Amazon’s Kindle 2 for Research
Two weeks ago, Amazon released its second version of its eBook reader, the Kindle 2. Our staff purchased two of them and we have been using them for about a week. At first, all of us were skeptical as to the value of the Kindle 2 for writing research papers and doing research. However, after I read the cool things you could do with the Kindle 2 in the extended user’s manual in the Kindle, I have been completely sold! The Amazon Kindle 2 is a fabulous resource for writing research papers. Here’s why we love it…
The Kindle 2 works well for reading eBooks, is convenient and compact. It’s overall coolness aside, the Kindle 2 has perfect features built in for researching. Students will find the ability to make notes, highlight and upload the notes to their computer an excellent way to organize research for writing a research paper.
First let’s look at the Kindle 2’s ability to make notes. While the keyboard is a bit small for typing, the Kindle 2 allows the reader to type short notes (even a paragraph or two) very easily. While reading, the user can insert a small icon and bring up a notepad and write reminder or notation concerning the material. The note can be viewed later when you come back to that page (which you can bookmark or search via your searchable notes) or you can download the note to your computer.
Better than taking notes in the Kindle 2, the highlighting feature works terrific for underlining important material in the book. The highlighted material can be viewed when the book is read again or it can be downloaded to your computer. Absolutely perfect for reviewing the high points of a book for a test. For example, Moby Dick is downloadable free for the Kindle. Imagine being able to underline the important passages in the book as you are reading it and then downloading all the passages to a document on your computer for easy review before a test! The Kindle 2 makes this study method simple. Better yet, if you have a Moby Dick term paper, you have all the important quotes from the book, right there in front of you, ready to be organized and explicated for your term paper!
The drawbacks of the Kindle 2 are that it is expensive, especially for a student. Also, the selection of academic books are slim. However, judging by the Kindle 2’s popularity, the number of books Amazon will offer in the future will grown tremendously. Keep in mind that the classics have outlived their copyright restrictions and many books you will use for Literature term papers are downloadable free! All in all, I highly recommend the Kindle 2 for students looking to make researching and note taking a breeze.
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THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS REVIEW! I have been searching the net looking for someone to give me this type of information. I am in grad school and I am considering purchasing one, but I was skeptic to how it will be useful make notes and stuff. Thanks again. Hopefully they will hurry to improve PDF conversions or just allow straight PDF documents.
I believe that do plan to greatly improve the process of pdf conversions along with not charging a fee for the service. I see a vast amount of room for improvement for the Kindle as a research tool and I’m sure, give the success of the Kindle 2, that Amazon will rise to the occasion.
Greetings all members,
I would just like to say hello and let you know that I’m happy to be a member – been a lurker long enough
Hope to contribute some and gain some knowledge along the way….