Thursday, April 05, 2007

A Few Quick Notes 87

-The weather in Montreal turned from bad to worse today. We started the day out with just above freezing temperatures and steady rain. By just afternoon, we still had the low temperature but also snow. As one can imagine, this was not very pleasant weather for bike riding. While there hasn’t been much accumulation yet it seems that we should expect up to 4 cm by tomorrow.

-Somehow when talking to a classmate today my scone recipe came up. As it was on my mind and I had promised to pass along the recipe I ended up making a batch almost as soon as I returned home. I have already consumed four of the eight, and plan on having one or two more for breakfast tomorrow morning.

-Last night I happened upon a discussion group dedicated to coming up with and sharing means of making an essay look longer without really writing more. The two ideas that I had not previously come across were to modify the character spacing and change the font size of punctuation, particularly comas and periods. Another suggestion was to use the passive voice so that a few additional words could be included by the author. Nithum was disgusted by this last suggestion.

-One more class left, though four projects are still in the works

-I have to head to work tomorrow night. As I don’t have to work this Friday this shouldn’t be too bad.

-A GSLIS party is planned for Saturday night. I wonder if any of the professorial staff or Ph.D. students will show up?

-There was some library-based content that I have been meaning to include here, though every time I sit down to write I can’t remember what it is. So because I can’t remember the first point I wanted to make, I will come back to my hobbyhorse; librarians need to stop beating around the bush and ask patrons/clients/users what it is they need. Librarians should encourage and engage in clear communication practices.

-A few minutes ago Nithum brought home a bag of samosas from an event he helped organized. So far I have had three, they are pretty tasty.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That university students are devising formatting methods to enlarge papers is surprising. Although a common tactic in high school, one would think that university or graduate students might complain more about fitting all that they have to say within an arbitrary page limit. As a professor, I cringe when I see the large essay paper and much prefer concise writing.