A few suggestions about answering questions on mailing lists like this one since we seem to have 'done' asking them: When providing references, an author name is good, a specific citation is better, a citation with a URL is better still and a citation with a brief synopsis of why the citation is of particular relevance is best of all* If you suggest a book might have something to say on a subject and can provide a specific page reference or two that would help a lot - particularly when the book is long and the mention is just a passing one. Though of course any helpful response is better than none at all! And four more general notes about this list in particular 1) please let's not discourage questioners. We were all first time posters once. If you want to help by providing advice on how best to post perhaps it could be done privately directly to the poster in question so they don't feel publicly singled out? Or perhaps we could send a generic message monthly with a summary of the AoIR's rules of conduct together with some 'best practice' tips? 2) Please make sure (for your own sake as much as anyone's!) that your private responses are sent directly to the person and not to the list? If you hit 'reply' any response will go to the list 3) Similarly, if you are posting a response to something you read via email digest please copy the subject line and put it into your own subject line rather than making the subject re: AoIR mailing list digest X and 4) Please please please remember to chop off the previous email discussion from your response except insofar as the rest of the conversation is needed to explain your own contribution. I and many others read this list in digest form and it is much harder to read when you have to end up reading the same messages quoted half a dozen times in a single digest. * Actually best of all in my case at least is if you can email the relevant citations in Endnote format or some other popular bibliographic software format but this mailing list doesn't support attachments. --- David Brake, Doctoral Student in Media and Communications, London School of Economics & Political Science <http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/media@lse/study/ mPhilPhDMediaAndCommunications.htm> Also see http://davidbrake.org/ (home page), http://blog.org/ (personal weblog) and http://get.to/lseblog (academic groupblog) Author of Dealing With E-Mail - <http://davidbrake.org/ dealingwithemail/> callto://DavidBrake (Skype.com's Instant Messenger and net phone)