Academic writing begins

I am believer...blogs can be source of knowledge

I have been wondering for a while about the abstract and a strong conclusion. But I have been busy with work and others could not find useful and handy information about them

In this link there is a good answer about these two

In short,

-have a punchy conclusion (as well as a punchy intro)

-check the list that Zoe has written about what to include in the abstract. it is very useful

http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/zbrigley2/tag/academic_writing/

however there are more things to consider

the use of "I argue"

not to use "It seems that" ouch!

Nice webish

http://www.mapyourmind.com/books.htm

Table of contents

Dont you find it last horrible experience before finishing a written piece of work?

I found this a pain and this might be of help so we dont get nuts about it

Create a table of contents from entries you mark yourself

1. Select the first portion of text that you want to include in your table of contents.

2. Press ALT+SHIFT+O.

3. In the Level box, select the level and click Mark.

4. To mark additional entries, select the text, click in the Entry box, and click Mark. When you have finished adding entries, click Close.

5. Click where you want to insert the table of contents.

6. On the Insert menu, point to Reference, and click Index and Tables.

7. Click the Table of Contents tab.

8. Click the Options button.

9. In the Table of Contents Options box, select the Table entry fields check box.

10. Clear the Styles and Outline levels check boxes.

E-book on mind-mapping

This link takes you to an e-book on mind-mapping

http://www.mapyourmind.com/ebook.pdf

Mind-mapping

A tool discovered through a conversation with Mark Childs is mind mapping and free mind is the tool that can help us to use it.

Freemind is good for the following:

Keeping track of projects, including subtasks, state of subtasks and time recording

Project workplace, including links to necessary files, executables, source of information and of course information

Workplace for internet research using Google and other sources

Keeping a collection of small or middle sized notes with links on some area which expands as needed. Such a collection of notes is sometimes called knowledge base.

Essay writing and brainstorming, using colors to show which essays are open, completed, not yet started etc, using size of nodes to indicate size of essays. I don't have one map for one essay, I have one map for all essays. I move parts of some essays to other when it seems appropriate.

Keeping a small database of something with structure that is either very dynamic or not known in advance. The main disadvantage of such approach when compared to traditional database applications are poor query possibilities, but I use it that way anyway - contacts, recipes, medical records etc. You learn about the structure from the additional data items you enter. For example, different medical records use different structure and you do not have to analyze all the possible structures before you enter the first medical record.

Commented internet favorites or bookmarks, with colors and fonts having the meaning you want.

Taken from http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page