become one of those ‘blinkered’ students, because their inclination has always been to constantly look over their shoulder and resent those that are ahead, therefore they generally carry out this technique as it insulates them from feelings associated with not having the competitive student streak gene and thus the blinkered students can go at their own pace with a stronger sense of purpose.

*

Utilise those postings of students that are ahead as ‘previews’ of what one should or shouldn’t be doing, and ‘examples’ for gaining further understandings from each activity, as believe it or not, the advanced students or those that are ahead will be none the wiser of this activity by those that are behind them, thus their academic egos can’t be inflated, so no worries there at this cloaking devise carried out by working smartly students.

*

Only concentrate on the course website that appears on your student homepage, and post into the relevant forum when ready, then rush out by signing off quickly with top speed, and only check in to see if your particular posting has been looked at by only the moderating tutors, (patience is the key here tutors are well known to take their time).

*

Aim to be at the top of the game by actually coming in last: the last word game. This is because being the very last posting gets the whole tutors and forums attention; due to the very fact that your posting appears right at the very top of the forum even though the ‘last modified date’ reads of few days over when the task has reached near completion. So, in all appearances you’d appear first then, so this could make you happy.

But warning:

many like to play the ‘last word’ game and there can be a messy scramble for this position, as this tactic is well known among veteran forum users, but there are those who rise above this method and only concentrate on participating as much as possible to get the most out of the course overall, so by the end of their study they’ve achieved something personal for themselves.

WEBLINK RESOURCE:
The Art of Learning Better (101 Tips to Find and Fit Your Learning Style)

 

Any idea what a ‘reasonable’ word count for an exam?

It was said on the AA305 forum: “This is probably a silly question but does anyone have any idea what a ‘reasonable’ word count would be for an answer in this exam?”

I wrote back the reply:

I’ve never worried on this, for I’ve never been told by a tutor and never seen any guidance notes from the OU on: ‘word count for exams’ either. Personally, I wrote and write to answer the questions only.

This means some answers maybe short because I think I’ve covered enough of the subject to be succinct, and have made good points in my argument, for example a question on poetry maybe answered this short for there is only so much one can write about it, when the poem ends so would your writing about it with a conclusion, and some answers are long because it may have covered more than one theme from the subject we’ve studied, particularly when the question asks for discussion or extent, for example a question on science and its impact on the courts in Europe.

What’s not on my mind is a word count!!! (never mind having to contend with the words too, my handwriting is bad enough.)

 

Advice: Remember, Revise & Revision

IS MY EYE CLEAR, PURE AND BRIGHT, HOW MUCH CAN I GRASP IN PASSING, CAN THE CREASES BE ERADICATED THAT HAVE FORMED AND FIXED THEMSELVES ON MY HEART? (Goethe)

The interpretation:

IS MY EYE CLEAR, PURE AND BRIGHT,
[<– this is the remember part],  

HOW MUCH CAN I GRASP IN PASSING,
[<-this is the revise part],

CAN THE CREASES BE ERADICATED THAT HAVE FORMED AND FIXED THEMSELVES ON MY HEART?
[<– and this is the revision part]

All in aid of preparing for any exam undertaking.

 

Practice the Art of Criticism in Essays

 REMINDER:

  Practice the Art of Criticism on
Tutor Marked Assignments [TMAs]

 “…[As to move] towards criticism as the common pursuit of true judgement. Firstly, obviously, by avoiding dogmatism, always offering reasons for an opinion, making intuitions conscious and articulate.  Secondly, by cultivating an openness of approach, a readiness to approve what one may personally dislike, to the extent that there are grounds for approval (and conversely to disapprove of what one may happen to like, to the extent that there are grounds for disapproval).  Perhaps this is the same thing as the cultivation of self-awareness: knowledge of one’s temperamental or ideological bias.  And thirdly, — to be less psychological and more literary — by adopting devises that will encourage looking around, and into, the work before leaping to conclusions…” (Rodway, 1982, pp 15-16)

Another example of this was stated that:

“….OK, great, people have been doing that sort of thing for centuries, chewing over p[r]oblems, offering ideas, seeing them striken down by others and generally, in the end, we get from the intellectual back and forth an answer which we can be reasonably sure of. [And that this] is science of course: put up a theory and then everyone tries to disprove it and if they can then you start again with a new theory. In the end you hope that you’ll end up with one that no one can disprove and which you can then take as the basis of a course of action…..” (Spectator Business, 2008)

 

WEBLINK RESOURCE: The value of blogging
REFERENCE:  Rodway, Allan., (1982), The Craft of Criticism, published by Cambridge University, England.