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Advice and Information for StudentsMany philosophers put their articles either on their website or (better) in a repository. (See my Introduction to Open Access Publishing in Philosophy or my Very Short Introduction.) In order to find a particular article, search in a search engine (e.g. ixquick or DuckDuckGo or Google) like this: Craig "coherence of theism"
Here you find reading lists and further advice:
If you have not done so already, start learning touch typing today. That is, type with a system using all ten fingers so that you can close your eyes, look out of the window or at a text while you type. ‘Search and peck’ typing is very inefficient. Start learning touch typing today!
For writing essays, I recommend LibreOffice Writer (which is a fork of OpenOffice) or, for better typesetting, LaTeX or LyX, which is a front end for LaTeX. Also good, but much smaller, is AbiWord. All these are free, but you can also use Microsoft Word. I have heard that Textmaker, available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, is good too. The best PDF-file and the best result for printing you get with LaTeX. Try it! If you ever need to typeset a book or article for publication, you should use LaTeX (not MS Word!). OpenOffice, LaTeX, and Abipro are also available for Linux, which is a very good, free operating system.
If you use not LaTeX but a text processor like Writer, use styles, which are paragraph templates. So a section heading should be "Heading 1" ("Überschrift 1") or "Heading 2" ..., body text should be "body text" ("Textkörper"). Do not ever format a heading by marking it and clicking ‘bold’ and ‘14pt’! Study for this chs. 6 and 7 of the Writer Handbook. Find more links HERE.
There is software which administers bibliographical data, produces bibliographies automatically, and imports bibliographical data from library catalogues or the internet (see
Summary: Learn touch typing, use OpenOffice, use Zotero!
If you use Writer, use the open format ODT (which belongs to the ODF format family). If, for some reason, you need to save as DOC or DOCX (which was introduced with MS Office 2007), use DOC. (For reasons see HERE, HERE.) Still better, use ODT. (Read Stallman: ‘We Can Put an End to Word Attachments’.) MS Word can open ODT files since version 2007 Service Pack 2 (install Service Pack 3) or 3. For earlier versions install the compability pack or the open add-in or the SUN ODF-Plugin.
For presentations, instead of MS Powerpoint or OpenOffice Impress, use LaTeX with the documentclass 'beamer'. The results are excellent. Wikipedia. Very good introduction in German by M. Schulz. There is a thorough user guide. How to get rid of compilation warnings.
Encrypt your email, it is simple and necessary. English instructions on kb.mozillazine.org:
Use this template in order to write philosophical articles with LaTeX. For more details, look at this TEX file and the PDF of one of my articles.
Use the package csquotes for quotation marks. In Kile can convert automatically " into the corresponding commands, i.e. \enquote{}.
For the bibliography, try biblatex instead of bibtex. There is a thorough documentation. For example, write in the preamble:\usepackage[style=authoryear,hyperref=true,backref=true]{biblatex}This last line produces 'PDF' with a hyperlink at the end of each bibliography entry.
\bibliography{../../Bibtex/Philosophie}
\DeclareFieldFormat{url}{\href{#1}{URL}}
If you want to transform a LaTeX document with TeX4ht to HTML or ODT (or DOC or RTF), and the document uses Biblatex, then you need to update the file biblatex.4ht. Install Biblatex 1.6 (by unpacking the file biblatex-1.6.tds.zip in your local LaTeX folder, e.g. /home/meier/texmf/), replace biblatex.4ht, which under Linux you find at /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/tex4ht/biblatex.4ht, with THIS version, and run ‘sudo texhash’. To produce a ODT, run ‘mk4ht oolatex file.tex’, to produce an XHTML file, run ‘htlatex file.tex "xhtml,0,fn-in,NoFonts,css-in,info"’.
Minimize the size of PDF files with pdfsizeopt (background information in the white paper). For PDF files without pictures it is enough to use latex and dvipdfmx (dvipdfm does the same) instead of pdftex (because this way type 1 fonts are embedded as CFF (Compact Font Format)). (Apparently dvipdfm cannot do this, but through Flate compression it seems to achieve equally small files. Font subsetting is done by dvipdfmx, dvipdfm, as well as pdftex. Pdftex does not support CFF.) An article of 25 pages that has 300 KB with pdftex has only 100 KB with dvipdfmx. In order to preserve the bookmarks, add the hyperref option ‘dvipdfmx’: \usepackage[dvipdfmx]{hyperref} (\hypersetup{dvipdfmx} does not work).
Distribution: A good Linux distribution, which is easy to install, is OpenSUSE. Often the 32-bit version is recommended because it works on every computer. But on 64-bit computers the 64-bit version now works flawlessly (and presumably faster) and all software is available. You do not need to update the OpenSUSE each time a new version appears. 'Never change a running system.' However, now for updating you do not need to install OpenSUSE anew.
Unless you have little space on your hard disk, it is recommendable that you use a separate partition for the 'home' directory. (Similarly in Windows, it is best to put operating system and programs in one partition, and the rest in another one.)
Using Windows and Linux on one computer works well. This is arranged automatically if you first install Windows, then OpenSUSE. One can now without problems access Windows partitions in FAT32 or NTFS from Linux. So you can put your documents and your email profile on a Windows partition and use it from both systems.
You can use Thunderbird and Firefox under Linux but store the profile folder, which contains the mail, settings, etc., on a Windows partition. Type "thunderbird -P" in order to start the profile manager. Create a profile whose folder location is on the windows partition, e.g. '/windows/D/thunderbird-profile/. You can then (when Thunderbird is off) copy the content of your old profile folder into this folder.
Activate SysRq in the Kernel settings. If your computer freezes then, you can instead of a hard reboot (i.e. pressing the button) use certain key combinations (Alt+Print+R/E/I/S/U/B). (HIER ist eine deutsche Anleitung.)
Install software through package repositories. Use these four: OSS, Non-OSS, Update, and Packman.
If you do not find some program with the packet manager, search on the OpenSUSE Build Service. Unmark the options 'Do not search in home projects' and 'No debug packages'.
Desktop environment: Xfce is simpler and faster than KDE and GNOME. I prefer it. Xfce and GNOME use the same libraries, namely GTK+, while KDE uses Qt. That means that if you run a program written in GTK+ under KDE, the libraries have to be loaded additionally. So if you use KDE, you should prefer Qt programs (also called 'KDE programs'), and if you use Xfce or GNOME, you should prefer GTK+ programs. But you can use all Linux programs under all desktop environments.
Xfce: To put program icons on the desktop or in a menu of a 'launcher'/'Starter' (i.e. a menu with programs), open the 'application-browser' 'xfce4-appfinder'. (Press Alt+F2, then write these names.) From there you can drag them to the editor of the desktop (not directly to the desktop!) or to the editor of the launcher.
Archiver (file compression): under Xfce use Xarchive. Install also the packages p7zip, zip, and unzip. Then you can use also 7z and zip in the context menu. I recommend 7z (Wikipedia). '.tar.bz2' also has a very high compression rate, but it is slower than gzip (.gz).
If in OpenOffice under Xfce the shortcut Ctrl+Alt+arrow up/down for moving a paragraph up or down odes not work, open the window settings, go to shortcuts, delete this shortcut there.
rsync is a powerful tool for backup and one-way synchronising, e.g. when you want to copy ('mirror') your Documents folder to a usb stick and then copy it to another computer. Grsync is a graphical user interface (GUI).
For searching files, use the gnome-search-tool. Or use Catfish, which can also be integrated into Xfce's file manager Thunar.
Word processing, office applications: OpenOffice has a powerful word processor called 'Writer'. Use this instead of MS Word. A smaller good word processor is Abiword. KDE offers also KOffice.
LaTeX editor: Kile, Latexila, Texmaker, gedit or Emacs.
Jabref, a great bibliography manager using the bibtex format, can be comfortably be installed from the openSUSE Build Service (although it is a Java program). To find it, you must unmark the option 'Do not search in home projects. Here it is. If you unmark also 'No debug packages', then you get the newest version.
Mendeley allows you to annotate and manage PDF files and create bibliographies. For OpenSUSE you might have to install openssl first; see also HERE.
Colwiz is a software and website to manage bibliographies, calendar, to-do lists, projects, contacts. Like Zotero, it is able to extract bibliographical data from webpages.
Skype: Download it from Skype.com or install it HERE from Opensuse.org. If under OpenSUSE 64-bit this does not work, find the solution HERE.
PDF reader: Epdfview is small and fast, especially for Xfce. Standard for GNOME is Evince. However, both are bad for reading scanned books, e.g. from Google Books or Archive.org. Better results achieve XPDF (small and fast), Okular (KDE), Foxit (Warnung; proprietary), or Gnostice Free PDF Reader (proprietary; under Java). To edit pdf files use PDFedit or Pdftk. Xournal allows for annotations. See also Pdfreaders.org. Also BePDF und MuPDF may be good but are more difficult to install under OpenSUSE.
HTML editor: Quanta Plus or Bluefish (video introduction). Good for mathematical symbols is Amaya. Further, you can use Java programs under Linux (once you have installed Java Runtime): Arachnophilia, Webtide (Download), OpenWebsuite.
Installation: Store the jar-file somewhere in your home directory. Then create a launcher with the command, e.g., java -jar /home/abc/programs/Arachnophilia.jar
.
Audio and Video: Install VLC, this does all for you, but not from the install DVD but from the package repository Packman. (Because from the DVD you might not get the codes needed for MP3.) I use gxine (which is like xine-ui a frontend (GUI) for xine-lib and uses GTK) for everything. Parole (based on GStreamer) should be good for Xfce too but it did not work for videos when I tried it.
Audio: aTunes (verwaltet auch Radiosender und Podcasts; verwendet xine oder MPlayer); Rhythmbox (Gnome, zur Verwaltung und Wiedergabe); gPodder (speziell zur Verwaltung von Podcasts).
Manage your pictures: KDE comes with Digikam, which is powerful. F-Spot puts the pictures in its own folder structure, about which you have no control. An alternative is Chhobi, which does not alter your current photo folder organization. You can view and organise your pictures also with gThumb (Gnome), which I find excellent.
The Bible: Xiphos (using Gnome libraries) and Bibletime (using KDE libraries).
Dictionaries: Stardict (or QStardict for KDE); Ding.
Diese Seite erreichen Sie über http://tips.von-wachter.de .
Leseliste Religionsphilosophie: DOC
Literaturliste Metaphysik & Epistemologie:
Verwenden Sie ein Literaturverwaltungsprogramm (vgl.
Verwenden Sie eine Datei in Ihrem Literaturverwaltungsprogramm, in der Sie alle Texte unterbringen, die Sie zitieren, lesen oder zu lesen vorhaben. Wenn Sie nach Literatur zu einem bestimmten Thema suchen und 100 Titel im Philosophers' Index oder im Bibliothekskatalog finden, speichern Sie diese zunächst in einer extra Datenbankdatei und übernehmen Sie in Ihre Hauptdatenbankdatei nur die Titel, die Sie wirlich lesen oder zitieren. Sonst wird Ihre Hauptdatenbankdatei schnell unübersichtlich.
Zu jedem Text, den Sie lesen, sollten Sie sich Notizen machen. Kurze Notizen können Sie im Literaturverwaltungsprogramm eintragen (z.B. mit Jabref im Feld "abstract"). Ausführlichere Exzerpte verarbeiten Sie besser mit einer Textverarbeitung, z.B. Open Office oder Abiword. Eine Datei pro Buch. Mehrere Artikel von einem Autor oder zum selben Thema in einer Datei. Bringen Sie im Datensatz in einen Verweis auf die Datei an.
Lernen Sie unbedingt, elektronische Textverarbeitung professionell zu beherrschen. Also bitte nicht Überschriften per Hand fett formatieren, Zwischenräume mit Absatzmarken, etc. Definieren und verwenden Sie Formatvorlagen. Lesen Sie das Handbuch auf LibreOffice.org oder OpenOffice.org.
Lernen Sie unbedingt, blind mit zehn Fingern zu schreiben. Das ist genauso wichtig wie das Schreiben mit einem Stift.
LibreOffice (ein Ableger von OpenOffice) ist eine kostenlose und wahrscheinlich inzwischen sogar bessere Alternative zu MS Word und MS Office. Gut sollen auch sein: WordPerfect,
Verwenden Sie diese Vorlage, um mit dem kostenlosen Programm LaTeX Ihre wissenschaftlichen Aufsätze einfach professionell zu setzen.
Für LaTeX gibt es viele Möglichkeiten zur Literaturverwaltung.
Für die Literaturrecherche benötigen Sie vor allem zwei Quellen:
Suche nach online zugänglichen (open access) wissenschaftlichen Texten über BASE.
Suche nach online zugänglichen Zeitschriften über
Manche Bücher sind and der UBM als Ebücher (Ebooks) erhältlich. Suche über
Weitere elektronische Quellen finden Sie im
Einige Verweise zu philosophischen Texten im Internet finden Sie auf meiner Leitseite. Viele Aufsätze finden Sie online, z.B. über JSTOR. Hervorragende philosophische Wörterbücher sind die frei zugängliche
Das günstigste Angebot eines bestimmten Buches (deutsch oder englisch) finden Sie über die Metasuchmaschinen
Günstige Angebote von privat findet man oft bei
Bücher verkaufen kann man bei booklooker.de, da ist die Verkaufsprovision (6,9 % des Verkaufspreises) wesentlich geringer als bei Amazon.de Marketplace. Bei Amazon.de ist sie 1,14 € plus 17,25 % des Verkaufspreises (15 % plus USt.), und von 3 € Versandgebühr erhält der Verkäufer nur 1,84 €. Beispiel: Zahlt der Käufer für ein Buch 20 € incl. 3 € Versandkosten, gehen davon 5,23 €, also 26 % an Amazon!.
Sie brauchen vor allem zwei Bibliotheken: die
Zur Universitätsbibliothek gehören die
In der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek finden Sie im
Um ein Argument, eine Theorie oder eine Information zu verstehen und sich einzuprägen, tun Sie folgendes: Erklären Sie die Theorie (am besten laut) einem anderen Menschen, einem Hund oder einfach der Wand Ihres Zimmers. Wenn es ein Argument ist, sagen Sie nicht: "Müller meint, daß die Existenz unseres Gewissens für die Existenz Gottes spreche, weil ...", sondern "Die Existenz unseres Gewissens spricht für die Existenz Gottes, weil ...".
HIER finden Sie eine ausführliche Erklärung der Erklärtechnik von Gary North.
Für's Studium und für's Leben sollte man lernen:
Unter Osalt.com finden Sie zu vielen kommerziellen Programmen Hinweise auf kostenlose Alternativen.
Am meisten hochwertige kostenlose Software gibt es für Benutzer des Linux (z.B. OpenSUSE Linux).
Seiten mit kostenloser Software:
Eine wichtige, leicht zu erlernende Fertigkeit. Das umfassendste Lehr- und Nachschlagewerg dazu ist SELFHTML.
Wer etwas HTML beherrscht ist mit einem HTML-Quelltext-Editor besser bedient als mit einem WYSIWYG-Editor. Zum Beispiel (alle kostenlos!):
Ins Netz kann man seine Seiten mit dem kostenlosen FTP-Programm