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Monday, February 27, 2017

Virender Sehwag and Randeep Hooda mock daughter of soldier who died in Kargil. Minister defends them

Rohan Venkataramakrishnan

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Twitter humour can sometimes open a can of worms. Especially if you are a famous cricketer with more than eight million followers. Virender Sehwag, former batsman for the Indian men’s cricket team, on Sunday chose to mock the 20-year-old daughter of a soldier who died in Kargil because of her campaign against student violence.
‘I didn’t score two triple centuries,’ says the placard on Sehwag’s joke post. ‘My bat did.’
The text is a direct response to 20-year-old Gurmehar Kaur’s campaign against the right-wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad’s violence at Ramjas College in Delhi. Kaur had changed her profile picture to include #StudentsAgainstABVP, but the popularity of her campaign also led viewers to a silent video she had made last year, calling for an end to state-sponsored conflict from India and Pakistan. “Pakistan did not kill my dad, war killed him,” she said.
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While Sehwag was also lampooning the placard-holding trend which has taken over Facebook and Twitter, his joke also specifically mocked this message from Kaur. And he quickly got appreciation from actor Randeep Hooda, who has half a million followers on the platform.
The humour, especially since it made light of Kaur’s message about her father’s death, did not go down well with everyone.
When called out on it, however, Hooda insisted that Kaur was a “poor girl being used as a political pawn”. He also insisted that it “reeks of political usage of mans child who died defending the line drawn,” and then reverted to saying it was “just very witty of Viru” to crack his joke.
So, in addition to Sehwag making fun of the death of the Kargil soldier, Hooda then went on to take away Kaur’s ability to think for herself and insisted that she was just a poor girl being used for political aims and anyway the whole point was just the cricketer’s joke, no matter its sensitivities.
Kaur herself decided to respond to this, insisting that she is no political pawn, following which Hooda retreated to the position that he was both against student violence and yet didn’t want the “young girl’s thoughts” to be politicised.
And then Union Minister Kiren Rijiju jumped in, again explicitly criticising Kaur’s remarks by asking, “Who’s polluting this young girl’s mind?’ followed by a confused statement about strong Arm Force and weak India.
The responses from Rijiju and Hooda fall prey to the basic fallacy that only one stance, presumably questioning the government or the ABVP, is explicitly political and moreover that “young girls” having political thoughts is a bad thing.
Hooda, in fact, complained that Kaur’s post “reeked” of an attempt to politicise her father’s death, when the reverse argument – that one must not question the government or the army because soldiers are dying at the border – does not amount to a politicising India’s military. War, and its casualties, are always political. Hooda’s insistence that it ought not to be is as insensitive as Sehwag’s joke. Rijiju’s “weak India” comment, meanwhile, has no real grounding in history.
Kaur, meanwhile, said she has received rape threats in response to her campaign, which will no doubt spread even further now that a Union Minister has stepped into the fray.

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Sunday, February 26, 2017

The 'youngest american to visit every country in the world' has released her 10 favourite destinations

 by UPVOTE

              
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Picture: INSTAGRAM / EXPEDITION_196
Cassanda De Pecol claims she has just broken the Guinness World Record to become:
  • The first documented woman to travel to every sovereign nation 
  • The first American woman to travel to every sovereign nation
  • The youngest American to travel to every sovereign nation (at 27)
  • The fastest person to travel to every sovereign nation
In case you were wondering, there are 196 sovereign nations on the planet to date. 
Beginning when Cassie was 23 on the Pacific island of Palau in July 2015, the trip lasted 18 months and 26 days - half the time of the previous Guinness World Record. 
Her journey, Expedition196, was almost entirely funded by sponsorship, has been an installation in sustainability and ethical eco-friendly tourism.

Now I know we've all had enough of experts, but if you were going to take travel tips from anyone...
These are, according to De Pecol, the top ten best countries in the entire world to visit, and why:

 

10. USA 

Fall in New England is something everyone should experience.
They say home is where the heart is, and the more I travel, the more that's becoming more real to me.
Home is where family is, it's where my safety net is, it's where everything that I'm familiar with is, and my country is rich in nature, which is important to me.
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Picture: (istock / Ron_Thomas)

 

 

9. Costa Rica, Central America

Monkeys, fresh fruit, good music and volcanoes...need I say more?
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Picture: (istock / RCDIGITALPHOTOGRAPHY)

 

8. Peru, South America

The Amazon rainforest and Aguas Calientes [gateway to Machu Picchu].
De Pecol also spent some time living in Peru.
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Picture: (istock / Siempreverde22)

 

7. Tunisia, North Africa

To experience northern African culture with a Middle Eastern feel and an immense amount of archaeological history.
According to De Pecol, the town of Sidi Bou Said (20km from Tunis, the capital) "blew me away".
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Picture: (istock / EnginKoorkmaz)

 

6. Oman, Arabian Peninsula

To immerse yourself in the desert and mountains, while learning from locals who live in the mountains, it's a whole different lifestyle.
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Picture: (istock / typhoonski)

 

 

5. Pakistan

To get a true sense of raw, authentic Asian culture, and for the food. 
De Pecol especially appreciated Pakistan, because she had to wait four months for her visa approval.
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Picture: (istock / pawopa3336)

 

4. Vanuatu, South Pacific

To experience the process of how Kava is made and to meet some of the kindest people.
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Picture: (istock / holgs)

 

 

3. Maldives

To see some of the bluest water, whitest sand and most stunning sand banks in the world.
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Picture: (istock / EXTREME-PHOTOGRAPHER)

 

2. Bhutan

To learn the ethics of peaceful living.
The pilgrimage [to Paro Taktsang] was something out of Avatar, a dream to trek through low-hanging clouds with a harrowing drop at any given moment on either side.
Prayer flags swayed through the pines, prayer wheels spinning in the breeze, and tsa-tsas (ashes of the dead) wedged between crevices of stone.
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Picture: (istock / narvikk)

 

 

1. Mongolia

To be immersed in the remote wilderness and to ride the wild horses.
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Picture: (istock / SeppFriedhuber)

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Identifying gaps

Identifying gaps in the literature is a critical part of a review
As with all research, it is important to formulate questions that need further investigation and identify gaps in the literature that must be researched. First you need to identify and select relevant information sources, which will mean looking at books in the library, catalogues, databases and on the Internet.
Once you have decided what area you want to target and you have found appropriate sources to research you will need to interpret the results. Evaluate the information you have gathered carefully and if necessary modify your search.
You are looking for:
  1. Gaps in the research where you can suggest ways forward or theories of your own.
  2. Areas where the research is incomplete.
Once you have outlined the gaps in the literature, point these out and their flaws making sure that you identify the pertinent issues for future study. Identifying gaps in the literature shows that you understand the topic and suggesting new work, shows you have the potential for further study and independent research.
Finding the right voice for your literature review is all-important. Make your work clear, concise and informative. And as ever, always leave your reader with something to dwell upon!
Need help improving the clarity and readability of your work? StyleWriter editing software picks up on all your misspellings, grammar errors and poorly worded sentences. You’ll soon be writing with greater professionalism and precision. Why not try it today for free? Read our StyleWriter review

Useful links

Deakin University Library (2001). The Literature Review, [Online]. Available: http://www.deakin.edu.au/library/research/search-and-review-literature.php [Last accessed: 2014, June].

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6 (very useful!) Approaches to identify research gaps and generate research questions

First let’s start with a question: what is “research gap”? Research gap is a research question or problem which has not been answered appropriately or at all in a given field of study. Research gap is actually what makes your research publishable, why? Because it shows you are not just duplicating existing research; it shows you have a deep understanding of the status of the body of knowledge in your chosen field; and finally it shows that you have conducted a research which fulfills that gap in the literature.
Researchers, particularly those pursuing Master’s or PhD often find it difficult to identify the gaps in the body of knowledge in their own chosen fields. Identifying gaps and generating research questions can be regarded as the first and most important step in writing a research paper. Of course there are many approaches for overcoming this difficulty, but finding original and innovative topics, and distinguishing gaps in the literature is never an easy feat. There are different approaches to employ and not all researchers, especially younger ones, are aware of them. Here, we will try to briefly discuss them.
For starters, considering the gap finding issue, three classes of researchers can be distinguished:
  • The first class is mainly the class of researchers who act according to their personal enthusiasm. These researchers have complete proficiency in their chosen field which is the result of years of experience or a rich body of knowledge acquired after covering all the important papers in their field of study.
  • The second class is encouraged by peripheral factors. For instance, a researcher may choose a particular college and a certain professor. That professor might have a specific project in hand and he may suggest this project to you. The, you would investigate and if the project is close to your expectations for a masters or PhD degree, you will select it.
  • It is really the same story with the third group. Again a peripheral factor, this time not the professor, forces the researcher to select a topic. For instance, the environment the researcher has grown up in, and the needs of that environment, i.e. society, will force him to focus mostly, for example, on agricultural sector.
So far we have discussed three classes of researchers each of whom chooses a topic in a different way. But what if you are not knowledgeable in your field? What if you do not want to choose a topic based on your professor’s interest? What if environmental factors are not of importance for you? Well, there are other approaches you can use in order to find a gap, topic or a popular trend in your chosen field of study; some are simple and some other sophisticated:
  1. The easiest way would to read specific parts of the articles in your field of study. Of course there may be hundreds of articles in your field, but you have to find the most suitable ones by measuring their value and finding out how influential they are. After finding the most suitable articles (there are tools which can help you in this regard, but we are not discussing them here) you should examine the parts which include “introduction” section, which always has a sentence or two about the reasons why that research is done; “conclusion” section and of course “suggestions for future research” section in which the author of the article, having examined the literature and conducted a research himself, would point his readers to areas which lack investigation or need closer examination.
  1. One other approach is to read systematic reviews. These papers delve deep into the literature and examine the trends and changes in a discipline or specific field of study and provide summaries of the literature which can in some cases save a lot of research time. Moreover, content analysis reportscitation analysis reports and meta-analysis reports can be very illuminating and helpful, especially the later which reports the findings of the previous researches.
  1. Another approach is to visit the website of the most prominent and influential journals in your field of study. These journals often have a “Key Concepts” section which aims to assist the journal’s audience to develop an appreciation of central ideas in that field and to approach the content of articles from a perspective which is informed by present debate on aspects of both theory and practice. Key Concepts are usually very short articles and each one is dedicated to one specific topic. They are often written by well-known scholars who are expert in that field of study or topic. There is also a reference section in “Key Concept” papers which introduces the most important papers or books written about that topic.
  1. There is another type of paper which is called “State of the Art” paper. State of the Art papers summarize the state of knowledge on a specific subject. They delimit research frontiers and identify fruitful and promising areas of future research. They can be classified under systematic review papers.
Now the above mentioned were some general and rather simple approaches to finding gaps, research questions and topics. There are also tools and more sophisticated approaches which can save you research time and give you better overview of the current trends and areas of interests in your field of study:
  1. One of these tools is developed by Thomson Reuters; it is called “Essential Science Indicator”. Some universities have access to this website. If your college has provided you access to this website then you utilize it. It tells you about the most cited papers in each field, the new areas or branches that have been developing in that field. It also identifies the influential individuals, institutions, papers, publications, and countries in that field.
  1. You can also use “Google Trends” in order to find out if the popularity or interest in a topic is increasing or decreasing, you can also use this tool to compare various topics with each other and see which one is more popular. Google Trends also provides “regional interest” index; this piece of information shows which topic is hot or popular in which country. Another piece of information provided by Google Trends is “related searches” which provides queries similar to yours and the name of the authors who are active in the topic you have searched.
There are other websites and tools such as Social MentionSpringerGoogle Ads, and BroadReader which provide more sophisticated information regarding the queries such as their popularity, various bars and charts which demonstrate the trends in different time spans, the most recent articles that have been downloaded and their related tags ad etc. You can find a more detailed discussion of these tools in the following mind map:
As you work with these tools and manipulate them you begin to understand how they work and which one is best for your field of study. But keep one thing in mind, try to use only one of them and master utilizing it. These tools can save you an enormous amount of research time and effort and open new doors in your life. Do not underestimate their value and start using them.
And, one more thing for professional researchers:
Well, here is a food for thought: what we discussed above was the conventional approaches to gap spotting and generating topics and research questions. However, there always other and new ways of approaching research questions. For instance, Alvesson and Sandberg state that although gap spotting is the prevalent way of constructing research questions, these “established ways of generating research questions rarely express more ambitious and systematic attempts to challenge the assumptions underlying existing theories” (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011). Thus, they propose an alternative method:
Our aim in this study is to integrate the positive and the negative research agenda by developing and proposing problematization as a methodology for identifying and challenging assumptions that underlie existing theories and, based on that, generating research questions that lead to the development of more interesting and influential theories within management studies (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011).
They have developed a typology of the type of assumptions that can be problematized in the existing theories and proposed a set of methodological principles to approach the problematization concept. Although appealing, the problematization method can be a bit risky, since it may involve challenging existing paradigms and their underpinning ontological and epistemological assumptions. In fact, Alvesson and Sandberg too mention that “challenging assumptions is often risky, since it means questioning existing power relations in a scientific field, which may result in upsetting colleagues, reviewers, and editors and, thus, may reduce the chances of having an article published” (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011).
So if you dare, there can always be new ways of approaching research questions, although the method proposed by Alvesson and Sandberg may not, for obvious reasons(!), be suitable for young researchers at all and as all university professors tell their students, “don’t try to take on too ambitious projects at first”.
References
Alvesson, M., & Sandberg, J. (2011). GENERATING RESEARCH QUESTIONS THROUGH PROBLEMATIZATION. Academy of Management Review. doi:10.5465/AMR.2011.59330882

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