academia-whomst

[academia-whomst]

Do you want a guide to writing a research paper but you don't want to scroll a mile on your dash? This post is for you, buddy.

This book (book????) or tidily-laid-out-shitpost or whatever you want to call it is a handy-dandy guide to college-level humanities research methods and paper-writing.

This is a step-by-step follow along of my process as I, a person with a BA in English Lit, navigate writing a paper on George Orwell for my English 101 class.

This is NOT carefully crafted, it is literally a post that I made.

That said, it is a post that I made that is twelve thousand words on how to write a paper and now comes with a table of contents and headers and fancy alt-text and image descriptions and is forty fucking pages.

This document includes:

How to read an academic paper

How to skim a book for a college class

How to prioritize what sources to use

How to write an organized, cohesive research paper with an introduction, support paragraphs, and conclusion

(i managed to only say "fuck" six times in forty pages so I'm not taking them out.)

ANYWAY for a PDF click here.

If you want it in .docx click here.

Free to use for any reason, free to reproduce, give them to whoever, just don't sell them. (if you want to credit me if you do share them, ms-demeanor.tumblr.com is perfectly fine)

Happy finals season, babes. Good luck with those papers.

[academia-whomst]

THERE ARE NO USELESS MAJORS!!

Learning about theater is important! Learning about art is important! Learning about sociology is important! Learning about history is important! Learning about anthropology is important! Learning about philosophy important! Learning about music is important! Learning about English is important! Learning about dance is important! Learning about photography is important! Learning about art history is important! Learning about ethnic studies is important! Learning about theology is important! Learning about performing arts is important!

Usefulness does not equal high income!

All education is important!

[academia-whomst]

"these researchers published a paper on something that literally any of us could have told you 🙄" ok well my supervisors wont let me write something in my thesis unless I can back it up with a citation so maybe it's a good thing that they're amplifying your voice to the scientific community in a way that prevents people from writing off your experiences as annecdotal evidence

[academia-whomst]

LISTEN UP MOTHER FUCKERS

SEE THIS WEBSITE? 

ITS CALLED WOLFRAM ALPHA

THIS IS THE BEST GODDAMN WEBSITE FOR ACADEMIC SHIT. FUCK GOOGLE. 

THIS MOTHERFUCKER WILL LET YOU SEARCH “HOSPITAL BEDS IN CHAD VS. IRAN” 

AND IT GIVES YOU A STRAIGHT GODDAMN ANSWER 

MAYBE YOU’RE NOT INTERESTED IN DOCTORNESS OF THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES COOL SHIT 

HAVING TROUBLE WITH MATH?

HOLY SHIT

OR MAYBE YOU WANNA DICK AROUND

WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT

[academia-whomst]

this wouldn't be happening if i had a mentor that was deeply interested in me and my life and guided me with a firm hand even when i was overwhelmed. whatever.

[academia-whomst]

someone convince me that downloading PDFs is not actually the same thing as working on my dissertation

[academia-whomst]

i feel like tumblr NEEDS to know about Dr. Ally Louks, and the term "Olfactory Ethics"

(long post incoming)

storytime/timeline:

on november 27, 2024, an excited English Literature PhD recipient posted a picture of herself with her thesis, titled:

"Olfactory Ethics: The Politics of Smell in Modern and Contemporary Prose"

as you can see (on the bottom row, above), the tweet has been viewed over 119 MILLION times, and has received over 250k likes. unfortunately, within days (most of the replies dating december 1st), she had garnered what seems like every possible insecure man with a twitter account to post their vitriol and rage concerning the fact that a woman is clearly more well-researched than them. regardless, she tanked it ALL with kindness and with a smile:

AND I MEAN VITRIOL (queen of making boundaries clear):

(inserting reading break for the timeline's space's sake):

here's her abstract:

and in case the abstract wasn't clear, she has since (date: december 16th) taken the time to re-summarize her thesis for the layman (yes that is a link! click it! 3min read!)

she has repeatedly shown just the perfect amount of kindness and understanding for those who are simply Not Comprehending (mostly december 1st):

(the chatGPT hate in the next one is my favorite:)

has upheld an incredibly high moral standard of how she interacts with the situation (december 2nd):

ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS: regardless of this crap, she made it clear that as a professor, her FIRST priority at the end of the semester would be taking care of them (december 3rd)

(CAN SHE GET MORE BASEDDDDDDDDDD)

she stays both 1) educating the masses, and 2) engaging with pop culture as much as a normal person would (december 9th-17th):

she also supports a free palestine (WHO IS SURPRISED. NOT ME.) ((december 15th))

here's the BEST FREAKING THING ABOUT THIS. since this all has happened, RANDOM TWITTER USERS, UNKNOWINGLY, have REPEATEDLY proven her thesis to be true,

again,

and again,

AND AGAIN.

EVEN CARDI B DO YOU HEAR MEEEEEEEE

COMBATING MISOGYNOIR WITH HER OWN BARE HANDSSSSS

oh she knows she's mother

here's some more she never saw/commented on (INCLUDING SOME FROM TODAY. IT IS STILL GOING ON. EVERY SINGLE DAY LIKE CLOCKWORK SOMEONE POSTS SOMETHING THAT PROVES HER POINTS ABOUT OLFACTORY ETHICS):

THE WICKED MOVIE REFERENCE HELLO

apparently, OTHER academics are mad at her for being so famous and influential, but she stays unbothered (december 16th, and TODAY, december 19th):

and she's partially getting her post-doc on how people's sense of smell has been altered (december 1st):

and the best part is!

all of these screenshots i've collected are only a SAMPLE, illustrating dr. louks' indomitably kind and ethical character.

anyway. i want ALL of y'all to start saying, out loud, "olfactory ethics", or even better, "dr. louks was RIGHT" (something something women's names are erased something) every time you see something that plays into her thesis. never let her influence die. THINK THROUGH what you're REALLY saying when you comment on the smell of something, or how your perception has been shaped by society. USE THIS PHOTO IF YOU HAVE TO:

follow her on twitter (@DrAllyLouks) or bluesky (idk her handle, if someone tells me i'll edit it in)

AND SAY HER NAME!! DR. ALLY LOUKS

[academia-whomst]

There is no pain like the pain of an academic proofreader who wants you to remove the Oxford comma, while you (like any sensible academic and/or human) are like NO. KEEP THE OXFORD COMMA. GRRRR.

[academia-whomst]

i've been sending my supervisor (very nice 60 something year old white man, very grandfatherly vibes) my thesis proposal document under the filename "bad draft" and he just sent me my final revisions under the file name "rad draft"

[academia-whomst]

[academia-whomst]

[academia-whomst]

You're pretty good at searching here and there, but there's a lot more to academic research. This is why we put together this free, self-guided course!

Because three is the magic number (look it up!), the course is made up of three modules of three short lessons and three sets of practice quizzes. Try it try it try it!

[academia-whomst]

sources? a little birdie, et al. (2024)

[academia-whomst]

this reductress article means everything to me

[academia-whomst]

jstor thank you for singlehandedly provided all my research sources for my history degree ily queen

[academia-whomst]

the parasocial relationship between you and the guy whose article you cite the most in your paper

[academia-whomst]

People who fuck around on their laptops during lectures are so important I'm watching someone in front of me play tetris online enraptured