Luckily, I never waited until the very last two minutes before giving in my essay. But I think there was one time when there was only a half an hour left before my time was up and so I had to rush to the room to drop the hard copy off. I also missed the essay deadline for my first essay- damned laptop, you were supposed to be my friend!
That doesn't happen anymore. I do work on each essay until the last day, the last few hours before the deadline, but I no longer start the said work the night before. I did that on a couple of occasions and, even though the grades I got exceeded my expectations, the stress was not worth it and my own satisfaction with the work could do with improvement.
I greatly enjoy the essay subjects, they're very stimulating. I wish I could work on all of them, but one is a hard enough task to tackle. I imagine that, if I did organise better and started working on about three of the usual 5-10 titles, my understanding of the class work would also improve a great deal. Yet, I still have to manage giving in one essay on time, so I just compare work with friends who have chosen different subjects.
Friday, January 20, 2012
The importance of (not) being idle
I never managed to convince myself to correct any of my texts. The first time I ever did this was for the Ucas application, because I was very much aware that a great deal depended on those words. I have small poems and a play that still await their turn for improvement works.
I don't know yet what's behind this mental block but I still rarely ever change a line; Except for course essays. I now plan the structure and work starting from there. Afterwards, I structure the notes and quotes according to that plan and develop paragraphs related to each point I wish to make in the essay. After that is done, I get to the actual writing of the essay. It's a structure still in need of perfecting, yet it has so far helped me not leave things to the last moment.
After the first draft is done, I check for spelling mistakes and see in which ways I can improve the text. This usually means restructuring sentences, because I am always tempted to write too long ones and so make it less clear who or what exactly I'm talking about. Given that I always pay attention to the word count, I rarely have to cut out too much, or add more than a couple of paragraphs.
I don't know yet what's behind this mental block but I still rarely ever change a line; Except for course essays. I now plan the structure and work starting from there. Afterwards, I structure the notes and quotes according to that plan and develop paragraphs related to each point I wish to make in the essay. After that is done, I get to the actual writing of the essay. It's a structure still in need of perfecting, yet it has so far helped me not leave things to the last moment.
After the first draft is done, I check for spelling mistakes and see in which ways I can improve the text. This usually means restructuring sentences, because I am always tempted to write too long ones and so make it less clear who or what exactly I'm talking about. Given that I always pay attention to the word count, I rarely have to cut out too much, or add more than a couple of paragraphs.
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