Student Life – Finding and using sources

I’m a writer.

I always have a story

somewhere in me.

I would feel like I

was missing a limb

if I didn’t write.

I’m married;

I’ve got two children:

one daughter

who’s about to turn ten,

and my son who’s eight,

and I live in a house

full of animals.

I like writing

because it works round me

and I can do it when I want to.

It works round

the children as well so

if they’re at home in the evening,

I don’t write.

I get up about

half past six, seven o’clock,

get the kids up and fed,

get them to school,

come back,

have a cup of tea,

take the dog for a walk,

stick the washing on the line.

I actually started doing

my degree about ten years ago

when I was pregnant with my daughter,

but through a problematic pregnancy

I sort of shoved it to

one side for a bit, and came

back to it about three years ago.

The last assignment was

discussing the prominence

of the English language

and the resistance of the

prominence of English language.

We had to use an academic text.

I did do a lot of searching

on the university website.

They have a library that lists

all the approved academic texts,

but I did do a lot of Googling.

Finding the academic text was

the hardest part of

finding source material.

So I found

two or three

that I thought would

be quite good and I read

each text about two or three

times and highlighted the bits

that I thought might be useful

and then decided which one

would have the most highlighter on it:

I used that one.

I ended up with far too much stuff:

it was quite difficult actually

trying to condense it down

to within the word count.

I did use paraphrasing,

summarising and quoting

throughout my essay.

There were times when

it was just easier to quote –

you’d come across something that –

yeah, that’s exactly what

I want to say and

there is no other way to say it.

When I first started

doing my degree,

I really struggled with referencing.

By last year though

I had found a guide

to Harvard referencing,

and every time I was

trying to reference,

I went back to that guide

to make sure that it was

done in the correct order.

I think I have got better

at finding source material.

I now know which sources are unreliable

and which sources are reliable.

If you’re struggling to

find source material,

don’t panic.

There’s plenty of stuff out there.

The books that my university gave me were

really comprehensive –

everything I needed was in there.

My advice to anyone who’s struggling

to quote, paraphrase or summarise

is just speak to your tutor.

If in doubt, leave it out.

I think I’ve always written short stories

for friends, but it’s

only been in the past

sort of five or six years that I actually

wanted to make it a career,

and then when I was pregnant

with my daughter I sort of

had the time to sit down

and decide what I really

wanted to do: writing,

so English courses

sort of seemed to be the

next natural step.

I’ve got one more year

left to do with university.

I’m still playing with the idea

of then doing a Masters’

or maybe doing my PGCE.

I do love learning,

I do love learning a new skill,

a new language, anything really.

Go the distance.