Don’t lose hope on the amount of information out there on your topic. Literature research may seem like a lot of information that will make you drown in quicksand. Getting through this chunk of information is indeed a huge task but if you plan it, you can get rid of that problem, one bit at a time.

To help you get through all that information in small sizes, we have compiled an easy plan for you to follow.

Step 1: What do you want to find out?

Do you have a research question ready or are you looking for information to make your research question strong? Before you start reading all the relevant information, make up your mind about what you are researching for. If you are at the stage of exploring a topic or a subject, then state the purpose of your research as “understanding the basic ideas of topic ABC”. If you are looking for opposing theories on the effect of event A on event B, then write it down clearly.

Having a clear perspective and goal will help you find the right information at this step of the research. You will begin to notice that reading for different goals for your research will help you focus on various aspects of publication.

Step 2: How much time do you have on your hands?

You can spend the whole day or just 20 minutes on the entire paper. If you really want to manage your time in the best possible way, then give you work a structure. Plan the work by giving yourself deadlines.

Once you are aware how much time do you have on your hands, start planning. If you have a month for the entire research, take 1.5 weeks to go through the essentials, 1 week to explore the sidelines of your research and 1 week to write a literature review.

Step 3: Study the essentials

Identify the key publications of your study. A good way to start is to find an authentic and a detailed review paper or a report. Start the topic by chewing on the references on that paper or report.

To understand the basics of the new subject, you need to spend some time on it. Understand the basic equations and principles of that study. All this will require sitting down, noting down important points and slowly working your way through all the relevant material. The process will be similar to a student going through a difficult chapter of a textbook. You may find yourself spending too much time on the some papers. However, they will build the foundation of your research along with further readings.

Step 4: Speed through the Sidelines

Separate all the papers that you find interesting, give additional insights but are not relevant to the field of study. Note that these papers are not of lesser importance, you can’t skip the side information. You have to understand all the concepts spend less time in order to understand all the elements.

The key is to go through everything in a quick manner. It will be like speed-reading through everything. Train the eyes to look at a group of words rather than looking at a single word at a time.

Step 5: Archive what you read

Reading is important but finding that paper and looking for more information is a vital aspect in controlling the large chunk of information over the time.

You can keep a digital archive or archive hard copies. Arrange your document in such a way that you are able to find those papers even after three years.

Step 6: Keep an eye on the outcome

Don’t rely on information and results available when you first researching on a topic. What appeared to be the truth yesterday may not remain the same with today’s results. Develop a strategy to keep your research updated in order to maintain the best outcome. Subscribe to the publication updates of the relevant journals and set up RSS feed on relevant keywords.

Every graduate student experiences the feeling of a project going on forever. There is no end date to get a graduate degree but going there requires a dissertation. It is the biggest undertaking that many graduate students experience. Literature, grant applications and manuscripts are nothing as compared to the size of an average dissertation.

If you approach it correctly, writing a dissertation will not seem too intimidating. A writing plan for your own dissertation will help you. Stick to it and use this approach to make consistent progress on your dissertation. Now you can wrap up your dissertation with a solid writing plan to avoid stress.

Know the format

Before you start anything, you should know what you are expected to write in the dissertation. A lot of programs arrange seminars on writing dissertations. It is highly recommended that you attend such seminars to understand the writing formats and their requirements.

A lot of programs also post their dissertation style on the websites. Find out yours and read it to avoid future hassles.

Break the dissertation into chapters

Determine how much time you will spend on writing. Outline the major sections such as introduction, methods, material, discussion, chapters etc. so you have an exact picture of what you have to write. Spend plenty of time on writing drafts of all the major sections in the dissertation. Don’t write and edit it at the same time. You will be waste a lot of time making one part right and fall behind on your overall writing progress. Adjust with the ugly draft first and move on and leave the rest to deal with it later.

Map your work with dates

Once you have determined the content for all the major sections and chapters, set the dates for completing each section. Make a calendar and set these dates into that calendar to make your life easier. This calendar will give you concrete dates to work on. It will act as your visual outline in order to accomplish all the tasks and requirements of the dissertation.

Establish dissertation progress meetings with your instructor and submit one chapter every week. Get the instructor’s comments and reviews on each chapter and work on the previous week’s chapter and start editing.  In this way, you will be able to write new content and edit the previous work without getting stuck anywhere.

Write down the due dates of all the chapters on a piece of paper that acts as your calendar. You will be able to track your progress till the final submission. It is easier to meet small deadlines with consistent progress rather than stressing about the whole dissertation at once.

Taking some time out to plan a proper outline for the dissertation progress may sound stupid, but, it will definitely help you. This method will preserve your sanity and you will enjoy the writing process.

People consider writing a difficult task, as grammatical mistakes are the common error they are scared of. To some extent, grammatical mistakes are ignored but when it comes to your essay writing and term papers; checking flawless grammar becomes a difficult task.

Let’s have a brief discussion on some common grammatical mistakes below:

1- It’s vs It

Generally, apostrophes are used for possessions that are to claim anyone’s exact words. For example, “I am going to the market.”

But apostrophes are also used to replace omitted words and to convert them into short form or abbreviations. For example, It is vs It’s, do not vs don’t, have not vs haven’t.

This way It’s is used as a possessive pronoun. It gives the sentence a worth as well as shortens the sentence. For example, “It’s burning.”

2- Incorrect formation

The formation of the sentence is the writer’s worst nightmare. It takes too much of time for a writer if he is stuck between identifying the formation of a sentence.

It’s simple! Define the topic first. Keep the sentences short. Make sure that the formation is either subject, helping verb and object or vice versa. It depends on the prominence of your sentence which is either the subject or the object.

Make sure you don’t write incomplete and complex sentences. For examples “Stay tuned to us” is an incomplete sentence. Here you need to define and mention the name of the source for which you want the readers to stay tuned to. For example “Stay tuned to LogoJiffy.”

Complex sentences include the formation of the subject and the object. For example, “Running in line, our teacher said we will get the prize.” Here the formation of your sentence is wrong. “Our teacher said, we will get the prize by running in line.” This sentence is in the correct formation.

Include the modifying clause right next to the object or the subject you intend to describe.

3- Using I, Me and Myself

Using I, Me and Myself seems to be complex for some writers.

“I” is used under the influence of the subject.

“Me” is used in the specification with the object only.

Myself is a reflexive pronoun. It is used in the sentences with “I” as well as “Me” when you are referring yourself in the sentence. For example, “I myself made the dinner.”

My and I can also be used in the same single sentence. For example, “I and My friends are hanging out late tonight.”

4- Lie vs Lay

Lie and Lay having similar meaning and pronunciation seem to be a common mistake of a writer.

First, let’s understand the present and past tense of these two words.

Lie and Lay (present and past)

Lay and Laid (present and past)

When using lie or lay in the sentence, you always choose lay. It’s because it gives a perfect present formation on the sentence. For example, “I am going to lay down for a little while.”

5-Using Irregular verbs

There is a complete list of irregular verbs. Remembering every word is not possible but still using these words with the proper formation is also necessary. For example,

Eat, eating, ate

Throw, throwing, threw

But, not every word has “ing”, “ew” or “ed” formation. For example,

Broadcast cannot be changed into broadcasted.

This is how “ed” in every word is not necessarily right and every writer should be aware of these irregular verbs formation.

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DISCLAIMER: All the above images have been taken from Google as references