In addition to your example of a focused learner motivated by a desire to know scientifically about the world, I admire your capacity to break down disciplinary walls despite the challenge of absence of prior knowledge. The fact that you don’t stop with the text but continue deeper to explore citations over time will build interconnected reservoirs of active knowledge to support ever increasing levels of comprehension across areas of science. You’ll also find yourself improving critical thinking and making creative connections that will lend you the aura of a magician. Finally, I LOVE that you read science with the same emotion others read literature. I have a similar tendency. You and Suzi share a strong intelligence and intense drive to understand reality mirroring the deepest goals of teachers. Plus it is just plain fun to read both of you. If I were still teaching EDU 250, Research Methods, I would assign this post to my students, Riccardo. In the middle of it all, you discuss every important facet of reading a study—the payoff is the discussion at the end with pointers to future research and then scouring the reference list. 👏
Terry, I'll be honest with you, these are some of the nicest words I've ever been told about what I do. For me, hearing them from a person who has always done research and taught, among other things who has dealt with Research Methodology, is truly something that fills me with pride and enthusiasm. I truly hope to reciprocate in every future issue all the attention you have dedicated in reading my issue and writing what you have written. I always try to feed my curiosity and you have really understood one of my characteristic traits: I am excited when I read papers and discover new things like many people when they read literature. For example, as many of my friends know, especially when they have to give me a gift, I never read novels, only non-fiction. Seeing that it's a trait shared with you makes me feel even more enthusiastic. Thank you truly and sincerely for your words. I hope to receive many more comments with opinions and constructive criticisms from you in my next issues, and to repay this attention.
Curiosity is a wonderful thing! And reading about what sparks yours was a nice change up. As you mentioned, it's probably not practical to spend every moment of the day with child-like wonder, but I like the idea of spending at least some of the day with the wonder and curiosity of a child. The world really is full of wonderful things to explore.
Thank you Suzi for what you said and what you write in each issue, it's really inspiring to me. In my opinion, stimulating curiosity, even in a few dedicated moments a week, can help not only from a personal but also professional point of view.
I really applaud your enthusiastic attitude toward reading papers. Having also been through grad school, I have spent hundreds of hours reading papers. I however, have a slightly different attitude. I love the knowledge sharing and careful attention put to solving a super interesting problem.
But my problem with scientific papers is that they are almost painful to read! They are written to be complex, full of jargon, and often require extensive a priori knowledge of a subject to even manage through a paper. Then the writing is so dense and difficult it feels like a chore.
That is exactly my motivation for why I write my newsletter. I love scientific studies and new findings, and know others do too! But it’s hard to get that information to people when the journal articles are so difficult to read!
Jacob thank you so much for your comment, I sincerely appreciate it. I understand your point exactly, especially for those who are not used to reading them consistently, reading a paper can be really difficult, and turn people away from the really interesting discoveries and results at first glance. For this reason, as I specified - and as you have rightly reiterated - the topic of science communication in engaging ways is very important, and the fact that you have reiterated it and commit yourself daily to this is a great thing. Thank you!
Fancy meeting a fellow scientist writing about...papers!
I love that you are enthusiastic about the science that you read and that you love to share that with the world! Maybe we can connect over papers that we are both interested in??
Hi! Absolutely!! First of all, thanks for calling me 'fellow scientist' (I'm still a nerd, but I'll take that as a 'callsign' regarding the newsletter!)!. Of course, among other things I saw that you write about games used in science and it's a topic that I'm super sensitive to and that I've always been passionate about reading about. Expect a paper in chat!
In addition to your example of a focused learner motivated by a desire to know scientifically about the world, I admire your capacity to break down disciplinary walls despite the challenge of absence of prior knowledge. The fact that you don’t stop with the text but continue deeper to explore citations over time will build interconnected reservoirs of active knowledge to support ever increasing levels of comprehension across areas of science. You’ll also find yourself improving critical thinking and making creative connections that will lend you the aura of a magician. Finally, I LOVE that you read science with the same emotion others read literature. I have a similar tendency. You and Suzi share a strong intelligence and intense drive to understand reality mirroring the deepest goals of teachers. Plus it is just plain fun to read both of you. If I were still teaching EDU 250, Research Methods, I would assign this post to my students, Riccardo. In the middle of it all, you discuss every important facet of reading a study—the payoff is the discussion at the end with pointers to future research and then scouring the reference list. 👏
Terry, I'll be honest with you, these are some of the nicest words I've ever been told about what I do. For me, hearing them from a person who has always done research and taught, among other things who has dealt with Research Methodology, is truly something that fills me with pride and enthusiasm. I truly hope to reciprocate in every future issue all the attention you have dedicated in reading my issue and writing what you have written. I always try to feed my curiosity and you have really understood one of my characteristic traits: I am excited when I read papers and discover new things like many people when they read literature. For example, as many of my friends know, especially when they have to give me a gift, I never read novels, only non-fiction. Seeing that it's a trait shared with you makes me feel even more enthusiastic. Thank you truly and sincerely for your words. I hope to receive many more comments with opinions and constructive criticisms from you in my next issues, and to repay this attention.
Thanks so much for the shout out, Riccardo!
Curiosity is a wonderful thing! And reading about what sparks yours was a nice change up. As you mentioned, it's probably not practical to spend every moment of the day with child-like wonder, but I like the idea of spending at least some of the day with the wonder and curiosity of a child. The world really is full of wonderful things to explore.
Thank you Suzi for what you said and what you write in each issue, it's really inspiring to me. In my opinion, stimulating curiosity, even in a few dedicated moments a week, can help not only from a personal but also professional point of view.
I really applaud your enthusiastic attitude toward reading papers. Having also been through grad school, I have spent hundreds of hours reading papers. I however, have a slightly different attitude. I love the knowledge sharing and careful attention put to solving a super interesting problem.
But my problem with scientific papers is that they are almost painful to read! They are written to be complex, full of jargon, and often require extensive a priori knowledge of a subject to even manage through a paper. Then the writing is so dense and difficult it feels like a chore.
That is exactly my motivation for why I write my newsletter. I love scientific studies and new findings, and know others do too! But it’s hard to get that information to people when the journal articles are so difficult to read!
Jacob thank you so much for your comment, I sincerely appreciate it. I understand your point exactly, especially for those who are not used to reading them consistently, reading a paper can be really difficult, and turn people away from the really interesting discoveries and results at first glance. For this reason, as I specified - and as you have rightly reiterated - the topic of science communication in engaging ways is very important, and the fact that you have reiterated it and commit yourself daily to this is a great thing. Thank you!
Fancy meeting a fellow scientist writing about...papers!
I love that you are enthusiastic about the science that you read and that you love to share that with the world! Maybe we can connect over papers that we are both interested in??
Hi! Absolutely!! First of all, thanks for calling me 'fellow scientist' (I'm still a nerd, but I'll take that as a 'callsign' regarding the newsletter!)!. Of course, among other things I saw that you write about games used in science and it's a topic that I'm super sensitive to and that I've always been passionate about reading about. Expect a paper in chat!
Nick, Suzi, and Katie are all awesome writers. Thank you for helping me also discover Christopher 🙂
Thank you Karen! I’m really glad to share valuable newsletters of great authors like Christopher.