Last week’s post, “What Do You Do When You Realize ‘Life Isn't Fair?’” looked at two items on the list of “Rules Kids Won’t Learn In School,” written by Charles Sykes. This week, I want to talk about another item on that list because it’s something that gets discussed almost constantly but about which many people have mixed feelings.

“Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.”

         This point is, from some angles, correct. It’s true, for example, that there are still “winners” and “losers” in life. It’s true that your teachers and schools do try to give each student ample opportunity to succeed despite the number of times they fail an assignment. Often, if you’re doing poorly enough in a class, you can probably talk your way into extra credit work, re-writes and re-do assignments, and maybe even just arguing for a higher grade. Most of the time, teachers also take participation into account when determining grades, so it’s, theoretically, easy for students to pass a class if they participate and do just enough work to get by.
         If we take this quote to heart, we would have to believe, as many people actually do, that school is 100 percent easier than “real life” because school requires little to no effort and has no consequences for poor work. Is this really true, though? How many times have you struggled to pass a class because it’s just not a class that plays to your strengths? How many times have you been behind and tried to catch up and simply failed? Whether people believe it or not, the school system does have the potential to leave students behind, and, unfortunately, it does it all the time. School is as much a part of “real life” as is the job you’ll get when you graduate. You might not have the same responsibilities, but students are struggling with far less specific challenges than those that people face in the work place.
       
         If you’ve ever wondered why your school expects everyone to be good at math or science or English, you’re not alone. Does it really make sense that everyone could be good at everything that the state standards say is important? Does it make sense that if you struggle with Trigonometry, it’s automatically your fault for not applying yourself? I would argue no. Not entirely. Sure, there are students who simply don’t apply themselves. But there are also students who do and fail constantly. There are also students who apply themselves, fail once, and stop trying. Defeat is a discouraging prospect, and once you’ve encountered it once, it’s difficult to believe in yourself – especially when everyone tells you it’s your fault you’re failing. So if you’re one of these students who tries and fails because something is genuinely challenging for you, you’re not alone. I was there in high school, and I still am sometimes. There are things in life (and school) that we simply don’t have a natural aptitude for. Whether it be because we haven’t encountered anything like it before or we can’t quite wrap our heads around how something works, there are things that feel simply impossible to conquer. But have you ever thought about why you’re expected to be good at all of these school standards?
         It’s always math and sciences, and history - classes that require memorization - and English reading and writing, which require constant practice and at least some natural talent, that we're required to take and pass. But, in the back of everyone’s mind, or maybe more toward the front, is the question “When will I ever need to know this beyond high school?” When you find yourself asking this question, a lot of times, you won’t be needing it. I can’t say for sure, and no one can, but there are some things that just won’t be useful to you – and by the time it is, you won’t remember it anyway. So why, if I’m graduating with a journalism degree and never took a math or science class in college, would I have needed to excel in math and science when I was in high school? To be perfectly honest, I might not have needed to. I can’t remember one thing from my high school math or science classes, and there hasn’t come a time yet when I’ve needed to. Yes, it’s good to be well-rounded and immersed into a variety of subjects to make sure that every student has a chance to pursue his or her passions, but, at the end of the day, if someone spends their entire high school career failing math, are they likely to ever pursue a career remotely related to math? Absolutely not. People like what they’re good at, and they pursue what they like.

         On the flip side, how many people do you know who are bad at art – just awful – can’t even draw a decent-looking house? I can name quite a few (myself included). But were we ever told in high school that we were inadequate or that we were going to fail a class because of our ineptitude in the arts? As a matter of fact, how long do we actually have to take arts classes? I elected to take band and choir, and even an art class because I thought I’d give it a try, but I was only required to take choir until ninth grade and art only one year in eighth grade. Band was taken entirely by choice and never required. So what does this tell us? Personally, it tells me that the school system values the sciences, math, and reading and writing much more than it does other subjects that fall in the “arts” category. Even language classes were electives after taking a language for about three years. This tells me that whether students are good or bad at the arts, it doesn’t matter, but having an aptitude (or lack thereof) in “required” classes will make or break them. Does this seem fair to you?
         I could argue all day that schools put too much stock in a broad curriculum compared to the curriculum of life. Because, honestly, when do you need to know how to identify rock types unless that’s the profession you choose? However, you can’t figure out what you want and love to do if you don’t experience as many options as possible before choosing a college or career path or both. So this central curriculum that we all hate so much – while overstated – is necessary. The way that students are graded in these classes, though, is another story. In art classes, almost entire grades are based on participation and attempts to complete projects. So why are math and science different? What if, instead of docking points for every wrong answer, students were just shown why their method of solving a problem was wrong and how they might improve for next time? If real effort is there – if students take the time to complete assignments and just don’t get the answers right because of a failure to understand a concept – should people be penalized for their ineptitudes? Unfortunately, they are, and students will probably continue to be penalized for wrong answers regardless of how hard they worked to get them right. To students, this means that you need to try as hard as possible to get the grades you deserve. Just because you’re not good at something doesn’t mean you can’t get an “A.” Ask teachers for help, try memorization strategies, study as long as it takes, and do all of the homework twice, if necessary. This is a tall order, and it’s not something that will happen easily, but if you want to succeed in a system that isn’t working for you, you need to do the work yourself.

​         So to Sykes, and anyone else who believes that school is easy compared to “real life” because of the opportunities students are given to succeed, I say no; no, it is not easy. Sure, there are easy aspects. There are classes that people are good at and do well in, but there are also classes that make it impossible for students to keep their grades up. I do agree, though, that school “doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance” to “real life.” In “real life,” we have the opportunity to only do something we love for the rest of our lives and avoid everything we’re bad at. We have the chance to spend our professional lives doing math if that’s what we’re good at. If we want to write and avoid math and science as much as possible, we really can – not one person in a job interview or on the job has ever asked me to solve a math problem. If we want to be musicians and never write another MLA style essay again, we can. The fact of the matter is in “real life,” we don’t get graded for doing poorly on something we don’t understand. We get paid for doing something we chose to do. So the next time you find yourself failing and losing hope, just remember: if you can make it through high school, you stand a great chance of making it through life. Because “real life” can be so much easier just because of the control you’ll have over your own path.
         In the same breath, though, I have to say that this control comes with much more responsibility. Yes, you have the opportunity to only do what you want to do, professionally, and so it is easier to succeed in “real life” in this respect. But keep in mind that making it through high school and knowing what you want to do won’t be enough. It’s going to take so much more to succeed than determination and talent. As I said in my previous post, life isn’t fair, and it’s up to you to keep pursuing your goals despite that fact. You’ll face financial hardships, challenges in the work place, difficulties actually getting a job, and so many more obstacles after leaving high school, so, in many ways, real life is so much more difficult than school. But what I think can sometimes be forgotten is that these challenges are meant to be age-appropriate.
         When we graduate high school, we’re supposed to be ready for professional life, but we’re spending our days being graded on things that we just aren’t good at and won’t need to be good at rather than learning actual life skills or just being exposed to what our futures might hold. For me, it’s difficult to think of high school as easy simply because we face so many challenges that we might not be able to completely overcome because of our skills. We might not be ready to make the decisions that will shape our futures, but we’re required to make them nonetheless with only high school as a measuring stick against which to judge our academic abilities and our professional options. So, for me, high school was exceedingly difficult at times. When trying to get through classes that were particularly challenging and that I couldn’t get an “A” in no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t wait for “real life” to start. But then again, once I started making decisions that would determine what that life would look like, it became apparent that I wasn’t ready to make those decisions; that’s when high school got so much harder. Instead of worrying about just school or just my career, I had to focus on both, and there are only a few times in life when we’re required to do that and even fewer when we’re actually prepared to do it. It’s a challenge that high school students may or may not be prepared to face, but they have to face it regardless. And this – this challenge to determine what your future will hold when all you have to base it on are your successes and failures in high school, which gives little indication of your potential for success – is what can make “real life” easier than school.

-Hope Swedeen
 
What are your thoughts on the expectations schools have for students? Are students prepared to face the challenge of determining what they want for their futures? Is an emphasis on math and sciences good for all students?

      There is a list floating around the internet called “Rules Kids Won’t Learn In School,” which was originally from a book by Charles Sykes called “Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why America's Children Feel Good about Themselves But Can't Read, Write, Or Add.” While many people attribute it to Bill Gates, it’s actually all the work of a man most people have probably never heard of and whose credit for his work has been inadvertently given to someone else. The list includes 14 of what you might call “hard truths,” or things that are true about life but are pretty hard to swallow for most of us. We’d all like to believe that life is easy and that we will have successful futures simply because we want to. But, unfortunately, life isn’t easy, and, according to Sykes (or Gates, depending on whom you ask), it will be even harder if we don’t accept that we need to put in the work necessary to ensure we have the futures we want. Two of the 11 items on the list stuck out to me most because they seem the most obvious to me – and yet are the most difficult for me to accept.

“The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.”

      It’s true that, most of the time, you’ll feel like you’re completely on your own in the professional world. There won’t be someone looking out for you, helping you figure yourself out and paying you to do it. It won’t matter whether you are confident in who you are or not. No one is going to give you a job just because you can’t figure out what else to do. You are the only one who is going to care about or for you. But even if you don’t quite know who you are or how to feel about yourself now, you should feel good about who you’re trying to become and what you’re trying to accomplish. You should be working to become a person of whom you can be proud. You don’t need to wait to accomplish something to feel good about yourself as long as you know that you’re trying to accomplish it.

​      It’s important to remember that wherever you end up, as long as you’re working toward something better, you’ll keep moving. And that’s what’s important – that you keep moving toward something you can feel good about. Because if you keep moving and keep trying to be whatever you’re driven enough to work to become, you’ll know that you were the one who got yourself ahead at every turn. You can have the satisfaction of knowing that, despite what people may have told you about who you could be, you helped yourself get closer and closer to where you wanted to go without the help of anyone who told you that you couldn’t.
     
      So Sykes is right. You can’t wait around soul-searching and waiting for someone to come along and tell you you’re worthy of pursuing your dreams. Whether you believe it or not, being human makes us worthy of pursuing nearly anything we want to achieve. The question is whether, in the face of failure and obstacles thrown in our paths, we will choose to take these challenges as signs of defeat or use them to learn and to shape our futures into something new with or without the help or encouragement of others.

“Life isn’t fair – get used to it!”

      It’s true, honestly. Life isn’t fair. The little time we have in life is spent in constant competition with ourselves and with others. At every point in our lives, we are met with hardships that we couldn’t see coming, we’re met with people who refuse to believe in us or who willfully tear others down, and we’re constantly taken aback by how unfair everything seems to be. It feels unfair because it is. There’s no way to escape or outrun the fact that no matter what we do and no matter how much we want to believe that we’ll get something because we deserve it, life is unpredictable, and we’re not the only ones who can influence our futures.
​
      We aren’t all blessed with the same opportunities from the get-go. We aren’t all able to afford the same luxuries that others can like shoes and phones and college degrees. Life is not set up in a way that promises anything to anyone, and it’s most unkind to those who, despite knowing that they’re not, realistically, going to receive any breaks, still believe that they should and, somehow, will. If you’re someone who’s hoping that someone will hand you a job when you graduate high school or set you up with an opportunity that will change your whole life, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. You’re going to see that, just as the world doesn’t care about your self-esteem, it doesn’t care about giving you what you need or deserve. Your future is in your own hands, and it’s coming so much faster than you think. It might seem like tomorrow, or it might seem like months or years or a lifetime away, but I can promise you that your future is already happening. It might as well already be gone. Because, before you know it, tomorrow will be years ago, and that future that seemed like a lifetime away will have passed you by without a second glance.

      So if you find yourself thinking, “Life isn’t fair,” don’t just think it means you should accept defeat. Life certainly wasn’t fair for Sykes, who wrote this book and whose work was wrongfully attributed to Gates so often that Snopes.com had to get in on the rumor mill and post the list itself with correct attribution. This list is telling no one to accept defeat. It’s putting you on your guard, warning you that, at every turn, obstacles in life will try to defeat you, and it’s how you handle these situations – whether you are able to build a future despite the unfairness that you face and whether you are able, at the end of the day, to say that you knew life would be challenging and you still chose to pursue your dreams anyway – that will define your life.
 
-Hope Swedeen
 
 When have you faced challenges that have made you think “life’s not fair?” How have you found the motivation to pursue your goals despite the obstacles life has thrown your way?

      When you finally decide which path to take in life, it’s daunting to know that it may or may not be the “right” one for you. It might even be difficult to imagine that you’ll be doing one thing for the rest of your life. But what you need to remember when choosing your career path is that your future is open-ended; it’s not set in stone. Even though you might have been told for years that you will be or should be one thing, you have the ability to determine that for yourself. No one knows your strengths or your passions or your ambitions better than you, and no one but you can use any of these to propel you forward. At the end of the day, it’s up to you – not anyone else – to determine how far you go and how many of your dreams you try to achieve. It’s up to you to set your own goals and be your own compass, and if you head in the wrong direction once or twice or ten times, the good news is that there is an infinite number of possibilities, and it is never a bad thing to change direction.

      I’ve always been told that “I can be whatever I want to be.” I thought this was true for a while, and I honestly could never understand why. I couldn’t fathom why I would somehow be able to accomplish something when it’s obvious that not everyone has been given an equal opportunity to succeed or even figure out what they want to be. But I’ve since realized that what people mean when they say that – whether they know it or not – is that I can be whatever I work to be. If I set my mind and ambitions to reach a goal, I can achieve it. Anyone can. That’s the idea, anyway, and it’s an idea that’s kept me sane throughout college. It’s allowed me to struggle through challenges and change my goals without feeling like I’m making inalterable decisions that will make or break my entire professional life. I’ve come to realize that it doesn’t matter much who I have been or what I have wanted in the past. What I want now and what I want in the future may be two entirely different things, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t pursue them.

      When I first came to college, my mind wasn’t quite set on my career path. Although I thought I’d like journalism because of my love of writing, I’d never had any experience in it, and I chose my school based on that fact; we have very flexible programs that would allow me to change majors easily, if need be. I thought about creative writing at one point, I almost picked up a Spanish minor, and I even considered advertising for some reason that I’ve since forgotten. After a few weeks and months of consideration, I came to the conclusion that journalism really was what I wanted to do. I wanted to write, and I wanted to be involved in news. It was an obvious choice. However, that obvious choice may not be my final choice.

       This year, and perhaps part of last year, I’ve been realizing how much I do and do not like journalistic writing. On the one hand, it’s an amazing choice that allows me to do so many things that I enjoy: writing and meeting new people and having a genuine impact on the lives of others at times. On the other, it isn’t something that allows me to directly help anyone or express my views, and I’m finding more and more that I want to be an advocate of ideas not a surrogate for them. I can’t keep myself from openly sharing my opinions, but that is exactly what a journalist is meant to do – keep opinions as private as possible. So I’ve had to consider, in my senior year of college, the notion that journalism might not be for me after all. I had to think of alternatives and consider what my goals are and how I can accomplish them. So this semester – a matter of weeks ago, actually – I decided that I was interested in finding out more about law school. I’d never given it a serious thought before, but I’ve been thinking about where a journalism degree can take me and where it can’t. So I read up on the LSAT and law school and the career options available to law school graduates, and even journalism majors with law degrees, and I decided to take a practice LSAT just to see how hard I would have to work to actually achieve this new goal. After seeing my score and seeing how achievable a goal this might be, I took off with the idea. I ordered test prep books and made a 16-week study schedule, and I’m taking the LSATs in June.

      Now, you may be wondering “what does this have to do with me?” That’s a fair question. So far, I haven’t had a career. However, what I want students to take away from this is that while the decisions you make and the careers you pursue definitely impact your future, they do not have to be permanent choices. Nothing you have done or will do needs to impact what you may one day hope to do. If you’re afraid of making a choice now or of setting goals that may be unattainable, don’t be. Be proud of yourself for having dreams, and go after them using any means possible. If you’re worried about those dreams changing, just remember that they probably will. Most people today do change their jobs, if not their careers, a number of times before finding that elusive “perfect fit.” But if you never try to reach your first goal because you’re not sure if it’s right – if you hold back because you don’t think it’s attainable – that in itself is a decision that will shape your future.
​
      Whether you choose to pursue your dreams is up to you, but whether life moves on without you is not. All we can do is aim high with every intention of succeeding, and if we choose a new target half way, it’s not a failure or a sign of misdirection. We’re just human, and we change. But the good news is that everyone expects us to. We are expected to be different from who we are in high school, and we are expected to be different from who we are after we go to college or take our first job or go through any number of changes in our lives. So figure out what you love to do and go after it as fiercely as possible, but don’t be afraid to pursue something new. Be more afraid of inaction than action, and be confident that while you’re trying to find something you love, you’re moving closer and closer to actually finding it.
 
-Hope Swedeen
 
What are your career goals, and how do you intend to pursue them? Are you struggling to find one "thing" to do?

1. Make sure you’re ready to be 100% professional on Twitter

When you first start using social sites for professional interests, it can be difficult to adjust to new ways of using social media. Suddenly it’s not about socializing. It’s about networking. Make sure that you’re ready to be completely professional before setting up your Twitter profile so that you can stop yourself from posting anything that is in conflict with the professional image you’re trying to put forward.

2. Make yourself and your tweets findable

Even though you’re always told to hide your social media and make everything private online, don’t protect your tweets. You should be as visible as possible so that you can network effectively and expose your professional interests to as many people as possible. However, in order to feel comfortable leaving your tweets unprotected and viewable by anyone, you need to be sure that your profile really is 100% professional, as I said in step 1 so that you aren’t showcasing anything you wouldn’t want to come up in a job interview or even keep you from getting an interview.

3. Keep your profile picture professional

Just as on LinkedIn, you should use a photo that clearly shows people what you look like and that you have a) taken the time to have your photo taken and b) dressed professionally so that you would be taken seriously. If you look like you want to be taken seriously, you have a much better chance of people actually taking you seriously.

4. Use your bio to explain your professional goals

Although you only get 160 characters in your bio, try your best to write who you are and what kind of work you want to be doing in your professional life. When you follow anyone or post anything that piques someone’s interest, they’ll want to get an idea of who you are, and your bio is the perfect place for an introduction. Consider this your “pitch.” You’re selling yourself with your bio, so take it seriously and consider how you want to introduce yourself to professionals carefully.

5. Choose a name and username that make sense

You should try to make yourself findable by anyone who knows you already, so make your name whatever it is that people call you. If you go by a nickname even in your professional life, consider using that. However, if only your friends and family call you something that you won’t be called at work, use your full name. Your username doesn’t affect how easily you can be found, but it should be something professional that relates to your name, goals, or professional career so that, again, people take you seriously.

6. Tweet about topics relevant to your industry

Don’t tweet just to say that you’re on Twitter. Everything you post will contribute to the way people see you, or your professional image, so you should always keep your posts as professional and related to your industry as possible. What you post will be a factor in determining who follows you, so make sure your content is relevant, relatable, and worth being viewed by professionals with whom you want to network.

7. Use hashtags

This may be a no-brainer because it’s Twitter, but make sure you use hashtags to make your posts easier to find, easier for people to connect with and relate to, and easier to be evaluated for worth. If you’re using hashtags that are highly relevant to your field, then your post will be more likely to be considered relevant to the people in that field.

8. Quality of connections is more important than quantity

Don’t follow people simply to strengthen your numbers or get more followers. Instead, follow people who post content that genuinely interests you or people who you recognize as professionals in your field of interest. There is nothing wrong with following small numbers of people as long as they are people who will be useful in networking and learning about your industry. You don’t only have to follow people in your industry, but they should make up the large majority, at least at first, so that people can see you’re serious about the image you’re putting forward and your intent to break into whatever field you’re pursing.

9. Gain followers through interaction

It does look better the more followers you have, so you should be trying to get other professionals to follow you after you’ve followed them. However, they won’t automatically follow you just because you’ve followed them. Post tweets that are informed and related to your industry. Make sure that your profile displays you as a person who should be followed because of your commitment to learning and talking about your professional field. You should also feel comfortable commenting on others’ tweets or retweeting to show that you are engaged in conversations and value what others have to say.

10. Use Twitter to network

​Rather than sitting back and just tweeting in hopes of receiving followers and starting conversations, search for people with whom you’re interested in connecting, and start talking. Message anyone you’d like and just start a conversation about something related to your field. Tell them about yourself, and ask questions about the industry, who they are, and their career. Begin a dialogue that will help you learn more about not only the industry but the person with whom you’re networking, and make it clear that you’re interested in learning from them, not just in getting another follower. Just as I said in my post about learning how to network, make sure that you make your conversation more about them than yourself.
 
-Hope Swedeen
 
How can you make sure your Twitter is as professional as possible? What are some ways that you have used or might use Twitter in a professional setting?

As I said in last week’s post about managing personal finances, it’s important to build a monthly budget when you’re beginning to track your spending and figure out just how much you can and should spend each month. Budgets are useful tools if you’re having trouble figuring out what your “needs” and wants” are because when you crunch the numbers and see how much you have to spend on something like rent, it’s easier to see where you need to be spending less, like on clothes or groceries or cellphone bills. You might even find that you need to eliminate some expenditures entirely because you simply can’t afford them without going into debt or just making it by each month. The goal should be to save as much of your money as possible, and by creating a budget, you can see where that money should be coming from.

At the end of this post, I've included a Microsoft Excel example budget that can be downloaded. Feel free to use it as a template to create your own budget! I've also attached a photo of the budget so that you can see a visual example while reading the steps to create a budget below.

Step 1: Determine how much money you have
In any bank accounts and in cash. This includes your checking and savings accounts. In order to know how much you can and cannot spend, you first need to know what you’re starting out with as a base. You should always be trying to build up your savings, if possible, so keep tabs on what you add or subtract from all of your accounts.

Step 2: Know how much you earn each month
Take into account any money coming your way each month from full-time and part-time jobs, allowances, and any other forms of income you might have. These will all factor into what you have available to spend each month.

Step 3: Know how much you already owe
If you’re behind on payments for anything, you’ll need to know this so that you can start paying off debts as soon as possible. The “debt” section of your budget requires the most attention because debt has the ability to build so quickly that while you might be able to afford it one month, it might be double or tripled the next. Interest rates vary on every form of debt, so make sure you know what you owe, how much you can afford to pay off each month, and how much you absolutely need to pay off to keep yourself from falling into even more debt.

Step 4: Keep track of bills/payments
Include any payments that you make every month, including cellphone, utility, and internet bills, and rent payments. If you’re trying to save for any these things, you can also use your budget to do so. If you’re looking to rent an apartment but can’t afford it yet, for example, you can add an “apartment” payment to your budget and use that to save a certain amount each month specifically for an apartment.

Step 5: Evaluate monthly expenses
In addition to your monthly payments that are always relatively the same, you need to look into how much you spend on items that aren’t stagnant. Expenses for transportation, clothing, cellphone add-ons, entertainment, groceries, personal care, and eating out are all included in this. To figure out how much you spend on each of these categories each month, you’ll need to keep your receipts and bills for everything you buy or pay off. Once you know how much you spend in one month, you’ll have a rough idea of what you’ll typically spend in following months. You’ll need to do this at the end of every month to determine whether you spend more or less than you intended on each category.

Step 6: Create a visual budget
There are several online resources to help you create a budget and stick to it. There are countless online platforms that you could use to create your budget, but the most basic way to do this is by using Microsoft Excel. If you’re looking for something more sophisticated that will track your spending and progress on savings goals and then provide visuals like graphs to match, you might consider using an online platform. However, Excel has these abilities as well, so if you have some experience with the program, you could create your own graphs or use a budget template to get started. If you’re just looking for an organized way to track your spending yourself with the ability to quickly add numbers, Excel is your best bet, and you can use the example I've provided to get started.

When you leave high school, you’re going to be thrown into a world where money is much more important and complicated than it’s ever been before. You’ll enter the professional world and need to know how to manage your own finances, cut expenses, and live within your means. If you don’t know how to keep track of your money or build a savings instead of living paycheck to paycheck, you need to learn. All of this is difficult enough already, but if you have no guide to help you get started, it might seem impossible. Below are ten things that I think every high school student should know before graduating so that they can begin their independent lives successfully and without facing avoidable financial hardships.

1.  Know the difference between what you need and what you want

Up until a certain point in our youth, most of us only spend our own money on things that we want like games, candy, movie tickets, clothing our parents won’t buy us, and random tiny things that people don’t really have any need for. However, at some point, we all begin to spend our money on things we need like food, electric bills, clothing for the real world, shoes for when ours are completely worn out, and the boring things our parents always seemed to somehow provide for us when we were younger. When we reach this point where we begin paying for our needs, it’s important to remember that we can’t always afford the “wants” on top of those “needs.” In order to be smart with your spending, you’ll have to identify your needs and wants, determine which are most important, and use your money accordingly.

2.  Take cheap transportation

An example of a “want” versus a “need” is the debate over whether to take a bus, subway, or taxi. If you’re someone who chooses the most expensive option most frequently, try to cut down on your spending slowly but surely by choosing cheaper modes of transportation. If you can take the cheapest option every time, you’ll save more money than you could imagine, and you’ll be able to spend it on something way better than transportation.

3.  Create a budget

You’ll probably find, once you start paying for your needs and trying to add a few wants onto your tab as well, that you’re running out of money faster than you can keep track of where it’s going. When you begin thinking about your money regularly and try to pinpoint where you spend too much or where you can spend less, a budget will be extremely useful to you. Start by saving receipts for a few months straight, and once you’ve accumulated enough, you can go through them and see how much you spend on certain things each month.
A budget usually consists of categories of spending that can be as specific or general as you’d like, such as “food,” “clothes,” “transportation,” “insurance,” “entertainment,” and “phone.” You’ll also have categories of income like “part-time job,” “full-time job,” and “allowance.” Once you look through your receipts and bills, you’ll be able to determine how much you spent on each category per month and estimate how much you will spend on those in the coming months. For example, if, in one month, you spend $400 on food and the next you spend $500, you can look at why you spent more one month and less the other. If you find that the $500 can be chalked up to several expensive meals, then $400 might be a more desirable goal to set for upcoming months. However, if you think you usually eat expensive meals and the $400 month was an anomaly, set your budget for $500 a month and try to wean yourself off of your extravagant spending. If you simply set a lower budget for yourself right away, you probably won’t be able to stick to it, and you’ll end up with much less money at the end of a month than you intended.

4.  Start building a cushion as early as possible

Everyone who give financial advice will tell you that saving money now will help you immensely in the long run. If you tuck away a little money after each paycheck, week, or month, you’ll see a small savings turn into a large sum of money. Some people call this a “rainy day fund” to be used when you run into financial hardship. If you lose a job, have to take a trip unexpectedly, have unexpected medical costs, need to move, or run into any situation that might require a large chunk of money, you’ll be so grateful that you had the foresight to save some of what you’ve earned rather than spending it all each month. If you keep even $20 a week for a year, you’d have a little over $1,000 by the end of that year, and if anything goes wrong or if you have any unexpected expenses, you’ll have a way to easily pay for them. The more you set aside, the larger your “rainy day” can be, and you might even be able to afford some “wants” you’ve been trying to save up for. However, it’s best to save more in preparation for big purchases in addition to an emergency fund so that you don’t spend your cushion money on a flat screen and then have nothing left when you need it most.

5.  Open checking and savings accounts

If you don’t already have one, you should open a checking account as soon as you can. It’s nearly impossible to save money if you keep it somewhere that you can immediately access, and it’s much safer to keep your money in a bank than in rolls under your mattress or in a shoebox. You’ll also need a bank account in your professional life in order to cash and deposit paychecks, and some companies actually deposit paychecks into bank accounts automatically each payday, so you’ll definitely need an active checking account if you’re getting paid regularly. You should also consider opening a savings account so that you have a place to put your money that you want to save each month. This way it will be separate from your checking, so you won’t accidentally dip into the money you’re trying to save, and it will accumulate interest over time, making your balance go up slightly more each month. At first, the interest will not be substantial, but over time, and the more you place in your account, the more “extra money” you’ll receive simply for having money in savings.

6.  Know how to balance and use a checkbook

A lot of people require payments in the form of check if they’re trying to get paid directly into their own bank accounts. If you’re paying rent or bills, you might end up needing to know how to write checks, and that means that you’ll also need to know how to balance your checkbook. This simply means that you should keep track of how many checks you write each month and for what amounts so that you can make sure it all adds up at the end of each month. There are instances of fraud where people cash fake checks using your bank information, and if you only look at your bank statement, you might not notice that a check has been cashed that you never wrote. To avoid fraud and keep tabs on your checks, make sure you keep a book or make a digital document to track them and compare the list you make with your bank statements.

7.  Protect your information

Your banking information can be stolen easily and at any time, so be cautious when doing anything with your money. If you use a debit card, be wary of pin pads at stores. They’ve been hacked countless times and on massive scales, so if you can avoid it, don’t put in your pin number. Instead, if you have a debit card, you should be able to choose “credit” when checking out rather than “debit,” and you’ll need to sign rather than punching in your pin. The only time that I use my debit card is for ATM withdrawals, but even still, I used it once at a store when I didn’t have a credit card or cash on me, and a month later, my account was hacked, and I was missing more than $400. The bank reimbursed the money, but you should know that this happens to almost everyone at some point, and not using a debit card to make any purchases is a good way to avoid it. Nothing is fool-proof, though, so just as you do with your checkbook, check your bank statements each month to make sure that there isn’t any unauthorized activity.

8.  Use cash instead of cards whenever possible

In addition to avoiding using debit cards to make purchases, if at all possible, you should avoid using credit cards as well for a different reason. Studies have shown that when we use credit cards, we’re less aware of the tangible cost of what we’re spending, so we’re more likely to spend more when swiping a card than if we use cash. Cash allows you to see exactly how much you’re spending, and the total sinks in much more when you’re handing over three $20s rather than a piece of plastic that you don’t need to worry about paying off until later. Be careful when spending, and be aware of how much something actually costs and whether you can afford it. You should also use cash on small purchases as much as possible. A credit card bill can seem manageable until you forget to factor in the ten times you spent $15 here and there, so don’t get caught off guard by putting small items on your card and seeing them add up at the end of the month.

9.  Pay off credit card bills on time – and pay more than the minimum

If you decide to have a credit card, make sure that you know everything you need to know before you apply for one or start using it for purchases. Credit cards are great to have because they’re safer than debit cards, and they give you the opportunity to build credit. Your credit score is determined by a number of factors, but in terms of credit cards, if you pay your credit card bill each month without missing a payment, your score goes up. You can pay a percentage of your bill, or you can pay it in full, and if you pay it in full, your credit score goes higher. You’ll need a good credit score when taking out loans, and buying real estate, cars, and other high-priced items. The better your credit score, the more likely you are to get a better price for these types of items because the people selling them to you will trust you to pay them everything you owe just as you’ve paid off your credit card bills each month. Your credit score is essentially your trust score – the more trustworthy you are to pay off debts, the higher your score, and the higher your score, the more people will trust you to continue paying off your debts.
Just remember that credit cards are not money. They’re a safe way to pay for things without using information directly related to your bank account because they don’t take money from your account. They’re just debt that you need to be able to pay off each month, so use them wisely and only if you have more money in your checking account than you’ve spent with your credit card.

10.  Pay your bills on time

Just as with your credit card bills, be sure to pay off your other bills on time each month. These can also impact your credit because companies will keep records of your payment history, so if you’re not paying on time, your score can go down. You might also begin being charged more for services if you’re an unreliable client. A bonus of paying on time each month is that you can periodically call to negotiate new prices if you’re unhappy with how much you’re paying or if a service’s price goes up. If your cable bill goes up $20, for instance, if you’ve been making regular and full payments, you might be able to talk your cable company into leaving your service at the old price. Your payment history also gives you a bargaining chip in that you can threaten to shut off your cable unless the company gives you the price you want. It doesn’t always work, but it can, especially if they’re counting on your regular payments.
 
-Hope Swedeen
 
What are some methods that you use to try to save money? What are some questions that you still have about finances?

As a college student, I’ve been told countless times that I need to be constantly networking. When I first heard of networking, I was already in my first year if college, and I was already expected to know quite a bit more than I did about how and when to network. I didn’t even know what the word meant at the time, and I definitely didn’t know that it was supposed to help me get a job.

When I began doing what I thought was networking, I didn’t see the point. I thought it was just me talking to as many people as humanly possible and talking about myself so that they or someone they knew would offer me a job. I didn’t realize how far this was from the truth until I encountered people who actually knew how to effectively network in a way that didn’t seem like they were pitching their abilities to every person with a job they met.

I’ve come to learn that there’s much more to networking than talking about myself, and it’s not a one-way street. Really, it’s just beginning and continuing dialogue with people in order to benefit yourself and them in any way possible. It’s the assumption that the more people you know, the more you can do. If you think of yourself and every person you meet as a door, it makes sense that the more you open, the more you’ll find, and those doors usually lead to even more doors within. So start opening your own doors. Start networking.

1.  Talk to your guidance counselor

The first place you should always start when looking for advice related to careers is your guidance counselor. Not only are they great resources for helping you find a career path and a way to pursue that path, but they’re also capable of connecting you with others who might be able to help you pursue your dreams. Talk to them about what you want to do after high school, and they might have contacts who could help you on your way.

2.  Talk to alums

Alums are a great pool of people to connect with because they already have a connection to you. They’ll be likely to want to help you because they’ve been in your shoes and can probably identify strongly with the obstacles you’ve faced while in school. Ask your guidance counselor if there are any alums working in the field you’re hoping to pursue, and start a conversation via email, LinkedIn, or even Facebook or Twitter.

3.  Use social media
​
Even though you’ve probably only used social media for “social” activities so far, you should start converting your profiles from social to professional outlets. You can connect with virtually anyone on social media, and that includes people who are doing jobs that you want to do and looking for people like you to help or hire. These days, everyone is contacted via social media with professional questions and requests, so don’t feel like you can’t strike up a conversation of Facebook or ask a question on Twitter. This is more and more acceptable as long as you present yourself in a professional manner and you’ve cleaned up your profiles. LinkedIn is the best way to initiate communication with professionals because it is a social network specifically designed for professionals, so I would suggest using it if you’re comfortable. If you don’t have a LinkedIn account yet, it might be worth making one, if only for the purpose of networking because it allows you to search for companies, people, groups and causes and start a conversation on a platform that is designed and intended for networking.

4.  Talk to teachers

If there are teachers with whom you’ve spent a lot of time throughout high school, make sure they know what your career plans and goals are. They might be able to help you or know someone who can, and they’ll be likely to search for someone, consulting their own network of professional connections, if you have a close relationship with them.

5.  Talk to your parents and their friends

Talking to your parents about their own jobs, especially if they relate to your own career plans, can be exceptionally helpful. Parents tend to meet a ton of people in their everyday lives whether it’s at work or the grocery store, and the number of people they have access to might surprise you. They might have a friend who could help you or they might know someone who they could befriend to help you make them an acquaintance of your own. I see this happen all the time with my parents, including a few days ago when my dad told me he’d met a famous author while working on a contracting job. It wouldn’t seem like a general contractor would run into many authors, but it happened, and it happens frequently (even if the person isn’t famous, your parents could easily run into someone who works for a company you’re hoping to find a job at).

6.  Follow up with every new contact

Once you start talking to someone, don’t stop. If you meet someone and have a great conversation, it will mean nothing if you don’t follow up with them afterward. Send them a short message on any social media platform and let them know you’re grateful for their time and support. You might even have a question or two that you didn’t think to ask before, and this is a great time to ask. Asking questions is also an easy way to continue talking to a person and reminding them that you’re there every few months so that they don’t forget who you are and that they might be able to help you someday.

7.  Put yourself out there

If it’s nerve-racking to think about introducing yourself to complete strangers on a daily basis, you’re not alone. It can be awkward at first, but the more you do it, the easier it will be, and the more confidence you’ll gain in your ability to begin and continue a conversation.

8.  Be yourself, and be genuine

When you’re meeting someone for the first time, don’t feel like you have to play yourself up. Just talk like you would to anyone else, and don’t feel like one conversation will make or break your entire professional life. Each person you add to your network is interested in understanding you, as a person, and your personality more than your accomplishments because your personality will be what they remember most. They won’t remember that you’ve logged 50 community service hours or had an awesome job last summer, but they’ll remember who you are and what you’re like.

9.  Articulate a clear goal or ambition. But don’t pitch yourself

The biggest mistake to be made while networking is using a pitch. Most of the time, unless you’re at a career fair or somewhere where people are actually looking to hire you, people just want to have a normal conversation. They want to know more about who you are, and they want you to ask about them as well. If you start a conversation with, “Hi, these are my career goals, and this is why I’m awesome,” that conversation will, of course, go nowhere. Instead, just start with a simple hello. Tell the person your name, and tell them why you’re excited to meet them. Make it about them, and they’ll be more inclined to make it about you.

10.  Don’t skip the small talk

Even though it might seem like there’s no point to a conversation that includes mostly small talk, there is a point. Small talk gives people an indication of whether you’re friendly, positive, genuine, and likeable, and they have to know whether they like you before they know whether they want to help you professionally. So don’t feel like you’re wasting time by talking about everything but the reason you wanted to meet them. If they have to end the conversation before you’ve asked any relevant questions or gained any new information, just tell them you had some questions for them and that you’d like to keep in touch. Offer your email address and ask for theirs, and don’t be worried about how much time you spent on seemingly useless talk. If you get a contact, it’s not a waste.
 
-Hope Swedeen
 
What are some things you can do to make networking easier and less stressful? Where do you network most frequently?

In a previous post, I talked about several tips to help you study effectively. However, I never talked about how you should actually be studying. There are several studying methods that are widely used, and most of them require help from someone or something else, whether it be flashcards, someone to ask questions or list vocab words, or games to help with memorization. The best studying method will vary by subject, so what works for one class might not work for another. No matter what method you choose, be aware that there are countless resources available to help you online.
Websites designed to help students study all have different approaches and offer different forms of assistance, and some are more helpful than others. Below, I’ve listed five websites that I have found helpful in the past and that I prefer to other websites I’ve tried. Each offers different studying methods as well as unique features that can make them more helpful than others when studying for different subjects.
 
1.  GoConqr

GoConqr offers several different methods of studying, which is ideal if you have multiple subjects to study for. When you create a free account, you can create flashcards, mind maps, quizzes and slides, and share them with other users. The website hosts a huge database of information generated by users, so every set of flashcards, slideshow, quiz, etc. created by other users will be available to you to use as well. While this database of content hosts fairly general information that might not all apply to what you need to study, you can also create groups to share information more easily with students who are studying the exact same content as you. GoConqr is also a great website because it allows you to set goals and events and see your progress as you study.

2.  Quizlet

Like GoConqr, Quizlet allows you to create study tools like flashcards and practice tests, and with the information you input, the website creates study games for you. There is a large database of public study tools created by other users just like on GoConqr, but these are generally more specific and less helpful than on GoConqr because sets of information are typically created for specific chapters of a book covered in a class. Because of this, Quizlet is really only useful for inputting your own information or connecting with a group of people in your class to create and share information and study tools.

3.  Study Blue

This website’s main function is collaboration. Just like Quizlet, the information created by other users is very specific to classes and chapters, so creating content individually or in groups is really the best way to use the site. You can also chat in groups, save notes, and track your progress as you study. There is also an app available for Study Blue, so you can track your progress and send messages to groups more easily.

4.  Study Stack

Study Stack is primarily a website for creating flashcards. You input your information just as you would on all of the other sites, and it will generate flashcards that you can flip through and track which answers you know and which you don’t. The cards that you press the “don’t know” button for are set aside and will repeat once you get through the set so that you can spend more time on the ones you don’t know. This is my favorite site for flashcards for this reason because I like to review information more if it’s difficult for me to remember. The site also builds several games based on flashcard sets, including hangman, crosswords, matching games, and more. As with the other sites, you can use information provided by other users, but it’s most helpful for creating your own flashcards.

5.  Study Guide Zone

​Study Guide Zone is completely different from the other four websites. It’s not made for collaboration or inputting information or providing any flashcards, games, or other memorization tools. Instead, this website is simply a resource for taking practice standardized tests, including the PSATs, SATs, ACTs, LSATs, MCATs, and so many more. If you’re gearing up for a standardized test, this is the place to go. They break the tests down into parts so that you don’t have to do them all at once, which is super helpful, and they explain what each part of the test will entail and how much of the test it is worth. I’ve used this a few times to study for the SATs, and I’ve begun using it for the LSATs, and, if nothing else, it gives you a feel for the test’s format, which is crucial to know before you actually take the test so that you don’t waste any time and you know what to expect.
 
-Hope Swedeen
 
What websites or tools do you use to make studying easier and more effective for you?

When you leave high school, you’ll probably realize that you didn’t spend enough time thinking about what comes next. Even if you’re a senior making plans for after graduation to work at a certain company or travel somewhere, there are things that you should be doing before you leave this chapter of your life behind for good. Even though it might not seem so finite now, everything you know about life, yourself and your friends will begin to change the more time you spend outside of school. So while you have the chance, do these last few things to ensure that you make the most of your last few months or years of high school.
 
First, you need to be able to survive independently in the real world, so get a handle on these four things before you leave high school and begin your independent life. Whether you leave home right away or not, these will be things that you’ll be expected to know and do once you are officially an adult.
 
1.  Learn how to cook healthy meals

Although you might not be leaving home right away, you should at least start learning how to cook and making a list or cookbook of recipes that you know you’ll want to make in the future. Starting now means that you’ll have a better chance of making healthy meals for yourself and of knowing how to make them cheaply.

2.  Know how to do your laundry

By the end of high school, if you can’t do your own laundry without turning everything pink, you’re going to have a rough time being on your own. You need to know enough about washing clothes that you can survive without going back home to have your professional clothes washed every weekend by mom or dad.

3.  Understand how to manage your finances

The extent of most people’s knowledge of finances is how to check their account balance and swipe a credit card. You should know, though, how to open accounts and deal with banks in person, apply for and cancel credit cards, write a check, and budget money. All of this takes time and experience, but if you start your professional life without any idea of how to budget money or open a savings or checking account, you’re going to be in for a difficult ride.

4.  Know how to find and apply for jobs

It seems obvious that you need to know how to look for a job once you set out to get one, but a lot of people have no idea where to look or how to apply. It’s always good to ask an adult for help with this one because they’ve probably been through the process plenty of times by now. A guidance counselor might be your best resource for this because they will be able to help you find websites with job postings, and teach you how to search for specific jobs and apply for a job in a professional way that makes it seem like you know what you’re doing.
 

These next few “must-do’s” are meant to help you take memories and people with you beyond graduation. You’ll find that, once you graduate, things are more different than you expected they’d be. So take advantage of what and who you have now so that you don’t regret wasting any time later.

5.  Take a day off with your closest friends. You might never be this close again

If you’ve been absent from school too often or don’t want to miss a day, take a trip on a weekend. Do something you’ve never done together, and make memories that will last beyond graduation. The sad truth is that you might not be close with all of your high school friends a few months after graduation, so take the time to make memories that you can hold onto for years.

6.  Look closely at your passions and figure out how to pursue them

If you don’t know what you want to do after graduation, take the time now to figure that out. Even if you don’t know exactly what you want, you should try to form an understanding of yourself and what you want to give to and get from life. Once you discover your passions, research where they can take you. Find out what jobs you’d be good at, and think about what you want your life to look like in a few years.

7.  Make a game plan for after graduation and schedule events

Once you’ve finally graduated, you’ll probably want to spend the summer relaxing and spending time with friends who are all going their separate ways. You should definitely make time for this because you’ll never be the people you are now, but you also need to have an action plan for beginning your own future. Plan get-togethers and end-of-year parties in advance so that you know when you’ll have time to begin applying for jobs or moving forward on professional plans.

8. Clean up your social media

Employers don’t want to see anything on your social media that is unprofessional (or illegal), so make sure that you have a “clean” social media presence when you leave high school and begin applying for jobs or making your way into the real world.
 
9. Tell the people who have had an impact on your life how important they are. And get their contact information

Your favorite teachers might not know how much they have shaped you or informed your ideas. Before you leave, let them know that they’ve had an impact on you. They will feel grateful to have a student who appreciates the work they’ve put in year after year, and your relationship with them might grow into a friendship that will continue after graduation. Make sure to get contact information, though, so that you have a way to stay in touch if you’re hoping to remain close.

10. Be prepared for huge changes

Everyone always says that everything changes after high school, but this is an understatement. You expect to drift apart from friends and teachers, you expect for your passions and understanding of life to change, but you don’t expect everything that’s been a part of your life since you can remember to be gone suddenly. No matter how much you prepare yourself for it, graduation brings changes that you can’t plan for. You’ll be faced with challenges you’ve never imagined, lose friendships you thought would last forever, and find yourself becoming someone new, barely recognizable as who you thought you were. It happens to everyone at some point, whether it be right after high school or years down the road; eventually, everything will be different, for better or worse. So take the time now to do what you haven’t had the chance to, get closer to people you may have taken for granted, and figure out who you want to be.
 
-Hope Swedeen
 
What are some things you'd like to do before graduating from high school?
 

When you begin a research paper, the most difficult task you’ll have is conducting the actual research. If you’ve written one in the past, you’ll know that finding somewhere with reliable sources is tricky in and of itself, but then you have to look for sources that actually address the argument you’re posing in your paper. It can seem impossible when you’re looking at a 40-page scholarly article to decide whether it will be useful to you, but hopefully by using these tips, research will be made easier for you, and you’ll be better able to determine which sources you should and shouldn’t use based on content, reliability, credibility, and accuracy.

Tips for conducting research

1.  Have an idea for a thesis

Although you might not have a completely solidified idea starting out, you should at least know the general topic and know why you’re interested in that topic. Knowing why you’re interested in a general idea will lead you to finding that “seed idea” inside of your “watermelon idea,” as my teachers used to say. The more specific your topic, the easier it will be for you to know what to search for, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be able to find information on that topic either, as it could be too narrow to have been written about by scholars. Make sure you are flexible when formulating your idea, and don’t be afraid to let the sources shape your thesis, especially if your original idea isn’t yielding results.

2.  Use Wikipedia to get started

Your teachers have probably told you from day one that using Wikipedia is strictly not allowed when writing a research paper. However, it’s an extremely useful tool starting out to help you either find a research topic or get a basic understanding of what your topic involves and what exactly you should be looking for in more scholarly sources.

3.  Use quotation marks to search an exact phrase

You might know this already, but if you want to search for a phrase rather than individual words, put your search in quotation marks. For example, if you’re searching for information on monarch butterflies, the search engine will automatically look for the words individually, so you might get some results that are only about monarchs and only about butterflies but not both.

4.  Use online databases for reliable, scholarly information

Your school likely has access to online databases full of research materials. These are excellent places to find the majority of your sources because you can be sure that they are reliable.

5.  Read through abstracts and summaries for article content

It’s difficult to say whether an online article will hold the information you’re looking for based on the title alone, and it might be too long for you to look through in its entirety just to see if you need it, so read the summary or abstract if there is one before diving into the actual text.

6.  Control-F is your friend

If you’re not sure if a source includes information that you need, search for keywords within the text using the command key shortcut Control-F. This will open the “find” window for you to search for words throughout a document. If you want to know if an article on benefits of exercise specifically mentions eating habits, try typing in words like “eating,” “food,” or “diet.”

7.  Use the bibliographies of a reliable source to find more sources

If you find a source that holds reliable, accurate, and crucial information, look to its bibliography to find more sources like it. One great source probably uses other great sources, so doing a little “bibliography mining” will help you find more information about topics that are specifically within the original source.

8.  Use library resources…

On top of databases provided by your school, you might be able to access some free databases at a public library. You should also look for books about your topic to use as sources, as these are also guaranteed to be accurate and reliable. Although it takes more time to read through books, there are ways to quickly figure out if you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for within a book. Start by reading the preface or introduction to get an idea of what the book contains, and then look over the table of contents to see whether there are specific sections that reference your topic. This takes a little more digging, but once you find the information, it’s typically concise enough for you to get a few good quotes and chunks of information.

9.  … including human resources

All libraries have librarians or research aides, so if you’re stumped on how to find the information you’re looking for, talk to someone. Even if you’re just starting your research, it’s a great idea to ask what databases and online resources you can access through the library so that you can cover all of your bases.

10.  Don’t disregard sources that hold the same information as others

Even though you might look at a source and think that it holds almost exactly the same information as another source, that doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable. Information is given quickly and concisely, so there might be one key piece of information that you don’t see anywhere else even though everything else about the source seems familiar. You should also be looking for quotes to use in your paper, so getting as many sources as possible can’t hurt in helping you get more voices and ways to phrase something.

11.  Figure out how you prefer to read sources

Print or digital? Once you know your reading preference, make sure you have a way to take notes and store your sources. You should be taking notes as you read and highlighting quotes so that you don’t forget where any information is or why you want to use it. I prefer printed sources over digital because it’s easy to take notes right on the paper rather than using separate sheets, notecards, or a word document.

12.  Find a way to organize your sources that works for you

As soon as you begin looking for sources, you’re going to need a way to keep track of them whether they’re printed or saved digitally. Organize them in whatever way makes the most sense to you. In the past, I’ve tried a few methods of organizations for printed sources, and I’ve created a mildly-chaotic, though helpful, system. I use different highlighters to color-code sources based on the topics each source covers. This works best if you have an outline for your paper already determined because you already know how many topics/colors you’ll keep track of, and you can see that you have enough information for each point. If you don’t have an outline or an idea of what topics you’ll be covering, this can still be helpful as a way of marking the similarities between sources. You can also highlight specific information within the articles using this system so that you know where in your paper each piece will fit. If I know, for example, that I want a paper on gun control to include pros, cons, statistics, and solutions, I can color code all information I find for each of those sections.

13.  Get both sides of an argument

When you’re writing a research paper, you need to take a stand, but you also can’t entirely write off a point that diverges from your own. You can either agree with part of an opposing argument or disagree with all of it, but whatever you choose, talk about the arguments of the opposing argument. Your paper will be more credible and seem less biased than if you only talked about the evidence to support your own point. If you’re writing that gun control paper, make sure you include the pros and cons so that you can show you’re not just someone with a political right- or left-wing agenda.

Tips for determining a source’s reliability, accuracy, and credibility

1.  Check the publication date and the dates of sources in the bibliography

If a source is from 2000, it’s probably not as accurate as something published in 2012. Information about any given topic changes over the years, so anything that’s more than five years old might not be accurate anymore. Be wary of using anything too old, and be sure that everything seems up-to-date or at least not proven false in later articles. Also make sure that an article doesn’t use old resources for its own information. Even if something was published last year, if it relies on information from 1990, it’s probably not accurate.

2.  Cross-reference information for accuracy

Make sure that you double-check every piece of information you intend to use in your paper. Especially if you’re using sources that don’t come from a database or website hosting scholarly articles, you should keep an eye out for inaccuracies. If something seems questionable, look it up using a different source.

3.  Check for the author’s or publisher’s credibility

If you can’t find an author or publisher anywhere, you’re probably not looking at a credible source. If you can find a name or publisher, search it in Google to see what else may be published by that person or publisher or what people are saying about their work.

4.  Watch out for one-sided or biased arguments

Just like you don’t want to only include your argument in your paper, you don’t want to use sources that focus too heavily on one argument. While there’s no problem with taking a stance, if an article appears biased or completely ignores the opposing side of the issue, it might not be reliable or objective. Instead, look for sources that address the opposing view, as you should be doing in your own paper.

5.  Understand a source’s tone and intended audience

You should know who an article is meant to target so that you can tell that the information is of a high quality. If the information seems to be written for a younger audience, it probably isn’t scientific enough for your purposes. If it’s meant to sway someone in a certain direction, it will probably form its argument accordingly, so watch out for the way an author writes. If he or she seems to be trying to convince you of something with which you disagree, you’re probably not the target audience. If you seem to agree with almost everything, be aware that you could be the target audience, and you might be liable to believe information that isn’t actually reliable but just fits into what you’re used to thinking is correct.

6.  Is there enough evidence to support an argument?

Looking for specific evidence to support a point goes along with searching for biases, tone, and audience. An article needs to be factual rather than opinionated, and if it doesn’t offer enough evidence to back up its argument, then whatever point it’s making might not cover all of the information that’s necessary for it to be deemed reliable. Be sure that each source you choose to use provides sufficient evidence to support its argument, just as your own paper should incorporate sufficient evidence as well.

-Hope Swedeen

How do you organize your research? What are some tricks you use to figure out which sources are reliable and which aren’t?