Irish Woman Pens Childhood Book
Friday, January 28th, 2011 at
7:39 am
A Northern Irish woman has written a childrenâs book based on her early years which she spent in a small village in County Londonderry
Tagged with: book publishing industry analysis
Filed under: Uncategorized
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HELP WITH MASTERS DISSERTATION METHODOLOGY-Thanks so much!?
Hi All,
I realize turning to YA for this maybe a long shot, but I figured I would give it a go anyway. I’m currently writing a Masters level dissertation about Commercial Self Publishing and I need some help focusing my methodology chapter.
My research question is centered around the concept of whether or not ‘Commercial’ Digital Self Publishers such as Authorhouse are representing themselves correctly based on the services they offer potential authors. For example, Lulu.com calls itself a self publisher, yet their listed business model makes them sound as more of vanity publisher(a term that is obviously looked down upon in the industry).
My main plan of methodology was to complete a Content Analysis of four popular digital self publishing company websites by focusing on different aspects including their selling ‘Motto’ or website branding slogan, Marketing Plan, How much they offer authors in Royalties, etc and then make inferences about whether or not this makes them Vanity, Subsidy, or true Self Publishers.
My question for everyone is: Does Content Analysis make sense in this context? Over the past month, i have read at least 15 research books and I keep coming back to this concept for my project, although I don’t understand the framework of what the Content Analysis works in. Does analyzing websites mean that I’m doing Textual Analysis or something else?
Most of my data will be qualitative, only dealing with numbers periodically from the information in the literature review. Does this mean I am using induction or deduction??
I have most of the data collected and am actually prepared to write, but I keep stumbling over A. What my methodology “type” is and B. If it’s actually correct or if I should choose a different methodology outside of Content Analysis.
Does anyone have any insight or recommendations? Unfortunately, my thesis advisor is completely rubbish and has been absolutely useless throughout this ENTIRE process. If I email him, he emails back saying things like “Good Job, Keep it Up, Etc. Nothing of substance, so basically I’m working with no support from my department.
I know I’m on the right track, I just need a little more guidance on this.
Thanks for your help!!!!
Oh, I should also note that I was unable to find much formal research on my topic. No dissertations, No Term papers either. Most of my lit review is made up of newspaper articles and industry opinion pieces.
Should we “Go Cheney” on climate change?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/opinion/09friedman.html?em=&pagewanted=print
December 9, 2009
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Going Cheney on Climate
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
In 2006, Ron Suskind published “The One Percent Doctrine,” a book about the U.S. war on terrorists after 9/11. The title was drawn from an assessment by then-Vice President Dick Cheney, who, in the face of concerns that a Pakistani scientist was offering nuclear-weapons expertise to Al Qaeda, reportedly declared: “If there’s a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping Al Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response.” Cheney contended that the U.S. had to confront a very new type of threat: a “low-probability, high-impact event.”
Soon after Suskind’s book came out, the legal scholar Cass Sunstein, who then was at the University of Chicago, pointed out that Mr. Cheney seemed to be endorsing the same “precautionary principle” that also animated environmentalists. Sunstein wrote in his blog: “According to the Precautionary Principle, it is appropriate to respond aggressively to low-probability, high-impact events — such as climate change. Indeed, another vice president — Al Gore — can be understood to be arguing for a precautionary principle for climate change (though he believes that the chance of disaster is well over 1 percent).”
Of course, Mr. Cheney would never accept that analogy. Indeed, many of the same people who defend Mr. Cheney’s One Percent Doctrine on nukes tell us not to worry at all about catastrophic global warming, where the odds are, in fact, a lot higher than 1 percent, if we stick to business as usual. That is unfortunate, because Cheney’s instinct is precisely the right framework with which to think about the climate issue — and this whole “climategate” controversy as well.
“Climategate” was triggered on Nov. 17 when an unidentified person hacked into the e-mails and data files of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, one of the leading climate science centers in the world — and then posted them on the Internet. In a few instances, they revealed some leading climatologists seemingly massaging data to show more global warming and excluding contradictory research.
Frankly, I found it very disappointing to read a leading climate scientist writing that he used a “trick” to “hide” a putative decline in temperatures or was keeping contradictory research from getting a proper hearing. Yes, the climate-denier community, funded by big oil, has published all sorts of bogus science for years — and the world never made a fuss. That, though, is no excuse for serious climatologists not adhering to the highest scientific standards at all times.
That said, be serious: The evidence that our planet, since the Industrial Revolution, has been on a broad warming trend outside the normal variation patterns — with periodic micro-cooling phases — has been documented by a variety of independent research centers.
As this paper just reported: “Despite recent fluctuations in global temperature year to year, which fueled claims of global cooling, a sustained global warming trend shows no signs of ending, according to new analysis by the World Meteorological Organization made public on Tuesday. The decade of the 2000s is very likely the warmest decade in the modern record.”
This is not complicated. We know that our planet is enveloped in a blanket of greenhouse gases that keep the Earth at a comfortable temperature. As we pump more carbon-dioxide and other greenhouse gases into that blanket from cars, buildings, agriculture, forests and industry, more heat gets trapped.
What we don’t know, because the climate system is so complex, is what other factors might over time compensate for that man-driven warming, or how rapidly temperatures might rise, melt more ice and raise sea levels. It’s all a game of odds. We’ve never been here before. We just know two things: one, the CO2 we put into the atmosphere stays there for many years, so it is “irreversible” in real-time (barring some feat of geo-engineering); and two, that CO2 buildup has the potential to unleash “catastrophic” warming.
When I see a problem that has even a 1 percent probability of occurring and is “irreversible” and potentially “catastrophic,” I buy insurance. That is what taking climate change seriously is all about.
If we prepare for climate change by building a clean-power economy, but climate change turns out to be a hoax, what would be the result? Well, during a transition period, we would have higher energy prices. But gradually we would be driving battery-powered electric cars and powering more and more of our homes and factories with wind, solar, nuclear and second-generation biofuels. We would be much less dependent on oil dictators who have drawn a bull’s-eye on our backs; our trade deficit would improve; the dollar would strengthen; and the air we breathe would be cleaner.
Great, Foster the preteen basement dwelling conspiracy theorist is back with his conspiracy of the day!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOT!
Brilliant.
Of course we surpassed the 90% mark years ago, but hell if Cheney is as smart as promoted by the right, I guess they have no argument against climate change.
do you ever find yourself wondering if hollywood lied to you about the holocaust also?
The Holocaust Industry
Main article: The Holocaust Industry
The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering was published in 2000. Here, Finkelstein argues that Elie Wiesel and others exploit the memory of the Holocaust as an “ideological weapon.” This is so the state of Israel, “one of the world’s most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, [can] cast itself as a victim state” in order to garner “immunity to criticism.”[18] He also alleges what he calls a “double shakedown” by “a repellent gang of plutocrats, hoodlums and hucksters” seeking enormous legal damages and financial settlements from Germany and Switzerland, moneys which then go to the lawyers and institutional actors involved in procuring them, rather than actual Holocaust survivors.[19][20][21]
The book met with a hostile reception in some quarters, with critics charging that it was poorly researched and/or allowed others to exploit it for antisemitic purposes. For example, German historian Hans Mommsen disparaged the first edition as “a most trivial book, which appeals to easily aroused anti-Semitic prejudices.” Israeli holocaust historian Israel Gutman called the book “a lampoon,” stating “this is not research; it isn’t even political literature… I don’t even think it should be reviewed or critiqued as a legitimate book.”[22] The book was also harshly criticized by Brown University Professor Omer Bartov[23] and University of Chicago Professor Peter Novick.
Finkelstein also had his supporters however. Raul Hilberg, widely regarded as the founder of Holocaust studies,[24] said the book expressed views Hilberg himself subscribed to in substance, in that he too found the exploitation of the Holocaust, in the manner Finkelstein describes, ‘detestable.’ Asked on another occasion if Finkelstein’s analysis might play into the hands of neo-Nazis for antisemitic purposes, Hilberg replied: ‘Well, even if they do use it in that fashion, I’m afraid that when it comes to the truth, it has to be said openly, without regard to any consequences that would be undesirable, embarrassing.'[25]