essay life hacks

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10 essay writing life hacks every college student should know.

| April 22, 2019 | 0 responses

As a college student, you are asked to write a lot of papers. It’s just a part of the college experience. But you probably don’t know that there are some life hacks that can help you produce better and stronger writing and save you time and effort as you wade through a sea of essays, research papers, case studies, and other papers that you will be assigned each semester. Let’s take a look at ten life hacks borrowed from a team of professional essay writers at WriteMyPaperHub.com academic writing service. You should know these life hacks to help make college easier and more enjoyable.

• Write early in the morning. This hack probably goes against everything you believe about being a college student, where late nights and all-nighters are standard operating procedure. But it’s scientifically proven that our minds are sharper and we work better in the morning hours than we do late at night. One of the best ways to get your writing up to snuff is to work on it when you are fresh, well-rested, and at your creative peak for the day.
• Take regular breaks. Taking a break after a fixed period of work can help to keep your mind sharp and keep you focused on the end goal. The longer you work without a break, the more likely your mind will start to wander or that you will become bored. The Pomodoro Technique can be an effective strategy. It breaks work down into half-hour segments. You will work 25 minutes, take a 5-minute break, and then repeat the cycle until you have finished the task.
• Turn off your phone, or at least notifications. Keep your mind focused on your essay by turning off your phone during your work time, or at least turning off notifications. The more you look at your phone, the less you will write, so shutting off distractions will help you to develop your essay more easily. There are apps that can block notifications for timed periods so you can use the Pomodoro Technique and reward yourself with phone breaks.
• Use Wikipedia strategically. Every college student knows that Wikipedia is not an appropriate source for college papers, but did you know that it can lead you to good sources? Every Wikipedia article documents its sources. While Wikipedia may not be appropriate for your paper, those sources are fair game. Use the Wikipedia article for your topic as a quick index of key research for your paper.
• Start with a killer quote. Opening your paper with a quote can lend credibility to your essay, make it seem more interesting, and draw your audience into your paper. As you do research, keep a file of great quotes that you can use to open your essay. Just make sure that the quote you use is relevant to your paper.
• Don’t use two spaces after a period . Show your instructors that you are up to date with in your knowledge of writing conventions. Two spaces after a period used to be standard in the days of typewriters, but it hasn’t been standard for decades. While many high schools taught out of date writing styles from decades-old textbooks, show your instructors that you’re hip to the writing of today by using just one space after a period.
• Don’t skip spaces between paragraphs. Online, it’s standard to skip lines between paragraphs, but in a formal essay, you shouldn’t do that. One paragraph should follow the next with no skipped lines. Instead, indicate a new paragraph by indenting the first line one-half inch or five spaces, depending on the rules of your style guide, such as APA or MLA.
• Use one font in your essay unless absolutely necessary. An essay should look clean and consistent from start to finish. Many students like to make a paper look fancy by using many different fonts and sizes to decorate the page, but a great essay looks best when it is in one font and, generally, in one font size. Only use a second font when absolutely necessary (sometimes, for example, a table or chart needs a sans-serif font) and use different sizes only when your paper’s writing style, such as APA or MLA, requires it.
• Use a screen reader to hear your essay out loud. Listening to your paper can help you to identify errors that you may not be able to see on the page. Google Translate’s speaker function offers a free reader to help you listen to your paper.
• Print a copy of your essay for proofreading. It’s easier to see mistakes on paper than it is on a screen. Even if your paper will be submitted online, use a paper copy to search for proofreading errors.

Tags: writing life hacks

25 life hacks you didn’t know you needed, but do. Probably.

David Pogue outlines 10 computer/smartphone tricks everyone should know, but many don’t, at TED U during TED2013. Photo: Ryan Lash

Watch the talk  — it’s Pogue’s delivery that’s half the brilliance. But below, find a condensed version of the 10 tech basics everyone should know:

• Use the space bar to scroll down a page . Hold the shift key and the space bar at the same time to scroll back up again.
• Tab between boxes on online forms . When there’s a pop-up menu to input details of your state, type the first letter of the state to scroll through options.
• To make web text larger, press control + . Mac users, make that “Command +.”
• Don’t bother with punctuation on your smartphone . Hit the space bar twice for a period and the next letter will be automatically capitalized.
• Hit the call button of your phone to redial the last person you spoke to . No need to go into your contacts.
• Speaking of phones, carriers have keystrokes that let you bypass the “15 seconds of fricking instructions, like we haven’t had answer machines for 45 years.” Sadly, each shortcut is different. “I didn’t say these were going to be perfect,” Pogue allows.
• Use Google as a dictionary by typing “define” followed with the word you want to understand . You can also use it as an FAA database for flight details.
• To highlight a word, don’t drag across it with the mouse . Double click it. And don’t bother deleting text; just type.
• Avoid shutter lag by half pressing down the button of your camera before you take a picture . For folks who still use cameras.
• Press “b” to black out a slide (or “w” to white it out) . And make sure people are paying attention to your wonderful presentation.

So, sure. These tricks help you get the most out of your technology. And what with our recent TED@250 salon on spring cleaning your life , we here at TED Towers have been thinking about neat tricks to streamline other parts of life. So below, I’ve collected some favorite tips from the TED staff for a better, easier existence. It’s true, you might not have even realized some of the things being solved were actually issues, and it’s possible you might be right in suspecting that these are the very essence of “first world problems.” But there it is and, well, here you are: 15 more life hacks you likely had no idea you needed.

• “My father hangs a tennis ball from the garage ceiling so he knows exactly where to park the car so there’s ample walking room on all sides. We later saw this on TV but my father definitely invented it.” — Thu-Huong Ha .
• “You can use a piece of dry spaghetti to light candles that have burned down inside their holder.” — Nick Weinberg .
• “If you have kids, you know two things: 1) they fill reams of paper with “artwork;” and 2) you will be going to a lot of birthday parties. Use their “masterpieces” to wrap presents; it saves money and it’s more personalized.” — Michael McWatters .
• “Empty the dishwasher bottom rack first, so that the puddles of washwater on the top of all your mugs, in the top rack, don’t drip all over your plates on the bottom rack. Don’t even MOVE the top rack until you’ve emptied the bottom rack.” — Emily McManus .
• “A trick I learned from a co-worker just yesterday: Facial cleansing wipes do an amazing job of getting mud off of nice shoes.” —Kate Torgovnick .
• “Lay out all your credit / bank cards from your wallet on the copy machine and email yourself scans of the front and back. That way you have all the card numbers and the 800 numbers for customer service. If your wallet gets stolen (especially when on the road) you have quick access and a way to remember which cards to cancel.” — Gwen Schroeder .
• “Here’s a great one for removing oil stains from anything (including the leather seats of your parents’ car…): generously cover the stained area with flour or cornstarch.  Let it sit for a while and it will miraculously soak up your oil stains.” — Roxanne Hai Lash .
• “Stop using spoons for your coffee. Simply add your stuff (sugar, milk, rum, what-have-you) to your empty coffee mug, then pour your coffee in. It mixes just as well, and you don’t have a dirty spoon left over.” — Michael McWatters .
• “Pour coffee into an ice tray, so you make coffee-flavored cubes that don’t water down your iced coffee.” — Nick Weinberg .
• “Crack an egg on a flat surface, not on the side of a bowl. This minimizes the likelihood of pieces of shell getting into your egg.” — Becky Chung .
• “Use an empty plastic bottle to separate egg yolk from white . My mom does this. It’s pretty awesome.” — Thu-Huong Ha .
• “To call your voicemail from another phone, dial your own number, and when your message picks up, hit # and your password.” — Morton Bast .
• “Change your contact lenses on the first of every month! That way you don’t wear them for eons, which is bad for your vision and for your eyes in the longrun.” —Kate Torgovnick .
• “Every time you use up a household necessity (box of spaghetti, carton of milk, bag of chocolate chips), take a photo of the empty package with your mobile phone. When you’re in the store, just review your photos to see what you need. Delete the photos as you add things to your shopping cart.” — Michael McWatters .
• “Honey and olive oil make a cheap face mask. The acid in the honey removes dead skin cells and brightens. Olive oil moisturizes.” — Becky Chung .
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Get creative with full-sentence rewrites

Polish your papers with one click, avoid unintentional plagiarism, essay writing hacks.

Published on June 26, 2024 by Paige Pfeifer, BA . Revised on September 4, 2024.

Every student is looking for essay hacks, and we’ve got the best ones to share (and that’s not even us being cocky. It’s just the truth.). If your essay needs a pick-me-up or some serious revamping, please look no further.

QuillBot’s free, cutting-edge tools are game changers when it comes to making essay writing painless. From jumpstarting your writing momentum, to busting writer’s block, to finding a simpler research workflow, these essay writing hacks will save your grade and your time.

We totally get it: research papers , academic papers, entire essays, and each thesis statement you have to craft seems like an unreachable goal when you’re staring at the blank page.

So it’s a good thing our website has all the professional tools and essay hacks to help.

Free Grammar Checker

Table of contents

Here are 7 essay writing hacks to help you write essays effectively., 1. jumpstart your momentum, 2. avoid boring, cookie-cutter sentence structures, 3. avoid using the same words and phrases over and over, 4. check to see if your point is coming across correctly and clearly, 5. bust writer’s block quickly and easily, 6. fix those awkward sentences you can’t bear to delete, 7. give credit where credit’s due, final thoughts.

• Jumpstart Your Momentum
• Avoid Boring, Cookie-Cutter Sentence Structures
• Avoid Using the Same Words and Phrases Over and Over
• Check to See If Your Point is Coming Across Correctly and Clearly
• Bust Writer’s Block Quickly and Easily
• Fix Those Awkward Sentences You Can’t Bear to Delete
• Give Credit Where Credit’s Due

The beginning of any project, much less an assigned essay, can be difficult. In fact, for many students, it actually is the hardest part of the entire process, either because they’re prone to procrastination or they’re not confident in their essay writing abilities.

Part of why it’s so difficult to begin is that we are dreading the task━perhaps because we don’t know what we want to write about yet, we don’t want to create an outline, the assignment grade is weighted heavily, we fear doing poorly, or the topic is boring.

Condense Each Source to Its Main Points

Use QuillBot’s Summarizer tool to jumpstart your momentum and flow by helping you evaluate, compare, and digest sources quickly and easily.

Use it to find what parts of the essay writing prompt interest you the most or to find a comprehensive source you can reference for the bulk of your entire essay.

A text summary of the information will get you picking and sorting through relevant articles and papers without the agony of spending hours reading material that isn’t helpful to your argument or assignment.

Reading something in-depth that you’re not even going to end up using is a waste of time, which is why the services on our website aim to save you time and brain power.

Try Different Language

Use QuillBot’s Paraphraser to rewrite your text in a variety of ways so that you never get stuck struggling to articulate your thoughts.

If direction for your essay isn’t a problem, but you can’t seem to put words on the page, this tool will help you by acting as a second pair of eyes as you pick and choose what kind of phrases, verbs, and tone fit for your essay.

With the instant feedback from the paraphrasing tool , you can easily turn those clunky first sentences into polished topic sentences that lay the foundation for a polished paragraph.

When we get into a writing flow state, the goal is usually to get as much of our thoughts out as possible before we get tired or lose the motivation that flow brings.

However, sometimes when we go back to edit what was written, we sometimes find the same sentence structure repeated over and over, making our writing seem cold and boring.

For instance, maybe every sentence is simple , with just one thought, which can sound choppy and jointed when repeated too often.

Conversely, perhaps all of our sentences are compound and very long. This can make points unclear or muddled, and it becomes hard to follow this type of redundant sentence structure due to length.

Find an (Online) Writing Partner

Hey, we’re now living in the future. No shame in using an AI writing service to help you out when the going gets tough.

QuillBot Flow will write alongside you, giving you suggestions to make your writing more varied, textured, and easy to understand. If you’re stuck and don’t know how to get out of your rut, the QuillBot Flow will take over and build the bones of your essay.

Experiment with Different Writing Modes

You want to make your essay stand out? You’re going to have to think outside the box and write in a way that is engaging and unique.

Of course, that’s easier said than done, especially if you don’t see yourself as a particularly strong writer (which is, perhaps, why you’re looking for essay writing hacks).

Use QuillBot’s Paraphraser to explore different sentence structures and styles. Try different Modes, like Standard, Fluency, Formal, and Simple, to see various ways to articulate your thoughts.

Better yet, try Compare Modes to see all the options at once! Click on words and phrases to get a drop-down list of even more options.

Which leads us to another common, related issue to avoid…

In the same way that it’s easy to get stuck in a sentence structure rut, if we’re repeating the same words over and over, word redundancies make our writing seem bland and uninspired.

Even if the prompt has specific key words that seem like they need to be included when making points, it’s important that we be creative with our word choices. No college professor wants to read the word “therefore” over and over.

Look Through All of Your Options

Use QuillBot’s Paraphraser to find synonyms for overused words and phrases. Use the drop-down thesaurus by clicking on the word/phrase to see alternatives.

Additionally, the Word Flipper tool allows you to change more (or less) of your writing to find more creative ways to talk about your topic and important key words.

Different writing Modes will also offer you more options, and you can compare all modes at once using the Compare Modes feature.

Often when we write, tangents happen, and while they don’t always detract from the point, they can be distracting and take away from the flow of your arguments.

Check out these pro tips for making sure that your writing is saying what you think it does and that your points are clear.

When in Doubt, Ask a Robot

Use QuillBot’s Summarizer to give you a text summary of your own work. Does the AI understand what you’re trying to say?

If not, re-read your essay, and find any paragraphs that are tangents. Remove them temporarily and re-summarize the text to see if taking out the tangent makes your summary more to-the-point.

Cut to the Chase

Use QuillBot’s Paraphraser to enhance the clarity of your arguments.

Meandering, long sentences can be unclear, and a long paragraph is even worse. If you locate one of these in your work, try plugging it into the Paraphraser to try and make it shorter and more clear.

You might also consider separating long sentences to make your points more distinct.

Writer’s block is a bother for us all, whether we’re writing an email , social media caption, or an essay. While it’s hard to get unstuck, QuillBot has you covered with solutions to get you back on track ASAP.

The Hardest Part is Starting

Use QuillBot’s Paraphraser to simply get something on the page. Take the stress off of yourself and just write in the input box without any worries for how good/bad it is.

Compare Modes and the drop-down thesaurus are great tools to see numerous ways to articulate your thought and find traction in your writing workflow.

All you need to do is to try something━ anything ━to get yourself writing again. Then, let the Paraphraser do the heavy lifting to communicate your ideas exactly how you want them to be showcased.

Get a Second Opinion

Use QuillBot’s Summarizer to examine portions of your work to find new directions. When you input certain paragraphs, what does the text summary think your main point is?

Alternatively, you can also digest and compare new sources quickly with this tool to find inspiration for expanding on interesting ideas within your essay.

Once a first draft has been written, it’s time to edit. When we re-read our own work, sometimes there are certain sentences, especially topic sentences, that we love but know they are awkward or clunky.

However, somehow we’ve managed to incorporate everything we want to say into that sentence, so we can’t just delete it, but at the same time, we know the wording isn’t good enough.

Anything Can Be Fixed

Use QuillBot’s Paraphraser to look at new options for expressing the thoughts in the problem/awkward sentences.

The many Modes, Word Flipper, and drop-down thesaurus features will help preserve the meaning of the sentence, while offering up a myriad of new options to enhance the meaning and clarity.

It is so important to ensure that your writing is uniquely your own, and that others’ writing is uniquely their own. Not properly citing a source can lead to terrible consequences, so it’s imperative you don’t forget this step!

Cite, Cite, Cite

When you’re completing the final draft of an essay or research paper, you’re going to need to create citations to cite your sources accurately.

QuillBot’s Citation Generator supports dozens of citation styles, so no matter what style guide you’re following, you’ll be able to create correct citations with just a few clicks.

Using the correct format is of the utmost importance, and with our Citation Generator, you can rest assured that is happening.

Be Original

The last step to writing any good essay is to make sure you avoid plagiarism in your essay or paper. Before you submit anything, you’ve got to make sure all of your sources are cited━if not, the consequences could be dire.

QuillBot’s top-of-the-line Plagiarism Checker will scan your essay and create a report based on your project. This report will show the percentage of original text contained in your essay, and the percentage of similar or duplicated text that would be considered plagiarism without the proper citation.

If you’re going to use even just one QuillBot tool, have it be this one. Plagiarism is not worth it.

Writing essays can be tough no matter how you slice it, so the next time you have an essay or writing assignment, try out these essay writing hacks to increase your productivity and decrease the time it takes to write by using QuillBot’s professional tools!

Is this article helpful?

Paige Pfeifer, BA

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Top 64 Study Hacks to Excel in Your Studies

By: Angelina Grin

Are you finding it challenging to manage your time?

High school and college students have to juggle a heavy workload in class. They also attend to other responsibilities in life. As a result, things can get out of hand.

Here are some proven study hacks that actually work to improve your performance.

Studying Hacks for Improved Productivity

Study hacks for exams, learning hacks to concentrate better, easy study hacks, hacks to study better, best study hacks you’ve never heard of, study hacks and tips proved by science, study hacks for students who want to improve memory, key takeaways.

Work smart instead of working hard to boost your productivity. Try the cool ways below to perform better and do more in less time.

Set Realistic Goals

The secret to achieving your goals is to set realistic goals. Don’t aim to do more than you can handle.

Assess your capabilities and plan your objectives accordingly.

Create a Routine

A routine works best to maximize your productivity and prevent wasting time. Plan your study sessions in advance with the time and date.

Moreover, write down the key concepts you want to tackle in each study session. However, leave room for flexibility to unplanned events.

Prioritize Your Tasks

Identify the tasks you need to do first or are important. Your aim should be to complete these things first.

You can try several ways to prioritize your duties, like using the Eisenhower Matrix. It sorts your jobs into:

Take Enough Breaks

Take a break of 10 - 15 minutes after studying for one hour. You can take a longer break of 20 - 30 minutes after four hours.

It can help study better and retain information longer.

Get a Good Night’s Sleep

Don’t make the mistake of compromising your sleep for college or doing homework. Get at least 7 - 8 hours of sleep every night.

It will improve memory, assimilation, and the ability to recall information.

Get Comfortable with Your Learning Pace

Your study habits may be different from your peers. So, don’t compare yourself with your friends or classmates.

Learn at your own pace, even if it is slow. There is no need to feel bad.

Walk to Snooze

Don’t keep your alarm clock or mobile on your bed. Keep it some distance away on a table or shelf.

This way, you must get out of bed to snooze your alarm. Moreover, you are less likely to fall back into bed once again.

Jumpstart Your Day

Make a cup of coffee and open the windows to let the sunlight in. You can also try doing some exercises.

Are your final exams giving you nightmares?

Worry not, as we have the best study hacks for exams to manage your time and get better grades.

Don’t Memorize

One of the best study hacks for students is not to memorize your texts. Your aim should be to develop a better understanding of your topics.

This way, you can answer any question that comes up for tests and tutorials.

Tackle Important Topics First

Determine the most critical topics for your exam. Learn them first and move to less important topics.

It helps in time management for students and gives you a sense of accomplishment.

Try Active Studying

Among the top exam hacks are trying active study methods like:

• Summarizing your whole text
• Note-taking to absorb information better
• Creating mind maps
• Using visuals like graphs and charts to learn
• Doing group projects

Take Practice Tests

An excellent study hack is to practice past exam questions. It will help you become familiar with the questions you might get for your exam.

Moreover, you can develop confidence and answer your paper correctly. Additionally, you can determine areas of improvement.

Start Studying in Advance

Don’t put off your work for finals week. You are more likely to stress and get a brain freeze.

Determine how much time you need to complete everything. Next, start studying early to complete your syllabus.

Don’t Stay Up

It is necessary to get enough sleep the day before your exam. All studying hacks recommend you get adequate sleep to concentrate and perform better.

Use essay helpers like Studybay if you have to save time.

Drink Enough Water

Staying hydrated is super important on your exam day. It supports your cognitive function and helps you think better.

Water is also necessary for memorization and retention. You can carry a chilled bottle of water with some ice in it to stay cool throughout the day.

Write Down Information

Writing down the main parts helps when you can’t focus or memorize. Moreover, do it with a regular pen on a notepad to boost retention.

However, you can also take notes on your mobile or laptop.

Some students find it difficult to concentrate. So, we thought of presenting top study tips and hacks to overcome the problem.

Create a Dedicated Study Space

Experts will tell you one of the best study hacks is to create a dedicated space for learning. Choose a quiet and peaceful room where you can concentrate in silence.

Moreover, remove any distractions to help focus better.

Eliminate Distractions

You might need to use your mobile or laptop to learn. It is necessary to remove all distractions to prevent your mind from wandering away:

• Remove all social media apps
• Delete all games
• Switch off streaming services like Netflix

Divide Your Sessions

Don’t try to sit at your desk for hours at a stretch. Study in installments and take frequent breaks.

You can use the Pomodoro Technique to manage your time.

Among proven hacks to study better is to work out. You can try free-hand exercises if you don’t want to hit the gym.

Exercising helps in:

• Creating new brain cells
• Make you feel alert
• Retaining information

Use Flashcards

Flashcards can be among excellent learning hacks for students. They help you study effectively, facilitating active recall.

You see a word on a flashcard and try to remember the associated information. It turns your short-term memories into long-term memories.

Socialize Enough

Our mind needs relaxation and some time off. We are social animals, and it is necessary to spend time with our friends and family.

It will keep you motivated and act as an inspiring tool to help you focus better.

Start with the Most Difficult Topic

You are alert and ready to absorb information at the start of your sessions. So, it makes sense to tackle the most difficult topics first.

You are more likely to retain information and complete the challenging topics.

Spend Time in Nature

Don’t stay locked inside your room throughout the day. Go out and catch some fresh air. If possible, go on short weekend trips to nearby destinations.

You will come back with a refreshed mind.

We will now explore a few life hacks for studying. These are pretty simple and don’t need any special preparation.

Most importantly, they can benefit your educational, creative, and intellectual life.

Make Coffee Your Friend

Coffee not only tastes great but also helps you perform better in academics. According to Harvard research , coffee can:

• Increase alertness
• Improve concentration
• Generate more energy

Stick to 50 - 300 mg of caffeine for the best results.

Be a Teacher

Teaching someone else is among the most effective learning hacks. It helps you grasp and understand the key concepts better.

Moreover, you can reinforce your learning when you explain things to someone else. Participating in a study group also benefits you.

Practice Mindfulness

Mindfulness teaches you to focus on everything. It can help you boost your concentration and calm your mind.

Moreover, people who meditate are often more alert, attentive, and patient.

Chill with Music

Listening to music is among the best study hacks for students. According to studies , music can:

• Improve your mood
• Reduce stress
• Increase motivation
• Boost focus
• Help retain new information

You can also listen to background music, like classical music. Moreover, use noise-canceling headphones.

Eat Dark Chocolate

Dark chocolate can improve brain function.

It boosts blood flow to your brain and increases attention and memory. Moreover, dark chocolate supports cognitive function in people over 50.

So, stop chewing gum and start eating chocolates!

Get Your Omega-3

Omega-3 is an essential fatty acid for your brain. It is found in oily fish like salmon and mackerel.

Flaxseed and walnuts are also rich in omega-3, which improves :

• Cognitive well-being

Rely on Memory Aids

Use mnemonic devices or memorization tools to learn better. It includes associating colors, rhymes, or acronyms with new information.

You recall the information better by associating it with your memory aid.

Capitalize on Technology

Online classes use many interactive learning tools. You can use them to your benefit to improve your learning.

Some useful resources could be:

• Online quizzes
• Flashcard creators
• Memory tools
• Simulations for graduate school
• Studybay app to find help with assignments

We will discuss a few study hacks to make studying easier in this section. You will be able to focus better and improve your study skills.

Beat Stress

Stress can hamper recall and your performance on exam day. So, try to beat your stress and relax often.

You may try several ways to reduce stress:

• Get physically active
• Meditate ( Studybay's guided meditations for students are perfect one-stop source)
• Maintain a diary

Stay Organized

Staying organized is one of the best ways to boost your performance. Keep everything you need nearby when you study. Moreover, sort your notes and books into stacks or drawers on your desk.

It helps you prevent wasting time.

Arrange Your Resources

Don’t wait for the last day to collect your notes and classwork. You must arrange all your resources in advance to make the most of your time.

Moreover, take printouts and prepare your files to stay organized.

Take Care of Yourself

It is a must to keep your body and mind in good shape if you want to excel in your studies. Therefore, you should make an effort to care for your needs.

Eat a nutritious diet, and don’t forget to exercise.

Practice All You Can

Practice makes you perfect. Therefore, practicing is among the best middle school study hacks.

It allows you to test your knowledge and spot your weak areas. As a result, you can direct your efforts for optimal outcomes.

Create a Conducive Environment

Set up a conducive learning environment to boost concentration and focus. You can:

• Choose a well-lit space
• Put some plants
• Get a comfortable chair
• Keep things tidy and clean

Try Microlearning

Microlearning helps you learn complex information fast in small chunks. You can divide your topics into smaller parts to learn effectively.

It is possible to go over and revise these small chunks whenever you want to boost retention.

Hang a "No Disturb" Sign

Do you have kids or noisy family members at home?

Let them know when you are studying to avoid any disturbance. You can also hang a "no-disturb" outside your room.

A few techniques in this section might come as a surprise. These secret hacks for studying are unique and most likely, you’ve never heard of.

Here are a few you might try:

Walk and Learn

Research shows walking can help us beat stress and refocus our attention. The University of Alberta has installed treadmills in libraries for this reason.

Students walk and learn, staying healthy and improving grades.

Indulge in Hobbies

Hobbies are not a waste of time. However, they can become distractions when you try to master the course.

Spend time on your hobbies once you complete your target for the day. It will help you relax and reward yourself for hard work.

Learn Alone

Many people will never tell you studying alone can be beneficial. It helps when you are learning new concepts or topics.

You can participate in group studies to discuss your ideas and expand your knowledge.

Integrate Humor

Adding humor to your learning materials is one of the best college study hacks. It helps you recall information as you think of the associated joke or anecdote.

For example, name a formula as "Mr. Grumpy."

Your environment has a significant impact on your learning. So, remove clutter and arrange your desk and room.

Don’t keep things strewn around in a mess.

Don’t Look at the Clock

Stop glancing at the clock frequently if you want to study more. You will get exhausted and unmotivated if you think about when you will get off.

Set alarms on your mobile instead to time your sessions and breaks.

Simplify Complex Terms

Kids don’t understand complex terms. Teachers break them into simpler terms to help them grasp a topic better.

You can do the same as among the top study hacks for high school for improved learning.

Highlight at Will

Highlighting the important facts helps you skim your text. It is among the best study hacks for exams and improved retention.

You can also use this technique to get more time on your study day.

It’s now time for some scientifically-proven study hacks to excel in your studies. These are based on psychology and scientific research with proven results.

You probably already know some of them, and now it's time to employ them for excellent academic performance:

Spaced Repetition

Spaced repetition is a great way to improve retention and recall. You learn a fact or concept and try to remember it after a while.

Increase the time interval gradually after you recall information correctly.

Build a Concept Map

A concept map represents information visually. You can create charts, tables, and Venn Diagrams to map your concepts.

It is among the top studying life hacks that come useful in everyday life.

Know When to Quit

The professional productivity of an individual declines sharply beyond 50 hours per week. The same applies to college and school students.

So, don’t stretch your studying hours beyond what your brain can handle.

Move Around

Science proves studying in different locations improves recall. So, get out of your room and try various learning environments like:

• A coffee shop
• Your local park
• Your rooftop
• University or college grounds

Test Yourself

Studies show performing a test after you learn boosts retention. So, it is a great idea to quiz yourself or answer a few questions when you finish a chapter.

Moreover, you can vary your learning methods too.

Ask Questions

Researchers found elaborative interrogation to be an excellent learning method. It helps you dig deep into a concept to learn better.

Therefore, ask yourself when you don’t understand something. Link the information to develop a holistic understanding of your topic.

Explain to Yourself

Among the best studying life hacks is self-explanation. Explain your key concepts and topics to grasp your topics better.

It helps you in the same way, teaching someone else does.

Watch Videos

Videos can enhance learning , according to research. It is ideal for an explanation of complex topics and heavy information.

So, one of the top study hacks for high school students is to watch educational videos.

You can find ample free videos on YouTube on your course. Moreover, your college or school may provide you with more videos.

We will end our study hack blog with a few tips to improve your memory. A good memory allows you to remember and recall information without fail.

Be Mentally Active

Mental activity is essential to stay alert and focused. It also prevents memory loss and cognitive decline.

You can try things like:

Learning to play a musical instrument is also helpful.

Reduce Sugar Intake

Artificial sugar is not only bad for your health but also for your mind. It causes poor memory and affects brain areas that store memory.

Switch to natural sugars for the best results.

Stay Healthy

Don’t neglect your illnesses like obesity or anxiety. They can impact your overall mood and learning.

Always be proactive about your health for improved academic performance.

Stay Off Refined Carbs

Refined carbs like cakes and cookies damage your memory. Unfortunately, Western diets are heavy on refined carbs.

So, switch to healthier diets like the Mediterranean diet.

Get Enough Sunlight

A lack of vitamin D can lead to a decline in cognitive function. Sadly, most of us spend our time indoors at school or college.

So, make an effort to get at least 10 minutes of sunlight every day.

Develop Attention

Maintaining focus is not an issue when you have a good attention. However, you must try to develop concentration if you lack it.

Meditation, practicing mindfulness, and distraction-free environments can help you develop patience.

Vary Your Routine

Varying your routine is among the best study hacks to ace your academics. Do something else when you plan to sit down for a quiz.

Or take a walk and do your quiz in some fresh air.

Look for Inspiration

Pick a role model and decode patterns of success they implement. Gain insights and implement the learning for better memory.

You may need to head back to school or approach top performers in your online school.

Our learning techniques will make you a better performer at school or college. Here are the main study hacks and tips to remember for excellent grades:

• Create a schedule with room for flexibility
• Arrange your learning materials and notes
• Create a conducive learning environment
• Sort your topics into smaller chunks
• Take enough breaks and sleep well
• Exercise and stay mentally active
• Experiment with different learning techniques
• Take care of your health and well-being
• Use memory and learning aids to boost retention

For more information watch our video with the best practical and effective study life hacks to nail down your success in academics.

Will these hacks for studying improve my academic performance?

Your academic performance will improve when you use our easy study hacks. You will be able to fetch better grades in your assignments and semesters.

Are there any study hacks for school that can make the learning process actually enjoyable?

Divide your lessons into small chunks to make your life a little bit easier. Talk to yourself positively and set smart goals. Moreover, a planned routine works best.

Here are 64 learning hacks for students, should I try each one?

You can try as many strategies as you find appropriate. Do your research and choose study hacks that align with your learning style.

• How to Improve Memory Based on Research . (2023, March 13). Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/great-ways-to-improve-your-memory-2795356
• Wadsworth, W. (2021, July 30). 28 GENIUS Study Hacks To Save You Time (& Score Top Grades In Exams). Exam Study Expert. https://examstudyexpert.com/study-hacks/
• 25 Scientifically Proven Tips for Effective Studying [2023 Edition]. (2022, November 6). MyDegreeGuide.com. https://www.mydegreeguide.com/how-to-study-tips/
• Spaced repetition: a hack to make your brain store information. (2016, January 23). The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/jan/23/spaced-repetition-a-hack-to-make-your-brain-store-information
• Exam study hacks. (2023, April 21). Exam Study Hacks. https://www.murdoch.edu.au/news/articles/exam-revision-hacks
• Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612453266
• What is microlearning (microtraining)? | Definition from TechTarget. (2020, February 1). WhatIs.com. https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/microlearning
• Ingibergsson, E. (2022, March 29). Stress relief ideas from the library sh"elves". news.library.ualberta.ca. https://news.library.ualberta.ca/blog/2022/03/29/stress-relief-ideas-from-the-library-shelves/

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We are very interested to know your opinion

If you think studying is boring, it’s because you’ve not figured how to study. The best way is to avoid procrastination which makes you end up with no time to study. Studying hacks like this make it all so much easier.

As a psycholgy student, I've tried many study hacks for exam, especially for my logic course but one trick that really helped me study smarter and see better exam results is being calm and sleep when I can’t digest the topic. Really, that hack has been eye-opening.

Idk how I managed to ace my first semester without these important points. Believe it or not, you won’t know you can study so much for the test in so little time until you have the right study hacks to guide you.

Studying will get so much easier when you block distracting sites that make you less productive. But, one of my best studying life hacks I often recommend for busy people is to find a podcast episode that discusses the course so you can study while working.

One of the best studyhacks I learned as a busy student is to always have a good night’s rest. Working student life is not easy. You’ll feel stressed and always have things to do. Just give yourself a break and you’ll see the wonders it does when need to study.

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Make Writing A Habit

12 Essay-Writing Hacks from a Professional Editor

As a professional editor, I’ve edited all kinds of documents, not the least of which are essays. I’ve seen it all—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Look, it’s easy to write a bad essay when it’s due in less than 24 hours (we’ve all been there), but that doesn’t mean it’s difficult to write a good essay. To write a good essay, you just have to know what to look for to make weak writing stronger.

Simply looking is the number one job of a professional editor (outside of drinking coffee) because looking leads to discovering —and once you find your errors, improvement is just around the corner.

After editing over a million words, I’ve come to understand what makes a good essay and what makes a bad essay, and I have a few practical tips—essay hacks, if you will—for improving your own essay-writing skills.

1. Befriend your argument.

Make sure you know everything there is to know about your argument. That means you should understand exactly what it is you’re arguing and why. If your argument was an elevator pitch and you had to explain it to someone in just a minute or two, could you? If the answer is “No,” revisit the main point of your essay. Do more research to make sure you know the topic inside and out.

The reason you need to be prepared is that, if there’s any proof that can shoot your argument down, you not only need to shield those bullets but also to ricochet them back. Don’t just know your argument—befriend it. Find out its strengths and its weaknesses.

2. Challenge every idea.

If you have any questions about your topic, subject, or field, ask them as soon as you can. Hitting a snag later can stall progress on your essay, so if you can hit all the major weak points early on, you can avoid finding major flaws in your argument later.

Challenge anything that causes questions to sprout and play the devil’s advocate for your own argument. If you’ve identified these weaknesses before, now is the time to investigate further and begin to clarify anything that might still be fuzzy.

3. Select your sources carefully.

When selecting your sources, be picky. Don’t resort to using online sources just because they’re easily accessible. Try to use all kinds of different sources, but only if they’re current. Don’t pick a dusty old book from the library just to have a print source in your references list.

Choose current and relevant sources from trustworthy or notable scholars in the field. If your proof is questionable, your whole argument will fall apart, so choose your sources like you would an all-star team if you want to knock your essay out of the park.

4. Start writing early.

This is important: make sure you start writing early. Don’t put your essay off until the last minute. Do you know what’s waiting for you at the last minute? Regret and sadness.

Kickstart yourself now so you don’t kick yourself later. If you need to set an early deadline for yourself or split the essay writing into manageable chunks, do it. Just make sure you start early so you have time to solve any problems you run into later.

5. Organize for clarity.

The structure of your essay is every bit as important as the argument itself. If you have a flimsy structure, there’s no firm foundation to build the essay on; if there’s no firm foundation, your essay could collapse at any moment.

Focus on structuring your essay before you start writing. How will you arrange your argument and provide evidence in a cohesive and logical way? It’s better to answer that question earlier rather than later. Use transitions to ensure your argument flows logically from one point to the next.

6. Watch your tense and voice.

First, use the active voice when you write your essay (unless otherwise instructed). Second, avoid personal pronouns to maintain objectivity if need be (e.g., in scientific and other formal writing).

Third, you should write in the literary present, meaning that all actions performed in the text should be explained in the present tense rather than the past.

Finally, avoid using clichés. Since you want to present original thoughts, overused phrases need to be cut.

7. Explain everything clearly.

Any time you make a point, explain it clearly—even if you think it’s obvious. Your argument will be obvious to you (since you’ve befriended it), but it’s brand new to the reader. Your argument is meeting your reader for the first time, and like any new friends, they need introducing. If you fail to introduce them properly, things will get very confusing and awkward.

8. Be succinct.

Sentences should be straightforward, communicating one point at a time; cut all unnecessary words. You’ll also want to eliminate any repetition. It’s easy to say the same things over and over again in an essay, but doing so won’t strengthen your argument.

Cut unnecessary phrases and anything wordy or redundant, including phrases that don’t add information, such as “it should be pointed out that” or “due to the fact that.” Similarly, don’t ramble on about the same topic or go off on a tangent in the middle of your essay.

9. Avoid academese at all costs.

Try to keep things simple. While you shouldn’t talk down to your audience or explain every technical term, you should always be concise. Most importantly, don’t ever use words or phrases that you think will make you sound smarter.

It’s always best to be straightforward, so use the right vocabulary to say exactly what you want to say. It’s embarrassing if you try to use a fancy word only to find it doesn’t mean what you thought it meant .

10. Be aware of your word count.

Don’t go over your word count. Most markers will stop marking at the last word within the word count, so it’s crucial that you stay within it if you want to do well.

However, you also don’t want to stay severely lower than the word count provided. While you shouldn’t pad the essay by adding information that isn’t necessary to your argument or relevant to the topic at hand, you should get as close to the word count as possible by thoroughly exploring your topic and elaborating on your argument.

11. Carefully cite everything.

Unless you want to face a failing grade, academic probation, or even expulsion, you need to cite all of your sources. There are many types of plagiarism, but as long as you take good notes during your research and credit your sources, it’s easy to avoid plagiarism.

Your academic integrity is at stake here, so ensure that you are overly cautious in recording the necessary material. Be vigilant in confirming that you’ve documented everything fully and correctly.

12. Revise extensively.

Every good essay has been revised at least once, which means you, too, should tighten your writing. Comb through and ensure that everything is clear, consistent, and flows well. Once you’re happy with the content of your essay, you can sweat the small stuff, like grammar and spelling errors.

Even brilliant essays receive lower grades if simple mistakes are left in the document, so consider getting a second opinion and having an expert look over your writing for both form and content. At the very least, run a spell and grammar check. You’ll be so happy you did.

Essay writing doesn’t have to be hard. Anyone can write a good essay with the proper tools. These essay hacks are part of your toolkit, which you can use to improve your essay writing. Go from good to great by considering these tips and implementing them when writing your next essay.

If you would prefer a step-by-step guide for essay writing and want to improve your skills once and for all, you might want to think about taking a course to organize and write good essays every time.

Time Management Is About More Than Life Hacks

by Erich C. Dierdorff

Summary .   

There is certainly no shortage of advice — books and blogs, hacks and apps — all created to boost time management with a bevy of ready-to-apply tools. Yet, the frustrating reality for individuals trying to improve their time management is that tools alone won’t work. You have to develop your time management skills in three key areas: awareness, arrangement, and adaptation. The author offers evidence-based tactics to improve in all three areas.

Project creep, slipping deadlines, and a to-do list that seems to get longer each day — these experiences are all too common in both life and work. With the New Year’s resolution season upon us, many people are boldly trying to fulfill goals to “manage time better,” “be more productive,” and “focus on what matters.” Development goals like these are indeed important to career success. Look no further than large-scale surveys that routinely find time management skills among the most desired workforce skills, but at the same time among the rarest skills to find.

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14 Essay Hacks That Will Make Writing an Essay a Breeze

Essay hacks can make the process of writing a great essay just that little bit easier.

Here are some tried-and-tested tricks and hacks that will help you write a grade-A paper.

14 Brilliant Essay Hacks

1) use wikipedia… but smartly.

Our online essay editors will be quick to tell you that Wikipedia isn’t exactly the most reliable or credible source for essay material. However, if you’re a bit smart about it, you can use Wikipedia to get great results.

The hack is to use Wikipedia to find useful sources as opposed to citing it as a source in itself.

Let’s say you’re writing an essay on Kant’s Theory of Freedom. Simply perform a search on the Philosophy of Freedom on Wikipedia and scroll down to the bottom. You’ll be presented with a ton of relevant sources you can then target in your research. Suddenly, finding useful sources became so much easier!

2) Use Google Scholar

Don’t use the standard Google browser for your academic work and essays; use Google Scholar instead.

Google Scholar is an index of scholarly and peer-reviewed publications. By using the Google Scholar search engine, you limit the search results to academic works and, as such, avoid reams of irrelevant or unreliable sources.

Unfortunately, many of the articles that are indexed on Google Scholar are not free to access; however, it can help you find the titles of articles and papers that will be useful for your essay, and you can subsequently look them up in your university library.

3) Conduct Backward Searches

So now you’ve got with the program and are using Google Scholar instead of the standard Google search engine, you can exploit this essay hack to its maximum potential by using the backward search function.

Let’s say we’re writing an essay on the theme of time in Romeo and Juliet.

Simply perform a search on the topic of interest, “theme of time in Romeo and Juliet,” and you’ll be presented with a list of clickable links you can reference to find content and articles that have cited that source.

This provides a really useful way of finding sources that have been used for similar research purposes to your own, which can be useful for two main reasons. First, it can help you find additional information sources. Second, it can give you confidence that a given source is relevant to your paper.

4) Use Google Scholar’s Cite Function

So, we’ve already established that Google Scholar is a great search engine for finding useful information sources for your paper. But did you know you can also use it to help you compile your bibliography?

Simply click on the cite button (currently denoted by double quotation marks) that appears below the listing you want to add to your bibliography, and a new window will open with a range of citation options.

Choose the style guide you wish to follow, and the correct citation format will be generated for you. You can then copy and paste this into your reference page.

5) Manage Your Time Using the Pomodoro Technique

Don’t attempt to write a full paper in one sitting. In addition to being incredibly mind-numbing, focusing on one task for a long time without taking a break will lead to poor output.

Set a timer for 25-minutes. Once that point is reached, take a five-minute break from your computer or reading to stretch your legs, get something to drink, use the bathroom, or fix yourself a snack.

After five minutes, get back to work for a further 25 minutes.

Rinse and repeat until your essay is finished.

6) Nail the Introduction

The introduction is quite possibly the most important paragraph in your entire essay.

If you get that right, you’ll be a long way toward your goal of writing a great essay.

For practical tips to help you master the fine art of the introduction, check out our guide to writing an introduction .

7) Remove Distractions

If you’re easily distracted by applications such as Facebook and Instagram, try using an app that will prevent you from accessing the sites you regularly waste time on so you can concentrate on your paper. ColdTurkey (for Windows) and SelfControl (for Mac) will block the websites you list so all distractions are automatically removed.

8) Nail the Thesis Statement

If you want to write an essay that impresses, make sure you write a succinct and compelling thesis statement. Check out our guide to writing a thesis statement for further information.

9) Work in the Cloud

There’s nothing worse than your computer breaking hours before a deadline or a power cut, meaning you suddenly lose all your work. Work in the cloud using applications such as Google Office Docs 365 or iCloud and you’ll never have to run the risk of suddenly losing all your work again. What’s more, using a mobile device, you can work from anywhere in the world at any time.

10) Make Zotero Your Best Friend

If you’re a student, Zotero could well be the best essay hack you’ll ever discover. You can use it as a Firefox plugin to find and store references or as a Word plugin that automatically interacts with all the information you have saved in Firefox to insert automatic citations in your paper at the click of button. Another click, and Zotero will even create your bibliography for you. Referencing and citations simply couldn’t get any easier.

11) Use Evernote to Keep Track of Things

If you’re writing a large essay or performing an extensive study for your dissertation or thesis, you can use Evernote to take ongoing notes, keep track of your diary, and store important articles that you may want to access at a later date. The app automatically updates on an ongoing basis, so everything you write will be stored in the cloud. What’s more, as Evernote automatically syncs the stored content across your devices, you can quickly and easily pick up where you left off, even if it’s on a different computer.

12) Avoid Meaningless Words

If you want to ensure your essay reads well and comes across as scholarly and succinct, make sure you avoid using meaningless words in your paper. Check out our guide to words you shouldn’t use in an essay .

13) Talk, Don’t Type

If your typing skills are not quite up to the mark, Dragon voice recognition software can help you to efficiently translate your thoughts into text. Simply dictate the words you want to use, and they will be translated into text-based language. Dragon can be particularly useful when you want to quickly and easily get your thoughts down in text form.

14) Ask Someone to Peer Edit Your Paper

When you have spent hours working on an essay, you may no longer be able to see the wood for the trees. That’s where peer editing can come in handy. Ask a friend or family member to peer edit your essay and he or she will be able to spot any errors you’ve missed, provide constructive feedback on how it can be improved, and even point out any areas you haven’t taken into consideration.

Got any useful essay hacks to share? Leave a comment and let us know.

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Essay Writing Hacks

December 12, 2016

Time Management Hacks

Effective time management is crucial when it comes to essay writing. With proper planning and organization, you can ensure that you make the most of your time and produce high-quality work. One useful hack is to create a schedule or timetable specifically dedicated to your essay writing tasks. Break down the process into manageable chunks, setting aside specific time slots for researching, outlining, drafting, revising, and proofreading. By allocating time for each stage, you can stay focused and avoid procrastination. It’s also helpful to eliminate distractions during dedicated writing sessions by turning off notifications or finding a quiet workspace. Additionally, consider using productivity tools or techniques like the Pomodoro Technique to enhance your efficiency. By implementing these time management hacks, you can maximize your productivity and produce well-crafted essays within deadlines.

Research and Organization Hacks

Research and organization are key components of successful essay writing. These hacks can help you optimize your research and use your findings to create a well-structured cohesive essay:

• Start with a brainstorming session to map out your ideas and identify your main argument.
• Take advantage of online databases, libraries and other resources to gather research materials.
• Use note-taking techniques such as bullet points or mind maps to organize your research and keep track of references.
• Categorize your research into subtopics or themes, which will help you see where there are gaps or overlaps in your research.
• Use headings or subheadings to organize your essay structure, which will ensure your argument flows logically.
• Draft an outline to document each of your key sections, which will help you stay on topic and within word limits.
• As you write, refer to your research notes and aim to include evidence to support your argument.
• Use effective referencing tools like citation generators to ensure you cite your sources correctly and avoid plagiarism.

By using these research and organization hacks, you’ll have all the information and structure you need to craft a compelling and coherent essay.

Overcoming Writer’s Block

Writer’s block can be a frustrating obstacle when trying to write an essay. To overcome this challenge, consider the following hacks:

• Take a break: Step away from your writing and engage in a different activity. This change in scenery can refresh your mind and spark new ideas.
• Freewriting: Start writing without worrying about grammar or structure. Just let your thoughts flow onto the page. This can help break through mental blocks and generate new ideas.
• Mind mapping: Use a visual tool like a mind map to brainstorm and organize your thoughts. Start with a central concept and branch out to explore related ideas and arguments.
• Change your environment: Sometimes a change in location can stimulate creativity. Try writing in a different place like a café, library, or park.
• Seek inspiration: Read books, articles, or essays related to your topic to gain new insights and inspiration for your own writing.
• Set attainable goals: Break your essay into manageable chunks and set small, achievable goals. Celebrating each milestone can boost motivation and help you overcome writer’s block.
• Talk it out: Discuss your ideas with friends, classmates, or professors. Verbalizing your thoughts can provide clarity and generate new perspectives.
• Write without editing: Give yourself permission to write a terrible first draft. Focus on getting your ideas down without worrying about perfection.

By implementing these hacks, you can overcome writer’s block and find yourself back on track to completing your essay.

Drafting and Revising Hacks

Drafting and revising are fundamental steps when writing an essay. Here are some hacks to help you make the most of these stages:

• Start with the body: Focus on developing your argument and main points. The introduction and conclusion can be drafted later.
• Avoid perfectionism: Keep in mind that your first draft is not supposed to be perfect. Focus on getting your ideas down onto paper.
• Cut the clutter: Eliminate unnecessary phrases and sentences, which can distract from your main argument.
• Use active voice: Write in the present tense using active voice. This can make your writing sound more direct, concise, and engaging.
• Take a break: Allow time to distance yourself from your writing. This can help you see the essay with a fresh perspective.
• Get feedback: Seek external feedback from friends, family, or peer review groups. Their insights can help you identify areas to improve.
• Check for coherence: Ensure there is a clear connection between each section of your essay and that your argument flows logically.
• Edit for grammar and punctuation: Use grammar checkers and style guides to double-check your writing for accuracy.

By using these drafting and revising hacks, you’ll be able to produce a well-developed, coherent essay that is clear and concise.

Enhancing your writing skills

Enhancing your writing skills is crucial for creating high-quality essays. Here are some effective hacks to improve your writing prowess:

• Read widely: Expand your reading to various genres and styles to expose yourself to different writing techniques and styles. This helps you develop a strong command of language and enhances your vocabulary.
• Practice freewriting: Set aside time for regular freewriting sessions. This exercise allows you to write without constraints, fostering creativity and improving your ability to express your thoughts fluidly.
• Study grammar and punctuation: Brush up on grammar rules and punctuation marks to ensure your writing is clear and error-free. Refer to grammar guides or online resources to enhance your understanding.
• Use active voice and varied sentence structures: Opt for active voice as it adds clarity and dynamism to your writing. Additionally, vary your sentence structures—mix simple, compound, and complex sentences—to create a rhythm and engage your readers.
• Utilize descriptive language: Work on enhancing your descriptive writing skills by incorporating sensory details, vivid imagery, and figurative language. This brings your essays to life and engages your readers on a deeper level.
• Edit and revise: Always take the time to edit and revise your essays. This allows you to refine your ideas, eliminate unnecessary words, improve sentence structure, and ensure coherence throughout your work.

By incorporating these writing hacks into your routine, you’ll gradually improve your writing skills and produce more compelling and impactful essays.

Utilizing Technology for Efficient Essay Writing

Technology has made essay writing more convenient and efficient. Here are some hacks that can help you utilize technology for a productive writing session:

• Use online tools: Make use of online research tools like Google Scholar, online databases, and academic search engines to discover reliable sources quickly.
• Take advantage of apps: Use writing apps like Grammarly and Hemingway Editor to improve your writing, avoid grammar and spelling errors, and refine your writing style.
• Organize your research: Utilize note-taking applications like Evernote or OneNote to organize research materials and create digital notebooks that you can easily search and access.
• Leverage productivity tools: Use productivity tools like Trello for task organization or Pomodoro technique apps for time management and increased focus.
• Back up your work: Avoid losing your work due to device disruptions or crashes. Use cloud-based storage platforms like Google Drive, Dropbox, or iCloud to store your documents and always have access to them.
• Collaborate efficiently: Use collaborative writing tools like Google Docs to share your documents with others, allow for real-time collaborative editing, and track changes in the document.
• Use citation tools: Use citation software like Zotero or Mendeley for efficient citation management, allowing you to easily create accurate bibliographies and citations.

By utilizing these technology hacks, you can streamline your work and be more productive during your essay writing sessions.

Editing and Proofreading Hacks

Editing and proofreading are critical steps when writing an essay. Here are some effective hacks to help you refine and polish your work:

• Take a break: Allow yourself time to distance yourself from your essay, then come back with a fresh perspective. This will help you catch previously missed errors and improve the flow of your writing.
• Read out loud: Reading your essay out loud can help you hear the errors or awkward phrasings in your writing. You can also listen to natural flow and rhythm in your essay.
• Seek a second opinion: Ask a peer, family member, or professional editor to review your work. External feedback helps point out errors and provides suggestions for improvement.
• Use grammar and spell-checking software: Utilize software like Grammarly or Spellcheckplus to scan your essay for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. Pay attention to the suggestions the software offers and make judgments about each suggestion.
• Keep word choice simple: Avoid using cumbersome language in your essay. Long sentences, vague or repetitive phrases, or jargon should be eliminated wherever possible.
• Check formatting and citations: Ensure that your essay follows the appropriate formatting style required for your assignment and that your citations are accurate and valid.

By following these editing and proofreading hacks, you can make sure your essay is error-free and refined, ensuring your readers have a positive and engaging experience.

Citations and Referencing Hacks

Citations and referencing are crucial aspects of essay writing, as they give credit to the original sources of information and lend credibility to your work. Here are some hacks to help you master citations and referencing:

• Understand the citation style: Familiarize yourself with the specific citation style required for your essay, such as APA, MLA, or Chicago style. Refer to style guides or online resources to understand the formatting requirements for in-text citations and reference lists.
• Use citation generators: Take advantage of citation generators like EasyBib, BibMe, or Citationsy. These tools can generate accurate citations by simply inputting the necessary information about the source.
• Double-check your sources: Ensure that the sources you use are reliable and credible. Verify the author’s credentials, publication date, and the reputation of the publishing platform or journal.
• Keep a record of sources: Maintain a bibliography or reference list throughout your research process. This will save you time later when you have to compile the final reference list for your essay.
• Use reference management software: Consider utilizing reference management tools like EndNote, Mendeley, or Zotero. These tools help you organize your sources, create citations, and automatically generate reference lists according to the preferred citation style.
• Follow the correct citation format: Be consistent in your citation style throughout your essay. Pay attention to details such as capitalization, italics, and punctuation while formatting the citations.

By following these citation and referencing hacks, you can ensure that your essay is properly cited, avoiding plagiarism and demonstrating your academic integrity.

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10 Writing Life Hacks for Students

October 02, 2015 - Posted to Writing

If you need essay writing help , take five minutes to review these great writing life hacks. It will make your work go much faster, and you'll be much more productive.

1. There is no Law that States You Must Write the Beginning of Your Paper First

You're at your desk writing a paper. You've been staring at your screen for twenty minutes, and you just cannot think of a good opening sentence. Do you waste another twenty minutes? Of course not! You move on to something that you can write. Maybe you have one of the body paragraphs worked out almost completely in your head. If so, forget about the introductory sentence and write that paragraph instead. It's better to make progress than to accomplish nothing just to write in sequential order.

2. Use EverNote to Organize Your Writing Projects and to Write on the Fly

With EverNote, your writing projects can be divided and subdivided into stacks and notebacks. This creates an incredibly easy system that can be searched, organized and reorganized as you see fit. You can store your notes on EverNote along with papers, and other writing projects.

3. Play Some Background Music or Ambient Noise

It may not be a good idea to have your favorite songs blaring while you study (too distracting), but it is a good idea to have some background noise. It will help you to remain focused on your work without becoming distracted by nearby conversations and other noise.

4. If You Learned to Type on a Typewriter Don't Hit Space 2x After a Period

This rule also applies if you have been taught to do this by an instructor who prides themselves in being 'old school'. There is absolutely no need to do this when you are using any kind of word processing software or app. If you're writing in MLA or Chicago formats, among many others, you'll also get dinged for breaking the rules.

5. Use Google Docs and Never Lose Another Document

Computers crash. Worse, they always seem to crash when we're in the middle of writing something important. When it happens, we quickly reboot and hope that we can restore what we had. If we cannot, let the wailing and gnashing of teeth begin. However, if we use Google docs, we don't worry about this at all, because we know that every word we type is saved.

6. Try Writing in a New Location if You are not Making Progress

If you find yourself not getting any writing done in your dorm or other studying spot, grab your laptop and go somewhere else. The library, a park, a coffee shop, or even your own back yard are a few great options. You'll feel more stimulated and ready to write.

7. Improve Your Writing with Wordle

Do you ever feel like you are using the same words over and over again. If your writing seems repetitive to you, it probably feels repetitive to other people. Wordle is simple to use. Just go to Worldle.net, paste in your writing, and it will create a word cloud for you showing you all of the words that you might be overusing. Don't worry, it filters out common words such as 'the', and 'you'.

8. Use Google Translate to Read Your Writing Outloud

Try this nifty trick to catch spelling and grammar errors along with awkward phrasing. Paste what you have typed into Google translate. Then, click on the microphone. It will allow you to hear what you have written.

9. Use Wikipedia

Your instructors warn you not to do this, but the truth is, Wikipedia is a great resource for finding great resources. Just look up the topic you interested in using the search function. Then, click on the link you want. After that, simply ignore everything that is written and scroll down to the bottom of the page. There you will find the links that were cited in the post.

10. Break Your Work Into Small Chunks

Writing an entire essay can be overwhelming. Writing a paragraph at a time is much less intimidating. Break your writing down and the job will be much easier.

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How to Edit an Essay: Life Hacks, Checklist, & An Essay Revision Plan in 5 Steps

🖍️ essay revision plan.

• 📝 Essay Editing Lifehacks

✔️ Essay Revision Checklist

• 🔍 Essay Editing Example

Golden rule: take it slow when you start reviewing your work.

Trying to grasp all the flaws at once is not the best idea for your essay. That is why we have prepared a revision plan for you. Below, we will explain how to revise an essay in five steps.

Step 1 – Go Through the Structure

We recommend starting with the structure. Go from more significant aspects like text composition to smaller ones like vocabulary. Here’s what to check in your structure:

• Make sure the parts of your paper are in the correct order. You should have a clear introduction with a thesis statement at the end, a body, and a concluding paragraph .
• Check if the paragraphs are in a logical sequence. They need to represent the argument in the same order as your thesis.
• Go through body paragraphs. Each one needs only one idea as a primary focus. It should consist of a point, evidence, explanation, and a transition to the next section.
• Define if your conclusion is logical. It should not add any new information. Instead, summarize the main arguments and synthesize the information you have provided.

Step 2 – Check the Grammar

You can revise the grammar yourself or use some online services. However, revision tools sometimes miss some errors due to their automatized systems. So be careful and recheck the text several times.

Here are the mistakes you need to look for:

• Sentence fragments.
• Faulty parallelism.
• Misplaced and dangling modifiers.
• Incorrectly used pronouns.
• Vague pronoun references.

Here is a selection of online editors you can use to simplify your work:

• Free Grammar Checker & Online Spelling Checker – Zoho Writer
• Free Grammar Checker Online – Ginger Software
• Grammar Check – Free Essay Checker | Virtual Writing Tutor
• Free Grammar Checker | Writer

Step 3 – Check the Punctuation

The easiest way to check punctuation quickly is using automatic software tools. After that, you can check the paper yourself to ensure everything is fine.

For example, there is a built-in checker in Microsoft Word and Google Docs. You just have to find red and green underlines in your document and right-click to see suggestions. You can also adjust your grammar settings in the “Proofing” Word option.

We have also prepared some free punctuation checkers:

• Free Online Punctuation Checker | GingerSoftware
• Punctuation Checker – Free Grammar And Punctuation Check!

Step 4 – Review the Vocabulary

It is not easy to find the perfect editing service to review the vocabulary . Most likely, you will have to do it manually.

Use these questions when you proofread your paper:

• Is your narrative pessimistic or optimistic?
• Do you want to sound informal or professional?
• Do you tell the story in the first person?
• Do you need to make your sentences longer or shorter?
• Is the terminology you use appropriate to your writing style?
• Do some words seem too simple or too complicated?

Read our recent article about the most common errors in essays and how to avoid them:

• 23 Common Errors in Writing Essays: Mistakes to Avoid

Step 5 – Check the Formatting

First of all, make sure your text has the correct type of formatting. Check your instructor’s requirements on this matter. If you already cited your sources with a particular style, ensure you followed all the rules. The common ones are MLA, APA, and Chicago.

If you have submitted any works with the same citation style, just compare the two works. You can also ask some of your college’s students to provide you with a reference.

📝 Essay Life Hacks for Professional Editing

Below are things you need to know regardless you check the text yourself or let the robot do it for you. We will show you how to revise and edit an essay. Below, you will find some study tips and editing techniques to make you more productive.

Common Essay Editing Life Hacks

PRO Essay Editing Life Hacks

• The paper answers all the questions mentioned in the writing prompt.
• You have not exceeded the word count, and there are enough words.
• Your structure is logical : paragraphs are in the proper order.
• Each section presents a different statement .
• There are smooth transitions between paragraphs.
• You have answered the research question stated at the beginning.
• Your conclusion summarizes all the essential information you have introduced.
• You have checked your grammar and spelling with automatic software.
• You focused on one type of mistake each time you re-read your paper.
• Your writing style is appropriate to your essay’s academic goals and audience.
• You have tried several tricks to see your writing from different angles.
• Your citations are in order, and each source is in the reference list.
• You have followed the formatting style instructions.

🔍 How to Edit an Essay – Example

It is important to not only know the basic concepts of writing practices taught but to also understand and have explicit knowledge of how it is used. Success in writing calls for a student to have collaboration between writing specialists and discuss appropriate steps in improving the students' ability of academic writing. Tacit knowledge is very helpful concept for students to know. It is not enough to teach this concept by transmission but one should know it in actions and words. Sharing tacit knowledge through words is commonly associated with tacit knowledge overt. This is because we might know more than we can tell , thus knowledge is ever wholly impersonal or wholly expressible in words.

When writing, it is important to know the value of the transmission of information. There can be differences in meanings of identical concepts. Writing process involves referencing to and translation from articles written in foreign languages. Terms in one language may not have the same meaning in other languages. It is therefore important to learn all the nuances of writing and its purpose. Writing skills are one of the beneficial strengths a person can acquire in life.

Edited Version

Below, we provide an edited version of the text. Pay attention to how we've corrected errors: grammar, punctuation, and stylistic flaws. Some of the most significant ones are marked. Read both texts attentively to see the overall difference.

It is crucial to know the basic concepts of writing practices, understand and have explicit knowledge of how they are used. A student should collaborate with writing specialists and discuss appropriate steps to improve their academic writing ability to succeed in writing. Tacit knowledge is a beneficial concept for students to know. It is not sufficient to teach this concept in theory. One should practice it in actions. Sharing tacit knowledge through words is commonly associated with overt tacit knowledge. We might know more than we can express. Thus, knowledge is either totally impersonal or expressible in terms.

When writing, it is also essential to know the value of the information transmission. There can be differences in the meanings of identical concepts. The writing process involves referring to and translating articles written in foreign languages. Terms in one language may not have the same meaning in other languages. It is therefore vital to learn the complexity of writing and its purposes. Writing skills is a beneficial strength a person can acquire in life.

Research Paper Analysis: How to Analyze a Research Article + Example

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If You’re Reading Stoicism for Life Hacks, You’re Missing the Point

By Nancy Sherman

Dr. Sherman is a professor of philosophy at Georgetown University and the author of “Stoic Wisdom: Ancient Lessons for Modern Resilience.”

Modern Stoicism has become an industry. And a mega-industry at that.

For the consumers seeking wisdom on how to live the good life — and there are a lot of them — there are daily digests of Stoic quotations, books and websites packed with Stoic wisdom to kick-start your day, podcasts, broadcasts, online crash courses and more.

In some ways, Stoicism is well suited to a program of self-improvement. It has always been a sort of athletic training for the soul. Founded in the third century B.C.E. by the Greek philosopher Zeno of Citium and mainly associated today with Roman practitioners like the emperor Marcus Aurelius and the statesman Seneca, Stoicism stresses ethics, virtue and the attainment of that elusive good life.

But today, Stoicism is not so much a philosophy as a collection of life hacks for overcoming anxiety, meditations for curbing anger, exercises for finding stillness and calm — not through “oms” or silent retreats but through discourse that chastens a mind: “The pain isn’t due to the thing itself,” says Marcus Aurelius, “but to your estimate of it.” In this mind-set, the impact of the outer world can fade away as the inner self becomes a sanctuary. The focus narrows to that self — me, isolated from the social structures that support me or bring me down.

This may be one strand of Stoicism, hyperbolized in the much-quoted epigrams of the Greek Stoic Epictetus, but it is by no means the whole of it. The me-focused view misses ancient Stoicism’s emphasis on our flourishing as social selves, connected locally and globally.

The early Stoics taught that we are world citizens connected to all of humanity through our reason. Marcus Aurelius paints a graphic image in his “Meditations.” He jots his notes in the quiet of nightfall after a day of battle during the Germanic campaigns. The detritus of the battlefield is on his mind: Picture a hand and head lying apart from the rest of the body. This is what a person makes of himself when he cuts himself off from the world. We can’t be “at home in the world,” a Stoic catchphrase, if the good is reduced to self-interest, or grit is defined as go-it-alone self-reliance.

While self-focused pop Stoicism has thrived in the marketplace, in the classrooms at Georgetown where I teach ancient Stoicism to graduates and undergraduates, it’s the promise of that connected self and the potential of contributing to the common good that animate students. This semester, deep into a year of loss, isolation and racial reckoning, we grappled with hard philosophical texts and discussed the raw fact that our campus was financed, in part, by the Jesuits’ sale of 272 enslaved people in 1838. When we read Epictetus, one student said to the class: “I hope this is not a philosophy about me and my self-interest. Because if it is, then it is really not ethics.” He couldn’t have said it better.

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12 Student Hacks To Become A Better Online Researcher

Summer is underway and if you’re a student, school is probably the last thing you want to think about. But here’s the thing: the fall semester is only two months away, so you’re going to have to start thinking about school sooner than you think.

Okay, now that we’ve gotten that sobering truth out of the way, let’s talk about what you can do to make the coming school year less stressful. You’re probably going to have to write a research paper or two (or ten). Luckily, there are strategies and services you can use to becomes a better online researcher and essay writing resources that will help you hone your academic writing. Equip yourself with these 12 effective online research hacks and you’ll be set to take on the new semester.

1. Check Out Your School’s Resources

Before looking elsewhere, see what trusty resources are available at your school. Schools will often have essay writing services that will give you strategies to research more effectively. For example, the Purdue Online Writing Lab is a popular resource for essay writing and research tips. Your school’s library will also have access to academic databases like the MLA International Bibliography .

2. Search Unique Keywords

When doing research for the topic of your essay, you will want to use specific keywords to find relevant sources. The broader the keyword you search is, the more results your search will yield. This is actually a bad thing, since most of those results won’t be relevant to your research. Use specific, unique keywords to narrow your search results to more relevant sources. For example, if you’re researching victorian clothing, search specific articles of clothing, such as “victorian horsehair petticoat,” as opposed to “victorian clothing.”

3. Use Specific Phrases

Here’s a quick but effective keyword search hack: put quotations around the phrase you are searching. This tells Google that you are looking specifically for words in the order you are quoting, rather than searching for results that contain any combination of those words. For example, if you are researching the average income of millennials compared to Generation X, you could search “average income of millennials” to get results that use that exact phrasing.

4. Use Google Scholar

Google Scholar is an index of specifically scholarly publications. Using Google Scholar eliminates the step of sifting through all of the irrelevant and unreliable results in Google’s regular search. Many of the articles indexed on Google Scholar aren’t free to read, however–but it’s still a good way to find specific articles for your essay, which you can then look for at your school library.

5. Use Google Books

This is one of my favorite services from Google. Google Books is an index of specifically book publications. It’s a great way to find reputable sources on specific topics. Typically, Google Books will only offer sample sections of books, but you can still find valuable information. Plus, Google Books always displays the copyright pages in their previews, so you can properly cite the book in your essay. Google Books is a great way to see if a book will be useful before looking for it at a library.

6. Browse Message Boards

This might seem counter intuitive—after all, chatting is usually something you do to procrastinate. But message boards can be a great source for insights on a topic and links to useful resources, particularly if your essay is about a niche topic. A lot of message boards exist for specialized interests. For instance, if you’re working on a history project about World War I, there are many message boards for history enthusiasts, who share old photographs and documents. Places like these can be a goldmine for unique material.

7. Use the Advanced Search Function

On the Google homepage, click “Settings” and then select “Advanced Search.” This will open up the Advanced Search function, which allows you to narrow down your search by filters like language, region, and file type. You can also search for exact words or phrases, as well as eliminate results with certain words or phrases.

8. Set a Search Time Limit

It’s easy to go down the rabbit hole when searching for something online. One page leads to another, and suddenly you’re on a site about what your whiskey personality is when you were supposed to be researching ancient Greek festivals. Setting a time limit for how long you can pursue one keyword at a time will help keep you on track. For example, set a timer on your phone for 15 minutes: this will allow you time to search a keyword, to skim various sites, and to jot down some important notes. If you find a site with a lot of useful information, bookmark it so you can dedicate more time to looking through it after.

9. Annotate Your Notes as You Research

Part of your assignment might be to submit an annotated bibliography . But even if it isn’t part of your assignment, writing down some notes about a source before moving on to the next one can be very helpful. You will probably look through tens, if not hundreds of pages while researching, so figuring out which source said what afterwards can end up wasting a lot of time. Create a document with the links to your sources, the author (if one is cited) and a few key points about the article. This will prompt you to remember which article is which.

10. Know Which Sources Are Reliable

Let’s face it: the internet is full of trash. Anyone can write anything and publish it on the web. For every reputable source you find on a topic, there will be 100 unreliable sources. How do you sift through the unreliable sources? A good place to start is, of course, your school’s library search engine. Your school’s library will already have an index of peer-reviewed and scholarly resources. But even if you’re using a regular search engine, there are indicators you can look for to confirm if a source is reliable or not.

Look into the organization that runs the website: is it a public organization or a nonprofit organization? For example, Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan think tank and a popular source for statistical information.

Or ask, is the site privately owned? The information can still be legitimate if it’s privately owned, but be conscious of how a company may present information in a way that favors their business. Even data can be biased .

Also look to see if the author has cited their sources. Most reputable sources will list the sources they drew their information from.

11. Use Online Libraries and Encyclopedias

Depending on the size of your school’s library, you may have limited access to certain books you want to use for your essay. Luckily, there are a number of online libraries that are free to access. Books on Project Gutenberg , for example, are completely free to read and use. You can also access certain online encyclopedias for free, like Encyclopaedia Britannica . These will give you access to articles on a wide variety of topics, and are credible sources that you can cite in your bibliography.

12. Use More Than One Search Engine

Keep in mind that different search engines index results differently . That’s because they have different bots crawling and indexing pages. So if you feel you’ve exhausted your results on Google, try using Bing or Yahoo! to see if your searches yield different results.

Using any combination of these online research hacks will make the research and essay writing process easier and more effective. Now keep these research hacks in mind and get back to enjoying your summer!

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8 Life Hacks to Improve Your English Essay Writing Skills

Are you looking for ways to improve your English essay writing skills ? For students who write in English as a second language, this can seem like a challenge. If a student fails, there is always a great opportunity to hire a professional essay writing service like Write My Paper Hub and to say, “I need someone to write my essay for me!” Fortunately, we offer you a complete list of eight essential life hacks can help you to improve your English essay writing skills quickly and effectively.

Keep in mind that writing is a process. This applies to your native language, not just English. Just as you didn’t learn to write in your native language overnight, you can’t expect your English writing skills to be developed out of nowhere. By cutting yourself some slack, you can relax a little and write in a more natural way.

Read. A lot. One of the best ways to improve your English writing skills is to read. By reading, you learn the rhythms of the English language and the best way to phrase what you are writing. You can experience many different types of writing and understand how writers develop their own voices. The more you read, the easier it will be to write.

Learn and follow the rules of grammar. When you start writing, it’s important to start writing with a good understanding of the grammar of the English language. You should begin by learning the foundational rules, and as you encounter new grammatical challenges in the writing process, add new grammar rules to your repertoire until you have a good understanding of everything that you need to write well.

Master basic punctuation . Nothing makes writing seem more amateurish than a lack of proper punctuation. By learning the basics about where to put commas and periods, you’ll be able to give the impression that you know much more about the English language than your readers might expect. When the commas are in the right place, many readers will assume that you are a native speaker of English.

Start writing with short pieces. It might be tempting to launch into a massive research paper once you’ve started to develop your English skills, but it is too easy to get in over your head. Instead, build your skills and your confidence by starting with short, informal pieces that will give you practice writing in English and which will help you prepare to take on a bigger project in the future. Starting with a short piece will help you to develop an understanding of the written language without the pressure of trying to create a lengthy, structured, formal paper that take significantly more knowledge, skill, and effort to accomplish. Think of short pieces as a warm up.

Keep it simple at first. Many new writers in English want to impress their readers by using long, complex sentences to convey their mastery of the language and their intelligence. But it is actually more impressive to use simple, well-written sentences than to try to string together as many thoughts as possible into compound-complex sentences with many clauses. Use simple, declarative sentences and keep it simple. It was good enough for Ernest Hemingway and Mark Twain and the famous King James edition of the Bible. It will work for you, too.

Have a native speaker review your work. By having a native speaker review your work, you will learn about ways that your writing can be improved to sound more like a native speaker. Even the best speaker of a language as a non-native speaker will sound a little different from a native in terms of phrasing and structure and word choice. When you have a native speaker review your work, you will gain insight into the ways that your readers will expect to hear you sound.

Write a journal every day in English. Writing a daily journal will give you practice writing in English in an environment that is safe and low-stress. After all, practice makes perfect, and the more you practice writing about the events of your day and the things you see and do, the easier it will be to write about any subject that you encounter at school or at work. 

As a matter of fact, there are a lot of effective ways to develop your essay writing skills in English. When you see how a professional approaches your essay, you will learn a lot about the right way to use the English language to write an essay about your topic.

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40 Student Life Hacks You Should Know: Part 2

This is part two of our blog post where we share the best life hacks for college students. If you haven’t checked the first part yet, then we suggest you do that in order to learn about all the cool hacks that we have found for you. And if you are ready to learn more, then let’s get started.

Daily Routine Life Hacks

Once you go to college, it becomes obvious that you need to learn a lot of new things not only regarding your major but also about how to take care of yourself, how to manage your finances, how to plan your day, etc. Here are a few life hacks that will make your college life easier.

• Want to save money? Your college provides a lot of free stuff and opportunities that you should definitely take advantage of. For example, some colleges have dieticians and therapists on campus who you always can turn to for free; free gym, snacks in the common rooms, free printers in the libraries, free stuff during the college fairs, etc. Just look around and you will see a lot of great things that you are entitled to because they are included in your tuition. 
• Check the public domain before buying a textbook. Seriously, it doesn’t take much time but can save you a lot of money.
• You can also buy used textbooks from Amazon, they are way cheaper.
• When in a library, use the help of librarians. They are there to save your time and even recommend some related works and sources.
• Mnemonics are not stupid. And they are not solely for kindergarten. Create mnemonics and use them while studying.
• Define a place where you work and study, and a place where you rest. These should be separate places. This will help you get in the right mood way faster.
• You might want to use Evernote and cloud storage in order to take your notes easily while also keeping fast access to them and quick search.
• You probably don’t need that much stuff that you are tempted to take to your dorm room at the start of your freshmen year. Look through your belongings and consider sending some of them back home as you might soon run out of free space.
• Don’t dramatize – people care about what you do or what you wear way less than think.
• Come to the class 10 minutes earlier. This will allow you to choose a seat, look through your notes, or just get into the mood for studying.
• Don’t forget to wear your flip-flops in common showers. You don’t need that fungus on your feet. Additionally, it will save you from slippery floors.
• Spotify, Amazon Prime, Netflix, and many other companies have student discounts. Always check if there is any special deal before paying the full product price. You can search for deals and discounts online – many of the companies will only require you to provide your student ID as proof.
• Take advantage of the RateMyProfessors website. You can learn a lot from there about what classes you should take and which not.
• Sometimes getting a tutor is a good investment. It might help you a lot, especially before the exams, so you can clarify some things or even run through the whole semester program within a few weeks. 
• Put all the deadlines and classes in your Google calendar. This baby saves lives sometimes.
• Do your laundry regularly. The more you wait until the next time you wash your clothes, the slimmer the chance is that everything will be washed properly.
• Use a Flux program to make it easier for your eyes to spend so much time in front of your screen. You will get better sleep and less eye discomfort.
• Garage sales are great if you need to buy some appliances or furniture.

Most college students try to save money, including on their meals. Others don’t know how to cook because of lack of opportunity, cooking devices, or simply time. That’s why many of them eat unhealthy meals that affect health and brain productivity. However, we have a few nice tips for you on how to save money on meals and still be able to eat well.

• Attend events that serve free food. Yes, there are not many of them but if you are lucky, you can manage to spend 50% less money if you find free food. Various tasting events, festivals, and celebrations will do. Simply google “free food events + your location” and you will get a bunch of them.
• Cook your own meal using a slow/rice cooker or microwave. There are a lot of great recipes for students that would love to plan their meals on a budget and don’t have much space or devices to cook. You can find them in this blog post or online.
• Keep snacks around in case you get hungry during a long study session – the hungrier you get, the less productive you become. So, eating is very important in order to keep your brain sharp.
• Make a list when you go grocery shopping and stick to it. You will probably regret buying half of the snacks and various foods anyways.
• Always have a fork and a spoon with you. Sometimes you might take lunch with you to a library or a park but forget your spoon. Moreover, it’s much better to use your own silverware when going to a party.
• Invest in a water filter – drink your purified water whenever you need it and don’t spend money on bottled water.
• Remember that instant ramen is not a healthy meal though it might save you some time on cooking.

Wrapping Up

We hope you liked our life hacks. Some of them you might want to share with your friends – we would appreciate that. Anyways, have a great college experience, and good luck!

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18 simple essay hacks that every student needs to know

Your assignment deadline is closing in and you have no idea where to start with your essay? We've got some tips for you.

1. Start with a great quote for inspiration.

A strong quote provides credibility and purpose to your introduction. It also grabs the reader’s attention. A succinct quote could also be a great way to end your essay.  Even if you do end up taking the quote out of your draft, it can help you with the focus of your essay.

2. Give the Pomodoro technique a try.

The Pomodoro technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980s. You work based on 25-minute bursts that are separated by short 5-minute breaks. After each interval, you can use the your break to walk around, stretch, get coffee, etc. Then you go back to work. The idea behind it is that frequent breaks can improve mental agility.

There are a bunch of apps available on both iOS and Android or you can use Tomato Timer or other similar website.

3. Block out all the noise and distractions.

We live in such a connected world; you’re constantly plugged in to social media and a multitude of apps that can divert you from your work. Freedom is an app for Windows and Mac that turns off your internet connection for a set amount of time that helps you focus on your work without any distractions from Facebook, Twitter, email notifications and the like. You can use this in conjunction with your Pomodoro timer and utilize the five-minute break to see how many likes you got for your “#AmStudying” post.

4. Block out distracting noises.

While some of us work better with our favourite mix blasting, the rest of us work better with ambient sounds. Ambient sounds create a buffer between your ears and immediate environment, blocking out distractions without overwhelming the senses. You can check out the apps and websites that generate sounds here .

5. Wikipedia is a great place to find sources. 

The footnotes at the bottom of Wikipedia articles act like a bibliography of sorts, you can use it for helpful sources on the subject that you’re writing on.

6. Recover lost files in Word or backup your research regularly on a cloud drive

There are many cloud service providers out there, find out which one’s the best for you from this list .

7. Use a cloud-based app

If you’re working on your essay on multiple devices and on the go, a cloud-based app like Evernote helps you keep track of your work and ensures a seamless transition from one device to another.

8. Make your sentences more succinct by eliminating unnecessary words.

9. Get up and walk around.

Taking a short break every now and then can help you get your creative juices flowing and might even help you better able to phrase your argument. Even a stroll around the room, going to get some water or stepping out of the building to get some fresh air helps.  Can’t step out? Open a window.

10. Get out of the house. Head down to your local cafe or library.

A change of environment and scenery can help with your writer’s block. For some, the aroma of delicious coffee and ambient bustle of a café helps them focus, others find getting some sun and fresh air in a park motivating. Heading to a library where like-minded individuals are also studying prevents you from procrastinating, especially when the sources you need for your essay are within reach.

11. Jot down any ideas that come to mind immediately

Sometimes, on the journey home in the bus or train or even when waiting for a friend in a café, you might suddenly come across an idea or a better way to frame an argument that you’re including in your essay. These ideas are often fleeting in nature and you might not remember them if you do not immediately jot them down somewhere. For those who prefer pen and paper, keeping a small notebook on hand at all times, or you can store these ideas in a note app on your phone to revisit once you get back home.

12. Write your first draft on paper

There have been some studies that show writing by hand stimulate parts of your brain that are not active when you are typing. Writing your first draft by hand allows you to scribble notes and helps with your thought process. Once you’ve got a rough draft, type it into your computer, you can edit as you transcribe.  

13. Try using WriteMonkey for Windows or IA Writer for Mac for a clean writing interface.

Both these programmes offers a clean user interface where the menus are hidden. Once you’re done with your document, you can convert it to word. These are perfect for those who want a clutter and distraction-free screen.

14. For those who want everything on their screen for easy reference, use Scrivener .

Available on both Mac and Windows platforms, Scrivener is the opposite of IA Writer and WriteMonkey. It has everything. You can keep track of what you’ve written, move sections around and many more. This is especially useful if you are working on a dissertation and need to have multiple windows open at once for reference. It even comes complete with a clean writing interface.  

15. Looking for synonyms? Use Wordle to generate a cloud of your most used word to avoid repetition

16. When editing, change the font to something with a serif, and print it out.

Printing your essay out will help you weed out errors that you missed on screen, plus a serif font is easier on the eyes.

17. Paste your essay into Google Translate and hit the speaker icon to hear it read aloud.

Hearing your essay being read aloud helps you improve you’re the flow of your essay and pinpoint any errors with spelling or grammar.

18. Experiencing writer’s block? Just continue writing.

Some of you might be thinking: “But how do I write if I have no idea what to write?” Sometimes just the act of writing helps with your thought process and can kickstart your essay writing.

Hope these tips get you started or finish that essay you’ve been procrastinating. All the best and happy writing!

Useful Links

Thinking of studying abroad?  Browse our list of universities and their respective courses here!  

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