Successful Study for Degrees

Rob Barnes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781138144118
• eBook ISBN: 9781134336036
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This is a practical guide to studying more effectively at first and higher degree levels. Primarily for students looking for more than just a basic study skills book, it blends practical ideas with sound principles to offer a readily accessible, handy guide.
This third edition includes a new chapter on distance learning and updated chapters about online and computer-based learning, in addition to essential advice on:

• personal survival in the university setting
• developing a good learning attitude
• using ebooks, online searcher and electronic media
• time management, deadlines and task management
• essay technique and writing your dissertation
• small-group and seminar study.

Packed with useful information and guidance, this is an indispensable read for any student in higher education.

Chapter 1

What Makes for Good Study?

Being a good learner means you are able to do two things well. First, you are able to get started, rather than put off starting. Secondly, you have some idea of what you have learned and its place in the bigger picture of your degree. The illusion of student study is that you go to the library and take out as many books as you can. Next you buy yet another pen, pencil, A4 notepad and yet more card index refills, writable disks and ring binders. Now you are ready to start. Except, that is, for a cup of coffee, a quick snack, a browse of the internet and a read of those emails that must be read. Just a couple more phone calls to make and you are ready to start. Except that you remember that a vital piece of information for your study is being dealt with in tomorrow’s seminar. Frankly, it would be much better to wait until then, wouldn’t it? In any case, look at the time.

There is nothing quite like putting off starting your study. There are a million things to do to avoid it with displacement activity. Even professionals who work at home for a living know how easy it is to fritter time by putting washing in the washing machine, doing the odd bit of tidying, and organizing their workspace yet again. If you find yourself saying ‘I can’t start this until . . .’ you will invent yet more reasons not to start. Last-minute study is usually motivated by fear of the consequences or fear of failure, but there are better ways to cope than this. My shortest check list for a successful starting is:

• Treat starting any unrewarding task as a professional job that has to be done. Recognize some things are not always rewarding to do, such as essay writing and essential course reading. Others, like discussing ideas with friends, solving problems and making lists can have a payoff. You may not like it, but start it anyway.
• If you write only one paragraph, you have started. Big study tasks look smaller if you: write one paragraph, make a list of topics, make a note about a chapter you are reading or read ten pages thoroughly. If you do nothing then nothing is exactly what you get.
• Promise yourself a reward for writing the extra paragraph or studying the extra page.
• Fix a time to continue the next period of study and stick to it. This is important because the brain cannot cope with long periods of intensive last-minute study. You also need to study in frequent small chunks of time in order to keep your momentum going.
• Avoid passive study. If you read a chapter, you need to make useful notes. If you listen to a lecture, make notes to keep yourself involved. Students who participate in sessions and seminars understand more and their active involvement encourages remembering.
• Learn to read quickly. Reading slowly along lines of text results in less being taken in than if you read quickly. Most academic books are not exactly poetry needing each phrase savoured.

If I find starting difficult I remind myself of something a colleague once said about supervising dissertations. ‘If students write rubbish, you can help. If they write nothing, you can’t. If you can write rubbish, there is still hope for you.’ How wonderful it would be if studying was always enjoyable, but some study can be very dull indeed. The trick is to maximize the benefits in your mind and be coldly professional when study is boring. Tell yourself what you have done, rather than what remains. Tell yourself that you read ten pages and made notes. If you hear the words ‘Ah yes, BUT . . .’ you are putting yourself in the domain of a problem-sufferer rather than a problem-solver. This can easily be seen in something as simple as making a list of things to do. If you want to be more aware of what you have done, do not throw this list away and write a fresh one. That way you will have a growing a list of what you did and not just see what is still to be done. If you find study boring, there are strategies to overcome this (see Chapter 2).

Mystique, Myths and Hangups

For many students, academic study at degree level is shrouded in mystery. Particularly at first degree level, time can be wasted in trying to fathom what lecturers want from you in order to award the degree. Such guesswork is wasted energy because, in truth, two students can be awarded the same degree for quite different content, style and contribution. Provided their work is of degree standard, there can be wide variation in each student’s response. Your degree may require you to spend most of your time in the library. Another student will need to spend time gathering research data and analysing it. Research methods vary and you may need to choose between ‘statistical’, ‘hypothetico-deductive’, ‘ethnographic’, ‘descriptive’ or ‘action-research’ modes. You may be studying in another country and sending your written work by email or post. Attempting to discover what constitutes degree standard is therefore inappropriate because you have no experience of the quality of work which your degree will demand.

A far better strategy is to discover what skills, attitudes and experience lecturers are trying to encourage. Do they want you to debate issues? Do they want you to test your assumptions and wrestle with conflicting opinions? What do they hope you can do by the end of the year? How do they think you might go about it? If there is a mystique, this may be because your view of a degree is unreal. Some students see a degree as something strange out there, wrapped up in a secret code. Their approach is to search for cryptic clues to unravel the code which they think is known only to the lecturing staff. If you believe that a secret code exists, your aim, quite naturally, is to crack the code and ‘get’ the degree. The reality is that you will be awarded a degree if the quality of your work merits it. There are of course a few writing conventions to learn and ways to present references and a bibliography. These are dealt with in later chapters.

Sometimes you will be expected to seek out relevant information yourself. This is not because your lecturers do not care, but is intended to encourage you to learn independently and make judgements about what is worth reading. If you are studying for a degree through distance learning (see Chapter 2) you will certainly need to learn independently. Whatever your style of learning, you may be surprised by what happens:

When I first started this degree course, I never imagined you could go on and on finding deeper and deeper levels of meaning. I imagined there was a limited amount of knowledge necessary for this degree. But now I have to put my own parameters on it and decide when to stop. You just can’t study everything, so you have to make choices. Study for me is about making the best choices I can.

(Law student)

This student is not trying to crack any codes. If you think there is something hidden or subversive about a degree, then your study is rather like a shifty car sale. You are led to believe that only a certain amount of dishonest trading will save the day and the only way to gain a degree is to ‘beat the system’. Naturally, there are times when you may think your degree course is obscured by jargon and lecturers may seem confusing in their aims. Yet it is just as likely that your attention has focused on an abstract notion of ‘the degree’, rather than on your contribution to it.

Some students are naturally more confident about asking questions and gaining feedback from teaching staff. Take the plunge and try to establish a dialogue or you will be left trying to guess what is meant by brief comments written on your essay or assignment. Remember that lecturers have also been students.

When I first went to university I remember being reduced to a gibbering idiot every time I spoke to my lecturer. He was distinguished both in his grey-haired appearance and in his academic achievements. It wasn’t his fault, but he sounded so much like a news bulletin that I felt a fool whenever I tried to string a sentence together. Gradually things got better and I realized he wasn’t really criticizing my every word, but this was just his personal style. During my course I got to know him quite well and one evening we talked about how sounding intelligent could actually be quite threatening. He put his head in his hands and said ‘I really wish I didn’t have that effect on people, you know. I wish in a way I hadn’t developed such a fluency with words. It’s dogged me ever since.’

(Lecturer in English)

If fluency with words is intimidating, then the sight of other students exuding an air of apparent self-assurance does nothing for your own confidence. You may even feel guilty at the sight of so many students with their noses into books when yours is not. By contrast you may wonder when on earth some students do any work at all. Many of them seem poised and in control of their destinies. Nobody is ready to take you aside and explain how to go about starting your study because they know nothing of your own learning style. Where are the short-cuts? If you are a mature student, it may be years since you last wrote an essay. If you are straight from school you may be devastated to discover your motivation to study by yourself is abysmal when compared with the pressure to work if teachers pushed you on. Here, the only deadline you may have during the academic term is a distant long assignment due in after the vacation. Your study is in your own hands, but you are not sure where to begin.

What is Expected of you

Setting yourself against an idealized image of the perfect student is almost bound to result in a poor attitude to study. The traditional myth is that ‘super-students’ read all the books on the reading list, are always organized, take perfect notes in lectures, study in preference to meeting friends, have excellent memories and are super-confident. They are never lost in seminars, never suffer from anxiety and self-doubt, find writing essays easy and love every minute of their examinations. They are always on time for lectures, ask relevant and searching questions, are well liked, have a sense of humour, manage their finances to perfection and gain the highest possible grades. When they are not doing this, they edit the student newsletter, produce gourmet dinners, go hang-gliding, motor-racing and climb Mont Blanc. More realistically, you are likely to do some things well some of the time, but nobody ever did everything well all the time. In the 1930s, in one famous school a large notice hung in the main corridor. It simply said ‘A man who never made a mistake never made anything’. I still believe that is true and a degree course is one where you will test this out for yourself.

One of the most important expectations lecturers have of you is that you will develop the habit of self-study, especially reading and responding to what you read. Many students arrive at their place of study expecting to be told what to do, much as they might have been at school. They cannot understand why as little as eight hours a week may be lectures and seminars. The rest looks like free time. The reality is very different because you are studying in depth which usually requires attention to detailed background reading and inquiry. Before you put pen to paper you need be prepared to read for understanding, not just to find useful sentences to quote in an essay. Reading, making notes, discussing and thinking are activities you are expected to do without being told. Nobody is going to tell you when to use the library, though they might advise you to buy some books needed for your course. The rest is up to you. Deadlines set by lecturers are much easier to work to than those you set yourself. Consequently you need to have a personal target for how much self-study you do in a week, and some idea of when you intend to do it. You may not achieve your target, but you will achieve something.

Degree courses are about examining ideas in a critical and wide-ranging way. You may already have opinions about your degree subject, but will be expected to develop more informed views and question the assumptions you hold. I have lost count of the essays I have marked over the years, but within a couple of pages of reading I can certainly tell whether a student has bothered to look at the literature for writing the essay. Without finding out what other people think, you will inevitably reiterate your opinions as if they are fact.

Expectations about student life can also be misleading. If, as an undergraduate on campus, you found the introductory (fresher’s) week difficult, you are not alone. Students who are in their second and third years of study generally organize events and try to recruit you to clubs and sports teams. This is heavily loaded with the exaggerated expectation that you should enjoy a whole week of socializing, drinking and having fun. After a couple of days you may well find yourself saying ‘I should be enjoying this and I’m not.’ Many students arrive at a university feeling apprehensive and the introductory week for them is a gruelling round of expectations about meeting new friends and finding their way. There is actually no reason why you should enjoy your first week in a new environment, no reason why you should be sociable, witty and in demand. There is no reason why you should be sober or drunk, full of energy or falling asleep. Of course, you may enjoy yourself thoroughly during this week, but there is still no reason why you should.

I realize now that it only looked as if everyone around me was having a better time. Six months on, I’ve made quite different friends here and my routines are more established. In that first week there were times when I wanted to catch the first train home, but I hung in there. . . . I guess we did so much drinking I was trying to keep up mainly.

(Student)

Do you have high expectations of your first year studying for a degree? A first year of study is very important, but your second and third years of study at a university are often much more enjoyable. One reason for this is that you will have had feedback about your study. You will have made lots of mistakes and become much more involved in your degree subjects. Your grades and any comments will help you, but some universities do not let your first-year grades count towards the final class of degree. This is so that you can learn to research and write effectively, gain some understanding and think about what you are doing. I do not want to suggest that having low expectations of a degree course is a good thing, but having over high expectations is to miss the point. You may be inspired and enlightened by excellent university teaching, but study is not a passive activity where all you do is listen at the feet of the wise master. If you want to enjoy your study, you need to be prepared to develop your understanding by making the best of the teaching. If you are disappointed and frustrated by your lectures you may be expecting that the teaching should in itself transform you without your doing much. Degree courses do not in themselves transform you into a graduate. You do that by becoming independent in your study and creating high expectations of your ability to study.

Successful Study

There are a number of practical steps you can take to study more effectively. It is tempting to think that there is a large element of luck attached to success and failure, but at degree level luck can be only a very small factor. Failing your degree can happen in two particular ways. The first of these results from misjudging requirements and the second from not really wanting to study at all. This book is about helping you to avoid the first kind of failure by making better judgements regarding why, what and how you study. It gives examples of writing techniques and suggests structures for dissertations and assignments. The topics discussed are based on interviews with a wide spectrum of students and lecturers. If you do not want to study at all there is no known cure for that. But you might need to clarify your mind on this second reason to fail, because motivation to study is vital if you are to understand your own situation.

Why do people study for a degree? Is it for the sheer enjoyment of stretching the mind? Is it the attraction of varied study likely to be found in a combined degree? Is it to reap the rewards of the degree course itself? Is it to become more employable with a higher qualification? Is it to impress other people that you can gain a degree? Is it that it seemed the natural ‘next step’ and there was nothing better to do? All of these are acceptable reasons to study and some of them will motivate you more than others. Your own study habits and your success are most likely to be governed by how well you know yourself and how genuinely serious you are about studying. Some students think it would be rather nice to have a PhD, in the same way that it would be nice to be a millionaire. This is not the same as knowing you really want a degree and why you want it. If you really do want a degree, there will be times when you choose a study routine rather than lead a full social life. You know what you want so you strike a bargain with yourself. Something like, ‘Study now because universities do not award degrees for nothing’, or ‘Go out with friends another night because this essay can’t wait any longer.’ In other words, the payoff you perceive becomes more motivating than any distractions.

You do not have to choose between studying and socializing. As we see here, your success can depend on the bargain you make with yourself:

What motivates me to choose between a social life and study? The answer is I don’t choose between them. I don’t stay in and miss the social life because the social life is my reward for studying. I organize my life so that I study for a certain time before the night life. Sometimes I will study one night in order to go out another. Mostly I study during the day or early evening knowing I have a reward lined up for later.

(Law student)

Some study is driven by assignment deadlines, but there are other way...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• 1. What makes for good study?
• 2. Making the best use of distance learning
• 3. Short-cuts: a summary of effective study skills
• 4. Higher order questions and propositions
• 5. Reading academic texts and doing electronic searches
• 6. Writing academic essays
• 7. Making use of seminars
• 8. Researching for a dissertation
• 9. Analysing data and writing a dissertation
• 10. Reliability, validity and meaning
• References and bibliography
• Index