Extensive lists full of pertinent information are invaluable. If you’re a research-paper-writing student in need of a flotation device, check out this list of almost 300 relevant links: Student Research Resources and Sites.

Further Reading:

Research and Study Tools for College Students
How to Read a Scientific Research Paper

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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Does anyone do in-library research any more? Most people don’t. Not even book-loving me. I adore the perfect scent of old library books, shelved in endless stacks in the badly lit, flickering fluorescence of university libraries, re-covered in industrial strength primary colors, the titles stamped on and the catalogue labels typed in that odd Library Label font.

And yet, I no longer use libraries for research. Now I use them as quiet places to be alone and get s**t done. No one is allowed to talk, so no one can bother me. Any researching I need to do is accomplished via the Internet. Library sites on the Internet, not Wikipedia. But digital, nonetheless.

The books I require are requested online and delivered to my library so I can pick them up, read them, and write stuff down. No more camping out next to the card catalog (I think they’ve recycled those), making lists on scratch paper with the stubby library pencils, and then wandering for hours on every floor to locate the texts only to discover they’re checked out and I’ll have to go fill out some forms to request them from another university library.

Now it’s all done with a keyboard and minimal legwork. No more physical limitations as far as how many books one library can house. And no more goose-chasing on foot–a definite benefit of mankind’s many technological advancements.

Finding Dulcinea, also known as the Librarian of the Internet, is an excellent starting point for pre-vetted sources of digital research. I’d begin with their article, Making the Most of Libraries in the Digital Age and go from there. Feel free to take advantage of their mission to cut the crap and show you to the Websites containing usable information.

Further Reading:

Reuters: Alternatives to Google
24 Most Underrated Websites of 2008

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Kids who grow up with no television in their homes either (a) make friends quick with a kid whose family worships the ‘mote, or (b) they read a lot. My utter lack of pop culture references from the mid-seventies through the mid-nineties should do all the explaining as to which path I took.

The outcome being, I ended up with a stellar vocabulary, full of words I’d only ever seen in print and therefore usually couldn’t pronounce correctly. Whatever. At least I knew what they meant.

And there were some I knew how to say. (With feeling). When I was eight my 18-year-old babysitter burned the chicken pot pies that were to be our dinner. My mother never bought us crappy processed food, which meant my brother and I were infatuated with all sugary, well-preserved, and insanely processed foodstuffs.

I was understandably pissed when the sitter burned my only shot at packaged food for the month and filled the kitchen with smoke. To vent my anger I hollered, “What are you trying to do, asphyxiate us?!” She had no idea what that meant, and almost sent me to my room because she thought I’d called her something so horrible, not even teenager her had ever heard that particular obscenity before.

There is also the common problem, among adults and too-smart-for-their-own-good children, of only ever hearing a word or a phrase and never figuring out the correct spelling. There are so many words that sound alike but are spelled differently, and each version of the stupidly exact-sounding word means something completely different. I’ve got their, there, and they’re down cold, but it took a while for me to get affect and effect straight. The English language, in my bitchy opinion, has some definite asinine qualities.

Or perhaps I should ask more questions. Until I was in college and saw this phrase written on the board as a common mistake college sophomores made when writing papers for the professor, I had always thought “For all intents and purposes” was “For all intensive purposes.”

According to Paul Brians, author of Common Errors in English Usage, I’m not the only native English-speaker to screw that phrase up. Which made me feel better for about point seven seconds until I saw the bit where he describes the phrase as “Another example of the oral transformation of language by people who don’t read much.” Ouch, Professor Brians. That was totally uncalled for.

I read plenty, thank you. The books I read (fine literature and lots of science-y non-fiction) just haven’t ever contained that exact phrase. I am still very smart and am an excellent reader. And clearly I have nary a hang-up about the whole intents/intensive blunder.

Further Reading:

Common Errors in English Usage
Confusing Words
Grammar and Punctuation Resources

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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Anti-evolution group Living Waters and their president, Ray Comfort, have published their own version of Darwin’s The Origin of Species, complete with an awesomely religious introduction in which they explain that Darwin wasn’t so much a scientist ahead of his time, but was more a deluded freak with a huge imagination who played his fellow humans with a long list of hoaxes.

Here’s what Ray Comfort and Living Waters had to say regarding their plan:

Living Waters, an evangelical group that argues for the literal truth of the Bible, is planning to distribute 175,000 copies of The Origin of Species on university campuses next month, just in time for the 150th anniversary of its publication. But these won’t be ordinary copies. They will feature a “special introduction” to Darwin’s classic.

The idea, according to the fund raising materials, is that top universities, which might not be thrilled at their students being given anti-evolution materials, will be unable to block the distribution of Darwin’s writings. “Let’s see if they try to ban Darwin’s Origin of Species,” it says.

Look, I respect and encourage humans to have different beliefs. What I don’t respect, however, is someone (anyone, even a freaky, liberal, cold-hard-science person like myself) resorts to using fear tactics or brain-washing or some form of effed-up trickery to lure unsuspecting minds to their way of thinking. Grow up. Say what you want to say and allow people to take it or leave it. Don’t be creepy, and for the love of all things holy, don’t stoop to treating your prospective converts like children of below-average intelligence.

It’s tempting to go back on my live-and-let-live philosophy and publish my own edition of the bible with an introduction full of lots of explanations as to the epic mythology contained therein, the ancient fables of pre-scientific-method mankind, and the spectacularly unprovable math and science which the big book claims are the absolute truth. It would be a little (so much!) fun to show up at a church and pass out my version of that big guy’s book, but I won’t. I’m entirely too classy.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Ian Ayres is a gentleman and a scholar (and a lawyer and an economist). He’s a professor at Yale, and since 2005 has been handing out cash to his students whenever he assigns one of his own books as a required text. That way, he hopes, people will understand that he wants to use his own material because it’s necessary, not because he wants some royalties action.

In addition to explaining the motivation for royalty “disgorgement,” Ayres points out that any college student who’s assigned a text written by their professor is justified in requesting a rebate on the royalties the prof is generating. One more way to decrease the feelings of impotent rage which textbook purchasing tends to bring forth.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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I come from a family of intense readers and researchers who are constantly looking crap up in books. They love and worship the printed word and have a difficult time fathoming why anyone would want to part with a book. When my grandfather retired and was breaking down his lab, he parked in a clearly marked No Parking zone (he lived by his own set of rules), stole a lab cart labeled in large letters with the angry phrasing: Lab Use Only! Do Not Remove!

He took me to his office, commanded me to climb up on his desk and read out to him the titles of every one of his reference texts. Some he had had since the 1930s, when he was a student, and some he had acquired over years of teaching and research. He’d kept everything he deemed useful and “not full of sh*t.” He left the less than brilliant volumes for other researchers, and gifted me with a few dozen gorgeous reference texts and old textbooks. I still have them, and they have their own beautiful book shelf (I do not allow them to mingle with novels, no matter how high the literature content).

I have an abundance of higher education under my belt, and the stacks of textbooks to go along with all that learning. If I kept every book, we’d all be killed under piles of books the next time Seattle has an earthquake. I’m perhaps a little more reasonable than my family, and can be fairly harsh when weeding out unnecessary objects from my home. Any book I have never opened as a reference past the term I read it as a required text gets donated to the nearest college or university.

I bought all new textbooks as a freshman because it was all so new and I felt that every moment had to be crisp and perfect in the fall light. After the first year of school, I only bought new books if they were fully related to my major, and I was certain I would be using them as references later on down the line. Everything else I bought used and then sold back or donated. You don’t need new textbooks unless you plan on keeping them as part of your permanent library.

If it will help you to decide, you can stand there in the bookstore and hold the pile of this term’s books straight out in front of you. It will weigh a lot and it will start to hurt pretty quickly. Think about how many times you will move between the ages of eighteen, when you’re a freshman, and thirty, when you’re ready to buy a house and settle down. Between my freshman year and when I moved into my current house at the age of 26, I moved 14 times. Only rocks and weights are heavier than books, people.

If a required book is something you feel sure you won’t ever need to crack again once this term is over, then you might want to consider renting your books or going with the digital textbook wave of the future.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

I was never good at taking advice in my teen years, but grown-up me wants to go back to the 1990s, tie teenager me to a chair, and wait while the pain-in-the-ass younger version of myself reads the above book. I also would have liked to have known of its existence yesterday, when I wrote this post about an eerily familiar topic.

It looks to be an excellent resource for any community college newbie. Here’s the publisher’s blurb:

Bookstore shelves are crowded with books offering advice to college students, yet—astonishingly—none of these books offer needed advice to the majority of college students in the United States … those attending community college. Of the approximately 21 million full- and part-time college students, 11 million attend community colleges.

The Community College Guide aims to help fill this huge gap. The authors of this book have decades of experience between them as professors and administrators in both two-year and four-year colleges, have written numerous books for a general readership and thoroughly understand what community college students need to know to succeed in their college careers.

From how to apply to community colleges to what to expect from your courses, from the truth about what you’ll pay to actual financial aid opportunities, The Community College Guide offers a wealth of information for the millions of American students who desire higher education at the community level.

They make a good point: Why aren’t there any good guides available for community college students? A two-year institution isn’t as capable of drowning unsuspecting freshmen, but I’m sure those brand spanking new college students would appreciate some guidance and advice.

Further Reading:

Community College vs. University

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Given everything in the previous post, it will shock no one to learn that I started to read to my kids when they were in utero. They both have impressive personal libraries, but we supplement their kiddie-lit collections with twice-weekly trips to the library. We frequently discover new authors and check out every book he or she has written. Our most recent find is Jon Scieszka (rhymes with ‘fresca’).

My daughter thinks The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales is hilarious. We are also enamored of Baloney (Henry P.), an alien who’s late for school and has the best excuse ever. I, of course, love Science Verse and Math Curse, and my son thinks the Trucktown book Smash! Crash! is loud and shiny. My daughter and I are starting on the Time Warp Trio series next.

In the midst of our Jon Scieszka streak I was reminded that he was recently appointed by the Librarian of Congress as the first ever National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. I’d heard the interview about it on NPR and was stoked that someone so happy, excited and humorous had been given this responsibility. He sounds very enthusiastic in all of his interviews (see below) and has a list of the stuff he thinks he should ask for as the Ambassador: cape, sash, bejeweled goblet, jetpack, Popemobile, Ambassador underwear, epaulets and a red phone.

Part of why Scieszka is such a vastly entertaining author is that he’s trying to get kids interested in reading. Boys have proven more difficult to convince. To remedy that, Scieszka started Guys Read, a site that promotes the following ideas to get boys to read:

–Letting them choose what they read
–Expanding our definition of “reading” to include:
–nonfiction
–graphic novels, comics, comic strips
–humor
–magazines, newspapers, online text

Anyway, it’s a cool site, Jon Scieszka’s a cool guy, and I think he’s a perfect choice for National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.

Further Reading:

Stinky Cheese! Ambassador for Children’s Literature
‘Stinky’ Jon Scieszka has a read on kids
Here Comes Jon Scieszka to Make Reading Fun!
Reading Rockets Interview

Posted by Alexa Harrington

When reading the previous post, it should be noted that I just finished reading Nickel and Dimed: On (Not ) Getting By In America by Barbara Ehrenreich, and am understandably really effing pissed about the inequalities present in higher education and the earning potential for the haves and the have-nots. In the interest of educating oneself before making a major life decision—like whether or not to matriculate—I would advise reading that short but informative non-fiction number.

I have never been a lay-about and no couch has ever been imprinted with the shape of my heinie for long, but after reading Nickel and Dimed I’ve been avoiding even walking past my couch. Now all I want to do is get ahead and get ahead and get ahead until there’s no more ahead to get to. I never want to be at the mercy of any backwards and impossible-to-get-out-of financial system. Fortunately for me, there’s little chance of that. And here is the why: Because my awesome parents (who were not loaded, by any stretch of the imagination) saved their asses off for 18 years so I could go to college.

I realize that my situation is a lucky one, and that most young adults are either on their own to pay for college, or, if their parents tried to save, were ultimately unable to save enough to compensate for the recession and/or the staggering increase in tuition rates. Everyone seems to be in agreement that paying for college bites. But if you can at all manage it, in any way, then for god’s sake, go to school. Because I cannot live in a world where going to college is a mistake.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Karen Schweitzer has a guest post up at Learn Me Good, one of my favorite education blogs. The post is a list of 25 Edu Blogs Worth Reading, and Educated Nation is included, which is lovely. Lovelier still is having a new list of education blogs to peruse (because I can’t seem to get enough).

As far as Learn Me Good goes, if you haven’t read John Pearson’s book or blog (they share the same title), I highly recommend both. You have to respect a guy who can write with such hilarity about his first year of teaching; how does one find humor in any trial by fire, especially one’s own?

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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