Tips to Succeed in School

• Make sure to have a balanced diet and drink enough water

• Make sure to have at least an hour of physical activity a day

• Have breaks between screen time (Follow the 30-30-30 rule: Every 30 minutes, take a break from your screen, and look at least 30 metres away for at least 30 seconds

• Generally, make sure to have 7-9 hours of sleep a day. All nighters might seem like they would help you with their grades, but seriously people. Don't do all nighters unless you absolutely have to. Losing even one night of sleep can have long term effects on your health, which can degrade your future academic performance not to mention bad effects on you. Good health >>> everything else.

• Just before a stressful test, quiz, etc, clear your mind. Take a break. Do something you like. Rest your mind. take a break for about 15-30 minutes before the test, quiz, etc, if possible. Cramming material right before the test doesn't work. Seriously, just don't. It wont stick in your head if you cram.

• Studying in smaller" periods of time spaced out in breaks works better than studying for one larger period of time.

• Use techniques to *understand* the material, rather than just rote memorizing. However, if you must do rote memorizing, studies show that memorizing is more effective in the evening, before you go to bed. Because brain processes happen when you sleep, and the things that happened more recently, closest to when you fell asleep would be in your head stronger, because your sleep processes would convert short term to long term memory.

Disclaimer: Some Tips are sourced from Solaro Study Guide

If you can, write your notes physically, as opposed to an electronic source. This introduces two layers of memory, the handwriting muscle memory, and also the reading the notes. This is also more healthier than typing your notes, reduces blue light from a screen.

Organize your notes in what method works for you. However, here are some suggested methods:

1: The Outline Method: In a specific topic, focus on the key points and then go into detail in those key points, with sub points, etc:

2: Organize by "most vague" to "least vague": break it down into units and then chapters (these are usually provided), then break down the chapters further into key points/details.

In the day and age of online tools, you might not think that manual citing is necessary. Certainly the need for manual citation has gone down. But its still a useful skill to have

There are two main styles: MLA, and APA

Here's how to do them

https://owl.purdue.edu/