This book is, without question, the most valuable work around for those who pursue an interest in a serious, systematic way. Completely revised and updated by the author, the handbook points to resources, organizations, and people, and helps the reader to understand the development and use of such expertise.
Cover:
How to Become an Expert in Any Subject— On Your Own
What do you want to learn more about? Really focus your interest on? It might be anything from women in literature to the history of baseball to organic gardening. The Independent Scholar’s Handbook is an invaluable guide to pursuing your interest and becoming an expert in it — outside of a university or other institution. It helps you select your topic; shows you where to look for resources, mentors, assistants, and financial help; gives you pointers on sharing your knowledge and getting published; and suggests ways you might combine your research with a job or career.
Satisfy Your Passion for Knowledge
Some of the most exciting discoveries and intellectual leaps have been made by independent scholars: Sigmund Freud, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein. Barbara Tuchman, and Betty Friedan are but a few who achieved recognition while working on their own. Other, ' less well-known, scholars include such people as a Seattle doctor whose lifelong hobby, exploring caves, has led him to worldwide travel and conservationism, and the Boston women whose pursuit of the truth about their own health resulted in the groundbreaking book Our Bodies, Ourselves.
If you have kept your mind active since you were in school but have an uneasy feeling that you have rarely, if ever, stretched it to anything like its limit, this handbook is for you. After years of learning/or someone or something else, you are now invited to begin an intellectual pursuit for yourself. The Independent Scholar’s Handbook will help you unlock your potential, mobilize your creative powers, and use your mind to its utmost.
Ronald Gross, formerly with the Ford Foundation, currently co-chairs the Innovation in Education seminar at Columbia University and is the editor of Adult and Continuing Education Today magazine.
Author(s): Ronald Gross
Year: 1993
Language: English
Commentary: Bookmarked, No index
Pages: 321
Tags: Independent Scholarship; Writing; Research; Scholar; Academia
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue: Encounters with Four Mentors
Part One: Starting Out
1 Risk Takers of the Mind
Emily Taitz and Sondra Henry:
A Quest for Women “Written Out of History”
2 From “Messy Beginnings’’ to the Fruits of Research
Step I: Start Your Own Intellectual Journal
Step 2: Reconnoiter New Realms of Knowledge
Step 3: Enter a New Field
Step 4: Develop Your First Projects
From Seed to Fruit:
Eric Hoffer:
A Passionate Philosopher
Part Two: The Practice of Independent Scholarship
Janet Barkas:
Coming to Terms with a Murder
3 Resources: Where? What? Who? How?
Special Library Collections
Interlibrary Loans
Access to Databases
Barbara Tuchman:
A Quest for Excellence
4 Working with Others
Finding Fellow Scholars among Your Neighbors
Corresponding with Colleagues
Your Turn for an Intern?
Organizations of Scholars
The “Amateur Wing”
The Hidden Conference
Mentors
Doing a Delphi
The Intellectual Partnership
Your Own Advisory Committee
Your Own Institute
William Draves:
A Scholarly Celebration of Free Universities
Independent Scholars in Action
5 Intellectual Craftsmanship
Pitfalls in Research
Beyond Traditional Methods
Managing Your Intellectual Projects
Betty Friedan:
The Problem That Has No Name
6 Wherewithal
Obtaining a Title or Affiliation
Grants and Awards'
What to Look for When You Are Looking for Grants
Other Sources of Financial Support
John Snyder:
Mapping the Earth
Interlude: Encounters along the Way
Part Three: Independent Scholars in Action
Alvin Toffler:
A Journey Past Time
7 Sharing Your Work
Teaching—as Socrates Taught
Publishing Your Work
Nontraditional Products of Scholarship
Intellectual Activism
8 Play for Mortal Stakes
9 Scholarship as Your Joy, if Not Your Job
The Intellectual Pleasures of Your Work
Savoring the Meaning of Your Work
Five Who Played “for Mortal Stakes”
The Further Reaches
Sabbaticals for “Practical Scholarship”
Buckminster Fuller:
Exploring the Universe
Leo Miller:
The Scholar Outside
10 Interdependence among Independent Scholars
How to Start a Roundtable for Independent Scholars
Reinhold Aman:
The Meaning of Abuse
Postscript: Unfinished Business
Appendixes
I: Maxims for the Life of the Mind
II: Specialized Bookstores:
Gourmet Shops for Scholars
Ill: Foundation Funding
IV: Tax Deductions for Independent Scholarship as a Business
V: University Presses in North America
VI: Copyrighting Your Work
Who Can Claim Copyright
What Works Are Protected
What Is Not Protected by Copyright
How to Secure a Copyright
VII: The National Coalition of Independent Scholars
Affiliate Members
VIII: How Independent Scholars Can Organize: Five Case Studies
Independent Scholars’ Association of the North Carolina Triangle (ISA/NCT)
Alliance of Independent Scholars
San Diego Independent Scholars (SDIS)
Princeton Research Forum
Notes
Part I
Chapter 2. From “Messy Beginnings” to the Fruits of Research
Part II
Chapter 3. Resources: Where? What? Who? How?
Chapter 4. Working with Others
Chapter 5. Intellectual Craftsmanship
Chapter 6. Wherewithal
Part III
Chapter 8. “Play for Mortal Stakes”: The Intellectual Pleasures of Your Work
Chapter 9. Scholarship as Your Joy, if Not Your Job
Chapter 10. Interdependence among Independent Scholars
Bibliography
A Basic Bookshelf for the Independent Scholar
Usable Knowledge
Index
Back Cover
