Writing Online

Friday, September 29, 2006

Hats Off

I was browsing across random blogs at Technocrati and occasionally found this post. The guy here cites Massumi (I believe he knows the author better than I do):

So why not hang up the academic hat of critical self-seriousness, set aside the intemperate arrogance of debunking--and enjoy? If you don't enjoy concepts and writing and don't feel that when you write you are adding something to the world, if only the enjoyment itself, and that by adding that ounce of positive experience to the world you are affirming it, celebrating its potential, tending its growth, in however small a way, however really abstractly--well, just hang it up.


The man is damn right, I must say. This is what the whole approach to real/genuine/sincere writing is all about!

Read along these lines over and over as they are the most adequate, the most accurate definition for writing ever.

Top ten longest titles of research papers

by Trevor's Bike Shed

One of the things you learn as a Ph.D. student is how to do research. Though I’m still far from mastering that particular lesson, there’s something I’ve discovered along the way: Academic researchers love coming up with long titles for their papers. In fact, a colleague’s recent 27-word Ph.D. thesis had me wondering, “Just how long do these titles get?”

I decided to find out. I wrote a little script that scans the DBLP database and spits out the longest titles it finds (based on number of characters, not words). Excluding non-English titles, here’s the top-ten list:

10. In silico exploration of the fructose-6-phosphate phosphorylation step in glycolysis: genomic evidence of the coexistence of an atypical ATP-dependent along with a PPi-dependent phosphofructokinase in Propionibacterium freudenreichii subsp. shermanii

9. A Comparative Study of Artificial Neural Networks Using Reinforcement Learning and Multidimensional Bayesian Classification Using Parzen Density Estimation for Identification of GC-EIMS Spectra of Partially Methylated Alditol Acetates on the World Wide Web

8. Performance of empirical potentials (AMBER, CFF95, CVFF, CHARMM, OPLS, POLTEV), semiempirical quantum chemical methods (AM1, MNDO/M, PM3), and ab initio Hartree-Fock method for interaction of DNA bases: Comparison with nonempirical beyond Hartree-Fock results

7. Joint quantum chemical and polarizable molecular mechanics investigation of formate complexes with penta- and hexahydrated Zn2+: Comparison between energetics of model bidentate, monodentate, and through-water Zn2+ binding modes and evaluation of nonadditivity effects

6. A Simple Flexible Program for the Computational Analysis of Amyl Acyl Residue Distribution in Proteins: Application to the Distribution of Aromatic versus Aliphatic Hydrophobic Amino Acids in Transmembrane alpha-Helical Spanners of Integral Membrane Transport Proteins

5. Three-Dimensional Quantitative Structure-Property Relationship (3D-QSPR) Models for Prediction of Thermodynamic Properties of Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs): Enthalpies of Fusion and Their Application to Estimates of Enthalpies of Sublimation and Aqueous Solubilities

4. WEB OBJECTS TIME: When Microsoft Started Speaking Like a Good Open-Standards Citizen, The Netscape Extensions Tail Tried to Wag The Dog and Object-Oriented Software Turned Static Web Pages Into Dynamically-Linked Access Boulevards to Significant Online Collection Databases

3. Hydrogen bonding in diols and binary diol-water systems investigated using DFT methods. II. Calculated infrared OH-stretch frequencies, force constants, and NMR chemical shifts correlate with hydrogen bond geometry and electron density topology. A reevaluation of geometrical criteria for hydrogen bonding

2. Molecular mechanical models for organic and biological systems going beyond the atom centered two body additive approximation: aqueous solution free energies of methanol and N-methyl acetamide, nucleic acid base, and amide hydrogen bonding and chloroform/water partition coefficients of the nucleic acid bases

1. The nucleotide sequence of a 3.2 kb segment of mitochondrial maxicircle DNA from Crithidia fasciculata containing the gene for cytochrome oxidase subunit III, the N-terminal part of the apocytochrome b gene and a possible frameshift gene; further evidence for the use of unusual initiator triplets in trypanosome mitochondria

Of course, a trivia researcher’s work is never done. For future analysis, I’ll focus on papers with the highest number of authors. (I’ve already discovered a potential candidate.)

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

New Articles on Academic Writing

Greetings folks,

I would like to announce the new series of fine articles on academic writing containing research writing tips and advise based on personal experience. There are 5 issues, some broken in to parts:

What You Really Should Know about Research Papers in 2 parts:

What You Really Should Know about Research Papers and
Know What You Write

Choose wrong research paper type and you'll likely never get a good grade! in 9 parts (!):

Research Paper Types
Template of an Argumentative or Persuasive Paper
Template of an Analytical Paper
Template of a Definition Paper
Template of a Compare and Contrast Paper
Template of a Cause and Effect Paper
Template of a Report
Template of an Interpretive Paper
Title Page Template

Organizing Your Writing Process: Invention, Research, Writing, Revising in 2 parts:

Organizing Your Writing Process: Invention & Research and
Organizing Your Writing Process: Writing and Revising

Understanding Your Assignment Is The Key To Your Success!

and finally

What Is Critical Thinking and How Can It Help You

Enjoy the articles and come back for more!