Rebecca, thanks for this explanation of how scholarly works vs other resources are used. My problem with it in the past has been a bias that said I could use only scholarly works at times. If I could talk to people who had first hand experience, I couldn't use them as resources because they were not scholars or scholarly. It is reasonable to explain who one interviewed and say what they reported to you, and that has value or else nobody would have history. I have found several problems with using scholarly resources. One is that all of us do not have equal access to them. I suppose students pay to be students and so they have better access to resources than those who don't. I'm okay with paying for access to scholarly journals if I am allowed to do so. Flip that around and if I have information that only academics would be interested in, I can't get it published without Somebody PhD putting their name on it, on top of mine. Another problem is that at times scholars do embellish their work. I hope that's rare, but it has happened. They tend to have very strong interests in getting published, and they have been known to give in to the temptation to embellish at times. Then there is bad writing. I know that use of elevated language can be impressive to some people, but it's annoying to others and it can obscure the message. I'll give you an example. I took a class on Stalin, and one required book was a history of Russia by Robert Service. It was a very, very pricey paperback, and it was awful. I happened to be walking along the isles in Borders one day and I saw a similar sized book on the same topic, also by Robert Service. It cost only $20, and I bought it and used it instead. I enjoyed that book very much. I compared the two books because when I had to cite anything, I had to cite it to the text book version, and the "popular history" I'd call it, had the same content as that scholarly book. It was just written what I would call better. My final problem is the cost of scholarly materials. Text books are very, very expensive. They are often just secondhand accounts of something or other, we hope checked for accuracy as you mention, and they are paperback. Not only do we pay in some cases $75 or more for a scholarly paperback, but as soon as there are enough of used ones on the market, they change to another edition without necessarily significantly changing the content . Often it seems that page numbers are different and not much, if anything, else. Now, I admit I have a big bias here. I have had it with academia, generally speaking. The cost of education goes up and up and often the level of education required to get some certification or license isn't really needed to do the job one gets well. For example, one needs at least a masters degree and a license now to do intakes at a mental health agency. That's ridiculous, not to mention more expensive for the agency and the clients. I do respect anyone who can get through it all and get a higher degree, just because they could stick it out and put up with the system and do it, nevermind all the expense and work. At the same time, I believe higher education has become big business and it is in many instances operating like the old trade guilds that started up during the Renaissance in Florence. I don't like that part of it. Well, all of that said, congratulations on being a PhD candidate, Rebecca! Seriously, that is wonderful and I hope you always find your work rewarding. There are tremendous opportunities out there for you. One question I would have is whether the experience of German immigrants to Canada differed from that of those who came to the USA and if so how. I imagine it even differed significantly by region within one country. For example, my family thought it was so important to speak English in the USA, evidently due to some anti-German bias or other, that they saw to it that I didn't even learn the German language at home. Did that tend to happen in Canada also? My mother wasn't allowed to start school in the US until she was 8 years old because her English wasn't good enough. Now things are different, and the State here gets sued by the Feds if it doesn't provide adequate TESOL instruction for students. BTW that frustrates me too, as I am good at teaching people to speak and read English, but to get into the school system to do it, I would have to take years to get a degree and become a certified teacher. Go on! I'd do it as a volunteer right now if I could, and save the State some money. Phew! Thanks for listening to my rant...anyone who got this far. Susan M  --- On Tue, 8/10/10, Rebecca Strung <rebeccastrung@rogers.com> wrote: From: Rebecca Strung <rebeccastrung@rogers.com> Subject: Re: [BANAT-L] Not Banaters but Danube Swabians To: "Banat List" <BANAT-L@rootsweb.com> Date: Tuesday, August 10, 2010, 10:17 AM Hi, I haven't posted in a long time, but this thread caught my attention. I am a PhD candidate who is working on a thesis that investigates the experiences of ethnic German immigrants in Canada. I am also the grand daughter of Donauschwaben immigrants. I joined this list a very long time ago because of my personal and academic interest in the history of the Donauschwaben.