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Hello fellow students!

Today I want to talk to you about maintaining motivation by taking productive study breaks. It is typical for a lot of students to say, “On Monday I am studying all day.” The thing is though, they are not really studying all day long. When people do not have a specific plan, they just go with the flow. This can mean 20 social media breaks, 4 snack breaks, and many other breaks that are unaccounted for. This results in a full day of “studying”  that is not the most productive and also a lack in motivation to continue the same practices in the days that follow. So today I am going to share tips and different ways to increase your motivation and your productivity while being efficient.

When you sit down at your desk with the list of assignments you must complete, it may seem overwhelming. However if you break it down using time intervals, you can complete everything you need to do in a shorter amount of time, rather than if you were not tracking your time. You may not know where to start when it comes to tracking your time, so let me help you. First you should find a website or application that works for you. Here are some recommendations:

1. Tomato Timer – a website you can use to set a timer to completely focus and then set timers for short and long breaks as well. You can get alerts on your computer as well.
2. Focus Keeper – an app (IOS) that provides a timer with focus time, short breaks, and long breaks. This app allows you to customize many things, including the timers and the noises while using it. It has an alarm that goes off to identify when it is time to focus and when it is time for a break. It also contains goals you can set for how many focus periods you want to have per day. You can also view your focus time for the past 14 days.
3. Pomicro Productivity Timer – an app (available on IOS and Android) allows you to complete timed focus sessions as well as take breaks. This app allows you to set it for certain amounts of total sessions including breaks. It will continue in a loop until it has reached the amount of sessions you wanted to complete. You can change the time that you focus and also change the tone it makes when it is time for a break.

All of these are similar, but there is a key factor that makes this way of studying help you maintain motivation while being productive and efficient. The answer is STUDY BREAKS. Each of these options have built in breaks after a certain amount of focus time. Taking breaks is extremely important and can result in many positive outcomes. According to an article I read in my ESEPSY 1159 course, written by Elizabeth Hoyt, “Studies show that breaks in your study routine can positively affect your attention abilities. Taking breaks from studying every ninety minutes or so can improve both focus and attention.” It is important to take controlled breaks in order for you to stay productive and efficient, however what you do while you take those breaks may affect how efficient you are when you come back from a break. Elizabeth Hoyt shared some very positive things to do during your study breaks, including:

1. Take a walk
2. Stretch
3. Tidy up
4. Call a friend
5. Take a shower
6. Complete an errand
7. Meditate
8. Do something creative

Doing these things during your break can help you balance between homework/studying and other tasks or things that you need to complete. Then after you are done with the amount of sessions you want to complete, you can go do more relaxing things such as watch TV and scroll through social media.

Once you see yourself completing work more efficiently, and having more time in the day for other things, you will find your own motivation. You “studying all day” will turn into you “studying for part of the day”, and will allow you to have more time to spend on other activities.

I hope I helped your struggle,

-Struggling Student-

If you would like to read the article by Elizabeth Hoyt, click the link below:

https://www.fastweb.com/student-life/articles/energizing-study-break-ideas-what-to-avoid

Tomato Timer link:

https://tomato-timer.com/

Focus Keeper link:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/focus-keeper-time-management/id867374917

Pomicro Productivity Timer link:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.leonardo.cavaletti.pomicro&hl=en_US

Hello fellow students!

Today I am going to focus on the topic of researching for academic papers. It is often overwhelming when you are given a research assignment. You may think, “where do I go to find information?”, “should I just use google and hope I get away with it?”. I honestly feel your struggle and think the exact same thing. It is hard to research these days because there is so much information on the web, but only a select few are academically worthy. I am going to give you some tips about some sites that have helped me research effectively and efficiently, and most importantly, find information that is credible, true and professionally sourced.

As a college student, you will have access to your library and all the resources that come with it; and I do not mean physical books. The OSU library website ( http://library.ohio-state.edu:211/ )  is a great way to find reliable sources. You can type in key words based upon your research topic, and then filter through the results. It is important that the information you use is associated with the time you are talking about. I often filter my searches by when they were published, to get the most recent information on my topic. This way, I can ensure that my paper is up to date and true to the current time. I also use the peer-review feature to filter through articles. Peer-review ensures that the information written about is absolutely true, and is done by a professional in the field that the article is based upon. The OSU library website also includes citations in many formats, so you do not need to stress over creating them. You can also use the “Research Databases List”, on the OSU website as well ( https://library.ohio-state.edu/screens/databases.html ). This website allows you to search different databases that are based on your overall topic. I had to write an paper on a specific music artist and identify trends among their songs. My overall topic was music, so I used that as the keyword to find databases to help me research.

Now, when you use a search engine such as the OSU library website, you will need to know how to use words to your advantage while researching. In my ESEPSY 1159 course, I read an article that helps you break your topic down when searching, so that you find information that pertains to your topic. The article has different topics all about researching, but we are going to focus on their “Main Concepts” excerpt. The article, “Choosing & Using Sources: A Guide to Academic Research” by  Teaching & Learning at the Ohio State University Library, states “Identify the main concepts in your research question by selecting nouns important to the meaning of your question. Leave out words that don’t help the search, such as adjectives, adverbs, prepositions and, usually, verbs.” For example, if my research question was “How does music affect the brain?”, my main concepts are music and brain. I would use those words together in the search bar in order to find information that pertains to it. I can find both information that is supporting it and also information that does not support it, but that is what research is. There is no wrong or right answer to the question, and your research paper will be better if you use both perspectives found on your topic.

I also wanted to add a good source to help you cite your sources, just in-case a citation is not provided. The website is: http://www.citationmachine.net/style . Citation machine allows you to pick the different formats of citations, and also the different types of information you are citing such as a website, article, book or video.

Do not be scared of the word “research”. You have the resources to research, and do it efficiently.

I hope I helped your struggle,

-Struggling Student-

If you would like to read the article by Teaching & Learning at the Ohio State University Library, click the link below:

https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/choosingsources/chapter/main-concepts/

Hello fellow students!

Today we will be discussing some tips for active listening and note taking while taking an online course. You may feel like you are bogged down with the amount of lectures you may have to watch, or content you may need to take notes on. Do not be worried or afraid because it is actually quite easy to start taking notes that will decrease the need for extra time to understand your notes, and increase your understanding on the topics.

First, I want to remind you of the importance to come up with a plan. Scheduling in college may be rough, especially when online courses just have deadlines for homework but not specific times for lectures. It is very important to look at all the required readings and videos you have to watch at the very beginning of the week, so you can schedule time to be put aside for them. Also, print out or make sure you have access to any supplemental note-taking materials like outlines that your teachers may provide you. These will help you stay focused on the main ideas and may help reduce the amount of information that needs to be written down.

Since we are focused on online courses, the good thing is that the information that is needed (lectures and readings), will never go away. In a traditional course, you may be racing with the teacher to get everything copied down. In an online course, you can re-read or re-watch whenever you want. If you prefer to go through a lecture once though, I have some useful tips. To organize your notes, there are quite a few methods out there. You can use the Cornell note taking method, or even use roman numerals. It is important to make sure you have an organized and understandable way to take notes, that way when you look back it is not a bunch of random phrases on a paper. You want to find a method that is not hard to do, and is not something that you have to think to hard to complete. For example, the Cornell note taking method is hard for me to grasp. Instead I use bullet points and indentations with headings in order to organize my notes and make it easier for me to do while paying close attention to the videos or readings.

There are also different ways of taking notes. You can choose paper and pen, typing, and even drawing on an iPad or tablet. What is important is that you are consistent with your choice and that you find what works best for all types of classes that you will be taking. It is important to stay organized, so when it comes to test time you are not spending time searching for notes. You can even do multiple methods, but consistency is key. In my ESEPSY 1159 course, we read a supplemental article that explained the pros and cons of writing on paper and typing on the computer. The article made good points for both sides of the argument, but ultimately came up with a conjoined solution. The article, “Handwritten VS. Typed Notes: Which Is Best For You”, by South College states, “Type notes in class then go back and write the notes later as you prepare for an exam. At this time you can organize information in your own way while making a cognitive impression.” I have frequently used this method because I believe in both. I like to take hand written notes at first, because I feel I get everything down quicker and do not necessarily have to be neat because later, when I review, I type my notes up. This helps me worry less about the look of them and lets me focus on the actual content being taught. I also can edit my notes any way I want at that point, and include the original bullets and indentations that I had in the original notes.

I hope that these tips will help you listen more to your lectures and help you find and create a good note taking strategy that you can use during your college career (and maybe even beyond, in meetings at your future job).

I hope I helped your struggle,

-Struggling Student-

If you would like to read the article by South College, click the link below:

https://www.south.edu/blog/handwritten-vs-typed-notes-which-is-best-for-you/