Blog Post 2 -- by Cynthia Quinn White

In which I mention, toward the end, a scary museum.

I agree with Hayley that the future of peer review in the humanities is in online scholarship. Scholars, and humans seem to enjoy using the Internet, specifically social networking. I think that social networking is going to play a part in peer-review in the future. Already, peer-reviewed journals use devices such as "Submishmash" to communicate with authors. Journals' calls for submissions, conferences, and fellowships are posted in Facebook groups, such as "Writer's Colony." How fun!
I find out about important works in my field, poetry, by word-of-mouth (as I'm in a MFA program and we talk about such things), news articles, such as this one from the New York Times, and from the Twitter feeds of organizations such as poetshouse. Again, fun.
Now, when I get to the citation methods (such as those mentioned in our readings), the fun should dwindle. But it doesn't! I love creating a works cited page. I am familiar with MLA style and my copy of the MLA style handbook is creased and tagged with love. Knowing that a colon separates the city of publication and the publisher gives my soul a thrill. New York: Knopf, 1997. Beautiful! No, I am not being sarcastic. My nerd heart beats a little faster for a well-crafted works cited page.
So far I've learned about how to find information in places such as Addison. Now, I'm excited to be moving into the guts of research and am looking forward to the next module on special collections. Special collections, by the way, are fascinating. I may be skewing a bit off from the print world, but check out this creepy collection. And here's a list of scary museums.