#masters thesis
Congratulations Sarah!
Yesterday, April 25, 2022, our former long-time Graduate Intern Sarah Finn successfully defended her thesis for a Masters in History on the production and publishing of the very popular The Naturalist’s Library, a forty-plus-volume book series published in Edinburgh from 1833-1843 by William Home LizarsandSir William Jardine. Sarah not only used secondary sources and many different editions of the books in the series, but also contributed original research by analyzing the correspondence, ledgers, and scrapbooks of original drawings relating to this series preserved at the National Library of Scotland and the National Museums Scotland, both in Edinburgh, Scotland. Our head of Special Collections, Max Yela, served on Sarah’s thesis committee and attests to Sarah’s fascinating work. Click on the images for details.
Sarah received her Masters in Library and Information Studies from UW-Milwaukee in 2020 and is currently an Archival Projects Librarian at the Milwaukee Public Library. Now she can add Master of History to credentials. Congratulations Sarah!
Viewposts Sarah has written for us over the years.
Post link
As I mentioned in my last post, I am SOOOOO close to being done with my master’s thesis TTnTT
If you have time the next couple days, I could use as many any you as possible to help me look over my final draft before I submit it to my advisor for review on the 29th March 2022!
Synopsis
The growth of social media platforms like YouTube has opened up a valuable new resource for educational content, one which is not always fully realised by institutions like museums. The YouTube channel, The Brain Scoop, is an example of how the platform can be embraced and how it can differ from traditional video mediums like TV and other distributed film media. Its approach to educational content stands to inspire other museums to rethink how they create and engage with online educational videos.
My thesis is intentionally accessible to non-academics, and does not have any heavy academic language or a requirement of any deep knowledge of YouTube or museums. Below are links to the document (single doc or individual chapters) on Google Docs. All should have permissions for commenting turned on.
As a single document
Full Thesis Draft (excl. Appendix)
Appendix
Individual Chapters
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: The Brain Scoop
Chapter 3: Method and Findings
Chapter 4: Recommendations
References
Appendix
*My computer freaks out at the single full document sometimes so you can access both that and the individual chapters. They should be identical otherwise so whichever works best for you.
What To Help With
Anything!
At this stage I want any and all feedback. Whatever you’re happy to provide I will accept. I still have 3,000 words free before I hit my max length so if you feel there is something I should add I welcome that too. Orange highlights are notes to myself.
Suggestions to look at:
- Grammar (spelling, punctuation, etc)
- Sentence structure
- Readability
- Academic numbers (should I use 1 or ONE, etc)
- Citations aligning with References
- Tables/Figures aligning with Appendix
- Understandability (does it make sense?)
- Accuracy of statements (do you think something is incorrect?)
- Weak arguments (PLEASE point these out!)
- Missing information (Does it look like I forgot to add something?)
- Superfluous information (Adds nothing to the paper)
- Superfluous repetition (Say the same thing twice without benifit)
- Flow (Do sentences, paragraphs, sections flow well into each other?)
- DON’T worry about page formatting, to come later.
So please, if you have some time in the next couple of days, please give it a read through and comment. Be (nicely) BRUTAL! I would rather find weaknesses and errors now when I have hime to fix them!!! And don’t hesitate to make (lots of) comments, the more I have to work with now the better this will be once I submit it. Also, please feel free to share it with friends you think could help :)
Please give your feedback by 28th (29th latest) March 2022!
8.9.21|Slime green study anyone? Its the color scheme for my notes for some reason, and apparently the music I listen to while marathon studying. Does anyone else study to loud music just to keep them going?? Coffee doesn’t always cut it.
Post link
