Here’s a problem, for example formatting. Problems can be as easy or hard, and as complex or simple, as you think is reasonable.
Problem: I don’t know how to find scientific data. I can get some common-knowledge stuff, but anything controversial (ex. global warming) or hard to locate by keyword (ex. how well normal distributions model actual data) I have a hard time finding. Especially for controversial items, I don’t know how to evaluate the soundness of the study. What tools can I use to find and evaluate studies.
Progress/Effort made: I can find studies with specific keywords. My current evaluation strategy is to look at the statistical comparison in the experiment, or to find a blog that mentions reputable papers about a subject. This doesn’t work in general, because blogs don’t discuss obscure topics, and I have a hard time finding out if a blog writer is a reliable expert.
Parameters/Evaluation: I want to be able to evaluate studies in pharmacology, but I don’t want to learn too much about pharmacology in general. The problem will be solved when I can find out whether a scientific issue is solved one way or the other, along with the degree of contention. I would prefer solutions that don’t involve personally talking to experts.
Do some research to find out what the two leading entry-level university textbooks are on the subject. To do this, check online course syllabi to see what they’re using. Or, just do some searching. After 60 seconds on Google and Amazon, I found thesetwo textbooks on global warming. I dunno if they’re the best, but they’ll probably do. Be sure to get textbooks and not single-author academic studies, which may be highly skewed toward a particular position that is not mainstream.
Skim the textbooks so that you get a sense for the major concepts of the field and how they relate to each other. I buy a lot of textbooks, but maybe you don’t want to spend the money. In that case, you can call around to find what university bookstores have the ones you want in stock, then go there and hang out and read it in the store. Or, buy it online and sell it back. If you keep it in good condition, you sometimes end up spending only $20-$30 on the textbook. If either of these two options are inconvenient, well… that’s research, yo.
Now that you know the standard terms involved, Google searches and Google scholar searches will do wonders.
Even better, any textbook worth its salt will give citations for some of the major studies that support its basic claims (they usually mention lots of large meta-analyses, for example).
Make a list of all the papers you want to read. Go to an on-campus library at a major university nearby (I drive 30 minutes to UCLA every couple of weeks). Usually you don’t need a library card to sit down at one of their computers and download a bunch of papers (they’ll have access to JSTOR, etc. on campus computers) to your flash drive. If they don’t allow flash drives, upload the PDFs to your free (or paid) Dropbox account.
But usually, the textbooks themselves will contain a good overview of which debates are relatively solved, and which ones remain open. They will also describe what major questions need to be answered to solve the open questions, and what the evidence currently suggests. Of course, it’s important to get the very latest edition of the textbook. Be sure to check The Best Textbooks on Every Subject.
Depending on what you want to learn, you may have to get a more advanced textbook on a narrower subject, but it will probably still help to skim a lower-level textbook to get a handle for the basic concepts involved in the larger field.
Library Genesis (mirrors: gen.lib.rus.ec, free-books.dontexist.com) is another very large collection, focusing mainly on math/science/tech/engineering textbooks.
Several, I’m pretty sure, though I don’t remember any particular ones off the top of my head.
(I usually check Library Genesis before library.nu these days anyway, as they usually have what I’m looking for and there are slightly fewer trivial inconveniences (no login, one click to download from the search result page instead of four clicks, no password-protected archives).)
In that case, you can call around to find what university bookstores have the ones you want in stock, then go there and hang out and read it in the store.
Libraries are good for that too—especially for high end textbooks that usually come shrinkwrapped. In fact, it is what libraries are there for. At universities sometimes the specific department libraries have more copies of a text than the general library—and also tend to have copies that can not be checked out so are always available in the building.
Here’s a problem, for example formatting. Problems can be as easy or hard, and as complex or simple, as you think is reasonable.
Problem: I don’t know how to find scientific data. I can get some common-knowledge stuff, but anything controversial (ex. global warming) or hard to locate by keyword (ex. how well normal distributions model actual data) I have a hard time finding. Especially for controversial items, I don’t know how to evaluate the soundness of the study. What tools can I use to find and evaluate studies.
Progress/Effort made: I can find studies with specific keywords. My current evaluation strategy is to look at the statistical comparison in the experiment, or to find a blog that mentions reputable papers about a subject. This doesn’t work in general, because blogs don’t discuss obscure topics, and I have a hard time finding out if a blog writer is a reliable expert.
Parameters/Evaluation: I want to be able to evaluate studies in pharmacology, but I don’t want to learn too much about pharmacology in general. The problem will be solved when I can find out whether a scientific issue is solved one way or the other, along with the degree of contention. I would prefer solutions that don’t involve personally talking to experts.
How to find scientific data:
Do some research to find out what the two leading entry-level university textbooks are on the subject. To do this, check online course syllabi to see what they’re using. Or, just do some searching. After 60 seconds on Google and Amazon, I found these two textbooks on global warming. I dunno if they’re the best, but they’ll probably do. Be sure to get textbooks and not single-author academic studies, which may be highly skewed toward a particular position that is not mainstream.
Skim the textbooks so that you get a sense for the major concepts of the field and how they relate to each other. I buy a lot of textbooks, but maybe you don’t want to spend the money. In that case, you can call around to find what university bookstores have the ones you want in stock, then go there and hang out and read it in the store. Or, buy it online and sell it back. If you keep it in good condition, you sometimes end up spending only $20-$30 on the textbook. If either of these two options are inconvenient, well… that’s research, yo.
Now that you know the standard terms involved, Google searches and Google scholar searches will do wonders.
Even better, any textbook worth its salt will give citations for some of the major studies that support its basic claims (they usually mention lots of large meta-analyses, for example).
Make a list of all the papers you want to read. Go to an on-campus library at a major university nearby (I drive 30 minutes to UCLA every couple of weeks). Usually you don’t need a library card to sit down at one of their computers and download a bunch of papers (they’ll have access to JSTOR, etc. on campus computers) to your flash drive. If they don’t allow flash drives, upload the PDFs to your free (or paid) Dropbox account.
But usually, the textbooks themselves will contain a good overview of which debates are relatively solved, and which ones remain open. They will also describe what major questions need to be answered to solve the open questions, and what the evidence currently suggests. Of course, it’s important to get the very latest edition of the textbook. Be sure to check The Best Textbooks on Every Subject.
Depending on what you want to learn, you may have to get a more advanced textbook on a narrower subject, but it will probably still help to skim a lower-level textbook to get a handle for the basic concepts involved in the larger field.
Did I mention textbooks?
instead of buying textbooks check out library.nu
Largest collection of [illegal, mostly] free textbooks I’ve seen on the net.
Library Genesis (mirrors: gen.lib.rus.ec, free-books.dontexist.com) is another very large collection, focusing mainly on math/science/tech/engineering textbooks.
ata,
Have you ever found any on these sites that aren’t also on library.nu?
Several, I’m pretty sure, though I don’t remember any particular ones off the top of my head.
(I usually check Library Genesis before library.nu these days anyway, as they usually have what I’m looking for and there are slightly fewer trivial inconveniences (no login, one click to download from the search result page instead of four clicks, no password-protected archives).)
And now that library.nu is dead.…
I’ve downloaded a couple of files from there, but they are all encrypted, and nowhere on the site was it clear as to what was the decryption password.
the archive password is listed before each external link in every example I’ve seen. Usually the password is either ebooksclub.org or library.nu
Agreed.
Libraries are good for that too—especially for high end textbooks that usually come shrinkwrapped. In fact, it is what libraries are there for. At universities sometimes the specific department libraries have more copies of a text than the general library—and also tend to have copies that can not be checked out so are always available in the building.
The reason I mentioned university bookstores is because libraries usually do not have the latest edition of any textbooks available.
University libraries do. At least, they do at all of the universities I have attended.
Huh. Well, I hope the libraries I’ve checked are the exceptions!
Wikipedia really is an excellent start, even as preparation for lukeprog’s suggestions.