Returning to study

ATC111

Recently returned to study (Level 7, year 3) as a mature student with extremely limited time.

Can anyone suggest how to get assignments done as quickly and efficiently as possible?

I’m aware of various apps (OpenAI & Grammarly) which seem to be useful tools for creating an outline/template but not sure how good they are at creating Harvard-style references? 

Are the Chaptgpt and/or Grammarly subscriptions worth paying for or just the free version?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

On-the-coast

In my experience (level 7 masters in my spare time - when I had very little time to spare!) It was keeping track of the citations and citing them in the proper style / footnoting etc that was hardest.  The actual style template for the core works was pretty easy (did it once & used it again and again).
I’d look up a citation app that you can use on both of and phone if I were you. However my experience is pre “AI” (just)

Emmia

ATC111 said:

Recently returned to study (Level 7, year 3) as a mature student with extremely limited time.

Can anyone suggest how to get assignments done as quickly and efficiently as possible?

I’m aware of various apps (OpenAI & Grammarly) which seem to be useful tools for creating an outline/template but not sure how good they are at creating Harvard-style references? 

Are the Chaptgpt and/or Grammarly subscriptions worth paying for or just the free version?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

I actively suggest (as someone currently studying for a masters, part time alongside a full time job) that you don't use AI e.g. ChatGPT (or Wikipedia) to write your assignments or create templates (you may have to declare that you've not used AI as part of the submission process).

I use Grammarly to check my grammar and as an assistant to proof reading (much as I also use similar tools in MS Word). I do have a paid for Grammarly subscription.

My top tip is to do your citations as you're going along, and if you know your assignment titles have an eye on those whilst you're doing the reading. Word has an easy to use basic citation tool and reference list generator which does a version of Harvard (although you may need to manually customise the end output). There's a few others like Mendelay which is more sophisticated.

Whatever tool you use, as soon as you find any book/article etc. that you might want to use in an assignment, you add it to your reference list in your MS Word assignment IMMEDIATELY (referencing at the end is a fools game, and incredibly time consuming). When I've used the one in MS Word, I've created a different referencing file for each assignment, although you will need to go into the back end of Word to do this... Word will also generate the reference list for you from this.

Using the word tool will generate cross references, and feedback from a previous course is these should be converted to plain text at the end.

*How proficient are you with MS Word? Do you know how to cross reference, footnote and how to insert things like indexes, tables of contents and how to format text to make these work properly?

ATC111

Emmia said:

ATC111 said:

Recently returned to study (Level 7, year 3) as a mature student with extremely limited time.

Can anyone suggest how to get assignments done as quickly and efficiently as possible?

I’m aware of various apps (OpenAI & Grammarly) which seem to be useful tools for creating an outline/template but not sure how good they are at creating Harvard-style references? 

Are the Chaptgpt and/or Grammarly subscriptions worth paying for or just the free version?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

My top tip is to do your citations as you're going along, and if you know your assignment titles have an eye on those whilst you're doing the reading. Word has an easy to use basic citation tool and reference list generator which does a version of Harvard (although you may need to manually customise the end output). There's a few others like Mendelay which is more sophisticated.

Whatever tool you use, as soon as you find any book/article etc. that you might want to use in an assignment, you add it to your reference list in your MS Word assignment IMMEDIATELY (referencing at the end is a fools game, and incredibly time consuming). When I've used the one in MS Word, I've created a different referencing file for each assignment, although you will need to go into the back end of Word to do this... Word will also generate the reference list for you from this.

Using the word tool will generate cross references, and feedback from a previous course is these should be converted to plain text at the end.

*How proficient are you with MS Word? Do you know how to cross reference, footnote and how to insert things like indexes, tables of contents and how to format text to make these work properly?

Thank you for the detailed reply.

Can you suggest an online tutorial/youtube channel on "how to cross reference, footnote and how to insert things like indexes, tables of contents and how to format text"?

Emmia

ATC111 said:

Emmia said:

ATC111 said:

Recently returned to study (Level 7, year 3) as a mature student with extremely limited time.

Can anyone suggest how to get assignments done as quickly and efficiently as possible?

I’m aware of various apps (OpenAI & Grammarly) which seem to be useful tools for creating an outline/template but not sure how good they are at creating Harvard-style references? 

Are the Chaptgpt and/or Grammarly subscriptions worth paying for or just the free version?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

My top tip is to do your citations as you're going along, and if you know your assignment titles have an eye on those whilst you're doing the reading. Word has an easy to use basic citation tool and reference list generator which does a version of Harvard (although you may need to manually customise the end output). There's a few others like Mendelay which is more sophisticated.

Whatever tool you use, as soon as you find any book/article etc. that you might want to use in an assignment, you add it to your reference list in your MS Word assignment IMMEDIATELY (referencing at the end is a fools game, and incredibly time consuming). When I've used the one in MS Word, I've created a different referencing file for each assignment, although you will need to go into the back end of Word to do this... Word will also generate the reference list for you from this.

Using the word tool will generate cross references, and feedback from a previous course is these should be converted to plain text at the end.

*How proficient are you with MS Word? Do you know how to cross reference, footnote and how to insert things like indexes, tables of contents and how to format text to make these work properly?

Thank you for the detailed reply.

Can you suggest an online tutorial/youtube channel on "how to cross reference, footnote and how to insert things like indexes, tables of contents and how to format text"?

Unfortunately not, I'm entirely self taught but I don't use YouTube to learn this type of thing.

The other thing I'd recommend is a copy of "Cite Them Right"

Cite Them Right: The Essential Referencing Guide (Bloomsbury Study Skills) https://amzn.eu/d/5MLlsow

Edit: 
I've had a very quick look at tutorials on YouTube for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fvrtt0h84Mg&t=43s - this is an advanced tutorial on formatting, but the same guy has some beginner and intermediate tutorials.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnviwr-CF2w - this one covers citations, using the MS Word inbuilt tool, the presenter also mentions they have tutorials on more advanced referencing options like Mendelay and Zotero. 

Something to mention, the referencing tool in MS Word itself, are only available in the desktop version, not the online version of Word. If you use the online version you'll need to investigate Mendelay / Endnote / Zotero (although personally, I tried Zotero and I wouldn't touch it again, even with a 50ft bargepole).