I just finished editing my buddy Stefan Knapen’s free ebook he’s giving away. For a guy who learned English from watching ‘Friends’ episodes I’m thoroughly impressed that he runs a completely English blog on study hacks. As I was editing I thought I’d quickly share with you the fundamentals of editing college papers or any paper for that matter.
1: Before you start:
Before you even start, make sure you know what you’re writing about or editing. I can edit a social science paper in less than 5 minutes (correcting thousands of undergrads papers will give you superhuman editing skills!). Editing a paper on mathematics or chemistry on the other hand is a much slower process. I’m not saying that you couldn’t edit a paper on a subject you’re not familiar with but it is much easier/faster if you do know the content. This brings me to my second point; make sure you have enough time to do the job. Many students don’t give themselves enough time at the end of the day to properly edit before they have to submit their paper. Editing is the most overlooked step in paper writing but crucial to secure a top grade.
I’ve been keeping a big secret from everyone over the last few months and now I’m finally ready to unveil what I’ve been working on all this time. I’ve been studying how premed students succeed (and fail) by talking to thousands of students, premed students, teachers, admission officers, medical students, doctors and education experts to put together a system that is going to completely change the way you see premed. The product is in my opinion amazing and we will be announcing the price really soon. In the meantime you can check out the product and get a free premed course component here.
I’ve been working on this project for 6 months and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed as we’re going to have a ton of free tips, tricks and content, even if you don’t want a copy of the paid program you can still try out the intro program absolutely free. As an example, here is a free snippet of what you’ll get for free when you check out the free program.
In Canada “where I’m from” we have two official languages, French and English which was formally instituted into our national charter in 1982. This came into being to give the Quebecois people official language status and quell the rebellion of the Quebecois people which climaxed during the ‘October Crisis’ where Quebec was placed under martial law due to increased terrorist/freedom fighter activity. As a result almost all governmental positions within the country require that the employee learn both French and English and almost all citizens have a basic understanding of French and many are considered fully bilingual.
I’m talking about this to show you the context in which I’m coming from. Since I’m currently living in Montreal, most people speak French instead of English and I’ve grown up with both languages all my life. Everyone that I talk to can speak at least two languages and it isn’t rare to meet people who can speak three, four or even five languages which I find isn’t the case when I travel to the U.S. I recently had to take a government French exam to do some contract work and thought I would go through my sure fire, 5 step plan for learning a second language.
So as some of you may know I got horribly burned by hot oil about a week and a half ago. This gave me the opportunity to experiment with various salves and anti-scaring techniques. So the following video diary is the steps that I took to solve my burn and the resulting successes and failures from my various techniques. Instead of taking the regular route of apply a cold compress and polysporin I instead decided to integrate vitamin E and pineapple which I was told worked wonders on repairing burns and suppressing scarring.
Step 1: Immediately applied a cold compress to the effected area for approximately 15-20 minutes
Step 2: Applied pineapple to the effected area’s 2-3 hours after burn. I also applied polysporin to seal the skin.
Step 3: At night I applied a thin layer of vitamin E cream to the effected areas to help with skin regeneration.
Results:
As the video will show, my face has completely healed whereas my arm is still seriously burned. Now facial skin is different from the skin on your arms, however from my experimentation I highly suggest the pineapple as a treatment.
In my continuing series on basic college study tips I’m going to talk to you today about my favorite health tips for college students. Many students have horrible health, ‘freshman 15 anybody?’ I’ve been relatively healthy throughout college due to the ability to keep myself accountable to basic health tips. I’ve used the following tips throughout college to stay trim and healthy and they don’t require much work at all.
Sleep:
Follow a regulated circadian rhythm and get 8 hours of sleep per night. This is a very simple college health tip, however crucially important in order to develop a healthy and academically successful college student. So this means getting up and going to be at the same time EVERYDAY. Therefore, if you’re going to bed on Saturdays at 3 in the morning and it can’t be avoided I’d suggest that you actually go to bed at 3 in the morning every night rather than go to bed early during the week and late on the weekends as this would damage your circadian rhythm.
For my continuing series on basic college study skills, I’m going to discuss the basics of how to create a foolproof college study schedule. I’ve already touched on this a little bit in a previous article but on further reflection I’ve decided this subject needs more input.
Most of you have probably heard the old adage a stitch in time saves nine. It’s great advice, however very few college students remember these words of wisdom when it comes time to build a college study schedule. I’ve battled with a lack of organizational skills as well; it wasn’t until I stopped trying to be solely accountable and brought in other people and tools to keep me accountable that my college study schedule really started to stick. So with that in mind I’m going to concentrate on a few tools that you can use TODAY and in the next 30 MINUTES to get yourself back on track.
In my continuing series on basic college study skills, today I’ve decided to discuss what I’m personally very good at, writing an A paper!
I’ve been a teaching assistant for almost 5 years and have literally marked thousands of papers. In my experience I’ve seen the worst and best in paper writing and from the interviews I’ve done with successful students for my book, I’ve come to the conclusion that effective paper writing boils down to sticking to the fundamentals and proper planning. So here are the basic skills you are going to need to write an A paper quickly and effectively.
There are four major stages when writing an A paper; research, brainstorming, writing and editing. Each stage should be disconnected from each other and should be given a specific start and end date. Starting and finishing papers are crucial as you will either not get a paper started or get hung up on a particular step and have to hurry the entire process along.
In my continuing series of basic college study tips, I’ve decide to write about the different types of learning styles that college students have. I have gotten quite a few students who have been utterly frustrated with school simply because they weren’t taught in the right way and haven’t realized their own learning style. Many college students are unaware of the different types of learning styles and they use a study methodology that does not take advantage of that particular style. Although there is some debate over the different types of learning styles, in my opinion there are 4 major types of learning styles, visual, auditory, sequential and kinesthetic and one minor type, sociological.
Visual Learning Style
Visual learning style is the most commonly used in western education, the professor writes something on the board and you look at it. This is the most popular way of learning due to its ease of implementation. You can have one teacher stand up and give a lecture that can be recorded and beamed to an innumerable number of students which is why it’s such a contemporary favorite in universities today. However, many students find this method difficult to master as they feel more at ease with other learning styles. Other students don’t even realize that there are other possible ways to learn, I’d suggest you test each of the following different types of learning styles to see which one is the best fit for you.
In my continuing series on basic college study tips I’ve decided to talk today about how to knock ANY exam out of the park with a few simple steps. Many college freshmen do not know how to study for college exams. College exams are not like high school exams in that they usually require more foresight and planning to successfully get a good mark. With that said, there are many small things college freshman can do to drastically change their outcome in college exams for the better.
1: Scheduling:
Scheduling exam study time in college is crucially important to a good mark on your test and to achieve general academic success. You will need a daily planner and a semester white board. The white board will allow you to see your semester snapshot and prepare for coming exams; your daily planner will allow you to stay accountable for your daily study routines. Also each works as a backup for the other. Once you get into the habit of working this way it will save you dozens of hours worth of lost study time and worry. Ideally, you should start studying 4 days before your exam date; there are three main stages, coding, reviewing and confidence building.
The new semester is quickly approaching and I have gotten an email from a student who has asked me for some advice on preparation for the new semester. I wrote him a pretty in depth email and thought I’d just repost it here. Enjoy!
There are in my opinion four fundamental things you must prepare yourself for to be not just a successful student but a successful university participant.
Prepare a strong study skills plan
Get a plan on how to achieve college success and analyze it. The best laid plans are sometimes doomed to failure from the start if you don’t analyze your plan for weak points and shore them up. As a perfect example if you plan on studying 4 hours a day, is that realistic when you only studied 4 hours a week last year? How are you going to stay accountable to your new plan? (hint hire a tutor, which this student already did) What are the consequences when you don’t meet your study plan?
