#research articles

[miss-biophys]

Beautiful view on the water canal from my home office today.

Calm place for some scientific writing. I am working on a grant application and an article with my latest findings.

[justanotherconfusedman]

One thing that has really struck me doing research into queer studies is just how much is on how being queer effects the people around you and not on how others treatment of you being queer effects you

There's mountains of research on the children raised by queer people and how being the parent of a trans child affects the parent and so little research on what it's like being a queer parent and being a trans child of adult in comparison

It makes me sad

[mothykleo]

Breaking news: local girl has run out of books to read and now shes very upset :(

[penguicorns-are-cool]

DO NOT DO THIS!!!

If a website has a paywall, like New York Times, DO NOT use the ctrl+A shortcut then the ctrl+c shortcut as fast as you can because then you may accidentally copy the entire article before the paywall comes up. And definitely don't do ctrl+v into the next google doc or whatever you open because then you will accidentally paste the entire article into a google doc or something!!!! I repeat DO NOT do this because it is piracy which is absolutely totally wrong!!!

[aabms]

Observation types and record-keeping methods

Observation as a research method has to be methodical, narrowly focused and well-documented with a clear goal in mind. It needs to go through the standard processes of validity, reliability, and accuracy tests like any other research technique. The observer has to be aware of exactly what to watch out for and notice. The validity and reliability of observations are enhanced when the same observer…

[reasonsforhope]

By the way, I would literally bet money that we're going to successfully keep global warming below 2 degrees celsius.

Would I bet my whole savings on it? No, not yet. But the way the data is trending, in two or three years, I very well might.

[strawberrystaryy]

i hate paywalls so much. you know what i hate even more? not even being able to buy the perfect article but have to be in a SPECIFIC INSTITUTION to have to get it. there’s no way for me to even access this.

[heartless-aro]

People when a character is aromantic or aromantic coded: Wowie! They’re aroACE! Because they aren’t interested in romance! Look at how aroace they are!

People when a character is aroace or aroace coded: Isn’t it cool that this character is asexual? Asexual icon! They’re such great asexual representation :)

[miss-biophys]

Not bad...

Almost 80 citations of my research articles in the last year... I would say it’s not bad. It eases a bit my feeling of “I don’t know what I am doing here!” that I sometimes have. 

[three-headed-monster]

luke hughes wants to dine with julius caesar

[ask-the-prose]

Do Your Research

This phrase is regularly thrown around writeblr and for good reason. It's important to research what you are writing about to know what to include, what can be fudged, and how to depict whatever you're writing. I see "do your research" most thrown around by well-meaning and highly traditionally educated writers. It's solid advice, after all!

But how do you research?

For those writers who don't already have the research skills necessary to write something comfortably already downloaded into your brain, I put this guide together for you.

Where do I even start?

It's a daunting task, research. But the best place to start is with the most basic, stupidest question you can think of. I'm going to talk about something that I already know a lot about: fighting.

When researching fight scenes, a great way to start is to look up what different weapons are. There are tons out there! So ask the stupid questions. What is a sword? What is a gun? How heavy are they?

Google and Wikipedia can help you a lot with these basic-level questions. They aren't great sources for academic articles, but remember, this is fiction. It doesn't need to be perfect, and it doesn't need to be 100% accurate if you don't want it to be. But knowing what is true to life will help you write well. Just like knowing the rules of writing will help you break them.

You may find in your basic research sweep that you have a lot more specific questions. Write them all down. It doesn't matter if they seem obvious. Write them down because they will be useful later.

How To Use Wikipedia Correctly

Wikipedia is a testament to cooperative human knowledge. It's also easy to edit by anonymous users, which means there is a lot of room for inaccuracies and misleading information. Wikipedia is usually pretty good about flagging when a source is needed or when misleading language is obvious, but Wikipedia itself isn't always the most accurate or in-depth source.

Wikipedia is, however, an excellent collection of sources. When I'm researching a subject that I know nothing about, say Norse mythology, a good starting point is the Wikipedia page for Odin. You'll get a little background on Odin's name and Germanic roots, a little backstory on some of the stories, where they appear, and how they are told.

When you read one of the sentences, and it sparks a new question, write the question down, and then click on the superscript number. This will take you directly to the linked source for the stated fact. Click through to that source. Now you have the source where the claim was made. This source may not be a primary source, but a secondary source can still lead you to new discoveries and details that will help you.

By "source-hopping," you can find your way across the internet to different pieces of information more reliably. This information may repeat itself, but you will also find new sources and new avenues of information that can be just as useful.

You mean I don't need a library?

Use your library. Libraries in many parts of the US are free to join, and they have a wealth of information that can be easily downloaded online or accessed via hardcopy books.

You don't, however, need to read every source in the library for any given topic, and you certainly don't need to read the whole book. Academic books are different from fiction. Often their chapters are divided by topic and concept and not by chronological events like a history textbook.

For example, one of my favorite academic books about legislative policy and how policy is passed in the US, by John Kingdon, discusses multiple concepts. These concepts build off one another, but ultimately if you want to know about one specific concept, you can skip to that chapter. This is common in sociological academic books as well.

Going off of my Norse Mythology example in the last section, a book detailing the Norse deities and the stories connected to them will include chapters on each member of the major pantheon. But if I only care about Odin, I can focus on just the chapters about Odin.

Academic Articles and How To Read Them

I know you all know how to read. But learning how to read academic articles and books is a skill unto itself. It's one I didn't quite fully grasp until grad school. Learn to skim. When looking at articles published in journals that include original research, they tend to follow a set structure, and the order in which you read them is not obvious. At all.

Start with the abstract. This is a summary of the paper that will include, in about half a page to a page, the research question, hypothesis, methods/analysis, and conclusions. This abstract will help you determine if the answer to your question is even in this article. Are they asking the right question?

Next, read the research question and hypothesis. The hypothesis will include details about the theory and why the researcher thinks what they think. The literature review will go into much more depth about theories, what other people have done and said, and how that ties into the research of the present article. You don't need to read that just yet.

Skim the methods and analysis section. Look at every data table and graph included and try to find patterns yourself. You don't need to read every word of this section, especially if you don't understand a lot of the words and jargon used. Some key points to consider are: qualitative vs. quantitative data, sample size, confounding factors, and results.

(Some definitions for those of you who are unfamiliar with these terms. Qualitative data is data that cannot be quantified into a number. These are usually stories and anecdotes. Quantitative data is data that can be transferred into a numerical representation. You can't graph qualitative data (directly), but you can graph quantitative data. Sample size is the number of people or things counted (n when used in academic articles). Your sample size can indicate how generalizable your conclusions are. So pay attention. Did the author interview 300 subjects? Or 30? There will be a difference. A confounding factor is a factor that may affect the working theory. An example of a theory would be "increasing LGBTQ resources in a neighborhood would decrease LGBTQ hate crimes in that area." A confounding factor would be "increased reporting of hate crimes in the area." The theory, including the confounding factor, would look like "increasing LGBTQ resources in a neighborhood would increase the reporting of hate crimes in the area, which increases the number of hate crimes measured in that area." The confounding factor changes the outcome because it is a factor not considered in the original theory. When looking at research, see if you can think of anything that may change the theory based on how that factor interacts with the broader concept. Finally, the results are different from the conclusions. The results tell you what the methods spit out. Analysis tells you what the results say, and conclusions tell you what generalizations can be made based on the analysis.)

Next, read the conclusion section. This section will tell you what general conclusions can be made from the information found in the paper. This will tell you what the author found in their research.

Finally, once you've done all that, go back to the literature review section. You don't have to read it necessarily, but reading it will give you an idea of what is in each sourced paper. Take note of the authors and papers sourced in the literature review and repeat the process on those papers. You will get a wide variety of expert opinions on whatever concept or niche you're researching.

Starting to notice a pattern?

My research methods may not necessarily work for everybody, but they are pretty standard practice. You may notice that throughout this guide, I've told you to "source-hop" or follow the sources cited in whatever source you find first. This is incredibly important. You need to know who people are citing when they make claims.

This guide focused on secondary sources for most of the guide. Primary sources are slightly different. Primary sources require understanding the person who created the source, who they were, and their motivations. You also may need to do a little digging into what certain words or phrases meant at the time it was written based on what you are researching. The Prose Edda, for example, is a telling of the Norse mythology stories written by an Icelandic historian in the 13th century. If you do not speak the language spoken in Iceland in 1232, you probably won't be able to read anything close to the original document. In fact, the document was lost for about 300 years. Now there are translations, and those translations are as close to the primary source you can get on Norse Mythology. But even then, you are reading through several veils of translation. Take these things into account when analyzing primary documents.

Research Takes Practice

You won't get everything you need to know immediately. And researching subjects you have no background knowledge of can be daunting, confusing, and frustrating. It takes practice. I learned how to research through higher formal education. But you don't need a degree to write, so why should you need a degree to collect information? I genuinely hope this guide helps others peel away some of the confusion and frustration so they can collect knowledge as voraciously as I do.

– Indy

[njere]

- research update -

[trans-androgyne]

https:// drdevonprice.substack.com/p/a-massive-study-of-16000-participants

what do you think of this? (beyond just the fact that devon price is a tool, of course) i'm interested in hearing what you think of the actual figures

This was so unbelievably frustrating to read. Not about the results, to be clear! I am not surprised by them in the slightest. (The full article title is "A Massive Study of 16,000 Participants in 23 Countries Finds People Are More Prejudiced Against Trans Women Than Trans Men.") I've already talked at length about how trans women tend to get more overt vitriol than trans men. I just also believe that those sentiments are not the only measure of how badly a group is affected by queerphobia. The hypervisibility and public violence trans women experience is not inherently more oppressive than the erasure and private abuse trans men experience. The transphobia and sexism each group faces just manifests differently.

The frustrating thing is that Price understands that about other queer people too, but refuses to apply it to trans men. (If you are not aware, he has also written an article titled "Transmisandry Is Not Real.") It comes from this infuriating and honestly nonsensical belief that transphobes do in fact see trans people as our true genders more than our assigned ones--that they see trans women as queer (failed) women and trans men as queer (failed) men. I say that because he acknowledges that "when prompted, the average homophobic person tends to express less revulsion toward queerness in women than they do toward queerness in men," but also points out it isn't the case that queer women are "less oppressed or face less bigotry," it just means that it takes a different form.

He goes in some depth about the ways queer women experience a more insidious form of queerphobia, that marginalized women are "more likely to be ignored and erased," that their "queerness is seen instead as a flaw that can be 'fixed,' in order to restore a woman’s availability to men" as opposed to being driven out of society entirely. Does that sound familiar to you? This is literally exactly what happens to trans men and transmascs. But when discussing trans men's oppression compared to trans women's, he reframes the exact same things queer cis women experience as only privileges when it comes to us. Our invisibility "does benefit us," no caveats added. "It is always trans women who are presented as a looming threat...never trans men," we are "unnamed, untargeted, and not feared," he claims. This is only as true for us as it is for lesbians compared to gay men, but the difference between the more insidious oppression we face and the more overt one trans women do is not viewed the same way by Price. He believes that the misogyny trans women experience is because they are women, plain and simple, which means bigots must in fact see them as queer women, and distinguishes them from the way gay men are seen on that basis. As though gay men do not experience misogyny.

Price criticizes the fact that the researcher asks her questions by describing trans women as “someone who was considered male at birth who feels they are actually female and so dresses and lives as a woman,” and trans men as “someone who was considered female at birth who feels they are actually male and so dresses and lives as a man." He feels this primes them to think of trans women as males and trans men as females. As if they do not already see us that way! They see trans women as failing the male gender role and trans men as failing the female one! That is why our oppression takes the form it does! I am sorry to tell you this, but we will never, ever, ever get the full view of trans oppression if we cannot acknowledge that transphobes do not see trans women as women and trans men as men, but as our assigned genders in a failed, queer, third-sex way.

[pandemic-info]

Long COVID Looks Like Acute Infection in the Brain | Psychology Today

Key points:

Long COVID patients with brain fog have the biological signature of an acute infection in the brain.

50 percent of people with cognitive impairment from Long COVID improve after two years, but very slowly.

An effective interferon lambda response in the brain helps recovery from Long COVID cognitive impairment.

Researchers call for a clinical trial on the use of interferon lambda to treat Long COVID brain fog.

[poet-complex]

Few valid references for any dissertation :

1. Intuition et al.

2. Trust me.

3. Had a dream about it.

4. BECAUSE I SAID SO!

[jstor]

Happy December! ❄️

As the year winds down, it's the perfect time to cozy up with some thought-provoking reads. Whether you're celebrating Solstice, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, or the New Year, our collection of seasonal articles on JSTOR Daily will add a scholarly twist to your holiday traditions.

From the history of holiday cards and the origins of Hanukkah to the Victorian influences on Christmas lore, there’s something here to inspire curiosity and spark conversation. Each story includes free access to supporting academic research on JSTOR, so you can explore these topics in-depth.

Happy reading!

Discover the collection.

🖼 Cows in Winter by Henry Willis, 1853. Watercolour. Museum of New Zealand - Te Papa Tongarewa.