During my time in the lab, 3 full years now, I feel like I have been pulled in every direction. This month on top of doing my normal project I have been helping one of the graduate students with his tasks while he works on his prelims (the large examination he must pass in order to continue his training towards a Ph. D.). It seems that every time a new project comes in I start it and get it going before someone new comes in and takes over.
Does anyone else feel like their project is always shifting around in lab? How do you adjust and make a story out of all the different research? I just worry sometimes because I have worked a little on a lot of projects that I will not be able to mesh it all together and make a thesis. Suggestions are much appreciated!
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Conversations with Experts
This is a short Q&A with Chemistry Nobel winner Dr. Avram Herschko that was published in the New York Times today. Dr. Herschko discovered the function of the ubiquitin-tagging protein degradation system.
First, I think the idea of interviewing a famous researcher and asking him - in simple terms - what it is he does, is a very simple and inspired idea. One the coolest things the Q&A reveals is that Dr. Herschko has a tiny lab and does his own experiments himself rather than leaving the work to grad students.
Second, he gives two pieces of advice to students at the end that are great:
First, I think the idea of interviewing a famous researcher and asking him - in simple terms - what it is he does, is a very simple and inspired idea. One the coolest things the Q&A reveals is that Dr. Herschko has a tiny lab and does his own experiments himself rather than leaving the work to grad students.
Second, he gives two pieces of advice to students at the end that are great:
"I tell them not to go with the mainstream in picking a research topic. Also, if you have an unexpected finding, don’t ignore it. Serendipitous findings are sometimes the most important.
Another thing: If your mentor is not good, leave him. In these big labs, sometimes your mentor doesn’t know much about your activities. That’s not a mentor. For scientific research, you have to learn how to do it from a good researcher. I had that myself, and I try to pass it on to my own students."
My Big Fat Aquatic Reading List
Hi Everyone!
I'm back from the watery depths of Alpena, MI and am excited to see everyone on Thursday. Per Professor McKay's request, below is my reading list. It's basically every book in the UM library system on underwater archaeology.
I hope to get through as many of them as I can by the end of the summer. So far, some have proved more helpful than others and once I narrow down my focus, maybe the list will shrink a bit in some areas and expand in others.
I doubt this list will be of much help to anyone else, but I guess it's cool to see how many books the library system can have on such a seemingly obscure topic. It's actually quite impressive.
Also, I apologize if this is not the proper place for this post — I've been out of the HSF loop for a bit, as the Internet situation in Alpena was annoyingly temperamental.
Without further ado:
Archer, Steven N. and Kevin M. Bartoy, ed. Between Dirt and Discussion: Methods, Methodology, and Interpretation in Historical Archaeology.
Babits, Lawrence E. and Hans Van Tilburg, ed. Maritime Archaeology: A Reader of Substantive and Theoretical Contributions.
Ballard, Robert D., ed. Archaeological Oceanography.
Bass, George F., ed. A history of Seafaring Based on Underwater Archaeology.
Bass, George F., ed. Ships and Shipwrecks of the Americas: A History Based on Underwater Archaeology.
Benjamin, Jonathan, ed. Submerged Prehistory.
Bowens, Amanda, ed. Underwater Archaeology: The NAS Guide to Principles and Practice.
Catsambis, Alexis, Ben Ford and Donny L. Hamilton, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Maritime Archaeology.
Cleator, P.E. Underwater Archaeology.
Delgado, James P., ed. Encyclopedia of Underwater and Maritime Archaeology.
Finamore, Daniel, ed. Maritime History as World History.
Firth, Antony. Managing Underwater Archaeology: A Theoretical, Historical and Comparative Perspective on Society and its Submerged Past.
Floyd, Ronald J., trans. Diving into the Past: Archaeology Under Water.
Gould, Richard A. Archaeology and the Social History of Ships.
Gould, Richard A. Shipwreck Anthropology.
Halsey, John R. Beneath the Inland Seas: Michigan’s Underwater Archaeological Heritage.
Halsey, John R., ed. Retrieving Michigan’s Buried Past: The Archaeology of the Great Lakes State.
Hamilton, Donny L. Basic Methods of Conserving Underwater Archaeological Material Culture.
Hocker, Frederick M. and Cheryl A. Ward, ed. The Philosophy of Shipbuilding: Conceptual Approaches to the Study of Wooden Ships.
Holecek, Donald F. and Charles A. Hulse. Michigan’s Coastal Waters: A Pilot Study in Underwater Cultural Resources.
Johnstone, Paul. The Archaeology of Ships.
Langley, Susan B.M. and Richard W. Unger, ed. Nautical Archaeology: Progress and Public Responsibility.
Marsden, Peter. Book of Ships and Shipwrecks.
Marx, Robert F. Shipwrecks in the Americas.
McCarthy, Michael. Ships’ Fastenings: From Sewn Boat to Steamship.
Muckelroy, Keith. Maritime Archaeology.
O’Shea, John M. Ships and Shipwrecks of the Au Sable Shores Region of Western Lake Huron.
Richards, Nathan. Ships’ Graveyards: Abandoned Watercraft and the Archaeological Site Formation Process.
Rick, Torben C. and Jon M. Erlandson. Human Impacts on Ancient Marine Ecosystems: A Global Perspective.
Ruppe, Carol V. and Janet F. Barstad, ed. International handbook of underwater archaeology.
Søreide, Fredrik. Ships from the Depths: Deepwater Archaeology.
Spirek, James D. and Della A. Scott-Ireton, ed. Submerged Cultural Resource Management: Preserving and Interpreting our Maritime Heritage.
Steffy, J. Richard. Wooden Ship Building and the Interpretation of Shipwrecks.
Swarmy, L.N., ed. Ethno-marine Archaeology.
Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary: Final Environmental Impact Statement/Management Plan, May 1999.
I hope to get through as many of them as I can by the end of the summer. So far, some have proved more helpful than others and once I narrow down my focus, maybe the list will shrink a bit in some areas and expand in others.
I doubt this list will be of much help to anyone else, but I guess it's cool to see how many books the library system can have on such a seemingly obscure topic. It's actually quite impressive.
Also, I apologize if this is not the proper place for this post — I've been out of the HSF loop for a bit, as the Internet situation in Alpena was annoyingly temperamental.
Without further ado:
Archer, Steven N. and Kevin M. Bartoy, ed. Between Dirt and Discussion: Methods, Methodology, and Interpretation in Historical Archaeology.
Babits, Lawrence E. and Hans Van Tilburg, ed. Maritime Archaeology: A Reader of Substantive and Theoretical Contributions.
Ballard, Robert D., ed. Archaeological Oceanography.
Bass, George F., ed. A history of Seafaring Based on Underwater Archaeology.
Bass, George F., ed. Ships and Shipwrecks of the Americas: A History Based on Underwater Archaeology.
Benjamin, Jonathan, ed. Submerged Prehistory.
Bowens, Amanda, ed. Underwater Archaeology: The NAS Guide to Principles and Practice.
Catsambis, Alexis, Ben Ford and Donny L. Hamilton, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Maritime Archaeology.
Cleator, P.E. Underwater Archaeology.
Delgado, James P., ed. Encyclopedia of Underwater and Maritime Archaeology.
Finamore, Daniel, ed. Maritime History as World History.
Firth, Antony. Managing Underwater Archaeology: A Theoretical, Historical and Comparative Perspective on Society and its Submerged Past.
Floyd, Ronald J., trans. Diving into the Past: Archaeology Under Water.
Gould, Richard A. Archaeology and the Social History of Ships.
Gould, Richard A. Shipwreck Anthropology.
Halsey, John R. Beneath the Inland Seas: Michigan’s Underwater Archaeological Heritage.
Halsey, John R., ed. Retrieving Michigan’s Buried Past: The Archaeology of the Great Lakes State.
Hamilton, Donny L. Basic Methods of Conserving Underwater Archaeological Material Culture.
Hocker, Frederick M. and Cheryl A. Ward, ed. The Philosophy of Shipbuilding: Conceptual Approaches to the Study of Wooden Ships.
Holecek, Donald F. and Charles A. Hulse. Michigan’s Coastal Waters: A Pilot Study in Underwater Cultural Resources.
Johnstone, Paul. The Archaeology of Ships.
Langley, Susan B.M. and Richard W. Unger, ed. Nautical Archaeology: Progress and Public Responsibility.
Marsden, Peter. Book of Ships and Shipwrecks.
Marx, Robert F. Shipwrecks in the Americas.
McCarthy, Michael. Ships’ Fastenings: From Sewn Boat to Steamship.
Muckelroy, Keith. Maritime Archaeology.
O’Shea, John M. Ships and Shipwrecks of the Au Sable Shores Region of Western Lake Huron.
Richards, Nathan. Ships’ Graveyards: Abandoned Watercraft and the Archaeological Site Formation Process.
Rick, Torben C. and Jon M. Erlandson. Human Impacts on Ancient Marine Ecosystems: A Global Perspective.
Ruppe, Carol V. and Janet F. Barstad, ed. International handbook of underwater archaeology.
Søreide, Fredrik. Ships from the Depths: Deepwater Archaeology.
Spirek, James D. and Della A. Scott-Ireton, ed. Submerged Cultural Resource Management: Preserving and Interpreting our Maritime Heritage.
Steffy, J. Richard. Wooden Ship Building and the Interpretation of Shipwrecks.
Swarmy, L.N., ed. Ethno-marine Archaeology.
Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary: Final Environmental Impact Statement/Management Plan, May 1999.
Friday, June 15, 2012
How correct is political correctness?
"Politically correct censorship is dulling our minds by emphasizing what to exclude from our cognitive thinking processes and discussions. Notice how politically correct expressions are expressions of “what is not.” It is not a hut. It is a small house. He is not an old man. He is an older person. Children are can never be disobedient. Men are not lawyers, doctors, or plumbers. There are no mountains. Cake does not exist. There are no jungles. There are no widows, or house wives or senile old people. And so on and on.
This is thinking in deficit. Notice how careful and hesitant our speech has become. We are extraordinarily careful to make sure the words we use cannot possibly be construed to offend anyone. Consequently, we are constantly thinking of what not to say, what words cannot be used, and what expressions should be avoided. We spend our time thinking of what we cannot say instead of thinking about what we should say. It has become safer and easier to talk about what things are not, or not to talk at all."
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/creative-thinkering/201206/political-correctness-run-amok
Not sure what I think about this, but a few thoughts. This might be controversial as it is a complex and sensitive topic.
- It is almost hilarious to read about this from a third person perspective, but imagine growing up in a politically correct environment and then listening to a benign comment from a person from outside the US who never intended harm. For example, in Chinese, there isn't really a "politically correct" term like "African American" or "Caucasian". You can say "Black" and "White" and even refer to yourself as "yellow" because they are the common terminologies for people of certain races - no hard feelings intended. Yet immediately, that Chinese person will be accused of racism, sexism, and all the isms in the world. Is it truly a reflection of morality, or is it more of a reflection of socialization? Just because someone is brought up in a "politically incorrect" environment doesn't mean someone is intentionally trying to hurt someone's feelings - and if he/she recognizes the negative impact of his/her words when told, and is willing to accommodate and tone down his/her unintended harm, do we still have the right to judge him/her for being inherently immoral? Do we have the right to blame people for being insensitive when we're not sensitive of the environment they were brought up in? After all, not everyone is exposed to social justice focused education - at least not in certain countries. If you asked me two years ago what I thought of social justice I would probably sound like a racist and a sexist person - just because my education in Hong Kong never taught me that, and I was not socialized to act in that manner. Does it mean I became a saint once I came to the US just because I learnt all the right ways to portray certain issues? I don't think so. My personality just channeled into different outlets, and it found social justice here - doesn't mean I'm more or less of a good/evil person.
- How much of it is a cultural thing anyway? For example, some Asian values tend to be very sexist in American standards. I personally don't agree with a lot of these statutes, but does it mean that all Asians are immoral and deliberately suppressing women? What if we take into account cultural values that are deeply ingrained in their tradition? Can we use the same moral ruler to measure all behaviors of the world? Can we judge actions on a superficial level without considering the belief system driving these actions? Can we understand a person by looking at actions and not words? To take this argument further, wouldn't it be outrageous to use one universal moral ruler across history, and across species too? If we can laugh at this, why do we still act "culture-ist"?
- As someone involved with social justice work and research, I find it difficult to gauge whether I am overreactive in certain sensitive situations - whether something is for social justice, or simply political correctness. How do we balance between freedom of speech and all these isms of the world? Do we have to sacrifice our mental capacity and creativity, among other things, to be politically correct? Will we become too afraid to talk one day? Initiating important changes and making outrageous discoveries require risk taking. When we become too careful about our speech and actions, will we lose the mental space, courage, and ability to take risks ever again?
- People criticize religiously-based education for censoring knowledge of the real world. For example, evolution might not be taught in some Christian schools, which, according to some people at least, distorts reality. Can we fall into similar traps by censoring all political incorrectness? Must we say things CONTRARY to stereotypes in order to portray reality? By focusing on contradicting stereotypes, do we PROPAGATE stereotypes by increasing its salience in people's minds? Try telling yourself to suppress the thought of a white bear for 3 minutes - you simply can't stop thinking of a white bear as a result.
And linking it to my research...
My current research directions point towards the benefits of being consciously aware of the threat of being evaluated as racist, because one would then exert more effort into trying to be non-racist - so that no one's feelings get hurt in the process. I understand this might be beneficial in this current political environment in the US, but I wonder how things would unfold in other cultures where social justice ideas are foreign to most people. Perhaps in less politically charged environments, conscious reminders of race will build unnecessary barriers that are non-conducive to comfortable interracial interactions. And even within the US, I wonder how this effect will generalize to populations outside of the college campus - where people care much less about social justice.
In addition, what are the pros and cons of exerting conscious control over one's speech and actions? I would imagine that if my friend becomes way too concerned about how she acts around me, I would feel rather distant and uncomfortable. Perhaps, my hypothesis would only work in a context where the two people are strangers to each other, since first impressions are probably based on superficial characteristics, such as race? In a close interracial friendship, boundaries of race are probably already eliminated, and dancing carefully around political incorrectness would probably be less important.
In addition, what are the pros and cons of exerting conscious control over one's speech and actions? I would imagine that if my friend becomes way too concerned about how she acts around me, I would feel rather distant and uncomfortable. Perhaps, my hypothesis would only work in a context where the two people are strangers to each other, since first impressions are probably based on superficial characteristics, such as race? In a close interracial friendship, boundaries of race are probably already eliminated, and dancing carefully around political incorrectness would probably be less important.
That is perhaps one of the reasons why we feel tired when interacting with a lot of strangers for an extended period of time, but can talk to a close friend for hours and hours - because we let go of these conscious efforts needed to maintain political correctness.
What are your thoughts on this?
Thursday, June 14, 2012
The Hunt for the Perfect Post-Its
As I finally sat down to read my first research book, I found myself bereft of my scholarly tools. I had a pencil, a pen, a highlighter, and a mind hungry for knowledge. But no Post-Its! How was I supposed to learn with no Post-Its?
Clarification: I had some apple-shaped sticky notes that my mom scored from a drug company, but they were large, unwieldy, and were only useful on my bathroom mirror to remind me to do my laundry. I wanted the tiny kind, the kind to bookmark pages and write cute notes to myself.
Being simultaneously cheap and picky, I needed to find the best deal across town.
Ulrich's was a ripoff. These were $8.
Now what kind of a Honors Summer Fellow would I be without doing some research online first?
These will do. But they are $11.95. No thank you.
These are horrible.
I almost bought these from the Last Call section of an online teacher's supply store, because Google Shopping told me they were $1.35.
But after I put the package in my shopping cart, the price magically morphed into: $1.35 + $9.95 shipping. Holy cow! Was I made of gold?
The virtual world clearly provided me no respite, so I had to do it the old fashioned way. I took to the streets.
Off I went, cruising down Washtenaw Ave., in search for the perfect Post-Its. I had one gallon of gas left, so first came the business of finding the cheapest gas station. (I ended up going to BP, because - who knew? - apparently my car can use E85 gas. That's some tacit knowledge right there.)
First stop: Dollar Store. No luck. Out of the 20,000 square foot store, the only Post-Its they were hawking were the terrible, party store kind that have cats on them.
I stopped at Office Max, but alas, they were closed.
Was the world conspiring against me? Desolate, I shuffled into Barnes and Noble, ready to admit defeat. Maybe Ulrich's was the way to go.
But wait! Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a 24-hour Walgreen's sign. Now, I had never stepped foot in a Walgreen's before, but this place looked promising. Smiling faces greeted me as I strided through the automatic doors.
(wrong smiley face, but you get the idea)
THESE WERE $1.99!!!!
I debated whether I ought to buy 2 of them, but I didn't think my brain could handle the happiness!!!
I did, however, buy a slightly overpriced 12-pack of toilet paper, to reward the CEO of Walgreen's for his foresight in reasonably priced sticky notes.
Armed now with 150 new Post-Its (in four different colors, no less), I sat on my couch and happily finished Francis Barker's The Tremulous Private Human Body. For those who are interested (read: none), this book is terrible. I threw it back into the Ugli's drop box with disgust. It deserved none of my precious Post-Its.
(P.S., I know this is not a particularly scholarly blog post, but I was reminded today that I was supposed to post here, so, you know, here's a post)
Clarification: I had some apple-shaped sticky notes that my mom scored from a drug company, but they were large, unwieldy, and were only useful on my bathroom mirror to remind me to do my laundry. I wanted the tiny kind, the kind to bookmark pages and write cute notes to myself.
Being simultaneously cheap and picky, I needed to find the best deal across town.
Ulrich's was a ripoff. These were $8.
Now what kind of a Honors Summer Fellow would I be without doing some research online first?
These will do. But they are $11.95. No thank you.
These are horrible.
I almost bought these from the Last Call section of an online teacher's supply store, because Google Shopping told me they were $1.35.
But after I put the package in my shopping cart, the price magically morphed into: $1.35 + $9.95 shipping. Holy cow! Was I made of gold?
The virtual world clearly provided me no respite, so I had to do it the old fashioned way. I took to the streets.
Off I went, cruising down Washtenaw Ave., in search for the perfect Post-Its. I had one gallon of gas left, so first came the business of finding the cheapest gas station. (I ended up going to BP, because - who knew? - apparently my car can use E85 gas. That's some tacit knowledge right there.)
First stop: Dollar Store. No luck. Out of the 20,000 square foot store, the only Post-Its they were hawking were the terrible, party store kind that have cats on them.
I stopped at Office Max, but alas, they were closed.
Was the world conspiring against me? Desolate, I shuffled into Barnes and Noble, ready to admit defeat. Maybe Ulrich's was the way to go.
But wait! Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a 24-hour Walgreen's sign. Now, I had never stepped foot in a Walgreen's before, but this place looked promising. Smiling faces greeted me as I strided through the automatic doors.
(wrong smiley face, but you get the idea)
THESE WERE $1.99!!!!
I debated whether I ought to buy 2 of them, but I didn't think my brain could handle the happiness!!!I did, however, buy a slightly overpriced 12-pack of toilet paper, to reward the CEO of Walgreen's for his foresight in reasonably priced sticky notes.
Armed now with 150 new Post-Its (in four different colors, no less), I sat on my couch and happily finished Francis Barker's The Tremulous Private Human Body. For those who are interested (read: none), this book is terrible. I threw it back into the Ugli's drop box with disgust. It deserved none of my precious Post-Its.
(P.S., I know this is not a particularly scholarly blog post, but I was reminded today that I was supposed to post here, so, you know, here's a post)
Accept your ignorance.
Not an easy thing to do, especially for undergraduate students trying to write Honors theses that demonstrate we in fact know quite a bit about something. This bit of advice was so striking, and it's something I really want to reflect on.
I like to think I know just as much as my professors in my field, even though that's not the case at all. It's hard for me to accept my ignorance, especially when it's clearly pointed out to me. I found a juvenile epiphysis ( the tips of your bones are separate in childhood before they fuse together) in a bag with animal remains, and I immediately pulled it out and said "This looks like a juvenile distal tibia epiphysis." It took her a second to glance over and nonchalantly say "No, that's a juvenile distal radial epiphysis." Even though it was a small piece, it's still embarrassing to mistake a leg bone with an arm bone.
What are you ignorant of, even in your own field and your research?
Not an easy thing to do, especially for undergraduate students trying to write Honors theses that demonstrate we in fact know quite a bit about something. This bit of advice was so striking, and it's something I really want to reflect on.
I like to think I know just as much as my professors in my field, even though that's not the case at all. It's hard for me to accept my ignorance, especially when it's clearly pointed out to me. I found a juvenile epiphysis ( the tips of your bones are separate in childhood before they fuse together) in a bag with animal remains, and I immediately pulled it out and said "This looks like a juvenile distal tibia epiphysis." It took her a second to glance over and nonchalantly say "No, that's a juvenile distal radial epiphysis." Even though it was a small piece, it's still embarrassing to mistake a leg bone with an arm bone.
What are you ignorant of, even in your own field and your research?
Scholarship and Social Media
As I often do in the morning, I looked at the most recent photo on NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day archive and read a recent post on the Bad Astronomy blog (hosted by Discover magazine, and today has an awesome compilation of photos of the transit of Venus!) and I don't really make much of these activities except that it's nice to start the day with something beautiful and curious.
Then I came across this editorial on the Biological Bulletin: "It's Time To e-Volve: Taking Responsibility for Science Communication in a Digital Age". In it, the author points to public perception of scientists as elitist and disengaged and to a survey where 66% of respondents couldn't/didn't attempt to name a living scientist (carried out by Reasearch!America, slide 51) and says that "we, as scientists, are failing at communicating science to the public", which seems to be a theme in our summer program (though expanding that goal to academic researchers in general). To combat this, she looks particularly at the power of online media tools like Facebook, blogs, Twitter etc. for being the platform on which to "break down" research and "pull in" people.
I'm curious to know if others have felt like they could (or want to) connect to the people or institutions they work with, the researchers they admire, or their field in general through these means? What effect has it had on your interest? Your perception of opportunities and opinions? In general, how much outreach do people in your department participate in? Have you ever come across a professor's blog? How did that change your perception or interaction with them?
For me, I used to find the injection of social media (tiresome lexicon this has become!) into my education initially off-putting, as if it somehow cheapened the material (the same platform that can inform me that Snooki's pregnant also teaches me about sparse matrix properties!) and degraded the prospect of my induction into some cabal of knowledge, but I have almost always found it beneficial. But I'm glad that the blog - as an invitation to understand or investigate something interesting alongside someone who knows and loves a subject - has loosened its topical boundaries. They personally keep me excited about the field of physics (Someone took the time to illustrate the collision of the Milky Way with Andromeda as seen from Earth! How cool is that?!) in addition to uses for nutella.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Because it's summer...
Ok. So this really has nothing to do with reading or writing or researching. This is simply because I wanted to try posting something...and because summer is on my mind. Summer is really a rare and enchanting thing, isn't it? We're all heavy with sun and full of strawberries. Have any of you been to Pickerel Lake? It's about a 30 minute drive from Ann Arbor, and is just the most beautiful place. All of the dragonflies go there. Last Saturday, some friends and I bought giant heirloom tomatoes from the market, basil, and fresh bread, and made a picnic of bruschetta, lemonade, snow peas (yeeaaaa), and plums, and made our way to the lake. Can we make a HSF outing of it?
Enjoy these shots of summer:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/summeranne/40-of-the-best-summers-anyone-ever-had
Enjoy these shots of summer:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/summeranne/40-of-the-best-summers-anyone-ever-had
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Is most published research false?
Here's a pretty interesting article that argues that "most claimed research findings are false."
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0020124
The statistics get a little bit dense, but scanning through the main points is still sufficiently alarming. What I mostly take away from this article is that academia needs to move past its fetishization of positive results. However, if we start publishing all negative results, the sheer amount of published material would be enormous. This brings us back to the topic of "information overload" that we've been discussing since the beginning. Anyway, it's quite a relief to know that we can all still get published without actually discovering anything!
Thoughts anyone?
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0020124
The statistics get a little bit dense, but scanning through the main points is still sufficiently alarming. What I mostly take away from this article is that academia needs to move past its fetishization of positive results. However, if we start publishing all negative results, the sheer amount of published material would be enormous. This brings us back to the topic of "information overload" that we've been discussing since the beginning. Anyway, it's quite a relief to know that we can all still get published without actually discovering anything!
Thoughts anyone?
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Assuming that all of us will be doing some writing this summer, I thought I'd share one of the best language resources I've encountered, my all-time favorite thesaurus:
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/Instead of merely listing a word's synonyms, it groups them together in organic, visual patterns that reflect clusters of meaning. The interface is very intuitive and allows you to quickly find the half-forgotten word you were looking for, or if you're like me, just meander through connotations and strange, subtle connections between words. Just try it. It's awesome. Hopefully you'll find it to be as useful as I do!
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Jargon
There are several news services which focus on higher education and the research world which lives in it. The two leading dailies are "The Chronicle of Higher Education" and "Inside Higher-Ed". Both provide news about higher-ed policy and funding, job listings, reviews of the state of the professoriate, salary studies, research reports, and book reviews - the kind of stuff academics interested in how their institutions run might want to read.
The Chronicle this morning has a nice article by Helen Sword on academic jargon, something we occasionally shared with one another this weekend...
Jargon (from the OED):
1. The inarticulate utterance of birds, or a vocal sound resembling it; twittering, chattering.
...
3. Unintelligible or meaningless talk or writing; nonsense, gibberish. (Often a term of contempt for something the speaker does not understand.)
Sword's article, extracted from a new writing guide called 'Stylish Academic Writing', contains some very useful advice about how to test and restrain your use of jargon. You might find it a help in controlling the temptation to join your disciplinary club by aggressively excluding others with your language. She mentions George Orwell's 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language" - famous and often discussed, you might want to be familiar with it.
The Chronicle this morning has a nice article by Helen Sword on academic jargon, something we occasionally shared with one another this weekend...
Jargon (from the OED):
1. The inarticulate utterance of birds, or a vocal sound resembling it; twittering, chattering.
...
3. Unintelligible or meaningless talk or writing; nonsense, gibberish. (Often a term of contempt for something the speaker does not understand.)
Sword's article, extracted from a new writing guide called 'Stylish Academic Writing', contains some very useful advice about how to test and restrain your use of jargon. You might find it a help in controlling the temptation to join your disciplinary club by aggressively excluding others with your language. She mentions George Orwell's 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language" - famous and often discussed, you might want to be familiar with it.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Too Much to Know’ and What To Do About It
Thanks to you all for making the kickoff trip so successful! It was a real pleasure learning more about all of your projects, some of which have changed quite substantially since you applied. I’ve spent a few hours this morning going over my notes and thinking about what steps we should take next. I’ll be contacting some of you individually through the next week with follow-up notions.
During our discussions I several times mentioned a book I’ve been reading “Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age”, written by Ann Blair. Blair is the Henry Charles Lea Professor of History at Harvard. She has been writing about how early moderns dealt with ‘information overload’ for a long time. The book is a serious work of history, detailed, specific, and heavily referenced to the rest of the scholarship on the topic. That’s an interesting choice, as a popular work on the ‘human search engines’ of the past might well have been commercially successful.
I’m most of the way through this book (I usually read three or four at a time) and have really enjoyed it. My reading notes tell me that I’ve completed four other books since I started this one:
• Feynman: a graphic novel by Ottaviani, Myrick, and Sycamore
• Whistling Vivaldi: a popular book about stereotype threat by Claude Steele
• Darwin and the Barnacle: about Darwin’s 8 years of work systematizing barnacles by Rebecca Stott
• The Pun Also Rises: a popular work on the neuroscience, linguistics, and history of puns by John Pollack
As I mentioned, Blair’s book not a light read, and I go through it slower than others, but for me the labor is clearly worthwhile. She is writing, in a larger sense, about a permanent human problem. We might like to know it all, to fully appreciate and understand the world in all its complexity. But this is, and has always been, impossible. Acknowledging that, so what? On the ground, the pleasure comes from the process, expansion of what you know, not from finishing. So Blair’s discussion is about how to make hay: how to do what you know you want to do better, not to accomplish the final goal.
I was excited by the discussion we had about reading on Monday morning, and want to build on that. Let’s talk on Thursday about how we might each put together and share reading lists for the summer, then try to cross-fertilize them, perhaps picking something from someone else’s list that you’d like to read and jumping in on that. This might not work for everyone, but it would be fun to set it up for those who are enthusiastic. Throw your thoughts in as comments here or bring them to the meeting Thursday. See you there.
By the way, this is my very first blog post. I have no idea if I’ve done anything like what I should. So let’s talk about that too on Thursday…
During our discussions I several times mentioned a book I’ve been reading “Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age”, written by Ann Blair. Blair is the Henry Charles Lea Professor of History at Harvard. She has been writing about how early moderns dealt with ‘information overload’ for a long time. The book is a serious work of history, detailed, specific, and heavily referenced to the rest of the scholarship on the topic. That’s an interesting choice, as a popular work on the ‘human search engines’ of the past might well have been commercially successful.
I’m most of the way through this book (I usually read three or four at a time) and have really enjoyed it. My reading notes tell me that I’ve completed four other books since I started this one:
• Feynman: a graphic novel by Ottaviani, Myrick, and Sycamore
• Whistling Vivaldi: a popular book about stereotype threat by Claude Steele
• Darwin and the Barnacle: about Darwin’s 8 years of work systematizing barnacles by Rebecca Stott
• The Pun Also Rises: a popular work on the neuroscience, linguistics, and history of puns by John Pollack
As I mentioned, Blair’s book not a light read, and I go through it slower than others, but for me the labor is clearly worthwhile. She is writing, in a larger sense, about a permanent human problem. We might like to know it all, to fully appreciate and understand the world in all its complexity. But this is, and has always been, impossible. Acknowledging that, so what? On the ground, the pleasure comes from the process, expansion of what you know, not from finishing. So Blair’s discussion is about how to make hay: how to do what you know you want to do better, not to accomplish the final goal.
I was excited by the discussion we had about reading on Monday morning, and want to build on that. Let’s talk on Thursday about how we might each put together and share reading lists for the summer, then try to cross-fertilize them, perhaps picking something from someone else’s list that you’d like to read and jumping in on that. This might not work for everyone, but it would be fun to set it up for those who are enthusiastic. Throw your thoughts in as comments here or bring them to the meeting Thursday. See you there.
By the way, this is my very first blog post. I have no idea if I’ve done anything like what I should. So let’s talk about that too on Thursday…
Monday, June 4, 2012
To Kick-Off the Summer: Post Kick-Of
Really what are we going to be doing with ourselves all summer?
Right now is a beautiful time. We've just come back from a lovely adventure camping in the woods where we were able to 'get away' and suspend time in order to meet each other and discover what it is we are all working on. Right now, we have the summer before us. Four hundred hours of research stand before us. A bit daunting, no? But mostly exciting.
What are we, what are YOU, going to do with this time? We began to talk with each other about our goals for the summer, but let's put it in writing as something to go back to. What are your hopes and goals for the summer? Both for progress on your thesis project and also for HSF?
In addition, how are you feeling RIGHT NOW? We've transitioned from school to summer work are you ready to go? nervous, excited? Where is your thesis at? Is everything planned or do you have a mess of ideas in your head that need to be sorted (been there). What potential pit falls do you see and how can we help each other prevent those?
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