Game changer

 I attended a great writing workshop Skype last week led by Peter Thomas. 

I found it really interesting and it was great to have the input of someone else as well. 

Peter explained about a website that really did make me stop in my tracks. This will help many others regardless of which module you are on. 

The website :

http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/

( Click on ‘giving examples’ on the left hand side, and then ‘examples of the main information in a sentence )

Basically this site will give you alternative ways to phrase is sentence.  

For example if I was writing ‘this writer shows us’ but felt that I wanted to write this in other words that were more ‘academic ‘. The site gives you alternative phrases. 

‘This is evident in the case of’

‘X illustrates this point clearly’

‘This distinction is further exemplified in studies using ‘

A very good site for if you need alternative phrasing or if you have writers block  

On the topic of writers block ! It is now time to really make a  start on the essay for module 3. In each module I have always found it hard to get going but once I have started it had flown easier than anticipated. My advice is to get the front page of the essay started and you will feel duty bound to start your introduction and then hopefully the rest will start to flow.

I’m struggling a little with time at the moment as I’m juggling a newborn baby along with my 4 year old but this coming week I plan to draft my literature review out as I have been preparing that already  Wish me luck !

Books for university

 Middlesex university has a library both online and an actual real life library ! You can request via post some books subject to circumstances and availability too. 

However I wanted to have an actual book ( not an online version ) to study and find quotes. I found libraries too restrictive with time constraints and needed an alternative. 

I came across a company called ‘world of books ‘. They are online and you simply search for the book and pay a vastly reduced price and get it posted to you. The books are all used hence the low prices. But when you need quite a lot of books it can get very expensive and so for me it was a perfect solution. 

I searched through to find the books that would be of interest and sometimes selected them due to low prices due to budget constraints. All others I could access online. 

Hope this is of help to others. The website address is :

https://www.worldofbooks.com

Perseverance

 I remember around 20 years ago , working in a cabaret show abroad. The lady I was working for had plans for a photo shoot. On the morning of the shoot we had rehearsals and the photographer didn’t turn up. There was also an issue with the hotel where we were rehearsing and we had less time than originally planned  Basically everything that could have gone wrong did !! I remember being amazed that this lady was moving everything around to still be able to do the photoshoot. I remember thinking why not just give up ?? Admit defeat ! 

But you had to admire her absolute tenacity and iron strong will to get the job done! She bought a disposable camera used a different part of the hotel and ran the photoshoot  herself! 

You may be wondering what relevance this holds to my BAPP. The answer is quite a lot. 

From that single experience I learned that actually you simply cannot give up so easily. This learning can be transferred to many other experiences in life. Adult life doesn’t allow for giving up so easily. I have even blogged about perseverance before, in module 2!

Over the years I’ve sometimes had challenging situations and have realised that one of my strengths is perseverance. To unpick that idea .....I think I can sometimes only feel satisfied when I’ve chased the answer down and solved the issue. 

As humans we find it easy to criticise ourselves but we are often not as quick to identify positive character traits, and for me perseverance is one of mine  

As I enter into module 3, I need to remember to persevere. No module has been easy initially. I have had to work on it and chase down the answers until it was complete. This module is no different, it still raises challenges, I just need to persevere.