Assorted links

“A comparison of the 2008 population — using data from a variety of sources — with the first census in 1881 shows that the number of Cocks has shrunk by 75 per cent…” Read the rest for the context. How to e-mail a professor. They may not notice, but then again, they do notice. Saaien …

Writing the Lit Review for Research Methods

I recently finished a pretty big, for me, literature review that totaled about 17 pages, including the title page and two pages of references. Here are some scattered thoughts and lessons learned, at my customarily hideous length: I saw the wisdom of The Scholarly Cassidy’s advice to begin the search haphazardly. I spent much early …

Two projects, two fuzzy ideas, two lit review processes

The 696 independent study is starting out as a literature review of risk in institutional repositories — where it’s perceived to lie, and, what’s interesting to me, who makes the actual decisions? The OAIS model defines the functions of an archival process but leaves the specifics of implementation to each institution. So, for various managerial …

Writing research papers

First in a (no doubt about it) ongoing series. When I had to do my first literature review, and my first big grad school paper, last fall, I asked my mentor, The Indomitable Cassidy, for her advice. Here’s what she said: I actually like starting with a “haphazard search,” but I prefer to start in …

My big fat learning experience

I started the fall semester a younger and more idealistic man than I am here at the halfway point (fall break). Still, I survived (and thrived) and things are looking up. September was my transition month from going to grad school to being a grad student: that is, I can say now that if the …