My Best Tip for Writing Research Papers

This tip is for the actual writing process, which can sometimes be the most overwhelming part. I mean, you’ve checked out all your books, you’ve printed online articles, you’ve taken notes, and you’ve arranged everything into chronological order. You’ve discovered a ton of new things, and it was almost even fun. But now, the dreaded day has arrived. You must actually put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and write the darn thing!

How to begin?

Here’s an activity that will warm you up and teach you how to write your paper without stress. I have all of my research paper students do this in our very first class together. I’ve named it Memory Writing, and I hope you find it useful!

Read a fairly-short, informative article at least three times over the course of one or two days. You can choose an article from a book, a magazine, or the internet. Later, put the article completely away and write about the topic in your own words, based on memory.

If there is a name, date, or some other detail that you can’t remember while writing, just leave a blank space. After you are finished, you can go back and insert facts like names and dates.

Write without stopping and without fretting too much over grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. These things can be corrected once you have something written. Sometimes, just getting started is the hard part, and that’s what this exercise will help you conquer.

Now take your research and apply this technique to it. You’ll find that writing from your head is much easier than writing from notes! You won’t have to worry about the drudgery of changing each note card into your own sentence or rearranging someone else’s words into your own. Just write down what you know, and fill in the blanks later. Happy writing!

Music-Themed Ideas for Core Subjects

In my last post, I mentioned a few ideas of how to work music into your homeschool day. However, all of those examples were only good for non-core homeschool hours. What should you do if you really need more core hours, but you want to work music in somehow? Here are a couple of  ideas.

Rhythm worksheets: You can replace number values with notes and rests and create math worksheets for all levels. Addition and subtraction are the simplest, but there’s no reason why you can’t do multiplication, fractions, and even algebra! (Tie notes together for larger values). Be really creative, and try to make the worksheet fun. These exercises will help your child learn to instantly recognize note and rest values.

Research paper (history, social studies, or language arts): Teach your child how to conduct research, take notes, and write a paper. They could choose a composer, a musical genre, the invention of an instrument, etc. If you look up music appreciation topics, you’ll see many good ideas to choose from.

If you need help teaching your middle- or high-schooler how to get from square one to finished paper, I teach classes for that in my hometown, and would be willing to teach it via email. If you would like more information, just email me, and I will get back with you. (My email address is included on the syllabus below.)

Write an Outstanding Paper Syllabus

Writing: Write the first half of a story using notes instead of letters as often as possible. Have your child finish the story on his own. Provide him with staff paper that you can print for free online. Try to create a good mix of treble and bass clef notes.

Spelling: Have your student choose the correct spelling of a word (from among 2 or more misspelled ones). Use notes instead of letters anywhere you can.

I am sure there are tons of activities like this floating around. Can you think of any more?

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