Homework for your studies: this is how you motivate yourself to write

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Housework = gruesome work: What to do if you are not motivated to write?

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The end of the semester is approaching, and with it the deadlines for homework.

Those who study the humanities often have to hand over three or four of them;

There are hardly any other forms of examination performance - to the horror of many students.

Student Şevval, 23, wrote to me, for example: »I lack any joy in writing my homework.

Most of the time, the subjects are forced upon us.

Nobody teaches us how to write scientific papers.

The lecturers all have their own ideas and that really doesn't make writing easier.

Procrastination, stress, bad grades are the result. "

This is how the next housework succeeds

I often hear such complaints from the students in my academic advisory service.

Academic writing is often assumed to be known at universities - or it is delegated to the examiners to teach it to the students.

However, they are often unable to take on the additional work, with the result that the students are on their own.

If the topic of the work does not match your own interests, there are no limits to motivation - downwards.

But don't worry, these six tips will make your next homework a success (or at least a little less exhausting).

Find interesting details

Let us first deal with the topic that is being "forced" on you.

Often the topics for term papers are actually advertised by chairs or determined directly by the examiners.

Major changes to the focus of the housework are then not possible.

Nevertheless, there is a certain scope in terms of content that you can use to make the topic interesting for you.

Are there any subtopics that you find exciting?

The importance of the media in ancient Greece, for example.

Or can you see strange details?

Star economist Harry Markowitz received the Nobel Prize for his new portfolio theory, but invested his own money exclusively conservatively.

Then try to include these interesting aspects in your work.

Classify your topic

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Some chores seem terribly boring at first glance.

On closer inspection, however, it can turn out that the topic is »not that bad« or even interesting (sic!).

So first read your topic in detail.

How does it fit into the context of the subject?

What other content does it provide a basis for?

This is how you recognize your housework as a small part of a large complex of knowledge.

In addition, new perspectives become visible: Hildegard von Bingen was of course a theologian from the Middle Ages - but maybe she was also a pioneer of modern feminism.

Yes, calculating an aluminum alloy is boring - but Tesla's Hyperloop can only be built with this building material.

Focus on the craft

If the topic still doesn't knock you out, only one thing will help: radical acceptance.

From now on, do not focus on the content, but concentrate on the craft.

Make academic writing the focus of your efforts and see your term paper as preparation for your later bachelor's or master's thesis.

If you are writing scientifically for the first time in particular, it can be helpful to proceed as systematically as possible.

Therefore, ask your examiner or the secretariat for a guideline for scientific work, get appropriate textbooks from your university library and read other study papers.

Researching literature, quoting correctly, building an outline in Word: You will need all these things again and again in your studies.

Skip the first sentence

Let's get to writing.

Experience shows that the beginning is the most difficult.

Once this hurdle has been overcome, it runs (almost) by itself.

That's why you should do exactly that if you have difficulties starting: skip the beginning.

Leave out the first sentence and start with the second.

If it gets stuck there, jump even further forward.

Just start where you want to start - regardless of the outline.

First, you can always write the beginning later - this is often a good strategy because at the end of your text you will know better how to structure the introduction.

Second, it's all about getting

into writing

.

And if that doesn't help either:

Copy it off

Yes, you read that right.

But before the Guttenberg siren goes off: I don't want to encourage you to plagiarize, I want to tell you a trick.

Writing is a craft - basically a mechanical activity that involves moving your hands and fingers.

You can take advantage of this property to overcome writer's block.

Take someone else's text and copy it down.

Not so you can use it later, but to keep you warm.

It's not about the content - it's about the process, the execution itself, the feeling.

Once you write, you will find it easier to keep writing.

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Title: Never again writer's block: 120 brilliant writing tips for study papers and academic texts (the perfect book for every term paper, bachelor thesis or master thesis)

Editor: Studienschiss

Number of pages: 172

Author: Tim Reichel

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Write only five minutes

A housework as a whole can seem like an insurmountable task.

The five-minute rule helps against this: With this method, you define a small, specific writing task and work on it for only five minutes.

If after five minutes you feel absolutely dead, you just stop and do something else.

The trick is, however, that after five minutes, you very likely won't pull away.

Many people think: "Now I've started, then I can continue to write."

Conclusion

Even if the university specifies the topics for your term paper, you can influence the content with a little research.

If that doesn't work, you should focus on the writing process, so to speak as preparation for your later thesis.

Your housework is nothing more than a piece of the mosaic in the context of your academic training - and the more brilliantly you master this challenge, the brighter your studies will shine as a total work of art.

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