Sleep Away, Write Away
By Bertha Alyssa Villarreal
How Lack of sleep can hinder academic writing performance
Bertha Alyssa Villarreal, a college sophomore attending the University of Texas-Pan American has recently uncovered a negative correlation between the lack of sleep and academic writing performance in college students. She decided to create a video to provide students with the knowledge that lack of sleep affects academic writing. Throughout the month of October in 2014, at the UTPA campus Bertha questioned if sleep might be affecting her writing abilities. She then went on to conclude that sleep deprivation played a leading role in her academic writing performance. As she glanced through the crowds of students walking past her she wondered if they too had the same problem. To help answer this inquiry she decided to conduct several surveys amongst her peers in order to acquire valuable insight that would assist her in this undertaking.
Bertha conducted twenty surveys at the University of Texas-Pan American. Her research on lack of sleep and writing academic performance gave her plenty of information on the reasons why college students often refrain from obtaining a sufficient amount of sleep per night. In addition, it also provided information on how this can affect students as academic writers. Though the results of the individual survey questions yielded different answers, the surveys as a whole held a common ground. Many students differed in their ideas about their own academic writing ability. However, when asked about the factors that affect their academic writing ability lack of sleep played a critical role. Bertha found that some of the reasons why students don’t obtain sufficient hours of sleep included distractions, responsibilities and poor time management. She also learned from the responses on her survey that many students do not find lack of sleep beneficial toward their writing and they do believe it can affect their success as students at the university.
In order to persuade students to obtain sufficient hours of sleep, Bertha had to create a solution that allowed students to visualize how lack of sleep can affect their academic writing performance. She found that the best way to do so was in the form of a video. By illustrating two different circumstances, she was able to compare the long-term results of writing under both scenarios. One outcome demonstrated a good night’s rest followed by a great writing performance and evidently a successful college experience. In contrast, the other explored the consequences of neglecting sleep and displaying significantly worse results therefore ruining their college success.
Bertha created this solution because she believed creating a video was the most effective way to target her audience. As college students many of them are exposed to the world of social media and mediums that it uses. Visuals such as videos are primarily the source of both information and entertainment. Though her research surveys showed many participants gave little significance to sleep, Bertha believes that ignoring the significant consequences of lack of sleep can hinder students’ path toward success as college writers. Her video, Bertha hopes, will function both to persuade and inform college students of the importance of sleep and it’s effect on their writing performance.
