Tips on helping meet essay or coursework deadlines.
The following is a brief article written by the staff of ITS Tutorial School Hong Kong on some suggestions to help students meet deadlines for essays and coursework. For more interesting articles and resources please visit our website.
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Getting started on that essay or coursework…
When a writing deadline approaches, or when a teacher tells you, ‘Get it to me by tomorrow,’ you simply must get started. In order to do this first you have to a)gain control of yourself. Then you have to b) gain control of your topic.
Gaining control of yourself requires that you put your mind and energy to the task. You may have to subdue the panic that the time pressure and the difficulty of the task impose, or you may have to circumvent your own clever procrastination rituals. In the words of Calvin (Calvin and Hobbes) “I always have to postpone what I want to do for what I have to do”.
Getting started might mean that you need to think more, or it might mean that you need only close the door, turn of you phone, close your facebook and begin writing. Whatever it takes to discipline yourself, do it.
Gaining control of your topic means nothing more than defining the task. Until you know what you have to do, you cannot begin doing it. The following methodical approach might help you overcome inertia and focus on the task. Ask yourself these questions:
Purpose: Am I writing to enquire, inform , persuade, motivate, or do I have more than one purpose?
Scope: Given my needs and my reader’s needs? What are the assessment criteria? How much information should I include?
Contents: What kinds of information will help me achieve my purpose? Do I have all the information I need? How, or where, can I get additional information? Am I only including relevant information?
Constraints: What can work against me, or make my task more difficult? Time constraints? My reader’s attitudes? My own lack of credibility? My lack of research?
By answering questions like these, your task will become less amorphous, more concrete. As you gain control and get involved in the task, your lethargy will fade and your energy will build. You will end up with that essay or coursework by the deadline. here is link to another article which may help