Mindful Ink     Life, Living and Productivity

Cal Newport over at Study Hacks posted a follow up piece to my Beyond Wikipedia article.  Beyond Wikipedia: 15,731,298 References You Can’t Do Without.  This is what I love about the internet - the ongoing conversation, the refining response.  Cal also makes a good point with:

his brings up, however, an important question regarding student study habits: what role should web sites play in the writing of a college-level paper. The answer — and I think this is important for new students to hear — should be: basically none. A serious college-level paper should not cite any source that begins with “http”. There are, of course, obvious exceptions. Some contemporary primary sources, for example, exist only online. But the general rule is important.

In general, I agree.  For the most part, much of the sources I listed, would not be the best sources to site in a paper.  That being said, some are.  The web holds a great deal of primary sources now - complete texts, almost every scholarly article written, and even online books.   And for those purposes, I’ve used them myself.

But generally, a paper is going to be about books - and while you may be able to find them on ebrary.com, you’re generally going to end up in the library and Cal’s advice is well received.

I actually plan on tackling this subject in more detail eventually, the trick here is how different university libraries are.  But I do, really, highly suggest you go speak to your librarian and see just what resources your library has for you.  I can virtually promise you, you’ll be amazed.

Beyond Wikipedia: 15,731,298 References You Can’t Do Without

In a previous post, “Backpack To Go“, we discussed lightening your load through the day - literally. The problem arises, however, for those students cursed with many large text books (this is particularly problematic, in my experience, in gen-ed, mathematics, and science courses). My girlfriend is a meteorology major and being a rather small girl has some definite problems with ten pound text books.

Later in the day, after this post, I was frustrated by my post doing little for her particular situation and decided to do something about it.

When I was using a tablet pc, I routinely scanned in all my textbooks for easy markup and so I wouldn’t have to drag them to class. I initially thought of this, but her laptop is a 17 inch monstrosity and this wouldn’t work too well for her. I would, however, advise it for anyone who regularly brings a laptop to their classes. Personally, I suggest the Plustek Opticbook 3600. The software is, regrettably, PC only - but works fine with Parallels or VMWare (which is the best in my experience) or Bootcamp if you have an Intel Mac. Scanning an entire 200+ pg book generally only takes an hour or so, but I often just scanned a few chapters at a time.

So, what to do? Well, occasionally, the solution is so damn simple you don’t even realize it. Here’s the trick my friends…. Copy machine. Just go to your local copy machine, Kinko’s, whatever, and copy out the things you will need for class for the next month or so. Make sure you copy to both sides - bind them together somehow, and there you go. Instead of a 10 lbs book, you have a small packet that can fit in a folder.

Picture courtesy of Judith P. Abrahamsen