Lots of links, lots of repeated key words, and multiple postings of a press release to different sites, are all red flags to Google under the new rules. Such actions are viewed by Google as blatant attempts to trick its algorithm into ranking a site higher than its allotted position. Yet these have all become…
Plenty more where those came from. The Lost Art of Proofreading. Similar:The American Scholar: Celebrity ProfilesPhllip Lopate writes a good essay on the…EssaysWhat can you do with an English Major?AcademiaPartisan Pa. websites masquerading as local news threaten trust in journalism, new report …People with financial interests to prote…CultureThe Emma Watson nude pictures hoax shames our…
This “Histomap,” created by John B. Sparks, was first printed by Rand McNally in 1931…. This giant, ambitious chart fit neatly with a trend in nonfiction book publishing of the 1920s and 1930s: the “outline,” in which large subjects (the history of the world! every school of philosophy! all of modern physics!) were distilled into…
Most of the time, I religiously avoiid watching TV news; however, every 2 years, right before I teach my “News Writing” class, I refamiliarize myself with what a large percentage of my students will think of when they hear the word “news.” (I listen to NPR for context, check the Drudge Report for hype, and…
Adorable photos help tell this story about a type-A parent realizing she’s been blessed with a type-B child. “You don’t have to rush. Just take your time,” I said gently. Her whole face instantly brightened and her shoulders relaxed. And so we sat side-by-side talking about things that ukulele-playing-6-year-olds talk about. There were even moments…
I was quietly reading online when @CBSNews force-fed me a loud, unwanted video. I’ll be more wary of CBS links from now on. #backbutton Similar:RT @PhilKomarny: A floppy disc… In #context htt…RT @PhilKomarny: A floppy disc… In #co…TweetsParallel structure in writing: Use it!These comic panels cover the issue well….HumanitiesRT @JordanFor: One of the counters from…
I spent more time than I’d like to admit this summer redesigning my WordPress website. The new theme emphasizes thumbnails, which are very easy to create on an iPad or handheld and upload via the WordPress iOS app. Most important for me, though, is the fact that this new theme is responsive — that is,…
According to the Modern Language Association: Begin the entry in the works-cited list with the author’s real name and, in parentheses, user name, if both are known and they differ. If only the user name is known, give it alone. Next provide the entire text of the tweet in quotation marks, without changing the capitalization.…
MLA Style: How to cite a tweet. mla.org/style/handbook… Similar:Tweet: Came around the corner and saw my kids huddled on…Came around the corner and saw my kids h…TweetsRT @JordanFor: One of the counters from the Civil…RT @JordanFor: One of the counters from …TweetsAnd the girl has succeeded in getting me to wear t…And the girl has…
What if the most underrated skill in school is thinking? I know, that sounds crazy. But how often do we tell kids what they are going to learn, tell them what to make, tell them what tool to use, tell them when to finish, tell them what questions to find the answers to. What if…
Christian Goldeman felt compelled to match beard illustrations with their typeface equivalents. Similar:Twine: the program that’s democratised the video gaming worldTwine games look and feel profoundly dif…CybercultureI’m thinking this is a still from the cringey Season 1 episode of TNG where the natives bu…AcademiaIn between 3 walks and a chess game with my son, today…
The University College London (UCL) Centre for Digital Humanities–in collaboration with 4Humanities–has created a new The Humanities Matter! infographic with statistics and arguments for the humanities in high-impact visual form. Countering clichéd, factually ungrounded criticisms, The Humanities Matter! draws on published statistics and a crowdsourced poll to give a shout out to the humanities in…
Just 23 percent of charter students scored proficient in language arts, compared with 31 percent in public schools overall. That’s a greater gap than had shown up in last year’s exams. In math, charter schools beat the public school average in each of the past two years — but not this year. On the new…
RT @THATCampPGH: Is there anything more exciting than attending #THATCamp #Pittsburgh @ChathamU on Oct 5+6? We think not! Come meet, greet… Similar:My Minecraft-obsessed tween made this blocky foam pig at art camp. Next up: Stage Right summer musical th…AestheticsYes, I do feel rather awesome right now.Lost brand-new earbuds. Reached in pocke…PersonalLoved seeing A Comedy of…
I have in the past griped on Twitter and on my blog about the clunky Turnitin.com web-based interface. You have to do so much clicking and dragging and typing and waiting for the screen to refresh, and there are places where the “delete” button appears right where an “OK” button was a second ago, so…
My father was a little distressed to learn that diagramming sentences was not a big part of my education. Learning Latin in high school was the best grammar education I ever got. After that, nothing about English (or, later, German and Old/Middle English) ever worried me. Most kids hated it. But for the kids who…
Morgan “Supersize Me” Spurlock spoke at Seton HIll in 2005 about the social damage caused by fast-food culture. (Morgan Spurlock autographed my hamburger wrapper.) The following article approaches the issue from another perspective. I, for one, scrupulously avoid buying a drink or fries, and always order a burger and salad from the McD’s value menu.…
I took my daughter to an Alice-in-Wonderland-themed library summer reading wrapup party, where she threw herself into every craft table. Then she wore one of her creations as we went grocery shopping. Meanwhile, my son, who stayed home to watch another DVD lecture on superstring theory, took out the garbage without being asked. Today…
My 11yo performed the part of “Patrice” in the clever coming-of-age musical “13” Saturday. Here she is with the leading character Evan (played by Anthony Marino — a very talented fellow with several movies on his resume). The content was a bit edgy for a cast that included kids as young as 8, so some…
We’re kind of in the eye of the storm, between a whirlwind summer and the routine of the academic year, and I really couldn’t disagree with my wife when she reminded me of this project. I remember using my original iPad 1 to sketch out the measurements for the wood I intended to buy in…