Today’s Notes!

It is important to believe in yourself. And never give anyone a chance to make you question your strengths. It can be hard, but not impossible. So I want to be doctor, and I am ready to give my everything, so my dream would come true.

firstly, some general tips from me:

don’t use spark notes/schmoop/other reference sites until AFTER you have read your book and formed your own opinions, because it makes your essays a lot more interesting, which your teacher will appreciate, if everyone is doing the same essay on something! (However, don’t do this if you don’t have time, rely on those sites when you are racing a deadline or juggling tons of stuff ofc)

do the in-class reading beforehand! this sounds so silly, but doing the reading beforehand can help so much if there is an in-class discussion on it after

highlighters (or other writing utensils in various colors) are your best friend when there is an in-class essay! while obviously in general they are great, if you have a few different colors you can quickly mark up the text to find recurring elements and structure essays around that!

look up the social-cultural-historical context of a book! this is super great for reading nonfiction, but also great for most fiction because it allows you to understand the lens the author was writing through and their motive for doing so, which gives you great fodder for discussion if you need to discuss purpose

other useful tips + guides:

mla official formatting

general essay help (basically recipe for a good essay)

SOAPSTone method

words that connote tone

standard themes in literature

i know this isn’t a comprehensive list, but i hope it helps with untangling the mess that is understanding some lit classes!

Back to School: Your Help Guide to Waking up Early

1. Set your alarm for waking up early, a week or more before school starts. This will help you get into the habit of waking up earlier and you will ease yourself into it so that by the first day back you can wake up feeling refreshed instead of grumpy 

2. Keep your phone away from you when you sleep… on the other side of the room if possible or maybe inside the drawer of your bedside table. This forces you to actually wake up and be attentive in order to turn off that alarm instead of just being able to roll over and tapping snooze. 

3. Get out of your bed and open the curtains or blinds to let sunlight in, it will energize you and again force you to wake up. Plus, who doesn’t like watching the warm rays of the rising sun, if you are a nature lover or you just enjoy watching the sunrise this will even help you start your day on a positive and productive note.

4. Try to set yourself a regimen, I know this is hard because of all the homework and assignments and jobs  or extracurriculars that accumulate over the school year but if you put in the effort to set yourself a regular sleep time each night you will definitely see the results. 

5. Plan the night before. If there’s anything that you can get done fairly quickly at night so that you have more time to do things in the morning instead of rushing yourself because you’re rampaging through the house trying to find the pair of jeans that you thought was in your closet. The benefit of this is that your subconcious and concious mind will both feel at ease knowing that you are more relaxed about the day to come and it will allow for a better sleep which in turn will help you wake up on time.

Do you guys have any tips for waking up earlier in the morning for school? Reply to this post! 

xo 

[02.01.18] Hi everyone! I have received a lot of feedback on my one page note summaries. I had always planned on sharing some of them with you all in PDF format but never had the time to. So here are some of my favorites and most requested! :D

Amino Acids

Cross-Bridge Cycle

Hypothalamic-Pituitary Axis

Mitochondria & Electron Transport Chain

The Digestive System Overview

The Kidney Overview

The Periodic Table & Trends

Viruses

Here are a couple of examples of my biology notes that some of you have been asking to see 🍃🔬

How to effectively take notes

VIDEOS: 

How to take colour coded notes (starts at 0:58) How to take notes and study tips  (really like this video, and contains printables) How to effectively take notes in class Advanced Cornell Notes  Taking notes in college & backpack essentials  Study tips (starts at 1:58 ) Taking notes and studying Creating a study guide and printing notes (really helpful for how to print and organize notes) Taking class notes and studying for tests Outlining your textbook  (starts at 0:30)

APPS:

Evernote: Clip web pages (good for research), and take notes. Dropbox: good for keeping documents, photo and videos in one place. Khan Academy: videosfrom maths and science to humanities. Digg: Daily news. CliffsNotes: study for tests, create quizzes, read summaries, good for english/humanities. Studious: a reminder for when homework and tests are due. Pocket: researching tool. EasyBib: Scan the barcode of the book and it creates a citation.  iFormulas: formulas, rations, theorems. iTunes U: provides educational content for free.Also provides access to courses, and learn about different courses. 

OTHER:

Effective note taking via University of Reading (contains printable guide) How to take notes at university via The Guardian  Taking lecture and class notes via Dartmouth College (contains lots of resources too) Taking effective notes via howtostudy Taking notes via Harvard (pdf file - really useful and I recommend that you print this out and use it for reference) Creating a study guide via Utah State University (pdf file)

film scores playlist for studying to

wants to work through your essay with the instrumental sounds of your favourite movies in the background, perfect to calm and focus your mind? then this is the playlist for you

view the full thing here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/75T4VhthKFdSnvZ2Llhpwx

‘Married Life’ by Michael Giacchino from Up (2009)

‘Time’ by Hans ZImmer from Inception (2010)

‘The Shire’ by Howard Shore from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

‘Romantic Fight’ by John Powell from How To Train Your Dragon (2010)

‘Mr. Fox in the Fields’ by Alexandre Desplat from Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

‘Lady Bird’ by Jon Brion from Lady Bird (2017)

‘Dance on the Porch’ by Alexandre Desplat from Little Women (2019)

‘The Imitation Game’ by Alexandre Desplat, London Symphony Orchestra from The Imitation Game (2014)

hi there, can you make a post about making mindmaps please?

There are many types of mindmaps, and they are all different depending on what they’re focused on ~ generally, they have the same structure, but just be careful if you’re doing a science-based one while following a literature-based tutorial. 

Here’s a tutorial based on my most recent one {for English class, based on the novel Brooklyn}, hope it helps!

Keep reading

A quick visual guide to some key parts of mindmapping.