SEGi College Penang’s Psychology Club recently conducted a physical workshop with Dr Jayaeswari Sangaralingam, a corporate training manager, on understanding academic skills and applying them in writing on both assignments and research papers.
Dr Jayaeswari told the Diploma and Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology students how to examine research papers and conduct literature reviews and writings based on related topics. She spoke about the importance of enticing introductions to grab readers’ attention, and gave the students sources that they could refer to when newly exposed to writing on any topic.
The workshop provided useful insights not only to freshmen but also senior students as well. Some of the key takeaway points given by Dr Jayaeswari were:
- Always search for reliable sources such as journal articles, newspapers, or official webpages. Avoid directly paraphrasing the works of others, and instead, read the required information and make a summary by producing their own words.
- It is normal to have many academic papers in one semester, therefore the time-management do’s and don’ts apply, as well as keeping an eye on due-dates, as well as crucial decisions of what to do now, next, and later.
- It is important with a writing topic to have an attention-grabbing introduction, includi the essence of the storytelling writing style in their papers to make interesting reads.
In the engaging and interesting group activity, all the groups were asked to create mind-maps. Dr Jayaeswari gave the students a three-minute limit to write down all the ideas that came to their minds and helped them narrow down the topics and go about deciding what contents they would include in writing their topics. This provided a great guide to the participants on how they could go about starting to write, the solutions whenever they get stuck in writing, and especially how to start writing on topics of interest. The workshop provided beneficial tips and tricks to especially the Diploma in Psychology students who were new to the concept of academic writing coming, directly from SPM.
