I am sooo disorganised with everything, and it isn't good lol, and I know I need to get myself more organised now so that when I start the second year it is kind of routine.

So, how do you orgainse things like making sure you start essays early...rather than a few days before they are due in? I do my reaearch early enough, it is just the writing I find hard to get on with.

How do you make sure you can find that article you know you have read, but when you need it you just can't find it? I find i have to trawl through all my books and journals to find what I want...although they are all in order on my shelves I can still spend hours looking for something.

Any and all advice welcome, before I go completely mad lol.

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Midwifemissy x

Student Midwife 2007
Student uni rep
Educational Resources Manager

Please help us raise funds for a bereavement room in Honey's memory by taking part in the SMNET Auction & Raffle here thanks x

Ah, I know the feeling!! We all start with good intentions but it's hard to keep them up! When you read something in a book/journal that makes you stop and think 'this could be useful', mark the page with one of those little Post-It notes, with a word or two summing up the content OR which assignment you think it might be useful for.

I find I have the same problem with the writing. I always think, 'this time I'll start straight away' but it usually overlaps with another assignment that's due in before the one I've just been given. The best thing is to start drafting an assignment asap, I find. Even if it doesn't make a lot of sense to begin with, the more you write then the more detail you can get down. Then it's a matter of editing until you're happy you've got the final draft. Sometimes I know next to nothing about a subject - I'll read maybe three related book chapters and start writing. Sometimes I lift paragraphs directly from books BUT I always MARK THEM with a line like 'directly lifted from such-and-such' so that I know I need to paraphrase it and don't use work that is not my own.

I think, at the end of the day, everyone finds a way that works for them. No matter how much some tutors would like us to all learn and study in the same way, it just doesn't work!! For instance, I find I work best if I work in the middle of the night/early morning and if I write everything up in long-hand first!

The one thing I will say is every time you read a book/journal/web page, make clear notes for your references. There's nothing more annoying than borrowing a book from the library, coming to the end of your essay and realising you haven't got the date it was published! Meantime, another students borrowed it and you then have to trawl the internet to find the details you ommitted!!!! VERY annoying! :-)

Hope this is of some help!! Best of luck!

Felicity x

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My name means Happiness - how about you?

That's great advice thanks Felicity, I will certianly try that, it sounds much better and easier than how I have been doing it.

I have had so many nightmares with references, sometimes my reference list takes longer to put together than the assignment lol. I have started to keep a proper list as I go along, then it just needs typing up, so I guess that is one bit of organisation I have learnt lol.

__________________
Midwifemissy x

Student Midwife 2007
Student uni rep
Educational Resources Manager

Please help us raise funds for a bereavement room in Honey's memory by taking part in the SMNET Auction & Raffle here thanks x