One of the great things about reading research papers online these
days is you don't have to worry about getting the physical copy. It
doesn't waste paper by downloading a research report, and it is quite
inexpensive to do so, and therefore it is a brilliant way for humanity
to share information in the scientific endeavor. Still, time is of the
essence and with more data and research material to go through it takes
time, and time is critical as we have many challenges to solve in our
society and civilization, that is if humanity is to succeed long-term.
Okay
so let's talk about something that's been irking me with regard to
online research papers. One thing I find fascinating is all of the fluff
put into research papers, thesis, and dissertations. I am speaking
about things like me acknowledgment section, where the preparer spends a
good 1 1/2 to 2 pages thanking everyone under the sun, their academic
institution, and everyone else.
Whereas it may help increase the
validity of their work, pretending to stand on the shoulders of
semi-giants, I also believe that these acknowledgment sections in
research papers belong in the very back after all of the bibliography,
references, and research data. I'm talking about the very last page of
the research paper. Why you ask?
Because science is not supposed
to be an endeavor of self-aggrandizement, or promoting oneself or one's
academic friends, it is about the research, not about the people. It is
about the validity of the observations and findings. Further, because
time is money, and time is wasted in reading all the acknowledgments,
and because it takes a long time to scroll down the page, these things
do not belong in the front of the research papers. It is aggravating to
have to skip down 10 pages of nonsense, such as a notation that; "this
page left intentionally blank" for instance, just to get to what you are
looking for.
Perhaps we should also realize that our society is
changing, people have less patience, and they want their information in
140 characters or less. When we search things online, we want the
information now, we want it to be free, and we want exactly what we're
looking for. We need better search algorithms to give us that
information, but we also need researchers and those that prepare the
information to realize these facts. No one has time to listen to all
that dribble, all that puffery, and all that ass-kissing.
Research Papers
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