Large space before footnotes in MS Word 2010: Quick Fix

Formatting and Style problems are the one of the most time consuming aspects of thesis writing. Finding solutions to problems seems to take forever. Here is another problem that took me ages to sort out. I am using Word 2010, the solution is slightly different in other versions.

The problem is large spaces at the end of pages which are not cured by adjusting Paragraph settings. The problem proved to be associated with Footnote formatting. But finding out how to make the adjustment would try the patience of a saint.

The problem looks like this...

Check out this link for a solution on the Jess Writes Words blog...

LINK

Finishing the P.h.D. - Restructuring

Pat Thompson in her latest blog post hit the nail on the head. I quote:

You’ve done your thesis plan. You’ve written for weeks. And weeks. But now, despite your very best planning,  you find yourself at a point where that carefully thought out thesis road map no longer seems to work. This apparent catastrophe may happen before the first draft of the thesis is finished, it may be at the end of a second or third draft.

This is exactly where I am at, 3 years in 2 months to go to the deadline for my hand-in and here I am shuffling 50+K words. Mine is a practice-based thesis, 60:40 words: practice, hence the word count.

Pats' post came at just the right moment, providing much needed reassurance that I was doing the right thing.

I have joked for some time that I had all the right words, they were just not necessarily in the right order; to misquote UK comedian Eric Morecambe.

Source link

Improve Your Writing

Check out Bristol Universities excellent Improve Your Writing web pages...

Source http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/exercises/grammar/grammar_tutorial/index.htm

Poem: Fragments of Memory with Video

Fragments of Memory

Standing still
A special day
The place I know
The path beside the house
The coal shed
The house next door
Me, my face, my hands
My legs, my shoes
My book My cap
The gabardine raincoat
Keeps me warm and dry
Me ready for school
The path, the bricks along the edge
The shadows
Heavy on the wall
Me, my dad, together
I remember the place
But not the day


An element from my PhD Thesis Exhibition of Studio Practice

Grammarly | Instant Grammar Check - Update #2

UPDATE #2 I previously blogged a post about Grammarly - a Grammar Checker plug-in for Word, on 15 February 2015 when I mentioned that I had uninstalled this Grammar Checking app after personal bad experiences and poor reviews elsewhere. link

However, they seem to have updated the previous version and the Word plug-in is now FREE, it does not enjoy as many functions as the paid-for option. I used it to proof my Ph.D. Thesis, 60k words and it nearly made it to the end. There seems to be a limit on how many edits it will allow in the semi-automated mode. I finished the job of manually but I suppose it did about 50K words before that happened. I have not looked into the issue at this stage because I don't have the time. But it did pick up some interesting stuff but it is slightly more dyslexic in some areas than I am. But that was OK because it was consistent and I just ignored the suggestions. Would I pay for it? No, I don't think so but if you can cope with the minor limitations of the free version I would suggest it is worth a try. There is also a free plug-in for Chrome which I am trying.
If you want to check out the reviews I suggest you Google them, there are too many to list here.

The Croods - The Invention of the Snapshot

From the animated movie The Croods a family drama set in the Stone Age, a parody of Plato's Cave. After their cave is destroyed, the stone age family must trek through an unfamiliar fantastical world with the help of an inventive boy Grug. Here we see his efforts at inventing snapshot photography.

The Croods tells the story of the world's first family road trip. When their cave is destroyed, the Crood family must embark on a comedy adventure into strange and spectacular territory in search of a new home. As if patriarch Grug (Cage) didn't already have enough to handle, it goes from bad to worse when they encounter an imaginative nomad named Guy (Reynolds.) With Guy's help the Croods conquer their fear of the outside world and discover that they have exactly what it takes to survive - each other.(c) 

The first snapshot photograph

Rhizome

Published on 30 Oct 2014
Video 1 in the Three Minute Theory series presents a primer on Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's concept of "the rhizome."

Like what you see? Like us on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1NIp896

Video Written & Created by: Stacey Kerr, Erin Adams, & Beth Pittard

Music from: Dustin Brian Kennedy https://soundcloud.com/dustinbrianken...

WHY IS ACADEMIC WRITING SO ACADEMIC?

Re-post of an article by Joshua Rothman in the The New Yorker

A few years ago, when I was a graduate student in English, I presented a paper at my department’s American Literature Colloquium. (A colloquium is a sort of writing workshop for graduate students.) The essay was about Thomas Kuhn, the historian of science. Kuhn had coined the term “paradigm shift,” and I described how this phrase had been used and abused, much to Kuhn’s dismay, by postmodern insurrectionists and nonsensical self-help gurus. People seemed to like the essay, but they were also uneasy about it. “I don’t think you’ll be able to publish this in an academic journal,” someone said. He thought it was more like something you’d read in a magazine.

Was that a compliment, a dismissal, or both?

More...

The Needless Complexity of Academic Writing

A new movement strives for simplicity.

Re-post of an article in The Atlantic by Victoria Clayton

The idea that writing should be clear, concise, and low-jargon isn’t a new one—and it isn’t limited to government agencies, of course. The problem of needlessly complex writing—sometimes referred to as an “opaque writing style”—has been explored in fields ranging from law to science. Yet in academia, unwieldy writing has become something of a protected tradition. Take this example:

The work of the text is to literalize the signifiers of the first encounter, dismantling the ideal as an idol. In this literalization, the idolatrous deception of the first moment becomes readable. The ideal will reveal itself to be an idol. Step by step, the ideal is pursued by a devouring doppelganger, tearing apart all transcendence. This de-idealization follows the path of reification, or, to invoke Augustine, the path of carnalization of the spiritual. Rhetorically, this is effected through literalization. A Sentimental Education does little more than elaborate the progressive literalization of the Annunciation.

More...

Passive Resistance

The active voice isn’t always the best choice.

Re-post of an article in The Atlantic by Steven Pinker

The passive voice has long been dismissed as a hallmark of turgid prose. “Many a tame sentence,” wrote Strunk and White in The Elements of Style, “can be made lively and emphatic by substituting a transitive in the active voice for some such perfunctory expression as there is, or could be heard.” George Orwell, in “Politics and the English Language,” agreed: among the “tricks by means of which the work of prose construction is habitually dodged” is that “the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active.”

More... 

21st July 2016

Practice as Research - Literature

• Visualizing Research: A Guide To The Research Process In Art And Design

• Authors - Carole Gray, Julian Malins
• Publisher - Ashgate Pub Ltd
• ISBN - 9780754635772
• Date - December 31, 2004

• Abstract
Visualizing Research guides postgraduate students in art and design through the development and implementation of a research project, using the metaphor of a 'journey of exploration'. For use with a formal programme of study, from masters to doctoral level, the book derives from the creative relationship between research, practice and teaching in art and design. It extends generic research processes into practice-based approaches more relevant to artists and designers, introducing wherever possible visual, interactive and collaborative methods. The Introduction and Chapter 1 'Planning the Journey' define the concept and value of 'practice-based' formal research, tracking the debate around its development and explaining key concepts and terminology. 'Mapping the Terrain' then describes methods of contextualizing research in art and design (the contextual review, using reference material); 'Locating Your Position' and 'Crossing the Terrain' guide the reader through the stages of identifying an appropriate research question and methodological approach, writing the proposal and managing research information. Methods of evaluation and analysis are explored, and finally strategies for reporting and communicating research findings are suggested. Appendices and a glossary are also included. Visualizing Research draws on the experience of researchers in different contexts and includes case studies of real projects. Although written primarily for postgraduate students, research supervisors, managers and academic staff in art and design and related areas, such as architecture and media studies, will find this a valuable research reference. An accompanying website www.visualizingresearch.info includes multimedia and other resources that complement the book.

PDF Link 

ARTFUL LEARNING® stimulates and deepens academic learning through the arts

Link: https://leonardbernstein.com/artful-learning



Artful Learning is a transformational learning model that empowers educators to use the arts and the artistic process to awaken and sustain the love of learning for all students. Based on over twenty years of intensive collaboration and refinement, field research and implementation with leading educators, researchers and practitioners of the model, the Artful Learning Sequence and Model is a framework that educators can use to revitalize their curriculum and their teaching practice.

Grounded in the artistic process, this extensive, research-proven professional development program gives educators the tools to apply the Artful Learning methodology over a three-year implementation process, ultimately building a sustainable, thriving learning community.

Initiated by American music icon Leonard Bernstein and realized by thousands of people around the nation, Artful Learning is changing the landscape of teaching and learning. Bernstein's vision was to use music and the other visual and performing arts as a means of instilling a lifelong love of learning in students. Artful Learning embeds the arts within the learning process through a carefully researched, concept-based, interdisciplinary model that has proven to increase comprehension in students as well as improve academic achievement.

https://vimeo.com/196328075

The Artful Learning Model (narrated by Alexander Bernstein) from The Leonard Bernstein Office on Vimeo.