Click for Source Image By Graeme Stirling
For many a student ploughing their way through university, books are a key asset. If this sounds like stating the obvious, we should add that it’s not for the reasons you might think. Particularly when it comes to social sciences and humanities subjects, which are increasingly popular among UK students, nothing seems more important to the marking system or the keen eye of the academic staff member than referencing. Would-be graduates spend more time providing evidence of their reading and filling their perfectly reasonable essays with vaguely relevant quotes, in-text references and segues than they do writing the paper to begin with. Ploughing, then, is the operative word, as the process of scanning hundreds of pages for a quotable point to back up your own is its own form of monotonous labour.
For many a student ploughing their way through university, books are a key asset. If this sounds like stating the obvious, we should add that it’s not for the reasons you might think. Particularly when it comes to social sciences and humanities subjects, which are increasingly popular among UK students, nothing seems more important to the marking system or the keen eye of the academic staff member than referencing. Would-be graduates spend more time providing evidence of their reading and filling their perfectly reasonable essays with vaguely relevant quotes, in-text references and segues than they do writing the paper to begin with. Ploughing, then, is the operative word, as the process of scanning hundreds of pages for a quotable point to back up your own is its own form of monotonous labour.
Click for Source Image Format, then, is important. Just as fiction has short stories, academia has a plethora of journals, periodicals and article anthologies that are the friend of the student, swallowing up far less time than the full-length book written by your lecturer, published by the university press and propped up at the front of the campus shop. The problem is, whilst many are sold in a form similar to magazines, those kept in stock by most university libraries are printed in massive hardback volumes, their inch-thick covers embossed with gold roman numerals and containing several months’ worth of dry factual prose. I have vivid memories of dragging several kilos of these to the infamous self-checkout machines, scanning barcodes and dropping books like bricks into a shoulder bag before setting off home to troll through them on the couch, the paper long-finished but the bibliography all but non-existent.
Online resource libraries like JSTOR can help with this, but many require a kind of student access ID that not all universities provide (each site contains a list of participating institutions), whilst some even require a subscription fee.
Now, however, there’s a better way. Whilst the practicality argument for Kindle-wielding fiction fans still sounds a little thin outside of holiday season, an e-reader could be a student’s (and their back muscles’) best friend. Websites like sendtoreader will compile relevant periodical content into makeshift anthologies and send them to your Kindle, keeping you up to speed on all those sociological debates you’re supposed to know about. Hopping onto Amazon will mean having to pay, but the electronic editions of most academic work are notably cheaper than their printed counterparts and, more importantly for some, you can buy them whenever and from wherever you want – no need to trudge off to the library in the rain and spend an hour shelf-hunting after someone puts it back in the wrong place. It’ll save you time and money and involves no mandatory exercise.
Online resource libraries like JSTOR can help with this, but many require a kind of student access ID that not all universities provide (each site contains a list of participating institutions), whilst some even require a subscription fee.
Now, however, there’s a better way. Whilst the practicality argument for Kindle-wielding fiction fans still sounds a little thin outside of holiday season, an e-reader could be a student’s (and their back muscles’) best friend. Websites like sendtoreader will compile relevant periodical content into makeshift anthologies and send them to your Kindle, keeping you up to speed on all those sociological debates you’re supposed to know about. Hopping onto Amazon will mean having to pay, but the electronic editions of most academic work are notably cheaper than their printed counterparts and, more importantly for some, you can buy them whenever and from wherever you want – no need to trudge off to the library in the rain and spend an hour shelf-hunting after someone puts it back in the wrong place. It’ll save you time and money and involves no mandatory exercise.
Click for Source Image What, then, are the downsides, and why hasn’t this caught on as the go-to study method? The fact is, Kindles are designed for vociferous fiction readers. They were put on the market to let you read as many detective yarns as you can fit into a day or to hide your extensive erotica collection from other subway passengers. Moreover, reading fiction – unless you’re Philip Roth / the type of person who annotates novels for follow-up criticism – doesn’t usually involve taking notes. The majority of customers are readers rather than reviewers and have no need to interact. When it comes to study, it’s the exact opposite. Whilst e-readers do usually have underline and highlight options and, in some cases, virtual sticky notes, this will never really live up to scribbling on a nearby piece of paper or folding down the corner of an important page. The lack of tactile aesthetics and personality are still e-readers’ main problem, and the smell of old pages can be a useful stimulant for heavy-weight, mandatory reading the night before a dissertation deadline.
As usual, then, there are pros and cons, but it’s always good to have options. Every student heading to university this year might do well to get their hands on an e-reader of their own – the next time all three copies of the key course text are gone from the library and twenty more nerve-wracked undergrads are ahead of you on the reserve list, you can always nab it off Amazon at a cut-down price and finish your reference list over coffee and pastries that didn’t come from a machine.
As usual, then, there are pros and cons, but it’s always good to have options. Every student heading to university this year might do well to get their hands on an e-reader of their own – the next time all three copies of the key course text are gone from the library and twenty more nerve-wracked undergrads are ahead of you on the reserve list, you can always nab it off Amazon at a cut-down price and finish your reference list over coffee and pastries that didn’t come from a machine.
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