Katy Pearce | Adventures in Research

20 Aug

Manuscript trimming tips

Word and page limits exist for a reason, but they present a challenge. These are my top tips for trimming manuscripts down.

Cut references

I know that this can be really difficult but these take up a lot of space. Hopefully you’re using a reference manager already, so cutting is a bit easier.

What I do is go to my references and search for the surname in the text.

I then will make a comment if it used only once. I usually add something like “But it is a meta-analysis” or “But it is in the journal that we’re submitting to” or sometimes I’ll delete it immediately. These one-offs can be really difficult. I will also ask myself if it is at all possible that some other reference that I used says the same thing or if I absolutely need to cite that paper only once.

I’ll also consider if I’m citing the same person/team multiple times in the same citation and ask myself if I have to do so. Perhaps one of the citations is the key theoretical piece, so I can’t avoid it. But if it is a smaller finding that they had in both a 2012 and a 2016 paper and perhaps the 2016 paper is in a better venue or is more widely cited, I’ll cut the 2012 reference.

Similarly with the same person, I’ll do a scan for them throughout the paper. For example, if in the entire paper I cited B, T, and R 2012 and T and B 2009 and R, T, and B 2016 each 4 times, but I only cited R, B, and T 2015 once. I’ll re-skim the 2015 paper and ask myself if I absolutely need to include it or if the finding was in one of the other papers as well.

Thinking about the venue is important too. For example, let’s say I’m working on a paper about walruses playing board games with an outcome of better walrus solidarity. And I’m submitting this paper to a journal that is really focused on board game playing and less on solidarity or walruses. While I cannot remove all of the citations that tie back to walrus or solidarity literature, I should prioritize the board game playing literature as that is the journal’s audience and reviewers will come from that field. But I do always have older versions of the paper that have all of the references in it just in case the reviewers ask why there isn’t more theorizing and literature from Walrus Studies.

Finally, the most heartbreaking reference cuts are studies with too many authors and/or really long titles. This is presuming that references count towards the word count.

2. Cut words

Do searches for common adverbs. Delete transitional words (this is painful for me).

3. Merge words

Sometimes hyphens are appropriate and can save space.

4. Wordiness

You’re probably being too wordy. Try to read the paragraph out loud to yourself or have your computer read it to you. It can be easier to hear the problems. I also sometimes do better when I’m editing a printed version of the paper versus on a screen. I think that taking a break from the manuscript also helps.

5. Text -> Table

Sometimes you can turn text into tables. This will reduce words and if the journal doesn’t count tables toward the word count, save you a ton of words. However, if page count is the issue, tables sometimes can be longer than text.

6. If qualitative/interview based, look for redundant participant quotes

It is easy to fall in love with a great direct quote or example from a participant. Sometimes they’re just so delicious and represent the theme so well. But I find that a lot of people will have 3 or even more examples for a particular theme. And that is okay, but one must also remember that some of them have to be cut eventually.

Ask yourself if the quote is absolutely necessary to illustrate the theme or is so perfect that it really sells the theme in a sincere way. Look at each quote in comparison with every other quote within the theme and ask yourself if they both need to be there.

Also keep a table of quote/example counts by participant. Sometimes some participants are chattier or articulate themselves better and we lean more heavily on their quotes. It is important to have a count at the end so you don’t accidentally have many more quotes from a few participants. This is not to say to purposefully manipulate your quote choices or include some participants artificially. Rather, seeing that you’re already quite heavy with quotes from “Alice” can help you make decisions between two quotes more easily.

7. Redundancy in the findings section

Sometimes we have a fairly complicated framework and we need to remind our reader what the conceptual definition of a particular theme was. However, this does take up a lot of space. This is another one that is painful for me.

8. Could this be two papers?

Sometimes there is so much going on that you can split the manuscript into two papers. Honestly, this happens to me about 75% of the time. This does require work to ensure that the theoretical scaffolding is different and that you’re not reusing findings. However, in some cases it might make sense to divide.

9. Have an editing partner

Certainly if there are multiple authors in a study, someone else can look at the manuscript. But you may also be able to have a friend with whom you trade editing/trimming tasks.

10. Check your conclusion/discussion

Sometimes we get a little bit freewheeling at the end of the manuscript. This can be a place where entire sections could be removed.

25 Mar

Facebook in Armenia, March 2020

It has been awhile since I last blogged about Facebook use in the Caucasus. Again, here is a guide to how I get these data. Click on the tags for previous rates – here’s September 2017, here is May 2018. Here is December 2018.

As of March 2020, there are about 1,500,000 Facebook users in Armenia, according to Facebook. That is 50% of the total population, and 46% of the population over age 14 (Facebook technically isn’t available to those under 13.) There is a bit of growth since December when Facebook ads estimated 1,400,000 users (47% of the population).

As far as gender, 50% of the total male population, or 64% of males over age 14 are on Facebook. 53% of the total female population, or 49% of the female 14+ population. So there are some gender differences, but probably within the margin of error.

Just looking at the 15-24 year olds, 82% of them are on the site (this is a drop from 2 years ago — I suspect people have moved to Instagram), 82% of young men and 87% of young women.

Some trends to look for – as in the rest of the world, young people are moving more toward Instagram. Everyone is moving toward WhatsApp and other private messaging services.

25 Mar

2017 Internet access in Armenia

With the move toward online learning all over the world, someone asked me about Internet access in Armenia. The most recent publicly available data that we have is from the 2017 Caucasus Barometer. Here are a few relevant statistics. Please note that the survey respondents are a mix of household answers (like owning a computer) and individual answers (frequency of Internet use), so we are making some methodological leaps in claiming that this would reflect the access that young people would have.

It is difficult to ascertain the presence of children in the household using the Caucasus Barometer online analysis tool. When I have some time I will create a variable that subtracts the number of adults in the household from the total number of household residents to create a new variable called “Number of children” — I’d like to use that to look at all of the analyses described below in the future.

Another caveat – in homes across the world, adults working from home are having to share their technology with their children. There may also be greater demands on home Internet access and adult work use becomes prioritized over children’s.

Analysis

Overall, 29% of Armenia adults never access the Internet. This has remained fairly stable for the past few years. The 2017 CB did not ask about why people did not use the Internet, but in previous years, the answered varied and were not all tied to resource access issues.

Home Internet access is far more available in the capital city, although mobile Internet (and nearly two-thirds of Armenians have mobile Internet) certainly bridges that gap for many households.

Nonetheless, in 2017, over a third of rural respondents never accessed the Internet.

Mobile Internet does vary a bit by urbanness. Two-thirds or nearly two-thirds of Yerevan residents and regional urban center residents have mobile Internet, while a little over half of rural residents do.

While mobile phones have come a long way (and nearly all Armenians have owned a mobile phone for over a decade), no one can deny that some activities are conducted more easily using a personal computer. As of 2017 58% of households had a computer. This does not mean that people do not have access to computers at cafes, work, or school. However, in terms of considering distance learning or working from home, the lack of a computer may be a barrier for some.

Urbanness has always been an important part of the Armenian digital divide story. Personal computer ownership is far higher in the capital (67%) than in regional urban environments (56%) or rural areas (51%).

11 Dec

Facebook in Azerbaijan, December 2019

It has been quite awhile since I last blogged about Facebook use in the Caucasus. Again, here is a guide to how I get these data. Click on the tags for previous rates.

According to Facebook, as of December 2019, around 3,300,000 Azerbaijanis, about 35% of the total population, or more accurately, 32% of the population over age 14, are on Facebook.

Over half of all Azerbaijani men (over age 14) are on Facebook (well, 61%) and 29% of Azerbaijani women (over age 14) are on Facebook. This has been the trend for as long as I’ve been tracking this.

Looking at just youth, about 44% of Azerbaijanis ages 15-24 use Facebook (this is a drop from last year!). 60% of males that age and 27% of females that age.

As always, these numbers are to be taken with a grain of salt. This is information from Facebook ads.

12 Apr

Social media and bullying in Azerbaijan

This week a young woman in Azerbaijan took her own life as a result of possible bullying. Video of the act and subsequent events were widely shared and discussed on social media. As a result, many Azerbaijanis are discussing the problem of bullying in schools. Here’s a summary of the case in English.

Here’s a NodeXL hashtag analysis of #BullinqəSon (End Bullying)

Here’s a NodeXL hashtag analysis of #Elinaüçünsusma (Don’t be silent about Elina) — this is more popular

Some caveats here regarding any sort of hashtag analysis:

Twitter data downloads like this are always incomplete, as it is impossible to get the full dataset.
The results are a little skewed because a lot of the users are tweeting at the President and First Lady to do something. Obviously they have a lot of followers, so a lot of these “importance” metrics are impacted by that.
Twitter isn’t a great venue to consider Azerbaijani public discussion of such topics, in particular this one that is of great interest to young people. I’ve seen far more on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc. I can only imagine WhatsApp has a great deal of this as well.
Social media are always performative. The need to let one’s audience know that they care about this issue is not always the same as discussion about solutions.
Social media “influencers” sometimes feel compelled to have a hot take on the topic of the day and sometimes they’ll say provocative things because it leads to more engagement. There have been a few “celebrities” in Azerbaijan, especially on Instagram, doing this. I wouldn’t take this as the complete story.

And some general thoughts on social media campaigns, with a bullying angle. I’m not a bullying expert, but I’ve talked to people that are and these thoughts are influenced by that. (Thanks to them! Especially Lindsay Blackwell and her excellent work on cyberbullying.)

For campaigns to be taken seriously by young people, they need to feel sincere. I’m under the impression that some of these campaigns have been started by people that young people in Azerbaijan may not follow and that may not be entirely relatable. Decades of research shows that adult-created campaigns aimed at youth frequently fail. I worked on an environmental campaign aimed at middle school and high school students and I cannot even begin to tell you how much money was spent on materials that the young people laughed at. We ran focus groups to see what sort of messages resonated with the young people and where they were most likely to be influenced (both media channels and with peers) and it was entirely different from what the campaign organizers had done.
Campaigns need to be multifaceted, especially when there is a goal of behavioral change. There is currently criticism that schools are securing windows (the young woman jumped out of a window), but at the same time, such an act is probably a good idea and can be done immediately. It does not mean that the school is not working on other strategies and actions to reduce bullying and its effects.
Who is the target of the campaign? Is it bullies asking them to not bully other children? Is it those that are the victims of bullying telling them to be strong? Or is it potential bystanders, asking them to intervene? The messages will be different!
- With bystanders in particular, which is the hypothetical largest audience, in any campaign, people need to be told what to do. For example, in the US, there was a campaign about forest fires that said “Only you can prevent forest fires” but the campaign did not actually tell people how to prevent forest fires! So, in the bullying case, potential bystanders need instructions about what to do if they see a classmate being bullied. (And at least at my own child’s school, there is an entire curriculum about this from the very early years.)
- Victims need different messaging about what they can do as well as a sense that there are others out there experiencing bullying. According to my expert colleagues, bullying feels very isolating and it is hard to see that there are others in the same position. So campaigns whereby people disclose that they were bullied and what they did about it can be helpful.
- The bullies themselves are also children and conventional wisdom says that children that are bullies are not infrequently subject to problems at home, have mental health issues, etc. – they also need help.
- Schools and parents also need help! Law enforcement too!
For campaigns to be effective with young people, the message needs to also be relatable and from an authentic figure. For example, a gorgeous 30-year-old actress saying that she was bullied in school may not be believable in the eyes of a 13-year-old who sees that actress leading a glamorous life and looking beautiful. We see that a bit with the “It Gets Better” type campaigns with celebrity focuses versus “#metoo” whereby the majority of the messaging comes from “regular” people.
Figuring out who is influential among young people in Azerbaijan (and on what platform) but still relatable and if that person did in fact experience bullying (and it is believable that they did) or perhaps they were an intervening bystander would be a very good tactic. In fact, in the words of one of my bullying expert colleagues, that would be infinitely more helpful than a Ministry of Education campaign that takes months or years to design.
Decades of research shows that suicide has a potential copycat effect. It is incredibly irresponsible for media outlets (and individual users) to share the video where this young woman takes the action.
In Azerbaijan there are laws related to suicide and it is a criminal offense to “cause” someone to commit suicide. I have to admit that this seems strange to me as an American. Certainly it is not possible to demonstrate this beyond reasonable doubt and the mental health issues that those considering suicide are facing are numerous. There is a great deal of social media speculation about this young woman’s family, the role that the school administration played or didn’t play in her death, the young woman’s romantic and sexual life, etc. In my opinion, such discussions do little to help anyone – those grieving or those trying to reducing bullying and its effects.

As a takeaway, although tragic, as a result of this young woman’s death, the very real problem of bullying in schools is now being discussed more widely in Azerbaijan and that is a good thing. Those that want to try to help – both immediately and in the long term – would be well-advised to look at the existing work on anti-bullying campaigns before jumping in.

04 Dec

Facebook in Armenia, December 2018

As of December 2018, there are about 1,400,000 Facebook users in Armenia, according to Facebook. That is 47% of the total population, and 43% of the population over age 14 (Facebook technically isn’t available to those under 13.) There is a bit of growth since May 2018 when Facebook ads estimated 1,200,000 users (40% of the population), but I would be cautious to attribute this to the Velvet Revolution. About 100,000 new Armenians join Facebook each quarter or so anyway.

As far as gender, 44% of the total male population, or 57% of males over age 14 are on Facebook. 48% of the total female population, or 49% of the female 14+ population. So there are some gender differences, but probably within the margin of error.

Just looking at the 15-24 year olds, 87% of them are on the site, 86% of young men and 92% of young women. These numbers have been fairly steady for a few years, with many young women on the site for awhile. 2016 seemed to be the big leap here.

Some trends to look for – as in the rest of the world, young people are moving more toward Instagram. Everyone is moving toward WhatsApp and other private messaging services.

22 Oct

Associate!

I received tenure in September 2018. If you see something out on the web that lists me as assistant professor, please let me know.

17 Jun

Urbanness and Facebook in Azerbaijan

Click here for other posts about Facebook use in the South Caucasus. Here is a guide to how I get these data.

Years of empirical research show that Internet use is far more common in cities than in rural areas and this continues to be true in Azerbaijan.

As of June 2018, 32% of the total population of Azerbaijan is on Facebook, 30% of the 14+ age population. That’s 44% of men and 21% of women.

60% of 15-24 year olds are on Facebook, 78% of men and 41% of women.

But, in looking at geography, 81% of all Facebook users in Azerbaijan are within 25 miles (~40 km) of the capital, Baku and if one only looks at women, 87% of female Facebook users in Azerbaijan are within 25 miles of Baku.

09 May

Facebook in Armenia, May 2018

It has been awhile since I last blogged about Facebook use in the Caucasus. Again, here is a guide to how I get these data. Click on the tags for previous rates – here’s September 2017.

As of May 2018, there are about 1,200,000 Facebook users in Armenia, according to Facebook. That is 40% of the total population, and 37% of the population over age 14 (Facebook technically isn’t available to those under 13.)

As far as gender, 40% of the total male population, or 51% of males over age 14 are on Facebook. 43% of the total female population, or 49% of the female 14+ population. So there are some gender differences, but probably within the margin of error.

Just looking at the 15-24 year olds, 87% of them are on the site, 82% of young men and 92% of young women. (These numbers dropped a bit since last September).

30 Apr

Political change in Armenia

Armenia experienced its most profound political change since becoming independent when former President and briefly Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan resigned. Sargsyan served two terms as president of Armenia, but in 2015, he changed the constitution which moved Armenia from a semi-presidential system to a parliamentary one. Then, despite promising otherwise, he was elected Prime Minister by his party immediately after his last presidential term ended this month.

This sparked a protest organized by opponents to Sargsyan, opposition coalition Yelk (Way Out), but mostly the Civil Contract Party. These efforts were lead by charismatic multilingual 42-year-old opposition MP Nikol Pashinyan. Pashniyan is no newcomer, he has been battling Sargsyan for a decade.

I’m writing about the protests in other venues, but one of my main points is that Armenians were READY for this. Here are some analyses from the Caucasus Barometer to support this. (The CB has some nice online data analysis tools, but I made my own graphics to show some points better visually).

Armenians don’t trust Sargsyan [link to CB].

This line graph shows that the trust/distrust threshold was crossed in 2010 and for the past few years, very few Armenians trusted Sargsyan and many distrusted him.

This is a bar graph version of above. You can see that trust basically swapped.

Similarly, people were unhappy with the direction that politics were going on [link to CB].

Although don’t knows and refuse to answers were high, in the past few years, very few Armenians felt that the country was going in the right direction.

Armenians have been fairly consistent in their opinion about Armenia being a democracy [link to CB].

Election fraud and manipulation was widely connected with Sargsyan and the CB shows it [link to CB].

Additionally, Armenians are pretty keen on criticizing their government and protesting against it. [Link to CB on being critical] [Link to CB on protest]

Also, compared to Azerbaijan and Georgia, Armenians are especially keen on these things. (These are from the 2013 CB, the last that compared all 3 countries – critical, protest).

….

Added May 1 – trust toward Parliament [link to CB]