Sig Figs

Pick what you want to round to and report the same throughout.

Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFfSbpbAYRc

Make sure you got it right:
https://ostermiller.org/calc/significant_figures.html

QuickTime and a decompressor are needed to see this picture....

My professors have not appreciated opening up my most recent word doc draft of a manuscript and where the figure should go, getting this:

I have attempted to circumnavigate this problem by also providing them with a .pdf version of my drafts (which you can add notes to), but my profs have pointed me to better solution available at Aric's Tech Blog.

The problem is caused by creating a document in Mac Microsoft Word 2008 and opening in anything else.

The most easy fix is to insert the figure using the "Insert" menu.  That is, "Insert/Picture/From File...". Instead of just copying and pasting the figure.

Good news for those who wish to irritate their professors less.

Despite versus In Spite Of?

Answer: does not matter.

References:
English4all
Grammar Girl

One of the shortest posts of all time! No, this is too short. Lets try another one.

Irregardless versus Regardless

Answer: regardless, because irregardless is not a word. This is elegantly pointed out several times in the 2006 cinematic masterpiece "Puff, Puff, Pass" by the character played by Danny Masterson.

Clarification
Irregardless is a nonstandard word. Meaning it is in the dictionary as common use, but not a proper word. Check out the Grammar Girl post on dictionary word usage stemming from the irregardless debate.

Commentary Pieces

I recently came across a post on a colleague's blog asking what "hard skills" training do you wish you had learned as PhD student? Not surprisingly, the first skill the professor identified was effective writing. Digging deeper I noticed that effective writing was not just limited to peer reviewed manuscripts, but what might be considered commentary pieces. Commentary pieces can be best defined as your opinion on a given subject. Certain disciplines are more akin to this type of writing than others. political science and economics jump to mind. These disciplines often have a fast paced structure where opinions are expected to influence decisions. Fields like geology have their heyday whenever there is an earthquake or a volcano and someone from the USGS comes and assures us its not the end of the world, otherwise, commentary articles in geology seem to move at a glacial pace compared to political science.

If you find yourself in a situation where you think that your opinion is valuable to an ongoing debate, proceed with caution. Think hard about what format (e.g., blog, op-ed) you want to your opinion in and who your audience will be. Also, writing a commentary piece is different than writing a manuscript. Check out this commentary piece writing guide by the Pembina Institute on when to use commentary pieces, tips, and writing process.

Impact Factors

Deciding on which academic journal to submit your research to can be tough.  Several influences can play into this decision.
A good series of questions to when considering a journal might be as follows:
-How much does it cost to publish?
-Does your paper have color figures?  If so, does this cost more?
-Do they provide open access?
-Do you know any of the editors? Does your professor know/is an editor?
-Are they a predatory publisher?
-Likely the most important question to be asking yourself is what journal Impact Factor (IF) will you be going for? This is a question that I think you should have as a discussion with your supervisors. So you don't come to the discussion empty handed I would suggest creating a list like to the one below for your field. Make sure to include the journals that your supervisors publish in.  Short list a few, discuss further, and pick a winner.

List of Suitable Journals for Paleolimnology with Impact Factors (IFs) (5 year average when available)

-Journal of Paleolimnology (IF: 1.89)

-Environmental Reviews (IF: 3.77)

-Canadian Journal of Forest Research (IF: 1.95)

-Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (IF: 3.021)

-Canadian Journal of Earth Science (IF: 1.16)

-Boreas (IF: 1.91)

-Geology (IF: 4.03)

-The Holocene (IF: 2.56)

-Quaternary Research (IF: 2.58)

-Paleogeography, Paleoclimatology, Paleoecology (IF: 2.99)

-Climate of the Past (IF: 2.82)

-Conservation Biology (IF: 3.90)

-Journal of Quaternary Science (IF: 2.31)
-Conservation Letters (IF: 4.08)
-Landscape Ecology (IF: 3.06)
-Ecography (IF: 4.188)
-Nature Geoscience (IF: 8.115)
-Ecosystems (IF: 3.50)

-Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (IF: 2.213)

Remembering Daily Oral Language (DOL)

I recently stumbled on an article that took me back to the days of Elementary School.  Remembering back to 4th grade where my biggest daily fear took place.  Not the rope in gym class, the dreaded Daily Oral Language or DOL.  At the beginning of every English class we would take out our journals and stare into the overhead at we memorized and were tested on some aspect of grammar.  I hated it.

While I hated DOL, it has been shown to be an effective way to teach grammar rules.  Since I graduated Elementary School some teachers have had the notion that grammar can be taught as a co-benefit in teaching other Elementary School English subjects like vocabulary, sentence structure, or style. Not the case, teaching grammar rules explicitly like in my hated DOL past has been shown to be the best approach for grammar knowledge overtime. So, thank you Miss. Johnson.  I owe you what foundational grammar knowledge I have.  I still hate the gym rope.

Read the article here.

I have informed you thusly. Merry Xmas.

Sheldon is a character on the hit TV show "The Big Bang Theory" and upon being proved right in a episode he exalted, "I have informed you thusly", instead of the usual, "I told you so" (buy the T-Shirt here). The word "thusly" protrudes from this exhalation like a sore thumb. Is thusly even a word?  Turns out, thusly is a word, just a superfluous one. Thusly stands out as one of those words that gets circled in your 100-level undergraduate essay with the marking,  "non-standard" or "colloquial".  If your teacher has marked your essay in this way because they believe thusly not to be a word, then they are perpetuating a semantic misconception.  Thusly is not the only example of this.  Funnest is perhaps the most funnest of the semantic misconceptions.  There are more, along with a a host of common English usage misconceptions found in this well constructed Wikipedia page.  The page even explains the misconception, "Xmas" is a secular plan to take the Christ out of Christmas.