read someone else's paper who got an A, then you can see what they're looking for :)

I'd better read your paper, maybe I will get with an X

This thread summed up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEWn0EyGDFs&t=1m33s

1 . Medication.....
2 .C avg mark normally means you have failed to grasp some essential point within the topic.
3. Basically if your writing papers , use the funnel method.

Start with fresh paper , write down in broad terms everything you know about the given subject (this is the top of the funnel) then as you write pick each issue and narrow the focus of by "chipping away" the broad topics (the body of the funnnel) to unviel the main focus of the topic (the end point) , by this time you should have covered all of the salient background issues leaving just the main issuue to be dealt with in detail.

This method has always worked for me in the past.

I will look into this, sounds interesting.

i don't know your system, but in my university, only top 15% get A, then B, then C... if I want A, i have to beat the rest 85%. The A students are somehow unwilling to share their work with you.

so the only way is to work harder.
if you still can't do it, then give up. it just simply means ppl are better than you on this.

I'm well aware, in order to get an A (or better marks [which is what i'm actually asking]), I must first stop being an idiot/moron.

...

...

A...B.... C!
you might need an educational motivating electric SHOCK! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xk2yjHtF_E&am...p;index=14

not necessarily.

For some people putting in lot's of time and effort in the reports seems to do the trick. ;)

Read more.

I have a dickton of PDF's to read, which I hate doing on my monitor.. I probably should either buy a kindle or buy the hard copies.

Think il go test a kindle out this w/e.

yeah, i had the same problem (i dont mind reading stuff to school on my pc but cant get myself to read anything else) so i bought kindle :) its great.. but it really depends on the pdf formatting, usually the best quality is doc>azw/mobi conversion.. sometimes pdf conversion works ok as well, sometimes not.. normal fit-to-screen pdfs are kinda small but still readable, you can always switch the screen to the side though..

My experience is always go for hard copy, that way you can make notes as you go and highlight pertinent points (can help with visual learning).

You havn't said what it is you're studying but I can't say much more than what Tbone said: read more.

Something else I've discovered is that creativity and innovation are looked upon with a fair degree of respect. Try and present your markers with something they havn't encountered before, or present something old in a new light.

And having a rapport with your teachers always helps, its their job to act as soundboards for you at times and sitting down with them and having a conversation outside the confines of the classroom can be very helpful if you are having trouble crystalising an essay topic or would like to engage with a topic in a broader sense.

read more cartoons
start with sindbad and tom and jerry and slowly move to cow and chicken

ps: stay away from 2 stupid dogs, they are academic

Get a better understanding of the field you're studying (read shitloads), learn what's important and what's not and how to reason properly.

It's like you're asking how to beat rapha at duel. There is no magic formula, you have to put in the hours.

Blow/eat out the teacher.

:x

[-] /[+]

ask funnyb

one day i'll figure out who you are!

kiss

what's your subject, what kind of tests are you concerned about, what are "reports"? the answers so far are good, but kind of broad.

1) know your audience
i'm serious, the majority of students in their first terms commit the most horrible crimes when writing a paper. know who you are writing for, realize that in 9 out of 10 times it's some poor underpaid student a few years older than you that has to go through hundreds of papers like yours. make their life easier, commit 100% to whatever formal rules there are regarding paper work. think about what kind of text, style, structure and tone you would like to read.

2) know your faculty
your faculty will most likely commit to some sort of school of thought. try to understand what that's all about and how they reason, in short: read, read, read and don't deviate too much unless you've read a ton. stick to whatever is mainstream thought at your uni for atleast a while.

3) know smart people
for any given subject there are people much smarter than you and me who wrote books about it, read those. i know it sounds simple, but a paper in most cases is simply two or three written out excerpts clumped together and made look nice. keep that in mind and use your own words whenever possible, references trump quotations in any case.

3b) if this didn't help and you still have no idea what the fuck is going wrong... get help. in this case, get a study group and talk this through. i know this sounds corny, but meet and talk for hours, this is the only way i could get a grasp on certain subjects that completely overwhelmed me before.

oh, and work with books please, or rather copies of books. through underlining and marking parts of the text you should be able to make the core of the argument "stand out", or atleast the way you think the argument works. if that looks horrendous, you have another thing you can improve on.

tl;dr: READ READ READ READ READ :/

Subject: Client Side Scripting (Javascript)

shouldnt you be writing code rather than writing reports? :P

Part 1 is write code and implementation description, worth ~ 40% of marks (which I have nearly completed)

Part 2 is write report, worth 60% <-- this is the part I suck hard at.

£500 and consider it done

Tempting but no :P

That seems to be quite a stupid way to grade.

lol i think so much of the advice given here is your arts students, and now he says hes studying java.


READ THE FUCKING TEXTBOOK.

This advice is mostly good
Papers > books
Use of wiki normally equals a fail
Good referencing means better marks overall normally

I think that's where I may have failed previous, not referencing enough.

"Use of wiki normally equals a fail"

and why is that?

In any of the universities i have studied and taught in , the use of "wiki" related data is informal only, never to be referenced (even if text is re-written from it), as the information contained within wiki's in general is seen as unsubstantiated and non peer reviewed.

Peers in this instance do not consist of N radom website visitors but accredited academics.

what if wiki references are peer revieweved scientific articles?

then you reference those instead of the wiki? you sound desperate to start an argument out of nothing.

he didn't diss wiki, he merely spelled out how an academic paper gets rated and in that case wiki does equal fail (in most cases).

well yea you're not gonna reference wiki articles but wiki article references, unless you're a complete moron. he said "use of wiki" as if that automatically presumes low quality sources.

references in wiki often leads you to the actual academic paper, which is for example a published document in pdf form or something similar.

you don't say...

papers vs. books largely depends on the subject and even more so on the university you're at. here it's definitely books over papers, but from what i've heard it's different in anglo-saxon/english-speaking universities (same subject).

and yea... wiki is fine but never ever use at as a reference, use credible sources and reference the shit out of them. try to look smart, everyone tries to :p

This whole idea that exists in current academics that using wikipedia=fail needs to change if we have to make forward progress.

Wikipedia is currently the best form of peer reviewed content system the world has, I have seen academic papers which biases a certain view point and often has a distorted view of reality...I think with large number of levelheaded editors / contributors wikipedia can far surpass the knowledge infusion rate, A well written wiki article can convey the same amount of information as 10 papers, as it can have some common information that you have go through 10 times otherwise, to realize the small contribution of that particular paper.

I often feel like making a separate wiki for each branch of science can help a lot of people to get up to the level where they can actually understand where the cutting edge research is.

People making changes to wiki often have no strong background in the topic, especially as we're getting into relatively niche topics that might not have that many experts to begin with. There's no way you can accept information that might have been written by anyone, especially since the level of substantiation is generally quite poor.

Academic papers usually reference papers written earlier and their important conclusions anyway.

This is the basic problem with you people, you have blind faith in inheritance, just because it cites previous papers does not mean it is authentic: I have often seen people mis-interpreting older works and citing them in an entirely wrong way.

What I am trying to get at, is the current way of doing things does not have any extra guaranty to be correct than an alternative way. We just need to involve more experts into the process so that articles about even the niche fields are correct and up-to-date. A wiki system with good degree of moderation + experts >> traditional way of doing things imho. All you need to do is bring the peer review factor into the wiki and you got a much better system.

I think correct understanding / meaning / interpretation arrived by consensus is way more important than substantiation via citing previous people.

Also in some fields of science/ engineering progress is happening at such a pace that a paper even 5 year old can become irrelevant, for fields like these wiki could be way more useful.

but maaayne.. they didn't pay lots of money for their finance/business/management/whatever courses so every joe can have them too.

they need to be able to scoff at anyone because they have a phd in future derivative speculations trading, even if that someone comes from a 100x more prestigious institution.

just because it cites previous papers does not mean it is authentic

no, but it atleast means it'`s been checked and double checked by people familar witht he field. that is something that cannot be said about a wikipedia article.

sounds like people and the bible

wiki does not get referenced for the same reason the encyclopaedia britannica does not. it' not a source, it's not peer reviewed, it was never meant to be used as such.

When writing reports or essays, don't just open up a Word document and start writing things that come to your head incoherently. It will take forever and won't result in anything proper. Decide the structure and what you want out of the report before you do anything else. Finish the table of content for the entire report before you write in the content and then fill in the content in an organized manner. If it requires a preface finish that last. As you progress you can make adjustments where necessary. Make it coherent and have a point.

do above the minimum well...reports are easy~

dont be a chump by reading books upon books...

what i do is: get 0-3 books then ill use the best one; with the other 2 i will steal a main definition...then it looks like ive read 3 books instead of one. just read key chapters. steal off google but reword.

do the basic professional look (Fig. 1) then image heading = Figure 1: bla bla....harvard referencing. not much else to it

use big words

use big words

Shit..

S H I T !!!!!!!!

see? was that hard?

E X C R E M E N T

I win

I still give you an C though

an C?

fail.

not an englishmn, englishman
it is still A
take a closer [read]

A
B I G P I L E O F S H I T
and I am on top of it

see? I won again

That's more than one word.. doesn't count.

you don't C sh1t, son. and you ain't paid to C sh1t

this is going out of hand, guddamit

also correct sentence would be: doesn't cunt

try 'Shitballs' it is a little longer and has 2 syllables!

Generally I regard most of you as being pretty smart, so I'd like to see if you can help..

:c

Well, most of them atleast act smart :)

which is often just as important :P

reports? no idea....

for technical subjects @ my university its like:

aim for calculating the 20 exams of the prior terms in 80-90% of the demanded time. work em through under exam conditions.

evaluate your deeds yourself and realize its impossible to get A, unless current lecturer is a fool, you are a mad einstein or the subject is of minor importance.

and its always easier to do things well you care about.
if your subject is a passion, your hobby and you have some deep desire to pierce through the subject matters....
you have a bigger, next level aspriration than getting A or just "a good education".

in other words, beeing a nerd gets you A's.

I'm not really looking for an A, just better marks :)

Ask someone to proofread your paper. A second pair of eyes might catch errors/typos/wording and if they are a good writer they could help you with flow and stuffz. I was very bad at writing before, semi-decent now, having someone else proofread saved me many times :D

Is this one paper worth 60% of your class grade? How long is it supposed to be?

in other words, beeing a nerd gets you A's.

great advice right here

blackmail your teacher.

or at least he could say some dirty words to the teacher -doesn't have to be A class, more like dirty random stuff that goes through his head atm -originality ftw

What are you studying?
edit: nvm just saw your post above

nothing
(and this solves it all)

less is more, guys. you can't polish a turd

you ever thought it could be related to your C++ skillz?

Free writing tends to be a good way of getting your thoughts in order. When I know I have a busy, difficult day ahead of me, in terms of work and or stress, I grab a pen and paper as soon as I wake up. I fill the front of the page and back of the page with every single thought that crosses my mind. If it pertains to the work at hand so be it, if not, that's fine too. Getting your thoughts out gives you a good mental picture of where you are at and sometimes can set you in the right direction. I don't even read the crap I put down on the page ahha. Just get it all out.

Clarity of mind is always a good starting point for anything.

study high, take the test high, get high scores

confidence shows. you gotta be actin' like a badass yo

you need to masturbate more often

Finish your paper before it is due and ask your professor to review it with you. If you abide by his suggestions then you will get better grades and perhaps an A. However, I understand it is hard to work on things days before they are due.

That was the only way I was able to get A's in humanities classes. If I just passed in what I thought was good I could never get past the B+/A- threshold. I guess that's why I'm an engineering major. :)

effort turns out involuted papers. the perfect soil of spite, for papers written easily are easily digested. :[

Having written tons of academic paper that rage from 15 to 40 pages I can maybe give you some insight on what you need to write a good paper.

I am not entirely sure what a report is but whenever I have to write a "paper" I usually try to find as much information as I can on the matter at hand i.e. library, internet (such as: e-books, e-journals than you can access via your university and other academic papers that you can find via Google) and of course your pre-knowledge. The more preexisting knowledge you have on the matter, the more difficult it can be to write a coherent paper as you tend to take stuff for granted.

As I am usually a very chaotic human being which also shows in the way I play Quake, speak and do other things, writing a paper is usually the hardest part for me. But I can tell you how I usually proceed.

1. Information

Absorb as much information as you can and try to get a decent overview on the topic. You do not have to know everything but try to understand the topic that you are about to cover. If anything remains unclear, ask someone who knows better or discuss your thoughts with friends.

2. Overview

Write down each of the sub-topics you want to discuss within the topic so you can filter the specific information that you have found. I usually do this with Word etc. - make sure you try to download or bookmark all the stuff and name it so you can find it back. I read academic paper usually not very thoroughly unless I have no idea about it. (If you have to read 3000 pages then you are bound to skip a few just to save some time - how to read properly is another story though i.e. skimming the text to figure out its relevance to the rest of your data). So try to underline everything that you think is important and fit into the overview, so you can come back to it later.

3. Writing

Here is the tricky part and there are obviously a lot of different approaches. However, I am the guy that likes to write more vaguely in the beginning. I even copy and paste some texts that I think might fit and I "mark" them as such so I can rewrite them later in my own words while adding the source etc. The idea here is to write it down, get a draft and then later on you'll rewrite it. Once you have everything written down - with some blanks here and there you can start to start at the top again. Re-read, re-write, re-asses what you wrote - that way you can re-fine your ideas.

Another important point is to include topic sentences:

"A topic sentence (also known as a focus sentence) encapsulates or organises an entire paragraph, and you should be careful to include one in most of your major paragraphs. Although topic sentences may appear anywhere in a paragraph, in academic essays they often appear at the beginning."

This is very important because it allows you to create a coherent sentence and basically that way you will make sure everyone understands thats you write. You do not want to skip your thoughts, or even worse, not finish them. I learned to write proper topic sentences for like 2-3 weeks during my English Grammar class. Sometimes it is not as easy as you think. But if you write a proper "academic paper" or a general paper, you should really get used to the concept. It will definitely help you to order your thoughts.

3.1

Linking words

Linking words help you to connect ideas and sentences, so that people can follow your ideas. There are a lot of them but each particular has a different purpose. For example, if you use "Additionally, (or In Addition) it is obvious that you add more thoughts on the topic. If you use the word "on the contrary" you make clear that you are talking about "contrasting ideas".

Have a look at this page: http://www.english-at-home.com/grammar/linking-words/


4. Layout/Structure

Is everything at its place? Is overall order of the topics justified? Should I maybe move this paragraph to this one? Would it make it more clear? Layout should be self-explanatory. Use a proper font etc. make sure that you meet the required standards.

I have a BA-Degree in Modern Languages in Culture. It does not say much but let's say I have a good understanding of the English language. So if you have more questions, let me know. I would even read one of your papers - maybe I'll find something that you could do better. But then again, I am not a native Speaker of English. I am just trying to help.

that's
pre existing

other than that not bad.

you're supposed to finish highschool before discussing university matters, sorry.

"you're supposed to finish highschool before discussing university matters, sorry. "

High School is two words. Nice fail :)

maybe, but you still need to finish it.

When you can spell the things you're trying to suggest then we'll talk.
Until then, keep trying.

Until then, keep flipping burgers.

nice! as part of the "2. Overview" step, you can also use the sub-topics as headings in the paper. They really help you break stuff down, remember exactly what aspects you're going to cover and generally make the paper easier to read.

Edit: I don't know what you're studying, but at my school analysis is what really gets you the extra marks. If you have written down some facts, use the next couple of sentences to say what YOU think these facts imply for your topic - this also demonstrates that you can think critically, without just regurgitating information.

ah this explains why you are one of the best English commentators from Europe, without being british.

thanks, man.

thanks <3

Several others have already given good advice on how to actually write the paper. So here are just a few pointers on what else you can do.

Layout:
Find out of if there are any specifications regardings the text structure from your instructors. If there are read and obey them carefully, cause if someone takes the effort to write down rules, it means they really care about that stuff. For example: This could mean the way they expect you to mark citations, or maybe just that they want an abstract at the top of the paper.
If there aren' any specific rules find out the general stuff and they go talk to the instructor (this is for longer papers only!)

It's always very good to contact them directly at least once with a question. It shows them that you care about the paper at least a little bit. Best way is of course to drop by their office in person, so they can connect a face to the name
Just be careful, if you ask too often you might annoy them.

If you are going to put in citations and your instructor has written a relevant paper, quite them.

Last but most important, get a friend, relative or colleague who preferably studies something similar, to proof-read your stuff. Buy them dinner in return or something.
Let them check for both spelling and grammar mistakes, but also if they understand what you want to say.
You might be surprised about how much they can find.

I've done this for several friends and they always got back papers full of comments, cause I'm such a nit-picking, anal besserwisser.
They always thanked me afterwards :]

I think you meant 'regarding' not 'regardings'.

Say thanks!!!

aww you miss him don't you..

kill the professor or threaten to kill them. cant give you bad grades if they dead. na im sayin?

I always have shitty structure, spelling mistakes, downright errors and literally no headings in my papers. Doesn't seem to affect grades much.

It's all about delicious content and badassery attitude. Like if you make food and have awesome ingredients and a novel challenging flavor, people give two shits about specifics.