Part of my job as a TA for a social science course is turning complex scientific jargon into something understandable to new undergraduates. Academic speech might as well be a whole new language. For all that parsimony is valued in academic writing, journal article seem to enjoy using long words and complex language (like parsimony, those highfalutin bastards.)* So if I were to try to explain a theory I'd break it down into it's components while also giving examples of how it is applied. Perhaps one in ten of those students might become TAs themselves one day and then pass along theory to the next generation. Its like the Circle of Life with more stat tests and fewer giraffes.
But as is so often the case things get more muddled in the world outside the tower. How do you learn about the newest technologies? Who tells you what marketing tools are best? How, in short, do you become an authority when there's no academic journals to digest the information at you?
One of my goals for this blog is to educate myself about the field of work I'll soon be entering. One of my goals is also to NOT just rehash old news and AP bulletins. So I'm going to engage in a little qualitative research and ask the blogging and podcasting pros how THEY do it. Where do they get their news? How do they decide what to blog about? Interesting AND educational. So follow along and lets see where this takes us. And if anyone has suggested bloggers to ask feel free to leave a comment.
*It means brevity.
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