WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT READING OR WRITING?
As I said earlier when discussing how to calculate your G.P.A. and C.G.P.A., doing very well in any course is not what you are probably thinking. 99.9% of students that I speak to always think that doing well in a philosophy course are a function of how well you have read your books. However, the truth of this is NO WAY! I am not saying that it is wrong to read hard (at least if you do not read, how would you know what to write) but, passing a course easily and with less stress is mainly a function of how you write your philosophy papers. Even some lecturers would tell you to read very hard, but they say this because that is the language most students understand. But if it were true that reading hard is the secret then most students are meant to be having distinctions. We all know that the reverse is the case, as most students read hard and yet they perform so badly and they wonder if they have not tried enough, and then self-condemnation sets in. When they see a fellow student that always does well, they begin to see the person as though he or she had a very different brain. But this is not so; those who perform well only do things in the right way which is write skilfully and not read hard. So, be a skilful writer and not a hard reader. The reason for this is simple; firstly, when you read hard you have so much information overload that you begin to write in a messy manner as you may not know where to start from or where to stop. Most lecturers do not like stories, so when they see these types of write-up (which is how most students write) they would never score them high. Secondly, it may be true that you have read hard and that you know so much but the lecturer does not know you or your information overload (as our exams are not oral in nature). The only way the lecturer would get to know if you are sound in knowledge of any topic is through your presentation. There is a way you are expected to write if you truly deserve to score at least a ‘B’ grade in any course, if not even an ‘A’ grade. In other words, if you want to perform well in your philosophy courses, you must learn how to write like a true philosophy student. Doing this is not difficult at all; I would show you how to do this. Come along.
