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.

We all go through that time when it comes down to surviving comprehensive writing exams. Once the studies for comprehensive exams are over, it gets worse. A lot of us fear writing so it seems like a terrifying idea. Here are a few tips that will help you in surviving comprehensive writing exam.

So there are things you must do before the exam and some during the exam. We have break down of the things you should do before and after the exam.

 Before the Exam

• Organize the notes

Organize the notes in a manner that explain everything to you. It should make sense and should be organized in the correct order. You can use color tags to relate the concepts, authors and themes together. Always make sure that the notes are on your finger tips to find the information quickly. The color tags will help you remember where the notes were written or stored. Let’s say you wrote a couple of concepts in the red color section. Think of all the key points that you remember jotting down in the red section. The label will help you find the information.

• Keep everything you need with you

When you sit for the exam, make sure you have everything. Keep all the writing tools, notes, water and snacks with you. These are some standard things that will be required to write the comprehensive exam. However, if you are writing from the comfort of your own home, create a comfortable spot in your room. Minimize the distractions as much as possible to keep your focus on writing only. If you work with music then update the playlist with your favorite songs. Keep tea, coffee or water at arm’s length to keep you alive.

During the exam

• Write down the Basic Terms, Dates, Concepts and Authors

This step is really important when you are writing without any notes. Before you look at the question, write all the relevant information to keep it at the top of your mind.

• Read the Exam Carefully

This particular step is crucial if you have to choose the question. Underline the terms as you read the paper and make sure you understand all the things asked in the question. The key question usually lies in the end so read the whole thing.

As you read the question, think of a rough idea to answer each question. Take mental notes about the sources you will use, what theories and concepts would answer the question. It will help you fill gaps. You will be able to tell if you are missing something or all the concepts are allocated accordingly and how long can you spend in giving a response.

• Draft your Answers

Before you actually start writing, take some time to plan how you will answer the question. Sketch out an answer with arguments and thesis statements.

• Meta-Cognitive and Sign Posting

Now it’s time to draft your answers and the 5 paragraph structure will help you out. Start with an introduction paragraph and then write the rest of your answer. Use a lot of sign posting and try to be meta-cognitive in your answer. Take each paragraph to tell what every section will do and why. If your thoughts change slightly, go back and change it.

Use the first sentence as a mini introduction for each paragraph and tie it with the thesis statement and highlight what you are going to do in each paragraph. This entire plan acts as a road map to help you focus on a topic if you are running out of time.

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.

Academic Writing scares a lot of students and people even if they have good ideas to share. Others are told that they just have to write better without any help. Academic writing is not rocket science. It requires a set of skills and you can learn them easily to make your writing clean. Here are a few things that will help you aim for writing better papers and essays in the future.

Panic and Procrastinate If you are in a state of panic or procrastinate from fear then there is no point to continue writing. Sit back, take a break. It doesn’t have to be a long break; a short break would also suffice. Another 30 minutes of panic won’t help you get a better grade.  Make coffee, take a walk and deep breaths is far better option in such a situation.

Spine of the Essay Make a proper plan to write your essay. It should be a route through the topic. Thus, it is the spine of your essay. Make sure you do this step early, as it will help you decide what papers and books you must read and what you can ignore. A safe and simple spine is to focus on one thing at a time. It can be any of the main topics of your essay. Take that one idea or theory at a time and write everything that needs to be shared. The best option will be to take out topics, structure your arguments, and discuss all the material heading by heading. A spine of topics and ideas helps more than just describing the particular idea. It also highlights a lot of other important points as well. This can also help you explore through your content and analyze all the topics and measure their differences.

First Draft

Write the first draft of your essay for yourself to work out what you think is right. Make a second draft for the reader who has no clue what you want to share. Here are a few tips to make this process easy:

• Make a list of everyday tasks for writing your essay. Don’t go to other section or topics in between. If you are worried about missing an important point, make a note of it.
• Put the first draft away for a few days, change the font or swap it with a friend to get away from it.
• Write the second draft on the sense of distancing yourself from the first draft. Write it in such a way that a person who doesn’t know about this essay understands. The reader must stay with you throughout the spine.
• Finish it by going through slips and typos. Check all the references correctly and tidy up all the loose ends.

Read Aloud

Read your essay out loud to see if your brain understands the sense of your writing and ideas. Shape up its rhythm and sentences in a flow. You mind or tongue will trip if any sentence does not make sense. Reading aloud is your friends because you can catch typos, punctuation and gaps.
Writing your Conclusion

The conclusion is the general idea or the big idea of the entire essay. Write it in such a way that it emerges through different stages, but make sure that all the questions are answered. Don’t add a new idea in your conclusion even if you really want to do it. If you think it is absolutely necessary to add that idea, go to the body and fit it there.

Forming sentences

• Keep all the main phrases towards the beginning of each sentence. Don’t make the reader wait too long to figure out who did what.
• Don’t construct your sentences in passive voice even when you leave out “I”.
• Don’t use hidden metaphors. In some sentences, metaphors are hidden and they don’t make sense at all. They may be figurative words which are not metaphors completely but such words confuse the reader. Thus, it is better to avoid using hidden metaphors.