Over the past week, the Confabulators have shared their favorite web resources they use for writing. Below you will find all of the links collected in one place for one wicked list of writing tools. Also, keep an eye out here at the Cafe. We’ll be creating a web resources page with this information for quick and easy reference, as well.
Tag: resources
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What’s Wrong With Asking the Crowd?
When I was in library school, about half an Internet generation ago [0], we were warned, very specifically and repeatedly, against relying on Google or Wikipedia or any other online resource authored by “non-authoritarian” sources. Instead, we were directed toward proprietary academic and professional databases— EDGAR, Dialog, Lexus/Nexus, Westlaw, and the like.
I chalked up a great deal of this propagandizing to existential angst amongst an older generation of library professionals. The unwashed public having direct access to raw information without the kindly and professional intermediation provided by suitably indoctrinated gatekeepers? Quel horreur! [1]
I had been an IT professional for about 10 years by then [2] and had nothing but the deepest respect for the free-form conversation that is the Internet [3]. Sure, plenty of the information you find may be wrong, but if so, somebody else will be along shortly shouting at the top of their CAPS LOCK key precisely how wrong it is, with illustrative asides and digressions into the quality of the original poster’s intelligence, reading comprehension, research methodology, and parentage, including hyperlinked footnotes to, for example, the website of the guy who invented whatever the heck you’re talking about. If you have a high tolerance for alpha-geek posturing, the Internet can give you one hell of an education.
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Math and iPads and other web tricks
When it comes to the Internet, I admit it. I’m a Wikipedia whore. Yup. Ever since that monumental study came out revealing that Wikipedia was no more error-prone than Encyclopedia Britannica, with far more detailed information about every single season of Star Trek, I have used the great crowd sourcing marvel for everything from quick questions (who did invent phrenology, after all?) to finding the majoritarian impression of Salvador Allende’s death: suicide or assassination? (Suicide is the more common interpretation. Not if you are at a museum dedicated to his memory, though.)
I also find the plethora of open-source journals available online to be a huge boon to detail-specific research. When I was researching my great-grandparents for a novel and wanted to find out what their lives as Norwegian immigrants would have been like, the Norweigan American studies journal was invaluable. If you have a good library supplying your internet (I.e., you are a good KU student or employee), Jstor is the source of all scholarly goodness.My day job as math teacher also must enlighten you at this time. If you are mathematically minded, you should check out Wolfram Alpha, which is a sort of search engine for data that has a computer algebra system built in. It compiles numerical and other data from all over the place and responds to searches with graphs and tables and is an incredibly powerful engine. The literary minded compare it to the computer in Star Trek or the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and the struggling math student compares it to a magic machine that does all basic math calculations and a whole lot more. But it is a great research tool that gives an alternate perspective to all kinds of queries. The iPad app is also great.*
And finally, I have to put a plug in there for Information is Beautiful, which highlights a magnificent blend of writing, data, and art. (You could never guess that all my recent writing centers around curriculum for statistics could you.) I find the site to be the future of graphical creation. It inspires my writing and also asks me how the web will lead graphic organizations of our future literary efforts.
*I have been writing on my iPad a lot recently, but I am not sure the definitive programs for writers using iPads have been written yet. Scrivener promises to be available soon, someday, and that would be a boon, but I do think you might want to stick with the laptop for a while yet. Other writers, please inform and disagree with me!