Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with papers

Can I get H1N1 from grading papers?

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:25:48 -0800

Are student papers a possible vector for H1N1? Is there a way to sanitize them without destroying them? I'm 9 weeks pregnant, and TAing a class at a university that's already had several hundred cases of H1N1 identified. I'm doing everything I can to avoid physical contact with students (and they've been told by the university to stay home if they're feeling sick), but I'm going to be grading, by hand, lots of assignments and it occurs to me that sick student's snotty hand ->paper ->my hand->my eyes/nose is a possible transmission source. I'll be getting vaccinated ASAP, of course. But in the mean time:
1) Is my concern realistic?
2) If so, are there practical ways I can sterilize student assignments without destroying them? Or measures I can take to minimize transmission risk?

(Anonymous because we're not public about the pregnancy yet)

Sorry if this sounds crazy. First time preggo, first time flu pandemic, trying to be reasonably cautious.

Which papers go in the rectangular file and which go in the circular file?

fiercecupcake — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 06:08:53 -0800

What important household papers and documents must I keep and file? What papers are OK to throw away? My wife and I are going to go through a ton of old stuff tonight that needs to be filed. What is important for us to hold on to? What is not worth our time to file?

We bought a house last year. We have two cars and no car payments. We have student loans.

Documents may include, but are not limited to:
- mortgage stuff
- water and utility bills (electric, septic maintenance)
- tax things from previous jobs
- insurance bills/statements (car, house, life)
- ??? whatever fun things have been stacked in piles

Please hope me. This seems daunting.

How do I search and find non-electronic papers!

kechi — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:48:53 -0800

How do you search and find academic papers that are in a filing cabinet? I am looking for something that runs on a mac (similar to endnote but better) that I can use to keep track of and search the academic papers I have stored in a filing cabinet in my office. For pdf's I use spotlight to search and skim to anotate but I no longer have any system to deal with papers that I only have in hard copy. Does anyone have any suggestions? How do other people do this?

Alternative to Papers

Aanidaani — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 19:16:27 -0800

I recently found a fantastic program for managing research literature on OSX and I'm looking for a similar program for Windows and Linux. The program for OSX is called Papers and is just beautiful. I really love the interface and it connects to all kinds of databases to make importing papers very easy. Is there anything like this for Windows or Linux?

Best method for summarizing papers?

painquale — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:56:21 -0800

My approach to academic papers is to read through once, then go back and type up notes on it. The problem is that my notes serve two functions: summary and commentary. What's the best software for making synopses of academic papers with personal annotated notes? Most of what I what I write is done in the original author's voice. It's a summary of the author's key points, arguments, data, and citations to other works. But occasionally I break into my own voice and add some of my own observations or arguments. I want some way to delineate the two (and preferably, be able to easily print the file with or without my personal commentary). I've tried around with a few potential solutions in Word -- making my comments in a different color, putting them in footnotes, using the commenting feature -- but none them seem adequate. I tried hacking something up in LaTeX, but unless there's a really cool package out there I haven't seen, it doesn't seem to be made for this sort of thing. It strikes me that there should be some software out there that is tailor-made for this, or there's some method that I'm not seeing. Does anyone have any ideas? What do other people here do?

UnWord Me

tmcw — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:53:32 -0800

Escaping M$ Word, but getting the same formatting... So, I'll need to type a few papers this semester. I'm using a Mac. I have Office installed, actually, but I hate it: I would rather write in LaTeX, Bean, etc. But my professors will definitely be looking for 12px Times New Roman double spaced, standard margins, etc. Are there any LaTeX templates for this, or is the typesetting engine way too different. And OpenOffice seems to be one of the least native apps I've used on my mac (even Inkscape is a lot better), so I'd rather not go that route.

Any tips on escaping this big M?

Rollo's

Black_Umbrella — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 23:31:06 -0800

Why are corners cut on some rolling papers? I have been rolling cigarettes for a while now but never thought to ask why many rolling papers have cut corners. Some have the corners cut, some don't, the same brand will sell papers both ways. Whats the deal?

How to organize scientific article pdfs?

JustWandering — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:21:16 -0800

Scientists: What's the best and simplest way to organize, annotate, and take notes from scientific journal articles on a PC? I'm starting a new project and ready for a new system that doesn't require four programs or being unable to find something when I can't remember the title or author. How do you organize your references, pdfs, and notes? I used to print articles out, take notes in a physical notebook, and use EndNote for general bibliography and light searching uses. However, I found that I often couldn't find again what I wanted. Connecting required information with reference with notes with actual hard-or-digital copy of the article required multiple programs and notebooks, time, and frustration. Help me find something better?

What I want is a system that will allow me to:
1) use tags rather than folders to organize and search articles by subject matter.
2) allow easy searching/browsing by author, journal, date published, etc. (so, something that will easily extract and store the PubMed details of each item).
3) (ideally) allow me to search, annotate, take notes on, and read articles all in one place or with minimal fussing with multiple programs.

The Papers program for Macs looks awesome and just what I'm looking for, but I'm on a PC. Is there any similar program for PC users? Lacking that, how do you store your articles, keep notes on what you've read, and make it easy to find what you're looking for later?

How'd the California guy get to Washington?

creasy boy — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 06:41:16 -0800

American history question: before modern transportation, how much time did congressmen spend in Washington and how much in their home states? Especially those from, say, California. And how long did the journey take? I'm reading the Federalist Papers, where Madison argues that "the natural limit of a republic is that distance from the center, which will barely allow the representatives of the people to meet as often as may be necessary for the administration of public affairs". Of course he thinks that the thirteen states are not too large for this. However, it occurs to me:

--back then, the trip from Maine to DC must've been a son of a bitch;

--the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. California was made a state in 1850. For those 19 years, did the California representatives ever have time to go back home?

How to Write Interesting Computer Science

gadha — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 07:34:30 -0800

I need help in learning how to write. Specifically, technical writing in the area of computer science. Most specifically, paper writing. I am actively involved in computer science research. My biggest problem is writing about it. I am quite good at actually developing the problem, solving it and measurement. However when it come to writing I often find myself with the following recurring problems:

1. Most importantly -- terseness. I really have a problem expanding on what I'm trying to say. Mostly people liken my writing to reading telegrams. When I do try and expand I end up in the opposite direction where people comment that I'm explaining basic stuff and avoidable detail. Often I will hone in on the problem and solution without any regard to the other solut

2. Flow and composition -- Most of my writing reads like a users manual or a physics experiment, which, while getting me my degree, makes for extremely boring reading. I need help in developing how to make my work interesting to the reader.

I know the mantra with writing is re-write and re-vise. But I often find myself throwing away 3 or 4 copies of written material because they just aren't conveying what I want them to convey. In situations where I have been successful the layour and structure is almost always initiated by others.

I would appreciate any tips others may have in actually helping me fix these problems.

Academics: What's your filing system?

pealco — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 19:18:52 -0800

Academics: What's your filing system for academic papers? As I finish up my undergrad degree and enter grad school, I'm reading a lot of papers. Currently, they're just in a tall stack on my desk and in a folder in my Mac. I'm interested in hearing filing solutions -- both hard copy and electronic -- for academic papers.

Do I cut my brother off?

banannafish — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 08:20:24 -0800

At what point should I stop helping my college-aged brother with homework? I feel like I made him reliant on my help, so how can I sever this without hurting his feelings or his GPA? My baby brother is a sophomore in college and while I love him dearly, he is starting to be a drain on my patience and time. I feel like I dug my own grave when I started helping him with his papers while he was in high school through emails and phone calls, since he was struggling with his grades, especially in English/Literature. I started helping him edit his papers and giving him suggestions since I have a BA in English and wanted to see him succeed. After graduation, he moved to my city and started attending a fairly well-regarded school and the help I offered him in high school has now progressed into helping him do the research, writing portions of the paper for him, doing his structured works cited, and doing vast overhauling of his poorly written rough drafts for a majority of his assignments that involve papers, not just English courses.

I know I created a monster, so I feel very responsible for the fact that he feels very floundered when writing a paper by himself. He is doing mediocre in school, around a C+/B- average and excels at his major, Geography, but his writing skills are dismal.

I’m at a loss. Should I continue helping him with his homework? If not, should I just cut him off completely, throwing him to the wolves? On a very selfish note, this really cuts into my free-time and has become a burden on my time and patience, but I feel obligated to help, since he is family and I am the source of his reliance. Involving our parents is not an option.

What are the best research papers you've ever read?

tasty — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 21:26:23 -0800

Academics: What are your favorite research papers? I want to read some awesome research papers in any field.

What classic papers in your field might interest the general public?
What papers really make you think?
What papers inspire you?
What papers do you still remember 5 years later and bring up at parties?

Easy way to destroy financial papers?

cccorlew — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 19:17:35 -0800

Three bags of financial papers. No shredder. Looking for an easy safe way to destroy them. Fire is out. Standing in front of a shreader I don't want to buy for days is out. What's left? Magic melting goop? Please, hints before my wife makes me eat it all...

Manage PDFs on a Mac

raheel — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 15:10:32 -0800

I want to manage the huge list of pdf based papers that I read for my PhD in CS: keep them organized by categories, put long notes in them, etc. Anything for OS X?

eUtils for dummies?

roofus — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 08:08:36 -0800

Is there a really simple guide, or even better a freeware app that will help me use eUtils for automated Pubmed requests? I need to download really long lists of abstracts by specific authors. My programming skills never advanced beyond driving a Logo Turtle back in 1985. Do I need to learn Python or Perl, and if so will that improve my life in other ways beyond Pubmed mastery?

Two Papers Due Simultaneously, No Extensions, and Utterly No Will to Work

Anonymous — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 15:53:43 -0800

I hate all forms of work (hence the anon. post) and the only way I've found to finish papers etc. is to stay up all day and night procrastinating until the last possible instance writing a bit here and there--an agonizing process--until, as the last chance deadline aproaches, something takes shape. These papers are usually final papers and usually earn me between a B+ and an -A... which is probably why I never learned how to do work in a painless and organized fashion... at any rate, I have two papers due on the same day and no chance of an extension on either one and am incapable of forcing myself to work. WHAT DO I DO?