Academics
The term "academic" usually refers to a scholarly work that is based upon valid empirical research or peer-reviewed material. Academic works have many uses, primarily in education at any level, on any subject. The purpose of academic work is to inform others as a teaching and learning tool. Knowledge is the key to academic works; knowledge that is imparted to others by someone who is an expert in the subject matter concerned.
Education doesn’t start in a classroom, although this is the medium that we first think of when we use words like "Where did you go to high school?" "What’s your degree in?" On the contrary, education and learning begin the instant we are born. Newborns have more to learn, in just a short time, than we will ever be required to learn again. How can a Ph.D. in astrophysics compare with learning what it is to be alive in a world filled with other live creatures?
Since none of us have the world’s accumulated knowledge stored in our heads, throughout our lives we will need to access facts, theories, and historical material. Regardless of our age or education level, we may find ourselves at a loss about how to locate what we need to know. That’s where reference material comes in: this material is used to store facts, definitions, and other types of information. We don’t want to hunt through scores of possible sources that are not only extremely time-consuming, but also it’s far from guaranteed you’ll find what you need. Thus, reference material is organized.
Science is the study of the physical world; we learn about science from observation, experiments, and sometimes accidentally. If Christopher Columbus hadn’t bumped smack into North American on his way to India, we would have gone right on thinking that the Earth was flat for the next few centuries. As an organized body of information, science tells us everything from how an atom is constructed to why someone suffers from schizophrenia. We can’t proclaim that a particular science is "correct" until the issue is in question has been thoroughly researched over time and has been proven valid by replication of experiments that yield the same results. Medicine may be a bona fide science, but no chemical compound has yet been discovered that can cure all types of cancer. Thus, the science of medical oncology is far from exact and all-conclusive. |
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