There's an echo in here... [Sara says hello]

Greetings, salutations, most cordial civilities of the day, and so on, and so forth, etc. As you might guess from the title of this post, my name is Sara. I'm a fourth year transfer student from ye olde University of Toronto, lured to York's greener pastures by the Professional Writing program with an eye to become an editor. Basically, I'd like to spend the rest of my life holed up in a room somewhere with masses of books and a never-ending supply of tea.

As an English major, you don't actually end up doing too much research; most of the time, essays only require you to work with your primary texts, and little else. I got my first taste of real "research" last summer, working as a research assistant to a professor in the writing department. I ended up researching all kinds of obscure things, from genealogies to the price of potatoes in March 1918. It was a really valuable experience: I learned the finer techniques of navigating the immense range of resources out there, from the many different databases to the magic of "SEO." Outside of academics, I suppose I have a fairly inquisitive mind; when I see words and references I don't understand, I like to find out what they are. I'm also a bit of a stickler about sources and credibility, which I mostly credit to two years in a journalism-esque program. If I find a controversial news story, I almost always try to dig up more than one source for the information, and then more information on who's writing the story, who's being quoted, etc -- it's a bit of an obsession, I admit.

In terms of what I'd like to learn about research? I guess I'd just like to gain more confidence with it: despite having come a long way along the research line, I still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing half (...err...most) of the time. Where to start, who to ask, and so on and so forth. If I've learned anything from my various jobs related to journalism, it's that there's no such thing as an article without some kind of research. I admit, I only have the vaguest inkling what RefWorks or Zotero are, but they seem useful. Would I ever use them? Who knows? I tend to be old fashioned and reluctant to change my stubborn ways. But it's always good to know what's out there.

Let's switch gears: podcasting. I admit, I am not a techy person. In fact, most technological devices tend to take one look at me and spontaneously explode. But I'm not one to be intimidated: if anything, I find the prospect of getting some hands-on experience with podcasts rather exciting. I've always loved radio, and podcasts are to radio what Netflix is to TV. Luckily for me, my roommate happens to be all shades of techy and even ran her own podcast for awhile, so I have an in-house resource for when I hit panic mode.

Since I'm such a word nerd, the linguistically-inclined podcasts appeal to me. Grammar Girl (one of my favourite websites, incidentally) and Lexicon Valley both lie close to my heart, as do On the Media and Under the Influence: media and advertising rhetoric are endlessly fascinating, and extremely relevant in surprising ways. Then again, I've also kept my fingers dipped in the music scene, and thought it might be fun to start a podcast highlighting local talents in Toronto. Or maybe I'll just dive in headfirst into something I have no real expertise in -- like, say, astrophysics -- but it have always wanted to learn about. So, in other words... I have too many ideas, as usual, but half the fun is narrowing a topic down.