Discussions

Hey y’all, hope you’re all thriving (or at least surviving)! I’m in my final semester studying info systems, and I’ve recently dove head-first into web scraping and data enrichment for this DataNanas-themed project. The problem is, I’m balancing that with 3 other pretty intense modules and a part-time research assistant gig—so things are getting real hectic.

I absolutely love the scraping/dev side—it’s fun to write Python scripts that pull product prices or social post metadata and see actual data pop in my dataset. Yesterday, I spent like 5 hours chaining together a set of Beautiful Soup + Selenium scripts to pull Instagram captions—felt like a hacker, ngl. But then I have to switch gears and write everything up for class: methodology section, data-cleaning steps, evaluation metrics, blah blah blah. And goodness, that academic writing? It just zaps my energy.

Case in point: I signed up for an academic writing service Dubai offering once, mostly to handle the formal report formatting and reference stuff, but I bailed last minute because I felt guilty outsourcing parts of my own learning Plus I was worried it'd sound too polished and inconsistent with my dev-style writing.

Here’s what I’m wondering—and what I’d love to hear your thoughts about:

Do you batch things or mix ‘em up?
Some days I just scrape and happily eat pizza while watching my code run; other days I stare at a blank doc wondering why my methodology sounds like a robot wrote it. Would it help to do all the coding in the AM and all the writing in the PM, or split each task into small daily chunks?

Templates, tools, workflows?
Anyone got a golden template for data collection methodology or data-cleaning chapters? Or do you use tools like Notion, Obsidian, or whatever to track your scripts + writing progress? I’ve been dabbling in Obsidian but haven’t found a clean plug-and-play workflow yet.

Edits vs DIY—what's worth it?
I’m so torn about using external editing/proofreading. On one hand, I’m stressed about grammar and structure; on the other, I want the credit for nailing it myself. If anyone’s used a legit academic writing service or an editor—especially for data science reports—was it actually worth the $$$?

Time-blocking life hacks?
Tried the Pomodoro thing (25/5), but often my brain is “huh, writing now?” and I start surfing Reddit or refreshing Twitter. Then I beat myself up, rinse and repeat. Any tricks to stick to whatever schedule you set?

I’ve been telling myself: “learning both dev and academic communication is part of the goal,” but man, some days I feel like I’m barely keeping up with the basics.

I’d love to hear from anyone in data analysis, web scraping, data engineering—anything—and what real habits or mindsets helped you pull it off. And if you’ve got any good Notion templates, scrappy workflows, or even playlists for focus mode, I’m here for it.

Thanks a ton in advance, and thanks for hearing me rant.