Student Resources

Identifying Your Interests and Establishing a Research Plan

Finding Sources: Where to Look, and How to Decide What’s Worth Your Time

Reading Effectively

Note-taking and Abstracting

The Literature Review / Mediagraphy

Conference Tips

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I talk about “Keeping a Research Journal/Website/Blog/Portfolio” in slides 22-37 in this guest presentation from the “Understanding Media Studies” lecture course on 9/21/09. Here are my notes. And here are some other interesting tips on how to use a blog as a research journal / personal portfolio / network builder / etc.

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Here’s some stuff about bad, bad, bad (there’s a lot of it!) writing in academia. Here’s poet Charles Bernstein’s take (from Content’s Dream) on the sad, predictable structure of an academic essay:

“Topic sentence. However; but; as a result. Blah, blah, blah. It follows from this. Concluding sentence.”

Here’s the best thing I’ve read lately about good writing.