Some misconceptions 

• Most laptop batteries these days are lithium-ion batteries. lithium-ion batteries do not have a charge memory,which means that you do not have to completely discharge them before recharging.So inorder to get better performance ,fully discharging and charging the battery is completely useless. 
• Many of the people leave their laptop plugged in during their use, like a desktop replacement.Will this cause degradation in battery life? Having your laptop plugged in with a fully charged battery in it is not harmful, because as soon as the charge level reaches 100% , the charging of the battery stops and the power will be bypassed directly to the to the power supply system of the laptop.How ever there is a severe disadvantage for this.Heating of the battery ! Heating has a major negative effect on the battery life.When you use your laptop top plugged in, the battery will be subjected to heavy heating and will spoil the battery. 

Some tips for getting better battery life

• Avoid charging your laptop while using it. Remove the battery while you are working on AC current. 
• Allow partial discharge (20 to 30 %)of the battery and avoid frequent full discharges .After 30 or 40 charges,allow the batteries to almost completely discharge (upto 10%). 
• Avoid putting your laptop on thermally insulating materials. Ensure proper ventilation while working on the laptop.You can use cool pads which will reduce the heating effect. 
• Avoid complete discharging.Never allow your battery to go below 5 % of charge 
• Use software's like battery care which allows you to have the control over the discharge cycles number, and when this reaches 30 (or other configured value), it notifies you that it's time to perform a full discharge in order to keep the battery gauge calibrated.