Dropbox Containing Linguistics Textbooks

Hey rising college seniors (or anyone needing to write a thesis-length work)! Last year, I tackled not one but TWO theses, one of which was honors-length and over 100 pages long. One was for Art History and the other for International Studies, so if you come from a discipline from outside of the humanities, it might look a little different for you. Here is my advice for making your thesis a little bit less scary to navigate.

1) Focus on a topic before developing an argument.

I don’t know about y’all, but whenever I write a research paper, my argument drastically changes from the conception of the paper to its final draft. It’s not necessary to have your argument nailed down right away. My Art History thesis loosely started at “20th century art and politics” in September, but by November it had gone through 2 or 3 different iterations before becoming “everyone forgets that Jackson Pollock was a communist”. Often choosing your argument before doing your research boxes you into a place from which it is difficult to grow.

2) Try to avoid falling into a research hole.

I’m a jSTOR hoe. I love clicking through library search results and scholarly articles and collecting anything that seems relevant to my topic. This always leads me into hours of sifting through articles that are ultimately unhelpful and a waste of time and brain energy. Start with four or five sources. Read, analyze, regroup. Take notes, and when you are done with those sources, move on to more relevant information. Don’t forget to look up the citations of your most relevant sources. This is a treasure trove!

3) If you need to collect data, do it early.

Nothing is worse than being unable to move forward with your research analysis because you still have to collect more data. If you need to conduct interviews or produce survey data, make sure that you prioritize the research required to generate these things and get them approved and out early. I couldn’t analyze my results until a month before my IS thesis was due, and it made my last month of college rather hellish.

4) Have an accountability partner.

Try to find any friends or classmates who are also thesis-ing and band together. Host library write-ins or start a group chat if you prefer to work alone. You can also turn your thesis into a social activity! My friends and I would spend our Friday nights drinking and talking through our arguments and exchanging feedback in a casual social setting. That might not be what it looks like for you, but regardless of what you do, it’s great to have someone who will hold you accountable and work alongside you.

5) Format your citations and works cited right away.

While it is super tempting to footnote sentences with links to articles while writing, leaving all of your citations for the very end makes life harder. Format your citations frequently to give yourself a mental “break” and keep them in a separate word doc.

6) I don’t know if this actually needs to be said, but keep all of your work backed up.

For the love of all things that are good do not leave your work saved exclusively do a desktop. I like to use Google Drive to manage all things (I even upload journal articles so that I can organize them in folders and access them anywhere from any device), especially because it autosaves constantly. Use whichever platform works best for you, but please, please, please back up your work to some sort of cloud.

Hopefully some of these are a helpful place to get started. Good luck!

Developing Self Discipline

Requested by flowering-veins. Thank you!

Self-discipline can be considered a type of selective training, creating new habits of thought, action, and speech toward improving yourself and reaching goals. Self-discipline can also be task oriented and selective. View self-discipline as positive effort, rather than one of denial.

Schedule a small task for a given time of the day; Practice deliberate delaying.

Schedule a particular task in the morning and once in the evening.

The task should not take more than 15 minutes.

Wait for the exact scheduled time. When the schedule time is due, start the task.

Stick to the schedule for at least two months.

Advantage: Scheduling helps you focus on your priorities. By focusing on starting tasks rather than completing them, you can avoid procrastination.

Schedule a task and hold to its time; Avoid acting on impulse.

Track your progress; At the end of the allotted time, keep a record of accomplishment that builds over time.

If you begin to have surplus time, fill it with small tasks, make notes to yourself, plan other tasks, etc.

Advantage: Building a record will help you track how much time tasks take.

If you begin to have surplus time, fill it with small tasks, make notes to yourself, plan other tasks, etc.

Harness the power of routine.

Instead of devoting a lot of hours one day, and none the other and then a few on an another day and so on, allocate a specific time period each day of the week for that task.

Hold firm.

Don’t set a goal other than time allocation, simply set the habit of routine.

Apply this technique to your homework or your projects, you will be on your way to getting things done

Advantage: You are working on tasks in small increments, not all at once. You first develop a habit, then the habit does the job for you.

Use self discipline to explore time management

Time management can become an overwhelming task. When you do not have control over your own self, how can you control time? Begin with task-oriented self-discipline and build from there.

Advantage: As you control tasks, you build self-discipline. As you build self-discipline, you build time management. As you build time management, you build self-confidence.

Maintain a self-discipline log book.

Record the start and end times of the tasks.

Review for feedback on your progress

Advantage: This log book can be a valuable tool to get a better picture over your activities in order to prioritize activities, and realize what is important and not important on how you spend your time.

Schedule your work day and studies.

When you first begin your work day, or going to work take a few minutes and write down on a piece of paper the tasks that you want to accomplish for that day.

Prioritize the list.

Immediately start working on the most important one.

Try it for a few days to see if the habit works for you.

Habits form over time: how much time depends on you and the habit.

Advantage: When you have a clear idea as to what you want to achieve for the day at its start, the chances are very high that you will be able to proactively accomplish the tasks. Writing or sketching out the day helps.

Discouragement:

Do not be intimidated; do not be put off by the challenge

If you slip, remember this is natural

Take a break and then refresh the challenge

Tricks:

Associate a new habit with an old one: If you drink coffee, make that first cup the time to write out and prioritize your tasks.

Advantage: Association facilitates neural connections!

Mark your progress:

On a calendar in your bathroom, on a spreadsheet at your computer, on your breakfast table: Check off days you successfully follow up. If you break the routine, start over!

Advantage: Visualizing is a ready reinforcement of progress

Role models:

Observe the people in your life and see to what extent self discipline and habits help them accomplish goals. Ask them for advice on what works, what does not.

this is your friendly reminder that although social media is popular and everyone seems to have it, you shouldn’t feel pressured to keep up and you don’t have to be there for everything. it’s okay if you just watch youtube videos and tik toks and to delete instagram whenever it bores you or makes you feel insecure or anxious. there’s a world out there you’re allowed to experience without being part of this online culture.

we love neck….we love chest… [cr. 1/2]

THIS IS EMBARRASSING

BUT Ya girl got a Below Average for PE.

Imagine.

Physical Education Class.

Thesis 101: Condensed version

In my experience, there is always someone somewhere starting their thesis, or struggling to the thesis finish line, or stuck in that middle part where it’s hard work without the reward. If you are just getting started on your thesis (or another big project) and you feel a bit lost and overwhelmed: fear not, I have your back. I created a list of tips that I found useful while writing my MSc thesis (psychology).

Let me know if this was helpful and if you want more. I originally wanted to post a whole series of tips on different stages of the thesis process, so consider this the drastically condensed version of that.

Getting started

Find a lab that works on a topic that interests you and with a team that you feel comfortable with.

Make sure you know where to go with questions and get to know the structure.

Set up your goals from the beginning and make a planning.

The best thing you can do at the beginning of your thesis is figure out what you want, what your university requires, and how the project works.

Planning

Create a list of all the steps you need to take to finish your thesis and divide them over the time (months, weeks?) that you have until the deadline.

At the very beginning, discuss this schedule with your supervisor.

Create in-between deadlines, with your supervisor and also with yourself.

At the beginning of each month, write down what you should do each week.

At the beginning of each week, write down what you should do each day.

Make a list of things you need to do each day, preferably the night before, so you can start right when you sit down.

You could even calendar block if that’s your cup of tea.

Steps

Here’s an example from a psychology graduate (me):

Literature search/brain storm

Research question, hypotheses

Summarizing results into proposal

Make a plan

Learn how to analyze data

Execute plan (e.g., data collection)

Analyse data

Write down results

Draw conclusion

Revision, feedback, revision, feedback, revision!

 Reflection

Every week (or at whatever interval you prefer), sit down for 20 minutes and reflect on your progress. Ask yourself:

What did I do this week?

What went well?

What did not go as planned?

What can I do to improve next week?

What is on my to do list for the next week? What’s my focus? Are there things on the long run that I need to start working on?

Reflection keeps you on track but also allows you to think about what you learned in the process.

Spotify gifs (tumblr edit large)  part 1

Dear scientists,

Please, for the love of God, please, make your papers more understandable.

Fuck you

Sincerely,

A college student on the verge of tears

oh wow i heart u all actually

What did you read in September? 💗

the hunger moon, marge piercy

the world’s wife, carol ann duffy

(re-read) the unabridged journals of sylvia plath & her collected poetry

mysteries of small houses, alice notley

gods & mortals: modern poems on classical myths, edited by nina kossman

a strangers mirror, marilyn hacker

aftermath: poems, sandra m. gilbert

someday, i wanna wear a starry crown, jasmine ledesma

incarnadine, mary szybist

stay, illusion, lucie brock-broido

rhapsody in plain yellow, marilyn chin

selected poems ii 1976-1986, margaret atwood

thus were their faces, silvina ocampo

one day less, clarice lispector

& so many more essays & research based pieces but i didn’t bookmark them/have a pdf for them :-( 💛