Salmon

People used to think that tuna fish was the ultimate brain food, but some experts have found that the high content of Omega-3 fatty acids in salmon are what really juice up your brain by helping your brain matter, helping your arteries, and even improving your mood. Other fish contain great nutritional value for your brain, too, but salmon (particularly wild salmon) was the top pick for experts because there are less contaminants than farm bread  fish (http://www.brainready.com/blog/thetop5brainhealthfoods.html).

Eggs

These are just another reason to eat a good breakfast in the morning. Eggs not only contain protein, but they are an amazingly common food that is great at providing your memory. Choline, which is found in egg yolks, is what help your brain cells continue building upon themselves (http://www.webmd.com/balance/brain-food-quiz-results?redirectUrl=brain-food-quiz-results&x=35&y=3).

Walnuts

You don’t have to be a squirrel to enjoy this healthy snack; it turns out that walnuts also contain a high amount of those Omega-3 fatty acids that improve your brain‘s strength. And, if you ever have a hard time remembering what they are good for, take a close look at the weird lines and shape of the walnut, and see if it doesn’t remind a little bit of the pictures you’ve seen of your brain in biology class.

Berries

The growing popularity of the acai berry is not without its merit, but we should not forget the blueberry, blackberry, or cranberry. It is interesting how much nutrition these little guys can hold. Full of antioxidants that help preserve brain cells over the years. But, these berries also contain the Omega-3 fatty acids, as well as the protein we have already mentioned the benefits of. These berries not only make a sweet treat, they may actually help your brain cells through your whole life.

Curry

It’s not just for spicy food, it may be the spice of life that keeps your brain in good health. Helping to clean away the plaque that tends to slow down our brains and cause the Alzheimer’s, curcumin is the chemical that acts as that cleaning agent for our brain. Just like drains need be clear of build up to run smoothly, our brains need to be clean to continue thinking clearly.

Step #1 Prewrite

Yes, you hear your instructors tell you all the time to prewrite, but do you ever listen to them? Prewriting (which is listed in another blog) is not just a way to organize your thoughts and get down ideas, it is another way to look at your writing project and force yourself to write. Getting past your writer’s block is often just a matter of looking at your task from a different perspective (or looking around your writer’s block, if you will). If you can brainstorm or outline some ideas for your writing, then you have a better chance at feeling confident and putting your pen to the paper to start writing. With all of the different methods of prewriting, there really isn’t any reason not to use at least one of them when you’re stumped.

Step #2 Write Backwards

Even after the prewriting is finished, you may still feel uncertain how you want to word your thoughts exactly. If that’s the case, jot down your ideas out of order – write the end first and the beginning last if you must. Sometimes your ideas may be scattered, which is why you are having trouble focusing on just one idea. Maybe your mind is blank with your introduction, but you know what you want to write for your body paragraphs. If that is the case, then just skip ahead. Write down whatever good ideas you think you have and reorganize them later.

Step #3 Take Your Opposing Side

If you are really uncomfortable with your topic and feel you have absolutely nothing to write about, then you may want to take yourself out of your own head and put it into someone else’s. This has nothing to do with cheating. You are supposed to write the opposite of what you really feel. Or, think of what other people would say about your subject. It may be easier putting down what you think other people feel or believe than what you actually believe. Your confidence in your own ideas may be what stops your writing. Do not use this technique all of the time though. There are some assignments where you need to give your honest opinion, and this method of breaking writer’s block may not always be suitable.

Step #4 Just Write!

It may sound harsh, but sometimes you just have to force your pen to move on the paper or to have your fingers move across the keyboard. Often people refuse to write anything because they don’t think their ideas or words are good enough. Well, when you’re struggling, writing something is better than writing nothing. Put down whatever comes to mind whether or not you think it sounds good. You can always fix it later, which is how we come to Step 5 in breaking the writer’s block.

Step #5 Walk Away… and Come Back

Sometimes students are just not in the right state-of-mind to write. If there are a bunch of things running through your head, you may need to just set up your writing assignment as best as you can and walk away from it for a while. When you come back to whatever writing you have put down, you may feel more inclined to fix your ideas and even add more ideas down on paper. Depending on how much time you have for your writing, walking away from your assignment for an hour or a full day may be just what you need to come back to your writing and look at your project with a clear head. When you come back to your writing, look it over with a critical eye, as if it were someone else’s paper, and see what you do and do not like about it. And then, take your writing from there. Unless you are taking an in-class essay, this method can be a great way to clear your mind. Otherwise, you’ll have to rely on a different method of break down that writer’s wall.

Although many students don’t like the idea of doing extra work before they actually start their homework, writing an impressive essay actually requires putting in a little extra effort prior to putting  together a final draft. Prewriting techniques involve warming up your – the student’s – brain, organizing ideas, and setting up a plan before diving straight into writing a composition. It may take just a little extra time, but you will find that if you practice some prewriting  before every essay you write, your papers will be better written overall, which will in effect give a better overall grade. Ten or fifteen minutes of extra work may be the difference between a B and an A grade for your paper. And, with all of the different techniques you can use to prewrite, there really is no excuse not to use at least one of them.

Brainstorming

Writing down every idea that is related to your topic in a list form is one of the simplest forms of prewriting, which is called brainstorming. The great thing about brainstorming is that you can put anything in the list that pops into your head. If your topic is on birds and you have random thoughts like,

-They fly

-They’re pretty

-They squawk

-They poop on people’s heads

All of those things would be fine because your brainstorming ideas are related to your topic on birds.

Mapping, Clustering, Bubbling, Webbing

It has several different names, but whatever you want to call it, it is one of the quickest ways to organize ideas in a fun manner. Circling ideas and linking the related ones that surround your main idea is a messy way to be organized… which ends up feeling a lot more enjoyable than most homework does. And, since your related ideas are clustered together, your separate body paragraphs are already prepared for you. What’s better than a prewriting technique that’s fun and easy?

Free Writing

There is nothing more freeing than knowing you can write whatever you want without worrying about grammar, spelling, structure, or coherence. That is the joy of free writing – you are free to make mistakes and write whatever you want. The trick is to force yourself to continually keep your pen on the paper and write whatever thought comes to mind, while trying to think of your essay’s subject. You may go off topic at times, but that is okay. You do not want to stop or correct your free writing because you may lose a train of thought that could be useful to you later. Just force yourself to keep writing, and you will eventually have enough material to use in your composition. By reading over your free writing afterwards, you should highlight or underline any ideas you find useful to your essay.

Outlining

Although outlining is more structured than other forms of prewriting, it is a very useful format to use in order to have your essay organized prior to writing your essay, which was explained in a previous “how-to” (see “Writing Outlines”). Outlines also help your essay stay on topic. By outlining your body paragraphs with their specific points, it is easy to just refer to your ideas written in your outline before you begin writing your composition.

Asking Questions

Sometimes the only way students will work is if they feel they are being forced to. Asking yourself questions is a way to make yourself feel forced into coming up with ideas for your essay. The standard reporter’s questions – Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? – are great ways to begin asking yourself questions about your topic. If you are still writing a composition about birds, ask yourself, “Who likes birds?” or “What kinds of birds are there?” or “Where do birds live?” Obviously, you can bend these questions to your own needs; these are just ways to force yourself into coming up with answers that will inevitably lead to ideas for your essay.

“A writer is unfair to himself when he is unable to be hard on himself.”  -Marianne Moore

There is a scene from the Academy Award Winning movie A River Runs Through it where a young boy brings his paper to his teacher, repeatedly, for review.  Time after time, the burly teacher hands young Norman back his paper and demands “half as long!”  Eventually, after several frustrating fails, Norman’s teacher is satisfied with Norman’s paper.  Norman’s final paper is only a fraction of the original size, yet tells the same story, and Norman has received the editing lesson of his life. While we’re not Norman’s teacher, we do have a few tips to help you edit your own writing more effectively.

Sharpen Your Scissors

“I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.” -Truman Capote

You will need your scissors to be sharp because there should be no resistance when cutting dead weight from your paper. Make sure each sentence advances the overall purpose of the paper. Writing is rarely perfect the first time around.  One method is to write more than necessary and then only keep the parts that really shine.  Knowing how to cut the dead leaves from your essay is precisely what will help it bloom.

Edit without your Larynx

The technique shown in the video below depicts how to remove the impulse to vocalize words while reading.  By reading with your eyes only, you can absorb sentences much faster than when you try to vocalize and consequently this has a positive impact on the wpm (words per minute) you can read.

By redirecting the attention of the larynx, you train yourself to dissociate vocalization from reading.  So, if you’re writing an essay in a bind, you should still have the time to quickly scan your paper and remove unnecessary words.

Edit with your Larynx

Read your essay aloud. Ears are great for detecting doubt when it exists, helping analyze what is said, and identifying how it can be improved. When a sentence sounds doubtful, confusing, or miscalculated, follow the advice of Philip Cosby: “when in doubt, delete it.”

Be tough on your most dazzling sentences. As you revise, you may find that sentences you needed in earlier drafts no longer belong—and these may be the sentences you’re most fond of. We’re all guilty of trying to sneak in our favorite sentences where they don’t belong, because we can’t bear to cut them. But great writers are ruthless and will throw out brilliant lines if they’re no longer relevant or necessary. They know that readers will be less struck by the brilliance than by the inappropriateness of those sentences and they let them go.

Have Someone Else Edit it For You

I learned this trick the hard way.  After handing in several essays only edited by myself in University, I was disappointed to get them back covered in red ink!  Since I knew an older student who is a skilled writer, I had her proofread and edit whatever I wrote before I handed it in.  Her experience rubbed off on my paper — and me — and in the end my marks were improved and she did less editing. That’s right, I learned to write better from having her edit my papers.

Now if I were to hand in a paper today, I would just use Eduify. I can earn points by helping others and use those points for editing services. If you don’t have an Eduify account yet, sign up for a beta invite and gain access to expert editing services to help unlock your true writing potential.

Feedback

Do you know any other secrets to editing success?  If so share them in the comments below!

By: Garin Kilpatrick

“If I plan to learn I must learn to plan”

Those words were written on my sixth grade teachers desk. They will stay with me for life because they depict an important point: Planning is imperative to success. This point is no less true when applied to writing a paper. By breaking a paper down into a planned process the writing process becomes much more manageable. Follow these 5 steps and help systematically secure the success of your paper!

1. Plan your Paper with an Outline

A well structured paper is well on its was to a great mark. Every paper has an introduction paragraph, a conclusion paragraph, and as many body paragraphs as you need to fit the paper to the length requirement in between.  Start by finding one quote for each body paragraph you are going to write. Then write a concluding sentence. These five sentences might take you the longest to write, but they are like piecing the the border of a puzzle together first, and make everything afterwards fall into place.

2. Plan to Meet your Deadline

When you get a new paper assignment try to tackle a tiny bit at a time. One great way to do this is to write your paper on a mobile phone too.  Eduify offers a cool and free way to write on the go with the Eduify Windows Mobile App! Access your essay from anywhere with the Eduify WinMo App and get it done faster.   iPhone users, we did not forget about you! We are in the process of building out our WinMo App for the Apple App Store so stay tuned!  In the meantime most cell phones and blackberries offer note taking capabilities so take advantage of them by jotting down points for your paper.  I am copying some of this post from notes I made on my Blackberry!

3. Plan to Procrastinate

Even the best of us get distracted from time to time. Plan to finish your paper early so that as the deadline draws near you won’t have to scramble. If you are well ahead of the game with your paper there are tons of sites worth checking out, even though they may not help you accomplish much.  If you follow our proven planning steps you will have more than enough time to check out 10 of the coolest sites to surf when you’re ready to procrastinate!

4. Plan time for Editing

A well edited paper is the difference between either looking like a pro, or a sloppy student. Plan to go over your paper as many times as you can.   No matter how much time you edit your paper yourself there are some things that only another person will notice. Plan to get as much feedback from more experienced writers as you can. Eduify offers expert editing and proofreading services that are made very affordable with Eduify coins. Eduify coins can be purchased with cash, or by trading in points for coins.  You can earn points by doing many different things on eduify.com, like referring friends, or using the tools on our site to help you write.

5. Plan a few Paragraphs at a Time

Hearing that you having to write a 10 page paper, or a paper with a minimum of 5,000 words, can sound seriously daunting.  By breaking a paper down in terms of paragraphs instead makes the task far more comprehensible. If you think about having two short weeks to finish that 5,000 word essay the task seems insurmountable.  By thinking in terms of paragraphs and planning wisely with just one paragraph a day you will finish your paper early.  Since eduify can help your write faster you’ll have plenty of time to procrastinate, and even to take a minute and run the paper through our Plagiarism Check so you don’t need to worry about facing expulsion for forgetting to cite a quote.

Proofreading, like many things, has never been my strong suit. Over the years, however, I’ve picked up some tricks on how to proofread more effectively. By no means a professional editor, I still occasionally gloss over and miss errors in my writing from time to time. But the tricks I picked up really help me in my writing, whether in finding spelling errors that spellcheck doesn’t pick up (like quickly typing “by no means a professional dieter” instead of “by no means a professional editor”) or in correcting grammatical construction or in simply rephrasing sentences to make them sound better the second time around.

Hemingway once advised writers to write drunk and edit sober. While I don’t advise anyone to imbibe whilst writing (especially you underage students), I see some wisdom in that remark. Write with an open mind and a creative spirit, without too much thought to making things 100% perfect. Unplug yourself from doubt and fear and engage in some stream-of-consciousness freedom! That way, you stay as creative as possible. The real work comes afterwards, after you already have your thoughts on paper. Proofreading and editing is when you turn your thoughts in writing. Proofreading is that crucial step in transforming everything you’ve thought of and everything you’ve written down into something legible that makes it fun for readers to read.

Here are my 5 tips for proofreading most effectively.

5. Read your work aloud to yourself.

You use a different part of your brain when you read aloud, and it’s also a slower process that forces you to physically read one word at a time. Reading in your head is a patchy quick process, which often leads to skimming rather than true reading. If you have glossed over errors in your work while reading silently, reading aloud can be a sure way to catch those mistakes.

4. Try reading your document backwards.

This sounds strange, but many professional proofreaders swear by it, particularly to catch spelling mistakes. If you are writing a paper with many scientific or historical names, or if you are writing a paper for a foreign language class – situations where spellcheck is useless in catching errors – reading backwards is a good way to examine each word individually and out of context to make sure that basic structure is correct.

3. Track your changes.

Tracking changes is an intelligent way to edit while on a computer because it mimics what it’s like to edit in a hard copy where you can visibly see any cross-outs or notes you’ve written on the margins. This is a good way to compare documents while you are editing and making changes. By the way, Eduify lets you track changes, comments, versions.

2. Have someone else proofread for you.

This is a no brainer. If you’re truly serious about proofreading, getting help from peers is the best way to catch mistakes. Because they think differently than you do and because they aren’t as familiar with the topic are you are, a peer is a good way to gauge how your writing is interpreted by third party readers. (Hint: Eduify makes this part really easy – you can share with any of your contacts and facebook friends with ease).

1. Always double check.

Always double check one last time before you turn in. It’s better to be safe than sorry!