Reading / Research

Manage the Noise – 6 Easy Ways to Plug In Better.

Where we’ve improved in communication and information, we’ve suffered in lost time and overload.

If the coming years are set to be a boom for curators of information, how can you strike a balance between drinking from a firehose and switching off the flow completely?

photo by bartmaguire

photo by bartmaguire

The Atlantic provides some ideas on how to plug in better, and there’s plenty more you can do to use your time productively and access huge amounts of noise at the same time. Here are some of the things I’ve learned to do over the years.

Six Ways to Plug In Better

  1. Prioritise accurately – Recognise social networks as a true time sink. If it’s on in the background, or constantly causing you to check your phone, it’s taking up more time and attention than you think. In many cases, that’s fine. In some cases, you need to shut down or find a way to tune in to a more limited feed of information.
  2. Know when to shut down – I used to repeat the phrase “know when to stop” a while back. It was to remind myself that time is precious. You may be wonderful at time-management, but that doesn’t mean you know when to stop. The constant flow of information coming your way is easily switched off, but it’s not so easy to make that conscious choice to shut it down.
    You rarely need to hear something at the first possible moment. You may want to, but that’s a whole different matter. Also, when a big event takes over, you’re unlikely to miss it completely. I regularly take days at a time away from online activity, but the world still goes on without problem. And I return without problem too. Nothing is damaged, no harm is done.
    To some online gurus, leaving the scene is a cardinal sin. Why not schedule something in advance? Why not make a big deal about your downtime? Why not find a way to not have any downtime at all?
    I prefer not to follow advice that doesn’t gel with the bigger picture. When my circumstances change, the bigger picture may change and I may follow different advice. So I’m listening to what makes sense in my own personal circumstances. With a bit of listening, it becomes clear when it’s wise to shut down and when it’s best to log back on.
  3. Don’t read everything – Some people complain when they’re following more than a hundred RSS news feeds. Some people complain when they’re keeping up with more than a couple hundred users on Twitter. Some people complain when they’re catching up with several hundred friends on Facebook.
    But how much of it is important? Chances are, most of what you read won’t make a difference to you. You need to be brutal and bypass a lot of the content out there. Either flick through your updates and develop a focused mind (no more cute kitten vids and hilarious TV ads will disturb you now, uh-huh!) or select the items you want to spend more time on and save them for later consumption.
  4. Don’t fall for ‘in the moment’ – When you save stuff to look at later, you may not be the first person to comment on every last detail. You may have to miss out on making a really clever remark within five seconds of someone writing a status update. I always feel sad when I miss saying something amusing in the moment, but I remind myself that I find loads of other times to do it. You can’t be everywhere all the time. Not everything will work out how you want it, and you have to get used to that (which takes a bit of practice, but isn’t difficult in itself). Once you get over this, you’ll find it much easier to turn off the feeds when you need. And you’ll find it much easier to catch up too.
  5. Scan for what’s important now, what you’ll save for later, and what might entertain you – Everything else can go out the window. If you’re unsure about something, save it for later or take a quick peek to decide one way or another. That’s a quick peek, not reading half an article! The important stuff comes first, the stuff for later comes whenever you get spare time (including never), and the stuff that might entertain you can be for your breaks and downtime when you want something else to do. Because breaks are important!
  6. Use the time you’ve got rather than finding more and more time to sort – When I’m away for a few days, or something urgent crashes in to my schedule, I may come back to A LOT of catching up. After all, I subscribe to hundreds of blogs, I follow thousands of people on Twitter, and I’m using loads of other services more too (like Google+, LinkedIn, Scoop It, and so on).
    A lot of the catching up isn’t necessary, so I work on what I should be aware of. For instance, I have a Twitter list of essential accounts to check back on for the last day or so, I have selected a few RSS feeds that need reading and a few busy RSS feeds that I can ignore without even checking, and I keep a scratchpad to make brief notes rather than trying to put something major together (that can wait, but I don’t want to lose any ideas).

I’m still learning and I doubt I’ll ever stop. So let me know what works for you when you plug in to the great firehose of noise in your life.

Always check what you’re being asked to do

I learned an important lesson at school that stayed with me throughout my time at university.

My Home Economics teacher announced to class that, as a change of plan, everyone would be completing a short test during the lesson. We had planned on doing some baking that day, so the alternative was a rough deal. I could make a mean flapjack…

“Don’t worry,” said the teacher. “Maybe we’ll still make stuff after the test. There should be time…”

When the paper was handed out, the teacher said we could start and she told us to read through all the questions first so we understood what we were being asked to do. Naturally, we were more concerned with finishing the test as quickly as possible. So when the time started, we raced off.

photo by Cathdew
photo by Cathdew

The test didn’t seem too hard. Slightly bizarre, but not difficult:

  1. Read through this test.
  2. Write today’s date at the top of the page.
  3. Write your name in any corner of the page.
  4. What is 100 minus 99?
  5. Touch your nose for 5 seconds.
  6. Get out of your chair, jump up twice, and sit down again.
  7. Draw a circle in the middle of the page.
  8. Wave your arms in the air.

And the list went on like this over a couple of pages. The tasks got increasingly lengthy and ridiculous. And before long, the entire class was all over the place and laughing at each other.

But some people grew suspicious and confused. Instead of carrying on, more and more of us started to read through the test. The final task said, “To complete this test, you only need to complete the first task. Everything else is irrelevant. Thanks for reading through the test first.”

The teacher wasn’t trying to make fun of the class. She said that it may have been a laugh, but there was a serious point: It pays to check what you are being asked to do. If you don’t truly know what’s being asked, how can you be sure you’re on the right track?

From that point, I understood the importance of treating essay and exam questions as seriously as the answers. Your assignments aren’t likely to have tricks like the one I’ve described, but it shows how easily you can end up answering the wrong question and lose big marks as a result.

So what do you do?

  • Don’t rush in – Always allow a few moments to take in and read through questions and requirements.
  • Don’t look for key words in isolation – You’re unlikely to be asked to write everything you know about a particular word or subject, so take the question as a whole before you do anything else.
  • Now break the question down into pieces – When you understand the full question (and only once you do), dissect it for clues and pointers. Have you been given a specific target to frame your answer? Does the question ask you to discuss, evaluate, compare, examine, demonstrate…?
  • Look for vague comments and anything that’s open to question – Practically nothing can be boiled down to a right or wrong answer. If you can spot a flaw or anything that’s open to interpretation, it may hold the key to how you should answer. Academic writing usually involves explanations and conclusions, but it also involves asking many more questions in return.
  • If in doubt, ask your tutor – This may not be possible in exam conditions, but for other coursework and class assignments, it’s better to ask for clarification before you rush ahead.

I don’t think I ever thanked my Home Economics teacher for giving us that test. It may not have improved my flapjack recipe, but it was still a great recipe for success…

Find the right reasons to read ahead

You might think that reading ahead can only be positive. By knowing in advance what you’re meant to read, why shouldn’t you just read it now?

photo by lusiErin E. Templeton writes in ProfHacker, “the act of reading ahead is often exceptionally damaging to our work together in the classroom”.

Templeton, an English professor, notes that many students read ahead just to get it out of the way. Instead of engaging academically, the aim is to finish the task of reading as if that’s what matters.

What are your reasons for reading ahead? If it’s just another box ticking exercise to get another activity off your to-do list, you may be doing yourself a disservice. More than that, Templeton argues, you may be doing the whole class a disservice.

Your reasons are important. I loved reading ahead, even before I went to university. I wanted to get the initial reading and course texts understood in advance, because I knew there’d be so much more to deal with upon hitting campus.

Anyone who has been through their first year at uni will know what I mean. Overwhelm isn’t exactly difficult as a Fresher. Due to this, I would always suggest that future students swot up in advance, even if they continue to remain in the dark over most of the concepts and arguments.

I loved reading ahead. I worried less about confusing content, because I knew that lectures, seminars and tutorials would deliver clarity where I needed it. I would come armed with questions and specific goals. I was prepared to revisit the text and discover more.

This type of reading ahead is not what concerns Templeton. Unfortunately, this type of reading ahead isn’t common in Templeton’s experience. What she sees is a type of reading that severely limits critical engagement with the text:

“The study of literature is…not only reading a certain selection of texts in a particular order.  Instead, a good class takes the book list as a foundation and collaboratively generates an extended conversation through discussion and debate, analysis and critique. The themes and issues which emerge from our collective experience and conversation are not always (or even often) ones that can be predicted ahead of time.  In fact, the best of these are ones that cannot be anticipated precisely because they arise organically from the confluence of time, place and participants.”

Reading ahead is clearly not a problem in itself. However, you must be prepared to ‘read again’ to give close and careful reading of the text.

Without a critical eye, you might as well be reading for enjoyment.

Enjoying what you read is fantastic. I always preferred reading something I could appreciate beyond cold and critical study.

Perhaps reading ahead is crucial, then. It may be the only effective way to bridge that gap between enjoyment and engagement when studying subjects like English. Consume the texts in advance for your own fun, then read again with deeper focus.

How do you tackle your mountain of reading?

Get to grips with academic writing

Does essay writing trip you up? Do you struggle to know how you’re meant to write? Are you annoyed by gaps in your understanding?

The Guardian says that the change from A-levels to a university degree is too much for many students. Essay requirements are overwhelming.

photo by katiew
photo by katiew

Echoing many people I’ve spoken to in the past, Daphne Elliston told the Guardian:

“…putting my own words into academic language was hard. And it was difficult to believe I was entitled to my own opinion or to disagree with all these academics who’d done years of research.”

You don’t have to write insanely academic language. Rather, you’re meant to create an argument. Your job is to research, assess and reach your own conclusions.

But how? Where do you start? Here are some considerations for tackling essays:

  • Write in whatever order you like – It’s not a linear process. Kate Brooks at UWE says the process is more cyclical: “do some research, draft a bit, read some more, think, consider what you’ve written, redraft.”
    You can write before you research, you can build a conclusion before an introduction, and you can make random points as you go along and reorder those points at a later stage. Your writing route is flexible. Nobody needs to know how you put it together. The end result is all they’ll look at. And all they care about!
  • Consider your opinion throughout – From start to finish, be aware of what you think. Take the essay question the moment you’re given the assignment and ask yourself how you would answer it. Write a paragraph straight away, before you do any further reading. After some research, has your opinion changed? When you’ve finished writing, has your opinion changed? Keep asking yourself what *your* opinion is.
  • Feel free to stop reading – Academic research can go on and on. And on. As an undergraduate, you don’t need to obsess forever. With a load of ideas and a grip of core texts on reading lists, there’s no need to relentlessly search for every last scrap of data and every opinion ever made. That’s impossible. And you’re not expected to mention all this stuff anyway. There’s no science in knowing when to stop. However, if you’re starting to feel overwhelmed with information and don’t have any of your own writing to show for it, you can probably stop reading…
  • Select the best examples – With all this research done and a trillion ways to say the same thing, pick the clearest, most relevant references to make your point. Leave the others to your references only. The simple act of referencing shows you are aware of it.
  • Don’t feel offended – Some departments introduced compulsory modules on writing at degree level. However, some students found this offensive, according to the Guardian piece.
    After completing A-levels and getting good grades, it may feel strange to start all over again. While some students sense an overwhelm from the beginning, others think the process is just a continuation. By stubbornly refusing to discover more about the academic writing process, some students will miss out.
    Be open to learning. Even if you were entirely comfortable all along, give yourself a pat on the back for being so awesome. Not many people reach that level of awesome so quickly. 🙂
  • Discuss the writing as you go along – If possible, grab some time with your tutor (either virtually or physically) to discuss your draft essay. It shouldn’t take long to find out where you’re headed. There’s no need to be specific. Your job is to make sure you’re on the right track before you commit more time.
  • Work in small bursts, over a long period of time – The difference between a First and a fail may come about solely because of the way you use your time. There has long been a tendency to leave essays until a day or two before they are due in. A risky move.
    By waiting until the deadline, you have no option but to write in a linear fashion. Research also goes out of the window. We’ve not even got on to the amount of stress you’ll feel with nothing written and only a short space of time left. This is one of the most common methods of writing essays, but also one of the craziest. Do you really want to take that risk?
  • Think critically – As Daphne Elliston says, it’s hard to accept you have any right to an opinion worth anything compared to acclaimed academics and prolific authors. But you do. On top of that, you are able to disagree with what these published writers have said. So long as you back up the argument with reason and other references, you can argue however you like. I find that one of the most enjoyable parts of the writing process. 😉
  • Use your own voice – YOU are the author of this essay, not someone else. An overactive vocabulary is pointless. Sounding clever and being clever are two different things. Simple language can be just as powerful when you have a solid argument.
  • List the points you want to make – Plan as simply as you can. Get some bullet points down with 4, 40 or 400 things you want to discuss in the essay. The number doesn’t matter; it’s the active consideration that’s crucial. This basic plan will get you thinking right away and will even help shape how you research. The search for references and quotations is much easier when you have an idea of what you’re looking for.

If you want to explore the academic and essay writing process even further, here are some other things you can do:

Your writing will improve as you go along. When you encounter a problem, make an active effort to overcome it. Gaps in your understanding are not weaknesses, they are merely challenges. We all face these challenges every day. Even academics with years of research have to overcome gaps in understanding. That’s why they are academics. If those gaps didn’t exist, there would be nothing left to learn!