natsteel

Thanks Nasteel, with any luck...uh, I mean with a lot of luck...OK, if God himself intervenes on my behalf!!!!...I'll see you in the fall

I know this is a little late, but... Yes, I use Notebook for class notes and EverNote for random notes (paper ideas, book lists, and my own reading notes and book reviews). There is a way to back up your Evernote by going to FILE -> EXPORT NOTES TO ARCHIVE. I then put the archive file in Dropbox as it's quite small. Also, I suppose I could just as easily use EverNote for class notes but because I used to record my undergrad classes, Notebook allowed me to drop the audio file (and other multimedia stuff) right onto the note page. I think that by now EverNote has much of the same functionality.




At this point, I have (almost) completely dropped EndNote. At first, Papers did not have citation management (in the sense of CWYW). It has added that to v2 and it is so much more intuitive than CWYW ever was (which was why I never used it). I share some of your frustration with DevonThink. I basically use it as index of my document folders on my HD (for its search capabilities). I do most of my annotations in Papers and if I have a highlighted passage I want the text of, I just hit CMD-C as soon as I've highlighted it and then CMD-V it into the notes section.

One last thing, if you're working on large projects or large research papers, I have found Scrivener to be indispensable. It's incredible for note-taking, outlining, writing, and organizing your research/sources. It used to be Mac only but a Windows version is out now, I think. It was originally made for screenwriters and novelists but with a bit of tweaking it's fantastic for writing and organizing 30+ page history research papers (and even historiography papers). Plus it even comes with an export feature that will automatically format your paper and footnotes to whatever style you pick. I'm an obsessive when it comes to following style guidelines and I was surprised at how good the formatting was. DISCLAIMER: I'm not shilling for the company, but just trying to share an application which not only increased my productivity but changed the way I do research and write for the better.

HA! I guess it does sound like a lot of programs, but I think I've developed a pretty efficient workflow, so it all seems pretty seamless to me. Being well-organized basically means that my bad habit of procrastination costs me less than it might otherwise.

About the Mac... many (though not all) of the programs I use are only for Mac and that is why I bit the bullet and bought a MacBook Pro. I got the cheapest one available at the time and even though it was more than I should have spent on a new computer, I haven't regretted it for a moment. I would never willingly go back to Windows now. That said, Scrivener is coming out with a Windows version soon (if you haven't seen this program, check it out). And there is Mendeley instead of Papers. Evernote is available for PC, there is OneNote instead of Notebook, and Things also has PC equivalents.

About a year ago, I set out to really nail down my workflow before I started graduate school. I began doing it when I was writing my junior honors essay. Now, I'm doing my senior honors essay and I have the flow down pat. I can honestly say that my efficiency and productivity have improved significantly from getting organized and designing my own workflow.

Papers2 will do this, among many other things. You can even search and import from JSTOR, Project MUSE, Amazon, Google Scholar, etc... right from within the application.

My workflow can basically be boiled down to Papers2-Scrivener-Word. I use Papers2 to manage my PDFs (about 2500 and counting), Scrivener for research and writing, and Word basically just for final page layout details.




Scrivener itself will not "create" a bibliography. Papers2 will, however. It allows you to select your citation style and then you can simply go to your library and highlight the works you want included in your bibliography, right-click and choose "Copy as Reference" and then just paste it into Scrivener or Word.

However, right now Papers2 only has the option to copy as a "reference," i.e., a bibliography entry. I use it for footnotes and just change the periods into commas and reverse the author's first and last name. But the developers say they are working on allowing the copy-and-pasting of footnote/endnote citations as well as bibliography entries.

I hate to sound like a shill, but the combination of Papers and Scrivener literally changed the way I do research and write papers. Scrivener was originally designed for screenwriters and novelists, but its latest version has become far more accommodating to academics to the point of including MLA and Chicago style paper formatting. I'm a stickler for formatting and I was impressed by how completely the Chicago template nailed it. I'm in History and if anyone is looking at Scrivener and wondering how it might be used for long research papers, I'd be happy to show you screenshots of how I've used it effectively for large research projects.

+1 I've been using Papers for over a year now and just upgraded to Papers2. I don't know what I'd do without it. I also use an app called Notebook for Mac which I use to take class notes. I generally record my classes with my iPod while taking notes with Notebook and then afterwards I drop the audio file right onto the Notebook page for that class session. I use Things for Mac as my task manager and to help me plan and keep track of what's due and when for each class and paper. That's been indispensable as well.

I also use Scrivener when writing a long research or historiographic essay. If you haven't seen this application, google it. It's incredible.

I use Evernote for random or on-the-spot notetaking and Curio for mind-mapping/paper conception. Of course, I use EndNote for citation management and DevonThink Pro for having one searchable database of all my files.

I backup most of this stuff to my Dropbox account, i.e., email archives, calendars, contacts, tasks, EndNote libraries, Notebooks, etc.... I also keep my main semester folder with subfolders for each class in my Dropbox folder so it's always backed up along with all my "project" (essay) folders. I also just got a Kindle which has been really good for reading journal article pdfs since I spend a lot of time traveling during the day. And, almost everything above is also synced to my iPod.

I have been considering getting an e-pen as well... the Livescribe looks really interesting.

Ok, I just read like 20 pages of last years "waiting it out" forum, and I will go crazy if I'm on this website until February. So I'm deleting my bookmark, as if that will help, and I'm just gonna chill for a couple months. My apps are all in (except for a few recommendations) so I'm gonna relax. If you see me on this board, please do chastise me.
I would really, really like to thank StrangeLight, TMP, natsteel, and qbtacoma for their advice, patience and kind help. This process was more illuminating than it was grueling, more fun than it was anxious, and your help really, really meant a whole heckuva lot to a longtime intellectual wanderer who is determined to carve out a niche in a discipline he wants to (and to a certain extent already does) call home. You all seriously rock. The best of luck to everyone; see you all when the decisions start rolling in. Ciao!!

Honestly, I wouldn't bother at this point. The school is probably on--or about to be on--winter break.

I think that what it comes down to is this... if a program is not willing to fully fund you + stipend it means they don't want you. My advisor, who is a well-known historian in his field and is involved in hiring for the department, tells me that you have to go to the best school possible. He's seen dozens of candidates come in for jobs from schools he's never heard of and he told me, "I can't see these people ever getting a job teaching anywhere." And I'm not talking about a tenure-track position, even adjuncting. He also tells me, like every professor should, that under no circumstances should anyone take on debt for a graduate degree... the earning potential for the average PhD is just not enough to cover 50k+ in loans.

I also agree with the previous poster about quality of schools... I go to a public university and most of my professors got either their undergraduate or, mostly, their graduate degrees from Ivy League schools. If you are coming out of a school not in the Top 20 you are at a serious handicap unless you have a relatively stellar record of publishing and the like. To take out loans simply to pay for tuition at a a school outside even the Top 20 is financial suicide. The nature of graduate school and the profession itself has changed so radically as well that alot of professors who have been at their posts for 10-20 years simply do not know enough about how the current system works to advise their students properly. No one should go to graduate school until they understand that there is the very real and highly likely probability that they could, literally, end up as an adjunct at a community college.

In the Humanities, your employability is primarily determined by the school you attended (and, therefore, the network you have developed) and your publishing record. Not to mention that you absolutely cannot have even the possibility of a real career in academe without being absolutely open to picking up and moving anywhere at anytime. This article may be sensationalist and distort some of the issues but, in all reality, the outlook for most people pursuing a PhD in the Humanities, especially outside Top 20 schools, is horrifyingly bleak, and even worse for those who are going into massive debt because of it.

My advisor tells me, and I hope, that I have every chance of getting into a Top 10 program and I know beyond a doubt that pursuing the PhD is what I want to do... However, should I not get full funding+stipend anywhere, I, simply, will not be going. It would absolutely crush me, but, being a bit older, I realize that you MUST take the long view. I've read too many horror stories over on the Chronicle forums to just blow these kinds of warnings off. If you think I might be exaggerating, go to chronicle.com and check out the forums or even post a question and see what they tell you. Sadly, the decision to pursue a PhD nowadays is no longer a choice which can be made idealistically and naively.

I should have made clearer that my comments were not specifically aimed at advising an undergraduate as a graduate student, which I now realize was the focus of the question. I was instead speaking of what I considered to be the responsibility of a professor.

Furthermore, I don't know why you are putting "unremarkable students" in quote when responding to my post since I wrote "clearly underqualified," which is far different than "unremarkable." I also don't know how effective it is to use an outlier as an example for supporting your argument. Of course there are "unremarkable students" who have gone on to decent careers in all fields, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

If a student who had taken two classes with me and gotten two C's and asked me for a recommendation to graduate school, I would do exactly what I said above. That's because a student who gets C's in their major classes is "clearly underqualified" for graduate school. If I had a student who had gotten two B's, that would be "unremarkable" and I would still give them the speech about the competition involved in applying to graduate programs and tell them about the realities of the job market (as I would to even a straight-A student). Any student that would be considering graduate school in history, regardless of their grades, without a clear understanding of the way academia and the job market works, could be considered unprepared to make such a weighty decision which could affect the rest of their lives. Making them aware of this is, as I wrote (and defined) in the post above, what I meant by "dissuade," but which you could just as easily call "advising."

I should have made clearer that my comments were not specifically aimed at advising an undergraduate as a graduate student, which I now realize was the focus of the question. I was instead speaking of what I considered to be the responsibility of a professor.

Furthermore, I don't know why you are putting "unremarkable students" in quote when responding to my post since I wrote "clearly underqualified," which is far different than "unremarkable." I also don't know how effective it is to use an outlier as an example for supporting your argument. Of course there are "unremarkable students" who have gone on to decent careers in all fields, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

If a student who had taken two classes with me and gotten two C's and asked me for a recommendation to graduate school, I would do exactly what I said above. That's because a student who gets C's in their major classes is "clearly underqualified" for graduate school. If I had a student who had gotten two B's, that would be "unremarkable" and I would still give them the speech about the competition involved in applying to graduate programs and tell them about the realities of the job market (as I would to even a straight-A student). Any student that would be considering graduate school in history, regardless of their grades, without a clear understanding of the way academia and the job market works, could be considered unprepared to make such a weighty decision which could affect the rest of their lives. Making them aware of this is, as I wrote (and defined) in the post above, what I meant by "dissuade," but which you could just as easily call "advising."

I should have made clearer that my comments were not specifically aimed at advising an undergraduate as a graduate student, which I now realize was the focus of the question. I was instead speaking of what I considered to be the responsibility of a professor.

Furthermore, I don't know why you are putting "unremarkable students" in quote when responding to my post since I wrote "clearly underqualified," which is far different than "unremarkable." I also don't know how effective it is to use an outlier as an example for supporting your argument. Of course there are "unremarkable students" who have gone on to decent careers in all fields, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

If a student who had taken two classes with me and gotten two C's and asked me for a recommendation to graduate school, I would do exactly what I said above. That's because a student who gets C's in their major classes is "clearly underqualified" for graduate school. If I had a student who had gotten two B's, that would be "unremarkable" and I would still give them the speech about the competition involved in applying to graduate programs and tell them about the realities of the job market (as I would to even a straight-A student). Any student that would be considering graduate school in history, regardless of their grades, without a clear understanding of the way academia and the job market works, could be considered unprepared to make such a weighty decision which could affect the rest of their lives. Making them aware of this is, as I wrote (and defined) in the post above, what I meant by "dissuade," but which you could just as easily call "advising."

I should have made clearer that my comments were not specifically aimed at advising an undergraduate as a graduate student, which I now realize was the focus of the question. I was instead speaking of what I considered to be the responsibility of a professor.

Furthermore, I don't know why you are putting "unremarkable students" in quote when responding to my post since I wrote "clearly underqualified," which is far different than "unremarkable." I also don't know how effective it is to use an outlier as an example for supporting your argument. Of course there are "unremarkable students" who have gone on to decent careers in all fields, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

If a student who had taken two classes with me and gotten two C's and asked me for a recommendation to graduate school, I would do exactly what I said above. That's because a student who gets C's in their major classes is "clearly underqualified" for graduate school. If I had a student who had gotten two B's, that would be "unremarkable" and I would still give them the speech about the competition involved in applying to graduate programs and tell them about the realities of the job market (as I would to even a straight-A student). Any student that would be considering graduate school in history, regardless of their grades, without a clear understanding of the way academia and the job market works, could be considered unprepared to make such a weighty decision which could affect the rest of their lives. Making them aware of this is, as I wrote (and defined) in the post above, what I meant by "dissuade," but which you could just as easily call "advising."

Ideally, students will have the foresight not simply to ask if one can write a letter of recommendation but if one can write them a strong letter of recommendation.

However, that's obviously not a commonplace occurrence. If i had a forgettable student ask for a letter, i think i would give them the benefit of the doubt and rather than flat-out refuse i would ask them to send me copies of their work and tell me more about why they want to pursue graduate study. I'm not arrogant enough to assume that if i can't remember a student that must be their error rather than mine--none of us is perfect.
If, on the other hand, the student just wasn't up to scratch (or it turned out that the forgettable student was forgettable for a reason), I'd tell them that it would be a bad idea for me to write a letter as it would not be a positive one and would certainly hinder their attempts to pursue graduate study. I would probably discourage them from applying altogether.

I think it would be pointlessly cruel not to make the student aware of the lay of the land in this respect, saying yes to all requests, however poor the student. The student's poor performance in your class is "punishment" enough for their lack of effort/ability; getting their hopes up and allowing them to spend hundreds of dollars on applications that will no doubt lead nowhere would be rather beyond the pale, i think.

Whether we agree or disagree, the study shows that adcomms react negatively to disclosure of mental illness. So to give yourself the best shot, don't mention it. There really is no reason to mention it unless it adversely affected your academic record in some way. If we're talking about an SOP, adcomms want to see your professional ambition, not your personal history. Some people use personal history in an SOP to good effect (others not so good), but it usually comes off when it's a positive thing rather than being used as an excuse. OP, if your record was not affected by your mental illness, then there is absolutely no need to disclose it. That's just my opinion, though...

That said, the stigmatization is a problem. I have read posts on the CHE forums in which you can see that some professors aren't very educated about mental health issues. For example. one poster said that they wouldn't meet with a student alone who has known mental issues (in this case, BPD). They seemed to think that everyone diagnosed with BPD is a ticking time-bomb and psychotic or sociopathic. It is something that could use addressing among faculty.

Exactly, ticklemepink.

@Sigaba I don't think we were "focusing on politics" so much as acknowledging that it can be a factor. Also, there are other things beyond what we would call "politics" that are out the applicant's control such as budget cuts, etc.... The point is not that it's a "crapshoot," but that being the best candidate does not always translate into an offer for any number of reasons out of the applicant's control. After all, I've known persons whose only offer came from the highest-ranked program to which they'd applied. It's not uncommon and it's not ONLY about being a strong applicant, though that is the best the applicant can do.

This is so off the mark, it made me laugh. That quote is merely regurgitating the mainstream media's portrayal of the events. Is there a protest in or near your town? If so, go before characterizing a protest that is going on all around the world as "spoiled white kids." Living in New Haven, I can say that I see my fair share of "spoiled white kids" and they are definitely NOT the protestors. In fact, it's the spoiled white kids who are trying (unsuccessfully) to organize anti-protester protests. I don't care if I get flamed, but, in some ways, it's sad to see aspiring academics be so easily inclined to swallow the corporate media's party line wholesale without investigating for themselves.

As for there being no "clear goals," I think that is the movement's biggest strength at this point. Obviously financial injustice is the major issue, but if you don't have clearly delineated goals, you cannot be co-opted by the left or pacified by the right, which is exactly what happened to the original Tea Party (not the Sarah Palin/Koch brothers Tea Party). I think it's actually quite prescient on their part not to be organizing some kind of leadership or vanguard and not to be issuing so-called "demands." That speaks to their critique of the economic system as a whole being corrupted and in need of serious re-organization.


@ long_time_lurker, how is a public protest using a park for their own "private purposes?" If it was a protest for a shorter commute and the same amount of people were there, including yourself, would that then be public?


@Behavioral Wall Street, the 1%, and the government are in many cases the same people and, as groups, control and protect each other. That is the WHOLE point.

It's simply unfair that the financial sector has created a system (in partnership with the government via deregulation) in which gains are privatized and risk is socialized. The movement is not claiming to have all the answers. What they are claiming is that the system itself is in need of serious changes and, most importantly, they are trying to show that there are people all over the country and all over the world who are opposed to the status quo.

While I agree with Sigaba that replacing paragraphs in the way you suggest is probably not your best bet, depending on how your essay is organized, I think it would be reasonable to cut out an entire section and replace it with a short summary. I submitted my senior thesis as my writing sample when I applied to grad school, and as it was far too much longer than the limit to simply cut down, I decided to submit my introduction, conclusion, and one chapter of the body, with one paragraph summaries of the other sections. It seemed to work out ok, and I don't think it's a bad idea if you want to give a sense of your entire paper while still staying within the page limit.

that's what I always do... Write the formal title in the first email, then 99% of the time they sign it with their first name. Then I write back, "Thanks, Firstname, etc..." to make the transition easier when I have to say it out loud.

If funding is not an issue than an MA might be the way to go. That said, I am living proof that your undergrad institution is much less a factor than most people think, including Sigaba (IMHO).

I started at a community college and finished at a four-year city-based regional, commuter college and now I'm doing my PhD at Yale. I worried about my undergrad institution hurting me initially, but, in fact, three people from my undergrad history department got into Yale (2) and one to Princeton. One got into Michigan and another to KU, and the year before one got into Harvard. All funded PhDs, not MAs.

My sense is that Ivy League-type schools welcome candidates from outside the usual suspects especially as a means of diversifying cohorts. That said, the majority of my cohort here are from top undergrads (Stanford, Berkely, Columbia, etc...). Nevertheless, your undergrad institution's reputation will not take away from the quality of your work, which is why your writing sample and SOP need to be as strong as possible.

All this is not to say that pedigree plays no role. It does, though I think that it is diminishing. Either way, the doors to top PhD programs are absolutely NOT closed to worthy candidates from mid, lower, or even unranked public colleges and universities.

If funding is not an issue than an MA might be the way to go. That said, I am living proof that your undergrad institution is much less a factor than most people think, including Sigaba (IMHO).

I started at a community college and finished at a four-year city-based regional, commuter college and now I'm doing my PhD at Yale. I worried about my undergrad institution hurting me initially, but, in fact, three people from my undergrad history department got into Yale (2) and one to Princeton. One got into Michigan and another to KU, and the year before one got into Harvard. All funded PhDs, not MAs.

My sense is that Ivy League-type schools welcome candidates from outside the usual suspects especially as a means of diversifying cohorts. That said, the majority of my cohort here are from top undergrads (Stanford, Berkely, Columbia, etc...). Nevertheless, your undergrad institution's reputation will not take away from the quality of your work, which is why your writing sample and SOP need to be as strong as possible.

All this is not to say that pedigree plays no role. It does, though I think that it is diminishing. Either way, the doors to top PhD programs are absolutely NOT closed to worthy candidates from mid, lower, or even unranked public colleges and universities.

If funding is not an issue than an MA might be the way to go. That said, I am living proof that your undergrad institution is much less a factor than most people think, including Sigaba (IMHO).

I started at a community college and finished at a four-year city-based regional, commuter college and now I'm doing my PhD at Yale. I worried about my undergrad institution hurting me initially, but, in fact, three people from my undergrad history department got into Yale (2) and one to Princeton. One got into Michigan and another to KU, and the year before one got into Harvard. All funded PhDs, not MAs.

My sense is that Ivy League-type schools welcome candidates from outside the usual suspects especially as a means of diversifying cohorts. That said, the majority of my cohort here are from top undergrads (Stanford, Berkely, Columbia, etc...). Nevertheless, your undergrad institution's reputation will not take away from the quality of your work, which is why your writing sample and SOP need to be as strong as possible.

All this is not to say that pedigree plays no role. It does, though I think that it is diminishing. Either way, the doors to top PhD programs are absolutely NOT closed to worthy candidates from mid, lower, or even unranked public colleges and universities.

your GPA is fine. don't worry about it. i know people who went to schools with honors programs and chose not to do them, and they got into plenty of schools. one of them got into (and then rejected) harvard. so... don't sweat it.

you DO need your writing sample to be a historical essay where you're using primary sources. if you can take a research seminar or an undergrad class that has a research paper as an assignment, and then just edit it a lot before submitting applications, you'll be fine. even without those options, you can ask a prof you guide you through a research paper informally during the year (probably not during the summer. they might be out of town or doing research themselves). so, as long as you can get your writing sample in order, you're still competitive for programs.

i think people on this board forget that not everyone picked their college knowing they wanted a PhD and not everyone has groomed themselves from the first day of undergrad to get into a graduate program.

This is so off the mark, it made me laugh. That quote is merely regurgitating the mainstream media's portrayal of the events. Is there a protest in or near your town? If so, go before characterizing a protest that is going on all around the world as "spoiled white kids." Living in New Haven, I can say that I see my fair share of "spoiled white kids" and they are definitely NOT the protestors. In fact, it's the spoiled white kids who are trying (unsuccessfully) to organize anti-protester protests. I don't care if I get flamed, but, in some ways, it's sad to see aspiring academics be so easily inclined to swallow the corporate media's party line wholesale without investigating for themselves.

As for there being no "clear goals," I think that is the movement's biggest strength at this point. Obviously financial injustice is the major issue, but if you don't have clearly delineated goals, you cannot be co-opted by the left or pacified by the right, which is exactly what happened to the original Tea Party (not the Sarah Palin/Koch brothers Tea Party). I think it's actually quite prescient on their part not to be organizing some kind of leadership or vanguard and not to be issuing so-called "demands." That speaks to their critique of the economic system as a whole being corrupted and in need of serious re-organization.


@ long_time_lurker, how is a public protest using a park for their own "private purposes?" If it was a protest for a shorter commute and the same amount of people were there, including yourself, would that then be public?


@Behavioral Wall Street, the 1%, and the government are in many cases the same people and, as groups, control and protect each other. That is the WHOLE point.

It's simply unfair that the financial sector has created a system (in partnership with the government via deregulation) in which gains are privatized and risk is socialized. The movement is not claiming to have all the answers. What they are claiming is that the system itself is in need of serious changes and, most importantly, they are trying to show that there are people all over the country and all over the world who are opposed to the status quo.

This is so off the mark, it made me laugh. That quote is merely regurgitating the mainstream media's portrayal of the events. Is there a protest in or near your town? If so, go before characterizing a protest that is going on all around the world as "spoiled white kids." Living in New Haven, I can say that I see my fair share of "spoiled white kids" and they are definitely NOT the protestors. In fact, it's the spoiled white kids who are trying (unsuccessfully) to organize anti-protester protests. I don't care if I get flamed, but, in some ways, it's sad to see aspiring academics be so easily inclined to swallow the corporate media's party line wholesale without investigating for themselves.

As for there being no "clear goals," I think that is the movement's biggest strength at this point. Obviously financial injustice is the major issue, but if you don't have clearly delineated goals, you cannot be co-opted by the left or pacified by the right, which is exactly what happened to the original Tea Party (not the Sarah Palin/Koch brothers Tea Party). I think it's actually quite prescient on their part not to be organizing some kind of leadership or vanguard and not to be issuing so-called "demands." That speaks to their critique of the economic system as a whole being corrupted and in need of serious re-organization.


@ long_time_lurker, how is a public protest using a park for their own "private purposes?" If it was a protest for a shorter commute and the same amount of people were there, including yourself, would that then be public?


@Behavioral Wall Street, the 1%, and the government are in many cases the same people and, as groups, control and protect each other. That is the WHOLE point.

It's simply unfair that the financial sector has created a system (in partnership with the government via deregulation) in which gains are privatized and risk is socialized. The movement is not claiming to have all the answers. What they are claiming is that the system itself is in need of serious changes and, most importantly, they are trying to show that there are people all over the country and all over the world who are opposed to the status quo.

This is so off the mark, it made me laugh. That quote is merely regurgitating the mainstream media's portrayal of the events. Is there a protest in or near your town? If so, go before characterizing a protest that is going on all around the world as "spoiled white kids." Living in New Haven, I can say that I see my fair share of "spoiled white kids" and they are definitely NOT the protestors. In fact, it's the spoiled white kids who are trying (unsuccessfully) to organize anti-protester protests. I don't care if I get flamed, but, in some ways, it's sad to see aspiring academics be so easily inclined to swallow the corporate media's party line wholesale without investigating for themselves.

As for there being no "clear goals," I think that is the movement's biggest strength at this point. Obviously financial injustice is the major issue, but if you don't have clearly delineated goals, you cannot be co-opted by the left or pacified by the right, which is exactly what happened to the original Tea Party (not the Sarah Palin/Koch brothers Tea Party). I think it's actually quite prescient on their part not to be organizing some kind of leadership or vanguard and not to be issuing so-called "demands." That speaks to their critique of the economic system as a whole being corrupted and in need of serious re-organization.


@ long_time_lurker, how is a public protest using a park for their own "private purposes?" If it was a protest for a shorter commute and the same amount of people were there, including yourself, would that then be public?


@Behavioral Wall Street, the 1%, and the government are in many cases the same people and, as groups, control and protect each other. That is the WHOLE point.

It's simply unfair that the financial sector has created a system (in partnership with the government via deregulation) in which gains are privatized and risk is socialized. The movement is not claiming to have all the answers. What they are claiming is that the system itself is in need of serious changes and, most importantly, they are trying to show that there are people all over the country and all over the world who are opposed to the status quo.