What should I do?

Post Reply New Topic

So the essay I was having trouble with.... I still only have 170-something words out of the 500 requirement and am entirely stuck. I've written my introduction and just can't plan out the rest of the essay and figure what else to say, especially as I feel what I've written already answers the essay title question. I've tried 'mind-mapping' etc and even seemed to figure what else I was going to write with my mentor, before I was supposed to go off and finish it but here I am, still sat there with 170-something words. The session tomorrow is when we're supposed to turn up with our finished essays, I'm completely stuck and I don't know how to deal with this situation, especially tomorrow, if I have to turn uyp with my unfinished essay.

Just a thought, but perhaps you could let go of the word requirement in your head: just write something, and mold it into the correct amount of words later.

I also have problems with meeting word counts (always too little), but that is when you just repeat a section of the introduction, with more words in it.
Also remember that it isn't a hard limit; if you turn 400 words, it's often good enough and 600 shouldn't cost you points either.

Thanks. I think I just stated the disparity between the two word counts to demonstrate how the difficulty I'm having is affecting the work I produce (or not). I emailed my personal tutor and she said that I could email the tutor if I wanted just saying that I'd had some difficulty and haven't managed to reach the full word count but suggested I try to even just write down some bullet points to add on what I have written and take them with me tomorrow, so that at least should demonstrate the areas I intended to cover and give more substance for feedback.

I have always struggled with the same issues/difficulties around writing/producing assignments/essays but I don't think feeling quite preoccupied and stressed about my upcoming assessment is helping in me being able to work through these difficulties.

As for moving forward to future assignments, I have had a couple of ideas that I'm going to try when I start my next piece. One being that although I struggle in actual face to face conversations with people, I'm quite good (if you can call it that) at rambling away at people in my imagination, so I thought maybe I could try and utilise this.. if I can figure the right/specific questions to ask myself, I can record it with my dicatphone/software and hopefully pick out some substance for my essay. Then I just have to figure out to putting it all together. I have no idea how helpful it will be but at the very least hopefully it will be more positive in the early stages than paralysis in front of a blank page.

I didn't get any more done but I did try to make some bullet points to demonstrate what I intended to cover. My feedback from what I had written was that what I'd done was well written, I needed to be mindful of leaning more towards covering how occupational therapy is viewed as opposed to occupation itself as a concept (but she said others had also done this so I wasn't alone) and gave me some other general advice. I tried to write down why how I struggled with it and took that with me so my lecturer could better understand my difficulty and I roughly explained my proposed strategy. She said it was a good idea and worth a try.
This is what I did manage to write:

'Occupational therapy is underpinned by occupational science. Clark and Lawlor (2009) explore ‘how an understanding of occupational science, including the recent history of the field, informs and influences innovative occupational therapy practice’. It is widely accepted that even amongst occupational therapists themselves though, the definition of occupation can be ambiguous and quite generic. It is often debated, with people offering differing perspectives and descriptions of what it is and what it means to them. The consensus definition as stated by Creek (2010) describes occupation as ‘A group of activities that has personal and sociocultural meaning, is named within a culture and supports participation in society. Occupations can be categorized as self-care, productivity and or leisure’.
When discussing what occupational therapy is however, due to the wide range of contexts occupational therapists are able to work in, coupled with the general lack of public awareness around their role and function, a common alternative to the equally frequent vague, generic response, is often a more specific, contextual one which fails to encompass the real versatility and value they possess.'

I totally understand about writer's block, but that paragraph is actually pretty killer and you should be able to build a great paper on that. What you're saying is absolutely true. What the h*ll IS an occupational therapist? It seems like a pretty broad field. I can't say I could define it and I'm pretty sure I've been to one.

Oh, and by the way, community college has the hardest rules for paper writing that you'll see anywhere, despite maybe graduate level English. So don't feel bad if you're getting a lot of criticism, it's not you.