When you realize your car is gone, check to see that it hasn't been towed. Look around and confirm you didn’t park under a “No Parking” sign or in front of a fire hydrant. If you did, then the city might have towed it.  If necessary, contact towing companies in your area and ask if your car was towed.  Also walk around the parking lot. It is easy to forget where you parked, and you want to make sure the car has been stolen before taking next steps. Sit down and write out the following information, which the police will need to find your vehicle:  Year, make and model. Car color. License plate number. If you can’t remember it, call your insurer and explain that your car was stolen. Ask for the license plate number. Vehicle identification number (VIN). Your VIN should appear on your car title. However, you probably left it in your car. (It’s a good idea to make copies of car documents and keep them at home precisely for this situation). Call your insurer to ask for the VIN. The police will probably have better luck finding the car than you will, so call them as soon as possible. Tell them you want to file a stolen vehicle report and provide the necessary information.  Make sure to get a copy of the police report and the case number. You will need them. Ask if the police report can be mailed to you. If not, take public transportation to the police station or ask a friend to drive you. Within 24 hours, you should report the stolen car to your insurance company. Don’t delay. Provide your insurer with the following information:  date and time of theft where your car was located where the keys were located names of anyone with access to the vehicle detailed description of the car description of personal items in the car police report number contact information for the financing company (if your car is financed)
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One-sentence summary -- Confirm your car wasn’t towed. Gather identifying information about the car. Call the police. Report to your insurance company.


You’ll use this to select the image(s) in the photo that you want to distinguish from your blurred background. This will help you free-select more accurately. Be sure to “close the circle” by ending up back where you started and clicking on your origin point. You’ll know your selection is complete once a dotted “marquee” line appears around the edges. A good place to start is between 1 and 3 pixels. The higher the number, the softer your edges will become. This will select your background instead of your subject. This will blur the background of your image. Play around with different blur radii to create the background effect you want. The larger the radius, the blurrier the image, so if you’re going for a subtle effect, aim low. For example, if you want the background to be very soft and only somewhat identifiable, try a radius of 10. If you want your background just barely blurred, use a radius of .5 or 1.
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One-sentence summary -- Select the Free Select tool (which looks like a lasso) from your tool palette. Zoom in on your subject(s) so that you can see the edges clearly. Click or drag the Freehand-Select tool along the edges of your subject. Go to Select > Feather to soften your selection. Go to Select > Invert. Go to Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Go to Select > None to release your selection.


One approach that works for many people is to use a reverse calendar, where you plan your writing schedule from the due date and work backward. If you know how much time you have to complete the project and break it up into manageable parts with individual due dates (whether these due dates are simply for you or if they are for your committee chair as well), you'll be less likely to get overwhelmed by the scale of the project. Writing a 100-page thesis can be a daunting task, but if you write 1,000 words every day over the course of 2 months, for example, then you will be able to meet that deadline with ease. Your exact timeframe will differ, but you should try to give yourself as much time as possible to write, and no less than a month. Try not to get frustrated and put off your work because then it will pile up and become unmanageable. Many people who have trouble motivating themselves and being productive with their theses find it useful to work in “tomatoes” using the Pomodoro Technique.  The basic idea is that you complete 25 minutes of completely focused work, then you get a 5-minute break.  This breaks your work into manageable chunks and can cut down on the feeling of being overwhelmed that often accompanies a large, long-term project. It is important, especially when working on a large-scale project, to give your brain a break every now and then. You can't stay focused and on-task 100% of the time without losing content quality, and letting yourself step away from your ideas for a couple days will give you fresh eyes when you come back to your work. You'll catch mistakes you didn't see before and come up with new answers you couldn't think of before. Some people work best in the morning, while others are able to focus more effectively at night.  If you are unsure of when you are most productive, try different approaches and see what seems to work the best for you. You may find that your thesis proposal is a useful jumping off point for writing your introduction.  You might want to copy and paste sections of your proposal for the start of your introduction, but remember that it’s okay to change your ideas as they progress.  You may want to revisit and revise your introduction at several points throughout your writing process, perhaps even each time you finish a large section or chapter. If you were required to write a review of literature prior to beginning your thesis, good news: you’ve already written almost an entire chapter!  Again, you may need to reshape and revise the work, and you will likely also find occasion to add to the review as you move forward with your work. If you do not already have a review of literature written, it’s time to do your research!  The review of literature is essentially a summary of all of the existing scholarship about your topic with plenty of direct quotations from the primary and secondary sources that you’re referencing. After reviewing the existing scholarship, you should explain how your work contributes to the existing scholarship—in other words, you’re explaining what you are adding to the field with your work. The remainder of the thesis varies greatly by field.  A science-based thesis will involve few secondary sources as the remainder of your work will involve describing and presenting the results of a study.  A literary thesis, on the other hand, will likely continue to cite secondary scholarship as it builds an analysis or reading of a particular text or texts. Your conclusion should detail the importance of this Master's thesis to the subject community and may suggest the direction that future researchers might follow to continue with relevant information on the subject. Be sure to include relevant charts, graphs, and figure as appropriate.  You may also need to add appendices at the end of your work that are germane to your work but tangential to the central question of your Master's thesis.  Be sure that all aspects of your work are formatted in accordance with the guidelines of your institutional and discipline expectations.
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One-sentence summary --
Make a schedule. Write a little every day. Try the Pomodoro Technique. Take breaks. Find a writing time that works for you. Write your introduction. Incorporate the review of literature. Contextualize your work. Write your thesis. Write a powerful conclusion. Add supplemental information.