Category Archives: Academic Writing

The “Don’ts” of Writing an Academic Paper

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Writing an academic paper can be tricky if you aren’t familiar with the conventions and standards that are expected of articles and essays in this genre. Here, we provide some basic tips on things to avoid in this type of writing.

Don’t Skimp on the Citations

When it comes to academic writing, adequate referencing is everything. Citing your sources is an integral part of avoiding plagiarism and ensuring the academic rigor of your work. It also helps to contextualize your paper in the field, and show that you have done your background work and know which gaps your paper sets out to fill. In addition, it’s important to style the in-text citations, the reference list, and other aspects (such as figures, tables, and overall formatting) according to your school’s preferences, or the preferences of the journal you are submitting to. A professional editing company (such as ours!) can help with this aspect.

Don’t Forget to Ask Peers to Read Your Paper

One of the most common mistakes among academic writers is forgetting to ask peers in their field to look at their paper. Asking trusted colleagues and mentors to read your work is a great way to get feedback on both the content and the clarity of your paper. These readers might discover an important part of the argument that you’ve missed, notice a piece of cited research that has been discredited, or be able to suggest ways to make your study even more robust. It’s often a good idea to start a group of trusted peers who read each other’s work regularly, so you know who to turn to when you need it and are frequently exposed to other writing styles and research.

Don’t Write in a Convoluted Style

Academic writers often get caught up in the jargon of their specialized field, using complex sentence structures and overly verbose discussions that can throw the average reader off. Not only is it important to remember your audience, but writing in a clear, to-the-point style will help to ensure readers can get to the heart of your argument without having to pick through lots of unnecessary verbiage and irrelevant detail.

Don’t Skip the Professional Proofreading

Hiring a professional proofreader is a great decision when it comes to academic writing. A proofreader will check your paper for clarity, grammatical and spelling mistakes, and use of English, as well as ensuring your work conforms to the relevant style guidelines. Having your work proofread before you submit it can help to increase the readability and professionalism of your paper overall, and ensure that reviewers, editors, or professors are able to assess the work itself, rather than being distracted or even put off by clumsy writing, stylistic errors, or spelling mistakes.

Goodbye Procrastination! Five Tips for Getting things Done

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No matter where you are in your academic journey, getting things done can be difficult. Life gets in the way, your motivation drains, and suddenly you find it difficult to meet impending deadlines or finish important projects. This is especially true when it comes to writing—no matter whether you’re working on a grant proposal or a PhD thesis, writing and procrastination go hand in hand. We hope these tips will help you find your motivation and start checking things off your to-do list.

1. Get Your Priorities Straight

No matter how much you plan, throughout the day new things pop up and start to overload your schedule. Whether it’s a software issue that needs to be fixed, an errand that needs to be run, or a lengthy email that needs to be answered, these small tasks can add up and can even contribute to procrastination. To counter this, it’s important to set firm boundaries. What absolutely needs to be done today, and what can wait? On the other hand, maybe you have a few tasks on your list that will only take a couple of minutes to complete, in which case it can be helpful to follow the mantra “If it takes two minutes, do it now”—in other words, go ahead and get these done immediately so you can tick them off.

2. Break Tasks Down

Writing “finish thesis” on your to-do list may not be the best way to complete such a mammoth undertaking. Instead, think about the different sub-tasks that make up this overarching goal, and create lists from there; for example, your sub-tasks may include “create research questionnaire,” “gather prior works for literature review,” “ask supervisor about revised title,” or “finish writing introduction.” From there, think about what you can realistically get done today. It may be that asking your supervisor about your title will only take a few minutes and can be done right away, then you’ll definitely have time to create your questionnaire, and tomorrow you will finish writing your introduction. Breaking the overall task down into bite-sized chunks in this way not only makes the entire thing less daunting, but also gives you much more regular “wins” in the form of completed tasks, which will help keep you motivated.

3. Know that Delegation is Your Friend

If you come across a task that you don’t have time to do or don’t want to do, another option may be to delegate it to someone else. Delegating can be hard because it involves asking others for help, letting go of control over the task at hand, and possibly spending money. But this strategy is a great way to get a load off your plate and allow you to focus on your project or paper, which can be well worth the resources invested in getting the help you need. Delegating tasks can be as simple as asking a partner to pick up some household chores, or paying someone to run an errand, but with specific regard to academic work a company such as Stickler can help with aspects such as putting your reference list in the correct style, adding an automated table of contents, or ensuring every formatting and style requirement stipulated by your university is followed.

4. Give Yourself Deadlines

Deadlines are one of the most powerful tools for motivating yourself and breaking the cycle of procrastination. Even if a project you’re working on doesn’t have a set due date per se, creating one can provide just the right amount of pressure to help you focus and get things done. That said, self-determined due dates can be tricky if there is nothing holding you to them. Consider getting an “accountability buddy” in the form of friend or colleague, with whom you have regular check-ins in which you each share your work and report on whether you’ve accomplished your respective goals. Even something as simple as knowing you’ll have to report any failures to your accountability buddy can work wonders for your productivity.

5. Don’t Let Planning Take Over!

It is possible to spend so much time trying to prioritize tasks and create lists that you end up being counterproductive and still not focusing on the task you should be working on. So remember not to focus too much on the planning and prioritizing; the key to productivity is finding the right balance of motivation and focus that works for you and your schedule.

Getting Your Article Published: Tips for Non-Native English Speakers

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“The volume of scientific research being published is constantly increasing, making it harder and harder to get a manuscript accepted. Language quality plays a particularly important role in guaranteeing the success of a submission.”—Elsevier

“Every year hundreds of papers are rejected due to English language editing requirements.”—Wiley

Whether you’re a student or a seasoned academic, getting your work published in a respectable journal is important in furthering your academic career. However, you might be facing frustrating barriers if you are not a native English speaker, since most top-tier English-language journals want articles to be well written, using appropriate and correct academic terminology, before they will even consider publishing them. Across the board, research shows that articles written in clear English are more likely to get published than those in another language or in poor-quality English (Di Bitetti & Ferraras, 2016). In fact, English proficiency is a good predictor of publication output in top journals, even more than total research spending (Man et al., 2004).

Below are a few tips specifically aimed at non-native English speakers, which can get you closer to seeing your work appear in your ideal journal.

Stay Patient and Be Persistent

Nobody becomes an expert in the English language overnight. Mastering a second or foreign language, especially when it comes to academic terms and jargon, takes time and effort. Be patient with yourself and don’t be afraid to take risks and make mistakes. Even having articles rejected from journals can be useful, as this will give you a feel for what editors think about your research and the standard of your overall communication. If you’re not getting the acceptances that you want, take a look at what the editors are saying in their feedback. Study their comments and think about how you can apply them to the next iteration of your writing.

Collaborate with Others

If you find yourself struggling to write in English, a great way to overcome this is by seeking out native English speakers to collaborate with. Reach out to colleagues or other researchers in your field and find potential ways that you can work together to publish work based on shared interests. Collaborating with other professionals is not only a great way to enrich your work overall, but also gives you the chance to learn from native speakers how to strike the right tone, and to pick up some of the terms that frequently crop up in academic writing.

Imitate the Style of Authors You Admire

There’s no better way to practice your English writing skills than to imitate those whose work you admire. Try to find some articles whose style you like and that have been published in your target journals, and examine the ways in which the author utilizes language. How do the words flow together? What tense is the writing in? How does the author structure their sentences? How is punctuation used? Studying other work you respect can help you get a better understanding of how native English functions and give you a formula that you can work from.

Hire a Professional Editing Service

You knew we would get here eventually! But we make no apologies for this point—almost all top-rated journals recommend having your paper edited by a professional prior to submission. For example, Wiley (one of the world’s leading journal publishers) state the following on their website:

“If you are not a native English-language speaker, we strongly recommend that you have your manuscript professionally edited before submission.”

Professional editing services can help to ensure that:

  • your article proceeds in a logical manner;
  • academic and statistical terms have been used correctly;
  • spelling is consistent and correct; and
  • there are no typos, grammatical mistakes, or awkward phrasing.

In other words, we can make sure that the text reads as though written by a native English speaker. We know exactly what journals are looking for when it comes to tone and academic language standards, and will also check that your work meets all journal style requirements.

Now through August 31st, we’re offering new customers $20.00 off our proofreading/copy editing services! Just enter the promo code Summerblog20 when you submit your work.*

 *Cannot be combined with any other offer, and applies to documents of at least 3,000 words. New customers only. Discount expires at midnight PST on August 31, 2019. 

Tips for Writing a Great Response Letter to Journal Reviewers

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As discussed in our previous post, How to get Published in a Journal: From Writing, to Peer Review, to Acceptance, once you submit your work for publication there are several possible outcomes: your work might be accepted for publication, accepted on condition that certain changes are made, rejected but with the possibility for you to resubmit pending certain changes, or rejected with no opportunity for resubmission. If the journal asks for edits and revision to your work, it’s important not only to implement the changes, but also to write an appropriate and professional response to the journal reviewers.

Sleep On It

Sometimes it can be difficult to see where changes need to be made in your manuscript if you’re too close to it, so taking some time away from both the feedback and your manuscript—to the extent reasonable based on the deadline for resubmission, of course—can be incredibly helpful. In other words, rather than responding immediately, which can lead to defensiveness and knee-jerk responses, try to allow yourself some time to process the feedback, and perhaps read it over again with fresh eyes after a day or two have passed.

Be Respectful and Polite

Sometimes it can be difficult to see eye to eye with a reviewer, especially when it comes to a piece of work you’ve spent so much time and energy on. Keep in mind also that not every reviewer will be an expert in the precise niche to which your work belongs (though they will be representative of the journal’s general audience), so it’s perfectly acceptable to disagree with a point they’ve made. No matter what your response to their feedback, though, remember to always be respectful and polite in your response letter. If you do disagree on some points, outline in an objective and professional manner why you have chosen not to follow their advice, and back up your explanations with reference to extant research where possible and appropriate. It’s also important to remember that if a reviewer has failed to understand something in your writing, it is more likely a fault of your work, or clarity of expression, than their lack of intellect, so always think carefully and objectively before you reject a reviewer’s advice.

Respond to All Comments

Taking time to sit and reread the reviewer’s response to your work will help you make sure you haven’t missed any crucial comments. One of the most common complaints from reviewers is that writers don’t take the time to respond to each and every one of their comments and critiques, and often skip over or completely ignore certain points they’ve raised. If you don’t agree with a comment or find an edit particularly difficult, it’s never a good idea to avoid it by ignoring it altogether. It might take some work on your part to understand the comment or request the reviewer is making, but taking the time to do so will help make your writing stronger.

Quote Changes Directly

When writing your response letter, it’s important to make it easy for the editor and reviewers to follow the edits you’ve made. One of the best ways you can do this is by directly quoting their suggestion in your letter, and, underneath each point, clearly outlining the actions you have taken. It’s also useful to explicitly identify the changes that you have made to your manuscript. You can do this by directly citing page numbers and specific sections, and even pulling extracts from your revised manuscript and pairing them with the reviewer’s own comments so that they can see the ways your manuscript now reflects the edits requested.

Write Multiple Drafts of Your Response

Just as you’ve probably gone through multiple drafts of your manuscript to ensure that it is a strong as possible and meets all journal style requirements, your response letter should be reviewed several times. Writing the first draft of your response freely will give you a space to vent your frustrations and get a better understanding of what, exactly, the reviewers are asking of you. In the second draft take out any emotion, and make sure every point you make is objective, professional, and respectful.

Don’t forget, in addition to editing your paper we can proofread your response letter to editors and reviewers to make sure it’s not only error free, but strikes the right tone.

How to get Published in a Journal: From Writing, to Peer Review, to Acceptance

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Getting your work published in esteemed journals (also known as “periodicals”) is a necessary and important part of academic life, but the process can seem daunting and even confusing at first. Below, we break down the broad strokes of how to get from blank screen to printed article.

First, you have to write

The first step is of course to write a credible article that adds to your field. The writing process involves gathering your research and findings and creating an article that is both informative and engaging. You might work with colleagues to help with research or even co-author your work, and you’ll need to set a definitive objective for your paper. Before you start writing the paper itself, it’s also a good idea to define the audience for your work.

Once you’ve settled on these things, you can start to identify suitable target journals. Researching the different publications in your field and that relate to your objectives and target audience is a good place to start, but you also want to make sure that you’re submitting to recognized and respected journals. The impact factor can help here, but also make sure you look for periodicals that are “peer reviewed” (more on this below).

Once you’ve selected your first-choice journal, and have written your manuscript, you’ll need to polish it up and make sure it conforms to the journal’s style guidelines.

Next, submit to your chosen journal

Once you feel confident in your writing and it meets the criteria mentioned in the section above, it’s time to submit. At this point, assuming you’ve submitted to a high-quality journal, your work will be peer reviewed.

What is peer review?

The peer review process has been around since the 1700s. It entails other academics appraising scholarly work that has been submitted for publication to confirm its quality, which endorses its legitimacy, and to weed out plagiarized or illegitimate work.

The editor of the journal will send your work to a variety of academics in your field (your peers—hence, “peer review”). These scholars will provide feedback to the editor, and, based on their comments, the editor will determine whether your work should be published at this stage. When reviewing your work, reviewers and editors typically want to see that it acknowledges and builds on other work in your field, relies on logical reasoning and well-designed research, and backs up claims with evidence. It must also be well written, conform to the journal’s style guidelines, and have a clear structure.

If you don’t get unconditional acceptance, take on board any feedback and resubmit, or try a different journal

There are several possible outcomes of the peer review stage: your work might be accepted for publication, accepted on condition that certain changes are made, rejected but with the possibility for you to resubmit pending certain changes, or rejected with no opportunity for resubmission. The idea of having your work peer reviewed—and possibly criticized—can feel intimidating, but it’s also a great chance to learn and to enhance your research. Bear in mind also that the submission process is a highly competitive one, and most journals only accept 6–8% of the work sent to them. If you do have to revise your manuscript, take this as an opportunity to strengthen your research, rather than as a personal criticism or a dead end.

If you are asked to revise and resubmit, you’ll typically need to accompany your amended manuscript with a cover letter that details the changes made in response to each point made by the reviewers. It’s important that you take this step seriously and carefully consider the feedback and comments given to you, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to incorporate or agree with all the suggestions given. If you do disagree, just be sure to explain in the letter, clearly, politely, and drawing on any relevant evidence, why you have chosen not to follow the reviewer’s advice.

If you receive a rejection, don’t just blindly submit to another journal. Take a step back and ask yourself whether your research could be strengthened in some way; if you’re confident in what you’ve written, move on to the next journal—but do make sure you make any adjustments necessary to meet the new journal’s style guidelines. This might entail, for example, changing the referencing system from APA to Harvard, or making amendments to the language used. We can of course help to make sure your article is styled for your target publication at any stage of the process.

The road to acceptance can be long and arduous; even after acceptance it can sometimes take a year for the work to actually be published. But being published in a peer reviewed journal (as opposed to one that does not incorporate peer review) is a huge accomplishment, because it signals to others that your work is legitimate, meets the standards of your field, and has been accepted and trusted by other respected scholars. Getting published in an esteemed and widely circulated periodical also means that people will read your work, study it, and further their own scholarship and careers because of it.

Don’t forget, in addition to editing your paper we can help you apply style guidelines, get your reference list into shape, and proofread your response letter to make sure it’s not only error free, but strikes the right tone. Get in touch for a quote!

Grant application

How to get Funding for Academic Research

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Research is a vital part of any academic’s career, and getting the money to fund that research is essential. But getting funding, no matter what field you’re in, can be tricky and intimidating. With so many resources out there, how do you know which one to choose? And how do you know the best way to move forward once you’ve chosen one? Below you’ll find some ideas on how to get started on your funding journey.

Learn how to Write Grant Applications

Funding and grant applications (also known as funding/grant proposals) go hand in hand, so it’s a good idea to put some time into learning how to write applications. Fund application writing is a genre of its own that often involves technical jargon and specific formats that can be confusing if you’ve never written one before. Many institutions, such as libraries and universities, offer grant application classes to the public. You can also look for real-world experience by asking if there are any grant writing opportunities at your job, or if a colleague has experience successfully writing funding applications for their own research. The sooner you become familiar and comfortable with writing grant proposals, the sooner you can start applying for funding.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has a great resource on writing grant proposals, and we can also help proofread and generally shape up your application once it’s written.

Create a Budget

Most funding applications include a section on how you plan to spend the money you’re seeking. Sitting down and actually creating a budget is key to understanding all of the necessities you might need funds for as you conduct your research. Obvious costs include travel, lodging, and food, but you may also need to allocate some cash to areas such as conducting focus groups, compensating participants, bringing in experts in your field, or hiring the services of a market research company. Make sure you read the requirements and guidelines for each funding application you’re working on, because different sources of funding will have different stipulations regarding what you can and cannot use the money for. Talking with colleagues, professors, and other researchers in your field can give you a better idea of what type of budget makes the most sense for your research.

You can find a couple of budget examples here.

Provide Value for Money

When applying for funding, it’s always important to keep in mind the value that your research will bring to specific organizations and your field as a whole. By closely reading the guidelines on funding applications, you can get a better sense of what they’re looking for in terms of research and project value. Use your application as a way to highlight the importance of your subject, and what your research will contribute to the field you’re in. When funding sources have a clear understanding of what they can expect in return for giving you money, they are more likely to fund your project.

Get Feedback

If you’re at an academic institution, chances are there’s someone around you who has experience applying for funding. Use the resources at hand to get as much feedback as possible on your application. Keep in mind that your application will often not be reviewed by experts in your field, and needs to be clear and make sense to every reader. For this reason, it’s also important to utilize resources outside of academia to ensure your proposal is as strong as it can be, and that typos or poor wording don’t undermine its chances of success. Again, we can help with this stage!

Plagiarism: What it is and How to Avoid it

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Whether you’re writing academic papers or completing your thesis or dissertation, you’ve probably come across the topic of plagiarism at some point in your writing career. Plagiarism is a big deal, especially in academia—so much so that nearly every educational institute in the world has a policy regarding plagiarism, and often one that involves serious consequences for those who commit it.

Plagiarism, as defined by the New Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language, is “the unauthorized use of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own” (508).

6 Types of Plagiarism

There are six distinct types of plagiarism that cover the unauthorized use of ideas and words in different mediums and formats. Gaining a better understanding of these different forms of plagiarism can help you know how to spot them and avoid using them in your own writing.

Verbatim Plagiarism—Copying and pasting another author’s words without giving them the proper credit.

Mosaic Plagiarism—Mixing one’s own words with those of an uncredited source.

Paraphrasing—Restating someone else’s ideas in your own words.

Self Plagiarism—Using your own ideas or words as a source, which, while not a form of theft per se, is a form of dishonesty and still equates to plagiarism.

Cyber Plagiarism—Using a downloaded version of an author’s article or publication and not citing it properly.

Image Plagiarism—Using an image or video without first receiving permission.

How to Avoid Plagiarism

Plagiarism should be avoided at all costs. Not only is it dishonest and a form of theft, it can lead to serious consequences for your academic or professional career. Many institutes and publications have a zero-tolerance policy on plagiarism and will not give you a second chance if you’re caught out. Plagiarism can also ruin your reputation as a credible and trustworthy writer and researcher. Sounds scary, but with some due diligence and attention to detail, you can easily avoid the pitfalls. Here are some of the golden rules.

Learn how to quote and paraphrase correctly—You can usually use as many sources and words from other authors as makes sense for your work, as long as you know how to quote and paraphrase them in the right way. This means always making it clear in your writing that the ideas you’re using are not yours.

Always cite your sources—Citations are how you give credit to other authors’ ideas and thoughts. But citing your sources isn’t enough to avoid plagiarism by itself; you also have to do so correctly. This means following one of the several citation formats that aligns with your discipline. MLA, APA, Harvard, and Chicago are a few popular ones. If you’re not sure which system you should be following, check with your school or the journal you’re planning to submit to.

Get your work checked—One of our jobs as professional editors is to check that all necessary citations are present, adequate, and correctly styled. We can also run plagiarism checks using dedicated software that checks your work against a database of academic sources, highlights any potential issues, and notes the potentially plagiarized documents, making it easy to address the problems as needed.

For more on this topic, check out our August 2016 article, “What’s Mine Is Mine, What’s Yours Is Mine”: A Quick Reminder about Plagiarism.

Writer's block

5 Inspirational Quotes to Help You Overcome Writer’s Block

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Writer’s block is a serious issue that affects authors and academics of every discipline. Whether you’re writing a thesis, an essay, or a novel, feeling stuck can hinder your progress and kill your motivation. Luckily, many other famous and successful writers have dealt with this issue and have tips on how to conquer it. If you’re currently dealing with a bout of writer’s block, let these words of wisdom help you overcome it and get going again.

Get Over Blank Page Syndrome

“Unfortunately, many people suffer from BPS—Blank Page Syndrome. Let’s face it: starting to write is scary. Seeing the cursor blinking at you on that bright white screen, realizing that you now have to come up with three or ten or twenty pages of text all on your own—it’s enough to give anyone a major case of writer’s block!”—Stefanie Weisman

As author Stefanie Weisman puts it, Blank Page Syndrome is real and can be debilitating if you don’t recognize it and work to overcome it. When you know that you have a certain page or word count to hit, being faced with a blank screen can be one of the worst things in the world. One way to get over BPS is to try writing in a range of forms. For example, if you find yourself sidetracked by all the distractions a computer has to offer, or if the blinking cursor on the blank screen is giving you anxiety, going the old fashion route with a pen and paper can help you get back in the groove. You can also try speaking your writing out loud and recording your ideas in audio that can later be transcribed into text.

Write Through the Block

“Writing about writer’s block is better than not writing at all.”—Charles Bukowski

If you’re stuck on a writing project, whether you’re just trying to get started or are somewhere in the middle, writing something is always better than writing nothing. As Bukowski put it, the best way to jumpstart your ideas is to write through the block. This could mean writing about how difficult it is to write, writing about your cat, or writing about basically any other topic—it doesn’t necessarily have to be related to your project. Just the act of writing itself can help you overcome the block.

Break it Down

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”—Mark Twain

Mark Twain was a man of organization and discipline. His suggestion for how to overcome writer’s block involves breaking down a larger task into smaller, more manageable tasks. This is a good strategy for a wide variety of large projects, but especially for writing. Any writing task, whether it’s a thesis, an essay, or a book, can be broken down into multiple steps. For example, you might think of things like research, drafting, writing the introduction, or writing each paragraph or chapter as separate steps. Then write down all of the steps in an order that makes sense and work on each step one at a time to help you feel less overwhelmed.

Persistence is Key

“You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.”—Octavia Butler

Nobody understood writer’s block better that Octavia Butler. Her words of advice involve persistence when writing, even if you feel certain that what you’re writing isn’t good. You should never be afraid to write poorly, because sometimes getting out all the bad writing is the only way to get to the good stuff. No matter how bad you think your writing is, keep at it and eventually it will get better. Persistence and determination are some of the best cures for writer’s block.

Stick to a Schedule

“I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately I am inspired at 9 o’clock every morning.”—William Faulkner

Writing is not all about the creativity and fun of the craft. It’s also about putting in the work and having the self-discipline to write every day. If you find yourself lacking motivation or struggling with writer’s block, sometimes treating writing like a job, complete with a set schedule, can help you be more productive and overcome writer’s block. Consistency and discipline of the kind alluded to by Faulkner is sometimes necessary for progressing on a large project.

Writer’s block can be a writer’s worst enemy, but it doesn’t have to be as daunting as it’s made out to be. If you’re struggling with what to write or being confronted with the blank page, looking to professional writers for advice can be helpful.

How to Reference Your Sources Like a Pro

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Referencing your sources is an important part of any academic writing process. Having correct references can lend to credibility to your arguments, and lets your readers know you’ve analyzed authoritative works in your field. Referencing correctly can lead to higher grades on your papers and allow you to avoid plagiarism.

 

Understand When Citations are Needed

When you’re working with a lot of ideas and extant literature, it can be difficult to know when a citation is needed. But it’s vital to give credit where credit’s due. These six points below can help you identify whether a source needs to be cited, and can help you avoid plagiarism when quoting or summarizing a source.

  1. Ideas that belong to a particular source—Always cite ideas or opinions that are distinctive and not your own.

 

  1. An argument or analysis with a distinctive structure—Whether you’re paraphrasing or summarizing, always cite an author’s particular approach to solving a problem or argument.

 

  1. Specific information and data—If you’re using data that you found in another source, whether it’s facts, diagrams, or statistics, you should always cite the original source and give credit to the author. This can also help your readers if they are looking for additional information from that source.

 

  1. Phrases or quotes—Verbatim phrases or quotes used by an author in their argument should always be cited and placed in quotation marks.

 

  1. Uncommon knowledge—If you mention part of an author’s work in your writing, it’s important that you cite the source even if you’re paraphrasing or not quoting the author directly. Unless the information is common knowledge or widely held opinion, a source has to be cited.

 

  1. If in doubt, cite—If you’re not quite sure whether you should cite something, it’s better to err on the side of caution. That way you don’t have to worry about plagiarism or not giving credit for the work on which your own is based.

 

Identify an Appropriate Referencing System—And Stick to it

Whether you’re working with APA, Chicago, Harvard, MLA, or the myriad other referencing systems available, it’s important that you identify the appropriate one and stick to it. Failing to do so can lead to docking of marks or rejection from your target publication.

The referencing system you use can depend on your field of study, your faculty’s/target publication’s preference, or your paper’s format. Most schools and journals will tell you which style to follow, but if not, consistency is key (some journals, for example, are happy for papers to adhere to any style at submission, provided it’s consistent).

Style guides will help you stay on track and avoid combining different systems, but a professional academic editing service can also polish this up for you—at Stickler, for example, applying referencing styles is a core part of our work.

 

Take Good Notes

One of the keys to referencing effectively is to take good notes. These notes should include important information about your research, including a detailed record of the literature used. Every time you find a source that you might use in your paper, jot down the relevant information based on the style you’re following. Having everything organized and gathering the necessary information as you go will save you a lot of time and step-retracing as you write your paper.

 

Always Get a Second Pair of Eyes

As mentioned above, it’s always a good idea to get a second pair of eyes on your references and citations before submitting your project. In addition to ensuring that your specific referencing system has been applied correctly, we offer plagiarism checks to catch any similarities between your paper and extant work that might require a citation.

The Pomodoro Method

The Pomodoro Method—Improve Your Productivity Levels

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Scientists believe that, thanks to technology, the human attention span is now less than that of a goldfish. If you’ve ever had a hard time focusing while studying or writing, a short attention span can be to blame. While there’s not a lot we can do to change our shortening attention spans, there are a few proven techniques that can help you stay focused and improve your productivity levels. Being productive is all about staying away from distractions and keeping your head in your work. The Pomodoro Method of productivity encourages you to take regular breaks while you’re working, in order to stay focused. Keep reading to learn more about the Pomodoro Method and how you can use it to improve your productivity levels.

What is the Pomodoro Method?

Developed in the 1980s by Francesco Cirillo, this time-management technique gets its name from the common tomato-shaped kitchen timer. The system operates on the belief that by dividing your work and breaks into regular, short increments you can avoid feeling overwhelmed by looming tasks while also preventing burn out. Today, it’s a widespread method that’s used by professionals in a variety of fields, from science and technology to writing and academia.

How Does it Work?

  1. Set a timer for 25 minutes, and start your task. You don’t have to use a traditional kitchen timer, of course—there are several apps and websites that were specifically developed to be used with this method.
  2. If a distraction pops into your head, write it down on a piece of paper and return to your task.
  3. When the buzzer rings, put a checkmark on your paper. You’ve completed one increment, also known as a pomodoro.
  4. Take a five-minute break. During this time you can check the distractions that popped into your head, stretch, grab a cup of tea, and so on.
  5. After four pomodoros, take a 30-minute break.
  6. Repeat!

How Does the Pomodoro Method Improve Your Productivity?

Although taking frequent breaks may seem counterproductive, in reality they help keep your mind fresh and focused. The official Pomodoro website says, “You will probably begin to notice a difference in your work or study process within a day or two. True mastery of the technique takes from seven to twenty days of constant use.” By keeping up with the Pomodoro method, you should see steady improvements in your productivity.

 

Whether you’re working on a short project, studying for an exam, or writing something longer, like a thesis, the Pomodoro Method can help you get through projects faster by forcing you to adhere to strict timing. Watching the timer go down can give you the motivation you need to finish up a task before the clock runs out. The constant timing of your work also makes you more accountable for your tasks and minimizes the time you spend procrastinating. Instead of trying to ignore distractions completely, by carving out a specific time for yourself to address distractions you can actually be more productive in the long run.