Dustin Kidd

1. Use the ~ symbol in front of a word to let google include similar words in the search. ~cheap will also look for affordable, budget, etc. 2. Use the - to exclude a word from the search. fun music -kei$ha will exclude Kei$ha from the findings. 3. Use an elipsis (...) to indicate a range. $100...$300 will yield a price range for a given item. 4. Use 'site:' to search a particular website. 'Glee site:nytimes.com' will yield all articles on Glee (or glee) from the Times. 5. Use 'filetype:' to find a particular kind of document. I often want to save myself some work for class by using other people's pdfs of book chapters. So I can type in: 'McChesney US Media filetype:pdf' to find someone else's scan. 6. Use 'define' before a term to let Google generate a definition for you, rather than having to click through various dictionary sites. 7. Enter tracking numbers for FedEx, USPS, and UPS and other delivery services directly into Google ...

As a newly tenured faculty member, I'm reflecting on what helped me the most in crossing this difficult bridge. Here's my top five. 1. Research: Do one big thing at a time. It's easy to feel like you need to achieve a million things: as many articles as possible, a book, book reviews, media interviews, conferences, edited volumes, research networks in your area. That can be a formula for actually accomplishing nothing. So pick one thing at a time to focus on. I struggled a lot with this, but at a key moment I put an article to the side and just focused on my book. So I suggest picking the most important thing to start with and going after that. If you're interest in writing a book, but struggling to get started, then write one article that can become a book chapter, and then write the book. If you're ready to go straight to the book, go for it. If you're really an article writer, write one at a time. A useful resource for me in the writing process has b...