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[studying-and-school-aesthetic]

AP Biology - Khan Academy Links

Unit 1: Chemistry of Life

Khan Academy - Chemistry of Life

Unit 2: Cell Structure and Function

Khan Academy - Cell Structure and Function

Unit 3: Cellular Energetics

Khan Academy - Cellular Energetics

Unit 4: Cell Communication and Cell Cycle

Khan Academy - Cell Communication and Cell Cycle

Unit 5: Heredity

Khan Academy - Heredity

Unit 6: Gene Expression and Regulation

Khan Academy - Gene Expression and Regulation

Unit 7: Natural Selection

Khan Academy - Natural Selection

Unit 8: Ecology

Khan Academy - Ecology

[studying-and-school-aesthetic]

Books to help you deal with life when you have ADHD (totally not free 👀)

Delivered from distraction

The queen of distraction

The ADHD Advantage

Smart but stuck

Driven to distraction

Driven to distraction at work

Smart but scattered

Finish what you start

Mindset

The Mindfulness Prescription for Adult ADHD

Organizing Solutions for people with ADHD

Self-regulation & Mindfulness

ADHD: A guide to understanding

The disorganized mind

Overcoming distractions

Coaching college students with executive problems

Learning outside the Lines

Faster than normal

ADHD 2.0: New Science

Thriving with Adult ADHD

[studying-and-school-aesthetic]

crash course in literary theory twentieth century onwards

structuralist linguistics: saussure invents linguistics to study language as structures. for him, words don’t give names to preexisting things but create concepts that determine the way we understand the world

russian formalism: thought literature was only form, no content. the idea that art existed to make the familiar seem strange. jakobson founded the moscow linguistics circle when he was 19 wyd with your life

new criticism: so cleanth brooks and robert penn warren right? they write this book called understanding poetry. this book changes the way english classes work forevaaaa. because suddenly class isn’t just about what the poem says but you can use 50 minutes to talk about how it’s said and make your own connections. birth of close reading. and the phrases “the intentional fallacy” and “the affective fallacy”

structuralism: levi-strauss takes saussure’s ideas and applies them to a bunch of myths and finds that their underlying structures are all the same. then applies it to culture as a whole and says they all operate on constructed binaries. lots of things to do with the centre.

deconstruction: derrida starts off this speech at this conference to glorify levi-strauss and then makes a career out of dragging him. the centre does not hold. there is no centre. as barthes writes, there was this guy named guy de maupassant who always ate in the restaurant on the eiffel tower because that was the only place he didn’t have to see the damn thing. basically that, but in theory.

new historicism: born out of the guilt complex of isolating the text from its author. focuses on historical context. greenblatt writes entire books about historical contexts of plays (like hamlet in purgatory). foucault is a huge influence and intertextuality (coined by julia kristeva) is a thing

marxist theory: the superstructures like culture are determined by the economic base. all the bourgeoisie and proletariat things. zizek (use the correct accent things please) and terry eagleton. my professor thinks literary critics are in a privileged position and hence feel the need to contribute to the world hence use marxist criticism to make themselves feel better and * sigh * i gotta write that on the exam

feminist theory: started all the way back with wollstonecraft and woolf. intertwined with political feminism. revisionary reading that exposes biases. judith butler!!!!!

queer theory: began as liberation movement. undo the idea that heterosexuality is the norm. identify and reclaim non heterosexual authors. michel foucault wrote a lot of things. yes, shakespeare was bi.

postcolonial studies: deals with hegemony of texts and cultural imperialism. analysis of history and culture of formerly colonised countries. expand literary canon to include colonial and postcolonial authors. achebe and rushdie all the way!

freudian psychoanalysis: IT’S NOT FUCKING REAL! everything that came out of freud’s mouth along with some carl jung stuff about collective consciousness and archetypes and whatever it was that lacan said about mirrors. maybe mention harold bloom’s anxiety of influence thing. 

[studying-and-school-aesthetic]

this site definitely doesn't allow you to paste the link to any article blocked by a paywall (say, a NYT article) so that you can read it free of charge! that would be illegal and would benefit broke college students too much. it definitely does not do that. promise.

[studying-and-school-aesthetic]

hogwarts houses as types of students

slytherin: all-nighters, procrastination, accidental a’s, black coffee and caffeine jitters, “can’t talk, sorry, have four essays, three projects, and a 30 minute presentation due tomorrow and i’m gonna finish them all tonight,” actually finishes them all in one night, secret perfectionists, overworking themselves, secret parties on the weekend

ravenclaw: color-coded pens and highlighters, pretty notes with flower doodles, hot tea and biscuits, study schedule, functions under stressed, starts studying for the two weeks before the exam, “why do anything if you aren’t going to give your all,” takes mental health days, has their shit together, always busy 

hufflepuff: doodles instead of annotations, reading notes by the fireplace, breakfast study sessions, test anxiety, tries their best, talks to professors after class, tells everyone to drink water but is dehydrated, scented candles on their desk “you wanna have a picnic in my backyard and share notes after class?”

gryffindor: last minute studying, wings it, reads notes before class, impulse decisions, skips class to hang with friends, “grades aren’t everything you know, i’ve got looks and personality,” teacher’s pet, sugary coffee with tons of cream, gets shushed in the library, watches videos while “studying,” writes essays an hour before class

[studying-and-school-aesthetic]

[studying-and-school-aesthetic]

https://bookshop.org/

[studying-and-school-aesthetic]

modern disney princess study moods

snow white

apple and cinnamon tea, having the cleanest of clean studying spaces, instrumental covers of pop songs, needs to study on her own for important things but loves organising study groups, makes mind maps and diagrams for all her subjects, studies first thing in the morning as the sun rises, always gets a full night of sleep.

cinderella

likes dressing up even for the most basic of social work study sessions, never without a full pencil case and oversized mug of darjeeling tea, lives on her own away from her step-relatives and loves being able to study in peace, doesn’t do study groups but organises collaborative Google docs and always helps others who don’t get the material (she gets the nickname ‘fairy godmother’ as a result), can’t wait to become a social worker.

aurora

sleeps in late but is ready to go almost immediately, never without a full mug of vanilla coffee, everything is coordinated pink and blue, loves studying out in nature with her notes, listens to lo-fi music and romantic songs from the 1950s to help her relax, has the prettiest studyblr out there for a english literature student, audits fashion classes in her spare time, sketches out dresses when listening to her lectures.

ariel

mulls over what she needs to revise and study in the shower every morning, dreams of life after college, even though she loves her marine biology course, spends time at the marina any chance she gets, sneaks on her father’s yacht to study with the smell and spray of the sea around her, breaks up chunks of studying with swimming in the college pool, has a part time job at the pool to help support her studies.

belle

always overruns her study sessions with exploring new concepts and materials that aren’t on the syllabus but fascinate her anyway, studies with pastries from the local bakery and brings them to study groups, loves studying in coffee shops and cafes, practically lives in the library, never without her glasses, always about the extra credit, is planning on her masters and doctorate in mechanical engineering.

jasmine

needs google calendar to keep on track on everything, has the fanciest stationery, immaculate handwriting, studies with her cat on her feet, drinks only sweet turkish coffee, uses pomodoro technique but with keeping up with the kardashians, takes extra semester courses alongside her business management course.

pocahontas

super motivated environmental sciences student, spends a lot of time studying with the geography and geology students too, uses her studies as a way to advocate for environmental change, herbal tea all the way, covers entire tables in the library with her maps and research, leads live study sessions on facebook live, uses recycled paper notebooks only.

mulan

listens to lectures on her phone while she works out, uses her morning run to work out difficult concepts in her head, drinks only green tea when she studies, but chugs red bull when it hits midnight, uses the library late at night with noise cancelling headphones, listens to power ballads and motivational jams.

tiana

the hardest working student you’ll ever meet, balances work and school really well, takes breaks on her waitressing and barista jobs, dark roast coffee and beignets as study rewards, can survive on three hours sleep, listens to ambient beats and nineties pop to focus, starts internship applications two months early, takes time off when exams are over to just sleep and watch netflix, dreams up ideas for restaurant dishes when she should be rewriting her notes, queen of time management.

rapunzel

notes tend to be speckled with paint, sketches as she listens to psychology lectures, motivating as all heck, listens to guitar music when she studies, likes lemonade to drink alongside her study, hoards books about subjects she’d like to study, her bullet journals feature prominently on her instagram, has highlighters for everything, documents her entire studying process on snapchat.

merida

listens to heavy metal and rock music, never without her massive headphones, uses archery as an analogy for everything in her classes, studies for sports science on her rooftop when things get too loud at home, happier when she’s out in the woods studying, red bull and coffee as study aids, hates studying but does really well in exams.

anna

has no formal organisation method for her notes, super colourful highlighters everywhere, always hits snooze, hot chocolate with cinnamon all year round, amazing at energising people in study groups, queen of the study whatsapp group for their theatre and performance class, has nothing but broadway musicals on her study playlist.

elsa

doesn’t do study groups, but will occasionally study with anna if she needs it, likes her cold press coffee and frozen lattes, uses pastel highlighters exclusively, reads the textbooks from cover to cover and not just the assigned readings, leads the curve for her history and environmental chemistry course, has debussy and saint-saens as her soundtrack for studying.

moana

studies in the early morning, copies everything from her international history and politics classes, loves to revisit her notes in the sunshine or at the beach whenever possible, doesn’t do caffeine but drinks a lot of orange juice and water, volunteers for opportunities with the aged and children any chance she gets, has aims to be a community organisor.

[studying-and-school-aesthetic]

Any tips on writing a cover letter for an internship??

[Hey! It should be the same as that for a job!

Here’s a template based on ones I wrote recently:

Date

Name

Address

Email

Dear [Internship Coordinator’s name or title]:

I am writing to inquire about the XYZ internship position at XYZ and express my interest in joining XYZ’s [insert industry here] team.

 I have a strong academic andresearch/work/performance background in XYZ andI believe I would bring valuable skills and experience to the position. Throughoutmy education at University of XI have worked on [insert details about your specific or technical experience here related to the position, about a paragraph. make sure to link it to the job/internship description].

[Next paragraph should be about your soft skills, like teamwork, leadership, professionalism. Include a specific example such as “I resolved conflict in my previous team when…”]

[Final paragraph should show you’ve done some research on the company and why you want to work there. For example, “Interning at XYZ company combines my experience and passions into one innovativeposition. I have a background in XYZ, and I am personallycommitted toward the company’s goals of XYZ. An internship at XYZ  would allowme to put my skills and experience to work in a way [insert something about contributing to the company’s mission and improving your career development.]  I am eager to get started inthis exciting field!

I wouldwelcome the opportunity to discuss my qualifications with your team.

Sincerely,

Your Name

[studying-and-school-aesthetic]

10 crucial changes you need to make to your résumé when you’re not entry-level anymore

[studying-and-school-aesthetic]

academia aesthetics by university major

Literature

Losing yourself in whimsy, drifting somewhere parallel to reality. Passionate, frenzied writing in the heart of the night. Drinking the moonlight. Love letters lost between moments. Birdsong. Quiet looks, filled with meaning. Opinions you don’t speak out loud. Chopin’s Nocturnes.

Classics

A glint in the eye, like they know something you don’t. Books in different languages, scattered across every surface. Red wine, and blood, and secrets. Spirits stirred by the glorious weight of eras past, tongue heavy with the words of dead men. Marble busts of Greek philosophers. Reality dulling against the music of myth.

Philosophy

Milky tea and introspective mornings. Sun filtering gently into a quiet room. Reading in nature, sinking into the sound of the wind, birds or water. Margins filled with annotations. Long, grand hallways and the echo of footsteps. Conversations that last for hours, but feel like minutes. 

Sciences

Notebooks filled with scattered calculations, terms, and theories, partnered with small pieces of flora and miscellaneous clippings. ‘Eureka’ moments. Wild eyes and chewed lips. Lying awake all night, your head buzzing with ideas. Piles of meticulous notes. Hunching over desks in dim lamplight. The feeling of puzzle pieces fitting together. The smallness of humanity, and the vastness of existance.

Fine Art/Art History

Huge, baroque ballrooms with renaissance paintings on the ceilings. Staring up at them until the real world dissolves and the images spin around you. Early spring. Foxes in the snow. Classical music. Vintage teacups, and slow blinks. Laughter covered by fingers. Dancing where no-one can see you. 

Political Science

Fast strides and black coffee. Enthusiastic debates with peers, and discussions with your professor. Pages and pages of notes, scrawled so hastily they’re almost illegible. Running through the night, laughing with friends and going places you shouldn’t. A cunning smile from across a room.

History

Grand old buildings, shadowed with age and brimming with secrets. Old, rusty daggers. Tentative hands and determined eyes. Fingers stained with nicotine and ink. Old books and letters, shrouded in dust, that no-one’s read in a hundred years. Touching the pages, and understanding what it was to be alive in another time, seeing what they saw and feeling what they felt.

(dm to request a major for part two)

[studying-and-school-aesthetic]

do you have a collection/can you recommend some gay love poems?

“Vows (for a gay wedding)” by Joseph O. Legaspi

“Someone” by Joseph O. Legaspi

“Night” by Joseph O. Legaspi

“Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand” by Walt Whitman

“I Sing the Body Electric” by Walt Whitman

“Munich, Winter 1973 (for Y.S.)” by James Baldwin

“Steps” by Frank O’Hara

“Homosexuality” by Frank O’Hara

“Having a Coke With You” by Frank O’Hara

“bare” by Danez Smith

“king the color of space/tower of molasses & marrow” by Danez Smith

“Poem for my Love” by June Jordan

“Poem for Haruko” by June Jordan

“I Have Just Said” by Mary Oliver

“I Know Someone” by Mary Oliver

“When Did it Happen?” by Mary Oliver

“Perihelion: A History of Touch” by Franny Choi

“Dreaming of Lesbos” by Tatiana de la Tierra

“Antinous: A Poem” by Fernando Pessoa

“You, Therefore” by Reginald Shepherd

“Sunshine” by Pat Parker

“My Lover is a Woman” by Pat Parker

“Saying Your Names” by Richard Siken

“Scheherazade” by Richard Siken

“Bone Burying” by Andrea Gibson

“Love Poem” by Audre Lorde

“Recreation” by Audre Lorde

“spellbound” by Karin Boye

“This Is What Makes Us Worlds” by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza

“The Letter” by Amy Lowell

“[Didn’t Sappho say her guts clutched up like this?]” by Marilyn Hacker

“Love Poem to a Butch Woman” by Deborah A. Miranda

[studying-and-school-aesthetic]

HOW TO ANNOTATE [for english + literature classes]

below are my own tips and tricks on how to annotate text (fiction, literature, poetry, etc. not textbooks or non-fiction) (all links and resources are at the bottom of this post) enjoy :)

HOW SHOULD YOU ANNOTATE?

1. If you are given your own personal copy of a poem or novel for your class, it’s easiest to annotate on that copy as you read. 

2. If your book is a class copy you’re borrowing, you might be able to get away with lightly annotating in pencil and going back to erase it after you’ve written your annotations on separate notes.

3. You can also write on sticky notes and attach them to the pages where they are relevant. 

4. If none of these appeal to you, scribble everything you make note of as you read and write out neater notes after. 

Since I usually have to borrow copies of novels for my English class, I have two steps of annotating; I first read and scribble down everything that comes to mind. Then I’ll write out a more structured copy of my annotations.

This doesn’t apply to everyone, but since my teacher likes to have class discussions about the book/poem, I also leave a section in my notes for writing things talked about in these discussions.

THE TWELVE “TICS”

My English teacher taught me this trick and I always use it when annotating. TICS stands for the T’s, I’s, C’s and S’s of literary devices:

Tone - looking for clues in the speaker and general mood of the story/poem.

Title - not always necessary, but sometimes chapter titles or the main title of a poem/novel are ambiguous or relate to the theme.

Imagery - metaphors, similes, personification, etc.

Irony - kind of like title, it’s not always necessary but it’s still a good idea to look out for it.

Connotation - a meaning of a word that isn’t a literal definition but is implied or relates to it. for example the word mother implies love, kindness, childhood, etc.

Contrast - this is one of the main things to look out for and it can be applied to characters, setting, symbols, etc.

Character - another huge category to look out for; you can write down anything relating to character development, symbolism, conflict, etc.

Conflict - internal conflicts vs external conflict. usually more relevant in literature but can be applied to poetry.

Symbolism - for most, symbolism is the easiest to pick out and it ties in with theme and imagery.

Setting - another main topic. you can take note of symbolism, contrast, irony and imagery in the setting.

Syntax - the same thing as sentence fluency, usually more relevant in poetry but can be applied to literature.

Structure - how a novel or poem is structured by lines, paragraphs, chapters, beginning middle end, etc.

SUMMARIZING

I like to summarize each chapter of a novel on a large pad of to-do list sticky notes. This way it’s brief, it allows me to focus on the most important events, and I can keep it posted on my notes sheets from each chapter.

COLOUR CODING

I love using a colour system to add to my notes. The T’s, I’s, C’s and S’s in “TICS” are all coded a different colour, but you can decide on any colour scheme you want.

KEY QUOTES AND SYMBOLS

Most poems and novels have a downloadable PDF online. I always keep a PDF copy of the piece I’m annotating on my laptop so I can look up key phrases and words. 

If you have a Mac, whenever you open a PDF there’s a little search bar in the top right corner where you can type in key words or phrases and it will give you the pages they are on. I like to do this when I need to expand on a certain symbol or motif and I need some quotes related to it.

You can also email PDF files to your iPhone, iPad, etc. and open it in iBooks. You can actually annotate any text/book in iBooks by highlighting with different colours and writing small notes about the book.

RESOURCES

I LOVE this video on how to annotate by @studyign on studytube! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muZcJXlfCWs

How to Annotate 3 Ways: http://a-vce-blog.tumblr.com/post/135418517521/3-ways-to-annotate-your-english-text

[studying-and-school-aesthetic]

My method of annotating books is pretty simple. I don’t color code or use any sort of system to organize my notes on a book. I’m pretty lazy and having to color code and keep track of what the different colors stand for sounds exhausting. But if you are one of those people who has a highly organized system of annotating, I applaud you. I wish I could be you (not sarcasm I swear). However, I’ve found that for me, keeping it simple while I annotate is the best. If you’re looking for a simple, no frills way to annotate a book, this is the post for you.

The Materials

highlighter

pencil

post-its

page flags (sometimes)

The Method

Basically as I’m reading I highlight anything that stands out to me. Examples of things I tend to highlight are parts of the story I don’t understand, parts I think are worded beautifully, or anything that raises questions in my mind. I also take note of literary devices (allusions, similes, etc.) and common themes that I see running through the book. If I find a word or phrase I don’t know, I’ll look it up and write the definition in my book so that I can refer to it later.

After highlighting something, I write down in my book, why I highlighted it. This is super important, because not only does it force me to think more about the text, when I re-read the book I have context for why I thought a particular thing was important enough to highlight. This is where the post-its come in. If I don’t have enough space to write in the margins, I’ll write my comment on a post-it, and stick it on the appropriate page. Oftentimes I’ll do both, writing in the margins when I have a smaller comment, and using the post-its for when I need more room.

If I’m reading a really long book, I’ll write down summaries of the different chapters or sections on my post-it notes so that I can keep track of what’s happening. If I’m trying to keep track of different themes, I’ll usually put the page numbers for where I found those themes expressed in a note at the beginning of the book. If I find myself asking questions about elements of the plot, the word choice, anything, I’ll write those down, either on a post-it or in the margins. Even if I can’t answer the questions right away, I can always come back to them after I’ve finished reading.

I mainly use page flags for when I’m writing essays. I’ll use them to bookmark pages with quotes or scenes that I’m planning on referencing so that when I’m writing I can easily refer back to them. I’ll also use page flags when I’m reading library book, in place of highlighters (since you can’t highlight library books obviously).

General Tips

Don’t be scared of marking up your book. I personally love color, so I love it when my books are an explosion of pink and yellow and orange highlighter. (Like I said before, I don’t color code, but I like to switch up the color highlighter I use just for fun). 

It’s ok to highlight something that you think is important even if you don’t know why. Just put a question mark by it. I do that all the time.

If you find yourself liking or disliking something an author is saying, write that down, and then write down why. These are ideas you can use in English papers.

Literally anything you think of while reading a book might be something you want to write down; don’t be afraid of your own ideas and connections.

I mentioned earlier that I take note of any literary devices that I see. If you have trouble remembering these @emmastudies has an amazing printable that lists the main literary techniques.

Have fun with it! Annotating is designed to enhance your reading experience, not make it a greater burden.

This post ended up being a little longer than I expected, but I hope it helped you in some way. If you have any questions feel free to send me an ask (or comment) and I’d be happy to answer them to the best of my ability. Happy reading!

[studying-and-school-aesthetic]

How to Annotate Literature

Many times language and literature classes require students to annotate the books that are given to them, but in many cases tips and advice on how to do so is lacking. I will be sharing my personal strategy for efficient and successful annotating that will not only help your understanding of the text but also gain the love of your teachers! The tips have been divided into 5 components, each with their own explanation. Sticky Tabs are Your Best Friend

I don’t know how I would manage to annotate without my sticky tabs. They help me organize and navigate the book before the reading, remind me what to look for while i’m going through the text and help me find whatever I may need once I get to further analysis for the class. 

Create a key for your tabs, personally I use five colors each having a few specific purposes based on where I place them in the book. Most stickies are accompanied by a specific note that will remind me of what I wanted to point out, these stick out of the right margin. 

Pink- Anything to do with characters, be it development or certain traits to remember. It can also be used for when you have questions about character related aspects of the text.

Orange- Refers to setting, in plays it is also applicable for stage directions.

Yellow- Is used for literary devices and use of language (tone, diction, patterns) and syntax, if there is a particular word the author used or a structure you want to take note of, this is the color to use. 

Green- Applicable to any important plot events, notable scenes or things that you think will be significant later in the story.

Blue- Themes and context of said ideas, anything to do with time, place and space in which the text takes place. It can also relate to how your context (a student reading a book for a literature course) impacts your perception of the text.

These are the things teachers usually look out for and it is certainly useful in any kind of further task! 

The top and bottom margins can be used to divide the book in to sections, such as chapters or scenes, mark the most important pages and to also highlight text to text connections. These colors you can pick yourself! I do not recommend having more than 5 sticky tabs per page, otherwise it gets too crowded and they lose their purpose! (but you will still need to buy aaa lloootttt)

This is my key for the book I am currently annotating, Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. 

Don’t Overdo it With the Highlighter

Find one color highlighter that you like the most and use it to mark explicit words or phrases that catch your attention, you can also use them in correlation with you sticky tabs!  I prefer to use a yellow highlighter because it seems to bleed the least, and I usually use it in relation to the the yellow and blue tabs because those are the ones that relate to the most detailed and minute parts of the text. Once again you can find your own preference! But don’t overdo it, otherwise, like the tabs, the highlighter will lose its function to highlight important points. 

This is an example of how much highlighting I usually do. For non-fictional texts or parts of a book (like in the introduction you see here) I reserved highlighter for dates and names. 

Have a Conversation With the Author

This is one of the first tips that my high school teacher gave me and it’s really one of the most important ones to remember. And I know, it may sound kinda silly, but I find that it really helps me in developing my ideas and remembering exactly how I felt about a certain aspect of part of the text. 

Whether the text is fiction of non fiction, anything in between, you can always do these few things

Ask questions- As if you were going to get an answer, ask questions, write them down and write down as many as you want. Writing things down helps people remember so then it is more likely that in a class discussion you will be able to recall your queries or wonders. 

If you don’t like something, or you’re surprised by something, write it down! Use exclamation marks, use words that you would use in a regular conversation. I always write ‘WOW!!’ or ‘OMG’ when i’m especially impressed, and having such vocal- well written vocally- emotions will bring you closer to the subject of the text. 

Talk to the characters as well, if you are questioning a character’s actions ask them and provide an explanation as to why you speculate they may have acted a certain way. Not only does that further contribute to your involvement (also making things more entertaining) but it also deepens your thought!

What i’m trying to say is write down anything that comes to mind, your first response is your true response, and it is a valuable addition to your notes! And if you want to write a whole essay in between the lines… Actually, i’ll come back to that later! 

Pens, not Pencils 

I used to make notes completely in pencil but my approach changed when I realized that overtime the pencil would rub off and get illegible. I think it was because I used my book so much, but having switched to pen I realized that it helps me in quite a few other things as well. 

The good thing about pen is that you can’t erase it and let’s say you started writing down a note, scan down the page and realize what you are taking a note of is completely wrong. That’s ok! That’s actually really good! Don’t scribble out what you just wrote down, but instead continue and explain why you may have thought a certain way and what your understanding is now. That relates really closely to the previous note.  Evidently pen also appears darker on the page, then there’s no possibility of it ever disappearing. It also won’t smudge or bleed as long as it’s ballpoint! That’s a good thing when drawing arrows between lines, underlining in addition to your highlights and circling/boxing whatever you deem necessary.

Time, Effort and Commitment

It’s clear that this post took me a while to make, and it took me a while to develop this system with all of the things that I have considered. So it must be self evident that using this type of annotation won’t be quick. It might get tiring at some times, and for me it really does, but at the end I find that it always pays off! You have to stay committed to this technique, you have to put in the same amount of effort for every page, which means you need time. So here are a few final general tips I will leave you with.

Don’t procrastinate! As goes for any task, and this one more than any, don’t waste time getting to it! I advice you check how many pages you have in total and make sure that you do a certain amount per day (usually 5-10 pages a day is good!)

If you go off on massive tangents in the side bars, make sure that you don’t get too distracted by them because they will take up a lot of your time. But one now and then may be good! Be sure to mark it for later reference!

Play mind games with yourself. This one is actually pretty interesting but it personally gets me a long way. If you have 20 pages left, don’t look at it as 20 pages but instead as 4 times 5, then the amount will seem a lot more manageable! It’s a kind of self encouragement!

That can also be said by looking now and then at how far your bookmark has moved through the book and giving yourself a pat on the back for all of you hard work!

That’s all I have for now! If you have any further questions for advice or explanation please message me and I will be more than happy to help! And I hope that this helps some people out too! (I’m counting this as 21/100 days of productivity as all I did today was related to annotating.)

[studying-and-school-aesthetic]

How to Annotate! 

I thought I’d do a lil post about how I annotate books! This is a new system for me but I like it a lot considering I always use post-its (I hate writing in books) for my annotations. This is a book I’m annotating for my AP Lit class that I start in the fall!

Organize your annotations.

The system I showed above is a simple color-coordinating method that lets you easily flip back and find specific things. For example, if you have vocab words assigned with the text, you can flag them with a green post-it; when you need to go back and find them later for studying, they can be found without effort. 

Summarize plot info.

My blue post-its are basically paraphrased or broken down versions of the text. If you’re reading complicated works, this will probably be necessary for you to understand the text. Additionally, I extract the meaning from the text and jot it down on the blue post-its. Candide by Voltaire is a satire, which means I have to really closely read to figure out what he’s actually trying to say, even though the text itself isn’t that complex. 

Define terms. 

Define, define, define- always! This is necessary for aforementioned complicated texts. Collect background info for historical texts- if a book alludes to something and you’re not sure what it means, google it and write it down. Also, ask questions- if a character does something out of place, ask yourself why they did so; it’s probably important. This is demonstrated on my yellow post-its. 

Always look for literary devices. 

If you’re going into AP Lang or another AP language arts class, I strongly suggest you become acquainted with literary devices before the school year starts. They’re a major part of the AP test and if you notice a reoccurring pattern of certain literary devices in a text, it’s how the author is developing their point! I marked these for Candide on the pink post-its. 

Lastly- annotate for the prompt or for what your teacher tells you to.

Duh. If your teacher says to annotate for motifs, annotate for motifs! It’s pretty straightforward. 

[studying-and-school-aesthetic]

Everything You Need To Know About MLA Format

General Format:

8.5 x 11 inch paper

Double spaced

Times New Roman font

12 pt font

Only one space after each period

1 inch margins on all sides

Indent the first line of each paragraph by half an inch

Use a header that includes your last name and page number in the top right hand corner

The First Page:

In the upper left hand corner:

Your Name

Your Instructor’s Name

The Class Title

The Date (Day Month Year)

The title of your paper should be one double-space down and should not be bolded, italicized, or underlined

The beginning of your paper should start one double-space down from the title with the first line indented by half an inch

What to Italicize and Quote:

Book titles are italicized

Play titles are italicized

Poem titles have quotation marks

Article titles have quotation marks

Chapter titles have quotation marks

In-Text Citations:

When you know the author’s last name

(Last Name Page Number) or

(Last Name Paragraph or Line Number)

When you don’t know the author’s last name

(Book Title Page Number)

(Article Title Page Number)

Remember to italicize the book titles and put the article titles in quotation marks

Works Cited Page:

Begin your Works Cited page on a separate page at the end of your research paper. It should have the same one inch margins and header as the rest of your paper

Label the page “Works Cited” (do not italicize or put in quotations) on the top of the page and center it

Double space all citations but do not skip spaces between entries

Indent the second line of a citation by half an inch

List sources in alphabetical order

If the source has more than one author, the first given name appears in last name, first name format and the following authors appear in last name, first name format separated by commas. The last author’s name should be preceded by an “and”

Citing Print Sources:

Book or Poem:

Last Name, First Name. Title of Book or Poem. City of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication. Print.

Magazine or Newspaper Article:

Last Name, First Name. “Title of Article.” Title of Periodical Day Month Year: pages. Print.

Journal Article:

Last Name, First Name. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal Volume.Issue (Year): pages. Print.

Citing Web Sources:

Whole Website:

Name of Site. Sponsor or Publisher, date of resource creation. Web. Date of access. 

Web Page or Web Article:

Last Name, First Name. “Title of Article.” Name of Site. Sponsor of Publisher, date of resource creation. Web. Date of access.

Online Journal Article:

Last Name, First Name. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal Volume.Issue (Year): pages. Web. Date of access. 

Note: Don’t forget to indent the second line in the citation. I did not indent the examples because the indents on tumblr mobile and tumblr desktop differ starkly and I figured this was probably the less confusing way to write the information needed for a citation (trust me)

Unknown Information in Citations:

If the author is unknown, begin citation with the title

If the publisher is unknown, write “n.p.” in its place (no quotation marks)

If the publishing date is unknown, write “n.d.” in its place (no quotation marks)

I hope this guide is as useful for me as it it for you!