Eugh. I finished my masters last year. Kind of. I submitted, and it was accepted on condition of a few changes. It was a research and design project, concluded with a dissertation.

I like knowing things. I enjoy reading up and learning new things. I enjoy imparting this knowledge. I don’t enjoy referencing. There are a lot of tools designed to make referencing easy. I write in latex, and made use of a combination of JabRef and Mendeley to aid my referencing. And it helped.

My biggest problem is writing a couple paragraphs, going over it, realising one of my statements may need a reference, and then not finding a nice academic reference for what I wrote. I know what I wrote is correct (well think at least), but to try find a reference for what I said, is difficult. And time consuming. I’ll do searches in Mendeley for keywords, else I start poring through Google Scholar search results. And usually I’ll find something I can use. But my word is it time consuming.

But I guess this is what makes peer-reviewed journals (and referencing) so important. Cause it prevents someone just saying something, and ensures accountability. As much as a pain as it is.

Which I think is a bit why I enjoy writing. Non-scientific articles that is. Opinion pieces, reviews etc. I can just write whatever I want. I can make statements and am not required to reference. I can link for more info if I want, but I’m not required to.

In conclusion: blogs are great.