How I got a First Class in EVERY Essay at University (Part 1) | The Best Essay Technique

Summary

In this informative video, medical student Kenji shares his essay-writing process, from initial research to final drafting. He emphasizes the importance of using up-to-date research from PubMed for accuracy and suggests using RefWorks for citation management. Kenji's method involves creating two Word documents, one for notes and another for the essay itself, ensuring a clear structure and efficient referencing. His approach is designed to avoid plagiarism and streamline the writing process for academic success.

Takeaways

• 📚 Kenji, a third-year medical student at King's College London, shares his essay writing method used for biomedical science and medical school assignments.
• 🖊️ He starts by opening two Microsoft Word documents, one for 'SA Notes' to collect research and another for drafting the 'Essay'.
• 🔍 Kenji emphasizes the importance of dividing the essay into sections: introduction, main body, conclusion, and references.
• 🔑 He uses PubMed as the primary source for research, a database of up-to-date research papers, and recommends starting with review papers for a broad understanding of the topic.
• 🆓 Kenji advises to look for papers with 'Free Full Text' to avoid costs, as students often have limited budgets.
• 📑 He suggests downloading and organizing research papers in a dedicated folder, labeling them numerically for easy reference.
• 🖍️ Kenji highlights the need to rephrase information from research to avoid plagiarism and to integrate it into the essay's introduction, body, and conclusion.
• ✅ He stresses the importance of proper referencing, using a referencing software like RefWorks, which helps in managing citations and generating a reference list.
• 🔄 Kenji demonstrates how to import citations from PubMed into RefWorks and then cite them in the essay using the Vancouver referencing style.
• 📈 The process involves reading, highlighting key points, copying and pasting into 'SA Notes', and then rephrasing into the essay while citing sources.
• 🔍 Lastly, Kenji recommends using both old and new papers to cover the historical context and the latest findings in the field of study.

Q & A

Who is the speaker in the video and what is their educational background?

The speaker is Kenji, a third-year medical student at King's College London who also holds a degree in Biomedical Science.

What is the primary purpose of the video?

The primary purpose of the video is to demonstrate Kenji's method for writing essays, which he uses for both his biomedical science degree and medical school assignments.

How many Microsoft Word documents does Kenji open when he starts writing an essay?

Kenji opens two Microsoft Word documents, one for 'SA Notes' and another for the actual 'Essay'.

What does Kenji use as his main source for research when writing essays?

Kenji uses PubMed as his main source for research, which is a database of research papers.

Why does Kenji recommend starting with review papers when researching a topic?

Kenji recommends starting with review papers because they provide a summary of the topic, helping to scope and understand the subject before moving on to more specific primary papers.

What is the difference between review papers and primary papers according to Kenji?

Review papers are summaries written by someone who did not conduct the research themselves, while primary papers are novel works from individuals who have conducted experiments and research in the lab.

How does Kenji organize the research papers he uses for his essays?

Kenji organizes his research papers by saving them as PDFs in a folder on his desktop, naming each paper with a number for easy reference.

What method does Kenji use to ensure he does not plagiarize when writing his essays?

Kenji rephrases the information from his research in his own words and uses a citation manager to properly reference all sources.

Which referencing style does Kenji prefer and why?

Kenji prefers the Vancouver system because it uses a number for referencing instead of the reference being in the text itself, as in the Harvard system, and it also helps to increase the word count.

What software does Kenji use for managing and citing his references?

Kenji uses RefWorks as his referencing software to manage and cite his references within Microsoft Word.

How does Kenji handle the process of saving and importing citations from PubMed into RefWorks?

Kenji sends the desired papers from PubMed to his citation manager in RefWorks by creating a citation file, then imports it into RefWorks, and finally uses the quick cite feature in Microsoft Word to insert the citation.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Essay Writing Methodology

Kenji, a third-year medical student at King's College London, introduces his essay writing method, which he also used for his first publication and assignments. He opens two Microsoft Word documents, 'sa notes' for collecting research and 'essay' for writing. He emphasizes dividing the essay into sections: introduction, main body, conclusion, and references. Kenji suggests using PubMed to find up-to-date research papers for essay content, avoiding outdated resources like textbooks and Wikipedia.

05:01

🔍 Conducting Research with PubMed

Kenji demonstrates how to use PubMed to search for the most relevant and up-to-date research papers on a given topic. He advises starting with review papers for a broad understanding and then moving on to primary papers for detailed, novel research. He explains the importance of free full-text access for students and the process of downloading and organizing research papers in a dedicated folder on his desktop.

10:03

📝 Organizing Research and Writing the Essay

After gathering research papers, Kenji outlines the process of highlighting key points and transferring them into the 'sa notes' document. He discusses the importance of rephrasing information to avoid plagiarism and incorporating it into the essay's structure. Kenji also explains how to reference sources using the Vancouver system and the utility of having a secondary monitor for convenience during writing.

15:05

📚 Efficient Referencing with RefWorks

Kenji shares his process for efficient referencing using RefWorks, a citation management tool. He explains creating an account, adding citations from PubMed, and importing them into RefWorks. He demonstrates how to use RefWorks within Microsoft Word to cite sources as the essay is written, ensuring proper formatting and avoiding plagiarism. Kenji emphasizes the time-saving aspect of referencing as you write and the importance of using the correct referencing style as specified by the university.

Keywords

💡Medical Student

A medical student is an individual enrolled in a medical school to become a physician. In the video, the narrator identifies as a third-year medical student at King's College London, which establishes the context of the video as being focused on academic and research skills relevant to medical education and writing.

💡Biomedical Science

Biomedical science is an academic discipline that integrates concepts from biology and medicine to understand the mechanisms underlying health and disease. The narrator mentions having a degree in biomedical science, which is foundational to the research and writing process discussed in the video.

💡Essay

An essay is a short piece of writing on a particular subject, often used in academic settings to demonstrate knowledge and critical thinking. The script revolves around the process of writing an essay, with the narrator sharing their method for writing 3000-word essays in biomedical science and medicine.

💡Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is a word processing software used for creating documents and is widely used in academic writing. The narrator uses two Word documents to organize their essay writing process, with one for notes and the other for the essay itself.

💡PubMed

PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The narrator uses PubMed to find research papers for their essay, emphasizing the importance of using up-to-date research for academic writing.

💡Research Papers

Research papers are scholarly articles that present original research results. In the script, the narrator discusses the process of finding and using research papers from PubMed as sources for their essay, highlighting the need for current and credible information.

💡Review Papers

Review papers, also known as literature reviews, summarize and evaluate existing research on a particular topic. The narrator recommends starting with review papers to get a general understanding of the topic before moving on to primary research papers.

💡Primary Papers

Primary papers are original research studies that present new findings from experiments or other research methods. The script describes the process of identifying and incorporating primary papers into the essay after gaining a foundational understanding from review papers.

💡Clinical Trials

Clinical trials are research studies that investigate medical interventions in human subjects. The narrator searches for clinical trials on PubMed to find novel and relevant information for their essay on erectile dysfunction following prostatectomies.

💡References

References are the list of sources cited in an academic paper. The narrator discusses the importance of proper referencing using the Vancouver system and demonstrates how to use RefWorks to manage and cite sources within Microsoft Word.

💡RefWorks

RefWorks is a reference management software that helps in organizing and formatting references. The script includes a demonstration of how RefWorks can be integrated with Microsoft Word to streamline the citation process in academic writing.

Highlights

Kenji, a third-year medical student at King's College London, shares his essay writing method.

Utilizes two Microsoft Word documents for organization: one for notes and one for the essay itself.

Divides the essay into introduction, main body, conclusion, and references for structured writing.

Uses PubMed as the primary resource for up-to-date research papers.

Advises starting with review papers for a general understanding before diving into primary papers.

Recommends sorting PubMed search results by 'best match' and filtering for 'free full text'.

Saves research papers in a numbered order for easy reference and organization.

Highlights key points from papers for inclusion in the essay and later referencing.

Stresses the importance of rephrasing information to avoid plagiarism.

Uses RefWorks for managing citations and integrating them into the essay.

Prefers the Vancouver referencing style for its clarity and impact on word count.

Details the process of importing citations into RefWorks from PubMed.

Demonstrates how to cite sources within the essay using RefWorks and Microsoft Word.

Emphasizes the efficiency of citing as you write rather than doing all at once at the end.

Mentions the time-consuming nature of citation management but its importance for academic integrity.

Encourages viewers to try the method for themselves and reach out with any questions.

Concludes with a reminder to subscribe and engage with the content for future videos.

Transcripts

what is going on guys my name is kenji

and welcome back to my channel it was

the first time you're watching one of my

videos i am a third year medical student

studying at king's college london uh as

some of you might know that i actually

have a degree in biomedical science

today is a tuesday and i have a 3000

word essay to write and because of that

i thought it'd be a really good idea to

take you guys through how i write my

essays i'm gonna be showing you guys the

exact method that i use to write all of

my essays in biomedical science and it's

also actually the exact same method that

i use to write my first publication

which should be

right there

and this exact same method that i used

to write my first publication and all of

my essays all my assignments in medical

school as well so without further ado

let's get started

[Music]

right so the first thing that i do when

starting to write an essay is i open up

two microsoft word documents so let's go

ahead and do that right now um so here's

the first document i have um here's the

second one as well

um the first document i'm going to name

sa notes so i'll just put that in the

middle

uh sa notes

and in the second word document i want

to call that um

essay

okay once i have that done i then go on

to start

dividing my essay into the relevant

parts so i want to have

an introduction

i'm going to have a main body

and also a conclusion

and also at the end i'm going to have my

references

okay and what i want to do is i want to

copy copy this format um into my

essay notes page

and i'll explain what this is in just a

second

okay so the two pages i have the first

page is my essay notes page the essay

notes page is essentially where i want

to put all of my notes um so when i do

some research and i find something

interesting or something quite profound

which i think um really needs to be in

the essay i'm going to come over here

and then copy that you know part of the

text into this essay notes essentially

what it's going to produce after a while

is one huge document with all of the

relevant information on the essay topic

which i think really really needs to be

included and then the second document is

going to be um where i actually write

the essay and i'll show you guys exactly

how i write the essay later on using the

essay notes but as a summary the essay

notes page is to collect all of the

information that i need to write the

essay and the essay page is where i

actually go on to write the essay itself

right so once that's done it's time to

start actually looking for information

which i'll need to produce this essay so

what you want to do is go to

to pubmed so if you go to google and you

type in um pubmed

uh it's the first thing that comes up

i'm not entirely sure if you guys have

heard this before but essentially what

pubmed is is a database of all of the

research papers currently um out there

right now um so it's kind of like a

google i guess you can say for um

research papers and the thing is when

you're writing essays university um you

don't want to use textbooks anymore you

don't use wikipedia you don't lose

websites anymore i remember the first

essay that i ever wrote in university i

got 40

and the past mark was 40 so i just about

passed and the reason why i got 40 is i

didn't use any research articles i just

used like literally um like websites and

books and stuff like that but the thing

with these resources is that they're not

up to date and if you use something like

pubmed you get all of the research

papers that are really up to date and

from really good journals as well

okay so what you want to do is go to the

search bar and type in whatever topic

you're currently on so for example right

now my topic is on erectile dysfunction

following prostatectomies so i want to

write the topic right here erectile

dysfunction uh

prostatectomies

prostatectomy and then what it should do

is give you a list of all of the

research papers that are currently out

there right now

as i said it's very very up to date and

what you want to do is come up here and

click sort by um make sure that it's on

best match and then

what you also want to do is click free

full text because obviously student

budget i don't have a type of student

loan to be paying for papers and paying

to read papers okay so what you want to

do is go through um you know all of

these different papers read the titles

and see what is best to start on what i

do recommend start on is to start by

reading review papers and then once you

have a general idea of what the topic is

through review papers you want to then

go on to actually look at clinical

trials and primary papers to kind of

explain what these are a review paper is

basically

a paper which is written by someone who

didn't do any research themselves they

didn't do anything in the lab so it's

kind of like a summary of the topic and

it's a really really good way to get

started when trying to you know scope a

topic and understand what is going on

before you move on to the specific

papers uh which will be the primary

papers the primary papers is different

so primary papers are novel things that

people have done so these are people who

are in the labs doing research you know

you know on the actual cells doing

experiments themselves and they write

this into a primary paper so this is

their own like unique work this is all

the um you know brand new work that they

did themselves um which is what you want

to go into later on once you have a good

idea of the whole topic as a whole so

what you want to do is also start off by

clicking review as i said all of these

right here will be a review of the whole

topic so you want to spend uh maybe a

couple of hours maybe you know reading

up to like you know five to ten review

papers um so what i'll do for example is

um click click this uh this first thing

because that sounds quite interesting

and it sounds like it covers the topic

that i want you want to then try to get

access to this paper so click on um full

text links over here in the corner

so i'll go ahead and click that once

that's clicked um you should have the

whole paper just right here in front of

you

sometimes you don't sometimes you need

to do a bit of digging it's fine paper

but normally it's quite easy to get the

paper and then what you want to do is

download the pdf copy

so you should go so you should be able

to find pdf somewhere normally it's in

the top right corner here but if it's

not you can just save it as a pdf

yourself what i'm going to do is make a

new folder on my desktop i'm going to

call this um let's say

essay within the essay folder i want to

make a new folder called papers so this

is exactly where i'm going to store uh

store all of my research papers

everything that i read will be stored in

this folder right here

and now what i do personally is to save

it by number um so i'll explain why

later on when i do that but i want to

start by calling it number one and i'll

save it in there

so i should have it on my

desktop now so i'm going to open up

those papers and there it is that's my

first research paper saved okay so what

you want to do is as i said to find

maybe five to ten different uh review

articles and uh start doing some

research start doing some reading um

what i tend to do now is to get the

highlighter and go through the whole

paper and you know highlight anything

that i think is really important

something that i think definitely should

be in the introduction the main body or

the conclusion so let's say i found this

first um this first paper right here

really really intriguing very very

profound i think definitely has to be in

there what i'll do is i'll highlight it

and then once i go through the whole

paper you know once i've read it and

i've highlighted everything i need to

know i then come back to the paper and

copy it so i click copy text and i'll

paste it into the essay notes document

where as i said i'll have all of my

research information that i think is

very relevant so go in there and i'll

paste it um

the annoying thing is that it kind of

messes up the format so you want to

quickly just fix the format right here

make sure it's in a bullet point um

and there we are that's our first um you

know sort of information that we think

will be really really relevant for the

introduction what is really really

important as well is to make sure that

you um you remind yourself where you got

this information because once you have

the whole

you know essay notes completely done you

want to know where you got the

information from because when you come

back to referencing it and referencing

where you got this information from

you're going to end up forgetting unless

you have a method or a system to

remember where you got it from uh so

what i do is i put in brackets the

number so as i told you before i named

the first document or the first paper by

number so the first one i named number

one so because i got this information

from that paper i'm going to come back

here and put brackets one

so now now i know straight away that

this first bullet point came from from

that paper called number one so when i

when i need to reference it later on i

can just come back to the paper and

you know go back to name the paper and

know exactly where i got the information

from so you want to do this for the

introduction the main body and

conclusion as well um to get more of an

idea of what you want to write about

once this is all done once this is all

written up then you start reading

primary papers so when you feel like you

have a good idea of you know what the

topic is about

of what you want to write you want to

come back over here and um go back to

where we started from but instead of

clicking a review you want to remove the

review and

look for primary pages itself

you can you can either click clinical

trial here or you can go through the

papers just normally and look for

whatever looks like a primary paper so

for the purposes right now we're going

to click clinical trial and we're gonna

start off by um reading the titles and

again looking for something that stands

out looking for something that we think

will be relevant for our study okay so

as i said right now i want to find

trials i want to find you know novel

things in the field you know whenever

you write a paper you want to have you

know the most up-to-date information so

sometimes it is relevant to go back

maybe 50 years to get the information

about you know how let's say

prostatectomy started for erectile

dysfunction so you want to start off by

you know having a few old papers which

maybe were the first papers ever written

on this topic then you want to move on

to more recent topics

and then in the main body at least you

want to start

talking about

the most latest information or the novel

clinical trials which we have right here

so again what i want to do is find the

trial this trial number one sounds quite

relevant so i'm going to click on it and

what i want to do is to do the exact

same thing and save it as a pdf copy

go through the trial

take all the relevant information

highlight it and then copy into the main

body or the introduction and that's the

first step in getting what we want so

there are essentially two ways to find

the most up-to-date papers the first is

what i just mentioned

so you know going on to pubmed and

searching for clinical trials or looking

through um the homepage and finding the

most relevant information which you

think will be the primary papers

the second way of doing it is to

get these these kind of primary papers

from the actual review papers so if we

go back to the paper that i first

started off with so over here is the

review paper that we first started off

with and what you can kind of do is kind

of cheat and steal the papers that they

reference themselves so let's say i um

i was reading this paper here and it

became very obvious that you know this

paragraph over here over here was

talking about a primary paper let's say

that they were referencing like a

clinical trial that you know that they

think is very important to know about

what i want to do is then go to where

they referenced it themselves

so i'll click on the number right here

so number 11 and that should take you to

their references

and right here it gives you the title of

that primary paper that they're talking

about

so it's a nice little kind of little way

to um to cheat and to go straight to the

private paper they're talking about

as i said because it is a review article

they should normally reference quite a

few um primary papers which makes it a

lot easier for you because they kind of

do the hard work for you they

review papers kind of do all of the

research for you and you can go and

steal their clinical trials steal the

primary papers they talked about and

then go

copy the title

um and head back to pubmed

open up a new pubmed screen

and then copy that copy the title that

they have

and that should take you straight away

to the primary paper again download it

as a pdf have a read of it and see

whether or not it's relevant to add to

your essay

so let's say that all of the research is

done

normally this takes me quite a few hours

to get my essay notes completely

you know filled up to a level where i

think that i'm ready to write the paper

but let's say that um it's all done now

i'm going to take you guys through to my

essay notes that i've already done i

started this a bit earlier on so i

already do have like quite a bit of

essay notes already so i want to open up

my essay notes just now

okay so here we are um so what i want to

do straight away is open up my essay

notes

in combination with my essay itself this

makes it very easy to have a look at um

what i've written in my essay notes and

to rephrase this and you know write it

in a way that makes sense into my

introduction um so it allows me to do

two things at the same time it is quite

useful to have a secondary monitor so as

you can see over there i normally work

with my laptop straight onto my monitor

so i have my essay notes up on my screen

and then on my laptop i have my essay

itself

but for the purposes this video and also

like if i'm in the library or if i'm

somewhere without my screen this is

exactly what i do so what i want to do

is to start writing the introduction

itself um so the thing is you want to

make sure that you don't place your eyes

you know plagiarism is a huge university

so what you want to do is have a read of

your essay notes and as you're reading

your essay notes you want to rephrase it

and make it into your own words so it's

not um it's not taking off the copyright

so i'm just going to do that right here

so i'm going to write prostate cancer

is

um

one of the most common

malignancies

uh in males and is being diagnosed

uh more than ever before okay so this is

just as a quick example

okay so let's say i've gone through um

and i've done this for the whole

introduction um let's just say that you

know the introduction is completely

written

what you want to do is as you're writing

this introduction you want to also start

to um to reference um it's a lot easier

to reference as you go along um because

you know you you know exactly where

you're getting the papers from um it

saves a lot of time rather than coming

back to the end and you know doing all

your references

at once so i want to show you guys now

exactly how i do my references what you

want to do before you start is to talk

to university and to make sure that you

have the right essays the right

referencing style that they use um so i

normally tend to use vancouver if they

don't specify a lot of the times in

university they will let you choose

whatever you want and i highly recommend

the vancouver system a lot of people use

the harvard system as well but the thing

was the thing with the harvard system is

that i just don't find it as clean

because the references are actually in

your

in your writing

whereas in the vancouver system you use

a number instead to reference and also

it kind of um it loads your word count

overall as well okay so in order to

reference what you want to do is to make

an account with

refworks there are loads of different

referencing softwares out there i just

prefer to use refworks since what i've

used my whole life so we're gonna go to

refworks

uh login to refworks as you can see

refworks.com

um make an account i'm just gonna log in

straight away to my account

and then once you're logged into the

website um you can see all um these are

all my references i've used in the past

you want to go back to your microsoft

word document and log into refworks on

the actual document you do have to kind

of install this as a plugin you want to

make sure you have refworks on your word

um i'm not gonna go through this right

now go into refworks and should have all

of the information on there about how to

do this okay so once you make an account

with refworks refworks essentially what

you want to do is to come into microsoft

word uh click the insert tab up here and

then click uh get add-ins then what you

want to do is to search for refworks

itself

then click add and this is going to add

a new panel on the side which is going

to be your citation manager which is

going to allow you to um to cite all of

the references that you want to do what

you want to do is then go back to pubmed

and for each paper you add and the each

paper you want to write and citate what

you want to do is to um to save it as a

citation so i'll show you how to do that

right now so let's say i really wanted

to use this i missed a review paper over

here what i'm going to do is click um

send to um so just to quickly show you

guys how i got here again in case you

forgot um

let's go back to the first page

so let's say yeah so let's say i really

wanted this paper i searched for it i

found it what you want to do is to click

on it straight away and then

go to send to

and then click citation manager

and then click create file what you want

to do is to make a new folder for all of

your citations all these citation files

and don't worry if it's making some

making much sense now it will make sense

eventually

so go back to your essay file that's the

folder we made earlier on you want to

make a new folder called citations

and then

save all of your citations here

so because we named the first paper

number one i'm gonna call this number

one as well what you want to do after

this is to go back to your refworks in

the actual website and what you wanted

to click off that is import so click

import in the bottom right over there as

i did you want to then uh choose the

file that you just saved so go back to

where we've saved so citations number

one

um

make sure that it's on to uh pubmed and

that's pubmed as well and then click

import what this is gonna do is it's

gonna download and import the reference

and reference it exactly as it should be

so you don't have to do anything after

that and then click view last imported

folder

and this right here is the citation that

we just um imported so as you can see

there's a title there's all of the

authors

the source as well and pretty much all

the information you need to know when

referencing um a paper what you want to

do now is to go back to your microsoft

word

and then find it

exactly where it should be

so it should just pop up right here at

the top as mine did over here and then

you want to go to where you want to add

the citation and then click quick cite

so as you can see um it's generating a

citation so it's added a number here for

you

of exactly where um what the citation is

and then down in the references below

it's added it uh to your reference list

um so you know so you kind of have to go

back and forth and do this for every

single paper you cite

but what you'll find like you cite

multiple sentences for the same paper

so now that i have this already um saved

as a citation let's say i wrote

something else in the next page so let's

say i wrote a different sentence just um

just over here

you can go straight back to this area

here click quick site and it'll cite

that sentence for you so once you've

saved one citation you can reuse it

constantly you don't have to keep going

back and forth but you do have to do

this for every new paper that you find

and yes it can be time consuming

in my dissertation in my final year in

biomedical science it took me hours to

get my citations right because i had

over 100 citations um once you get this

done for a 3000 word essay it shouldn't

be too bad and you should be able to do

it in in no time hopefully so that is

pretty much it guys i want to show you

guys to give you guys a feel about how i

like to do my essays so i'll take you

guys through how i do the research how i

then use the research to write the

information um itself onto my essay and

then finally how i um reference all of

this and complete the essay um so i

really hope this has been informative

for you guys i know it's a bit confusing

try it out for yourself you kind of have

to do it yourself to get an idea what

it's like um if you have any questions

at all please let me know down below and

i'll be happy to answer them for you

make sure you subscribe maybe make sure

you give this video a thumbs up if you

found it useful as well

good luck on your essay and i'll see you

guys in the next one