Writer’s block – it’s a phrase that strikes fear into the hearts of writers and students alike. That frustrating feeling of staring at a blank page, unable to summon the words you need. But fear not! There’s a powerful tool that can help you overcome this creative roadblock: Essay Writer. We’ve explored how Essay Writer can be your secret weapon in conquering writer’s block and getting your creative juices flowing.

Understanding Writer’s Block

Writer’s block is a common affliction that can strike even the most seasoned writers. It’s that moment when you find yourself struggling to start or continue writing, feeling stuck, and lacking inspiration. Writer’s block often occurs due to various reasons, such as self-doubt, perfectionism, or simply not knowing where to begin.

How Essay Writer Can Help

Mind mapping for idea generation: One of the primary causes of writer’s block is a lack of ideas. Essay Writer offers mind mapping tools that allow you to brainstorm and organise your thoughts visually. By creating mind maps, you can generate ideas, identify connections between concepts, and outline your essay structure effortlessly.

Structured outlining: Writer’s block can often be a result of not knowing how to structure your essay. Essay Writer provides structured templates and outlines for various types of essays, helping you organise your thoughts and arguments logically. This structured approach reduces the overwhelm of starting from scratch.

Research integration: Researching a topic can be a valuable source of inspiration, but it can also be overwhelming. Essay Writer seamlessly integrates research capabilities, allowing you to gather and organise your research materials within the same platform by referencing these sources. This makes it easier to find relevant information and incorporate it into your writing.

Visual tools for creativity: Creativity often flourishes when you can visualise your ideas. Essay Writer’s visual tools enable you to create mind maps, where you can add colours to help structure ideas, and even icons for image association.

What is Mind Mapping?

Mind mapping is a visual technique that allows you to represent your ideas and concepts in a structured, interconnected manner. It starts with a central idea or topic at the centre of the map, with branches radiating outwards to represent subtopics, supporting details, and related ideas. Mind maps can be created using pen and paper, but there are also specialised software tools like Essay Writer that make the process even more efficient.

How Mind Mapping Can Benefit Essay Writing

Idea Generation and Organisation

One of the initial challenges in essay writing is generating ideas and organising them effectively. Mind mapping provides a dynamic and flexible way to brainstorm ideas. You can jot down key concepts and then branch out to explore various subtopics and supporting details. This visual representation helps you see the relationships between different ideas and ensures that no important point is overlooked.

Structure and Flow

Maintaining a logical flow and structure in your essay is crucial for reader comprehension. With a mind map, you can easily outline the structure of your essay by arranging ideas hierarchically. The main topic serves as the central node, with subtopics and supporting arguments branching off in an organised manner. This visual structure serves as a roadmap for your essay, ensuring a coherent and logical progression of ideas.

Visual Clarity

Visual elements can enhance the clarity of your essay. Mind maps are naturally visual, making it easier to see the relationships between ideas and identify gaps or redundancies. This visual clarity not only benefits you during the preparation phase but also helps your readers follow your arguments more effectively.

Time Efficiency

Time management is often a challenge when writing essays. Essay Writer can significantly speed up the preparation process. Once you’ve created a detailed mind map, you can use the split-screen view to start writing. You won’t need to continuously refer to your notes, as the map encapsulates all the necessary information in a concise and accessible format.

Stress Reduction

Writing essays can be stressful, especially if you’re unsure of your ideas or the structure of your argument. Mind mapping helps reduce this stress by providing a visual tool that makes the writing process more manageable and less intimidating. You’ll feel more confident and in control as you write.

Every year Volunteers Week takes place in the first week of June and they follow a theme to promote awareness towards a specific area. The theme for 2023 is ‘Celebrate and Inspire’ and the aim is to highlight that our diversity is our strength. It aims to recognise the efforts from anyone who volunteers or contributes in any way.  This weeklong celebration offers resources to those who wish to get involved, you can find out more here.

Volunteer Now have released figures that are astonishing! ‘Around 282,000 formal volunteers carry out work with designated organisations plus around 470,000 informal volunteers.’ These statistics cover just Northern Ireland alone, it only opens up our minds to think what the figures must be across the UK!

Just to let you know, informal volunteering is less visible and includes a wider range of activities, i.e., unpaid help for someone who is not a relative such as getting an elderly neighbour’s shopping.

The charitable organisation NCVO who operates Volunteers Week have also stated that during 2020/21, 16.3m people volunteered through a group, club, or organisation; however, volunteering patterns changed substantially during the pandemic. Formal volunteering plunged by a fifth (20%) on 2019/20 levels while informal volunteering saw a small increase (2%) during the same period.

We want to continue to champion this week and everyone’s efforts here at Essay Writer. To make organising and planning easier, we’ve put together a suggested template to take off the pressure. You can use Essay Writer for so much more than just writing assignments! Try it now.

The NCVO (The National Council for Voluntary Organisations) who run the national volunteer’s week are encouraging people to share their stories and use the hashtag #VolunteersWeek to get your story out there. There’s stickers and signs available on their website which you can use in your photos and videos when sharing your story. Remember, you can use Essay Writer to help plan and write what you want to say – use the images and graphics in the mind map view to get those creative juices flowing! You never know what doors volunteering, and sharing you experiences, may open.

Neurodiversity refers to the different ways the brain can work and interpret information. It highlights that people naturally think about things differently. We have different interests and motivations and are naturally better at some things and poorer at others. It is important to identify that each person has a brain that is unique to them; no two brains are the same. 

The best way to think of a neurodiverse brain in a neurotypical society is to imagine gaming consoles and discs. If you have an Xbox console (typical society) with an Xbox disc (neurotypical individual) inside, it will function as expected. However, if you were to insert a PlayStation disc (neurodiverse individual) inside, it will run into many errors and not function as expected. Neurodiversity accounts for at least 20% of the adult population in the UK. It was in the 1990’s that the concept of neurodiversity emerged.

Although we have a much better understanding, and awareness, of neurodiverse conditions today, the past hasn’t always been as good. Unfortunately, neurodiverse individuals have had to endure a pretty nasty past. It was sadly common to view someone who was autistic, for example, as having an ‘abnormal’ condition that should be ‘cured’, or someone who was dyslexic to be ‘stupid’ or having a ‘low level of intelligence’.

It’s important that we are now at a point in understanding and development that we now see such neuro-differences as a social category similar to differences in ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, or ability. As such, a neurodivergent condition, i.e., dyslexia, is an integral part of a person, and to take away their dyslexia is to take away from the person.

The most important thing to note is that, if you have a diagnosis of a neurodiverse condition is, you are not alone! To find out more about Neurodiversity or to find how you can access support follow the below links.

https://www.neurodiversityhub.org/resources (Use this link to gather useful resources and information on many different areas of neurodiversity and those linked too)

https://www.thebraincharity.org.uk/what-is-neurodiversity/ (Use this link to learn more about our brain functionality and how this is different for neurodiverse individuals)

https://www.gov.uk/disabled-students-allowance-dsa (Use this link to explore your options for additional support during your studies. Support packages are recommended via an assessor and can consist of assistive technology, software, personal 1-to-1 support)

https://www.gov.uk/access-to-work/apply (Use this link when you enter the world of employment following your education to continue receiving support where you need it. Tip: You can continue accessing the same software in work as you used whilst at university through this scheme)

Digital accessibility is the practice of removing barriers on a website, app, or digital product to make it usable for as many people as possible. Studies have shown that 98% of website home pages have at least one WCAG 2.1 failure. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1) were developed to encourage better accessibility and functionality online; the guidelines provide recommendations for making Web content more accessible. Therefore, giving the GAAD even more value.

Accessibility is so important; there are 14.1 million disabled people in the UK, which is around 1 in 5 people of the population. Plus, as specified on the GAAD website, there are one billion disabled people worldwide. Not to fret! We have considered all the above when developing Essay Writer.

Okay, we want to talk about you now… Before you get started with your revision, it is important to find a revision style that suits you. Some revision styles include using flashcards, using mnemonics, practicing teaching and questions, forming study groups, and a huge study style is using mind maps! Take a moment to explore the different study and revision strategies to find which one works best for you – then start revising!

Having a load of notes is not always beneficial. This is simply just information on a page (or a screen) which doesn’t necessarily mean anything to you. However, if you were to customise your notes to make them more personal, this would encourage your brain to engage and improve your memorisation of the information. Try experimenting with colour coding, notes on postcards, diagrams, rewording sentences, or whatever helps you learn your topic.

Although memorising information is useful, simply just memorising it will not help you in your exam. If you are struggling to understand something, don’t be afraid to ask questions or to find a new source of information. Try to embrace meaningful learning – Meaningful learning means the act of higher order thinking and development through intellectual engagement that uses pattern recognition and concept association. It can include—but is not limited to—critical and creative thinking, inquiry, problem solving, critical discourse, and metacognitive skills.

At every break, reward yourself. Let us explain this one… As humans, when we get a reward, particular pathways in our brain become activated. Not only does this feel good, but the activation also leads us to seek out more rewarding stimuli. Humans show these neurological responses to many types of rewards, including food, social contact, music, and even self-affirmation. So, pick your reward and go with it!

If possible, look at past exam papers. They are key to understanding the rough layout and approach of the exam (they don’t tend to change too drastically). This means you can familiarise yourself with the layout and type of questions you’ll be asked. An extra tip is to practise completing exam papers in the set time limit to improve your exam technique too.

Start early. When we say this, we don’t mean day-time wise (unless that works for you!) but to give yourself ample time in the run up to the exam. Don’t leave everything last minute. Research has suggested that feeling overwhelming study-related stress actually reduces your motivation to do the work, impacts your overall academic achievement, and increases your odds of dropping out. Stress can also cause health problems such as depression, poor sleep, substance abuse, and anxiety. So, it’s good to be as prepared as possible and avoid that last minute study stress!

Make sure you get a good night’s sleep – rather than trying to revise all night as we now know that cramming in information and excessively revising for hours is counterproductive. Research also suggests that poor sleep impacts your memory, creativity, and logical reasoning. In other words, not sleeping enough impairs all the skills you need to perform well on a final exam. Additionally, when you miss out on sleep, you’ll have a tougher time paying attention, and it’s harder for your brain to commit new information to memory.

Most importantly – don’t panic! As we’ve mentioned in the point above, stress does not help us at all. If we panic, our bodies perceive this as a reaction to a [perceived] threat and the electrical activity in the brain increases, chemicals adrenaline and cortisol are then produced. Memory loss can result if that process occurs when fear or anxiety is excessive or persists beyond developmentally appropriate periods. So, stay cool, calm, and collected!

Isn’t it something that is commonly thought of students being lazy, or they leave all their work until the last minute? Surely, this isn’t completely true?! Well, maybe students do avoid studying but this may be down to a number of reasons from social and emotional challenges to difficulties with certain areas, i.e., mathematics.

But the most important thing for all students to remember is to not lose track of everything they need to achieve their goals. This is the focal point of this blog post, once this statement is solidified like concrete everything will seem so much simpler. So, here we go… Let us here at Essay Writer help you, the superhuman student, get stuff done!

 Set yourself realistic deadlines for all those tasks. You may want to spend a little longer on this part because you need to make sure you’re not going to sell yourself short on time – time is precious, and we need to use it well. This is also the time to consider your social time, make sure you don’t scrape on this. Socialising is all part of university life as well as your general mental health. You never know, you may inadvertently encounter an answer you have been seeking to a question in the most unexpected of places!

Make sure you manage your stress levels. If you stick to your plan and timescales then you should only experience a small amount of stress – unfortunately, we can’t say that all stress will be alleviated as studying does come with some stress. But nothing you can’t handle – just a minor inconvenience. Should you feel more than just a little niggle of stress follow these simple steps to help manage this. Breathe, time a moment, and do something you love.

May we start this blog post with an apology. The reason, you ask? It’s because we are mentioning the ‘C’ word (Covid-19) in the first paragraph, and we know it’s something may are rather tired of talking about. However, it is very important to this post as, it is the main driver for the colossal rise of online learning!

Although technology was already coming on fantastically in its own right, it was the Covid-19 pandemic that inevitably caused a significant expansion of technology use.

Research shows that on average, students retain between 25-60% more through online learning than they do in traditional classroom settings. Other studies show that, because it is self-paced, eLearning leads to increased student satisfaction and reduced stress.

Let’s take a look at the pro’s and con’s of eLearning. Click on the green and red bars to reveal more information.

There are many pros and cons to eLearning; it’s important to understand that this approach to learning, and teaching, is not for everyone – and that’s okay! There are always such thing as individual differences! But it is also important to acknowledge that eLearning is going to continue to be a huge part of our education moving forward.

If you are unsure, try just focusing on the positive points of eLearning and encourage yourself to embrace these areas. Even if it’s only a little more than usual – it’ll make all the difference to being able to better engage with eLearning processes.

April has been hosting stress awareness month, and subsequent events, for 30 years and it only continues to grow. We are, now more than ever, becoming more aware of stress, what causes stress and how it manifests between different people.

The NHS stipulates, stress can cause many different symptoms. It might affect how you feel physically, mentally, and how you behave; these all have commonly seen symptoms. As such, mental symptoms can include difficulty concentrating, struggling to make decisions, feeling overwhelmed, constantly worrying, and being forgetful. Physical symptoms can include headaches or dizziness, muscle tension or pain, stomach problems, chest pain or a faster heartbeat. Changes in behaviour can be being irritable and snappy, sleeping too much or too little, eating too much or too little, avoiding certain places or people, and drinking or smoking more.

The Mental Health Foundation named the UK as a ‘stressed nation’ and their research shows that 74% of UK adults have felt so stressed at some point over the last year they felt overwhelmed or unable to cope. When looking at age related stress, the largest group to agree to the aforementioned statement is 18-24 year-olds, with a whopping 83% agreeing to the statement.

It’s important to remember that It’s not always easy to recognise when stress is the reason you’re feeling or acting differently. It’s an extremely convoluted condition, which is more reason to make as much progress as possible every single April!

But how can mind mapping actually help manage stress?! Let us tell you.

Think about the statistics above and think about the average age of university students, 18-24. There’s a correlation there. She we now know that a huge percentage of students feel stressed which means they need to find a stress management activity, like mind mapping.

Previous surveys and studies have shown that most students, around 80% in fact, study by rereading books, other relevant information and/or their notes. Students will highlight sections of text they deem most pertinent when reading or writing their notes, these will often be the areas they will focus on when revisiting the information. However, psychologists have found that such popular studying strategies are often ineffective and consume a lot of time.

Further research for more effective study strategies showed that rather than ‘cramming’ a lot of information in one sitting, spreading out the study time allows for better learning. Equally, it is suggested that taking practice quizzes may be better than rereading a book and/or notes.

Study Space

Where you choose to study is very important, this is right down to the tidiness of your workspace to the colours and ambiance of the environment. Studies have shown that less clutter does significantly reduce stress as well as improved cleanliness boosting confidence.

Although cleanliness isn’t a direct reflection of your work output or ability, the human mind makes negative associations unconsciously with untidy and/or dirty workstations.

Equally, psychologists correlate cleanliness and mental ease. It has been found that the idea of cleanliness and tidiness induce us to be more ethical, whereas, on the contrary if we feel ourselves in a neglected environment, a feeling of frustration can lead us to lie and cheat. Therefore, concluding that tidiness does have a big emotional impact and can influence our attitudes, resilience and overall decision making.

Research also suggests that certain colours can have an impact on study performance, for example, orange is said to provoke optimism whereas pink encompasses sensitivity. So, when it comes to choosing your place to study it may be wise to consider the colour scheme.  

Finally, seating has also been proven to have a significant impact on learning and concentration levels, having the correct support allows for a better posture and increased comfort therefore, less distractions and more focus! We know we would much rather a comfortable and supportive chair rather than a plastic lawn stool!

Priming

Priming is a technique where the introduction of one stimulus (i.e., upbeat music playing) influences how you respond to a subsequent stimulus (i.e., more positive outlook on a task). Priming works by activating an association or representation in memory just before another stimulus or task is introduced.

Elaborative Interrogation

In a nutshell, asking yourself ‘why’. This technique encourages you to think about relationships between different ideas and understanding how they differ and are similar. Elaborative interrogation works based on activating your prior knowledge and generating questions. Once questions are created, you must answer the questions by working through your previous learning, to see if a connection between new and old information can be established. Therefore, improving your understanding of the material.

Mnemonic Techniques

Mnemonics are very often used in studying. Why? Well, because they are designed to increase our memory. There’s the memory pattern emerging again. Using a memory technique can help increase your ability to recall and retain information, which is exactly what you want to happen when studying.

Techniques/devices often include songs, poems, rhymes, outlines, images, and acronyms which are used to create associations amongst information to make it easier to remember such information.

As information is stored and therefore remembered more easily, you can retrieve information from memory much quicker.  The ability to memorize and remember rhymes, for example, is often due to repetition and rhyming.

Cognitive psychologists explain that “oral traditions depend on human memory for their preservation. If a tradition is to survive, it must be stored in one person’s memory and be passed on to another person who is also capable of storing and retelling it. All this must occur over many generations… Oral traditions must, therefore, have developed forms of organization and strategies to decrease the changes that human memory imposes on the more casual transmission of verbal material.” Hence, the use of mnemonics being simpler, using rhythms and rhymes to promote inherent memory skills.

Psychologist David Rubin found that when two words in a ballad are linked by rhyme, students could remember them better than nonrhyming words – such universal characteristics of oral narratives. Similarly, further psychological studies within education, such as Maghy’s experiment (2015), have evidenced that mnemonic strategies were beneficial in helping students score better than a normal lecture method.

Finally…

However, for any ‘study strategies’ to work or have some leverage, you must be motived to learn. But don’t worry, we have already published a blog discussing study motivation hacks, which you can read here.