Resources
And other questions regarding self-citation You’re an undergraduate student with a double major in Political Science and Chinese Studies. You write a research paper for one of your Political Science courses on the history of China and how it influences modern-day politics. You do a lot of research for it, and you get a good […]
Use summaries to better understand difficult academic texts On Monday morning my co-worker asked me about my weekend, as he always does. I replied, “I went to a friend’s place for a party.” That was it. My whole weekend in just nine words. Nothing could be more normal, but why didn’t I begin by recounting […]
Stop pulling all-nighters for good “Guess I’ll just have to pull another all-nighter,” was a phrase I said all-too-often during my studies. It seemed that whenever a test was coming up there was never enough time to prepare earlier. At the same time, I wanted to get the best grade possible. So, there was no […]
Two approaches for starting your writing sessions Now that it’s summer, if you’re a graduate and postgraduate student, you’re likely settling in to a writing routine to try to make progress on your dissertation. When your schedule is more flexible, it can sometimes be difficult to know how to start each day. As such, we thought it would be nice to compare two basic approaches to tackling your day: the “eat your frog” and the “easy wins” approaches. […]
Our 6 top tips for a successful new semester A new academic year is a great chance to start over. It’s a time to say goodbye to the bad habits that may have plagued you in the past and start developing good ones to help you succeed. We’ve culled some of our top tips from […]
All about Academic Writing Month For many academics, the month of November is associated with making progress on a writing goal. In this blog post, we’ll discuss why that is, how Academic Writing Month started, and why there's such a need for it. Academic Writing Month (AcWriMo) was inspired by “National Novel Writing Month” (NaNoWriMo), […]
8 strategies that can help Nearly all of us have been there: sitting in front of the blank page not knowing where to start, a growing knot in our stomach and the temptation to get up and do the laundry instead, since then at least we’d be doing something useful. In our last blog post, we wrote […]
How to make sure you don't forget anything important Is the deadline for your research paper or thesis getting closer and closer? In an ideal world you’d already be finished with your work and have ample time to make your last checks before printing out the final version. That’s at least how I always imagined […]
Taking your research paper one step at a time Whenever it’s morning in the office and the telephone is ringing, countless emails remain unread in my inbox, and questions from Citavi users continue to pour into our help desk, I often wish I could do and think about five things at once. I wish more […]
Why smartphones are so distracting and how you can build your concentration skills Think back to the last time you were really concentrated on your writing and completely in the zone. Can you remember what you were doing being completely effortless, time passing by quickly, and actually enjoying putting words on the page (or screen)? For many of us, this “flow” state is not something we experience often, especially when engaged in […]
Metacognition, metalearning, and learning how to learn Fluent in 3 months, the 4-hour chef, The first 20 hours, Ultralearning – books on rapid learning often reach the top of The New York Times Best Seller list. Claiming to help their readers learn subjects quickly and often based on the author’s own experiences accomplishing amazing learning feats, they promise […]
How doing nothing can help you reach your academic goals. As a student, professor, or researcher it’s a given that you need to work hard. There’s always another paper to write, another grant proposal to finish, new results to analyze. And as you progress in your academic career, the responsibilities accumulate more and more. Teaching, […]
