So you have survived the last few semesters or the last year of college? It’s time to start fresh again. What you did or how you did in spring is behind you. Now you have to focus on what’s ahead. It’s still the start of the semester and you can gather your thoughts and focus on being motivated for coming back to the campus again. There are a few things you should consider and keep in mind while starting the semester in fall.

Don’t Fall behind in Class

It’s the start of the semester so it’s a good thing to stay on track and complete each assignment on time. If you submit all the assignments and projects on time, there would be no reason for you to fall behind in class. None of us want to spend the holidays catching up on missed work or buried in textbooks.  So, make sure that you don’t fall behind in class because you don’t want to regret it when all your friends are having fun and you are busy with college work.  Organize and plan everything. Try to get most of the things done in your syllabus and ace the midterms to make sure the finals go great.

Cold Weather

We know how annoying it is to get out of bed when it’s really cold and chilly outside. But, it happens every year. You can’t just roll up in bed with Starbucks and expect to go through the semester without any struggle. Waking up in cold mornings and encountering freezing temperatures is indeed difficult. Grab a hot cup of coffee on your way to class and out on some warm clothes is the only way to deal with it. If you don’t pay attention now, things will really get warmer near the exam week and you will start to feel the chill. Also, you are not the only one who has to get up in the morning. If you really have a hard time getting up in the morning then exercise for a while before getting ready. It will help your muscles relax a bit.

Don’t miss classes

Absences happen but you have to be cautious about it. There are days when you are so bummed out and stressed that you want to relax and take a day off. However you are only allowed to have a few absences, before the teacher starts to notice your absence and drop a letter. There would be some days that will be really cold or you may have to take a day off due to some illness, then what? Save your absences foe the right time and the best time to make the most of them is in the end of the semester.

Harder Courses and Classes

If you are enrolled in a fall semester that can mean two things: either you are a freshman or you have been in college for a year or so. If you are new then things are quite different as compared to high school. There would be countless assignments, quizzes, projects and finally exams. It’s a lot to take in at once. If you are an old student, then you must be aware that courses get tough and you are required to invest more time in college work.

Either way you have to work hard to get through the semester with flying colors. Professors don’t always play around in college to cut you some slack. Set your priorities and focus on studies too.

End of the Semester

When the semester will come to an end, it will be around the holidays and you can’t just help but fall the victim of the festivities around you. At the same time, you are piled with hundreds of work and projects before the final exams. You may think that you will be able to manage but things get quite rough and it’s difficult to manage studies at that time. Don’t you want to spend time at home with family or close friends? So, just chill and relax! Make a proper plan to work things out so that you can enjoy the festival season.

These are some of the basic tips and ways that you should follow in order to maintain your grades and finish the semester like a pro!

Books are the most trustworthy and amazing partners in the world. We all should learn from our mistakes, but great are the people who learn from others mistakes. Books help us extract messages and lessons that we could learn without making any mistakes.

They say you become what you read and if you wish to build a successful company where you get to call all the shots, you might want to start following some specific books.

Here are some of our top recommendations for this season:

1. “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand

Some of the well-known entrepreneurs like Mark Cuban, a self-made billionaire and Charlie O’Donnell, partner of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures recommend this book to every entrepreneur.

It sums up entrepreneurial passion better than any other book. The real question is not who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.

2. “The Effective Executive” by Peter Drucker

Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon made his senior managers in the company read this book for the all-day book club. It is among the three books that he recommended his managers to read.

In this book, Druker helped to visualize ideas about today’s management in the workplace. For example, it was pointed out that the employers and managers should work together towards common goals.

The Effective Management is the best book that explores decision making habits and time management that helps business executives to be productive and helps the organization to move forward.

3. “The Innovator’s Dilemma” by Clayton Christensen

Another book that Jeff Bezzos had his senior managers read was The Innovator’s Dilemma. It is one of the most influential books of all time related to business.  It is also of the top pick of many VCs and founders all over the world.

In this book, Christensen discloses why large companies act like a dinosaurs. He also proposed solutions in this book. Thus, entrepreneurs must give it a read as one of those how to books to beat large companies as competitors in their own markets and industries.

The book does not revolve around one single idea. However, it does focus largely on a misused phrase “disruptive technology”.

4. “Business Adventures” by John Brooks

This book is a collection of stories based in New York by John Brooks. It is Bill Gates all-time favorite business book since 1991.

Bill Gates says that the book is all about strengths and weaknesses in the challenging business world. However, all the circumstances are still relevant regardless of the time and age.

5. “Benjamin Franklin” by Walter Isaacson

Benjamin Franklin is an all-time favorite book of the Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk. He shares that Franklin, the main character in the book started from nothing and became an entrepreneur. He was just a runaway kid and turned his life around.

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.

Scholarly blogging is usually centered on the need of attracting new audiences through academics. Academic writers are told that they can do a better research and enhance the impact.

Blogs are a strong medium for public engagement. People argue that blogging is a part of academic writing. It is definitely not an add-on. Blogging is the landscape of academic writing. It has the same value as any other form of writing. Here are a few strong points that can improve your academics as well as your writing style.

Blogs help in establishing a strong writing routine

The wisdom of creative and academic writing is helpful for making it a habit. Blogs can be finished in just one sitting as they are small. You can easily draft them in single self-contained pieces. Most book enthusiasts suggest that one should write every day. A blog can be written in a couple of days and gets published. Then comes the feedback and the cycle goes on. This cycle is a great motivation for continuing writing and making it an everyday routine.

Experiment with your writing voice

The academics write blogs in a very casual tone as compared to other publications. The blogs gives you the flexibility to try various approaches in different posts. You can use a different vocabulary, syntax and a different genre each time. The textual experiments will help you determine the kind of voice you want to adopt. It will support you developing a light style of writing to a more complex writing style.

Get to the Point with Blogs

A blog is a small piece of writing, not an essay. It is impossible to include a lot of ideas into one blog post. You can include multiple ideas into as much as 1000 words. A blog is the best platform to talk solely about one thing. Even if you are journal writer, blogging will teach you how to focus on one point only rather than firing up different ideas. Regardless of the fact that the academic writing style is quite professional than blogging, it is still a recipe for success.

Experiment with various writing styles

A blog can have more than one style of writing in every post. Some bloggers maintain the same writing style throughout their blog while others take a varied writing approach. There are no such rules in a blog so you are free to experiment with various forms of writing. A blogger can do anything with the blog, keeping the target audience in mind. You can include a description, instructions or a short review in the blog. It can also take a more literary form of writing such as a letter. You can also include images, slides and videos to make it even more interesting.

Literature reviews are a completely different style of writing where a writer tends to explain views of different authors by highlighting the main areas and then giving further information about specific research.

A literature review includes views and opinions of different authors and a scientific review includes diverse blends of topics and research’ that are highlighted as main points and can be used for future research and experiments.

Like every literature reviews, essay writing style and articles, a scientific literature review also have some steps that need to be followed for perfection.

Let’s start the detailing by understanding some common yet important steps of writing a scientific literature review.

1- Define the scope of your article and research

Writing on any scientific topic includes a variety of details and sometimes these details tend to be unnecessary. A writer must always find a scope before writing down his literature review.

Jot down all the topics together. Distinguish between what should and what should not be included in the review. Once you are habitual of jotting down every necessary point you want to add in your review, then your research would be more specific and to the point instead of wandering around unnecessary subjects.

Start your scope by defining the importance of the topic and moving on the essential part, describe the rest details and comparisons’ of your research from different perspectives.

2- Discussion of research

In a normal literature review, a writer is supposed to include various perspectives of different authors; but in a scientific literature review, a writer must discuss his point of views too.

Every other person who surrounds your research has an expertise. No matter, these expertise does not match your research completely but still can prove to be very helpful for future assistance.

By knowing different perspectives of your lab mates and collaborations, you will be able to bring perfectionism in your review and will have access to future advances in your research.

3- Check for similar previous articles about your research.

Every research has hundreds and thousands of aspects that need to be covered and it is not necessary that you are the first person to focus on that particular area of research or experiment. It is possible that the specific area or an area similar to that must have been covered by another person.

Well! If this is the case then there is no need to panic. It’s not necessary for you to drop your particular area of research, only because it’s already done by someone else. All you have to do is to be focused on what points you want to cover in your research. Do not right exactly what the previous article says. Try to describe the experiment and review in your own perspective and experience, but with it, you may consider that previous research as a handful of information that could help you for future assistance.

4- Point of Concentration

Scientific literature reviews are comparatively hard to write than normal literature reviews. So focus on your point of concentration. Take a break when necessary.

5- Collect references and raw material

Every writer must first collect references, other similar researches and raw materials regarding the specific topic.

Collecting the references raw material and summarizing it roughly on a paper helps you focus on the points you want to cover and makes it less difficult for you to include unnecessary details that can make your literature view sound boring and uninformative.

6- Draft your ideas

Once you are done with jotting down the main ideas and particular point of interest from the references, you need to prepare a draft of your review. Write as much as you want either on paper, in Words file or in PDF format file. But write and save it constantly for further edits. Check this draft, read and re-read the draft for edits and inclusion of other important points.

7- Include your views

Include your ideas. If you feel that your research needs more amendments and further assistance, then don’t be shy to include it at the end of your research. It may help other scientific writers to carry on their analysis on the similar research topic with advancement.

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