Personal Blogs

Martin Parkinson has published some useful advice on the preparation of block diagrams here.

For students on m883 some of the general advice is relevant, so here are a couple of key points:

If you are asked to draw a diagram, it should be your own. "Your own" means not just one lifted from the textbook or a website. You have to draw it yourself - but you can of course base it on a diagram from the text or a website. If your diagram is pretty much a copy of one found elsewhere, then underneath it you should write "Figure adapted from [URL, or book ref]"

You really don't have to produce a computer drawing - in fact, unless you are a whizz with a graphics package, you're better off drawing on old-fashioned paper, and taking a photo which you then insert into your TMA. For most people this is much faster.

I would add that, if the question refers to an example in the set book or study guides, you should make sure that your diagram contains all the necessary elements. Remember that these are formal modelling artefacts and should be complete and consistent in order to be useful.

Time management is always a tricky problem: it is all very well to say that you should be disciplined, plan activities including study around other commitments that cannot be moved, think about what is important and what merely urgent and not take on more than will fit in your timetable, but if we all did that we might never study.

The OU website is full of tips and you will all have received books like the "Good Study Guide" to help you study not more, but better to get more from your studies. So I am not going to reiterate those but just give you one small suggestion for the next TMA (which at the time of writing is TMA03 for M883 2009K and is due in 18 days time).

1. Create the TMA document NOW if you haven't already done so.
2. Keep the TMA document open while studying.
3. Use the TMA to guide your studies and answer the appropriate questions (or rather part questions) as you study that particular part of the course.
4. Do the same when you are online on the wiki: copy and paste your contributions at the time you make them.

This has great benefits: the work is fresh in your mind while doing it, it avoids the psychological block of "I must start that assignment but that is such a big task its scary" and it means that as you get closer to the deadline there is in fact much less work left to do. In fact, without much extra effort you could find yourself a week before the TMA is due with only question 4 left to complete.