Best Writing Blog |
Posted: January 15, 2019 |
Combining your resourcesIn most situations, except perhaps when writing a dissertation or thesis, you will not be the only person tackling an essay topic. Sometimes you’ll be working to exactly the same title, on other occasions you might have more flexibility over what you’re allowed to cover. But often you’ll find that someone else is writing practically the same essay as you are. In which case, what’s the point in doing all the work for yourself? One of the main ways I reduce the amount of effort I have to put into an essay is by encouraging other people to help me. Obviously, I don’t put it quite as bluntly as that, but in essence that’s what they’re doing. After all, as the old saying goes, “many hands make light work”. But how can you achieve this? Show them what they stand to gainThe key to working with other people is to make sure they realise that they stand to benefit from the arrangement, not just you. No-one, unless they’re exceptionally generous, is likely to want to help someone else for no reward, especially if you’re all working towards completing the same piece of coursework (and so risk lowering their own mark by in the process of helping you). I’ve always found that the best way to encourage someone to help you, especially with doing research for an essay (which is often a dull and time-consuming process), is to let someone work out the benefits of the arrangement himself. Don’t get into a situation where you’re trying to persuade someone to give you a hand – this will be awkward for both of you, and won’t provide any effective results. Instead, allow the person in question to see that he or she is likely to benefit just as much as you are. Make the first move (and make them think you’re helping them, when it’s the other way round)I generally find that this is the best way to get someone to help you. By offering your own assistance with a particular piece of work, you’ll come across as helpful and kind, rather than as a lazy student who can’t be bothered to do all the work for himself. All you need to do is approach a friend, wait till the topic of the essay comes up, and mention that you’ve found a useful article, book or website. Instead of keeping this information to yourself, tell your friend that the piece looks particularly useful and say that, given you don’t think there’s a lot of information available on the topic at hand, you’d be happy to provide a copy of the article for anyone that wants it. For a website, this is even easier, as you only need to provide a link to the resource. In probably 99% of cases, taking this approach will lead to an offer of reciprocation from the other party. “Oh, well that’s very kind, if you don’t mind... I’ve got a few articles at home which I’ll bring in tomorrow for you.” Bingo! Speak to half a dozen people in this manner, and in a few days time you could have more than enough information to write your essay, even if you’ve been offering the same one resource to everyone you’ve spoken to. Not only that, but everyone will think that you’ve been helping them, when in reality it’s quite clearly the other way round. Book sharingLibraries never seem to have enough copies of the important books, and odds are, if you’re like me, you’re never prepared enough to get down the library as soon as the essay title is set in order to search for some useful books. More likely, you’ll realise a couple of weeks before the essay is due in that you haven’t got enough books or journals yet, and a mild panic will set in. But fear not! Find some of your friends who do have a book or two, and ask them if you could swap one of your books with one of theirs. Or, tell them you’ll bring in your resources one day, and if your friend does the same then you can both pop into the library for five minutes and get a copy of anything useful that each other has. Again, you’re offering something helpful in return, and most people will be happy to take you up on the suggestion. Be a little deviousDepending on your conscience, you don’t even always have to provide anything useful in return. After all, if you happen to have found a genuinely useful article on a certain topic, you might wish to keep it to yourself to give your essay an advantage over everyone else’s. For example, if someone has a chapter of a book which you really need for your essay, tell them you’ve got some useful internet links and email them over; hopefully you’ll get what you want in return, and if it isn’t offered straight away, it’ll be within your rights to ask nicely for a copy, given you’ve been so helpful to them. What the other person won’t realise, if you’re lucky, is that the links you’ve provided were found by a 30-second Google search. You can use some help at essay writing services cheap Always mention casually that you don’t know ‘how good the articles will be’ – most people will be happy to read them through in their own time, and they can’t blame you if the websites turn out to be no good, now can they? Of course, if you’re a more principled person than this, you might find this kind of behaviour unfair and unkind. Which is fair enough. But, if it means you’re going to get a better mark with less effort, the temptation might be too strong to resist... just make sure you’re subtle about it, as people might be quick to pick up on it if you pull the same stunt every time. I’ve been using this technique for more years than I can remember now, and it’s never failed to provide me with some useful research with minimal effort. And on top of that, everyone I deal with goes away with the impression that I’m an exceedingly helpful chap.
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