Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Easy Ideas To Becoming The Perfect You

Finding the best self-help tips and information that is scattered all over the web can be quite exhausting. This article was written to take some of the legwork out of finding the information that you seek. If you are looking for some great self-help tips, read on through this article.

Always challenge yourself. If everything in life were easy, nobody would grow, improve or change. Challenges and adversity are the keys to growing as a person. Try doing something that you are afraid of. The feeling of confidence in yourself when you conquer your fears can push you to new heights.

If there are tasks that you need to do that seem overwhelming, divide them into a series of smaller tasks. This will help you get what you need accomplished, and you will learn how to be efficient and goal-oriented in your work. This will improve both your career and your personal life.

In order to motivate yourself to personal development, you should aspire to live every day with purpose. Having direction and purpose is an excellent way to propel yourself to greatness. The fact is that without direction, it is easy to let daily challenges catch the better of us. If you have bigger fish to fry, you will be more likely to resolve small issues.

When you are ready to better yourself, give yourself a challenge. Have you ever wanted to learn a new skill? Make steps toward making this a reality. If you will get out of your comfort zone it will help you do discover any hidden talents and strengths. When you make yourself try new things you can see exactly what you are capable of.

If you find yourself more susceptible than usual to negative thoughts and critical observations, look to your social circle for clues. You may discover that your peers are contributing to a highly pessimistic and caustic outlook, and that you are allowing these people to actively shape your own unhappiness. Try to surround yourself with positive, nurturing people who can lead by example.

Start educating yourself about the world and not just your country. A good topic for discussion is relating different countries to your own. When you talk about the knowledge you know of different countries other people become more interested in just how educated you are, so take some time to learn about all cultures.

It is important to realize that habits are hard to break. Just because you set your mind to do something, it does not mean that you will be able to change it right off the bat. You may catch yourself going back to what you are used to. Do not let this stop you from making the change you want.

If you are not sure where to start or what to change, imagine that you have to explain to someone in authority what you would need to do to develop or progress. If you have to, write it down and think about what would you need say to convince someone else that you are on the right path? This will help you be more clear about what you want to accomplish.

Figure out what you want to do with yourself. This doesn't mean that you need to map out your entire life in advance. Consider the next five years. Where do you want to be? What does your life look like? If you evaluate this vision you can pull apart the layers and determine the best course of action to get where you need to be.

Make sure that your goal is not just something that you logically think you want to attain. Make sure that your goal starts from your heart. By doing this, it will make the goal very desirable for you and therefore it will make it easier for you to work for it.

Learn to value what is best in your life. When you value something, you naturally want to do whatever you can to achieve it or preserve it. What you value influences the choices that you make in life. So if you value the best in your life, the activities that you choose will work toward achieving the best in your life.

You need to accomplish at least one planned task a day if you want to feel productive. The task should not be a daunting one. It is important to choose a task that fits into the time that you have available rather than trying to squeeze something into a smaller time slot than is truly needed.

Increasing your personal satisfaction with life is sometimes as easy as learning to give back to the community around you. Giving selflessly and donating charitably is an excellent way to increase your own feelings of self worth. Better yet, giving selflessly is an excellent way of proving your worth in your community.

Hopefully with all of the information you just learned you can start taking some serious steps toward your personal development. Remember that it is one thing to want to do something and it is another thing to actually do it, so try your best to do what you think is going to be right for you in your personal development goals.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

The Works Cited Page

The MLA works cited page is where all sources used in a research paper are listed. This section is aptly called Works Cited.

Like every other manual of style, the MLA has a specific format that needs to be followed when listing references. Because there are several types of source materials, a student or a researcher has to be familiar with how to cite a specific source. Of course, some elements, such as author's name, title of the book, and year when it was published, are always present in a citation.

The works cited page's basic rule is to list the sources alphabetically by the author's last name. Should the author be mentioned twice or thrice in the works cited section, his or her name should be replaced with three hyphens. For example, if a publication by Reuben Post Halleck has already been cited, its second mention in the works cited page should be as such:

---. History of American Literature. Hamburg: Tredition, 2011. Print.

When citing a book, gather all available information about it. The common elements needed when including a book in the works cited list are author's full name, book title in italics, location of publisher, name of publisher, year when the book was published, and medium of publication. Here is an example of a book with only one author listed in the works cited page:

Jackson, Robert. Seeking the Region in American Literature and Culture: Modernity, Dissidence, Innovation (Southern Literary Studies). Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press, 2005. Print.

If a book has two or more authors, these authors' names should be written as given name first followed by their last name. As such, if the authors are John Smith, Jane Doe, and Peter Smith, they would be written in the works cited page as Smith, John, Jane Doe, and Peter Smith. The following example better illustrates a cited book with more than one author:

Akmajian, Adrian, Richard A. Demers, Ann K. Farmer, and Robert M. Harnish. Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and Communication. 6th ed. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2010. Print.

Notice that the second example is already in its sixth edition. When a reference material that has an updated edition is used as a source, the researcher must include which edition he or she is using. The edition number should be placed after the book title.

Some books have an author as well as an editor. The author is the main idea behind the book, that is, he or she who writes it, while the editor is the one to ensure that it is seamlessly written. When including this kind of publication in the works cited section, the rules are mostly the same except that after the book title, the editor's name should be inserted. Here is an example:

De Saussure, Ferdinand. Course in General Linguistics. Eds. Perry Meisel, Haun Saussy, Wade Baskin. New York City: Columbia University Press, 2011. Print.

Needless to say, a works cited page is still considered insufficient when documenting reference materials. In-text citations should also be used throughout the main body of the research paper. A citation is relatively simple to make. A researcher only needs to have the author's last name and the page number where the direct quote to be borrowed or the idea to be paraphrased or summarized appears. If the material was taken online, it is perfectly acceptable not to put a page number in the in-text citation.

Writing a research paper is a long, arduous task. Thanks to the scholars who have made contributions to their respective fields, researchers today have several materials to consult. The least they could do is to credit the great minds that have come before them.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Resources To Help Teach Your Child

As a parent, you want to give your child the best start in life, from a happy home and positive life experiences, to the best nutrition and educational resources. As more and more studies confirm the vital importance of early years development for future health and ability, many parents are anxious about how they can help their child grow and learn.

One of the largest areas of concern is learning, and with so much guidance on the best ways to help your child, it is understandable why mums and dads feel confused about the best steps. There is a wide range of educational toys and games on the market, but knowing what can actually make a difference is difficult. From interactive educational software, to kinaesthetic puzzle games and brain boosting classic music compendiums, there is no shortage of educational resources promising to boost your child's IQ and abilities.

But are all of these things really necessary? Many children have grown up into extremely successful adults without the presence of such a wide range of equipment. Indeed, an argument could be made to say that although potentially beneficial, having so many different stimuli can prevent your child from developing the skills of engagement and concentration - instead preferring to focus on the next object that provokes their interest. A recent study conducted by the University of Oslo has found that, unsurprisingly, the greatest resources a child has is its parents and that time spent concentrating on core development skills has the greatest impact on child development. This means eschewing the fancy bright lights of so many educational resources and concentrating on what matters most.

The best resources are those that engage your child and stimulate them in a sustained manner and that means you need to put them in the context of real adult interaction, rather than just sitting them in front of something and hoping that it will have an effect. Arts and crafts are great ways of helping your child develop motor coordination skills and abilities in lateral thinking, as well as engaging their imagination.

Working with you or another child also means they are building excellent communication skills, as well as abilities associated with teamwork and emotional understanding. Similarly, literacy resources which focus on the relationship between words, ideas and the real world will help them develop advanced cognitive skills which will help make clear distinctions between conceptual and literal thinking which is so important in many areas of development.

Writing about children's educational resources, Zoe Robinson aims to provide readers with informative knowledge into her experience gained within this area and offer readers the chance to view a website she has experienced positively. View a range of educational resources today.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Landmark Education - Helping You Take Control of Your Life

Is happiness becoming elusive in your life? Are your hopes dissipating with every new day that comes? Do you feel that other things and people are taking control of your life leaving you with a feeling of helplessness? It goes without saying that you need help for you to gain a sense of certainty and ownership with regard to your life. Landmark education is your best bet when it comes to helping you take full control and be in charge of your life. Many people tend to think that there are things or people outside of themselves that will come to give them happiness. One of the areas that the Landmark forum focuses upon is in the area of the mind, training participants to draw from the resources within.

Wherever you are, there are resources and opportunities available to you to turn your life around for the very best. It is not everyone who will be quick to realize and exploit these resources and therefore such people need some help. Some people have very disempowering beliefs. There are people who tell themselves that they will never be anything more than average. Others believe they can never be happy no matter what happens.

By participating in Landmark forum, participants are helped to do away with all these disempowering beliefs that have entangled their lives and to start believing in the best of themselves. Some of the people who attended the three days of Landmark forum have literally come out transformed in what they believe of themselves. They were helped to do away with the crippling beliefs and to adapt a belief system that would help them succeed. Landmark education is full of success stories of people who are now living transformed lives and contributing very positively to their families, organizations and the society as a whole. Couples who thought they are destined for divorce find a new lease of marriage life all together courtesy of Landmark education.

There comes a time in life when people have to raise a standard from a lower level to a higher level. You have probably heard it said that you cannot do the same things the same way and expect different results. Most people live on one level to a point where they become satisfied with the comfort zone and cannot entertain the thought of moving to the next level. Landmark education, through training and coaching, helps participants to raise a standard for their lives. Participants of the Landmark forum are trained to recondition their minds to a higher level. It is just amazing how three days can see your life take on a paradigm shift. You will find entrepreneurs moving from lower profit levels to all time high profits in their organizations.

For people who have goals but fall short of strategies to implement them, Landmark education helps them to strategize. Through the Landmark forum, participants receive very important tips in making goals become a reality. There is nothing that can match the power of a transformed mind; a transformed mind is tantamount to a transformed life.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Useful Tips For Selecting The Best Nursing Program

These days, nursing is one of the best fields you could enter. Why? One of the reasons is that so many other sectors are doing poorly. The global economy has still not recovered from the Great Recession of 2008, and there are signs that indicate that more difficult times may be ahead. But for students entering nursing school, there are hardly any signs of a recession.

The main reason for the incredible growth in the health care field is demographics. Put simply, world populations are aging. This is especially true in developed countries like the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and most of Western Europe. In the U.S. alone, there are millions of Baby Boomers entering retirement, and they are expected to live longer than any previous generation. In fact, it is projected that many 'Boomers' will live well into their 90s.

The combination of the largest generation in U.S. history retiring at a time when medical technology has lengthened life expectancy far beyond what we could have imagined even a couple decades ago has created a need for health care professionals to tend to the medical needs of all these retirees. And a nursing program is the best way for most people to get a foot in the door of this lucrative field.

When it comes time to choose the right nursing school, there are a few questions to consider:

How soon do I want to be working?

One of the biggest considerations is your financial situation and how soon you need an income. If you need to be working right away, then becoming a CNA (certified nursing assistant) might be best. CNAs only have to train for a few weeks, then they are ready to enter the work force. And, the pay isn't too bad either-you can earn around $15 an hour. Not great, but significantly higher than minimum wage.

What level of income do I want?

While CNAs can be working rather quickly, their pay is lower than that of an LPN or RN. It may be sufficient for those who are the second income earner in the house and don't have a need to go for a higher pay scale, but for others, the LPN and eventually RN options pay much better. RN is obviously the best, but it takes longer to get through the schooling.

What level of responsibility can I handle?

With the higher pay of an RN comes greater responsibility, and often times longer hours working on salary. For those who are ambitious and want to eventually supervise LPNs, the RN option may be the best fit. But for those who don't want the responsibility and lack the time and/or inclination to go the extra couple years of school, an LPN program may be just fine.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Tips for Adult Learners

In my experience as an adult educator and life-long learner, I have found that adult learners returning to formal study for the first time, have often had negative learning experiences at school, and as a result of this, they lack confidence when it comes to studying and learning. These barriers to learning need to be addressed. Being an adult learner is different to learning at school:

    As an adult learner you bring with you many life experiences, and these experiences will assist you in your studies
    You will probably be more motivated than you were at school - most adult learners have a reason for learning, ie goals.
    You will find that you have many more demands on your time, therefore planning and time management skills are critical to your success.
    You are responsible for your own learning.

Six Tips for Adult Learners

1. Ask for help

Don't try to be superman - let your family and friends help you! Don't be too proud to accept help if it is offered, or to ask for help if you need it.

2. Time management

Most adult learners have very busy lives as they juggle work, family and other commitments with the demands of studying. It is critical that you have a timetable for studying. Get a diary and schedule in your classes. Block out time for regular study and record the due date of your assignments. Do not procrastinate - make your learning a priority!

3. You are responsible for your learning

Learning is a two-way process. Your teachers will impart their knowledge, but you need to make sure that you learn it. You are responsible for your learning, and for ensuring that you understand and process the new information.

4. Be an Active Listener

Being an active listener does not mean sitting quietly, it means to be focused on listening, taking relevant notes, and asking questions if you need clarification. A Samoan lady that I was teaching once relayed the following story:

5. Take notes, or create mind maps

During your class, or lecture, make sure that you take written notes on important topics. You won't remember everything that is discussed in class, so it is important that you record the information that you need.

An alternative to writing notes, is creating mind maps. A mind map is a visual representation, and is a good alternative to writing pages of notes. Visual learners often find that mind maps make information more memorable, and therefore easier to recall, that written notes.

6. Don't Let Your Fears Wreck Your Opportunities

In order to learn we must take risks and try new things. When we try new things we often make mistakes, and we learn from our mistakes. If you are not making mistakes, you are not learning. It is okay to mistakes!

When you first start a course of learning it can seem quite daunting and the end result may seem a long way away. As you progress, you will become familiar with the learning programme and comfortable with your teacher and other students. It is important to have a positive attitude and keep your end goal in sight. Be kind to yourself, and allow yourself to make mistakes.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Five Tips to Study Effectively

Discovering how to study effectively is going to give you an advantage in a world where finding employment is getting harder every year. There are more people leaving schools, colleges, and universities all the time, who are more than qualified for the jobs that they go for, and you have to be at their standard, or better if you want to compete; that's were realizing that you need to get better grades is essential.

In this article, you're going to get five study tips that will help you learn to study in a better, and more structured way than you may be doing now, and that should make the whole process easier for you. If you can study in a more relaxed, and structured way, then you have every chance in the battle to get better grades.

Study Tip 1: Organizing Deadlines

Without organization, you're never going to get anywhere with your studies. You're going to have to know what you need to do, when you need to do it by, and set your priorities based on that.

Get a calendar that you can put on the wall where you study, and then write your deadlines on it, so that you have plenty of warning when an assignment needs to be completed. If you have a specific thing that you struggle with, it may be best to allow yourself more time to complete it, but don't let the other things slip; or the chance to get better grades may start to slip, too.

Tip 2: Organizing Notes

Just as important as organizing when your assignments are due; when your tests fall; or any other deadlines that you're aiming for; is making sure that all of your notes are well organized.

When you've been taking notes on a subject, it's too easy to lose them. The best thing to do is to organize them as soon as you can after you get home, by putting them into a notebook on the subject that you leave at home as a study aid, and expand on the notes as best as you can.

Doing it this way means that you aren't going to be searching through books, or loose bits of paper, trying to find those relevant facts, and then trying to remember what your brief notes were actually supposed to remind you of.

Tip 3: Goals

Motivation can be a key factor in getting you through those tough study periods. Although the overriding goal is to get better grades, there has to be a bigger picture.

What do you want to do when you've finished and passed in all of your subjects? Is there a particular job that you want, and you have to get better grades to ensure you have the right qualifications to get it? If you have the bigger picture in your mind, and not something smaller that may seem less important, then that's going to give you the incentive to learn how to study, and get the passes that you need.

Tip 4: Paying Attention in Class

This may be one of the most difficult tips of them all.

It can be far too easy to drift off, when the teacher is talking about something that doesn't interest you. Those times, however, are precisely when you should be paying the most attention to them - unless the teacher has drifted off, too, and is telling you about their last vacation - because, this is the part you're going to struggle with later.

If you're interested in a subject, and pay attention, the chances are you're going to do well in it. If you aren't interested, and don't pay attention, you're going to find it hard to remember, hard to study, and you may end up failing on that topic. So, pay more attention to the bits you don't like, it will make all the difference when you need to get better grades.

Study Tip 5: Take Breaks

Are you one of these people who stay at their desk trying to work something out, only to discover that you seem to be getting worse, rather than better at understanding the subject? You need to give yourself a break so that your brain can relax a bit.

Your concentration may be starting to drift, and what made sense a few minutes earlier, doesn't anymore. Your brain needs to have time to let things sink in; so give it that time, you'll be able to come back to your studies feeling fresher, and those facts may just start to make sense again.

If you need to learn how to study, those are just a few tips that will make your life so much easier. Pay attention to the things that you need to. Take notes on the things that have you struggling. Moreover, make sure that you're organized. Taking the time to let everything sink in to your overworked brain is going to pull it all together. Do all of that and you'll soon get better grades; that's how to study effectively.