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January 12, 2005

Do Your Own Work

Every once in a while I get a comment or email that goes as follows: "Hi, I'm looking for information on XXX. Please send me information on XXX. Thank you." I get this kind of request every few months, so I thought I'd try to establish what ought to be obvious: I am not a research service. If you need information on something and you think I may be able to provide it, feel free to ask specific questions that are relevant to me and my experience and I'll try to answer them if time permits. But I'm not going to assemble a research paper for you just because you either don't know how or are too lazy to do so. You want to know about something? Go look it up. The fact that I write about a certain topic does not mean that I'm interested in providing you with voluminous data about that subject.

On the other hand, if you're willing to pay me for my time, feel free to email me your terms...