Pen And Paper

You hear a lot these days about being “paperless”. Yes, it’s better for the environment not to have paper copies of absolutely everything, but paper still has its uses.

Take assignment writing. Assignments usually have to be submitted either electronically or as word processed printouts. It is unlikely your tutors will ever see your handwriting as few courses require handwritten material to be handed in. But this doesn’t mean you can retire your pen completely. American study skills writer Cal Newport has written about the virtues of using pen and paper to help you think about your work and plan.

His take on pen and paper is that it frees you from distractions. Most computers come with wireless internet access so you are never more than a couple of clicks away from wasting valuable time on Facebook, online games, or any of the millions of distractions you can find online. But with a pen and paper these distractions are inaccessible. For Newport the act of using a pen and paper to write about your ideas can be more easily combined with getting away from the usual routine – without needing a power source for your computer (even the best laptop batteries will die after a few hours) you have the freedom to go somewhere which you might find suits you better than the library or your own bedroom. Whilst Newport’s suggestion of “the dunes overlooking a windswept springtime beach” might be a little hard to find in Salford, the park on campus on a nice warm day can be pleasant and not too noisy.

Pen and paper works well with revision for exams. Writing down your thoughts can help with ordering them. It also means you can arrange things in ways which are more intuitive for you than laying them out in the rigid columns which form the default settings in Word. Spidergrams and Mind Maps are great ways to revise, and you can use pen and paper to create revision flashcards.

But even just for assignments and dissertations the use of pen and paper to help lay out your ideas can help. You are under no obligation to write your notes in any particular style. You can use your own words rather than the academic language you will need to use in the assignments themselves. You can draw pictures, use different colour pens (a personal favourite) and even fold your paper into unusual shapes. Maybe you can find other uses for the paper whilst you are thinking about your assignment (http://www.origami-fun.com/) – why spend your work breaks (which you should always take, whether using computers or pen and paper) staring at photos of yourself when you could spend it trying to master the dragon’s head. Also, there’s no obligation to write your notes and thoughts on a flat piece of paper, you’ll certainly find your notes are more distinctive if you’ve written them on an origami frog.


An origami frog with the Gibbs reflection cycle helpfully written on its back.

Pen and paper might seem obsolete, but they offer an opportunity to approach working environments, organising ideas, and even breaks, from a new angle. It might give you some new ideas.

Some Help With Written English - David Crystal’s Language Blog

The linguist David Crystal has a very interesting blog where he writes about a range of linguistic matters and about his work in the area.

Some of the entries are worth reading for those wondering how parts of the English language work, or how to get to grips with academic English.

Here are some of the posts (up to December 2010) which you might find interesting or useful.


“On ful(l)” - There is some variation in British and American spellings as to whether to put one “l” or two at the end of words like “enrol/enroll” or “distil/distill”. This post covers the British way of spelling and a brief history.

“On commas” and “On commas, again” - Confused about commas and where they go? These posts should help clear up some of the mystery surrounding these little marks.

“On whatever will be will… be” - A post on constructing verb phrases in the future tense, the difference between “What will be my husband’s name?” and “What will my husband’s name be?”.

“On whilst” - Should you use “while” or “whilst”? Does it matter?

“On possessive apostrophes” - A brief history of the possessive apostrophe. You might benefit from seeing its history and how it came to be used in English, so you can understand how to use it correctly.


“On semi-colons” - Where do they come from and are they useful? This briefly covers both questions.


“On boilt” - There’s no such word as “boilt” in English even though there is “spoilt”. This post doesn’t answer why this might be the case, but it does give a handy little rule of thumb for knowing when to use words where there are both “-ed” and “-t” endings, like “dreamed” and “dreamt”.

Spidergrams

Having trouble organising your ideas? Spidergrams or spider diagrams are an efficient and useful tool for putting your ideas down on paper and planning assignments, creating a web of ideas and phrases which you can use to plan what you will say and when.

For instance, if you want to decide where to go on holiday you can use a spidergram.


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How to make a spidergram

A spidergram is meant to fit on a relatively small space. Try to use one piece of paper, two if absolutely necessary. You are trying to present your ideas in a compact form, save the in depth detail for the assignment itself. However you should not make your spidergram too small either, space it out so you can read each branch of the web, and see what it is connected to. It can get confusing if you cannot see which points link to each other, or cannot read a point

Start with the subject. Place it in the middle of the diagram (in this case the question of where to go on holiday). It is a good idea to indicate which is the central ‘bubble’ – maybe highlight it or use a different shape/lettering/etc. From here all your ideas will flow, and they are connected to the central subject.

Each branch of the web represents a different main point. Around the central point write your secondary points. If there are further points to be made have them branching off from the secondary ideas. In the example above the secondary points are examples of countries the writer is considering going to on holiday. The branches coming off the points marked “Spain” and “Thailand” are thoughts which the writer has related specifically to those countries.

Each point needs to contain just enough information to tell you what the point is about. Summarise what you want to say. Too many words and the spidergram won’t be useful as there will be too many words on it. Smaller branches are used as examples to support the ideas and points in bigger branches.

When doing a spidergram for your assignments make sure that you know where any information you use comes from. You could have small branches coming off each example to note where it came from, or you can include the reference location in the text on each branch. Do whatever makes most sense for you.



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In summary:
- Use a whole piece of paper - leave yourself lots of space for you ideas.
- Put the subject/question in the centre.
- Put each main point on a new branch - the examples and related thoughts will form branches coming off each main point.
- Summarise - don't write too much.
- Make sure you know where you got all your points and examples from, you don't want to have to search through all your notes to find lost information.
- Leave space to add notes later, you might forget to add a piece of information when you make the spidergram and you don't want to end up having to redraw the whole thing just to add a new idea or example.