I have lots of new tools in my life this year. At different times, I feel tremendously supported and very frustrated by them. I am trying to find software that will not only help me to prepare research for publication but will make me feel good about it along the way. Here's the adoption timeline, to bring you up-to-date:
6 months ago
My first ever Mac, an iBookG4. Infatuation quickly leads to love. It is an OS of beauty and refinement.
3 months ago
NovaMind and Keynote. Both very good. I've no previous experience of PowerPoint, but the room in which I lecture has been kitted out with a great new AV projector and I'm getting on board. I'm setting myself the challenge of using this equipment instead of the whiteboard whenever appropriate, which is nearly all of the time.
1 month ago
Tinderbox. An information management programme of great simplicity (it makes almost instant sense) and rich complexity (I am quite possibly using about 8% of its features).
3 weeks ago
I'm on a roll. Boswell as text archive. Don't file, search.
2 weeks ago
Ulysses for writing? CopyWrite for writing? Ditch the layout 'pretties' (does that subheading look better in 12 point or 11?) and concentrate on elegant prose.
1 week ago
ARRGHHHHH! I need to spend months to learn these programmes in order to find out if they do what I want them to!
Today
You can blog in Tinderbox. That would be a good way to learn the programme in more depth, would it not? No. Or rather, maybe, but not in the timeframe I have in mind. Signed up to Blogger. Hello.
Nov 06
I want to have a paper ready to submit to a new Norwegian journal provisionally entitled "Music Practice as Research". My article is to survey research methods and reporting practices that specifically address the non-artefact nature of dance and music performance.
Dec 06
I'm giving a short seminar on this same topic to colleagues in a small and very friendly European research group, many of whom also happen to be senior figures in this field. I'm not concentrating on the last bit.
About Me
- Brinley
- I'm a historian, an orchestral musician and a senior tutor at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. After completing my PhD, I found myself utterly frozen by the thought of having to rewrite any of that material for professional publication. I'm just about to start thawing, I think, some ten years later. I've become fascinated (okay, obssessed) by information management software recently and I shall be using this blog to develop ideas in advance of a paper I'm giving at a European conference in December. I qualified and registered as a psychotherapist three years ago and I run a small private practice alongside my university 'day job'. All of these interests finally seem to be meeting, if only loosely as yet, in the questions "how do I know what I know about [insert topic of choice] and how can I tell other people what I know about that?". I live in the middle of London with my partner (who is much more knowledgeable about new media and communication channels than I am); a very odd dog lodges with us. Espresso is inappropriately imporant in my life.
1 comment:
An eloquent start to a challenging project...
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