#but they don't know how to use boolean searching

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

i don’t know if it’s just me but almost every zoomer i know is nearly as tech illiterate as a boomer.

#like all they know is how to go to app stores and install apps and stuff #but if you ask them to do anything more complex than that they just stare at me wide-eyed #and they use youtube and tiktok like it's google #which i don't entirely blame them for because google search sucks now #but they don't know how to use boolean searching #and it's crazy to me because my zoomer sisters grew up on phones and laptops #they had them in school #they barely know how file systems work at the most basic level #every day i'm either helping my boomer parents or my zoomer sisters or their friends with something computer related #and again maybe my sisters and their friends are just dumb as fuck #but i feel like i've seen other people make these observations about zoomers as well

[ao3commentoftheday]

AO3 filtering for either of two (or more) tags

You might have noticed that when you include more than one item in your AO3 filters, the number of results drops drastically. When you include more than one item, you're telling the filter to find fics that have tag A as well as tag B, and the more items you include, the more things you're requiring a fic to have in order to show up in your results.

You're telling AO3 that you only want fics that have all of the things. You're not telling AO3 that you want fics that have any of the things.

This is because the filters use something called Boolean operators. The Boolean operators are: AND, OR, and NOT. You need to use caps for these terms in order for them to function as an operator and not just another word in a phrase.

AND (the one used by include filters) means you want both (or all) of the things

OR means you want any of them or any combination of them

NOT (the one used by exclude filters) means that you want none of them, either alone or in combination

So if Include = AND and Exclude = NOT, then how do you use OR? Use the Search Within Results box. It's near the bottom of the filter menu, right above where you can choose which language you want to read and below where you can choose word count range and completion status etc.

In this box, type the name of the first tag you're interested in, then the name of the second tag and put an OR in the middle. Keep adding OR in between them, and you can stack as many tags as you want - until you get to whatever the character limit is (character, in this case, meaning letter, number, or symbol).

If a tag is just one word, then your filter would look like this:

angst OR fluff

If a tag is more than one word, then your filter would look like this:

"no beta we die like men" OR "I wrote this instead of sleeping"

You need the quotation marks around multiple words to let the filter know that those words belong together, in that order

If you want to do an OR search for ships, it gets a bit more complicated because of the symbols used in ship tags. For ships, instead of using the name of the tag, it's better to use the tag ID number.

To find the tag ID, tap/click on the ship tag to go that tag's results page (I'm using Frodo/Sam in this example). On that results page, tap on the button labelled RSS feed. That will either open up a new page full of code or download a text file of code. Near the top of that code, you'll see something that looks like:

The tag ID number is the number that appears after /tags/

In this case, the tag ID number for Frodo/Sam is 13674. When I repeat the same process for Frodo & Sam, I get the tag ID number 716913. Then I just need to set up my OR statement and let it know that the tag number I'm providing is a relationship ID:

relationship_ids: 13674 OR relationship_ids:716913

Put that in the Search Within Results box, and I'll get fics with either one of those ships tagged, and I'll also get results with both ships tagged.

Oh! and if you don't know how to find the filters menu, just tap on any tag and then on the button labelled Filters. You won't see this menu on a search results page. However, you can use these same techniques in the search bar at the top of the page or in the Any Field box at the top of the Advanced search page.

#how to ao3 #ao3 #boolean operators #long post

[73ghosts]

I'm sure many of you are already aware of this, but in case I have any newer tumblr users, pet bill donation scams are very common on this site. If someone DMs or sends you an ask asking you to reblog some sort of donation post for a sick/injured pet, it is most likely a scam.

Below the cut, I have included tips to spotting a scam, and why I believe the post by 507-on-queue is a scam. @kyra45 runs an excellent tumblr scam awareness blog, and has more information and tips here about spotting pet scams. I have archived the scam post in question on my side blog here.

Here's some ways to spot these scams:

Age of the blog - most scam blogs are a week old or younger, they are often under a day old

Similar urls being used for multiple blogs - scam blogs are typically blocked/deleted rapidly, and the OP makes a new account with almost the same name

The blog bio/pfp are not unique

You can only access the dashboard view of the blog so the post archive cannot be accessed (for example, my dashboard view is this, but you can also visit my webpage view and see my 9 years of post history via /archive lol)

The blog has never interacted with you before

The blog follows you and immediately sends a DM/ask

The DM/ask is overly polite and guilt trips (they often ask you to reply privately to reduce digital footprint)

Images of pets can be found via reverse image search

OP's story is inconsistent or unrealistic

The Paypal link does not match the supposed country OP lives in

Most recently, a scam post has been going around about a sphynx cat named Draven. This has been done using multiple urls, including:

meer-lion (deactivated)

507-on-queue (deactivated)

507onqueue (deactivated)

507-onqueue (current as of Jan 13th, 2024)

Here's how this blog meets our scam watch criteria:

The current blog (507-onqueue) is less than a day old (19 hours at the time of this post). The oldest post:

As listed above, OP uses multiple, similar URLs.

The bio of 507-onqueue is taken almost directly from another user (said user). Due to the same bio being used in previous scams, I suspect this is the same or related person to kappa-tundra/kappatundra (about this scam).

Scam blog:

Copied blog:

Only dashboard view is available.

The blog follows and immediately DMs/sends and ask. From my account:

The ask from the account is very polite, guilt trips, and asks me to answer to the post privately. The goal of being so polite is to win your trust and lower your defenses. This isn't the worst guilt trip I've been in a scam (that goes to the child support scam from several years ago). By asking me to reply privately, they're attempting to reduce their digital footprint (making them harder to google) and disguise how much they are spamming asks.

The information in that post was taken from a private Facebook account (source). I found the Facebook account in question and confirmed that the information was taken from there. I do not want to share the page because I view that as a further violation of the Facebook OP's privacy. For transparency, the images of Draven are not on Facebook OP's page any longer, but there are several other identifiable pieces of information that make it more than likely that the claims of her information being stolen are true.

The ask is inconsistent itself with the name of the cat (Draven vs Indie). This is also nearly identical to another scam ask from user captbridges. This user was using a real GoFundMe for a sick cat to scam.

The medical paperwork in OP's post is for a veterinary hospital in Wisconsin. However, OP's PayPal is based in the Philippines. The country.x= part of the url indicate the country of origin of the account; PH is the Philippines. The local.x= part of the url shows that the link was localized to the United States (making the donation currency USD). (PayPal's information page about country codes).

Stay safe out there and remain vigilant, everyone. If you don't already know them, try to pick up some boolean operators to refine your google searches when checking for scams. The tumblr search function sucks, so this is your best bet of finding information about scams like these online.

#meer-lion #507-on-queue #507-onqueue #507onqueue #scam alert #scam #You all can feel free to reblog this if you want #I normally make posts like this when a scam comes my way #But I haven't actually seen one in a while lol

[morrak]

Untitled Wednesday Library Series, Part 134

Last week, I promised 'some real specific information science wonk', which I intend to deliver. Much of my work concerns systematic reviews, which are very popular in health sciences research. There are many reasons for that popularity: the modality is basically pretty good for informing evidence-based medical decision making; they're synthetic, so you don't even have to walk into a healthcare facility to write one; journals like publishing them; they look like low-hanging fruit if you haven't done one. Increasingly, that last point is actually true — there are heaps upon mounds of software vendors, working groups, funders, and libraries full of poorly adjusted yea-sayers (that's me!) sitting around waiting to help glue the things together.

Part of the review process is retrieving approximately every paper ever published about the intended topic. This is difficult in practice — citation databases are fussy things — so it's often prudent to re-use pieces of searches that've already been published. Predictably, there's a whole cottage industry of papers that consist only of pre-validated search strings for popular concepts. It's also difficult in theory — to quote today's feature, 'the ideal search strategy would show high recall and high precision, but there tends to be a trade off between the two, and the relationship typically takes the form of a sigmoid curve.' What's worse, making specific claims about recall outside the lab is several shades of impossible. The problem: those search-strategy-only papers have to prove their performance somehow. The solution, according to these authors? Don't, maybe. Try something easier; it'll probably work alright.

This is both open access and short, for whatever that's worth.

Sampson, M., Zhang, L., Morrison, A., Barrowman, N. J., Clifford, T. J., Platt, R. W., Klassen, T. P., & Moher, D. (2006). An alternative to the hand searching gold standard: validating methodological search filters using relative recall. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 6, 33. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2288-6-33

The How

Credit to a coworker much more seasoned in search validation than I for this one. Although the approach this outlines is common enough nowawadays, I don't know that I'd have gone looking for the paper without a recommendation.

The Text

The authors collect several foregoing examples of what they call relative recall, then call them that, then demonstrate the technique on search results generated by a familiar-in-these-circles (and pre-validated) Highly Sensitive Search Strategy (HSSS) and some custom variants. The gist is that relative recall performs very similarly to what they'd expect from normal recall, and that they suspect similar results should fall out of similar setups. This is a great relief to those of us who were nervous about the alternative.

One of the HSSS variants, which they call the Narrow Boolean Search Strategy (NBSS), represents a surprisingly distinct insight about potential applications. Pretty neat, huh?

The Object

Normally I'd omit this section entirely on grounds of excessive abstraction, but not this time. Two thoughts:

I don't think these tables are an ethical habitat for Gill Sans. Too much breating room, I think. The slightly inconsistent vertical allignment makes it look sick.

QUORUM flowchart, huh? I guess that was the style at the time — PRISMA didn't supercede it until 2009 — but I haven't actually had to look at it much. Absolutely Precambrian.

The Why, Though?

Mostly because I have several projects coming up that rely on both relative recall and NBSSs, but also because the book I was hoping to feature kinda stinks and I can't be bothered.

#images #untitled wednesday library series

[performing-personhood]

What things make your autism twitch in a bad way?

I'll go first

When I have a question and I simply cannot Google up the answer. Doesn't matter how I word my query or how I structure my boolean, there is no answer to be found on even multiple pages of the Google search.

I literally get so frustrated at not being able to answer a perfectly straightforward question that I'll meltdown if I don't walk away and distract myself for an extended period. (Learned the meltdown bit the hard way, of course.)

This week so far, the things I don't have an answer for are:

What is the product all these tiktok women are using to do the "peeling my face off" prank? It must be some kind of sfx latex but it goes on so light and smooth as to be undetectable and that is really impressive. I just wanna know what the product is?????

Did they use the take where David Holmes broke his neck in the final cut of the HP&The Deathly Hallows Pt1? ???????

#actually audhd #audhd #actually autistic #just neurodivergent things #asd #autistic community #autism spectrum #autistic things #autistic experiences

[my-deer-friend]

Good luck on your source-finding journey friend! I am so interested in the process of tracking down sources and documents, but I've never done it before. Can you explain your process or do you have any tips?

Hi anon! Thanks for the ask. This is not a research guide, just some pointers I've found useful (as someone trained in other forms of academic research who learned how to work with archives).

First things first – forget google. Google scholar is decent for tracking down secondary academic sources (though hardly comprehensive), but with a few notable exceptions, archive databases that hold primary source materials are not indexed on normal search engines. Instead, you need to spend some time finding the repositories where your sought-after documents are likely to be, and then running your searches inside those.

The one thing google is useful for is to see if someone has already gone to the trouble of formally publishing the documents you're looking for. You'll want to search for things like "papers of...", "correspondence of...", or "writings of...". If you get a result, see if you can find that book on google books, archive.org, or at your local library (definitely don't check on libgen, because downloading a free book would be bad and awful and terrible of you 🤫).

These collected editions are not always reliable (especially older ones, since there was a lot of gratuitous editing going on). So, to be rigorous, you still want to see if you can find the actual, original source.

The easiest starting point for tracking those down is to find a secondary source that has already done most of the work for you. A reliable book or academic article will cite its primary sources, which should include which archive or collection the author found the document in.

If you are immeasurably lucky, you will find that respoitory online, and it will have a fully-digitised collection their holdings, and a reliable, searchable index based on keywords and transcripts. In that case, just type in your search term and enjoy.

(Note: the search functionality on these sites is often very wonky. Always try several versions of your search term, and play around with the filters and boolean operators.)

But those sites are rare. If you're less (but still a little bit) lucky, you'll find an academic institution or research archive that has at least published a document called a finding aid. There should be one for each grouping of documents in their holdings (for example for one historical figure's papers, or for a specific bequest) which gives a summary of the contents and is used for on-site tracking of the physical items (these will have call or accession numbers, location of the documents, etc.). Finding aids vary immensely in quality and level of detail ("miscellaneous other papers" my behated).

If you do indeed find a record for something you want to look at (and it hasn't been digitised), you need to figure out the process for requesting the document. This varies hugely depending on the institution (with differing lead times, querying methods, fees, limitations, and ensuing publication/reproduction rights) and is virtually always explained somewhere on their website. Mostly, they'll ask you to complete a form, or to send an email following a template. Don't expect a quick reply, and don't expect digital copies to be free.

Of course, this all presumes that the instituton that holds your materials 1) has a website and 2) has actually put useful things on it. Sometimes, you just need to enquire. I followed up on a footnote I saw in a hundred-year-old book that gave the location of some letters, found the local town library that was mentioned and emailed them about it. (Yes, they had them, and the librarian I corresponded with was simply delightful and very eager to help.)

Be courteous and clear when you email these folks. They will almost always want to know your name, your contact details, a clear description of what you are looking for (the more detail the better), a summary of your research project, and whether you intend to publish the documents you are requesting – so save a few back-and-forth emails by providing that information upfront. They are very happy to answer requests from independent or hobby researchers, so don't let that hold you back.

The least helpful of all, in my experience, are holders of private collections. They simply don't have any incentive to take time out of their day to help you, and usually aren't trained librarians or archivists so they don't know what they have, or where it is, or how to give you access. (I tear up sometimes when I think of all the documents that are lying in some manor house attic, because someone forgot they were there or thought no one would be interested.) Sometimes they will respond (eventually) to an email query; often it's just a black hole.

I hope that helps! In all frankness, much of this is dull, repetitive work that all-too-frequently leads to dead ends (but it's so good when you succeed). Persistence and patience are key.

#feel free to ask follow-up questions #especially something more specific because this is a very broad topic #and i encourage the skilled research folks on here to add their own tips #historical research

[pancakeke]

I posted 11,378 times in 2022

3,910 posts created (34%)

7,468 posts reblogged (66%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@pancakeke

@pimientosdulces

@ryo-maybe

@gwynbleidd892

@hotvampireadjacent

I tagged 6,161 of my posts in 2022

Only 46% of my posts had no tags

#art by op - 4,814 posts

#disco elysium - 550 posts

#dorohedoro - 374 posts

#yakuza - 372 posts

#ryu ga gotoku - 350 posts

#golden kamuy - 337 posts

#jjba - 310 posts

#chainsaw man - 283 posts

#cat tag - 263 posts

#mp100 - 232 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#i looooove using this to filter users who are only ever on my dash because they post a deluge of popular tweets without ever sourcing anythi

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

SOOT PAWS SOOT PAWS MARNIE WENT IN THE FIREPLACE

70,927 notes - Posted May 2, 2022

#4

google doesnt give a shit what you're trying to search any more. it's like "I didnt bother using half of your search terms but here's pinterest and wikihow. enjoy"

edit: everyone who has yet to experience google straight up ignoring boolean operators who are smugly acting like I don't use them or even know what they are, can you please deactivate and stop clogging up my activity

at this time using verbatim search (option under the search bar within "tools" in the drop down that says "all results" by default) seems to be the fix to make it actually process queries correctly but let's see how long google maintains it as an option.

74,310 notes - Posted March 18, 2022

#3

finally a good update

83,460 notes - Posted February 15, 2022

#2

animators fuck me up. if you asked me to draw something it would take every ounce of my life to complete this task. if you then asked me to draw it again a little to the left I would die

90,867 notes - Posted April 4, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

112,970 notes - Posted February 12, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #how the fuck did my tag stats pan out like that #long post #also i deleted like 4 big posts so I think this is skewed

[lovings4turn]

is it just me who screenshots and/or copy pastes the conversation you replied to so i know what i'm replying to !? yeah, okay, just me. 🫣

first of all, from what it said, (this is from sunday or monday, no clue. don't ask me - time is a social construct!) you'd gotten an awful sleep schedule !! :(( but, i do hope it's better now !! and don't worry, i'm no longer as sick as i was that day !! the dutch weather still is crazy - it hit 11 degrees today (remember i told you 24 on saturday?! it's crazy!!), and i got so used to this, that i just carried my puffer on campus and once i got out, i still had it in my hand until i had to leave to come back home. i wanna go back to my island girl phase and be in higher 20s/30s please !! summer vacation, please come soon (less than 90 days, so slay!!)

my new period just started, and we're learning about - ahem - "health technological innovations + EU" while, i'm icked by the amount of law we'll be doing alongside, i'm hitting the T of STEM, so we love that!! i have hit, s, t, and m so far !! i don't think i'll be getting close to the E until maybe next year on erasmus ??? or master's !! 😭😭 but i'm so glad to hear that you're making progress (hopefully it's going well !! or else, i might have to bring out the whatchamacallits (also look! my computer recognised it, i swear, i got so surprised !!!)

oh my gosh, i so relate !! because, that paper started off about care for xyz disease comparing east/western europe !! it ended up turning into something msm, and i swear - it wasn't pretty. i kid you not, i had DREAMS of google scholar with the search bar full of "MSM" and other boolean operators and other disease names. i hated it, but i passed so we love.

ruhi ramble over for now !! sending you so much love and amazingness your way !! i love love loveeee sending you asks, - i think talking to you has become one thing i have to do on a daily basis or the day essentially hasn't happened yk ?? ANYWAY !! much love !!! 🫶

eeeesh, this is long. my bad (not really guilty, ehe 🤭)

OH you're so real !!!!😭 i sit with a screenshot pulled up right by it so i KNOW i can hit every single point i need to reply to - you aren't alone here sweetheart 😭

time doesn't exist to us !!! i say because i am a survivor of 'has no idea what day it is' disease ... luckily my sleep schedule is on the mend !!! (i did stay up til three last night to watch a silly little hockey game but the results were insane so i'd say it was worth it !!!) and i'm so so happy to hear you aren't as ill anymore !!! but that is Insane oh my god ??? that's so back and forth idk how you cope honestly love 😭😭 manifesting you get your higher temps back and can fully enter your island girl era once more !!!!!

whilst that sounds far beyond my intellectual level ,, that sounds so interesting !!! i'm praying for you for the amount of law you'll be hit with , but you're hitting the t of your woman in stem !!!! you can do it i know it !!!! collecting all of those letters like the icon you are <33

AHHH IT RECOGNISES THE WHATCHAMACALLITS !!!! THIS IS SUCH A WIN FOR US !!!!! i think i may have to heavily start romanticising studying to get through the last few days of slogging over the essays , but i am nothing if not determined !!!!

i am so proud of you for passing that firstly !!!! you're not just a kind soul - you're a genius too !!!! but oh my god that is INTENSE i don't know whether to be impressed or concerned for you lovely 😭😭 but it's over !!!! you did it !!!

i'm sending you all of my love too , ruhi , and once again i'm so thankful to have you in my inbox - it's always a pleasure and i love having you here !!! it truly is an honour :( hoping you're having the best day and night ,, and sending you love and joy and whimsy !!<3

#🕸️ ˚✧ ₊˚ʚ love letters

[history-student-struggles]

Encyclopedia Britannica Academic <3

Genuinely, I do not think people talk enough about how wonderful Encyclopedia Britannica Academic is. If you're in post-secondary there's a really high chance your institution gives you access.

First of all, look at this damn home page:

It's beautiful. Gorgeous. Such a lovely and intuitive way of including boolean operators into the advanced search function. Such streamlined filters-- you can even specify primary sources.

These are nutty:

Built in interactive atlas, a function to compare things like form of government and literacy rates in any two countries, links to other useful databases and a big ass set of lists for information on different countries. Genuinely super helpful when you're looking into a modern country you don't know much about.

And built in Merriam-Webster dictionary!!

Every time you highlight a single word it'll pop up a definition. I'll never have to leave to another tab to check the meaning of something ever again >:3

And you can change the font size!!!

If you're having trouble reading something or need more of the article in a screenshot this is super handy.

The best part is that it's an academic source, so you can have all these handy-dandy features and your professor will accept it as a source on an essay or project!

Sorry for the long first post, I just had to gush a bit :']

#academics #history #university #college #bachelorsdegree #britannica #encyclopedia #research #oooog im gonna bust #thats some good resources right there #resources

[taperwolf]

Fun With SIFAS Daily Theatre Statistics

Top 5 Idols in Episodes Mentioning Another Idol

Dia→Ruby (22 episodes)

Umi→Honoka (20 episodes)

Ruby→Dia (16 episodes)

Tie: Rin→Hanayo and Maki→Rin (14 episodes each)

Bonus — the top two idols in episodes mentioning other characters:

Ayumu→Her childhood friend (12 episodes)

Kanata→Haruka (7 episodes)

These figures are as of this writing, when the latest posted episode is the one for 20 October, 2022, "This Shouldn't Be Happening!"

I realize the phrasing here is a little awkward; an explanation and discussion follows the break.

So one of the big reasons I run the SIFAS Daily Theatre Database is so I can look at patterns in the content: to see which school idols spend the most time talking to each other and which ones mention each other the most. (Other reasons, of course, include making an archive of the episodes available somewhere besides Twitter and supporting easy searches of them, as well as to actually use my somewhat atrophied web dev skills for something I enjoy.)

To that end, there's a Stats page on the site with a number of charts. One has a grid of all the idols horizontally and all of them vertically, and the intersections show how many episodes that pair of idols share. Another does the same, but the intersection is of the number of times the idol on the left side of the chart is present in an episode in which someone — not necessarily she — mentions the idol at the top. That's followed by a second one that does the same, except the ones mentioned are not among the 30 main idols.

The way I've had to bend language around to describe the "mentions" charts brings up some of the obvious problems with their design. Some of those are just happenstance; the obvious description of the characters who aren't our main 30 idols is "non-idols", but Haruka is still an idol, after all. Other aspects are more my fault; the database stores data about the episodes by having an indexed record that includes the date, the image's filename, and a long list of booleans with names like has_honoka and mentions_dia. By setting it up like this, an idol being included or brought up in the conversation is dead simple to search for. Heck, there isn't presently a way to do it from the website, but you could easily construct compound searches like "all the episodes containing Honoka, Kotori, or Umi and mentioning one of them".

But the point is there isn't a way to encode that it was specifically Umi who mentioned Honoka on 10/10/2022, so if what you actually want is all the times that Umi talks about Honoka, and you don't want episodes where, theoretically, she's talking to someone else who mentions Honoka in passing, you can't quite do that. If that's what you're really looking for, you may get false positives. That's less likely for Umi and Honoka, admittedly.

But if you wanted to see if Kasumi ever talks about Ruby, you'll quickly see that there are four episodes that have Kasumi and mention Ruby. But don't get too excited about the inter-school shipping possibilities yet — three of those are in episodes that also include Dia, and the fourth is about Kasumi and Ayumu at a CYaRon performance. Great romantic vistas, sadly, do not open up from this.

Even the straightforward "these two idols share how many episodes" chart has some hidden pitfalls. For example, there are a number of episodes where more than two idols are present. A lot of those are the special event episodes where every member of one of the units is there; Nijigasaki has more of these than the other schools, since the game is kind of their home turf, so that skews the figures somewhat. I'm considering adding a chart with the same data but excluding those episodes with more than, say, five idols in, but I don't know if that actually addresses the problems fully.

All those caveats aside, I really do get a kick out of these things, and I hope someone else finds this mildly interesting as well.

#love live #sifas #sifas daily theatre #sifas daily theatre database #dia kurosawa #ruby kurosawa #umi sonoda #honoka kousaka #rin hoshizora #hanayo koizumi #ayumu uehara #kanata konoe #haruka konoe

[dearwriters]

How does research even work?

As you all know, one of the mantras I repeat all the time on this blog is: "Do your research!". To which some may respond with: But how?

Well, buckle up, friends! Because I tutor first semester students at my university to teach them about academic research and writing research works pretty much the same (at least for me). So here are some basic steps to take while researching:

I. Determine your prior knowledge and its gaps

Let's do a brainstorming session: What do you already know about this topic? Take it all down in your writing tool of choice. Flashcards, notebook, digital document, whatever you work well with. Organize your thoughts in a way that makes sense to you. A mindmap, columns, bullet points...

Furthermore, think about what you don't know and try to formulate specific questions. Those will help you later with your research.

II. Determine where to look for knowledge

There are several types of literature to get into: articles, monographs, anthologies... You can find access to those via your local and/or university library (if you go to uni), online archives, academic databases including google scholar, etc. Look for trustworthy, peer reviewed, established sources (especially online). You should also prioritize own voices sources when it comes to writing about a specific community or identity.

Tip: Wikipedia is not a source, but a great starting point, since it often features a bibliography with great sources.

I shall not give you specific archives/websites to use in this post, because access varies widely depending on your location and the languages you speak.

III. How to look for knowledge

Let's go back to the notes you took at the beginning: Look for keywords that relate to your topic and help you in answering your questions. Look for synonyms, hyperonyms and hyponyms to use individually and/or combined in your database.

Whenever possible use Boolean operators. Those are used in most databases to establish logical relations between your search terms, such as AND, OR and NOT.

AND: Both terms have to be present in all results

OR: either one or the other term has to be present in all results

NOT: exclude this term from the results

Usually, typing in two terms in one search field automatically constitutes an AND.

Look at the bibliographies of your results to find even more helpfull sources but be aware not to snowball into oblivion by doing this.

Good research is determined by a variety of databases, sources and keywords. Although quality is always better than quantity.

IV. Evaluate the results

Look at your results to assess and sort them by relevance to your search. You can do this by taking your list of keywords and seeing how prominent they are featured in the results. Are they in the title, in the abstract, in the table of contents? Do they seem to be very relevant in the topic of the source or are they just mentioned in a half-sentence?

How accessible is the source for you? Can you easily read it online, can you borrow it from the library, is it behind a paywall, do you have to buy it from some obscure seller? The less accessible it is, the more you have to evaluate the importance of the source. Do you really need it or can you get the information elsewhere?

Is there prominent criticism of the source, by peers, by the community it talks about (if you are doing research about a specific community or identity that is) or by yourself? Does this criticism render this source untrustworthy? How recent is the source? Is it old research, maybe even obsolete or harmfull?

Good research is determined by the critical evaluation and comparison of sources.

V. Time to read, read, read

Yes, it's at this point you actually start to read! And read. And read. And read some more. Like at the researching stage, be carefull not to snowball into the abyss while reading. Determine how relevant the topic you research is for your writing (e.g. you don't have to spend weeks researching penguins because you have a scene at the zoo) and spend time accordingly.

How you take notes and organize your research is up to you, everyone works differntly here. I, for example, do excel spreadsheets and write down WAY too much detail. Try and see what works for you.

While reading, always keep in mind to think critically, compare, cross-reference and evaluate.

Have fun researching!

#dearwriters #research advice #writing advice #writing help #writblr #novel writing #character creation

[theredconversegirl]

Hi! How do you find all these fics?? Because I've read some of the descriptions people have sent in to you and a fic pops into my head but then usually I'm wrong and/or don't remember the name. How do you do it? Truly a hero

Hi nonny,

Thank you! 💕

Hahah, I'm not really sure myself 😅 but I think it's probably a combination of things I do. I'm apologizing in advance for the boring and long description ahead. 🙏

Many times, I won't remember the name of the fics either. Sometimes, I remember the author's name or something close enough to the name and title and go from there.

However, it's easier for me to remember scenes and things that happened in the story. When that happens, I can also remember other things like when I read it or what I was doing/watching/eating while I read that specific fic.

At first, that information seems useless, but these details help me narrow down the month I read the fic (roughly) and then I just need to check the fics within that date range in my fave lists on Fanficton.net and Ao3 (combined: 1.2k+ fics 😵).

If I can't remember many details but I know I read that story, the first thing I do is to check my fave lists and open the fanfics, one by one, or use Ctrl + F and keywords to find hints from summaries and titles.

When nothing comes to mind right away, the premise being familiar or not, I just go to Google and use a bunch of keywords based on the information I have. Boolean search has been my friend through all my searches, helping me narrow down the results. From there, I still need to confirm if I found the right fic though (read/skim/etc).

My last resort, when I can't find the fic or my results are not matching the description, is to ask around (sometimes a couple SasuSaku mutuals help me remember something or find the actual fic 🤍) or ask you all for help. 😁

The process can take a lot of time, depending of how much I know or remember when I read the ask, but I have a lot of fun looking for fics. 🥰 I feel like I'm in this little treasure hunt game every time I look for a new fic or start a new list. 🕵️‍♀️

And it's also super rewarding to see everyone enjoying the fics I share and the new ones I find too! 😍

TL;DR: a combination of checking my fave lists on ffnet and ao3 and google searches depending of the information I have and what I remember.

Ok, I'm done now. Sorry again for the long reply and thank you for the kind words! 🦸‍♀️❤

I hope you have a nice week!

Stay Safe,

xoxo

#theredconversegirl answers things #how do I do it #boring long text #thank you nonny! #finding fics

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Wait bro I don't follow you but I just saw ur anon when I went through the tag and abdjdndifn there's loads of sh fans out here! Or like. At least 20 anyway. Enough for the discord server and that's plenty anon couldve used the tumblr search function to look up sh but okay

Ehhh, loads of people don’t know how to use Tumblr.  Speaking as one myself:

Anon, whether you have a tumblr account or not, you can go to tumblr.com/tagged/septimus-heap and pull up every Tumblr post tagged “Septimus Heap,” organized by timing (if you click “Recent”) or by popularity (if you click “Top”).  You can also to tumblr.com/search/septimus-heap which will be broader and pull up mentions of “Septimus Heap” in post text, blog titles, and longer tags that contain the phrase “Septimus Heap.”  Boolean operators are janky on here, but (if you’re logged into an account) putting “Septimus Heap + Marcia Overstrand” in the “Search Tumblr” box at the top will search for those phrases in combination.

That should give you access to the Tumblr fandom for Septimus Heap, of which I am admittedly not a member.

#septimus heap #asks #tumblr #navigation #literally twice a month i get someone going 'oh wait there's an animorphs fandom!?!?!?' in my inbox #so i am actually sympathetic to the people who found this blog or others like it by reddit or google or whatnot #and don't know how to navigate the hellsite enough to go any further

[pancakeke]

google doesnt give a shit what you're trying to search any more. it's like "I didnt bother using half of your search terms but here's pinterest and wikihow. enjoy"

edit: everyone who has yet to experience google straight up ignoring boolean operators who are smugly acting like I don't use them or even know what they are, can you please deactivate and stop clogging up my activity

at this time using verbatim search (option under the search bar within "tools" in the drop down that says "all results" by default) seems to be the fix to make it actually process queries correctly but let's see how long google maintains it as an option.