Kelley Costigan, Producer
Welcome to the Wyrd Learning Podcast with your hosts, Dr. Tracy Dix and Dr. Alex Patel, with special guest Kia Morant. Today's episode, In Conversation: Study Tips with Kia Morant.
Alex Patel
Hello, and welcome back to the Wyrd Learning podcast. It's me, Alex Patel, and my good colleague, Tracy Dix, and we're here with Kia Morant to talk about something which often makes students struggle a little bit. So how to really succeed in your studies. Quite often, this is study skills, which can be a bit boring, but it's not today. We're going to look at it in a lot more detail and think about the techniques and practices and ways of working that will really help you succeed at university.
Tracy Dix
Let's spend a little bit of time talking about Kia, what your course is like but first of all, could you please remind us again, like what course you're studying?
Kia Morant
Hi. I'm studying Politics and Economics at Aston, currently, and I did study Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Goldsmith’s University.
Tracy Dix
So now that you've got experience of studying at two different types of universities, let's talk a little bit about like, what the teaching format is and how you've kind of managed them differently according to the different types of assessments. So shall we start with Aston first of all, so how is your course taught, mostly at Aston?
Kia Morant
Okay, so we do our lectures, primarily online. So we get each week we'll get (it depends) about three different recordings split into sections, and then we'll get a reading, obviously, for these and then we'll also have a seminar but that's at the university.
Alex Patel
Okay, so you're saying reading so is that a reading list?
Kia Morant
Yeah.
Alex Patel
So how many bits of reading do you tend to have on a list like that?
Kia Morant
Depends on the module. Some are quite nice. Some will give us an actual like workbook, but then I think that lends itself to Economics, and then for Politics, it could range depending on the week. It could be between two to four.
Alex Patel
Okay.
Tracy Dix
In terms of reading…
Kia Morant
Yeah, that depends if it's a book, or if it's like articles, or sometimes they put new stuff in there because it relates exactly to what we're doing.
Alex Patel
And do you get guidance about how to go about approaching these? So if it was a book, you know, do you to get guidance from the lecturer on what to do with it?
Kia Morant
They'll tell us what part to look at, but we haven't actually been told how to read..
Alex Patel
[Laughs] It sounds weird to say.
Kia Morant
in terms of notes as to how to what to look out for how to read it, which I think would be useful.
Tracy Dix
Yeah, it would be useful. I mean, it sounds from you know, our conversations before, like, you've figured a lot of that out already. So um, how would you approach your reading list?
Kia Morant
By usually, let's say when I'm reading just for the week, not because of an essay or assignment, I'll just kind of go over it. Look at things that relate exactly to what we've done in the lecture. Look for where they talk about other authors that I think would be interesting to look at another time, then if I’m going to answer an essay on anything to do this week.
Tracy Dix
Yeah.
Kia Morant
And then, I’ll read the release, what sort of thing we're going to talk about in our seminars. So I'll look for things that relate to what we're going to talk about in the seminar, but I kind of like skim read it at first…
Tracy Dix
Yeah.
Kia Morant
To see exactly what bit’s useful and then I'll go and read them properly afterwards.
Alex Patel
Yeah.
Kia Morant
Because it could be quite a lot of reading.
Alex Patel
Yeah, that's absolutely key. So you are focusing on you, aren’t you? You know, instead of just going in and starting off at page one and reading the whole thing and thinking, “Ah, I need to memorise all of this”, which was what I used to do, and it's very stressful, never finish. You're thinking, you know, “What do I need to get out of this? Is it linking it to the lecture? Is it preparing for the essay? Is it preparing for the discussion?” and pulling out those key bits of information and reading those bits in a lot of detail. That sounds really, really helpful.
Tracy Dix
And from what you said to us in a previous episode, as well, you're very keen that you know, the things you study and the issues you explore on your course are of, you know, your own interest. You know, you're not just kind of expecting or relying on you know, your your tutors to teach you everything you know about Politics and Economics. You really want to make it your own and you really want to kind of forge your own path with the discipline. And I think that can be a really helpful perspective to have as well because you know, you're getting what you want out of this university experience, rather than, you know, having to do these assignments that someone else has set for you and having to figure out like, what do they want from you so you can get like a first but you're you're finding your own interest and approaching things in a way that you know, lights you up and gives you purpose. And along with that, you know, you're going to do a lot better, as well because, you know, you actually want to do the reading and the studying rather than having to slog through it.
Kia Morant
Yeah, I do. I agree that it helps to enjoy what you're doing, but also if you don't necessarily enjoy the module, or the topic you're doing for that term. It also helps to just find something in it that you like, and then try and answer anything you can on that because for me personally, that when you are doing an essay or an example of something that you find interesting, you're gonna do a lot better.
Tracy Dix
A lot better, yeah.
Alex Patel
Yeah.
Tracy Dix
And modules are usually very kind of conducive for doing that as well because, you know, like, most modules would kind of touch on a different topic each week. And then when it comes to the assessment, they'll give you a choice, you know, so it's never like one set question or anything like that they usually options within it. So you can definitely focus on you know, things that resonate better with you and others. I mean, so I have an admission here, but when I was at uni, I was not always that conscientious. And so you have the weekly reading. And what I often ended up doing (because I studied English and there was a lot of reading to do) was I sometimes ended up especially with modules I disliked, like linguistics, I often ended up doing the weekly reading if I knew I was going to use that as in my assessment. That's not necessarily what I'm telling people to do, but sometimes it happens and you get through it.
Alex Patel
So once you’ve, you know, done a bit of reading, how do you capture that information? How do you like, do you make notes based on this?
Kia Morant
Yeah, I usually make notes on a laptop on a Word document and I think it's much easier to do it that way because then you can go in and edit it later if you're gonna use it rather than having it on paper because ..
Alex Patel
Yes.
Kia Morant
It doubles the workload.
Alex Patel
Copying and pasting?
Kia Morant
No.
Alex Patel
Really?
Kia Morant
No. I don’t do that, it would be terrible.
Alex Patel
Why would that be terrible?
Kia Morant
I don't think that you get anything from it if you do that. It's just like information that was already there. You know somewhere else. I try and reword it or take – I’ll read it and then close it and then write about it. So that is my own understanding of it. Then I’ll write what think about something so if they've got an idea, I’ll write whose idea it was and then what I think about it, so I’ve really kind of got the bones of something that can actually be used later, rather than just …
Tracy Dix
Copying a quote.
Kia Morant
Copying someone's work. Yeah.
Alex Patel
Yeah, yeah. That's a really great way of looking at it. Okay, what about referencing and citations? How do you stay on top of those?
Kia Morant
I’m really bad. [Laughter] That’s like the last thing I do, every time I work, I’ve got to do this earlier. I don't but I keep it in my notes, where I'll write down whose work I'm citing. And then I'll have my notes underneath where it says here are the titles so that I can go to this one line called Sites? Sites For You.
Alex Patel
Yeah.
Kia Morant
And I'll do it all on my there quickly, so it doesn't take too long, but it's something I think that you should do while you're writing. Don't do it at the end but I don’t follow that advice.
Tracy Dix
I think as long as you keep a record you should be able to catch up on it – so for most assignments up to like, you know, 4000 words long say, you can probably keep up with your referencing if you do it how you've described, but yeah, when it comes to dissertations, you might want to kind of do it as you go along, and that's to come. [laughs]
Alex Patel
Would that be using some form of technology?
Tracy Dix
Sometimes.
Alex Patel
Sometimes.
Tracy Dix
But the technology is - so what the technology does for you, in terms of your referencing and bibliography, still needs to be checked. And I mean, back in the day, when we were students, there was no technology for doing any of that, and it was - we got on fine. So I think it's, it's often a personal preference thing. Because when it comes to using technology, like Endnote, for example, to help you with your referencing, you have to invest a bit of time in figuring out how our how it works, and what its like kind of pitfalls are. So I think it's up to the individual whether they want to do that. I can be a bit of a control freak with certain things and invest something like if I'm using a tool and I don't completely understand what it's doing to my references. I would rather do it myself. What do you think of it Alex?
Alex Patel
When I was at university, we did have the technology. We were at university at the same time but -
Tracy Dix
Different universities.
Alex Patel
Our science area so they taught us to use RefWorks - Ref manager, whatever it was called.
Tracy Dix
Okay.
Alex Patel
And so I would just be like downloading all these abstracts onto this database, not being selective. I would just have like hundreds - never actually read the papers, because I wasn't being selective.
Tracy Dix
Yeah.
Alex Patel
So, you know, the database just became a huge, unwieldy thing. And then when it came to actually outputting the references as a list using the correct citation format that was really, really different back in the day. But nowadays, when I write an academic article, it's quite often around education, I use a small number of sources generally, and really focus on those go into a lot of detail and so you know, I just do it by hand, actually. Yeah.
Tracy Dix
So okay, talking about small numbers of sources, what could be a million-pound question for a lot of students and something we get asked a lot is, “How many items in your reference list or bibliography should you include in your assignment?” Kia, do you have the response for that?
Kia Morant
My friends at uni seem to think this is excessive. I think this is the right amount, but for every 100 words, I'll try and have at least one.
Tracy Dix
Okay.
Kia Morant
So if I'm doing 1500 word essay, I’ll have at least 15 references, but sometimes I do a bit more. It’s not always going to be…
Tracy Dix
Okay, so how many references would you say is the right number for an assignment?
Kia Morant
So I usually have about one per 100 words, and that's because when I'm structuring out for each point I'll do like a overview of the area of what I'm talking about. So there'll be a kind of mini-literature review, where I'll talk about the work or the various experts are saying, the works that I followed, the people that counteract what they say. So each of them will come with a reference because you're discussing their works, one or multiple –
Tracy Dix
Yeah.
Kia Morant
And then I'll use more references later on as evidence of what I'm saying. So even if it's a statistic or I'm describing a situation, and I need to use someone else’s work to discuss that, so by the end of it, say there’s a 2000-word essay, I’ll usually have about 20, 20 references.
Alex Patel
Yeah.
Tracy Dix
So you were telling us earlier that you think like some of your fellow students think that's a little bit excessive. Right. So how many sources do you think they include, do you have any idea?
Kia Morant
I think quite a lot of people will include all those in the reading list.
Tracy Dix
Yeah.
Kia Morant
For what they are discussing.
Tracy Dix
Yeah.
Kia Morant
And have some for like evidence, then have a couple of articles that they found. So usually around 10, 15? Sometimes less?
Tracy Dix
A 1500-word essay.
Kia Morant
But maybe not that much. Even though...
Tracy Dix
Yeah.
Kia Morant
It depends who you're speaking to. But usually, it sounds like I've got the most of the people that I know which, I don't know, I don't I don't think it's that excessive, personally, but..
Tracy Dix
So I guess the answer to that question is there isn't really a definitive number. And that's why it's, it's a question that's quite difficult to answer because when someone you know, a lot of students approach us and they want like the, “You should have 10 or you should have 15”, but really, it depends on the type of sources that you're using as well, and how you engage with it. And really what academics are often looking for is your engagement with those debates. So from what you're saying, you know, you have kind of scoped the topic that you're like engaged with at that point in time. And you know, the current debates and you're familiar with like, like seminal pieces of work. So maybe publications that are older, but that people have kind of cited and, you know, drawn on since then. So they they're very important in some way. And then, you know, like, from there, you kind of reviewed where the sort of scholarly discussion is around your topic up till now. And then you found like, other bits of evidence, like data or, you know, interviews or whatever, you know, because some other pieces of work might not be properly published if it's too new, for example. So you've looked at those sources of evidence and then draw your own conclusions from that. Then, I mean, from what you're saying, you know, I don't think your course mates are doing anything wrong either, but they've just taken a different approach to it. So I guess you know, the message for students who are listening to this podcast is as long as you are demonstrating some criticality and you know, some original ideas come out of you know, the resources that you you've looked at for an assignment and then you're doing what you've been asked like that should be fine and then no, kind of vital like there are no definite right or wrong answers when it comes to how many sources do you need? For like 1000 word for 2000-word essay.
Alex Patel
Yeah. And if that's has made, you kind of think well, “What is criticality?” I'm sure we'll be doing a podcast on this in the future where we go into some different types of questions that you might ask to develop your critical analysis of summary.
Tracy Dix
Yeah, we'll look at some essay topics, but also Kia has talked about a little bit about criticality.
Alex Patel
Yes, yeah. That was a really good explanation.
Tracy Dix
Note taking and you know how you were saying that you don't copy down quotes, you don't copy and paste. You write your own perspective, like your own take on what's been said? And you know, how it's inspired you and yeah, kind of other reactions like that.
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Alex Patel
I'd like to go back to lectures and note making. So we talked about doing notes for reading. But what's it like in a lecture? How would you go about making notes in that situation? Or do you?
Kia Morant
Well, I do. I did more when I was at Goldsmith’s because it wasn't recorded. So everything they said I was kind of like getting…
Alex Patel
Okay, so can you explain what you mean by that? So what does it look like or what's it feel like to go to a lecture?
Kia Morant
Well, at Goldsmith’s at least, I would be sat in a row and there's lots of rows of seats and somewhere at the front with a whiteboard, but not a whiteboard, a projector. [laughter] But usually it depended on the lecturer because sometimes they didn't actually use it. They were quite old school and teach the same lecture for a long time, so they would just…
Alex Patel
Rock up sit on the desk at the front…
Kia Morant
And speak to us. Yeah.
Alex Patel
Yeah, I had a psychology lecturer who did that. [Laughs]
Tracy Dix
See, and that's why it's so important to collaborate with students and like shake things up a little bit.
Kia Morant
Yeah, so where I would, I would write extensive notes down and I think I tend to realise that that wasn't necessarily the most useful because I wouldn’t have used a lot of it, it wouldn't actually help me to necessarily kind of write good flow to it because I was writing so quick that I was kind of missing stuff or oh, I’ll come back to that and I never did so come back to it a month later and be like, “Oh, I don't know what I was trying to say.” But now, at Aston, all my lectures are recorded. I've got I can download the PowerPoints as well. And then they've got like a transcript. So I don't feel the need to write so extensively. I kind of just write what I think is interesting, or if the lecturer says something that isn't written down on the actual PowerPoint that I think I'll forget, and I won't think to look at that. I'll make sure that I write it down exactly as they say it. It helps to be able to rewind it and, go back over it.
Alex Patel
So what do you do with the notes once you've done this, what do you use them for?
Kia Morant
I look back over when I'm going to be doing my essays or my assignments, so I’ll review them as part of the… because it's my vision, I suppose, and I keep doing quite meticulous. So I've got I've got a file on my laptop for each module, and then I've got a file the week in that, I've got a file for the lecture, a seminar and the reading, which is a bit excessive, but it kind of keeps everything in order.
Alex Patel
Very sensible.
Tracy Dix
So do you kind of use Windows files because you talked about - you were talking about Word documents earlier. You don't use any apps for note making like Notability or anything?
Kia Morant
Just, just Word.
Tracy Dix
Just Word? Word does the job? I used Word. [Laughter]
Alex Patel
I used pen and paper and ring binders.
Tracy Dix
Yeah. I used…
Alex Pate
Sitting around all these ring binders. Oh, it's terrible. [Laughter]
Tracy Dix
Okay. So something that your mum mentioned to me a while ago, which I was very impressed about. She was telling me that you listen to things like podcasts when you're studying, but also she was telling me that you kind of do your writing at the same time when you're listening to those podcasts and I was very impressed by that level of multitasking. Would you mind telling us a little bit more about that?
Kia Morant
Yeah. So usually I listen to podcasts or documentaries or you know, interviews with people depending on what I'm doing - with Politics that helps - but on the subject of the topic that I'm doing the essay for, the assignment, I do it while I'm planning it out not what I'm actually writing the essay because that would be a bit too intense. I have a small speaker at the same time. But it kind of just helps while you're trying to plan things out, have people come up with ideas that you can look into more or they might say something like sparks a bit more inspiration into what to discuss. So I think it's quite useful to do like a wider range of research rather than just reading.
Tracy Dix
Yeah, and before you before we started recording, you were telling us that you kind of listen to lectures from other universities as well. Like what gave you the idea to go and look for them?
Kia Morant
I first did that because we had a module that was basically international relations, and I had never done it before. And my lecturer, didn't really make a big deal about the fact that this is international relations. So I was doing reading and kept seeing all these international relations terms and I was like, “Oh, okay, so that's a whole different subject topic here that we're not getting the terms, or we're not getting all the keywords for” so I just started watching this lecture series by this - I can’t remember his name – it was this lecturer from I think it was the University of Philadelphia. It was very good. And I took lots of notes on that. When he suggested a reading I wrote it down and did the reading, but it's something I still do now, maybe on a specific topic that we haven't looked at at uni. So I've watched lectures on Apartheid, I've watched lectures on like, things that we haven't specifically covered in detail just to get more of a range of knowledge on it, so I can look that up later.
Alex Patel
The great thing there is you're going to experts on this, you know, they're employed by a university to be teaching on a degree that it means they have some expertise in this area. Do you use Wikipedia at all?
Kia Morant
I do use Wikipedia.
Alex Patel
What do you use if for?
Kia Morant
I look at the all the work they’ve cited so I'll go and have a look at all the works they've used and then I'll read that and then I'll have a look at the works - I looked at look at the citations and all the books and the references from
Tracy Dix
Yeah.
Kia Morant
So I’m like okay, so I’ll look at this…
Alex Patel
Yes, yeah, people call that a citation trail, don’t they?
Tracy Dix
Okay, maybe. [Laughter] Have you ever included something from Wikipedia in your reference list?
Kia Morant
No. Not really. Not up till now.
Alex Patel
Why not?
Kia Morant
It was made very clear to us at the beginning of each year, that you should not do that. So…
Tracy Dix
It's really interesting, isn't it? [Laughs] So okay, I mean, we could discuss that a little bit more than later on in another episode. I think universities like to keep things simple for students. And, you know, like coming from like the school system where there's sort of harder and faster rules as to what you should and shouldn't do in your assessment like that can be the more reassuring to students. Like, what not to do. So it's almost I guess, it's almost safer to tell students don't reference Wikipedia. We have had someone else kind of say, you know, if you have used Wikipedia as a source then you should just reference it. But opinion is very mixed on that and on the whole, I think that I've come across more academics who say don't use it than you do.
Alex Patel
But sometimes people just use Wikipedia to get an overview sounds like that's –
Tracy Dix
Yeah?
Alex Patel
Like what you do, but you don't rely on it. You have to rely on really concrete pieces of research or analysis.
Tracy Dix
Peer reviewed work. You know, there is no harm in using Wikipedia as like the kind of building blocks for your understanding of something before you develop.
Alex Patel
Before you go into it further.
Tracy Dix
Yeah, so I can't remember if it was in a previous episode, but you were talking about having to do group work at uni. Do you enjoy groupwork?
Kia Morant
I don’t. return?
Tracy Dix
[Laughing] Why is that?
Alex Patel
I got the impression you did from what you were saying before.
Kia Morant
I've enjoyed being able to meet people.
Alex Patel
Yeah.
Kia Morant
It's been extremely stressful. I think I just have a standard of work that I like to put out and you can't tell people to do things the way that you do that and when you can't tell them that they have to do - they can't do what they're doing because it doesn't sound like it's gonna fit.
Alex Patel
Oh, God.
Kia Morant
You can't be mean. I don't want to be, I don't want to be mean but I'm also very like, I want to get this grade. So it's, it's a difficult situation.
Alex Patel
It’s a bit of negotiation.
Tracy Dix
It’s negotiation. So it's very common at universities. When you talk to academics about you know, when they set kind of group work assignments, students usually hate it and often for the reasons that you say, you know, students kind of complain that you know, other people aren't pulling their weight or whatever, but I guess you know, part of it is that, you know, what academics are trying to do is create a kind of a real world assessment, like a real world situation. And students might study together but like, it's a bit of a different situation when you're asking a group of students to kind of come together on like a deliverable like something that where there is a lot at stake. But you know, often it is the case kind of even in work environments, that people sort of pull their weight differently, and there are lots of other dynamics that play and I think that is part of the learning experience and part of like, how do you navigate that in order to deliver the results? So I'm curious, like, what do you do, like you say, you know, like your fellow students that kind of going up and doing their own thing? How do you kind of address the things that kind of don't sit well with you?
Kia Morant
Well, I've gone through I've gone through lots of different situations that have made me understand how to be better at that because at one point I literally just freaked and said, “Guys, this was not good.” Like, I didn't want to be mean and I was like, “This isn't working.” And they’re like, “Yeah, we know,” and I'm like, “Well, I've done this and this,” and they’re like, “Oh, thank you” and I’m like “Of course you’re thanking me, [laughter] it’s not great.” I know we’ve done well, but that that's not good for you because you’re doing the work the workload of three people and in a short span of time. Yeah, they're not learning how to how to do things correctly.
Tracy Dix
But did they you know, when you say about being mean or not being mean, like so it sounds like your course mates at least didn't think you were being mean because they thanked you for it and at the end of it because they got like the higher grade it sounds like they were fairly happy with that.
Kia Morant
I think they didn't think I was being mean because I didn't tell them upfront that what they’d done isn't good. I don’t know what I’m doing or worried about [laughter] But there was a case of plagiarism because they'd actually -
Alex Patel
Ooh.
Kia Morant
Wrote stuff down but I have read the source for. Word for word.
Alex Patel
Yeah, and to watch out for in a group project.
Kia Morant
Yeah.
Alex Patel
Because you know, plagiarism at universities often has penalties.
Tracy Dix
Yeah.
Alex Patel
So if there's a case of that, then it can mean consequences –
Tracy
For the entire group.
Alex Patel
For the entire group.
Tracy Dix
But that's the value of the group dynamic because Kia, you picked it up and you corrected it and potentially as well, you've helped your fellow student because, you know, kind of going forward with their individual work, they would hopefully understand your corrections -
Alex Patel
Did they learn from it?
Tracy Dix
But yeah, did you tell them you changed it?
Kia Morant
I’m trying to remember. I think I might have told them that I read that. I didn't, I wasn't upfront like it because you've copied and pasted. I was like, “This is close to the original source”, which wasn't actually an academic journal, either. It's a news article and they'd copied and pasted like a large chunk of it too. So yes.
Tracy Dix
Yeah
Kia Morant
Yeah, it wasn't it wasn't great.
Tracy Dix
Not ideal on several levels.
Kia Morant
No.
Alex Patel
Yeah. But you said you had learnt from this experience.
Kia Morant
Yeah. So I had a similar experience again, where I didn't like the direction, I didn't feel like what we were doing was actually very academically sound. It just, it just was going so go off piste.
Tracy Dix
So can you remember what it was?
Kia Morant
I'm trying to remember now.
Tracy Dix
Okay, now don't worry about that, because –
Kia Morant
It was an essay, it was a group essay. I think we had altogether like 4000 words -
Alex Patel
Ooh, wow.
Kia Morant
1000 words each.
Alex Patel
Yeah.
Kia Morant
And it was very, like fragmented. People weren't attending the meetings. It was just, it was not great, but we kind of like got together and we were like what exactly , what exactly are you doing?. And it was just was, it just was no,t it didn't fit together. It wasn't gonna flow well. It just wasn't hitting everything it needed to do. So, I kind of - instead of what I would, what I would have done if it was down to me I would have just done the whole thing. [laughter] And then I would have sent it to them and said, “Do you like this?” [laughter] It's not good for me. It's not good for anyone else. So I just, we had another meeting. I made sure everyone attended, and then we just spoke for like a really long time of what we're going to do. I went through the objectives with them. Like, this is why this isn't going to fit that, this is why this isn’t going to fit that. And then we kind of came up with an idea of how else we were going to approach it and we went off and did it and it did actually…
Tracy Dix
It came together.
Kia Morant
Come together.
Alex Patel
Well done.
Tracy Dix
Well yeah, well done. But so what's coming out of you know, these experiences that you're not enjoying is there's quite a lot of growth happening because you are starting to realise probably that you've got some quite strong leadership skills.
Kia Morant
I didn’t think about, yeah, I guess I do.
Tracy Dix
Yeah, you do because, you know, you facilitated these meetings and you know, talked about things for a long time. And made sure that like everyone understood and then it came together and they were able to contribute as well. And I think you're realising early on and you know, a lot of kind of adults grew up you know, people who are older, still struggle with this, that, you know, you had trouble delegating initially and kind of trusting other people to kind of get on with the work but now you've learned how to support them through it. So it helps you to avoid overwhelm and, you know, so you don't, you know, in future when you go into a professional environment and so on, you will not be tempted to kind of just take on the work of other people and just do it for them because obviously that's going to lead to burnout. You can't do it all the time. So yeah, I think valuable life lessons coming out. I think the group work has served its purpose.
Alex Patel
Yeah, yeah.
Kia Morant
Unfortunately, it took me a while to get there.
Tracy Dix
But, you know, a lot of life lessons are tough, aren't they?
Alex Patel
Yeah, definitely, definitely. But facilitation is a really useful skill to develop.
Tracy Dix
Okay, so I wrote this question really early on, and I think we can cover it now. So what has been your biggest inspiration in terms of influencing how you study and prepare for assessments?
Kia Morant
So it's interesting for me because I wouldn't say I'm necessarily been someone that's been influenced how I do I think it's just been kind of learning over time. Because at school, I was also kind of a positive person where I didn't have to try very hard to do well, so I didn't try hard at all. I don't think I revised until the last week for my GCSEs and I don't think that's a good thing. I think it's really bad actually. For everyone that I know that has the same thing never really struggled as they've progressed it because you're so used to it and then you go to uni and it's just like, it's not going to work. You can’t…
Tracy Dix
So would you say you struggled at uni because of being like naturally talented, or naturally good at certain things.
Kia Morant
I think I realised at the end of A Levels, that it wasn't working anyway.
Tracy Dix
Yeah.
Kia Morant
I think that was like a lot of work. And I was like, “Okay, you can't keep coasting, coasting, coasting, and then try”, and so I was already prepared for that at uni, but I think it hit me very quickly, how much work I was actually going to have to do do well. It wasn't just knowing you had to expand on what you know. So yeah, you couldn't just coast by. So I kind of just think, I watched some videos on YouTube of like their students and how they suggested that you should go about preparing for essays just your reading or note taking all of this and it didn't necessarily work for me, but I think it was really good to see other people's opinions and what you should do because you can try it and then you can find out that that's not how you should do this. Anything else that really inspired the way that I work now. I think it was just trial and error.
Alex Patel
So, you have exams is that right?
Kia Morant
I do but that all 24-hour exams so far.
Alex Patel
Yeah. So how do you prepare for those?
Kia Morant
I look at them, the spec, what they say that we're going to do, how many questions we're going to answer, how much weight you should give to each question. I’ll kind of try and come up with a plan of what I’m going to do for the day. And I always spend the whole 24 hours. And I can cope with that.
Alex Patel
Oh, no. [Laugher]
Kia Morant
But I just manage the whole time, every time.
Alex Patel
Oh, wow.
Kia Morant
I don't know if everyone should do that, it’s not very healthy. But if you can, then …
Tracy Dix
Well, I think it depends, doesn't it? Like do you have a cluster of 24-hour exams [laughter] that you have to work on at the same time?
Kia Morant
[inaudible] and it wasn’t good.
Tracy Dix
How many, what's the largest number of exams you had at same time?
Kia Morant
I think, four?
Tracy Dix
So that would be like, so would it be like four separate days or 24-hours overlap?
Kia Morant
No, no, no. They would never overlap. Yeah. Separate days. Yeah.
Tracy Dix
So that could be potentially four full days when you don't get any sleep. But I mean, yeah, so my thing is, if you had to do it, just the one time for the one block of 24 hours, it probably be okay, just as a one off, but like if you then had to do that four times in the same week or something, then maybe not so much.
Kia Morant
I think it depends on how you can even do, how you, how you go about answering an essay.
Tracy Dix
Yeah.
Kia Morant
Because it takes me a really long time to decide what I'm going to do. So it's not like I'm writing the whole 24 hours some people can already can just go straight into it, do it and you can do that. I think get it done as quick as you can go back to it the next day, or hours later, go back and keep doing that. But I had to spend a really long time just deciding what I'm going to write. I already know what aspect of the module I'm gonna do on because I'm usually saying so on two weeks’ worth of so you'll pick two subject matters that you want to talk about. So already I’ve gone over that in my mind but, yeah, I suppose sit and think about how I'm going to answer it and look at what I've written down the notes. I look at my reading. So just keep going over all the stuff that I've got prepared and then decide how I'm gonna answer it. And then during the last like, 12 hours, that's when I’ll be writing it.
Alex Patel
Wow.
Kia Morant
Yeah, it's intense.
Alex Patel
That's very intense.
Kia Morant
Everyone doing it the same day.
Alex Patel
So I have been, you know, sitting with people, lecturers, who have been designing these exams, or this type of thing. And their point of view has always been, you know, this is a three-hour exam. You know, we don't want students to be doing this for the whole 24 hours.
Kia Morant
They do say that as well. I'm like, I know that I can't not. I just I can't not.
Alex Patel
So it's difficult
Tracy Dix
You’re very motivated and you're naturally very analytical, aren't you?
Kia Morant
I would say that, yeah.
Tracy Dix
Yeah. Okay, you mentioned that, you know, for those of you of course mates, you know, they get like the exam questions and they go straight into writing it. Do you know, kind of how it what kind of grades they're getting, using that approach?
Kia Morant
Two-One?
Tracy Dix
Okay.
Kia Morant
Usually around Two-One.
Tracy Dix
And so you just because you kind of mentioned like, you know, getting the kind of grades that you want through group work and stuff like that, but what kind of grades do you get?
Kia Morant
Usually a first, usually. In the 70s. I got an 80 before.
Alex Patel
Oh, good.
Tracy Dix
That’s very good.
Kia Morant
I try. I try not to go lower than Two-One.
Tracy Dix
Yeah.
Kia Morant
But a first, yeah.
Tracy Dix
Yeah. So okay. So I mean, I took a bit of a leap of faith by asking you that question, and it's come out kind of as I hoped. Phew! Yeah. So kind of like in my experience, I do often find that students who sort of rush to answer a question, you know, a lot of them they read a topic, and they're just like, “Okay, I know, I know the answer to this,” and they start writing straight away. Now a Two-One is a perfectly respectable grade. There's nothing wrong with that. But that is often when you end up with I would say, it wouldn't really make a first, you know, because just the implication of that approach, like kind of rushing into it without kind of planning and you know, reflecting a little bit and stuff and like really analysing, like, what is at play here often means that you don't kind of reach that higher level in terms of criticality. Would you say so?
Alex Patel
Definitely, definitely.
Tracy Dix
But yeah, it can, it can produce a perfectly respectable grade like a Two-One is fine, you know, if it's what you're happy with. Yeah. So I mean, that's all I was going to say about that, really, but also, Kia, you mentioned earlier on about how much planning you do and then you kind of said that towards, you know, towards the end, like the writing flows very smoothly for you a lot of the time and I think that's also one of the benefits to working the way that you do you know, once you've analysed you kind of collated all the information you've interacted with, like, you know, the kind of current scholarly debates that you know, where you stand when it comes to a topic that you're engaging with. So from there, the writing does flow much more easily because you know exactly what you want to say. So for people who kind of thing that the writing up process is like, really hard and a slog, very often it's a sign that you know, more planning could have taken place earlier on to make the process easier.
Alex Patel
Yeah, more links between different areas and sources.
Tracy Dix
But also just being clear in your mind like where you stand on a topic.
Alex Patel
Yeah, yeah.
Tracy Dix
There are always going to be times when students will struggle and you know, a university degree is quite a difficult thing to undertake. Have you got any advice to you know, other students on how to deal with these challenges? Like are there any things you would have kind of told yourself in your first year with the benefit of experience now?
Kia Morant
Yeah, I think we're trying to put up our would struggle, I kind tried to hide the fact that I was struggling. I think I think you kind of feel like everyone else is doing well, or you even if you don't know because you don't necessarily talk to your friends about every grade you've got so yeah, you assume they have from what they said, but I think it's I think it's good to be open with your friends, or with your family, or whoever it is that you go to for support. Like I'm really, really struggling now. And because you'll realise that this isn't uncommon, like everyone is struggling at some point.
Tracy Dix
Yeah.
Kia Morant
Usually at the same time.
Tracy Dix
Yeah.
Kia Morant
Especially if they're on the same course as you. Then, but also as usually people are eager to help and it's kind of like hard to speak to people, I understand that, but when you do you realise that everyone just wants you to succeed. So it's good to reach out to the support team, however that may be. I think there's like a health and wellbeing team usually that will help you if you're going through something so I would suggest that your…
Tracy Dix
Yeah.
Alex Patel
And there’s academics support quite often. So there might be librarians or study skills advisors
Tracy Dix
Or personal tutor.
Alex Patel
Yes.
Tracy Dix
Module leader.
Alex Patel
So Personal Tutors can be very helpful in terms of they have the insight into your discipline, or subject area, and how things are done there specifically. So do make use of all these resources that are available.
Tracy Dix
Yeah. And I mean, this is something we've said before, like one of the kind of key sort of premises of a university education is independent learning and you know, you'll often hear that, oh, at university, you're expected to be more of an independent learner than before. And it's quite common for students to interpret that as, “Oh, this means I need to do everything myself.” And that is not true. The independent side of things is, you know, like Kia said before, you kind of figure out what aspects of the course or what aspects of a discipline you're interested in and try and take things in that sort of direction, but that people always to kind of support you along the way and you should always ask for help. It doesn't matter how late although you know, if you leave things a little bit too late might struggle a bit. But like, for example, last week, I had a request from a student who kind of asked us when he could start his dissertation. This was on a Friday and I mean, I have to, I felt for him because most Masters students are getting ready to submit around this time of year. So I think he was a bit behind so I just quickly told him, you know, so he wasn't kind of waiting to the next week for an appointment. I just kind of quickly said, “You know, if you've got your module handbook and you've got your assessment guidance, you can start from then,” and I don't really know what came of that request. But hopefully, he got the message and has you know, set things in motion to complete his dissertation. So yes, ask for help. It doesn't matter how late you know, there's always something we can do. Or you know, the various teams and universities can do to help you and Kia’s right, people do want us to succeed.
Alex Patel
Thank you for listening. We hope you found this useful. We've certainly enjoyed having a discussion and getting to grips with study skills in, you know, quite a lot of depth. So I hope you appreciate that, you know, learn to research and work and think at university is a lot more complex than just, you know, wanting an essay or whatever. It takes a lot of time and efforts and developments over the course of your degree.
Tracy Dix
Yeah, and I hope you found it really valuable having Kia’s insight as well as a student. We've certainly enjoyed talking to you about all these issues and you know, kind of seeing things from your lens.
Kia Morant
Thank you for asking me.
Tracy Dix
So in our most recent episodes, we’ve mentioned how to navigate your reading list, and this episode has been on study tips. So this is a good time to remind you that we mentioned a free webinar in our previous episode, Episode 6 on navigating your reading list. Many of you will already have received information about your first assignment since the start of this academic year, so we really want to get in early and help you with it, so you don’t waste lots of time finding unsuitable resources, reading irrelevant material and feeling overwhelmed. As I’ve said before, analysing your essay topic is the most effective way to help you understand what resources you need to read, exactly what evidence you’re looking for, how to critically engage with it and it will even start to give you clarity on how to structure your assignments. If you want to be on your way to starting your 1st class essay, then click on the link in our shownotes to sign up NOW! And remember, if you send us the topic you’re working on at the moment, we’ll even apply the principles we’re teaching to your assignment, so get in touch! All the links to sign up and contact us are in our shownotes. We can’t wait to help you with ‘Starting Your First Class Essay’ at our workshop, and if you can’t make it live, don’t worry! The Workshop will be available for a limited time so you can catch up on the replay. See you there, take care!
Alex Patel
Thanks! Goodbye.
Kelley Costigan, Producer
You have been listening to the Wyrd Learning Podcast with Dr. Tracy Dix and Dr. Alex Patel, with special guest Kia Morant. Music by Defekt Maschine, from Pixabay. Produced by Kelley Costigan.
