By the end of this study skills guide, I hope you'll be better-able to:

• Diagnose for yourself "excuses" for not working, rather than calling them "reasons"!
  
  
• Be prepared to slot in short spells of work in all sorts of places, and at various times of day.
  
  
• When starting some independent work, get started right away, rather than doing all sorts of other little jobs first!
  
  
• Take on the responsibility of doing your work independently and systematically.
  
  
• Distinguish between WORK and work.

This study skills guide is to help you get your act together. That's why I'll be asking you a lot of questions in this study skills guide. In each case, I want you to write in your own answer to each question in turn. I'd like you then to turn to my response to the question in the latter half of this study skills guide. There you'll find what I may have said to you if I'd seen the answers you wrote in. (In fact, my responses make up nearly half of this study skills guide - so please do your bit and tackle the questions seriously!)

In my study skills guide on "Lectures: how best to handle them" I explore the time you spend in lectures, and suggest ways for you to use more of this time getting some learning done. However, in any university course, it's still true to say that more depends on the work you do under your own steam, than on the hours of formal tuition of various sorts you have. You need to be able to fit independent studying of various sorts into your lifestyle. You also need to make your independent studying efficient. This means getting value for the time and effort you spend, and it also means saving time and energy. "How can I fit in all this work?" you may be thinking. Well, there are 24 hours in a day, seven days in a week! Of course you can't work all the time! You need to eat, sleep, relax, and play too. But it's surprising just how much useful work can be slotted into even the busiest of schedules, if you are keen enough. Keen enough to what? Obviously keen enough to succeed - you wouldn't be at university if you weren't keen to succeed, now would you? But you also need to be keen enough to make your studying as efficient as possible - to spare yourself long hours of hard slog as exams get nearer, and to give yourself the sense of satisfaction and easy conscience that comes with knowing that you're doing your bit. It's no use sitting back and hoping that your brain is automatically doing all your work for you. You need to be able to know how you're doing. More about this later; first let's have a look at how you're working at present. (If you've not yet started your course, think ahead for the purpose of the activity below, and mentally tune in to "how you'll be doing", for example, a few weeks into your course).

Let's see what your answers are to the following questions. Write them in honestly below each of the questions, go right from (1) to (13), then turn and look at what I've said about each question in the response to this activity at the end of this study skills guide.

(1) Have you established a regular study schedule?

(2) If not, should you have a regular study schedule?

(3) Where is the best place for you to work?

(4) Do you waste time finding the bits and pieces before you start working?

(5) Is your desk or table cluttered?

(6) Are you doing enough reading?

(7) When is the best time to work?

8) How long do you need to spend to do some useful work?

(9) What do you do with odd bits of time - eg train journeys?

10) Do you sit watching television, with a guilty conscience?

11) Do you worry about how much work other people are doing?

(12) Do you check that you are really working, as you study?

(13) Are you doing sufficient work?

Of course, we are all different people. Our answers to all the questions above will be different. What matters, though, is that your answer to each of these questions is enough to satisfy your conscience. You will know whether this is so - I hope my comments in the activity response helped you find out. But before we leave, one more question. "How can you tell whether you're doing sufficient work?" It's not just a matter of conscience, in fact there are ways for you to tell whether you're doing enough. WORK and work! What do I mean? Two kinds of work, one "capital-letter" work, and one "small-letter" work? Yes, indeed, though of course there is some "middle ground" between the two. Let's define the two kinds of work as follows:

"WORK":

• "Really getting to grips with your subject material".
  
  
• Making sure things stick (Retention).
  
  
• Making sure you can get them back (Recall).
  
  
• Making sure you can give them back (Communication)
  
  
• Active thinking, such as comparing, contrasting, summarising, and so on.

"work":

• Various things you do, where not that much learning really happens.
  
  
• Things that take quite a bit of time, but where much of what you think about at the time vanishes!

Well, let's see if we can be a bit more specific. Or, rather, let's see if you can tell which is which? Try the following activity.

Try to list the following activities under the respective headings for the two kinds of "work": WORK OR work

. writing essays

. writing reports

. doing homework

. doing literature searches

. rewriting lecture notes

. summarising lecture notes

. making question banks

. preparing a seminar

. practising answering questions

. devising mnemonics


Were you surprised at certain kinds of work ending up in the "lesser" category? So, granted that there's middle ground, and that even "small letter" work includes a bit of the mightier variety, let's press on. I'd like you to have another look at the two main kinds of activity. Try the next activity.

Look at the activities below. We've already discussed what sort of work they are. This time, look for one further difference between the two lists. A difference between these two lists is that:

. summarising lecture notes

. making question banks

. practising answering questions

. devising mnemonics

. writing essays

. writing reports

. doing homework

. doing literature searches

. reading

. rewriting lecture notes

. preparing a seminar

Were you right? Of course, there's another difference you may have noticed, besides the one I mentioned in my response. Which of the two kinds of work most influences your exam performance? The answer is obvious, isn't it? It's the "capitalletter" variety. So, we've got the danger that all the "small-letter" work looks after itself, because of the various pressures you're under to get it done. How can we make sure that the real work gets done as well?

Which of the following strategies may be best at making sure that WORK gets done? And why?

(a) "After writing an essay or writing a report, or doing some reading: do 15 minutes WORK." (b) "Plan study periods deliberately left for unsolicited WORK, and nothing else." (c) "Do 15 minutes of WORK every time before settling down to write an essay, or a report, or reading."
Obviously, you don’t have to stick to just 15 minutes of WORK. However, I hope my point is clear? The “urgent” jobs will look after themselves. It’s the “non-urgent” things where we have to build strategies to make sure we cope with them - or else they may never get done! WORK is rarely urgent. However, it is probably the most important thing for you to do enough of.

I hope you’re now feeling that there’s a lot you can do about getting your act together. I hope you’re now more conscious of how much is in your control. Let’s have one more look at he objectives of this study skills guide, and this time I’d like you to tick the ones you now feel you’ve cracked! I hope you now feel able to:

• Diagnose for yourself “excuses” for not working, rather than calling them “reasons”!
• Be prepared to slot in short spells of work in all sorts of places, and at various times of day.
• When starting some independent work, get started right away, rather than doing all sorts of other little jobs first!
• Take on the responsibility of doing your work independently and systematically.
• Distinguish between WORK and work!

I have still one further task for you before you finish this study skills guide. I’d like you to make an “Action Plan”. (They say “to fail to plan is to plan to fail!”) You’re now in a position to make your own personal action plan, knowing what your strengths and weaknesses are. Having a plan - even if rough and ready - is a good start towards changing any habits which need to be changed - or adopting new (more productive) habits.

You may have diagnosed for yourself some areas for improvement. If so, well done; once you know what the problems are, you're in a good position to start working at them. It's when you have no idea what the problems are that you really have a problem! After thinking about your study habits, you may now be thinking of some things you wish to build into your everyday study routines, both in university and outside. List below the two most important changes that you think will help you, regarding your study plans. 1:

2:

Now list 2 things you're determined to avoid in future! 1:

2:

Now, if you can, get someone else to sign and date your Action Plan. It's best to choose someone who will be able to see whether you are living up to your intentions, and who will remind you about your plan if you fall short. Alternatively, pin a copy of your Action Plan somewhere where you can't help seeing it every day!

Activity 1

Now I hope you’ve answered the 13 questions in Activity 1 h o n e s t l y. I’d like you now to go through the questions comparing your answers with my responses. Do this one at a time please. You’ll find the questions were not as simple as they looked–sorry about that!

(1) “Have you established a regular study schedule?”


If your answer was “yes”, you’re probably feeling quite pleased with yourself. If your answer was “no”, have you got a good reason for your answer? (Be careful that your “reason” isn’t just an “excuse”– you’ll know if it is!). Whatever your answer, go now to question
(2), because that’s tied up very much with question (1).

(2) “If not, should you have a regular study schedule?”

Did you say “yes”? It’s amazing how many people who say “no” to question (1), say “yes” to question (2). If you’re among them - I’m sorry but I’ve conned you!!! The question I was really asking you was question (13) on the list: “are you doing sufficient work?” And have you not just admitted “no”? If you’ve got a nagging conscience about not doing sufficient work, it’s easy to “blame” it on things like “not having a regular schedule”. But the cause of the trouble is deeper, isn’t it? Let’s now look back at questions (1) and (2) for what they actually asked - to be, or not to be: regular. In fact it doesn’t matter very much at all. Some of us work best by having regular schedules. Others work best in fits and starts. So what? If the answer to “Are you doing sufficient work?” is a resounding
“Yes” it doesn’t matter at all whether you have a regular schedule or not!

If you saw through my little ploy with questions (1) and (2), well done .

(3) “Where is the best place for you to work?”

Of course, by now you know there are tricks behind such questions! When I ask this question to a group of “live” students, there’s a predictable response. Some prefer to work in the university library. Many prefer to work “at home” (whether in digs, or hall or residence, or genuinely “at home”). Just a few will say “whenever I can”. That, of course, is the best answer. Because, no matter how efficiently you work in your favourite working place, you won’t be there all the time. In fact, having a favourite place to work can all to easily become a reason for not trying to work anywhere else. A reason? Or an excuse?

(4) “Do you waste time finding the bits and pieces before you start working?”

You know what I mean?

• Getting all the books and papers you might possibly need to hand.

• Getting pens, instruments, calculators, and so one out.

• Putting a cup of coffee at the front right-hand corner of your desk, to help sustain you during these forthcoming efforts.

• Maybe turning on the casette deck or radio at the back of your desk, to give you just the right “ambience” for the work you’ll be doing.

• Opening the window a bit, to make sure your brain won’t be deprived of oxygen as you’re working.

• Turning up the central heating, because the air coming in through the window is a bit cool.

• Tidying up the rest of your room, or cleaning your shoes, or making a shopping list, or any number of things that you feel you must do before you can really get down to some work.

Do you recognise yourself above? Why do so many of us do such things? Simple: because they’re easier than:

• opening a book

• picking up a pen

• doing a little reading, THINKING, and writing!

What’s the remedy? Actually, once you recognise when you’re simply putting off the evil moment of starting work, you’re already well able to deal with those tendencies!

(5) “Is your desk or table cluttered?”

If so, what do you do? Tidy it all up? No, that could be interpreted as putting off the evil moment as in question (4) above.

So, how about pushing back the clutter a little, just enough for the one thing you are reading, and one thing to do some writing on? It doesn’t take much space. Most of us can only read one thing at a time anyway, and very few of us can write two things simultaneously!

After a few minutes, you can tidy up (though you may not feel you need to then). If you do a bit of tidying after you’ve got stuck into some work, your brain will continue to process the ideas you’ve been working with. So you’ll not be wasting your time. You’ll be thinking of more things than coffee, background sound, oxygen, and so on, even if you now do some of the things mentioned in the previous question.

6) “Are you doing enough reading?”

Again there’s something behind this question. How much of what we read do we actually remember? Not a lot! So, reading may not be all it’s cracked up to be. At the start of most courses, lecturers give you long lists of books to consult or buy. No wonder students get a guilty conscience about all the reading they aren’t managing to do.

So what’s the answer? The thing is to make sure your reading is as follows:

• active: for example, reading with a pen in your hand constantly jotting down main ideas for future reference (helping to stop you lulling yourself into sleep reading!)

• selective: making good use of the contents pages, and the index, for example, so that you quickly find the most relevant sections of material (and avoid getting sidetracked on things you don’t need to bother about). (There’s a whole section on “Active Reading” in another study skills guide in this series)

(7) “When is the best time to work?"

What did you say? Are you a “morning person, perhaps? Or a midnight-oil-burner?

What does it matter - if the answer to “are you doing sufficient work?” is “yes”. However, if the answer isn’t positive, it could be worth you experimenting with some times of the day you haven’t normally used for studying.

I don’t mean hours on end, just the odd few minutes, in some of these “untried” times of day. You may surprise yourself. It could turn out that the things you study in these unusual times stick very well. Perhaps your brain is highly receptive, even if not particularly willing, at such times. Only you can tell, and only by experimenting.

The main thing is that you don’t let your favourite times for working become your reason (excuse!) for doing nothing during other times.

(8) “How long do you need to spend to do some useful work?”

It’s another of those questions!"

Obviously, if writing an essay, or writing up some laboratory or field work, several hours may be involved altogether. However, even big tasks can often be done in small stages. So, the answer I’m really looking for is of the order of a few minutes! Did you answer something similar? If so, well done. Of course, being successful at university isn’t all to do with big tasks like essays or reports. Many useful little bits of learning only take minutes to do anyway. So, what I’m getting at is that you don’t need to wait till you’ve got a solid couple of hours available before you do some work. Waiting for that elusive two hour spell could so easily become an excuse for not doing anything in the few minutes available much more frequently.

(9) “What do you do with odd bits of time - eg train journeys?”

Read the paper? Read other peoples’ papers? Stare out of the window? Sleep? Not very productive, any of these. Did you answer that on regular journeys, you actually do a bit of work? If so, congratulations!

In fact, on regular commuter journeys to and from university, it’s surprising how receptive your brain is to a bit of stimulus. You soon get bored with the repetitive sights and sounds of the journey. If you do a small amount of learning on each journey, you may well find that it “sticks” rather well, because your brain is that bit more receptive. And of course, the time could so easily be completely wasted, so even if you only study for the odd minute or two on each journey, it’s that much more than you would have done otherwise.

(10)“Do you sit watching television, with a guilty conscience?”

Especially when exams are looming up, would yours be one of those sad faces looking at the box, not breaking into a smile however amusing the programme?

I spent eight years as a Warden of a hall of residence. I could guarantee that in late May or early June (the exam season) there’d be plenty of long faces in the television lounge! I sometimes used to “arrange” that the set broke down for half an- hour! (I could fiddle with the aerial lead in a secret duct!). When the picture was “restored”, my students would be much happier - most of them had done a little work!

The moral is simple. If your nagging conscience is preventing you from enjoying something you normally enjoy it’s time to do a bit of work. Then you can come back, and really enjoy your relaxation - maybe even as intermittent breaks between short but efficient spells of work.

(11) “Do you worry about how much work other people are doing?”

Like the previous question, this one dates back from my time as a Warden of residence. Now and then, a student would get very anxious about the amount of work done in the room next door.“I can’t sleep.” the student may complain, at 0230 hrs. “The light next door is on”.

“I can hear the pages turning!”.

No-one who could answer “Yes” to that question about doing enough work would worry about how much anyone else was doing - or seemed to be doing. Some work best in the early hours anyway. Some of us take twice as long to master something than others take. It does not matter at all, as long as we master what we need to. Exams measure what we’ve mastered, not how long it took us to do it (thankfully)

12) “Do you check that you are really working, as you study?”

Or are you a bit frightened to check back about how much you remember of what you were doing fifteen minutes ago? We can get so scared of looking back and finding out we’re forgetting it all, that we simply don’t look back. We hope it is all magically getting stored in our brains!

If the above image applies to you, I’m afraid there’s only one thing for it: you need to steel yourself, and regularly check back to see what is being retained, or what is “evaporating away”. In fact, simply finding what tends to evaporate away is useful: you then know that bit needs extra time and attention.

The best way to see what is “sticking”, and what isn’t, is to ask yourself questions. Questions that test your retention and recall, and give you the chance to practise your communication on the material involved. What could be more useful? In my study skills guide on
“Making Learning Tools” we explore this idea much further, under the heading of “Question Banks”.

(13)“Are you doing sufficient work?”

If you said “yes” to this one, great. Indeed, if so, I bet you didn’t have any problems with any of the questions in this list. When you know you’re doing sufficient work, you feel great about your studies. You enjoy life.

It’s when you can’t say “yes” to this question that problems start. All the rest of the questions in this list were, in one way or another, dealing with problems caused by guilty consciences, or“work avoidance” technique!

Summing up

I hope you found it useful comparing your answers with mine. Sorry about my deviousness! See what I mean, though, about it being mainly your responsibility? No-one but you can get your act together! I hope this long activity and response helped you see any areas where you can start putting things right.

Activity 2

Here is the way I would divide the activities into the two kinds of “work”.

Now you may be surprised to see so many things listed as small letter work. But take “writing essays” for example. Much of your time and energy tends to get spent looking things up, sorting out what to include, and physically writing. A little bit of thinking is usually accompanied by a lot of other things. Or, in other words, there’s not that much thinking per hour! The same goes for writing reports, preparing seminars, and so on. It even applies to doing homework. Once the homework (or essay, report, and so on) is done, and handed in for marking, how much of it “sticks”? How good is the retention and recall? Do you remain able to communicate it all indefinitely? Or does it slowly filter back out of your conscious memory

WORK:

• summarising lecture notes

• making question banks

• practising answering questions

• devising mnemonics

work:

• writing essays

• writing reports

• doing homework

• doing literature searches

• reading

• rewriting lecture notes

• preparing a seminar

Activity 3:

What’s that extra difference?

WORK : Things no-one will tell you to do.

work: Things people will ask you to do.

The “capital-letter” work we’re talking about is unsolicited work. The “small-letter” work is solicited.

When you’re asked to do a task, it tends to get done. People expect it. There will probably be a deadline, by which your task should be completed, or handed in. Because of such pressures, and deadlines, much of the “small-letter” work tends to look after itself - it gets done!

This can’t be said of the “capital-letter” variety. You are the only person who can apply pressure to make sure this gets done.

Activity 4

Which of the following strategies may be best at making sure that WORK gets done?

(a) “After writing an essay, or writing a report, or doing some reading: do 15 minutes WORK.”

Do you really think this will be effective? Is there not the danger that after spending a lot of time and energy on the essay, or report, you’ll say “Blow it, I’ve done enough for today!” Or time may run out on you - no time left for extra efforts.

(b) “Plan study periods deliberately left for unsolicited WORK, and nothing else.

Yes, this seems better. Indeed, it could be very effective. But it would take strong will-power. What if other things are crying out to be done, at the planned time for your “capital-letter” work? Would you be able to force yourself to let the other things wait?
Also, WORK is harder, and more tiring. Will you be able to keep concentrating for quite lengthy periods on this more-demanding sort of task?

(c) “Do 15 minutes of WORK every time before settling down to write an essay, or a report, or reading”.

Yes, well done, - I agree! So, the essay may be 15 minutes later than intended — but it will still get done! The pressures on you make sure that the “small-letter” work gets done. The fifteen minute spells of “capital-letter” work soon add up to a considerable investment in your future.