Things 9 to 11: Wiki, images, presentations & podcasts

Phew, that was a lot of stuff! Mind you, I’ve picked up some interesting info along the way. Wiki … use it all the time, but didn’t particularly pay attention to the additional tabs, i.e. talk and history, before and didn’t realise there were alternative sites. I was initially amused by the spoof site, Uncyclopedia but then got bored with it fairly quickly. Might have been because I found myself on the page of the 100 best (worst?) chat-up lines – need I say more?

The podcasts are much more useful for my research (and for DIY at home) and I’ve already referred to one lecture I listened to in an earlier blog. Prior to that I found a Q&A discussion with one of my reference authors helpful, especially as he was explaining theory. I’ve also attended online course modules, through the University of East Anglia, over the past 4 months which were great. The tutor was excellent and slides, lecture recording and refs were all made available after. I liked the way you could ask questions online as we went along. Am thinking of taking up my beginners Spanish again once this PhD is over … if I’m ever up to learning again after this. Found an OU course on Future Learn.

I think I may be about to become a convert to Instagram – I really enjoyed the British Library posts. Not for my research you understand, just cool (non-research-related) things.

Things 7 and 8: Reference management and CC (and a rather lovely picture of a bridge)

Concrete Bob’s Glenfinnan Viaduct
I love bridges and I don’t care how strange that makes me!

Not long after embarking on my PhD journey I attended the reference management tools workshop and realised that using one of these tools would be important, especially after having hand-typed all the references for my MSc. A painful experience.

So, I had already looked at, and installed, both Mendeley and EndNote before this task came up. Mendeley managed to do my head in, although I can’t quite remember why now, but I’ve been using EndNote for a little while and I have been able to get refs in pretty easily to be honest. The annoying thing is that I haven’t been using it properly and keeping on top of all my references. In fact, I’ve just had to resort to hand-typing references again for a recent report, which is really stupid. This is why I haven’t signed-up for the experience exchange, although I would probably benefit from someone else’s expertise. I’ll definitely be sorting out my EndNote from now on.

Week 3 …. better late than never!

First of all, an update. The Twitter issue is now resolved. I’m reliably informed that its automated systems found and removed my account because it mistook it as automated spam. So, there you go … no doubt I’ll be twittering away like nobody’s business before long.

This week (or rather 3.5 weeks ago) we were tasked with checking out 3 networks; Academia.edu, ResearchGate and Google Scholar. And there was me thinking I knew everything about Google Scholar – ha! I searched for some of the academics in our Department (found two) then searched for academics whose papers I’d referenced in my lit review (found another two). Then in typical ‘me’ fashion, I got distracted. An hour later and I had finished listening to the inaugural lecture of one of the academics whose work had proved helpful for my research. So much for the good intentions after attending the ‘Plan it’ workshop earlier this week. At least the lecture was also interesting and informative.

Finding out about the 3 networks as ways to raise my academic profile was useful and I’ll probably set up a profile at some point, BUT not just yet. I don’t feel quite ready and need a bit more time to think about which one. Maybe I’m also a little nervous about setting up another online ‘me’ after being freaked out by the recent online theft of my store card’s loyalty points.

Week 2 … and its gone wrong!

All started well this week. Thing 4 – I googled myself, as 23 Things suggested I do, and this confirmed what I already know to be true. I exist! Actually, once I got over the shock that I had recently passed away (3rd hit on the list was my obituary) … and I don’t wish to appear boastful here … I found that there are 42 of professional ‘me’ in Linkedin. Real me was number 5 on the Linkedin listing. I figure that’s not too bad but how do I get to be number 1?

Next up: 23 Things advises me to set up a Twitter account. So I do (as I’m very obedient). I tweet and log out.

I log back in, just to check I’m still there. I’m locked out. Apparently there was some unusual activity or some such thing and I’m prompted to initiate some process or other to sort it all out. I promptly leave the page & fervently wish I hadn’t bothered with Twitter. Help!

Now what???? Will she ever recover? You’ll just have to wait for the next (riveting) blog….

Here we go …

So, I’ve signed-up to 23 Things. I’m hopeless with social media but hope this course will help me with that. Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In … yep, got accounts with those (not that you’d know it) but never tried blogging. I should probably tell you a little bit about me in this first post. I’ve just begun my second year of my PhD in the Sociology Dept here at the University of Surrey, though my background is scientific and I worked for a number of years in clinical trials. Now I’m interested in alcohol and people’s drinking practices. Lets hope 23 Things will help my writing skills too ……