Multilitteratus Incognitus

OK, I fibbed, I am not going to give you the magic bullet that will make you an uber-student being able to tackle three graduate classes, a family and full time work! Heck, I don't have those answers to give :-) The situations recently where people tried to tap into the "secrets" I have for being able to manage a full graduate course load plus a full time job made me think of a seminar that I had as an undergraduate called "study smarter, not harder". At the time I was overwhelmed with working two part-time jobs (45-55 hours per week) plus a full course load (4 courses). I was tired, I was stressed and I was looking for a magic bullet. When I went to this seminar I thought to myself "whaaaat? Seriously? Your tip is not not leave things 'till the last minute? WOW! Now THAT is a revelation!" My workflow (i.e. "tips" or "magic bullet") works for me, but it is not a guarantee that it works for everyone and in all situations. So ...

The title of this blog post should be read with the same annunciation as the ' iron and sulfur ' skit in Strindberg and helium. I need to find a way to incorporate Utterli into the blog. Anyway, I digress. I saw this follow up PhD comic strip and it reminded me very much about how I go about writing papers. First I go to TextEdit and I outline my sections. Then I got into word and I create styles for the headings, subheadings, and body for the text. I add in some Lorem Ipsum text to act as placeholder for what I will write. Then copy...and paste. Copy! and Paste...so that the dummy text + dummy headings are as many as the sections as I have to write. Then I add a bibliography section plus a cover page + table of contents for good measure. Once I am done I have a complete skeleton for my paper. Too bad that Lorem Ipsum text won't suffice for the paper heh :-) This method helps me focus when writing long papers. What kind of a writer are you?