A Day in the Life
Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2021 8:15 am
by Elisabeth Black
1 Zi'da, Arc 720
Wealth Thread
Wealth Skill - Research
Trials at the Institute were extremely consistent. That didn’t mean that some weren’t more exciting than others though. Certain professors enjoyed a more exhilarating list of curriculums that consisted of things that either exploded or made extremely loud sounds and generally Elisabeth was dispatched to find out if anyone had died needed assistance. It was first thing in the morning, and she was on her way back to the front office to check in with Leta and Zyla. They always seemed to have some things for her to do – everything from class schedules to inventory reviews. It was mundane work but somehow the young woman always made it exciting.
Being back at the Institute was somewhat bittersweet. Those trials, she split her time between Storm’s Edge and Rharne. The Institute was a safe-haven of facts, books, and paper – something she had known her entire life. But at Storm’s Edge, there was training, friends, fear, and the unknown…but it was undeniable that it was those things that made her feel alive. She missed being at the fortress, but it didn’t pay the bills.
Once the mundane tasks were over, Elisabeth headed to Vin’s office for some long-overdue research. He was preparing a speech on the comparative qualities of the languages of Idalos and needed her to review a few key facts. He was focusing on how languages of neighboring cities were interconnected. It was a fascinating subject to her even though she only knew a few languages.
Reading through the text, she noted that he stated that there were many theories about how languages had developed similarly and his theory was simply one of them, based on research and data collected. Vin himself knew several languages so he was in a good position to judge if said languages had any impact on one another. He cautioned, however, that there were some theories floating out in the world that could not be substantiated with evidence but that they should not be dismissed because of their thought-provoking nature. Smiling as she read that, it was very much like Vin to want to be inclusive of all valid thoughts.
He continued on, stating that beings began to live in communities for reasons of protection from wildlife and other ravages of nature. Living in said communities demanded communication of some sort. So certain sounds were produced (which could have been quite rudimentary) and offered specific meaning. This gradually got refined to become the protolanguage.
When resources became scarce, the need to migrate to different places became a necessity. When human beings migrated to different regions, they came in contact with different flora, fauna, and also geographical features. The new environment demanded inventing new words and with their increase, the languages spoken in different regions became distinct but keyed off the original language. Regional variations could be tagged on to the culture of the place, environment, needs, and lifestyle as dictated by the factors mentioned. Regional variation also meant either a totally new language or a dialect of a mother language. That was true – she had heard of three cities that sat relatively close together. The one city was the base for the original language while the other two were formed when people moved away from the original city. One city formed an entirely new language that was loosely based on the mother language, but the other city simply created a regional dialect. Elisabeth couldn’t remember which cities they were at that moment. She’d have to ask Vin later.
Jotting down a few notes to remind her to look up a few key statistics to include, Elisabeth looked at the time, set the speech aside. It was time for the library. Grabbing a set of textbooks from the nearby table, the young woman rushed off to her next duty for the trial.
Often new students to the Institute had trouble finding the research materials they needed for whatever project they were doing, mostly because they lacked the basic research fundamentals. That’s where Elisabeth came in. Research was something the young woman had been doing her whole life and as such, she was the perfect person to show others the proper method.
Arriving at the library, she headed straight for the study alcove where she was to meet Kaven. A new linguistics student of her father’s, he had a brilliant mind but lacked a bit of focus. His research draft had shown that he inflicted more opinion into his papers than fact. There was an obvious need for a refresher in how to appropriately research.
Walking into the alcove, she offered up a friendly smile to the tall, sandy-haired boy. “Good trial, Kaven. Did you bring your notebook? I have some notes for you to take.” With the objective laid out, Elisabeth waited for him to ready himself before she began speaking. “Your research draft alerted Professor Hallowswift to the fact that it seemed you’ve not had much research training. This was your first attempt at a paper at this level, so that’s fine, but I think it will help you out if we go over the basic steps.”
Shuffling a few papers about, she found her notes and laid them to the side. Elisabeth had given this same tutorial dozens of times so the information was burned into her mind…but sometimes it was nice to have a reminder there, just in case.”Choosing a topic is the first step. Your topic can start out overly broad and as you go through the research/writing process, you can fine-tune it to be more specific. Starting specific is going to get you in trouble because once you narrow things down, it’s hard to go back and widen the topic again, does that make sense?” Making sure that Kaven was paying attention, she waited for the nod and pen to stop writing before she continued.
“Identifying the problem is next. You have a topic but that’s not enough. You must specify, to yourself, what your research will investigate. This allows you to give your paper focus, purpose, and context.” Yawning softly, she excused herself, giving the boy a quick smile. “Sorry, it’s been a long trial. Ready for the next step? “
“Formulating a list of research questions. This targets exactly what you want to find out. They might focus on describing, comparing, evaluating, or explaining the research topic. They can be simple questions or things that are much more complex. It doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that you are writing down things that you will eventually be looking up information on. When I’m researching for something like this, I usually write down all the questions I can think of and then go back and purge some. This step is an excellent time to do a bit of brainstorming.”
Glancing at the clock, she noted that time was getting short. She was needed back at Vin’s office shortly, so she picked up the pace a bit. “After all that, it’s finally time to start actual research. I find large volume reference books to be a great place to start. Once you read some of the larger, more basic entries, those usually give you a better idea of how to narrow down your focus and find the information you are looking for.”
Kaven’s pen was flying across the paper as she spoke the words, only stopping once Elisabeth did. “Analyze your research content. If you have found too many or too few sources, you may need to narrow or broaden your topic, depending on which. This can be a problem so if it happens, usually talking to your professor is the wisest policy. Sometimes on a minor adjustment is needed and if one is new to research, they sometimes overreact and want to start all over again. Just resist the urge and get help first.”
With only a few minutes left, she decided it was time to wrap it all up together and let him at it. “Your first draft was fine, but you inserted too many things that are classified as personal opinions rather than letting facts shine through. Linguistics, at this level of learning, is all about facts and history. All these things can be found in the tomes in this library but instead of consulting them, you wrote out your opinions as though they were fact. That doesn’t work, Kaven. You must do the research, analyze what you’ve found, and write out the results. That’s how it works.”
Grabbing the books and papers, she gave the boy a pat on the shoulder and a quick smile. ”Professor Hallowswift is eager to see the second draft of your paper within the 7 trials. Let me know if you need any further help. Have a good rest of your trial!” Moving swiftly from the room, Elisabeth was on to her next task with the other Professor Hallowswift – her mother. There were just some days that exhausted the young woman but she had to admit, it felt good doing something she knew she was good at.
Being back at the Institute was somewhat bittersweet. Those trials, she split her time between Storm’s Edge and Rharne. The Institute was a safe-haven of facts, books, and paper – something she had known her entire life. But at Storm’s Edge, there was training, friends, fear, and the unknown…but it was undeniable that it was those things that made her feel alive. She missed being at the fortress, but it didn’t pay the bills.
Once the mundane tasks were over, Elisabeth headed to Vin’s office for some long-overdue research. He was preparing a speech on the comparative qualities of the languages of Idalos and needed her to review a few key facts. He was focusing on how languages of neighboring cities were interconnected. It was a fascinating subject to her even though she only knew a few languages.
Reading through the text, she noted that he stated that there were many theories about how languages had developed similarly and his theory was simply one of them, based on research and data collected. Vin himself knew several languages so he was in a good position to judge if said languages had any impact on one another. He cautioned, however, that there were some theories floating out in the world that could not be substantiated with evidence but that they should not be dismissed because of their thought-provoking nature. Smiling as she read that, it was very much like Vin to want to be inclusive of all valid thoughts.
He continued on, stating that beings began to live in communities for reasons of protection from wildlife and other ravages of nature. Living in said communities demanded communication of some sort. So certain sounds were produced (which could have been quite rudimentary) and offered specific meaning. This gradually got refined to become the protolanguage.
When resources became scarce, the need to migrate to different places became a necessity. When human beings migrated to different regions, they came in contact with different flora, fauna, and also geographical features. The new environment demanded inventing new words and with their increase, the languages spoken in different regions became distinct but keyed off the original language. Regional variations could be tagged on to the culture of the place, environment, needs, and lifestyle as dictated by the factors mentioned. Regional variation also meant either a totally new language or a dialect of a mother language. That was true – she had heard of three cities that sat relatively close together. The one city was the base for the original language while the other two were formed when people moved away from the original city. One city formed an entirely new language that was loosely based on the mother language, but the other city simply created a regional dialect. Elisabeth couldn’t remember which cities they were at that moment. She’d have to ask Vin later.
Jotting down a few notes to remind her to look up a few key statistics to include, Elisabeth looked at the time, set the speech aside. It was time for the library. Grabbing a set of textbooks from the nearby table, the young woman rushed off to her next duty for the trial.
Often new students to the Institute had trouble finding the research materials they needed for whatever project they were doing, mostly because they lacked the basic research fundamentals. That’s where Elisabeth came in. Research was something the young woman had been doing her whole life and as such, she was the perfect person to show others the proper method.
Arriving at the library, she headed straight for the study alcove where she was to meet Kaven. A new linguistics student of her father’s, he had a brilliant mind but lacked a bit of focus. His research draft had shown that he inflicted more opinion into his papers than fact. There was an obvious need for a refresher in how to appropriately research.
Walking into the alcove, she offered up a friendly smile to the tall, sandy-haired boy. “Good trial, Kaven. Did you bring your notebook? I have some notes for you to take.” With the objective laid out, Elisabeth waited for him to ready himself before she began speaking. “Your research draft alerted Professor Hallowswift to the fact that it seemed you’ve not had much research training. This was your first attempt at a paper at this level, so that’s fine, but I think it will help you out if we go over the basic steps.”
Shuffling a few papers about, she found her notes and laid them to the side. Elisabeth had given this same tutorial dozens of times so the information was burned into her mind…but sometimes it was nice to have a reminder there, just in case.”Choosing a topic is the first step. Your topic can start out overly broad and as you go through the research/writing process, you can fine-tune it to be more specific. Starting specific is going to get you in trouble because once you narrow things down, it’s hard to go back and widen the topic again, does that make sense?” Making sure that Kaven was paying attention, she waited for the nod and pen to stop writing before she continued.
“Identifying the problem is next. You have a topic but that’s not enough. You must specify, to yourself, what your research will investigate. This allows you to give your paper focus, purpose, and context.” Yawning softly, she excused herself, giving the boy a quick smile. “Sorry, it’s been a long trial. Ready for the next step? “
“Formulating a list of research questions. This targets exactly what you want to find out. They might focus on describing, comparing, evaluating, or explaining the research topic. They can be simple questions or things that are much more complex. It doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that you are writing down things that you will eventually be looking up information on. When I’m researching for something like this, I usually write down all the questions I can think of and then go back and purge some. This step is an excellent time to do a bit of brainstorming.”
Glancing at the clock, she noted that time was getting short. She was needed back at Vin’s office shortly, so she picked up the pace a bit. “After all that, it’s finally time to start actual research. I find large volume reference books to be a great place to start. Once you read some of the larger, more basic entries, those usually give you a better idea of how to narrow down your focus and find the information you are looking for.”
Kaven’s pen was flying across the paper as she spoke the words, only stopping once Elisabeth did. “Analyze your research content. If you have found too many or too few sources, you may need to narrow or broaden your topic, depending on which. This can be a problem so if it happens, usually talking to your professor is the wisest policy. Sometimes on a minor adjustment is needed and if one is new to research, they sometimes overreact and want to start all over again. Just resist the urge and get help first.”
With only a few minutes left, she decided it was time to wrap it all up together and let him at it. “Your first draft was fine, but you inserted too many things that are classified as personal opinions rather than letting facts shine through. Linguistics, at this level of learning, is all about facts and history. All these things can be found in the tomes in this library but instead of consulting them, you wrote out your opinions as though they were fact. That doesn’t work, Kaven. You must do the research, analyze what you’ve found, and write out the results. That’s how it works.”
Grabbing the books and papers, she gave the boy a pat on the shoulder and a quick smile. ”Professor Hallowswift is eager to see the second draft of your paper within the 7 trials. Let me know if you need any further help. Have a good rest of your trial!” Moving swiftly from the room, Elisabeth was on to her next task with the other Professor Hallowswift – her mother. There were just some days that exhausted the young woman but she had to admit, it felt good doing something she knew she was good at.