Effective Time Management

Before I came to college I told myself I was going to manage my time positively. Well that still hasn't happened and I am there three months now with half the year gone. One thing I do that helps though is to record everything in my journal for example when assignments are due and when we have exams and such, although sometimes I don't even look at my diary for a week.  Awful, I know.

I try to plan ahead as much as I can although things don't always go according to plan. For example for two weeks my daughter was sick and I missed some lectures and tutorials so that threw a spanner in the works and made me fall behind a bit so it was hard trying to get back on track and keep up with the new work given. All of that can be very time consuming and also frustrating.

College life can be a bit hectic with all of the socialising that goes on but you really have to learn to say no when there are deadlines that have to be met but we are students so that doesn't always happen either.

I'm such a procrastinator an always leave things to last minute when I really should be using my time wisely and spacing tasks out. Prioritising is another must when doing assignments. Do assignments and tasks first that are due first as there is no point doing assignments that are due in a couple of weeks if you have an assignment tomorrow.

Finally make sure you make time to look after yourself (eating healthy, sleeping and exercising) as you are no use to yourself or anybody else when you are tired and hungry and stressed.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is "to steal and pass off the ideas or words of another as one's own".

When I first came to college I had never even heard of plagiarism. I found the whole concept very daunting. It was all explained to us then and it seemed very simple. Then when we got our first essay I had finished and was chatting to my friends and realised I had plagiarised most of it. Thank god I hadn't handed it up yet. I had taken stuff from books and websites and just changed the words around and thought that was ok as I hadn't taken it directly. I felt like such an idiot.

At then end of each piece of work that you write you have to do a reference list. This just means that you have to give credit or a reference if you take someone else's idea, opinion or theory. Even facts or statistics, graphs, drawings etc stuff that is not common knowledge all need a reference as it is not your own work. Even if you put something in your own words it needs a reference. This is known as paraphrasing. This is the part I found the hardest as I felt like I was paraphrasing the whole thing and nothing was my own.

We found out that there is a system our lecturers use called 'Turn it in' that detects plagiarism when an essay is uploaded. I think we were all nervous about this at first in case we plagiarised by accident. So what ever you do don't plagiarise or you will be caught.

Compiling a Literature Reviews

When the lecturer first told us we had to do a literature review. I really hadn't a clue what he was talking about. A literature review is a review of any literature written by others on, or associated with, the topic being written about. You need to begin with broad questions and then narrow down, focus in, operationalize, observe, analyse data, reach conclusions and finally generalize back to questions. The purpose of a literature review is to address a research question, theory or concept and also to provide background information needed to understand the topic.

'Organisations today are demanding more from their workforce than ever before. They require individuals who are not just well qualified, but who are multi-skilled, diverse, flexible, team oriented and have an ability to communicate effectively.'

This was the title of our first literature review and it seemed so complicated at the start. I wanted to use as may different sources as I could for example books, newspapers, articles websites and such but when I got to doing it I ended up getting most of my information from websites. I used one book and a couple of websites but it was recommended by the lecturer to try use other sources too.

The main aim is to get the author's perspective and if the author's points are supported with evidence. I gathered all my information together and I broke it down and decided on which parts were relevant to my review. The literature review has an introduction, body and conclusion.

When writing my conclusion I just basically summed up the important things I had said in the body and also added some of my own opinion. I used the Harvard style referencing. It was in alphabetical order of the author’s name.

Effective Presentations

One problem I have when doing a presentation is that I am afraid I will bore the audience. I want to keep them interested from the start. Nervousness before a presentation is also a huge factor as to why a presentation might be unsuccessful. You have to act confident even if you are quivering in your boots (I know I do). You really need to speak up and make yourself heard and to make eye contact with your audience or you will give them the impression that you're not interested.

I have a huge fear of talking in public. I would talk to anybody and maybe I am even too much of a chatterbox but the minute I am asked to stand and talk in front of people it terrifies me. This really hold me back at times as I wish I would just go for it as it's not actually that bad once you do it.

I do loads of reasearch on the topic and then try break all the important and useful things up into small sections so I don't bombard the audience with information. Images, videos, music may help explain and also keep the audience interested. The message needs to be clear and to the point. 

I find it very hard to do practice runs although I really think that is the key.

It's a big mistake not practicing or rehearsing as you won't know how long you're talking for and this seemed to be a big problem with a lot of people from my class including myself. Other mistakes would be not introducing yourself or knowing who your audience is or being late. Speaking to fast and unclear would be a big no no as the audience would lose interest straight away.

There are many ways that you can fall down and have an unsuccessful presentation so just go in there confident and prepared and you'll do great!! :)

Effective Note Taking

In my opinon good note taking skills are very important if you want to do well at college. I personalise the information in a way that's clear and makes sense to me so that I am more likely to remember it. I have a folder with coloured dividers for each subject. I find this is a great way to store notes as they're easier to find and you're not wasting time rummaging through loads of pages.

Ideally you should do some preperation before each lecture maybe by going onto moodle and checking if the lecturer has put the lecture up. Nine times out of ten I don't do that but it would really help if I did so I could pay more attention on the lecturer talking and not just copying from the screen. I listen for key information in the lecture and then  write it in my own words. I also highlight the key points so I know what's important when looking back over them.

There are four different note taking formats: Cornell Format, Outline Format, Sentence Format and Mind Mapping. Mind mapping is the most effective note taking format for me as I am a visual learner. Mind mapping is all about key words, symbols or images. You place the key concept in the centre of the mind map and circle it and then link words or images that are relevant and you continue growing your map by branching off from each word, symbol or image linking them to the key concept.

Poor, incomplete, incomprehensive notes are worthless!!