Student Life – Academic writing

I live with my boyfriend

and his family in Southport

and I'm studying Childhood and Youth

Studies via distance learning.

Living with the boys,

I get to spend quite a lot of time

with them.

I try and do a bit of reading

with them as well,

where they don't feel that pressure

to like, I have to do well

or do this, but

just try and enjoy things.

My sister, she's

16 years younger than me,

and seeing her develop

right before my eyes,

I became so fascinated,

and so I thought,

"Do you know what, I want

to know more,"

and then I

embarked on a module

with my university,

from there it developed

into what is now

my Childhood degree.

My boyfriend's kidneys failed

when he was about 22

and he's been on dialysis since,

so he goes Monday,

Wednesdays and Friday evenings

after work,

so he comes home

from work, quickly

gets changed and

I take him to dialysis.

I've also been suffering

with fibromyalgia for

the last five or six years now.

When your

nervous system doesn't respond

as it should:

it's sending pain signals to

your brain.

So it affects my whole body,

as it were, but mainly my back,

and my fingers,

they start to hurt.

I get like fibro-fog,

so I can't concentrate.

Tried all the medication

that I could,

I got a bit of side effects

with quite a few of

them: anxiety, depression,

so I don't take

any medication now,

and I started running

as well,

and when I was more active,

it seemed to keep the pain

at bay for a bit longer,

so now I'm more

focussed on doing things that

are natural and that

won't be as harmful to

my body.

I think distance learning

with my fibromyalgia

has been good for me:

it's more flexible,

and also I'm not as anxious

because I know that

what I miss, I can

always make up.

On the bad days I

sort of have to

email my tutor and say,

"Can I just have an extension?" and

they've always known,

because every time I

register for a new module,

they're told that

I've got this condition so

just be a bit more supportive, I suppose.

So in my modules my assignments

were mainly just,

your normal 3000-word assignments.

I used to use the P-E-E format

to do my assignments and it's

point, example and explanation.

So any time you make a point,

you have to have an example,

and you have to explain how it

relates to the question.

So I used that literally

religiously with all my assignments,

and it helped me just stay on track.

I always had a plan.

So I'd split up the word count

so if it's four paragraphs

then I'm going to do 400 words here

400 there, 200 for the intro,

200 for the conclusion. I had

a little list of like words

I could use,

just to jog my memory

'cos when you're writing

an assignment, you can't think

of all those things,

and if I wanted to

add another point,

there would be 'additionally',

'furthermore' or if I was

contrasting that point,

'however'

or…

Each time I did an assignment

I'd pin up my list of words,

my plan and everything else,

and little key words or

like bubble points

of what I needed to put in

so any time I got

stuck, I'd just think,

"Right, look at your plan."

'Cos I used to write

trigger words as well,

so for each paragraph,

there were trigger words –

things I'd have to include which

I got from the assignment sheet.

Whenever I needed help,

whenever I was stuck

with my assignment,

I'd email my tutor and

then I'd say

'Can we arrange a call?'

and within less than a day,

literally, she'd come

back to me.

I did enjoy academic writing,

I think more so in the end

because I was starting to get

a grasp of it.

My top tips to anyone

who was starting to do

academic writing,

I would say:

be patient;

don't be so hard on yourself.

You can't possibly get it

from the beginning,

but be open to feedback,

and also, just give it a go.

Go the distance.