Category: Writing

Anything on the process or results of writing as an activity and a passion

Replace generic blog templates

Folding bicycle

As more and more friends and colleagues set up blogs, it becomes harder to distinguish between so many identical looking pages. While the default Blogger templates are generally attractive, they have now been used so many times that anything written on one automatically looks generic.

A good template should, above all, be clear and readable. Next, it helps for it to look stylish and professional as well. While it is beyond the means of most beginner bloggers to create their own template, there are masses available to be downloaded for free. Regardless of whether you use Blogger, WordPress, or something else, changing your template is a quick way to make your blog more distinctive and memorable.

If you want to see the snazziest of templates (though many are more beautiful than usable), have a look at Zen Garden.

Listed below are a few places where decent, free templates can be picked up. Dozens more can be found in less than a minute, through Google.

For Blogger:

You can easily find instructions online on how to change your Blogger template. One thing to note: because Blogger generates every page of your blog in advance, before they are requested, you will need to republish the whole blog before the template will appear everywhere.

For WordPress:

There are so many such sites, and they are so easy to find, that it is almost pointless to list them. Instructions for changing WordPress themes are likewise easily available.

If you are using a system other than Blogger or WordPress, Google and ye shall find. You can also find some basic tutorials on customizing a template that you find, so as to make it individualized. Here is an example.

Thesis presentation tomorrow

I have come up with a draft handout for my thesis presentation tomorrow. I still don’t feel entirely confident about the the content. I know the general neighbourhood in which the thesis lives, but I am not yet sure of exactly how I am going to organize it and deal with it all. I’ve never had to write something longer than 6,000 words before, with the exception of a few long but decidedly non-academic letters.

Partly, I just don’t feel like I have read enough of what’s out there. It can be quite hard to do, when there is everything from a job search to seminar readings to papers that must be written pressing more urgently at my waking hours.

I have an evolving thesis timeline online, as well as an increasingly outdated thesis outline. The latter will get a facelift on the basis of the comments I receive in seminar tomorrow.

Photo modification, and tasks ongoing

Wadham College garden, with sumi-e applied

Modified photos of the day

What do people think of the modified photos I have been posting recently? (One, two, three, four, five.) In basically all cases, they have a single Photoshop filter applied, along with some contrast, levels, hue, and sharpness adjustments. I like them because they look good, and they provide a bit of variety. Unlike a film camera, where you can change the look of your photos enormously by using different stock, you are stuck with the characteristics of the digital sensor you have. Even as those become familiar, they begin to feel like constraints.

One thing that seems to be true about photos is that they often contain too much information; just as black and white can be a good way to force attention towards texture and composition, it seems like a lot of shots can be more interesting when elements of their geometry and colouration are highlighted.

That said, if people don’t like such modifications, I can certainly go back to showing straight versions all the time. Unmodified versions of all of these shots can be found on Facebook, as I do not take the time to adjust anything that goes online there.

Ongoing tasks

There is a great deal to be done at the moment:

  1. I need to write two essays for the Developing World seminar, presumably before I go to Turkey with my father.
  2. to prepare for that trip: finding out at least a tiny bit about the country and what to see in it.
  3. to prepare a group debate for this coming Thursday, as well as do the normal readings for that class.
  4. to push a batch of student loan paperwork through the bureaucratic edifices of the college.
  5. read two thesis-related books, three long thesis-related articles, and a thesis related thesis: soon
  6. pay a hefty chunk of backdated rent from this summer
  7. prepare a fifteen minute thesis presentation for this Wednesday
  8. come up with something to do for my birthday on or around the 28th of November (probably around, as there is OUSSG that night)
  9. continue seeking a job for next year
  10. write a first chapter for the thesis?

The collection is a daunting one; hence, the importance of developing and maintaining motivation. This is something that my flatmate Alex seems to have no trouble with – one of the reasons for which he often seems such a likable but incomprehensible creature.

Thesis case studies, justification for

The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and the Kyoto Protocol are both attempts at a multilateral solution to a previously unknown transboundary environmental problem. The reasons for which these case studies are useful for accessing fundamental questions about the science-policy relationship are several:

  1. Each agreement addresses an environmental problem that only recently became known.
  2. Each deals with a problem that is essentially transboundary, and requires concerted effort to resolve.
  3. Each involves scientific uncertainty, both about the material effects of the problem in the world and about the different characteristics of possible approaches for dealing with it.
  4. Each involves normative and distributional issues, with regards to groups that benefit or are harmed by the application of the agreement.

As such, each represents the outcome of a dialogue between stakeholders and experts. The former group is concerned with securing their interests, or those of their principles, such as they are understood at the time of interaction. The basis upon which this group operates is that of legitimacy: either implicitly held among those representing themselves, or transferred through a process, agreement, or institution to a representative whose legitimacy is premised upon advocacy.

The latter group is concerned with the generation and evaluation of data. Understood broadly here, ‘data’ are claims about the ontological nature of the world. This includes claims that are rigorously verifiable (such as those about the medical effects of certain pollutants) as well as those involving considerable interpretation (such as the meaning of international law).

The groups are not mutually exclusive, and many individuals and organizations played an overlapping role in the development of the agreements. Through the examination of these two case studies, as well as related matters, this thesis will engage with the interconnections between expertise and legitimacy in global environmental policy making, with a focus on agreements in areas with extensive normative ramifications.

Thesis presentation upcoming

Tree and sky, abstract

This coming Wednesday, I am to present my thesis plan to a dozen of my classmates and two professors. The need to do so is forcing further thinking upon exactly what questions I want to ask, and how to approach them. The officially submitted title for the work is: Expertise and Legitimacy: the Role of Science in Global Environmental Policy-Making. The following questions come immediately to mind:

  1. What do the differences between the Stockholm Convention on POPs and the Kyoto Protocol tell us about the relationship between science and environmental policy?
  2. What issues of political legitimacy are raised when an increasing number of policy decisions are being made either by scientists themselves, or on the basis of scientific conclusions?
  3. How do scientists and politicians each reach conclusions about the nature of the world, and what sort of action should be taken in it. How do those differences in approach manifest themselves in policy?

The easiest part of the project will be writing up the general characteristics of both Stockholm and Kyoto. Indeed, I keep telling myself that I will write at least the beginning of that chapter any time now. The rest of the thesis will depend much more on examination of the many secondary literatures that exist.

The answers that will be developed are going to be primarily analytic, rather than empirical. The basis for their affirmation or refutation will be logic, and the extent to which the viewpoints presented are useful for better understanding the world.

Points that seem likely to be key are the stressing of the normative issues that are entangled in technical decision making. Also likely to be highlighted is the importance of process: it is not just the outcome that is important, when we are talking about environmental policy, but the means by which the outcome was reached. Two dimensions of the question that I mean to highlight are normative concerns relating to the North/South divide and issues in international law. The latter is both a potential mechanism for the development and enforcement of international environmental regimes and a source of thought about issues of distribution, justice, and responsibility that pertains to these questions.

I realize that this is going to need to become a whole lot more concrete and specific by 2:30pm on Wednesday. A re-think of my thesis outline is probably also in order. I should also arrange to speak with Dr. Hurrell about it soon; having not seen him since the beginning of term, there is a certain danger of the thesis project drifting more than it ought to. Whatever thesis presentation I ultimately come up with will be posted on the wiki, just as all of my notes from this term have been, excepting those where people presenting have requested otherwise.

Seeking thesis HQ

The Eagle and Child

My recent thinking suggests that I need a thesis base of operations. My room is no good, because there are lots of things here enormously more interesting than a thesis to be written. The library is likewise no good, since there is not enough energy there to keep a brain firing at any decent level. Libraries make me fall asleep.

As such, I am considering using Green’s Cafe, beside the Eagle and Child, during the mornings and afternoons. They close around 5:30pm, which is obviously no good. Not even Starbucks stays open after 7:00pm. Perhaps G&D’s would work during the later period, but they have no internet access available whatsoever.

All this bother for a document that about ten people will read, plus or minus 4 nineteen times out of twenty.

[Update: 3:00am] After a week that has felt scatterbrained and unproductive, as well as marked by illness, I am unveiling a programme meant to help set things aright:

  1. A strong attempt at asserting my target sleep schedule (in bed to sleep at 1:00am, out of bed preparing to work by 9:00am)
  2. Multiple alarm clocks deployed to this end
  3. Complete prohibition on caffeine, with an exception for tea meant to assist with aforementioned illness
  4. No alcohol whatsoever – including a continued policy of declining wine at OUSSG and Wadham high table dinners
  5. Vitamins and omega-3’s as usual
  6. Continued course of ColdFX (ginseng extract CVT-E002), as kindly provided by my mother
  7. At least four hours a week of solid physical exercise, ie. cycling in the countryside
  8. Continued efforts to resist insatiable craving for olives – cause mysterious, sodium levels involved considerable
  9. Continued efforts to get in touch with sympathetic friends elsewhere in the world – esp. write letters
  10. Requirement to finish all Developing World seminar reading by the Monday before they are due
  11. Requirement to either read one thesis related item per day, or write 500 thesis usable words

Having to lay such a thing out makes me feel like Bridget Jones, but perhaps it will make it easier to abide by.

Bloggers’ gathering reminder

Pond in the University Parks

The day has been busy and the hour is late, so I will not write much. Indeed, I will just quickly remind members of the Oxford blogging community – new and old – that the fourth Oxford Bloggers’ Gathering will be happening next Wednesday, November 1st, at 8:00pm, at Far From the Madding Crowd, near the small Sainsbury’s at Broad Street and Cornmarket.

In my experience, meeting other Oxford bloggers is good fun, so I hope to see plenty of people there. Established bloggers, please pass along the word.

PostScript on choosing a thesis font

Following hard upon questions of content and structure is another essential decision related to the thesis: what font to print it in. The obvious choice, based on past form, would be Garamond (the font used in the banner atop this page). It is definitely a more elegant font than the ubiquitous Times New Roman, but it is rather too common itself. Bembo is an older and rarer variant, which I believe was used to print the hardcover edition of The Line of Beauty. Cheltenham Book is an option I am considering.

For ease in reading, as well as general aesthetics, I strongly prefer a serif typeface. Indeed, if there were any apart from Times likely to be on any computer someone would use the blog from, I would use a serif typeface here. As it stands, it will use one of the following sans serif typefaces, in decreasing order of preference: Lucida Grande, Verdana, Arial (a bad ripoff of Helvetica, but very common), and whatever the system standard Sans-Serif is. Because of the font collections included in each OS, Mac users are likely to see Lucida Grande, while Windows users are likely to see Verdana.

Are there any other people out there who check the front pages for a blurb on the font before starting a book? If so, do you have any suggestions?

One final matter typographical: North American Mac users in Oxford, and there are a good many, will appreciate learning that you can make the Pound symbol (£) by hitting Option-3.

Contemplating thesis structure

I have been thinking about thesis structure lately. The one with the most appeal right now is as follows. This is, naturally, a draft and subject to extensive revision.

Expertise and Legitimacy: the Role of Science in Global Environmental Policy-Making

  1. Introduction
  2. Stockholm and Kyoto: Case Studies
  3. Practical consequences of science based policy-making
  4. Theoretical and moral consequences
  5. Conclusions

Introduction

The introduction would lay out why the question is important, as well as establishing the methodological and theoretical foundations of the work. The issue will be described as a triple dialogue with one portion internal to the scientific community, one existing as a dynamic between politicians and scientists, and one as the perspective on such fused institutions held by those under their influence. All three will be identified as interesting, but the scope of the thesis will be limited to the discussion of the first two – with the third bracketed for later analysis. The purpose of highlighting the connections between technical decision-making and choices with moral and political consequences will be highlighted.

Chapter One

In laying out the two case studies, I will initially provide some general background on each. I will then establish why the contrast between the two is methodologically useful. In essence, I see Stockholm as a fairly clear reflection of the idealized path from scientific knowledge to policy; Kyoto, on the other hand, highlights all the complexities of politics, morality, and distributive justice. The chapter will then discuss specific lessons that can be extracted from each case, insofar as the role of science in global environmental policy-making is concerned.

The Terry Fenge book is the best source on Stockholm, though others will obviously need to be cited. There is no lack of information on Kyoto. It is important to filter it well, and not get lost in the details.

Chapter Two

The second chapter will generalize from the two case studies to an examination of trends towards greater authority being granted to experts. It will take in discussion of the secondary literature, focusing on quantifiable trends such as the increased numbers of scientists and related technical experts working for international organizations, as well as within the foreign affairs branches of governments.

The practical implications of science in policy making have much to do with mechanisms for reaching consensus (or not) and then acting on it (or not). Practical differences in the reasoning styles and forms of truth seeking used by scientists and politicians will be discussed here.

Analysis of some relevant theses, both from Oxford (esp. Zukowska) and from British Columbia (esp. Johnson), will be split between this and the next chapter.

Chapter Three

Probably the most interesting chapter, the third is meant to address issues including the nature of science, its theoretical position vis a vis politics, and the dynamics of classifying decisions as technical (see this post). This chapter will include discussion of the Robinson Cruesoe analogy that Tristan raised in an earlier comment, as well as Allen Schmid’s article. Dobson’s book is also likely to prove useful here.

Conclusions

I haven’t decided on what these are to be yet. Hopefully, some measure of inspiration will strike me during the course of reading and thinking in upcoming months. Ideally, I would like to come up with a few useful conceptual tools for understanding the relationships central to this thesis. Even better, but unlikely, would be a more comprehensive framework of understanding, to arise on the basis of original thought and the extension of the ideas of others.

In laying all of this out, my aim is twofold. I want to decide what to include, and I want to sort out the order in which that can be done most logically and usefully. Comments on both, or on any other aspect of the project, are most welcome.