Blog Post #3 : The Fears of Any Link

If Willy Wonka ever needed some music periodicals he could have phrased it like “ periodicals, periodicals, who’s got some music peridoicals”? The answer of course would be the library or other online databases. But what are periodicals? Let alone music periodicals? Luckily John Wagstaff gives a great blurb about it. But for sake of kindled hearts towards knowing the unknown, I will break it down. Periodicals simply mean a publication that appears at generally and ideally regular intervals. While they a growing number of them are moving towards the e-friendly electronic age, most are usually printed. If the world periodicals have you down, you are welcome to exchange the word for journals or even magazines.  But how is this useful? I asked myself the same question! Social commentators use periodicals to provide a mass of information regarding news, reviews and addition topics about understanding the music of their time. Over the years we have amassed such an archive that utilizing this resource should always be on the mind of any researcher a.k.a “us”.

            Rob Weir sees this mass of data and brings us helpful tips to navigate this. Strategy is key to assessing a professional article and being able to extract it true usefulness. One should always be wary of a paper that does not use examples or cites any claim they make. As well, one should critically think about their examples for if their augment is weak then citing them, as a source might not be helpful to anyone. But what if I don’t have time to read the whole article?

            Western library has a lovely video to give you a plan of attack when skimming an article.  A great way to read an article to assess its meaning and purpose is to start with the Abstract and move to the conclusion and then back to the intro. This was the best advice I’ve heard in a long time. I was happy to have a strategy that would help me find useful sources then having to read some horrible and useless articles that I would run into during my research.

            Kristin Antelman’s research into how we access articles was quite a unique topic choice. While I’m very much for e-print, or just anything and everything online all the time, access to this field had never really been a question of mine. What does allowing open access verse close access really mean for the work. While I’ve never been one to think that I can’t find something… Somewhere, because the glorious Internet has all. Open-access will only allow our collective research to amasses a truer meaning of the world in which of field resides. Hopefully more people adopt this, so that our ability to search and acquirer information and become more streamlined. 

Which gets us to the last reading, Jeffrey Beall talks about a nasty topic. Predatory publishers, people who wish to charge extra when allowing open-access publishing. It’s like a horrible parasitical relationship, where these people attack like vultures towards scholarly pursues.  Biggest issue with this is that publishers use to have a role in the validation of the research, but now so many articles are overlooked and or just published for the sake of more money. What a lovely time it is to be alive. Gina Kolata continues this love with discussing the pseudo-academia world that open-access has made. This makes research particularly difficult for non-experts in a field. Which only comforts my nightmares of doing my research project but luckily I’ve been taught a variety of ways to filter junk. I really liked how Kolata referred the publication game as the Wild West, because after these readings, I’m slightly horrified on the lengths people will go for money. That being said, I’m also not surprised.  

I found these reading dark and surprisingly helpful. While not as comforting as other weeks, it has given me a lot to think about when it comes to my navigation for sources and the creditability of the ideas purposed.

Stardate 306304.35612097743 (Blog 2)

The readings from The elements of style, both the foreword and introduction promoted a much needed conversation on the manner of being concise. As well as the difficulties that arise during the writing process. For me it takes many editions before I feel confident enough to showcase any of my work. Though that process I find myself refining what my point really is about the paper. It was nice to relate to the reading when White referenced how to edit a sentence with one or two words rather then using five. Over explaining isn’t always best, recalling the last blog's reading was harking on if the reader needs to know that information or not. This point coming up again only reinforces the concept. 

The 3^rd reading was so helpfulI. I was glad I read this weeks reading in reverse, starting with the quote from Gary Provost for it helped set the tone for the rest of the reading. Having to be engaged with the reading is sometimes very difficult even more so if you aren’t interested in the topic. Even more frustrating is being interested in the topic at the time, and then finding yourself getting distracted by something to then find your interest in the topic jarred beyond repair. I found these tips from Leyba extremely helpful in finding more ways to engage with the text and was able to apply them to the The elements of style. While it took a bit more time, I found that I was able to remember more important information concerning the text. While I hope it was because I was reading during the middle of the day then late at night. I still found that the annotations the most helpful to put down my ideas. This was amazingly helpful to piece together what I thought of the text after i finished reading. It might take awhile to make the commitment second nature but I’m sure it’s worth the extra few minutes.

Gary Provost’s quote was the first section of the reading that I read. It was quite amusing. Allowing a pause to make note to the balance of the sentence. The flow of the sentences should be a pleasant experience for everyone. I’ve never really had taken that into account when writing. All of the papers that could have utilized this might have been a teacher’s blessing. Though hindsight is lovely to quill productivity, I must look forward to cull this plague from my writing style.  

I’m quite happy that all of the readings so far have been amazingly useful for all my darkest fear when it comes to writing. As the weeks past, so does my fear for this class. I’m more confident about tackling this task of academic writing.