Thing 10: Communicating complex ideas

I recognised much in the podcast for Thing 10.  I am married to a science journalist whose work is precisely about communicating research in field X to workers in field Y.  The part of my own life where I come closest to using such things is as an activist with Global Justice Now, often gathering signatures for petitions.

Yes, I know an activist isn't a researcher.

Glad to see the importance the podcast attaches to questions from the person one is communicating with.  I had once to write a piece about a part of the Haddon Library's collection with which I am not very familiar.  If you have experienced the symptoms of imposter syndrome at any time, you will have some idea how that felt.  I described the pain of this in a phone conversation with my brother.  He was most interested in the story of the collection, and plied me with questions.  When I'd answered several of these, he said: "Write down what you've told me, Aidan, and you've got your article."

It worked.  I have good sibs.

Another thing the podcast mentions is the elevator pitch.  An opportunity to practise that came recently, when a writers' group to which I belong solicited 50-word gobbets of individual news from members.  What do you think of mine?

Thing 9: Alternative online communities for research

In their 23researchthings post this time, Georgina looks at Reddit, Wikipedia and GitHub.  I'd better leave GitHub out of the reckoning, as it is for sharing code, and I am not a coder.

Wikipedia I use every day, in the way Georgina and the other 23researchthings participants describe.  My experience as a Wikipedia editor is very slight, and dates from 2008, but it did happen.  I made some small modifications to the entry for the village in which I grew up, and described the experience in a poem. I can think of no instances since then where the urge to correct a Wikipedia entry has been so strong for me as to force such a use of time.  However, the ancillary parts of the entries -- the references, and the 'Talk', 'Contributions', and 'View history' links -- are of obvious use to research.

I don't think I'd looked Reddit before tackling this Thing.  I have now joined it, and posted my first question there.  The site is indeed very clunky, and I didn't like the fact that new members are not only expected to join subreddits (roughly equivalent to Twitter's lists), but even have a number of these subreddits assigned to them on arrival.

A couple of hours after posting, my question has drawn no attention.  Let me admit, however, that a shortened version of it has similarly drawn nothing on Twitter.  Present company will probably have seen me air the question before, in my coursework for Thing 5, and are statistically unlikely to have now the answers they didn't have then.

It may be that Reddit, like Twitter, will reveal its merits to me after a few months of inactive membership. Meanwhile, I can see the point of it, and may suggest it to others who don't mind a bit of untidiness when asking oddball questions.

Thing 8: Academia.edu & Researchgate

I use Academia.edu much as I use LinkedIn -- a means of tracking down library users whose contact details are fading from Cambridge University's corporate memory.  Both sites fulfil that purpose with far less distraction than Facebook; Academia.edu with perhaps the less distraction of the two, and I have the impression, not confirmed by a rigorous counting exercise, that many of the academics I've found there have not posted on the site for some years.

I have joined Researchgate on account of Kirsten's mention of its facility to request copies.  That might be useful, to Haddon Library users if not to me personally.  I may, in time, come to use Researchgate also for tracking people down, though its smaller membership makes that less likely.

Thing 7: LinkedIn

I have been a member of LinkedIn probably since 2011.  Following the 2010 23things, I blogged that I'd seen no reason to join the site.  I now have 169 connections, but I suspect I will never view this site with the same enthusiasm as Twitter.

For me, the best use of LinkedIn, as of Academia.edu, is for tracking people down and making contact with them -- a boon when acknowledging gifts to the Haddon Library from people who aren't based in Cambridge, or, conversely, seeking to levy fines from people who've left.

Following the promptings from 23 Research Things, I have polished up my LinkedIn profile, adding information mainly about my volunteering with AgeUK; joined an Open Access group which didn't seem to have the expected Cambridge people in it; and turned the activity alerts off.

Not the keenest endorsement, I know.  But keeping a sober profile on LinkedIn will be useful in sobering situations.

Thing 6: Creating new content

The course blog post points us in the direction of Storify, Paper.li and Scoop.it .

Storify is one I have used already. I have made Storify collections for my musical, political and poetic interests, and indeed one on professional matters.  I have found Storify remarkably user-friendly.  It can't, of course, make amateur compilations look like the work of an experienced web designer, but it makes them presentable.  If I were more given to tweeting from work, I have no doubt that I would be Storifying from work as well.

Paper.li and Scoop.it I have experienced as a reader, and know them mainly by frustrations.  Paper.li has come my way via tweets that seemed interesting, but took an inordinate time to load.  Scoop.it has likewise come my way via tweets; the tweets flagged up interesting material, but that material seemed inaccessible to me because I didn't know how to close a tab on my mobile's browser, and indeed thought the browser could have no more than one tab open at a time.

However, writing this post has spurred me to find out how to manage the browser's tabs.  Thus the frustration was not a fault of Scoop.it.  And whilst I can't readily see myself finding a use for Scoop.it in any connection, I can say that exploring it has taught me something.