Blog Post 4: October 1

The article on periodicals from Oxford Music Online was very informative. While I did not know much of the information about the specific periodicals they mentioned, I did know most of the basic information about periodicals and how they work. I had a fair amount of exposure to periodicals whenever I would do research for papers during my undergrad in Colorado. I did chuckle a little when it mentioned that Wagner provided music copy for journals briefly during a "miserable" time.

I found both of the articles on peer review to be rather interesting. I have always grown up hearing that peer review should be conducted on a new article, so as a result I have never really considered the fact that this process may in fact be flawed. To be honest, after reading these articles I may now be convinced that this is a rather biased process that can inhibit productivity. I really liked that in "The promise of peer review" the author suggested that we take the recommendation for publication out of the review process and instead have reviewers highlight what is good and bad about a particular article. I think that this would be an excellent way to improve the peer review process. I would agree with both authors that the solution to this biased process is not to eliminate peer review all together, but to find ways to improve it for the future. The second article out of JSRM mentioned the same issue that at times recommending whether or not an article should be published can at times not even be relevant to the article itself. I loved that they also mentioned at times reviewers will feel that nothing can be published since they may have had an article rejected recently. This seems very immature but would be one of the many flaws of using peer review. Overall I think peer review is an excellent idea. We do the same type thing in studio class every week, one student performs and then the rest of the studio will give comments and "peer review" the performance. I think this can be a process that is beneficial for everyone involved, it just needs some tweaking in order to become less flawed.

Journal retractions have always fascinated me. While I think it is good for an article to be retracted if the data is unfounded, the information has already been published and some of the public may have fully subscribed to the article's statements. Much like the journal on the potential danger of vaccinations. Even though the original research has been found to be biased, many people still believe that these vaccines are unsafe really for no reason at all. I think this partially goes back to what was mentioned in the peer review articles about approval of publications being based on faith that the researcher is actually presenting the truth. While I would like to believe that everyone is always honest in their intentions, this is not always true. In this case the author was subject to serious financial gains if he could prove this point. At the end of "The MMR vaccine and autism: Sensation, Refutation, Retraction, and Fraud" the author points out that scientists have an ethical responsibility to represent only the facts in their findings and publications. Given that Wakefield did not do this, he put many people at risk of disease due to parents not having their children vaccinated. Part of the root of the peer review problem are examples like this where the data was taken on trust but turned out to be completely unfounded and false. I'm really glad that we have a system in place to pull unfounded and fraudulent articles, but I think it also proves why peer review needs to be taken so seriously. It may seem like a pain-staking process that prolongs the amount of time required to publish an article, but it can help things like this from happening in the future.

I found the article from the New York Times to be very shocking. That would be a lot of effort to go through in order to help get articles published. It makes me wonder how often this happens but goes undetected. This is further proof that the peer review system is flawed, but I still think that it can be worthwhile if done correctly. The most surprising thing to me in this article was at the end when they mentioned that academic institutions in other countries have a formula for promotions based entirely on the number of articles a professor has published, not necessarily based on how good they are. That seems totally backwards to me. I could write 30 articles by the end of the month. They may all suck, but I could still write 30 articles. I don't think at all that what I produce would be worthy of any kind of recognition.

It is really cool to see a blog based entirely on keeping track of retracted articles. One of the posts I found on there was entitled "Author of alcohol paper retracted for plagiarism defends copy-and-paste strategy." This was pretty fascinating because it had arguments from both the authors and the journal defending their stances. And spoiler alert, there are some pretty good reasons why the article was retracted. I'm really glad to know that sites like this exist. I have always wondered how people get word that a particular article or essay has been retracted and all of the news surrounding the issue.

Blog Post 3: September 17

Plagiarism is something I have known about for as long as I can remember. My father is a university professor and teaches all graduate courses, so I have heard all about the importance of quoting sources since the day I started being required to write papers for school. I have often heard stories of my dad catching students blatantly plagiarizing entire chapters of books or complete articles thinking that he would never catch them. I have also heard countless stories of international students copying works because that is what their culture dictated and they did not want to listen or change what they were doing. Due to my dad ensuring that I have always known these facts, I found much of what was covered in the chapter on "Style Manuals and Citations of Sources" to be fairly straight forward. To me it all seems like common sense, you should always give credit where credit is due. For this reason I try to be extra careful when citing references in any of my work. Unintentional plagiarism is always my biggest fear. When I was working on my undergrad at the University of Northern Colorado, we were required to submit all papers online through a system that would generate a plagiarism report. I don't know the exact program that was used but I imagine it is probably similar to Turnitin. I have friends that were caught plagiarizing via this program and there were always severe punishments. Thanks to my dad, I have also seen what happens when you plagiarize at the graduate level. While my friends may have received failing grades for courses, some of my dad's students have been kicked out of the graduate program entirely. That is definitely not something I want to have happen. This chapter was very good for reviewing what constitutes plagiarism and how to avoid it. With the availability of technology today it can be very easy to plagiarize almost anything. I do like however, that they point out that technology also makes it easier for professors to catch plagiarism in students work. Essentially, it is never worth plagiarizing a source, always cite it. I always take the approach that if it already exists somewhere, then a professor can find it, and they will call you out for plagiarism.

The IC plagiarism guide was also good for reviewing what needs to be cited and how to properly cite these things. All the examples seemed pretty easy to me. The part that I struggle with the most is citing a paraphrase of something. Sometimes it isn't very obvious that I have used another persons work to come up with a way to say something myself. As a result I typically read the original text and then my own work to make sure I have not copied anything. I also always cite something if I am in any doubt at all. I found the animations in the quiz a little comical, and sometimes distracting! Although with the animations it kind of felt like a real life test. I easily get distracted when writing so it was nice to have a couple distractions while trying to identify plagiarism.

I found what Kenneth Goldsmith had to say very interesting, and honestly I'm not really sure what I think of it. Given what I have heard from my dad for so long and what almost everyone in academia has to say, I would completely disagree with him. The fact that he demands his students to abandon all attempt at creativity is almost mind boggling. But he makes some incredibly valid points. It is widely accepted to use sampling today in music, whether pop or classical many composers do it. In hip hop, many artists will use the original recording from a piece of music, splice it into whatever beat they are creating and call it original. This is fairly similar to what Goldsmith is doing with poetry. He is taking parts of poetry from other authors works and splicing them together with everyday things like a traffic report to create a unique piece of poetry. I would have never thought of using a word for word transcription of a traffic report as plagiarism but that totally makes sense. I really like the reference he made to John Cage saying that music is all around us so long as we listen. I would have never thought that a traffic report was poetry but he is able to convincingly present it that way. I suppose that in a way his argument is valid, poetry is all around us, we just need to be able to see it. He states that there are plenty of things that people have published online waiting to be realized as poetry, so why create more? I would counter with saying that it is a great idea to realize the poetry in things that are already created, but we should never strive to cease creativity all together. In my opinion, once we completely deviate from creativity then we will almost entirely lose our personal identities. People will just be regurgitating information in nonsensical ways all of the time. This technique may be good for poetry, but I think it would be a terrible idea for it to translate to academia.

The excerpts from the book served as a good reminder of why we document sources. I do like that it points out that plagiarism is more of a moral and ethical issue than a legal one. Personally I don't ever want to be charged with stealing someone else's work. It was also good to review the proper citation methods for various sources. MLA is what I have been required to use in the past so I already feel fairly comfortable with it.

Blog Post 2: September 10

While reading the "Foreword" by Roger Angell, it was really nice to hear someone say that it is difficult to write even for professional writers. I have always found that inspiration for writing does not come easily. Often when I am writing it is perfectly described by the image Angell gives of E.B. White sitting down to type in his office. Either the words are few and far between, or I procrastinate until I am forced to just keep writing. The steps that he outlines for writing "Write in a way that comes naturally," "Revise and rewrite," "Do not explain too mush," and "Be clear" make it sound as if writing is so easy. I do agree though that the world we live in today does not help our writing very much. Most of us are now used to sending quick short emails, or even talking to people via text message which can be composed of just a few words. It is not very often that we have to sit down and write something formal. Our culture certainly does not help much in that aspect, but the 5 tips that he gives are excellent.

My first reaction when reading "Introduction" by E.B.White was that Professor Strunk would have a heart attack if he saw my writing. I ten to embellish my writing with unnecessary words and phrases. While Professor Strunk seems to be the very definition of grammar police, I think he is very right in his message. By cleansing the fluff out of our writing we can make our job as writers much easier. The writing will be a lot clearer and the purpose will be very evident. I do like the point that White makes at the end. He describes "the author's deep sympathy for the reader." I really like that he brings this up. I think if we keep the reader in mind while we write then there will be more solid content and less fluff in our writing. The reader should not have to hunt for the purpose of a writing, rather it should be obvious. Based on what White had to say, I think I could definitely learn a lot from Professor Strunk.

The first thing that struck me in the article by David Watt were the questions that he posed. The first questioned posed has to do with historians gossiping on the steps of a library. This made me realize that with the digitization of today's libraries people do not often bump into colleagues and students in libraries as often as before because they are likely searching resources from home. I am curious to know how many great scholars have run into each other in libraries in the past and as a result came up with groundbreaking theories and discoveries. Watt mentions later that when he was a student he would run into his professors in the library and as a result feel as if they were part of a common goal. I feel as if my professors and I are aiming for a common goal but often feel as if we are fighting it separately. When I was an undergrad it was always striking to me to run into the grad students in the library. They always seemed so much older and wiser, and yet we would be searching for the same recording or music. I would agree that this is a part of research that we miss out on today. The few occasions that I have run into faculty in the library has always been very fun. The other question that Watt posed that I can relate to is the one about skepticism, when the student asks if an author actually said something. It reminded me of something that I see passed around online from time to time. A quote by Abraham Lincoln "The problem with the internet is that you never know if it is actually true." This has always made me laugh, given that he obvious never said this at all. But at the same time I feel like I have to approach sources this way when researching. While there are always sources available on a topic, they may not always be the most accurate. I would agree with Watt that there are some problems with today's online libraries but at the same time it makes research far easier. I would love to see a day when all scholarly articles are available in one online database that any student can access. (Although I don't even want to begin to think how hard this would be to search.) Hopefully overtime we can find a balance between the positives and negatives of online libraries.

"How Streaming Media Could Threaten the Mission of Libraries" made a lot of excellent points that I had never considered. I am so used to buy CDs and record albums that I hadn't realized that some recordings are only released on digital media. If every company starts charging libraries the way that the LA Phil publishers wanted to charge the University of Washington's library then how will music libraries survive? As a musician I rely heavily on having access to numerous recordings of any one work. I understand that there are multiple outlets for finding these recordings, but the first place I always check is the University library. Surely companies have to realize that they need to find a way for libraries to have access to these resources at a reasonable cost. Licensing fees are good for when they are selling recordings to the general public but if all publishers are worried about is money then they might single handily kill music libraries in the future. I realize that I am likely preaching to the choir here but surely we can come up with a solution to this issue. We can only hope that publishers will realize the issue that they have created.

For my first bibliography I would like to focus on the early French school of saxophone performance and works written by Marcel Mule, and Jean-Marie Londeix. Mainly I will be focusing on the Paris Conservatory and how it established the saxophone as a legitimate classical instrument. Given that I play saxophone this is a very interesting topic to me. Marcel Mule began teaching at the Paris Conservatory in 1944 was the first saxophone professor at the Paris Conservatory after Adolphe Sax left in 1870. Jean-Marie Londeix studied with Marcel Mule at the Paris Conservatory and went on to become one of the leading performers on saxophone. Between the two hundreds of works have been commissioned for them for performance and each have produced numerous books and articles regarding saxophone performance. The IC library only has recordings of Marcel Mule but he published over a dozen books on saxophone performance. The library does, however, hold about 6 books by Jean-Marie Londeix on saxophone performance and literature. I will need to use ILL to obtain some of the necessary resources but there are definitely plenty to use.

Blog Post 1: September 3

The sequence of these three articles really helped my understanding of how to approach and read a scholarly article. In the past I have always found myself confused and easily distracted when it comes to trying to digest the information within a scholarly writing. I feel like after this exercise I am now more prepared to read scholarly articles in the future.

"It's Not Harry Potter" really made me think about the context in which scholarly publications should be approached. I have always known that scholarly articles are written for a specific audience but it has never really registered that I need multiple reading strategies for an article of that nature. Typically I just sit down and try to read it, which honestly does not usually end well. I found the list of strategies the author provided to be very helpful. Some of them, like skimming and moving on, I was a little surprised to see. When I am trying to understand something I don't usually see skimming as a good strategy. I do like, however, that he recommends small doses and at the end coming back to the purpose. Those seem to be very helpful in trying to understand something that is so information heavy.

I used "How to Read a Scholarly Article" and "It's Not How Much, It's How" in tandem. After reading "How to Read a Scholarly Article" I tried to implement the suggested techniques while reading "It's Not How Much, It's How." I found that this helped out my understanding a lot. I felt like I knew what I was looking for after reading the discussion and conclusion first. This definitely helped as I read through the main body of the article. I then went back and read the whole article again, this time in the correct order. When I was finished I had a full understanding of the information in the article.

I have been struggling to come up with a composer that I really want to use for the 2nd annotated bibliography. One of the ideas that I have come up with is John Mackey. John has written numerous works for band as well as orchestra in recent years and is still somewhat early in his career. The only problem I have with doing this project on John is that I don't know how much has been published about him. He is very active online and on social media but other than that I don't know what else is out there. I am very familiar with most of his music, I have had the privilege of playing a lot of it as well as working with him a couple of different times. I already know that he attended Berkley school of music in Boston and that he loves to take pictures of food. Another one that I have thought of is Chris Potter. Chris is a jazz saxophonist who has been very influential on the jazz scene. I am familiar with only a handful of his works and really do not know much about him besides his music. Chris would definitely be interesting to learn about, especially since I am a saxophone player myself, and I'm sure I could easily find sources relating to him. He would be a good choice, but I definitely want to do some more research before making a final selection.