Any academics?

[TickTock]

Music prof at big conservatory. I write all my music with fountain pens, though big pieces I like to port over to notation software because exporting parts is so easy.

 

Currently mostly using a Richard Binder fine "vintage-style" flexible Pelikan 200, though I also use a nice flexible Waterman 3 and an Eversharp Gold Seal desk pen. The Binder is nice in that it doesn't dry out as fast as the vintage pens when I'm sitting and thinking.

 

For carrying (since the Pelikan was so expensive I leave it on my desk) I like my Lamy All-Star and one of the FPN marketplace favorites, a Reform 1745. As long as there's a bit of softness in the nib it will make nice-looking music.

 

Oh, and I grade all my papers with a Rotring Core and Noodler's Red ink.

[WalkAmongWolves]

I am a senior at the Maryland Institute College of Art, General Fine Arts major. I am currently working on my senior thesis and, even though they are paintings, all my ideas come out first into my notebook in essay form....later they are then translated into personal iconography and painted onto a canvas or paper. I use two primary fps for my writing as well as sketching; a fine nib brushed metal Lamy Studio and a broad nib black and yellow Reform fountain pen that I found in a local art store. Both pens have black ink, the Reform has Sumi ink in it at the moment. Heres a few sketches done with the two pens.

 

http://student.mica.edu/bbaltz/art/sketchbook/images/sketch2.jpg

http://student.mica.edu/bbaltz/art/sketchbook/images/notesonchrist1.jpg

http://student.mica.edu/bbaltz/art/sketchbook/images/biblesketch.jpg

[lucentstreak]

Full time art curator at the University's museum and pursuing my M.A in Southeast Asian Studies.

All my notes and writings are being written by a combination of Pilot 823, Lamy 2000 or Aurora Optima. (Though the Optima does seem a little flashy...)

[DAYoung]

Just a quick update: the book is still in progress, but it's now flowing from a Pelikan M200, filled with Waterman Florida Blue.

 

By the time I'm signing copies (it should be out in 2011), I might even have an M805...

[verdiinpink]

Currently in the first stage of MSc in Economics thesis on the EU effect on the internationalisation process in manufacturing sector.

 

Most of my lecture notes are written with Lamy Safari nib size M and a .3mm pencil, and recently bought a Sheaffer and Lamy Joy.

[Kurtorius]

Just started second year MSc, Software Management, but that makes me a student. The academics are the guys that teach me.

[Skribb]

Recent grad (by grad I mean graduate from undergrad) with a bachelors in physics. Almost all if not all of my school work was done in LaTeX. Fountain pens are wonderful but nothing beats the beauty and elegance of perfectly formatted and typeset equations. This also includes presentations where the Beamer package is my preferred method over powerpoint or keynote.

[voop]

Recent grad (by grad I mean graduate from undergrad) with a bachelors in physics. Almost all if not all of my school work was done in LaTeX. Fountain pens are wonderful but nothing beats the beauty and elegance of perfectly formatted and typeset equations. This also includes presentations where the Beamer package is my preferred method over powerpoint or keynote.

 

I agree -- if it's my writing vs. LaTeX typesetting of equations.

 

I have a colleague, though, decades my senior, in the engineering department. His scrap calculations and notes with equations are pieces of *art*. I wish I could show you, but he puts so much attention to what would for most of us be "back-of-the-envelope-scribbles" that it's amazing. Smart cookie too, that chap is.

 

For myself, however, I find that I can't think in front of a computer. Or, more precisely, I can't be creative. The confines of writing in lines and the archaic notational system (even in LaTeX, which is the lesser of the evils) for equations is limiting. Hence, all creative stuff I do, notes, interim work, I do by hand. Before sharing with colleagues or clients, I do type it up, however (and for that part I use LaTeX).

 

It was then same when I was in school, many many years back - although maybe that was first and foremost because we didn't have iTouch'es and netbooks and all that other junk in the lecture halls to take notes on back then

[voop]

Just started second year MSc, Software Management, but that makes me a student. The academics are the guys that teach me.

 

Fill in the blanks for me here, what is "Software Management"? I can understand what "Software Engineering" is, or even deduct what "Engineering Management" is (managing an engineering process), but "Software Management"? I am sure that it must be something other than yelling at the computer that it'll get fired if the text editor crashes one more time today....

 

Inquiring mind wants to know

[QM2]

psychology professor, policy consultant, and artist

use fountain pens for all three

[RedWagonJan]

I did my Master's thesis in 2003 on how vocabulary knowledge has changed since 1974. All notes and drafts were done with a Namiki Vanishing Point using Levenger Cobalt Blue ink.

 

I'm currently working as a psychometrician. When I'm not using the computer, I'm mostly using an unknown Levenger fountain pen and Noodler's Iraqi Indigo ink.

[thomasgc]

I'm a teacher, not an academic, but I have recently found the pleasures of writing with a decent pen (A Lamy Studio) for my day to day planning, recording and marking, although, like others above, little beats LaTeX and Beamer for more formal communications.

 

I had been put off many years ago by a series of cheap 'school' Parker fountain pens that clogged easily and broke almost as often.

 

Glen

[Neill78]

I'm using several fountain pens to write my MA thesis (first draft, anyway), but mostly I'm stuck on a couple of Pilot Custom 74s and a Capless that I picked up in Japan in the spring. Very smooth, fine tips. I use a Pilot Birdie mechanical pencil for my notes. All my thesis notes are in Japanese composition books, mostly Kokuyo.

 

The basic gist of my MA thesis is that linguistic research based on video data is essential. Linguistics started out with people making their own sentences up and then parsing them down. Later on they started transcribing bits and pieces of conversation (often just words/pronunciation) by hand, and finally audio recordings became a kind of big thing. But video is really only starting to be used -- a lot of linguists actually do record video but then they just strip the audio from it, or worst of all, get someone to transcribe the talk and just look at the transcriptions.

 

I'm using Japanese conversation data to show how nonverbal behaviors (as we can see in video data) can explain away a lot of the mysteries encountered if we limit ourselves to audio data. Sounds pretty basic, doesn't it? Yet this is the state of linguistics. Japanese happens to have a lot of weird little things that have interested/stymied linguists for a while, so it's a good candidate for this kind of research.

 

Neill

[jmj75]

I'm a Physics grad student in the process of writing my PhD dissertation. I'm using LaTeX for the dissertation and either a Sailor Sapporo or a Parker 51 for pretty much everything else. I have other pens that come in and out of rotation, but the Sailor and 51 are my workhorse pens.

 

I am studying the equation of state for nucleon matter, the stuff you'd find in the interior of neutron stars and heavy nuclei. At the end of the day, technical details aside, the results of our calculation are used to:

 

(1) Test theoretical models of the nuclear force.

(2) Calculate properties of neutron stars.

 

The work is on the theoretical side of Physics, so there's plenty of pen-to-paper work involved (computers do the rest of the work).

[dcwaites]

A long time ago, when I was an academic, anything I submitted was written with a crow-quil dip pen and Parker Quink Black. It was the only combination that resulted in legible handwriting. I couldn't type then, and personal computers were still on the horizon...

 

Now, I use a mixture of handwritten drafts and LaTeX.

 

I think too many people feel that LaTeX is only for Maths/Phsics typesetting, but it is also useful for the liberal arts, especially if you use LyX as a front end.

And there is the added bonus that your files are kept in plain-text ASCII. I have old documents in ClarisWorks, WordPerfect 1, PageMaker 1,2,3 and 4, FrameMaker, etc that are now pretty well inaccessible.

[PhotoJim]

I suppose you could call me somewhat of an academic. I have a graduate degree (MBA) and I teach at the university level (sessional lecturer at the local university's business school). The teaching is my secondary employment, but I enjoy it. It lets me do things like buy expensive fountain pens without feeling too much guilt.

 

I don't do any research (no time, and no need as a sessional) but I certainly use fountain pens for a lot of my academic work (lecture preparation, grading, etc.).

 

If I'd found academia at a younger age I wouldn't be surprised if I'd gone on to doctoral studies, but I have a good gig and I'm not going to complain.

[thomasdav]

Undergrad Philosophy/Physics student (3rd year) here. I haven't been into FPs for too long, so I can't really say what I use, however I often do all but the final copy of assignments on paper, then I type it up simply because I have nightmares about tutors/etc. not being able to read my scrawl.

Edited December 23, 2009 by thomasdav

[npcole]

I'm a historian, working on the history of American democracy. I used to keep all my notes on the computer, but I've long since gone back to using notebooks (and real pens, of course) for all of my note-taking and planning. The computer is saved for actual writing (LaTeX and Bibtex for those who are interested, with ht4latex to convert to Word format at the end). No computer program beats the freedom of a blank sheet of paper, and my notes no longer disappear into files never to be seen again. On the other hand, I do live in fear of everything being lost, either in a fire or (more likely) some horrible accident involving an especially large mug of coffee.

 

For what it is worth, after a bit of experiment I have settled on the following system. Three notebooks on the go at all times. One for notes about teaching, students etc. that doubles as a de facto to-do list and diary. One for notes about my own research and a journal, and one (smaller) notebook for slipping into a pocket and having with me at all times.

 

As for pens - I seem to have settled down to using Pelikans (after some experiment). One filled with Waterman blue-black (a reliable, trouble-free colour that can be used in almost any setting) and one with whatever exciting colour has currently captured my interest. I tend to have one non-Pelikan inked and on the desk (currently a Pilot Custom 823) too.

 

N.

[ColeWardell]

A senior, finishing up my undergrad thesis in Creative Writing and in Women's and Gender Studies. I'm working in creative nonfiction, and my thesis has to do with rural and urban interactions, gender, farming, history, and postmodernism... (I swear it's less broad than it sounds).

 

I have a few dream pens that I wish I was using to write my thesis, but in reality I'm switching off between a Pilot Prera (F nib) with PR Electric DC blue, a Lamy 2000 (F nib) with Noodler's Red-Black. I also use a Pilot 78G for big bold titles and overarching concepts I want to keep track of. Sometimes, though, when I really have to get something out quickly, I head to the ol' laptop-- just to make sure it's down before it leaves my head.

[HelzBelz]

MA student in English Literary Studies. My MA dissertation* will probably focus on the development and use of rhyme in modernist poetry, and I'm currently doing most of my notes with a Lamy Safari and a Pelikan M400. Right now I'm working on an essay on the construction of masculinity in second world war poetry.

 

*I'm British, so MA and BA have dissertations, PhD has a thesis.