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College Guide

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Google Bibliography Compiler

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What is MyBib?

MyBib is a free bibliography and citation generator that makes accurate citations for you to copy straight into your academic assignments and papers.

If you're a student, academic, or teacher, and you're tired of the other bibliography and citation tools out there, then you're going to love MyBib. MyBib creates accurate citations automatically for books, journals, websites, and videos just by searching for a title or identifier (such as a URL or ISBN).

Plus, we're using the same citation formatting engine as professional-grade reference managers such as Zotero and Mendeley, so you can be sure our bibliographies are perfectly accurate in over 9,000 styles -- including APA 6 & 7, Chicago, Harvard, and MLA 7 & 8.

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📖 MyBib - A New FREE APA, Harvard, & MLA Citation Generator

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MyBib is a free bibliography and citation generator that makes accurate citations for you to copy straight into your academic assignments and papers. If you're a student, academic, or teacher, and you're tired of the other bibliography and citation tools out there, then you're going to love MyBib.

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Northbrook Learning Resources

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Student Landing Page - Learning Resources

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In addition to course learning materials shared by your teachers, the library service provides you with access to an extensive book and periodical collection, and various online databases for journal articles, news stories and academic research. Contact the Libraries and Learning Centres if you

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College Guide to Study Skills with information on essay writing, presentations, writing and presenting essays.

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Some tips to cope with Dissertation Stress

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Dealing with the Undertow of Negative Feelings

Most graduate students experience fairly severe stress at different times over the course of completing the dissertation. For some, the stress is sufficient to disrupt their capacity to work. For others it takes a toll on their lives and health. The three techniques mentioned here are only a few that people find helpful in dealing with feelings that disrupt their capacity to work. Be on the look out for other techniques.

FOCUSING

A powerful technique for dealing with anxiety, for shifting out of a negative moods, or dealing with body tension was developed by Eugene Gendlin called Focusing. It is more akin to a western form of meditation than to the idea of focusing on something to the exclusion of all else. Focusing is about attending to internal states, to moods, feelings and body discomfort such as back pain, head aches. In our culture we are encouraged to ignore these signals, to treat them with pain medication; however, focusing can be used to reveal the underlying sources, to hear the communication that may lie behind the discomfort. If you move your attention in a relaxed, respectful way, with your eyes shut, towards the discomfort and invite your mind to let you know what the pain is about and wait with patience for the mind to come up with a response (rather than trying to think your way to the response) you may be surprised by what you learn and the freedom that comes with that learning. You may discover that you can move out of a mood of intense refusal to work into awareness of what that protest may be about and then into an energized mood in which you are able to work. See Gendlin's book, Focusing (see Useful Books) and Ann Weiser Cornell's book, The Power of Focusing for more information. There is even a section in Cornell's book on how she dealt with her writer's block, see page 57 of her book.

Here is a brief description of one way to enter a focusing state of mind. Plan on taking about 20 minutes. Later as you get more familiar with the technique you may do shorter and longer sessions.

FOCUSING:
A TECHNIQUE TO RELIEVE STRESS

Find a really comfortable place to sit. Close your eyes. Relax your body into the chair. Let yourself allow your whole body to sink into the chair. Feel how well the chair holds you up. You don't have to make any effort to hold yourself up because the chair does it all. Notice your feet touching the floor. Feel how the floor holds them up. Feel their connection with the floor. Feel your arms on the chair or on your lap. Let yourself feel the effortlessness of just resting them where they are. Feel your hands at the end of your arms just resting also. Feel how they don't have to move at all because they are just resting. Let your head lean back against the chair. Now bring your awareness into the central part of your body. Let it travel down from your head to your throat. Let it stay there. If you feel any tension or pain, let your attention gently come to it. Then let your attention just visit with it, like it's a person. You're just standing with it or sitting with it, getting to know it better. There's no rush to move on. Often when you bring your awareness to a point of tension or discomfort gently and in a non-demanding manner, the feeling or discomfort shifts and releases and gives you insights. Let your attention travel down to your chest, staying with any tension or body sensation in the same way. Getting to know it. Say hello to it. That often changes the feeling of it. You are taking a more welcoming, accepting stance towards the feelings rather than trying to shut them out. Just be with it and visit it a scared animal, which is not ready to trust you. Continue going down now to your stomach and visit the feelings in your body there. Just gently bring your attention to whatever you feel. When you feel ready to stop, gradually bring your attention back to the room and open your eyes.

THE ABCDE TECHNIQUE
Adapted fromLearned Optimism, by Martin Seligman, Ph.D.

Martin Seligman is a clinical psychologist who studied a phenomenon called "learned helplessness" in order to better understand depression. He writes about how a person's way of explaining things to themselves and by extension their beliefs greatly affect their moods and their ability to function. People who tend towards depression and to feelings of self-diminishment often speak to themselves and explain things to themselves in self-depreciating, harshly critical ways, ways in which they would never talk to someone else. He advocates the following approach in order to adapt a new attitude and become constructive. Many people find this technique most effective when they write their way through the different steps. Reading the example below will help make the steps clearer.

A dversity = Write down what the challenge is. Write down what happened, what you are up against, how you are feeling.

Underlying B elief = Write down your underlying fear is. What are the assumptions which underlie your worry, what are you really afraid of? What is your belief of what will happen if you can't meet the challenge?

C onsequences = State the effects on your feelings and behavior of holding these beliefs and fears. What are the consequent feelings and behaviors that result from the underlying beliefs?

D isputation = Dispute the underlying beliefs and self accusations. Pretend you are a lawyer for the defendant (yourself) and eloquently argue the other side, argue in defense of yourself. Argue against the negative underlying beliefs. Find other ways and beliefs by which to evaluate and understand your behavior or the situation. For example, if you are explaining your failure to complete the chapter, by accusing yourself of being lazy, try to explain it differently - "this is the toughest chapter I've had to write." Think of these adversities and challenges as opportunities for learning. Think of various ways you can find out more or approach the problem differently. Keep in mind that there is always a solution (Buddha said to look for the third way). In your mind, search for resources you could use to get more information or perspective, like books or people. Make a plan for how to handle the situation (which could include doing nothing, but not worrying or being self-critical).

E nergization = Register how you are feeling now. Do you feel any better? Hopefully, you do. If not, write down what you are thinking now; this is the new adversity to address.

An example:
Adversity = I said that I would turn in my results chapter to my sponsor this week and I haven't. I'm not finished.

Underlying Belief = My sponsor will think I'm not a good student. (My sponsor won't want to work with me anymore. This will take away her respect for me.)

Consequences = Low self esteem, anxiety, pressure

Disputation = Okay, I can't go any faster. I'm confronting problems the best I can. This chapter had certain problems, which I think that I cured but I'm not sure. Anyway, it's going to get done. I've finished 3/4 of it now. My sponsor is very busy. She probably hasn't even noticed that I'm late turning it in. If I want, I can leave her a note about it or I can just turn it in next week. I'll check with my friend, her teaching assistant, to see whether she thinks it's okay just to hand it in next week. Maybe I should hand in what I've done and get her feedback on that part? That's an interesting idea. That way she'll also see the problem I'm having now and if she has any ideas about what to do, she can tell me. I'll ask my friend about that. I'm not a good student? She's seen my other chapters and thought they were okay. Why would she think I'm not good now? She was willing to sponsor me in the first place. The promise to hand in the chapter this week? That was the right thing to do. That's how I keep myself going, with deadlines, concrete goals, and commitments. Also time keeps passing and I want to get this done and gone on with other things. Look, it's not going to be perfect when I hand it in. I've met that underlying belief before, having to have what I write and do be perfect. She'll dump me? Come on, Lois, for handing in the draft of a chapter a few days late or a week late? Does that make sense, given that she's felt okay about my work so far? Ease up. It's okay.

Energization = I feel better.

SMALL CHUNKS OF TIME METHOD

Most people can tolerate something for a few minutes. If you are in a mood where work seems unimaginable, you may discover that if you decide to work for only 20 minutes, or an even smaller block of time, you can get yourself to do so. So try dividing a chunk of say two hours into 20-minute chunks. Then keep switching activities. Work on the dissertation for 20 minutes, then make phone calls, then clean house, then work on the dissertation. Do each activity for only 20 minutes. This is usually makes it possible to work on a tough task even in the worst of moods. Consider combining this approach with the focusing technique.

Creating A Work Structure

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Most graduate students experience fairly severe stress at different times over the course of completing the dissertation. For some, the stress is sufficient to disrupt their capacity to work. For others it takes a toll on their lives and health.

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How to create an effective paragraph

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The PEEL paragraph writing approach is a proven way to help students' writing process by providing a structure for their writing.

Your first sentence must state your point. It introduces the topic you're about to discuss and tells the reader what the paragraph is going to be about. This is sometimes called a topic sentence.

Support your point with evidence and examples. In the next one or two sentences, give evidence to expand upon and support the point you made. Evidence can include facts, statistics, research findings, quotes from a credible authority or a primary text.

This is where you show your understanding by explaining in more detail how and why your evidence supports your point. Your explanation should interpret the evidence for the reader.

The last sentence should reinforce your original point or link your writing to the next paragraph. The link sentence can provide a transition to the next topic or paragraph

In some circumstances it may make more sense to switch Explain and Examples/Evidence.
It is Academic writing
ALARM - A Learning and Responding Matrix okay to be flexible with these two.
Feel free to use one of the planning scaffolds

Like all writing, PEEL paragraph writing works best if it is first carefully planned PEEL Paragraph Checklist
How to Write a Topic Sentence .below.

Some PEEL Paragraph examples
Q. Should Animals Be Kept in Zoos?

​Q. Why Does Volcanic Activity Occur in the Pacific Ring of Fire?

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​References and further reading

Barker, N. (2014). Lesson 3 - Thesis Statement and PEEL Method /Writing. EdTech 506. Retrieved from http://edtech2.boisestate.edu/nonabarker/502/506/Lesson%203_NLB_ET506.pdf

Bell, M. (2011). John Hattie: Visible Learning Pt1. Disasters and below average methods. YouTubeRetrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sng4p3Vsu7Y

Bell, M. (2011). John Hattie, Visible Learning. Pt 2: effective methods. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pD1DFTNQf4

Best Custom Writing. (2013). Catholic Education Office Melbourne. (2013). Education Services Australia. (2012). P.E.E.L paragraphs: useful tips and a good sample. Bestcustomwriting.com. Retrieved from http://www.bestcustomwriting.com/blog/essay-writing/peel-paragraphs-useful-tips-and-a-good-sample Learning Intentions and Success Criteria. Catholic Education Office. Retrieved from https://cpb-ap-se2.wpmucdn.com/global2.vic.edu.au/dist/7/31021/files/2013/08/Corpus-Christi-LISC-July-2013-2dz21eo.pdf Learning intentions. Curriculum Corporation. Retrieved from https://www.assessmentforlearning.edu.au/professional_learning/modules/learning_intentions/learning_intentions_landing_page.html
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Fennessy, M. (2013). Peel essay writing. Slideshare.net. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/meghanlouisefennessy/peel-essay-writing

Janssen Creighton, S., Tobey, C. R., Karnowski, E, Fagan, E.R. (2015). Guidelines for Writing Learning Intentions (LI) and Success Criteria (SC). From Bringing Math Students Into the Formative Assessment Equation: Tools and Strategies. Corwin. Thousand Oaks. Retrieved from
https://resources.corwin.com/sites/default/files/06.6_Guidelines%20for%20Writing%20LI%20%26%20SC.pdf

Mcgrooby. (2016). PEEL paragraphs. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1dQvPtwp0I

Orman, T. (2012). PEEL Anchor Chart and Paragraph Writing Tips. syracusecityschools.com. Retrieved from http://www.syracusecityschools.com/tfiles/folder836/3.12%20CommonCoreWritingPEELAnchorChart.pdf

Read Write Think. (2017). Editing Checklist for Self- and Peer Editing. ReadWriteThink. Retrieved from http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/printouts/editing-checklist-self-peer-30232.html

Teach Starter. (2015). PEEL Paragraph Structure - Poster and Worksheets Teaching Resource. Teach Starter. Retrieved from https://www.teachstarter.com/teaching-resource/peel-paragraph-structure-poster-worksheet/

Visible Learning Partnership. (2019). Visible Learning. Retrieved from https://www.visiblelearningplus.com/

Cathy Costello teacher librarian virtual library Cathy Costello library Cathy Costello virtual library Cathy Costello librarian

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The PEEL paragraph writing approach is a proven way to help students' writing process by providing a structure for their writing. Your first sentence must state your point. It introduces the topic you're about to discuss and tells the reader what the paragraph is going to be about.

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Powerpoint on essay writing

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Resources to overcome anxiety, stress and depression

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Powerpoint on Reading

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Model of Dissertation Work in Progress Presentation

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Padlet with resources on Wellbeing, Happiness, Creativity and Philosophy

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A quick fix

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The Magic Button that makes everything OK

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Video presentation providing advice on Literature Reviews from academic Michael Paye from University College Dublin

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How to Write a Literature Review (UCD Writing Centre)

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Zooming Presentation Software

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Open Canvas

Create, organize, and move freely on an open canvas. Create seamless presentations without the restrictions of linear slides.

Ready-made asset libraries

Choose from millions of images, stickers, GIFs, and icons from Unsplash and Giphy.

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Presentations and videos with engaging visuals for hybrid teams | Prezi Present

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Welcome to Prezi, the presentation software that uses motion, zoom, and spatial relationships to bring your ideas to life and make you a great presenter.

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Monash University

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Menu

What is a literature review?

A literature review is a type of academic writing that provides an overview of existing knowledge in a particular field of research.

A good literature review summarises, analyses, evaluates and synthesises the relevant literature within a particular field of research. It illuminates how knowledge has evolved within the field, highlighting what has already been done, what is generally accepted, what is emerging and what is the current state of thinking on the topic. Additionally, literature reviews identify the gaps in the current knowledge - that is, uninvestigated or under-researched areas.

Whether the literature review is short or extended, similar structural and linguistic features apply.

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Menu A literature review is a type of academic writing that provides an overview of existing knowledge in a particular field of research. A good literature review summarises, analyses, evaluates and synthesises the relevant literature within a particular field of research.

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Guardian Article

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s the government begins its crackdown on essay mill websites, it's easy to see just how much pressure students are under to get top grades for their coursework these days. But writing a high-scoring paper doesn't need to be complicated. We spoke to experts to get some simple techniques that will raise your writing game.

Tim Squirrell is a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh, and is teaching for the first time this year. When he was asked to deliver sessions on the art of essay-writing, he decided to publish a comprehensive (and brilliant) blog on the topic, offering wisdom gleaned from turning out two or three essays a week for his own undergraduate degree.

"There is a knack to it," he says. "It took me until my second or third year at Cambridge to work it out. No one tells you how to put together an argument and push yourself from a 60 to a 70, but once you to get grips with how you're meant to construct them, it's simple."

The goal of writing any essay is to show that you can think critically about the material at hand (whatever it may be). This means going beyond regurgitating what you've read; if you're just repeating other people's arguments, you're never going to trouble the upper end of the marking scale.

"You need to be using your higher cognitive abilities," says Bryan Greetham, author of the bestselling How to Write Better Essays. "You're not just showing understanding and recall, but analysing and synthesising ideas from different sources, then critically evaluating them. That's where the marks lie."

But what does critical evaluation actually look like? According to Squirrell, it's simple: you need to "poke holes" in the texts you're exploring and work out the ways in which "the authors aren't perfect".

"That can be an intimidating idea," he says. "You're reading something that someone has probably spent their career studying, so how can you, as an undergraduate, critique it?

"The answer is that you're not going to discover some gaping flaw in Foucault's History of Sexuality Volume 3, but you are going to be able to say: 'There are issues with these certain accounts, here is how you might resolve those'. That's the difference between a 60-something essay and a 70-something essay."

Once you've cast a critical eye over the texts, you should turn it back on your own arguments. This may feel like going against the grain of what you've learned about writing academic essays, but it's the key to drawing out developed points.

"We're taught at an early age to present both sides of the argument," Squirrell continues. "Then you get to university and you're told to present one side of the argument and sustain it throughout the piece. But that's not quite it: you need to figure out what the strongest objections to your own argument would be. Write them and try to respond to them, so you become aware of flaws in your reasoning. Every argument has its limits and if you can try and explore those, the markers will often reward that."

The use of Wikipedia for research is a controversial topic among academics, with many advising their students to stay away from the site altogether.

"I genuinely disagree," says Squirrell. "Those on the other side say that you can't know who has written it, what they had in mind, what their biases are. But if you're just trying to get a handle on a subject, or you want to find a scattering of secondary sources, it can be quite useful. I would only recommend it as either a primer or a last resort, but it does have its place."

Reading lists can be a hindrance as well as a help. They should be your first port of call for guidance, but they aren't to-do lists. A book may be listed, but that doesn't mean you need to absorb the whole thing.

Squirrell advises reading the introduction and conclusion and a relevant chapter but no more. "Otherwise you won't actually get anything out of it because you're trying to plough your way through a 300-page monograph," he says.

You also need to store the information you're gathering in a helpful, systematic way. Bryan Greetham recommends a digital update of his old-school "project box" approach.

"I have a box to catch all of those small things - a figure, a quotation, something interesting someone says - I'll write them down and put them in the box so I don't lose them. Then when I come to write, I have all of my material."

There are a plenty of online offerings to help with this, such as the project management app Scrivener and referencing tool Zotero, and, for the procrastinators, there are productivity programmes like Self Control, which allow users to block certain websites from their computers for a set period.

"This is comparatively easy to do," says Squirrell. "Look at the citations used in the text, put them in Google Scholar, read the abstracts and decide whether they're worth reading. Then you can look on Google Scholar at other papers that have cited the work you're writing about - some of those will be useful. But quality matters more than quantity."

The old trick of dealing with your introduction last is common knowledge, but it seems few have really mastered the art of writing an effective opener.

"Introductions are the easiest things in the world to get right and nobody does it properly," Squirrel says. "It should be 'Here is the argument I am going to make, I am going to substantiate this with three or four strands of argumentation, drawing upon these theorists, who say these things, and I will conclude with some thoughts on this area and how it might clarify our understanding of this phenomenon.' You should be able to encapsulate it in 100 words or so. That's literally it."
Keep up with the latest on Guardian Students: follow us on Twitter at @GdnStudents - and become a member to receive exclusive benefits and our weekly newsletter.

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How to write better essays: 'nobody does introductions properly'

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s the government begins its crackdown on essay mill websites, it's easy to see just how much pressure students are under to get top grades for their coursework these days. But writing a high-scoring paper doesn't need to be complicated. We spoke to experts to get some simple techniques that will raise your writing game.

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Ted talk from Tim Urban 'Insdide the Mind of a Master Procrastinator

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Tim Urban: Inside the mind of a master procrastinator

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Tim Urban knows that procrastination doesn't make sense, but he's never been able to shake his habit of waiting until the last minute to get things done. In this hilarious and insightful talk, Urban takes us on a journey through YouTube binges, Wikipedia rabbit holes and bouts of staring out the window -- and encourages us to think harder about what we're really procrastinating on, before we run out of time.

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Padlet with Resources on Creativity

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Website to help with citing sources

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Automatic works cited and bibliography formatting for MLA, APA and Chicago/Turabian citation styles. Now supports 7th edition of MLA.