Category Archives: Citations

Paper Writing

Posted on by
Reply

Over the past several months I have been wrestling with academic expression on the web. I have been trying to think through what it should look like. What do I want my footprint to be? How do I want to participate in the discussions I am involved in? Part of the struggle has been with content distribution v.s. content publishing. In using the web as a content distribution platform the web technology question looks more like "how are we going to arrange these PDFs". Where as the web publishing question looks more like blog posts published directly to web browser oriented venues. Academic writing has traditionally been the written discussion between professionals in various pursuits of life. But as the web has shaped how we communicate academia must (and is) consider how it is going to participate in the discussion. If social media and its various forms are where the discussion is happening then how is academia going to stay relevant or connected? This is most relevant in the area of citations and links. These questions are not just relevant for the individual but are also relevant to academic institutions like, SIL International, Linguistic Society of America, Academy of the Sciences, etc.

Should be considering is that in a world where academic writing is reduced, where is their place. The LSA has a journal, Language, which I enjoy reading. But are they the center of academic thought that they once were? is their presentation of knowledge really the medium of use today?

While I agree that the web is radically changing the way information is decimated. I doubt that the structure of argumentation will change. We may have to find new ways of expressing the points of the argument but an argument will still have points. So, till our professors stop making us write papers, and allow us to tweet our contradictions, and assertions of scientific fact.... How to build an argument and how to write a paper are still important.

I have come across some interesting resources. One of them reminded me of something taught in my undergraduate degree. My philosophy professor made us learn an outline for paper writing which has proven most helpful.

Here is the original outline

1:Issue: What is integration

2. Position: for integration

+3. Argument 1: social pluses
-4. Objection 1 social negatives
+5. Reply 1: with out the negatives of life are we really preparing students for life

+6. Argument 2: Child’s desire
-7. Objection 2: state responsibilities
+8. Reply 2: Parents ultimate rights/responsibilities

+9. Argument 3:
-10. Objection 3:
+11. Reply 3:

+12. Argument 4:
-13. Objection 4:
+14. Reply 4:

-15. Objection to the position: Separation
-16. Argument for the objection to the position: separation is necessary for lower salaries on school budgets
+17. Objection to the objection to the position:
-18. Reply to the Argument for the objection to the position: Even with a higher budgets on salaries lowering the student to teacher ratio and paying more would help all student overall.

19. Restate issue with final opinion:

This website was given as the resource from which the outline pulled its content. http://www.sedl.org/change/issues/issues43.html

This argument still needed to demonstrate the dichotomy of a paragraph.

Introduction :: why should the reader read this? - the grab.
Definition :: What are you talking about?
Relationship to higher-level thought :: how does this relate to what the reader knows?
Conclusion :: what does your claim imply?
Transition :: What question does this lead us to ask?In this outline he showed that one needs a

Proposition

Some supporting elements
Some supporting elements
Some supporting elements

Then to strengthen the argument a counter proposition is needed.

One could choose to be very crafty and make the counter argument a counter to one of the supporting elements of the original proposition. But regardless of the quality of the counter proposition, it still needs several supporting elements.

Element supporting counter position
Element supporting counter position
Element supporting counter position

Then the author needs some discourse to deconstruct the counter supporting elements and explain why they are not valid contradictions supporting the counter position. During this discourse the opposing opinion is clearly presented. Eventually, this discourse will then refute the counter proposition. At which time a second counter proposition is needed.

Second counter proposition

Element supporting counter position
Element supporting counter position
Element supporting counter position

More discourse.... and the process repeats itself until a point is proven or considered well laid out.

The importance of the point in explaining the opposing side better than the opposing side can, was recently brought back into focus as I read a post by Nagesh Belludi [1]Nagesh Belludi. 12 December 2008. [Effective Arguments] Explain Your Opponent’s Perspective. [Accessed: 11 November 2011] … Continue reading . Recently I have also encountered several works of interest regarding academic discourse. The following presentation from Beyond the PDF [2]Anita de Waard, Paul Thompson, Maria Liakata, Raheel Nawaz and Sophia Ananiadou. Comparing scientific discourse annotation schemes for enhanced knowledge extraction. Paper presented at the Beyond the … Continue reading Has a really good break down in the first 10 minutes of the presentation on the discourse structure of an academic paper.

From time to time, I read an academic paper, or journal article which really shines. It is engaging, it tells a compelling story, presents new insights and knowledge, and it brings me to a new conclusion or awareness of my surroundings.
I recently had the pleasure of reading a paper by Alexandre François, on some phonology aspects of a language he was doing research in. [3] Alexandre François. 2010. Phonotactics and the prestopped velar lateral of Hiw: resolving the ambiguity of a complex segment. Phonology Vol. 27 (3):393-434. DOI:10.1017/S0952675710000205 [Link] He did a marvelous job at presenting an issue, the evidence to be considered, and then also the propositions and the objections. He brought the reader with him as he explained the issues. The level of background knowledge needed was minimized, yet this work was not focused on presenting just the background issues and story. It is a recommended read if you are interested in phonology sorts of things, but also if you are interested in looking at the presentation of argumentation.

References

References
↑1 Nagesh Belludi. 12 December 2008. [Effective Arguments] Explain Your Opponent’s Perspective. [Accessed: 11 November 2011] http://www.rightattitudes.com/2008/12/12/explain-your-opponents-perspective/ [Link]
↑2 Anita de Waard, Paul Thompson, Maria Liakata, Raheel Nawaz and Sophia Ananiadou. Comparing scientific discourse annotation schemes for enhanced knowledge extraction. Paper presented at the Beyond the PDF Workshop: January 19-21, 2011 University of California San Diego. [Accessed 8 November 2011] https://sites.google.com/site/beyondthepdf/workshop-papers/comparing-scientific-discourse-annotation [Abstract] [YouTube Video]
↑3 Alexandre François. 2010. Phonotactics and the prestopped velar lateral of Hiw: resolving the ambiguity of a complex segment. Phonology Vol. 27 (3):393-434. DOI:10.1017/S0952675710000205 [Link]

Citations, Names and Language Documentation

Posted on by
Reply

I have recently been reading the blog of Martin Fenner and came upon the article Personal names around the world [1] Martin Fenner. 14 August 2011. Personal names around the world. PLoS Blog Network. http://blogs.plos.org/mfenner/2011/08/14/personal-names-around-the-world . [Accessed: 16 September 2011]. [Link] . His post is in fact a reflection on a W3C paper on Personal Names around the WorldSeveral other reflections are here: http://www.w3.org/International/wiki/Personal_names (same title). This is apparently coming out of the i18n effort and is an effort to help authors and database designers make informed decisions about names on the web.
I read Martin’s post with some interest because in Language Documentation getting someone’s name as a source or for informed consent is very important (from a U.S. context). Working in a archive dealing with language materials, I see lot of names. One of the interesting situations which came to me from an Ecuadorian context was different from what I have seen in the w3.org paper or in the w3.org discussion. The naming convention went like this:

The elder was known by the younger’s name plus a relationship.

My suspicion is that it is a taboo to name the dead. So to avoid possibly naming the dead, the younger was referenced and the the relationship was invoked. This affected me in the archive as I am supposed to note who the speaker is on the recordings. In lue of the speakers name, I have the young son’s first name, who is well known in the community, and is in his 30’s or so, and I have the relationship. So in English this might sound like John’s mother. Now what am I supposed to put in the metadata record for the audio recordings I am cataloging? I do not have a name but I do have a relationship to a known (to the community) person.

I inquired with a literacy consultant who has worked in Ecuador with indigenous people for some years, she informed me that in one context she was working in everyone knew what family line they were from and all the names were derived from that family line by position. It was of such that to call someone by there name was an insult.

It sort of reminds me of this sketch by Fry and Laurie.

References

References
↑1 Martin Fenner. 14 August 2011. Personal names around the world. PLoS Blog Network. http://blogs.plos.org/mfenner/2011/08/14/personal-names-around-the-world . [Accessed: 16 September 2011]. [Link]

Meꞌphaa Bibliography

Posted on by
Reply
This is an experimental use of Mendeley's API to present a bibliography of materials used in the Meꞌphaa language documentation project.There are are several limitations to the WordPress plugin because it does not bring over all the reference types. This is partly a limitation of Mendeley's API and partly a limitation of the reference types they support in their application. The WordPress plugin ignores that some references do not have the same parts in their citations. Some form of CSL should be used in the plugin. More about Citation Style Language. One other thing that I have noticed is that when there is a URL which ends in a .pdf the plugin re-codes the link name to "pdf". This is the advertised behavior. However, when there is more than one URL, they all say "url" rather than what is the last part of the URI. Look at this example from above:
Steven Egland, Doris Bartholomew, Saúl Cruz Ramos (1978) La inteligibilidad interdialectal de las lenguas indígenas de México: Resultado de algunos sondeos, Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, p. 58-59, Mexico City: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, url, url
Languages of Western Central Mexico

Languages of Western Central Mexico

[mendeley type="groups" id="899061" groupby="year" grouporder="desc"]

Notes and a Bibliography

Posted on by
Reply

I have been looking for a way to create Posts with both Footnotes and a Bibliography section. I have wanted to make my post a little more professional looking, and let the information flow more easily with the way I write. What I have come to realize, is that Footnotes and Endnotes are different and function differently in respect to information processing. Traditionally, in print media Endnotes have occurred at the end of the article, whereas Footnotes have occurred at the end of the page on which the footnote is mentioned. This leads to a three way breakdown:

  1. Footnotes
  2. Endnotes
  3. Bibliography

The purpose of footnotes is to facilitate quick information processing without breaking the flow of reading or information processing of the consumer of information. On web-based media, the end of the article and the end of the page is the same if pagination is not enabled. So this creates a sort of syncretism between Endnotes and Footnotes. However, the greater principal of quick reference to additional information still applies on the web. There are several strategies which have tried to fill this information processing nitch, these include things like:

  • Tooltips (The pop-up text which appears when your mouse cursor hovers over a link or some other text.)
  • Lightbox (The darker shading of the background and the high-lighting of the content in focus.)
  • Pop-up windows (which have been phased out of popular "good web design").
  • Information (Text) balloons (an example of this is Wikipop Wikipop is really a combination of the above mentioned effects above to create an inline experience for the user. But some web-sites have a similar effect which is dependent on the mouse hovering over the "trigger".).

With strategies for conveying information like Tooltips it is possible to meet the same information communication and information processing goals which were formerly achieved through footnotes. For Web-based information, which is intended to be consumed through a web medium Wiki-pop makes a lot of sense. However, if the goal is a good print out of content then footnotes are still needed, that is why I am using footnotes on this particular web presentationA solution which does both, tooltips or solutions like Wikipop, and footnotes when the content is printed, would be ideal. .

So here is a quick post on how I am doing it.
I am using two different "endnotes" plugins. One for the Bibliography section and the other for the Notes section.

Creating the Footnotes section:
To create the notes section I have elected to use a plugin called FootnotesEven though there are other options for Footnote Plugins. One other option I know about is FD-Footnotes. by Rob Miller. (Big surprise on the name of the plugin...) Footnotes allows for me to put what I want to show up as footnotes in <ref>something</ref>In order to get these tags to display inside of <code> and </code> tags I had to use HTML codes for the greater than sign, less than sign and slash. There is some additional good information about character encoding in HTML on Wikipedia. tags.
Additionally I can set a tag <reference /> anywhere in the post and produce a list of footnotes.

Creating the Bibliography:
To create the Bibliography Section I am using WP-Footnotes (in the WP plugins repository) by Simon Elvery. More information can be read about his plugin here. What this plugin allows me to do is to craft the citation of the item I want to cite. I have to figure out how I want to "code" the citation and then present the citation.

[1]Hand Code the contents of the citation as it is to appear in the bibliography here, between a set of double parentheses.
Do not forget a space after the citation text and the double closing parentheses.

This will produce a citation marker (a number) as a super script inline with the text. Like this [2]Nikolaus P. Himmelmann. 1998. Documentary and Descriptive Linguistics. Linguistics vol. 36:161-195. [PDF] [Accessed 24 Dec. 2010] :
And that will produce a citation in the bibliography section like the following:

Nikolaus P. Himmelmann. 1998. Documentary and Descriptive Linguistics. Linguistics vol. 36:161-195. [PDF] [Accessed 24 Dec. 2010]

One interesting thing that occurs on the admin side of WordPress is that the plugin WP-Footnotes has an options page which shows up in the Settings menu, however what is interesting is that in that in the menu it is called Footnotes, not WP-Footnotes.
The options for WP-Footnotes really make it flexible, it is these setting which have allowed me to rename the section from Notes to Bibliography.

WP-Footnote Options

WP-Footnote Options

Final solution?
Is this my final solution? No. One thing I really don't like is that the bibliography is not orderd in alphabetical order of the last names, and then in order of the year of publication. Rather, citations are ordered in the order of appearance (as footnotes generally are). The plugin does not have any options for changing the order that thing appear in (though the headings on the ordered list can be changed). There is also no way to structure the data in the bibliography for reuse (even if it is just within this site), so each use of each citation must be hand-crafted with love. There are some other solutions which I am looking at integrating with this one but have not had time to really explore. One options is to integrate with Mendeley and aggregate bibliography data from a Mendeley collection. Another option is to create bibliographies as bibtex files and then use those to display the bibliography.

References

References
↑1 Hand Code the contents of the citation as it is to appear in the bibliography here, between a set of double parentheses.
↑2 Nikolaus P. Himmelmann. 1998. Documentary and Descriptive Linguistics. Linguistics vol. 36:161-195. [PDF] [Accessed 24 Dec. 2010]