[nabs-l] Final projects, papers, research hints

[Mary Fernandez]

Hi all,
In the last two days, it has become obvious that college final
projects and exams are approaching! I am starting this thread as a way
for college students, grad students and graduates share some hints on
how to manage finals and everything they entail. Below are some ways I
learned to survive this challenging time.
1. Everyone has a research paper due soon. There has been a lot of
chatter regarding best ways to do  research. First, your university
has a library with extremely knowledgeable librarians! In many
colleges there are librarians that specialize in particular areas,
e.g. science, literature etc. So, when you are stuck, this should be
one of the first places you explore. They will tell you about
resources that you might not even be aware of. Along with that, get
very familiar with your school libraries website. There should be
links to the databases your school subscribes to.
When starting a research paper, professors will often have different
views on how they let students choose topics. While some want sources
and thesis statements well ahead of times, others simply say turn in a
paper about something we talked in class. Regardless of the professor,
one should always start with the broader idea. For instance, if I want
to write a comp lit paper on nineteenth century British literature,
I'd probably start with doing a Google scholar search. Google Scholar
is better than just running a Google search, because the summaries
that come up are from "academic" peer reviewed sources. So you never
have to worry about whether a source will be credible or not.
Then, as you get a better idea of the options available, you start
narrowing down until you come up with a specific topic. While this is
not by far, the only method of doing this type of research, it has
always served me well, because the worst thing to find out the week
before your paper is due is that there isn't enough literature out
there.

Finally, some databases that I like for social science research are:
JSTOR (which has older studies), and PsychInfo, (which is a sub
database of EBSCO).
Remember to talk to your librarian and get familiar with the library
website, since sometimes they are nice enough to allow you to search
database by subject. So, if you need articles on history, it will show
you the databases which are history specific.
2. Tutoring and study help. There have been some questions about
searching for guidance and direction with specific papers and with
specific books.
All colleges have some sort of tutoring program. Many have a
writing/composition specific department. You get paired with a student
who has taken the class, and who can help you understand the material.
For big papers I always took it to the writing center at my college,
since when you live with a paper for so long, there are little
mistakes that you don't catch. If you need help understanding a
specific book, and getting ideas as to how to read more effectively,
go to your tutor!
3. Presentations.
Ok, so my favorite Microsoft program has made an appearance,
PowerPoint. I will confess, all I know how to do in PowerPoint is read
slide shows. Seriously, that's it. But I am a college graduate, and
even made research posters which are based on PowerPoint before you
can print them. Here is the way I did it.
First, you do your research. Once you have the basis of your
presentation, you start making your presentation. Remember that
Powerpoints are visual aids, they are not supposed to be your full
presentation. They aren't supposed to have long texts on everything
you want to say. They simply underline what you think is important,
and if you have time you can even make them pretty.
For my presentations, I would do a Word documents, in which I'd do a
list, with the slide number and the content I wanted in that slide.
For instance,
Slide 1
Mary Fernandez
The Life of T.S. Elliott.
Slide 2
Picture of Elliott as a young man
Slide 3.
Thomas Sterns Elliott was born in such and such date.
You get the idea. Once I had my slide content perfected I'd do one of
two	\ things. I'd either go to my Library's IT center, whose sole
purpose was to aid students with any technological presentations, and
digital learning. And I'd show them my slides, and would tell them
exactly how I wanted the powerpoint to look. All they did was point
and click, and copy and paste. For pictures, we'd go on Google images,
and I'd tell them, the exact idea of what I wanted. They'd tell me the
options and then I'd choose which one I wanted.
The second method was to buy one of my roommates lunch in exchange for
their powerpoint skills. You can also do this with readers. However,
if you are choosing to do this, please be considerate of your friends'
time, and be aware they are incredibly loaded with work too.
Finally, on presentation day, I'd have my personal notes, as well as
my original outline of what was on each slide, so I always knew what
my peers were looking at.
I encourage everyone to learn to use Powerpoint, I will soon! But this
is a work around until this summer when you will all be Powerpoint
experts.
Sorry this went on for so long. Hope it helps!
Sincerely,

-- 
Mary Fernandez
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will
forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them
feel."
—
Maya Angelou