Hello lovely readers!
I hope you had a lovely (and productive) summer! It felt like summer went by even more quickly than usual. It seems like the winter semester just ended but somehow here we are at the start of the fall semester. I do not know where the time went.
All I did this summer was work and research work and research but I still feel like I have not nearly enough. I did not finish translating two texts (one Greek and one Latin) which really annoys me. There are only a few pages left to translate into English in both texts but I still did not get through it all. Instead, I devoted most of my time to research for my thesis which, I suppose, is not the worst thing that could have happened. I mean, at least I did something productive and did not just Netflix all summer. Yet my failure to check these two things off of my to do list turned into a learning experience. I told myself that I would get to my two texts on a weekend and just buckle down and get my translations done. That was at the end of April. And I kept telling myself that I would do it on a weekend. Here is the harsh truth my friends, these “work weekends” for (in my case) translating, or major research efforts, or a day-long writing session, they never come. NEVER. There I said it.
I realized that I am far more productive if I do my work, be it translating, reading an article, or just writing, if I do it in smaller portions. For instance, I now set myself the daily goal to read one chapter or read one article for my research and then take a short break. Doing that also gives you time to mull things over in your head and ask yourself how you plan on using the source you just read for your thesis and then you can move on to do something else. Translate a couple dozen lines or you name it. Apparently this approach is called “snack-writing.” I just know it as “working with Apollo” (my cat). I used to spend many hours trying to get as much research/ writing/ work done as possible because I thought that would increase my productivity. But that’s not how it works. All you do is get tired from such hardcore work sessions and you do not end up getting much done. You just end up reading the same paragraph ten times over because your tired brain cannot retain or process any information. But as you can see from the picture for this blog post “writing with Apollo” is just better. It is this little guy who made me realize that I needed to change my approach to my work. Whenever he forced me to stop whatever I was doing because clearly attention to him is way more important than any text by Cicero could ever be, I realized that I really needed a break. Call it “snack-writing” if you want but you will actually feel better and be more productive if you take small breaks every now and then.
One thing I tended to really hate doing as an undergrad was annotated bibliographies. My younger self thought they were the absolute worst. Oh, such youthful foolishness! Now I am wiser and able to see how helpful annotated bibliographies really are. Here is the deal for those of you who have never used annotated bibliographies. Whenever you are working on a large research project it is so easy to lose track of your (secondary) source material. You keep accumulating tons of sources over the many months you are working on your project and eventually you forget why you even have one of them listed in your notes. That is exactly where an annotated bibliography comes in really handy. Every time I read a new article (or chapter from a book) I take a moment to think about what I have read and decide what the most compelling aspects of that particular source were and how I plan to use it for my project. Boom! That is really all you need to write down and bibbidi-bobbidi-boo there is your annotated bibliography which you can use as a reminder about why you ever looked at a particular source and thought it would be helpful along the road.
Anyway, those are just my two cents on effective writing and research strategies. I hope you found them helpful and in case you did not, I hope that you at least enjoyed the picture of my adorable, little Apollo.
Until next time!