Note-Taking

DEAR RESEARCHERS OF TUMBLR

You know what’s awesome?  Research.  You know what’s not awesome?  Not being able to get access to research because it’s stuck behind a paywall and you don’t belong to an institution/your institution doesn’t subscribe to that particular journal.

FEAR NOT.

Here is a list of free, open access materials on a variety of subjects.  Feel free to add if you like!

GO FORTH AND LEARN SHIT, MY FRIENDS.

Directory of Open Access Journals- A compendium of over 9000 journals from 133 countries, multilingual and multidisciplinary.

Directory of Open Access Books- Like the above, but for ebooks.  Also multidisciplinary.

Ubiquity Press- Journals covering archaeology, comics scholarship, museum studies, psychology, history, international development, and more.  Also publishes open access ebooks on a wide variety of subjects.

Europeana-  Digital library about the history and culture of Europe.

Digital Public Library of America- American history, culture, economics, SO MUCH AMERICA.

Internet Archive- In addition to books, they have music and videos, too.  Free!  And legal!  They also have the Wayback Machine, which lets you see webpages as they looked at a particular time.

College and Research Libraries- Library science and information studies.  Because that’s what I do.

Library of Congress Digital Collections- American history and culture, historic newspapers, sound recordings, photographs, and a ton of other neat stuff.

LSE Digital Library- London history, women’s history.

Wiley Open Access- Science things!  Neurology, medicine, chemistry, ecology, engineering, food science, biology, psychology, veterinary medicine.

SpringerOpen-  Mainly STEM journals, looooong list.

Elsevier Open Access-  Elsevier’s kind of the devil but you might as well take advantage of this.  Mainly STEM, also a linguistics journal and a medical journal in Spanish.

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a small guide on how i battle my essays! (click on an image to view it clearer) 

(keep in mind: i’m an english major so a majority of my essays are literature-focused!)

these are just some of the methods i want to share that work for me when i write my innumerable amount of essays! i’m definitely a huge planner so it’s no secret that i spend a lot of time on an essay. if you’re a deadline fighter, these tips might not necessarily be helpful (especially the handwriting one). but i hope this gives you an insight on how i write my essays! 🌈

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SYNESTHESIA // an instrumental mix to fill you up with wonder and paint your vision rich with color

i. a fuoco - ludovico einaudi | ii. arrival of the birds - the cinematic orchestra | iii. atonement - dario marianelli | iv. fragile n.4 - dustin o’halloran | v. mescaline - abel korzeniowski | vi. forrest gump suite - alan silvestri | vii. gymnopédie no.1 - erik satie | viii. sherlocked - david arnold & michael price | ix. tennessee - hans zimmer | x. main titles - rachel portman | xi. stars and butterflies - jean-yves thibaudet | xii. we move lightly - dustin o’halloran | xiii. the king’s speech - alexandre desplat | xiv. arabesque no.1 - claude debussy | xv. divenire - ludovico einaudi

{listen}

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Trigonometry.

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How to Really Comprehend a Scientific Paper

**credit to my research advisor, she’s an amazing mentor and I aspire to be just like her someday :)

Read the abstract. Write down what the paper says it is going to be about.

Read the introduction. Write down what the paper says it is looking to accomplish and how.

Read the conclusion. Write down what the paper actually did accomplish.

Go through and find all the pictures, graphs, or diagrams. Write notes explaining these images to yourself.

Read the whole paper start to finish. Write a summary of the paper as though you are explaining it to a layperson, and then another summary as though you are explaining it to a colleague.

Throughout all of the above steps:

If there are words you don’t know google them and write down the definitions

If the paper defines a formula, law, variable, etc in a certain way write that down

If there are references to or recommendations of other literature write those down. After the last step if there’s anything you’re uncertain about or would like more information on look to that list for further reading

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Hot tea is refreshing to me the same way rain is. They both make me feel like I have a fresh start. I’m late again, but Day 11 of the April challenge by @journa

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as i get farther along this academic road, i can see that people are becoming increasingly secretive about their grant proposals, statements for faculty applications, fellowships, etc. what is your policy on sharing these things? i ask because i think you are a Normal Human Being who is a Decent Person, and sometimes this secrecy or tendency to distrust makes me sad!

i understand and i really dislike it as well, but i think it’s important to remember that much of that distrust comes from real and historical patterns of intellectual theft (which hit disproportionately across academia). it’s shitty! the world is a better place when we can share openly and help each other get through the absolute absurdity of the academy! but i can’t think badly of anyone who chooses not to spread their materials around. even though they’re not the same kind of work as, say, a book chapter or an article, we put a lot of labor into documents like proposals and applications, and i think it’s okay to be protective of that labor. 

that said, i’m really open with mine, particularly with people that i actually know. my roommate’s getting a big folder of fellowship and job application materials from me, for example, which is partially bc i love him & the other younger premodernists in my program and want them to succeed, and partially bc i want to save our shared advisor some work. my fellowship group have swapped and given feedback all our job materials, and juliana @caffeinebooks & i exchange proposals all the time. i’m happy to share things like cover letters and research statements with people that i know, because i want to save them some of the angst i went through (which was already ameliorated by the folks who did this for me). it’s harder to muster that kind of generosity towards people i don’t know, because, as selfish as it sounds, i spent 9 hours getting the wording on that cover letter right and i’m enough of an asshole to want to reserve the fruits of that labor for people i know and love, at least until i’ve moved on to other forms of labor. i was not planning on sharing my job materials until i got a job. now i’m cool with it.   

i feel an obligation to pay forward a lot of the help that i’ve gotten on my materials from people who shared theirs with me. but i also understand not being comfortable doing that, or only being comfortable doing that in certain ways. the giving and the getting should be balanced, IMO, but i think it’s up to the individual to decide what that balance looks like for them.

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I made this to put on my wall for revision, but I thought it might be helpful for some of you guys too so I thought I would share it!

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Free Online Language Courses

Here is a masterpost of MOOCs (massive open online courses) that are available, archived, or starting soon. I think they will help those that like to learn with a teacher or with videos.  You can always check the audit course or no certificate option so that you can learn for free.

American Sign Language

ASL University

Arabic

Arabic for Global Exchange (in the drop down menu)

Arabic Without Walls

Intro to Arabic

Madinah Arabic

Moroccan Arabic

Catalan Sign Language

Intro to Catalan Sign Language

Chinese

Beginner

Basic Chinese

Basic Chinese I. II, III, IV , V

Basic Mandarin Chinese I & II

Beginner’s Chinese

Chinese for Beginners

Chinese Characters

Chinese for HSK 1

First Year Chinese I &  II

HSK Level 1

Mandarin Chinese I

Mandarin Chinese for Business

More Chinese for Beginners

Start Talking Mandarin Chinese

UT Gateway to Chinese

Chino Básico (Taught in Spanish)

Intermediate

Chinese Stories

Intermediate Business Chinese

Intermediate Chinese Grammar

Dutch

Introduction to Dutch

English

Online Courses here

Resources Here

Faroese

Faroese Course

Finnish

A Taste of Finnish

Basic Finnish

Finnish for Immigrants

Finnish for Medical Professionals

French

Beginner

AP French Language and Culture

Basic French Skills

Beginner’s French: Food & Drink

Diploma in French

Elementary French I & II

Français Interactif

French in Action

French for Beginners

French Language Studies I, II, III

French:Ouverture

Intermediate & Advanced

French: Le Quatorze Juillet

Passe Partout 

La Cité des Sciences et de Industrie

Frisian

Introduction to Frisian (Taught in English)

Introduction to Frisian (Taught in Dutch)

German

Beginner

Beginner’s German: Food & Drink

Conversational German I, II, III, IV

Deutsch im Blick

Diploma in German

Rundblick-Beginner’s German

Advanced

German:Regionen Traditionen und Geschichte

Landschaftliche Vielfalt

Hebrew

Biblical Hebrew

Know the Hebrew Alphabet

Teach Me Hebrew

Hindi

A Door into Hindi

Business Hindi

Virtual Hindi

Icelandic

Icelandic 1-5

Indonesian

Learn Indonesian

Irish

Introduction to Irish

Italian

Beginner

Beginner’s Italian: Food & Drink

Beginner’s Italian I

Introduction to Italian

Italian for Beginners 1 , 2, 3 , 4 , 5, 6 

Intermediate & Advaned

Intermediate Italian I

Advanced Italian I

La Commedia di Dante

Japanese

Genki

Japanese JOSHU

Japanese Pronunciation

Sing and Learn Japanese

Tufs JpLang

Kazakh

A1-B2 Kazakh (Taught in Russian)

Korean

Beginner

First Step Korean

How to Study Korean

Learn to Speak Korean

Pathway to Spoken Korean

Intermediate

Intermediate Korean

Nepali

Beginner’s Conversation and Grammar

Norwegian

Introduction to Norwegian

Norwegian on the Web

Portuguese

Curso de Português para Estrangeiros 

Pluralidades em Português Brasileiro

Russian

Beginner

Easy Accelerated Learning for Russian

Advanced

Reading Master and Margarita

Russian as an Instrument of Communication

Siberia: Russian for Foreigners

Spanish

Beginner

AP Spanish Language & Culture

Basic Spanish for English Speakers

Beginner’s Spanish:Food & Drink

Fastbreak Spanish

Introduction to Spanish

Restaurants and Dining Out

Spanish for Beginners

Spanish for Beginners 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Spanish Vocabulary

Intermediate

Spanish:Ciudades con Historia

Spanish:Espacios Públicos

Advanced

Corrección, Estilo y Variaciones 

Leer a Macondo

Spanish:Con Mis Propias Manos

Spanish: Perspectivas Porteñas

Swedish

Intro to Swedish

Swedish Made Easy 1, 2, & 3

Ukrainian

Read Ukrainian

Ukrainian Language for Beginners

Welsh

Beginner’s Welsh

Discovering Wales

Multiple Languages

Ancient Languages

More Language Learning Resources & Websites!

Last updated: March 1, 2017

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What made you get into bioethics? Like, what about it captivated you enough to go to school for it?

As with all the great passions of my life–theology, every boy I’ve ever liked–it started with an argument.

The summer before my junior year of high school, I went to a summer camp where we stayed on a college campus and took mini “classes” and generally nerded it up for three weeks. You got to choose your “major”–the main class you took–but you were also assigned a random “minor”. The minors were unusual, like Hebrew or pottery or the history of war.

I was put in Bioethics. 

My teacher was a professor of philosophy from a nearby university, and I fucking loved every second of it. I loved the articles we read, I loved watching Gattaca and talking about genetic manipulation and individuality, I loved the professor and the insights he brought up (one day class was totally derailed by the question of why we refer to the soul as “my/mine/ours” what’s doing the owning there? that blew my little high school mind.)

Most of all, I loved the arguing, I loved the wordy back and forth of it–I’d been reading Stoic philosophy in Latin and ethics is endemic to theology classes, so I had a vague grasp of the territory. The rest was being quick on your feet, taking in information and then twisting it, trying to articulate vast things, poking holes in someone’s argument and defending your own. Looking back, I am dead certain I was insufferable–there were whole classes that I spent just arguing with the professor, while my classmates looked on. But I was too excited by this new toy not to…be an asshole about it, basically.

The social dimension of science has always fascinated me–I can still remember our physics teacher sitting down and explaining the reason that Aristotelian physics hung around so long was because it bolstered Catholic theology, my AP Bio teacher talking about how Rosalind Franklin’s work was ignored. So when I was reading through UChicago’s course guide, and I saw their description of the major, I was sold.

And honestly, it was a perfect choice for me. “Bioethics” is a very simplistic way to put what I studied; the major itself was the history, philosophy, and social studies of science. So it was a chance for me to just glut myself on knowledge–one quarter I would hurry from my Cancer Biology class on the science quad to Magic & Medicine in Ancient Europe in the history building. I went to lectures about the social factors influencing kidney donation, and international medicine. I wrote my BA thesis on how bioethics has failed to respond to the changing way medicine is done.

There are things I regret about my undergrad career, but my major was absolutely not one of them.

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