OUP/US

Guidelines for Author Submissions

The Book

1. Brief Description - In one or two paragraphs, describe the work, including its rationale, approach, and pedagogy. This book is... It does... Its distinguishing features are...
2. Outline - A detailed outline of the book should be prepared, including the chapters being submitted for review. This gives us an idea of how the material fits together, and how the remaining chapters will be developed. It should include chapter headings and sub-headings, with explanations as necessary.
3. Outstanding Features List - Briefly what you consider to be the outstanding, distinctive, or unique features of the work.
4. Apparatus
   1. Will the book include photographs, line drawings, cases, questions, problems, glossaries, bibliography, references, appendices, etc.?
   2. If the book is a text, do you plan to provide supplementary material to accompany it? (Teacher's manual, study guide, solutions, answers, workbook, anthology, or other material.)
5. Competition
   1. Consider the existing books in this field and discuss specifically their strengths and weaknesses. Spell out how your book will be similar to, as well as different from, competing works.
   2. Consider what aspects of topical coverage are similar to or different from the competition. What topics have been left out of competing books and what topics have been left out of yours?
   3. Please discuss each competing book in a separate paragraph. (If possible, please provide us with the publisher and date of publication as well.) This information will provide the reviewers and the publisher a frame of reference for evaluating your material. Remember, you are writing for reviewers and not for publication, so be as frank as possible regarding your competition. Give credit where credit is due, and show how you can do it better.

Market Considerations

The Primary Market

1. What is the major market for the book? (Scholarly/professional, text, reference, trade?)
2. If this is a text, for what course is the book intended? Is the book a core text or a supplement? What type of student takes this course? What is the level? (Major or non-major; freshman, senior, graduate?) Do you offer this course yourself? If so, how many times have you given it? Is your text class-tested?
3. If the market is scholarly/professional, reference, or trade, how may it best be reached? (Direct mail, relevant journals, professional associations, libraries, book or music stores?) For what type of reader is your book intended?

Status of the Work

1. Do you have a timetable for completing the book?
   1. What portion or percentage of the material is now complete?
   2. When do you expect to have a complete manuscript?
2. What do you estimate to be the size of the completed book?
   1. Doublespaced typewritten pages normally reduce about one-third when set in type; e.g., 300 typewritten pages make about 200 printed pages. There are about 450 words on a printed page.
   2. Approximately how many photographs do you plan to include?
   3. Approximately how many line drawings (charts, graphs, diagrams, etc. ) will you need?
   4. Do you plan to include material requiring permission (text, music, lyrics, illustrations)? To what extent? Have you started the permissions request process?
3. Do you plan to class-test the material in your own or other sections of the course? (Any material distributed to students should be protected by copyright notice on the material.)

Sample Chapters

Select one or two chapters of the manuscript that are an integral part of the book. They should be those you consider the best-written ones, and do not have to be in sequence. For example, you might submit chapters 3, 7, and 14 of a 20-chapter book, so long as these chapters represent the content and reflect your writing style and pedagogy in the best possible light. It is also advisable to submit any chapter that is particularly innovative or unique. Sample chapters should contain rough sketches, charts, hand-written musical examples or xerox reproductions, and description of photographs to be included. The material need not be in final form, although it should be carefully prepared and represent your best work. In your preparation, emphasis should be on readability. Please do not bind your manuscript, as we will have to unbind it in order to make photocopies for reviewers. Also be sure all pages are numbered either consecutively or double-numbered by chapter.

Reviews

If we are interested in your project, we will commission outside reviewers to read and evaluate your proposal. We will, of course, obtain the best available reviewers to consider your work. We would like to include some reviewers whose opinions you would consider particularly important. For this purpose, please provide the names, addresses and phone numbers (if available) of three or four people whom you feel would be competent to review your material and whose opinion you would find valuable. We will try to use some of these along with some of our own selection. Naturally, we do not reveal the names of reviewers without their permission.

Author Background

Please include a current CV or brief biography of your writing, teaching, and/or educational background and experience. Be sure to list any books that you have previously published, and any other information about yourself on why you are qualified to write this book.

Response Time

Please allow at least 6-10 weeks for the manuscript proposal evaluation and review process. We will contact you as soon as we have had a chance to thoroughly examine your manuscript proposal. Thank you for your interest in Oxford University Press. We look forward to reading your materials.

Oxford University Press authors guidelines for submissions

Beatty, Janet M.

Getting published

Links

1.     http://www.firstwriter.com/Agents/

2.     Educational literary agents - http://www.writers.net/agents/topic/60/

3.     Lists of literary agents - http://www.zeroland.co.nz/literary_publishers.html

4.      

How to Get a Literary Agent

http://bookpublishing.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_to_get_a_literary_agent

Get out ot the Slush Pile and Publish that Manuscript

Mar 2, 2008 Adair Jones

By following a few simple steps, you'll be on your way to signing with a literary agency--and one step closer to finding a publisher for your work.

So you’ve written a manuscript. Now the hard work really begins: finding someone to publish it.

Sending a manuscript off to a publisher uninvited lands you smack dab in the middle of the slush pile. Publishers receive thousands of unsolicited manuscripts each year, and with the rise in agency representation, the quality of these has fallen. About 95% are rejected straight away, with a slight 5% garnering a bit more attention from editing and marketing staff. Sadly, only a small portion ever makes it to print.

You can optimise your chances of publication by signing with a literary agent. While some new writers wail that it is more difficult to get an agent than a publisher, it really is the only way to have your manuscript seriously considered. It is, therefore, a goal worth working towards.

First Steps in Signing with a Literary Agent

Just like you need to stand out to publishers; you need to appeal to the literary agent. And, just as with publishers, agents don’t want your manuscript uninvited—it just lands you in their slush pile. To get an invitation, you’ll need to:

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• polish your writer’s CV;
• build a profile;
• get a referral from an industry professional; and
• present yourself and your manuscript in a professional manner.

The Writer’s CV

Your writer’s CV is the agent’s first view of you as a potential client. It should be divided into the following sections:

• A short bio
• Comments from others about your work
• Awards or achievements
• Professional associations
• Publications
• Education
• Related work experience

Getting a Referral to an Agent

By joining a local writer’s centre, attending workshops with published writers and professional editors, you can make some important contacts. Politely ask if you may use their names when sending an inquiry to an agent. You’ll be surprised just how generous established writers are—after all, they were once in your position.

Presenting Your Work

Each agency has preferred way of being approached. Investigate this. Some prefer a call first, others an email or letter. Many want only your CV, a synopsis, and a sample chapter. If they like what they see, then they’ll request the rest.

The agent will want to know a few things about you:

• You’ve done your homework and have followed submission guidelines.
• You’re professional.
• You can take criticism and respond to suggestions.
• You’re in it for the long-term.

Chances are an agent will test you a bit, asking for another draft or a new ending or requesting you get rid of a character. Don’t be touchy—this is a good sign! How you handle it will determine your level of professionalism. If you feel that the ending is artistically important or that the character in question is crucial to the plot, go ahead and explain your position, but do it as calmly and as matter-of-factly as possible. Remember too, that professional input like this usually makes a work better.

It’s a time consuming process, so don’t expect an immediate result. Nurture the connection. Produce the next draft (and the next). Be patient. Some writers wait months from the initial inquiry to the moment when they finally sign the contract with an agency.

An Agent Will Increase Chances for Success

There is no doubt that having a literary agent dramatically increases the chance of your manuscript being published. Not only does it give you credibility as a writer, but you’ve got an advocate in the process—someone with connections and know-how and, most importantly, someone who believes in you.

Recommend Article!

The copyright of the article How to Get a Literary Agent in Book Publishing is owned by Adair Jones. Permission to republish How to Get a Literary Agent in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Read more at Suite101: How to Get a Literary Agent: Get out ot the Slush Pile and Publish that Manuscript http://bookpublishing.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_to_get_a_literary_agent#ixzz0cCfAvwBe

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 Robert L. Fielding

The value of learning – (paideia – education or instruction – paideia – the process of educating people into their true selves, into finding their real, genuine human nature.

John Keats, the poet said, in his poem, Ode on a Grecian urn;  

‘Beauty is truth, truth is beauty, that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’              

The noted American educationalist, M.J. Adler believed that education ought to serve three purposes: to teach people how to use and enjoy their free time well; to show people how to earn a living by ethical means; and to educate people into becoming responsible citizens in a democratic state.

According to many scholars, especially Rick Garlikov, the best way to teach philosophy, the fourth way, in fact; the other three consisting of having students read the original texts of people like Plato and Aristotle; having students read interpretations of original texts; and lastly, having students read their own professors writing on those original texts, is to engage students in Socratic dialogue, in such a way that they come to grips with challenging concepts in ways they are themselves in control and initiate themselves.

Asking further questions to refine and tease out their notions is a possible second step to help shape their understanding.  I believe that once students come close to an understanding of an issue or a concept, the discovery made once fuller understanding is reached is something not unlike the original thoughts formulated and later expressed by the originators of such concepts.

This fourth way, the way propounded in this book, allows students to ‘own’ their own ideas, rather than having them foisted on them in whole chunks on the lips of their professors.  This method of learning really is learning, and not merely acquiescing to a greater authority, as much of what passes for university seems to have become.

Learning is akin to discovering – which may be something of a cliché – but it is true.  Learning is creating too; it is taking thoughts, ideas, concepts and synthesizing something original to that particular learner.

This is the essence of what Garlikov talks about; students having thoughts (their original thoughts, in the sense of the first time for that thinker) that are akin and parallel to answers given to those same issues by their original proponents – that is learning, as opposed to being indoctrinated.  

                           Robert L. Fielding

Dec 16 2007: For those that are intrigued about using the Socratic method in schools I suggest that you read Mortimer Adler's "The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto." Written in 1982, it was a radical redesign for schools built around a weekly Socratic Seminar. There are a few--far too few--Paideia schools in existence today and several Centers that train teachers in becoming Paideia teachers. The first book was followed by "Paideia Problems and Possibilities: A Consideration of the Questions Raised by The Paideia Proposal," in 1983 and the "The Paideia Program: An Educational Syllabus," in 1984. To Learn more about Dr Adler and his work in Education, Philosophy, Adult Learning and many other areas visit the Center for the Study of The Great Ideas website and www.TheGreatIdeas.org.

Philosophical/Educational School of Thought
 Mortimer Adler is Perennialist who believes that philosophy should become part of mainstream public school curriculum. He believes that education should be basically the same for everyone, because children’s “sameness as human beings...means that every child has all the distinguishing properties common to all members of the species.” (Paideia, p.43)  In his Paideia Proposal, which sets out his vision for American public schools, Adler says that children must acquire three different types of knowledge:  organized knowledge, intellectual skills, and understanding of ideas and values.  For each of these types of knowledge, there is a different teaching style.  Organized, or factual, knowledge is to be taught through lectures, intellectual skills are to be taught through coaching and supervised practice, and understanding of ideas and values are to be taught through the Socratic method of discussion and questioning.
 Adler believes in liberal, non-specialized education without electives or vocational classes.  For him, education should serve three purposes:  to teach people how to use their leisure time well, to teach people to earn their living ethically, and to teach people to be responsible citizens in a democracy.  He believes that each person has the innate ability to do these three things, and that education should above all prepare people to become lifelong learners.  Education never ends, in his view -- age 60 is the earliest that anyone can claim to be truly “educated”, and only then if they have devoted their life to learning.
 Philosophy and the arts are central to Adler’s educational vision.  While he believes that every child should study math, science, history, geography, measurement, and other subjects in the lower grades, his plan for upper secondary school and college centers on students gaining insight into works of fiction, poetry, drama, art, and the like.  This, way, Adler believes, students will gain an understanding of their own minds as well as the minds of others.  Philosophy and art are for everyone, in his view.  No one should be allowed to avoid them.  College students, in Adler’s view, should be required to take a core of classes dealing with Western philosophy, politics, and religion.  In short, everyone should be educated in the same way, towards an understanding of truth based on Western philosophy.

http://www2.selu.edu/Academics/Faculty/nadams/educ692/Adler.html

Paideia in the Classroom

In Paideia classrooms, there are three instructional methods that guide activities. The “Three Columns of Instruction” include didactic instruction, coaching, and the seminar. The didactic mode represents the acquisition of organized knowledge and is the “delivery of factual information” where students acquire the most important foundations of information. According to the Paideia model, this type of instruction only takes 10-15% of instructional time, and students are generally passive during lecture, demonstration, reading, or other forms of didactic instruction.

Intellectual Coaching is the type of instruction that takes up 60-70% of time in the Paideia classroom. Teachers utilize strategies of modeling and questioning during this phase of instruction, and the goal for students is to “acquire expertise in skills of learning, such as reading, writing, calculating, and observing.” Through the Coached Projects, the teacher assesses and evaluates student learning by assigning performance-based tasks, projects, and rubrics.

The seminar component in a Paideia classroom encourages “collaborative, intellectual dialogue facilitated by open-ended questions about a text.” The seminar encourages students to develop their understanding of “ideas, concepts, and values about the curriculum,” while participating in whole-class discussions. The Paideia seminar comprises about 15-20% of instructional time.

…formal discussion based on a text in which the leader asks only open-ended questions. Within the context of the discussion, students are required to read and study the text carefully, listen closely to the comments of others, thinking critically for themselves, and articulate both their own thoughts and their responses to the thoughts of others.⁵

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/4564

http://www.paideia.org/content.php/system/index.htm

Contact page - http://www.paideia.org/content.php//philo/NPCStaff_NatlFaculty.htm

http://www.paideia.org/content.php//philo/NPCStaff_NatlFaculty.htm

“Since philosophy is the art which teaches us how to live, and since children need to learn it as much as we do at other ages, why do we not instruct them in it?”

Michel De Montaigne On Education 1533-1592

Blog log in at - http://rlfielding123a.wordpress.com/wp-login.php?loggedout=true

Why Teach Philosophy?

Philosophy is a neutral forum in that it does not contain the biases of the various subjects that may be taught and it seeks to challenge any assumptions—including its own—that may be held by a subject. Other subjects don't on the whole do this.

With regard to teaching thinking, philosophy is in the unique position of having thinking and reasoning as its subject matter and is not limited by needing reference to a body of knowledge in order to pursue discussions. One does not need to know lots about philosophy to be able to do philosophy in the same way that one needs to know facts about maths to be able to discuss maths fruitfully.²

Philosophy is also not an 'anything goes' subject where all contributions are considered equally valid by virtue of having been contributed and are admitted unchecked, though I think sometimes it is treated in this way. Done properly, I argue that philosophy has the capacity to offer evaluation and assessment methods to those taking part, so that the interlocutors acquire the attributes to be able to challenge the others in the group in a constructive and respectful way, helping the dialectic process to progress. To avoid problems with terms like truth that were certainly used by Plato and Socrates when speaking of the aims of dialectic, I will simply say that the participants learn ways to discern better answers from less good ones using the criteria of reasonableness as a standard. Also, importantly, these tools can be learned without being explicitly taught if the facilitator is skilled in the right ways: first of all skilled in philosophy and secondly in the transmission of philosophical ideas and methods.

http://prs.heacademy.ac.uk/view.html/PrsDiscourseArticles/115

 Robert L. Fielding

The Uses of Philosophy in Today's World

Rick Garlikov

Rick@Garlikov.com

I think the best way to teach philosophy is to raise issues in a way that makes them gripping to students, often by Socratically asking questions that make problems and issues puzzling, challenging, and stimulating to students, and then asking other questions that help shape their answers and help guide them to a deep and meaningful understanding of the issues.  When done well, this helps students develop ideas which are similar to or which parallel many of the great historical philosophical answers given to these issues.  Students may then be assigned reading, if there is time, or told which works they may want to look up on their own which argue for many of the views they have come to.  At that point, many students will be able to make much more sense of the classic philosophical works and of the debates about contemporary issues.  They will more likely find the details interesting, and they may even be able to shed some light of their own on difficult problems and issues.
 

Philosophy is the sustained, systematic, reflective thinking about concepts and beliefs in any subject to see what is clear (i.e., intelligible) and reasonable to believe about it, and why.

  It differs from science in that it includes the study of more than what is empirical (i.e., physically observable), and in that it tends to examine data and evidence already available, usually trying to put it into a clear and reasonable perspective, rather than to seek new data.  In normal usage, the terms "philosophy" and "philosophical" have a number of trivial meanings which have nothing to do with the academic subject of philosophy (or the slightly broader sense in which I use it here, that includes thinking more deeply and systematically about topics which may not be found in typical college philosophy department courses), so people tend to misunderstand what philosophy is, and see no point in studying it. 

"Philosophy" in ordinary language is perhaps most often meant to refer to a set of guidelines, precepts, or to an attitude, such as in comments like "Jones' philosophy is not to worry about the future" or "It is the philosophy of this company that everyone should be able to take over for anyone else in his/her department at a moment's notice; thus it is imperative that you all learn each others' work as well as your own." Or "Our philosophy is ‘all for one and one for all'."  In the movie Wall Street the philosophy of the tycoon Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglas) is that "Greed is good."  This use of the term philosophy is sometimes referred to as a "philosophy of life" or a "philosophy of business".  It is not related to philosophy in the sense of sustained, systematic, reflective analysis of any topic.

A corollary to this usage is to characterize as "philosophical" a specific attitude of acceptance,  acquiescence,  or submission to whatever happens, perhaps with some interpretive reason, as in "Jones took the news of his dismissal quite philosophically; he said that if the boss didn't want him there, it probably was a place where he wouldn't be happy working long anyway." Or "Smith took the news of the tragedy very philosophically; he said that was just the way life was sometimes and that you had to just accept it and go on or you would go crazy."  Or "Johnson was philosophical about the tragedy, saying ‘We just have to trust in God to know what is best for all of us, even if it seems terribly sad at this time; it must all be for the best ultimately.'" This also is not related to philosophy in the sense of sustained, systematic, reflective analysis.

A more recent usage that is perhaps becoming more and more common is to equate philosophy with "mere idle speculation", particularly  as in "Rather than sitting around merely philosophizing, we decided to do some actual empirical research into the phenomena."  Or "There is no point in thinking about this philosophically; we need to find out what the facts are."  Or "You can do all the philosophy about the likely result of this you want, but at some point you are going to have to get out of your chair and actually see what happens when you try to do it."  In this sense, philosophy is equated with the kind of pointless thinking about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin; it is considered to be a waste of mental energy, for no useful purpose. 

Loosely associated with this view of philosophy is the one that thinks philosophers are at best merely "book-smart" people who have no common sense because they come up with crackpot beliefs and ideas.  While in some cases this may be true, more often it is believed because it is not the reasoning but only the conclusion that is looked at, and it is true that many conclusions philosophers reach are counter-intuitive or odd, or contrary to conventional belief.  It is important, however, not to look just at conclusions that people reach, but the evidence and reasons they give for them.  That is where insights lie if there are to be any. 

Thus, in a time of great economic, scientific, and technological advancement, one might mistakenly believe that there is no particular use for philosophy, because it deals with intangible ideas, some seemingly crazy, which cannot be proved scientifically or verified objectively, and which have nothing to do with providing greater creature comforts or material progress.  Pragmatists may believe at any time that there is not much use for philosophy and that philosophy is merely about having opinions, opinions which are no better than anyone else's opinions, and of no more value than idle speculation.   So what is the use of philosophy? 

In the first, and narrowest, place, for some people philosophy simply satisfies a personal need or interest.  Philosophy is, as it has always been, interesting in its own right for that minority of people who simply like to think, or who are by nature driven to think about, and who appreciate and find great pleasure in discovering insights into, what seem to be intangible or complex issues, great or small. 

But the tools of philosophy can be important to everyone because it potentially helps one think better, more clearly, and with greater perspective about almost everything.  There are numerous specific topic areas in academic philosophy, many of interest only to a few, even among philosophers, but there are features and techniques common to all of them, and it is those features and techniques which also can apply to almost anything in life.  These features have to do with reasoning and with understanding concepts, and, to some small extent, with creativity.  Normally, all other things being equal, the better one understands anything and can think clearly and logically about it, the better off one will be, and the better one will be able to act on that understanding and reasoning. (It is my view, for example, that better conceptual understanding by NCAA and NFL administrators would lead to a far more workable and acceptable "instant replay review" policy.)

Furthermore, philosophy in many cases is about deciding which goals and values are worthy to pursue -- what ends are important.  One can be scientific or pragmatic about pursuing one's goals in the most efficient manner, but it is important to have the right or most reasonable goals in the first place.  Philosophy is a way of scrutinizing ideas about which goals are the most worthy one.  A healthy philosophical debate about what is ideal or which ideals ought to be sought and pursued, is important.  Efficiency in the pursuit of the wrong values or ends is not a virtue. President John F. Kennedy, in speaking at Amherst College on a day honoring poet Robert Frost, said: "The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the nation's greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us."  And "When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. ... for art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstones of our judgement." I believe philosophy could be added to art in these statements to form the following: (1) The people who bring together power with purpose make an indispensable contribution to the nation's greatness, but the people who question power and any particular purpose make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is distinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us, and they determine whether our purpose is meaningful or our power misdirected.  (2) When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry and philosophy remind him of the richness and diversity of his existence.  ... for art and philosophy establish the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.

It is also important that beliefs and goals be examined, even if they are idealistic; that is, even if society is nowhere near ready to proceed from where they are to some idealistic state.  For it is important to know what is most reasonably ideal, and to understand the reasons for thinking it is the ideal, in order to try to make stepwise progress (as society is ready to discover and accept any step in the right direction) and in order to reassess what one thinks is ideal when unexpected social responses show flaws or undesirable side-effect in the concept.  For example, welfare and housing for the poor have often run into unexpected difficulties and in some cases have been counterproductive to the desire to help people improve their lives.  While the basic goals of helping people escape poverty and substandard housing in order to become productive, secure, and hopeful about their lives may remain ideal, supplying homes or money in certain ways may not be the effective means to that, or may not be the equivalent to it as an end.

While science tests hypotheses by empirical means, philosophical pursuit of values and ideals tests concepts of the ideal in two ways: (1) by the debate of differing ideas and values to see what seems most reasonable, and (2) by the constant monitoring of the satisfactoriness and desirability of the stated goal as socially acceptable steps toward it come into place.  Social progress toward an ideal often takes place in small stages, and sometimes flaws in the ideal become visible as the stages are implemented.  It takes understanding of the stated values, ends, and means in order to recognize missteps.

However, it must be pointed out that there are people trained in philosophy who do not think very well, at least not on all, if any, topics.  And there are people who have never had any sort of philosophy or logic course who are quite astute in their thinking in general.  The study of philosophy is something like the intellectual equivalent of training in sports.  Those with natural talent and no training will often be better than those with training but little natural talent, but proper training should develop and enhance whatever talent most people have to begin with. 

And it also must be pointed out that not all philosophical writing or thinking is very good, and, perhaps more importantly, not all philosophy courses are very well taught or very good.  In fact, there are a great many terribly taught philosophy courses, where students come out having learned very little and/or where they have mostly learned to hate what they think is philosophy and consider it to be stupid.  In some cases, however, where teachers are entertaining and articulate, students come out favorably impressed, but still with little or no understanding.  Neither of these kinds of courses serve students or philosophy very well,  though the latter are at least more enjoyable than the former.  So when I talk about the uses of philosophy or about "philosophy" itself, I really mean to be referring to the best of what philosophy has to offer, not necessarily what one might learn in some particular philosophy 101, or even upperclass or graduate level, course, and not necessarily what one might find in a book chosen randomly from the philosophy section of a university library or bookstore. 

The tools of philosophy are important to individuals and to society because as long as we are not omniscient, factual knowledge by itself is no substitute for philosophy, just as philosophy is no substitute for factual knowledge.  Philosophy is about the intelligent and rational uses of knowledge, and it is about the scrutiny of beliefs to see how clear and how reasonable they are in the light of knowledge we have.  Knowledge is the substance of philosophy, not its opposite.  As I explain in "Words, Pictures, Logic, Ethics, and Not Being God" because there is much we cannot know directly or even by observation, much of our knowledge comes from our use of reason.  And philosophy, when done properly, perhaps more than any other field, gives training and practice in the most general and basic elements of reasoning.  The essay "Reasoning" explains what reasoning is, how it works, and why it is important.  It also explains that it does not always yield the truth or knowledge, but that in certain circumstances, it is the best we can do to try to attain knowledge.  In many cases, reasoning will show us what we need to find out in order to have knowledge about a particular phenomena, by showing us what the gaps are in the knowledge we have. 

What underlies most philosophy -- particularly perhaps British and American philosophy -- is training and practice in (1) analyzing and understanding concepts, (2) recognizing and showing the significance of hidden, unconscious, or unrealized assumptions, (3) recognizing and remedying various forms of unclear conceptualization and communication, such as vagueness and ambiguity, which are often unintended and at first unrealized (4) drawing reasonable conclusions from whatever evidence is at hand, and (5) recognizing evidence in the first place -- seeing, that is, that some knowledge can serve as evidence for more knowledge and is not just some sort of inert fact or end in itself.  These things are, or can be, very important for science, social science, economics, business, and other practical and empirical pursuits, but they are crucial for knowledge about matters of value, interpretation, perspective, and that which is intangible.  It turns out that much of science, social science, economics, and business contains elements of the intangible, and questions about values, which can only be dealt with philosophically.  Moreover, even the most empirical matters have conceptual components that require careful analysis and understanding.  The essays "Scientific Confirmation," "Explanations and Pseudo-Explanations in Science," "Shedding Light on Time: Learning and Teaching Difficult Concepts," and "More About Fractions Than Anyone Needs To Know" exemplify that. 

It also seems to me that those who are most successful at analyzing and understanding concepts would also be better at teaching those concepts if (and perhaps only if) they also understand what made those concepts difficult to analyze and understand for them, and/or for others, in the first place.  Nobel physicist Richard Feynman had the view that if he could not explain a concept or principle in physics in a way that a college freshman who was interested in physics could understand it, he probably did not understand it himself as well as he thought he did.  I think such understanding is often important or even necessary for teaching well, but I am not sure it is sufficient, because one might be able to understand a concept without seeing why or how it might be difficult for other people to understand it.  Philosophers, or anyone who has analyzed concepts, ought to have some advantage in teaching them, but that advantage may not be sufficient to teach those concepts to others very well.  I have seen philosophers (and others) who were quite good at doing philosophy, not be able to teach it to beginners, simply because they left out too much in their explanations, did not start at a basic enough beginning place, did not wait to see whether there was comprehension before they continued from point to point, did not appreciate how strange or difficult or complex an idea was to the student, did not know how to get points across not only logically but psychologically, and, in short, did not know what groundwork needed to be done in order to help the student understand and see the significance or meaning of the explanation being given.  My long essay "The Concept and Teaching of Place Value" gives an explanation and an example of how understanding a concept, and understanding and appreciating the psychological difficulties of comprehending it, are necessary for teaching it well. 

http://www.garlikov.com/philosophy/uses.htm

 Robert L. Fielding

Paraphrasing

1. A restatement of a text or passage in another form or other words, often to clarify meaning.

http://www.answers.com/topic/paraphrase

·         Paraphrase passages that present important points, explanations, or arguments but that don't contain memorable or straightforward wording. Follow these steps:

1.    Quickly review the passage to get a sense of the whole, and then go through the passage carefully, sentence by sentence.

2.    State the ideas in your own words, defining words as needed.

3.    If necessary, edit for clarity, but don't change the meaning.

4.    If you borrow phrases directly, put them in quotation marks.

5.    Check your paraphrase against the original for accurate tone and meaning."

http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/paraphterm.htm

Some examples to compare

The original passage:

Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes. Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers. 2nd ed. (1976): 46-47.

A legitimate paraphrase:

In research papers students often quote excessively, failing to keep quoted material down to a desirable level. Since the problem usually originates during note taking, it is essential to minimize the material recorded verbatim (Lester 46-47).

An acceptable summary:

Students should take just a few notes in direct quotation from sources to help minimize the amount of quoted material in a research paper (Lester 46-47).

A plagiarized version:

Students often use too many direct quotations when they take notes, resulting in too many of them in the final research paper. In fact, probably only about 10% of the final copy should consist of directly quoted material. So it is important to limit the amount of source material copied while taking notes.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/619/01/

Paraphrasing Exercise

Directions: On a separate piece of paper, write a paraphrase of each of the following passages. Try not to look back at the original passage.

1. "The Antarctic is the vast source of cold on our planet, just as the sun is the source of our heat, and it exerts tremendous control on our climate," [Jacques] Cousteau told the camera. "The cold ocean water around Antarctica flows north to mix with warmer water from the tropics, and its upwellings help to cool both the surface water and our atmosphere. Yet the fragility of this regulating system is now threatened by human activity." From "Captain Cousteau," Audubon (May 1990):17.

2. The twenties were the years when drinking was against the law, and the law was a bad joke because everyone knew of a local bar where liquor could be had. They were the years when organized crime ruled the cities, and the police seemed powerless to do anything against it. Classical music was forgotten while jazz spread throughout the land, and men like Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie became the heroes of the young. The flapper was born in the twenties, and with her bobbed hair and short skirts, she symbolized, perhaps more than anyone or anything else, America's break with the past. From Kathleen Yancey, English 102 Supplemental Guide (1989): 25.

3. Of the more than 1000 bicycling deaths each year, three-fourths are caused by head injuries. Half of those killed are school-age children. One study concluded that wearing a bike helmet can reduce the risk of head injury by 85 percent. In an accident, a bike helmet absorbs the shock and cushions the head. From "Bike Helmets: Unused Lifesavers," Consumer Reports (May 1990): 348.

4. Matisse is the best painter ever at putting the viewer at the scene. He's the most realistic of all modern artists, if you admit the feel of the breeze as necessary to a landscape and the smell of oranges as essential to a still life. "The Casbah Gate" depicts the well-known gateway Bab el Aassa, which pierces the southern wall of the city near the sultan's palace. With scrubby coats of ivory, aqua, blue, and rose delicately fenced by the liveliest gray outline in art history, Matisse gets the essence of a Tangier afternoon, including the subtle presence of the bowaab, the sentry who sits and surveys those who pass through the gate. From Peter Plagens, "Bright Lights." Newsweek (26 March 1990): 50.

5. While the Sears Tower is arguably the greatest achievement in skyscraper engineering so far, it's unlikely that architects and engineers have abandoned the quest for the world's tallest building. The question is: Just how high can a building go? Structural engineer William LeMessurier has designed a skyscraper nearly one-half mile high, twice as tall as the Sears Tower. And architect Robert Sobel claims that existing technology could produce a 500-story building. From Ron Bachman, "Reaching for the Sky." Dial (May 1990): 15.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/619/02/

Paraphrasing Exercise: Possible Answers

Here are sample answers for the paraphrasing exercise:

1. According to Jacques Cousteau, the activity of people in Antarctica is jeopardizing a delicate natural mechanism that controls the earth's climate. He fears that human activity could interfere with the balance between the sun, the source of the earth's heat, and the important source of cold from Antarctic waters that flow north and cool the oceans and atmosphere ("Captain Cousteau" 17).

2. During the twenties lawlessness and social nonconformity prevailed. In cities organized crime flourished without police interference, and in spite of nationwide prohibition of liquor sales, anyone who wished to buy a drink knew where to get one. Musicians like Louis Armstrong become favorites, particularly among young people, as many turned away from highly respectable classical music to jazz. One of the best examples of the anti-traditional trend was the proliferation of young "flappers," women who rebelled against custom by cutting off their hair and shortening their skirts (Yancey 25).

3. The use of a helmet is the key to reducing bicycling fatalities, which are due to head injuries 75% of the time. By cushioning the head upon impact, a helmet can reduce accidental injury by as much as 85%, saving the lives of hundreds of victims annually, half of whom are school children ("Bike Helmets" 348).

4. Matisse paintings are remarkable in giving the viewer the distinct sensory impressions of one experiencing the scene first hand. For instance, "The Casbah Gate" takes one to the walled city of Tangier and the Bab el Aassa gateway near the Sultan's palace, where one can imagine standing on an afternoon, absorbing the splash of colors and the fine outlines. Even the sentry, the bowaab vaguely eyeing those who come and go through the gate, blends into the scene as though real (Plagens 50).

5. How much higher skyscrapers of the future will rise than the present world marvel, the Sears Tower, is unknown. However, the design of one twice as tall is already on the boards, and an architect, Robert Sobel, thinks we currently have sufficient know-how to build a skyscraper with over 500 stories (Bachman 15).

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/619/03/

Robert L. Fielding

What is Plagiarism?

Many people think of plagiarism as copying another's work, or borrowing someone else's original ideas. But terms like "copying" and "borrowing" can disguise the seriousness of the offense:

According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, to "plagiarize" means

• to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own
• to use (another's production) without crediting the source
• to commit literary theft
• to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.

In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward.

All of the following are considered plagiarism:

• turning in someone else's work as your own
• copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
• failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
• giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
• changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
• copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not (see our section on "fair use" rules)

Most cases of plagiarism can be avoided, however, by citing sources. Simply acknowledging that certain material has been borrowed, and providing your audience with the information necessary to find that source, is usually enough to prevent plagiarism.

http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_what_is_plagiarism.html

The following conditions and practices may result in texts that falsely appear to represent plagiarism as we have defined it:

o    Students may not know how to integrate the ideas of others and document the sources of those ideas appropriately in their texts.

o    Students will make mistakes as they learn how to integrate others’ words or ideas into their own work because error is a natural part of learning.

o    Students may not know how to take careful and fully documented notes during their re­search.

o    Academicians and scholars may define plagiarism differently or more stringently than have instructors or administrators in students’ earlier education or in other writing situations.

o    College instructors may assume that students have already learned appropriate academic conventions of research and documentation.

o    College instructors may not support students as they attempt to learn how to research and document sources; instead, instructors may assign writing that requires research and expect its appropriate documentation, yet fail to appreciate the difficulty of novice academic writ­ers to execute these tasks successfully.

o    Students from other cultures may not be familiar with the conventions governing attribu­tion and plagiarism in American colleges and universities.

o    In some settings, using other people’s words or ideas as their own is an acceptable practice for writers of certain kinds of texts (for example, organizational documents), making the concepts of plagiarism and documentation less clear cut than academics often acknowledge and thereby confusing students who have not learned that the conventions of source attri­bution vary in different contexts.

http://www.wpacouncil.org/node/9

How to Recognize Unacceptable and Acceptable Paraphrases

Here’s the ORIGINAL text, from page 1 of Lizzie Borden: A Case Book of Family and Crime in the 1890s by Joyce Williams et al.:

The rise of industry, the growth of cities, and the expansion of the population were the three great developments of late nineteenth century American history. As new, larger, steam-powered factories became a feature of the American landscape in the East, they transformed farm hands into industrial laborers, and provided jobs for a rising tide of immigrants. With industry came urbanization the growth of large cities (like Fall River, Massachusetts, where the Bordens lived) which became the centers of production as well as of commerce and trade.

Here’s an UNACCEPTABLE paraphrase that is plagiarism:

The increase of industry, the growth of cities, and the explosion of the population were three large factors of nineteenth century America. As steam-driven companies became more visible in the eastern part of the country, they changed farm hands into factory workers and provided jobs for the large wave of immigrants. With industry came the growth of large cities like Fall River where the Bordens lived which turned into centers of commerce and trade as well as production.

What makes this passage plagiarism?

The preceding passage is considered plagiarism for two reasons:

·         the writer has only changed around a few words and phrases, or changed the order of the original’s sentences.

·         the writer has failed to cite a source for any of the ideas or facts.

If you do either or both of these things, you are plagiarizing.

NOTE: This paragraph is also problematic because it changes the sense of several sentences (for example, "steam-driven companies" in sentence two misses the original’s emphasis on factories).

Here’s an ACCEPTABLE paraphrase:

Fall River, where the Borden family lived, was typical of northeastern industrial cities of the nineteenth century. Steam-powered production had shifted labor from agriculture to manufacturing, and as immigrants arrived in the US, they found work in these new factories. As a result, populations grew, and large urban areas arose. Fall River was one of these manufacturing and commercial centers (Williams 1).

Why is this passage acceptable?

This is acceptable paraphrasing because the writer:

·         accurately relays the information in the original
uses her own words.

·         lets her reader know the source of her information.

Here’s an example of quotation and paraphrase used together, which is also ACCEPTABLE:

Fall River, where the Borden family lived, was typical of northeastern industrial cities of the nineteenth century. As steam-powered production shifted labor from agriculture to manufacturing, the demand for workers "transformed farm hands into industrial laborers," and created jobs for immigrants. In turn, growing populations increased the size of urban areas. Fall River was one of these hubs "which became the centers of production as well as of commerce and trade" (Williams 1).

Why is this passage acceptable?

This is acceptable paraphrasing because the writer:

·         records the information in the original passage accurately.

·         gives credit for the ideas in this passage.

·         indicated which part is taken directly from her source by putting the passage in quotation marks and citing the page number.

Note that if the writer had used these phrases or sentences in her own paper without putting quotation marks around them, she would be PLAGIARIZING. Using another person’s phrases or sentences without putting quotation marks around them is considered plagiarism EVEN IF THE WRITER CITES IN HER OWN TEXT THE SOURCE OF THE PHRASES OR SENTENCES SHE HAS QUOTED.

http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml#plagiarized

Strategies for Avoiding Plagiarism

1. Put in quotations everything that comes directly from the text especially when taking notes.

2. Paraphrase, but be sure you are not just rearranging or replacing a few words.

Instead, read over what you want to paraphrase carefully; cover up the text with your hand, or close the text so you can’t see any of it (and so aren’t tempted to use the text as a “guide”). Write out the idea in your own words without peeking.

3. Check your paraphrase against the original text to be sure you have not accidentally used the same phrases or words, and that the information is accurate.

Terms You Need to Know (or What is Common Knowledge?)

Common knowledge: facts that can be found in numerous places and are likely to be known by a lot of people.

Example: John F. Kennedy was elected President of the United States in 1960.

This is generally known information. You do not need to document this fact.

However, you must document facts that are not generally known and ideas that interpret facts.

Example: According the American Family Leave Coalition’s new book, Family Issues and Congress, President Bush’s relationship with Congress has hindered family leave legislation (6).

The idea that “Bush’s relationship with Congress has hindered family leave legislation” is not a fact but an interpretation; consequently, you need to cite your source.

Quotation: using someone’s words. When you quote, place the passage you are using in quotation marks, and document the source according to a standard documentation style.

The following example uses the Modern Language Association’s style:

Example: According to Peter S. Pritchard in USA Today, “Public schools need reform but they’re irreplaceable in teaching all the nation’s young” (14).

Paraphrase: using someone’s ideas, but putting them in your own words. This is probably the skill you will use most when incorporating sources into your writing. Although you use your own words to paraphrase, you must still acknowledge the source of the information.

Produced by Writing Tutorial Services, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN

http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml#plagiarized

 Robert L. Fielding

Arguments: and related terms

Good arguments need to be rationally justified and this cannot be done without firm and rigorous underpinning

An argument is a rationally sanctioned move from accepted foundations (known as premises) to a point that is to be proved or demonstrated (the conclusion). In order for an argument to get underway, certain basic premises must be accepted, at least provisionally. These premises can be established in several ways, as a matter of logic or on the basis of evidence or they may be the conclusions of previous arguments. However they are established, these premises must be supported independently of the conclusion in order to avoid circularity. The shift from premises to conclusion is a matter of inference and the strength of this inference determines the robustness of the argument. Distinguishing good inferences from bad is the task of logic.

Logic

Logic is the science of analysing argument and of establishing principles or foundations on which sound inference can be made. The concern of logic is therefore not with the particular content of arguments but with their general structure and form.

Deduction

Arguments can be deductive. If, in an argument, the conclusion follows from the premises then the argument is said to be valid. If the premises of a valid argument are true, the conclusion is guaranteed to be true and the argument is said to be sound. The conclusion of a deductive argument is implicit in its premises. Effectively, in a deductive argument it is impossible to accept the premises and deny the conclusion without contradicting yourself.

Induction

Aside from deduction, the other main way of moving from the premises to the conclusion is induction. In an inductive argument, a general principle is inferred from particular observations of how things are in the world. Such an argument can never be valid in the same sense as a deductive argument since its conclusion does not necessarily follow its premises. Simply put, in an inductive argument it is possible for the premises to be true but the conclusion false.

The reason for this difference is that inductive reasoning always moves beyond the premises, which never entail a given conclusion but only support it or make it probably to a certain degree. Effectively, inductive arguments are generalisations or extrapolations of various kinds.

http://western-philosophy.suite101.com/article.cfm/forms_of_argument

A person's life stance or lifestance is his or her relation with what he or she accepts as being of ultimate importance, the presuppositions and theory of this, and the commitments and practice of working it out in living.

Harry Stopes-Roe, who fought for the term's acceptance by the Humanist movement, defined "life stance" as follows:

"Life stance" - The style and content of an individual's or a community's relationship with that which is of ultimate importance; the presuppositions and commitments of this, and the consequences for living which flow from it. (Each individual or community hopes that it has come to a good and well-founded relationship, but the word is usually used without implying that this really is so.)^[8]

Another suggested definition of life stance is:

a life stance is a set of interlinked, articulated system of beliefs about life, human nature and our existence connected to norms and values that are derived out of this views [sic]^[9]

A further, more analytical definition has been put forward by the British Humanist Association, drawing in part on jurisprudence related to the term 'religion or belief' in the European Convention on Human Rights:

A collective belief that attains a sufficient level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance and that relates the nature of life and the world to morality, values and/or the way its believers should live.^[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_stance

 comprehensive world view (or worldview) is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing natural philosophy, fundamental existential and normative postulates or themes, values, emotions, and ethics. The term is a loan translation or calque of German Weltanschauung, composed of Welt, 'world', and Anschauung, 'view' or 'outlook'. It is a concept fundamental to German philosophy and epistemology and refers to a wide world perception. Additionally, it refers to the framework of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the world and interacts with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_view

“Believing where we cannot prove.”  Alfred Lord Tennyson

Most people define beliefs as inward convictions, a feeling of certainty about what something means. They are what you hold dear and are rooted deeply within. A belief is both mental and emotional. It is imbedded in the mind and in the heart.
Your beliefs will dictate your action. Isn’t that true? If you believe in a cause, you fight for it. If you believe in your religion, you live it. If you believe in others, you support and uplift them. Beliefs drive us. They are at the root of all purpose and all action.

http://leadershipinc.com/the-true-definition-of-belief/493

Talking about what we believe

We say:-

i)        I believe in something.

ii)      I believe something/someone.

iii)    I believe you.

iv)    I believe something is true/real/valid.

v)      I believe!

vi)    I believe what I believe.

vii)  I believe in you.

viii)                        I know what I believe.

ix)    I know what I believe is true.

x)      I can believe that.

xi)    I would like to believe you.

xii)  I think I believe….

xiii)                        I want to believe…

And, we also say:-

a)      I don’t believe in something/anything.

b)      I don’t believe something/someone.

c)      I don’t believe you.

d)     I do not believe something is real/true/valid.

e)      I do not believe.

f)       I do not believe there is…

g)      I don’t know what I believe.

h)      I don’t believe in you.

i)        I don’t know what I believe.

j)        I know that what I believe is not true. I don’t know what I believe is true.

k)      I can’t believe that.

l)        I don’t want to believe you.

m)    I don’t think I believe you.  I think I don’t believe you.

n)      I don’t want to believe you.  I can’t believe you.

So, what is the difference between saying that we believe something, and we believe in something?  Is there a difference in believing someone and believing something?  If so, what is the difference in meaning?  What are we saying when we tell someone we believe in them and when we tell someone that we believe in them?  What are we saying when we say that we believe something is true?  Is that the same as saying that we believe that something is real, or that something is valid?  What do we mean when we say that we know what we believe?  How do we know that what we believe is true?  Is there any real difference in telling someone that we want to believe them, or that we can believe them, or that we think we believe them?

Are the opposites (a – n)  really the opposites in meaning, or are we saying something completely different when we say that, for example, we don’t believe in something, or that we don’t believe in anything?

How would you describe the following people?

1.      Someone who is a skeptic

2.      Someone who is a doubter

3.      Someone who is a infidel

4.      Someone who is a liar

5.       Someone who is a believer

6.      Someone who is faithful

7.      Someone who is uncertain

8.      Someone who is certain

9.      Someone who doesn’t know what they believe.

Are any of the terms (1 – 9) interchangeable or similar.  Are any of the terms (1 – 9) opposite in meaning?

Are there ‘shades’ of meaning when describing someone in terms (1 – 9)?

And lastly, what does believe mean?  Does the word have any sort of absolute meaning? Is the word ‘believe’ subjective or objective?  Why?  When?  How?

Answer questions (i- xiii) in as few words as possible.  Listen to other people’s answers to those same questions.  Do they differ from yours?  In what way do they differ?  Why do they differ?  If they do differ, what do they mean?  How is that different to what you meant when you answered?

Here are some of the things we believe:

1.      I believe in God.

2.      I believe that a man has walked on the moon.

3.      I believe we can do anything we set our minds to.

4.      I believe if something is worth doing, it is worth doing well.

5.      I believe it.

6.      I don’t believe it.

7.      I believe him.

8.      I believe them.

9.      Believe me!

10.  Believe us!

11.  I don’t believe a word of it.

12.  I believe everything he says.

13.  I don’t believe anything she says.

14.  I’d rather not believe it.

15.  I don’t believe I will.

16.  I believe I will.

17.  I firmly believe that..

18.  I strongly believe that…

19.  I could hardly believe it.

20.  I never would have believed it..

21.  I believe the situation is improving.

22.  I believe if….

23.  Many people believe…

24.  I believe it is realistic.

25.  I believe it is right to..

26.  To believe otherwise…

27.  We are being asked to believe that….

28.  I refuse to believe…

29.  He seemed to believe that…

30.  I like to believe that….

31.  There is no reason to believe…

32.  If we are to believe….

33.  And would you believe it…

Which words we use to describe our beliefs

1.      A rational belief

2.      An irrational belief

3.      An uncompromising belief

4.      A religious belief

5.      An abiding belief

6.      An active belief

7.      An actual belief

8.      The common belief

9.      The popular belief

10.  An erroneous belief

11.  A firm belief

12.  The Western belief

Philosophy is something that grows as we grow; for most of us, it changes as we change. We stop changing when we die - we stop thinking, anyway. To think is to put philosophy to use.   Posted by Robert L. Fielding | January 6, 2010, 6:09 am

This page is dedicated to modern leaders in the fields of science and technology from the Muslim and Arab world.  It was initiated after the great work done by Dr. Kimberley Connors and her students at UAE University, and their enjoyable and informative presentations on 31.12.2009.  It will be followed by pages about leaders in other fields.

10 technological/scientific leaders from the Arab and Muslim world

 Here is some short information and some links to sites concerned with these 10 leaders in their fields of science and technology.

Robert L. Fielding

Dr. Farouk Al Baz

Farouk El-Baz (Arabic: فاروق الباز‎) is an Egyptian American scientist who worked with NASA to assist in the planning of scientific exploration of the Moon, including the selection of landing sites for the Apollo missions and the training of astronauts in lunar observations and photography.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farouk_El-Baz#NASA

Official website - http://faroukelbaz.com/

Cheick Modibo Diarra

Diarra was born in [[Nioro du Sahel(Mali). After graduating high school in Mali, Cheick Modibo Diarra studied mathematics, physics, and analytic mechanics in Paris at the University of Pierre and Marie Curie, then aerospace engineering at Howard University in Washington, D.C. He was recruited by Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a NASA FFRDC Contractor, where he played a role in several NASA programs, including the Magellan probe to Venus, the Ulysses probe to the Sun, the Galileo spacecraft to Jupiter, and the Mars Observer and Mars Pathfinder. He later became the director of NASA's "Mars Exploration Program Education and Public Outreach."

In 1999, he obtained permission from NASA to work part-time in order to devote himself to education development in Africa, founding the Pathfinder Foundation. He took a further sabbatical in 2002 to found a laboratory in Bamako, Mali for the development of solar energy. In 2000 and 2001 he also served as a goodwill ambassador for UNESCO. In 2002 and 2003 he served as CEO of the African Virtual University, based in Kenya.

Cheick Modibo Diarra is currently the chairman of Microsoft Africa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheick_Modibo_Diarra

Bio - http://www.microsoft.com/emea/about/executivebiographies/cheickDiarra.mspx

Kerim Aliyevich Kerimov

Soviet rocket scientist (b. Nov. 14/17, 1917, Baku, Azerbaijan, Russian Empire—d. March 29, 2003, Moscow, Russia), was for many years a central figure in the Soviet space program, though his name was kept secret from the public. During and after World War II, Kerimov worked with military rockets, rising by 1959 to head the department that oversaw secret test launches. He worked under Sergey Korolyov on the space program, a position he held at the time of the launch of Sputnik, the first satellite, in 1957 and when Yury Gagarin became the first man in space in 1961. In 1966 Kerimov was put in charge of the state commission for testing of the Soyuz manned spacecraft program, intended to lead to a Moon landing. Although fatal accidents occurred in 1967 and 1971, it was not until 1974, because he continued to support the no-longer-approved lunar mission, that he was demoted. Kerimov retained his position as head of the state commission until his retirement in 1990; his name was first mentioned in public in 1987, and he wrote a history of the Soviet space program in 1995.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/914879/Kerim-Kerimov

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Kerim_Kerimov

Yousuf Ma Dexin

Ma produced the first Chinese translation of the Qur'an, as well as writing numerous books in Arabic and Persian about Islam.^[1] His most famous writings compared Islamic culture and the Confucian philosophy in an effort to find a theoretical and theological basis for their coexistence. At the same time, he harshly criticised the absorption of Buddhist and Taoist elements into the practise of Islam in China. As he is generally regarded as an orthodox Islamic thinker, his writings also demonstrated a positive attitude towards Tasawwuf, or Sufi mysticism.^[4] In total, he published over 30 books, most of which fall into five categories.

http://www.viswiki.com/en/Yusuf_Ma_Dexin

Dr. Abdus Salem

Mohammad Abdus Salam^[2] (Urdu: محمد عبد السلام) (January 29, 1926; Jhang, Punjab, British India – November 21, 1996; Oxford, England)^[3] was a Pakistani theoretical physicist, astrophysicist and Nobel laureate in Physics for his work in Electro-Weak Theory. Salam, Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg shared the prize for this discovery. Salam holds the distinction of being the first Pakistani and Muslim Nobel Laureate. As of today, Salam is considered to be one of the most influential scientist and physicist in his country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdus_Salam

Nobel bio - http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1979/salam-bio.html

Shirin Ebadi

Shirin Ebadi (Persian: شیرین عبادی - Širin Ebâdi; born 21 June 1947) is an Iranian lawyer, human rights activist and founder of Centre for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran. On October 10, 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially women's, children's, and refugee rights. She was the first ever Iranian, and the first Muslim woman to have received the prize.

In 2009, Ebadi's award was allegedly confiscated by Iranian authorities, though this was later denied by the Iranian government.^[1] If true, she would be the first person in the history of the Nobel Prize whose award has been forcibly seized by state authorities.^[2][3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirin_Ebadi

Bio - http://www.who2.com/shirinebadi.html

The Nobel Peace Prize 2003

"for her efforts for democracy and human rights. She has focused especially on the struggle for the rights of women and children."

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2003/

Anosha Anseri

Homepage - http://www.anoushehansari.com/

Anousheh Ansari

"First Female Private Space Explorer
& First Space Ambassador”

On September 18, 2006, Anousheh Ansari captured headlines around the world as the first female private space explorer. She also earned a place in history as the fourth private explorer to visit space and the first astronaut of Iranian descent.  She blasted off for an eight-day expedition aboard the International Space Station as part of the Expedition 14 crew of the Soyuz TMA-9, which included NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin. This was the accomplishment of a lifelong dream for her.

While in space, Anousheh wrote a blog that invited readers to share her experience. She described the Russian Soyuz capsule during liftoff, talked about the sights and smells of the space station, and explained the intricacies of everyday activities such as eating and washing up in zero gravity. The blog captured international attention.  Her personal web site and her blog site garnered more than 50 million hits from readers around the world.

http://www.anoushehansari.com/about.php

Fazlur Rahman Khan

In step with the abounding vitality of the time, structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan (1929 — 1982) ushered in a renaissance in skyscraper construction during the second half of the 20th century. Fazlur Khan was a pragmatic visionary: the series of progressive ideas that he brought forth for efficient high-rise construction in the 1960s and ‘70s were validated in his own work, notably his efficient designs for Chicago’s 100-story John Hancock Center and 110-story Sears Tower (the tallest building in the United States since its completion in 1974).

One of the foremost structural engineers of the 20th century, Fazlur Khan epitomized both structural engineering achievement and creative collaborative effort between architect and engineer. Only when architectural design is grounded in structural realities, he believed — thus celebrating architecture's nature as a constructive art, rooted in the earth — can "the resulting aesthetics … have a transcendental value and quality."

http://www.fazlurrkhan.com/

Fazlur Rahman Khan (Bengali: ফজলুর রহমান খান Fozlur Rôhman Khan) (April 3, 1929 - March 27, 1982), born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, was a Bangladeshi-American architect and structural engineer. He did the structural engineering of the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) and John Hancock Center. He is a central figure behind the "Second Chicago School" of architecture,^[1] and is regarded as the "father of tubular design for high-rises".^[2] Khan, "more than any other individual, ushered in a renaissance in skyscraper construction during the second half of the twentieth century."^[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fazlur_Khan

Steve Jobs

Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is an American businessman, and the co-founder and chief executive officer of Apple Inc. Jobs previously served as CEO of Pixar Animation Studios.

In the late 1970s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, created one of the first commercially successful personal computers. In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of the mouse-driven graphical user interface.^[11] After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher education and business markets. NeXT's subsequent 1997 buyout by Apple Computer Inc. brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he has served as its CEO since then. Steve Jobs was listed as Fortune Magazine's Most Powerful Businessman of 2007.^[12] In 2009 he is ranked #57 on Forbes:The World's Most Powerful People.^[13]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs

Bio - http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Jobs.html

Dr. Sultana Nurun Naher

Dr. Sultana Nurun Nahar is a senior research scientist at the Ohio State University in the field of atomic astrophysics. She was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh and then came to United States. In 2006, she was elected in a fellowship for the American Physical Society (APS). Right now she is living at Columbus, Ohio with her only son Alburuj R Rahman, and with her nephew Mohammad Abdullah, a Civil Engineering student at the Ohio State University.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultana_Nurun_Nahar

APS Physics - http://www.aps.org/units/damop/fellowship/index.cfm?year=

Robert L.Fielding  

Promoting fluency in writing

Compiled and written by

Robert L. Fielding

 Fluency is the ability to use a language quickly and smoothly and communicate ideas effectively. Language teachers often contrast it with accuracy. Accuracy is about correctness of grammar, sentence structure and word choice. Sometimes students put too much focus on accuracy. This causes 3 main problems:

• Language use is very slow. The slowness can be caused by using translation from a first language or from stopping and worrying about the correctness of every word that is used.

• The ideas of writing or reading get lost because of a focus on correctness instead of a focus on communicating ideas. This can damage the content of a paper or the understanding of ideas in reading.

• Improvement in English is slowed down. This may be caused by translation strategies, over-reliance on dictionaries (especially bilingual dictionaries), and reduction in the amount of English used. Good language learners are happy to guess, are okay with incomplete understandings, see making mistakes as a learning opportunity, use English a lot and try to think in English.

http://www.douglas.bc.ca/__shared/assets/RS1048528.pdf

Fluency: Have Students Write Every Day  (Graham, Harris & Larsen, 2001)

Short daily writing assignments can build student writing fluency and make writing a more motivating activity.

For struggling writers, formal writing can feel much like a foreign language, with its own set of obscure grammatical rules and intimidating vocabulary. Just as people learn another language more quickly and gain confidence when they use it frequently, however, poor writers gradually develop into better writers when they are prompted to write daily--and receive rapid feedback and encouragement about that writing. The teacher can encourage daily writing by giving short writing assignments, allowing time for students to journal about their learning activities, requiring that they correspond daily with pen pals via email, or even posting a question on the board as a bell-ringer activity that students can respond to in writing for extra credit. Short daily writing tasks have the potential to lower students’ aversion to writing and boost their confidence in using the written word.

References

Graham, S., Harris, K. R., & Larsen, L. (2001). Prevention and intervention of writing difficulties for students with learning disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 16, 74-84.

Copyright ©2009 Jim Wright

http://www.jimwrightonline.com/php/interventionista/interventionista_random.php?intv_ID=148

Fluency: Self-Monitor and Graph Results to Increase Writing Fluency (Rathvon,1999)

Students gain motivation to write through daily monitoring and charting of their own and classwide rates of writing fluency.

At least several times per week, assign your students timed periods of ‘freewriting’ when they write in their personal journals. Freewriting periods all the same amount of time each day. After each freewriting period, direct each student to count up the number of words he or she has written in the daily journal entry (whether spelled correctly or not). Next, tell students to record their personal writing-fluency score in their journal and also chart the score on their own time-series graph for visual feedback. Then collect the day’s writing-fluency scores of all students in the class, sum those scores, and chart the results on a large time-series graph posted at the front of the room. At the start of each week, calculate that week’s goal of increasing total class words written by taking last week’s score and increasing by five percent. At the end of each week, review the class score and praise students if they have shown good effort.

References

Rathvon, N. (1999). Effective school interventions. New York: Guilford Press.

Copyright ©2009 Jim Wright

http://www.jimwrightonline.com/php/interventionista/interventionista_random.php?intv_ID=140

Motivation: Stimulate Interest With an Autobiography Assignment  (Bos & Vaughn, 2002)

Assigning the class to write their own autobiographies can motivate hard-to-reach students who seem uninterested in most writing assignments.

Have students read a series of autobiographies of people who interest them. Discuss these biographies with the class. Then assign students to write their own autobiographies. (With the class, create a short questionnaire that students can use to interview their parents and other family members to collect information about their past.) Allow students to read their finished autobiographies for the class.

References

Bos, C.S. & Vaughn, S. (2002). Strategies for teaching students with learning and behavior problems. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Copyright ©2009 Jim Wright

http://www.jimwrightonline.com/php/interventionista/interventionista_random.php?intv_ID=142

Tools for writing

http://writingfix.com/process_workshop.htm

The flow

Flow is a relatively new term for an essential and universal human experience. You know you’ve been in flow when time seems to have disappeared. When you’re in flow, you become so deeply immersed in your writing, or whatever activity you’re doing, that you forget yourself and your surroundings. You delight in continuing to write even if you get no reward for doing it—monetary or otherwise—and even if no one else cares whether you do it. You feel challenged, stimulated, definitely not bored. Writing in flow, you’re often certain you’re tapping into some creative part of yourself—or of the universe—that you don’t have easy access to when you’re not in this altered state. Sports figures call this desired condition being “in the zone.”

http://www.bunnyape.com/writing_excerpts.htm#INTRODUCTION

 Writing prompts

1.      Creative writing prompts - http://www.creativewritingprompts.com/

2.      Daily writing prompts – in pdf format - http://www.theteacherscorner.net/daily-writing-prompts/august/index.htm

3.      List of daily writing prompts by month - http://www.theteacherscorner.net/daily-writing-prompts/

4.      Monthly resources for writers – January - http://www.theteacherscorner.net/monthly-resources/january.htm

5.      Prompt generator - http://jc-schools.net/write/create.htm

6.      Writing prompts generator - http://languageisavirus.com/writing_prompts.html

7.      Different writing prompt generators - http://languageisavirus.com/writing_prompts.html

Robert L. Fielding

Reasoning, doubt and belief

Links

1.       Modern dogma - http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~raha/Booth-site/pages/dogma-intro.htm

2.       Booth: Now don’t try to reason with me - http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~raha/Booth-site/pages/dont_intro.htm

3.       Essay by Booth: is there any knowledge that man must have? - http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~raha/Booth-site/pages/essaysby/isthereanyknowledge.htm

4.       Booth: The vocation of a teacher - http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~raha/Booth-site/pages/vocation_intro.htm

5.       Neo-Aristotelianism - http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~raha/Booth-site/pages/Glossary/Neo-Aristotelianism.htm

6.       Systematic assent - http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~raha/Booth-site/pages/Glossary/Systematic%20Assent.htm

Descartes (1596-1650), the founder of modern philosophy, invented a method which may still be used with profit -- the method of systematic doubt. He determined that he would believe nothing which he did not see quite clearly and distinctly to be true. Whatever he could bring himself to doubt, he would doubt, until he saw reason for not doubting it. By applying this method he gradually became convinced that the only existence of which he could be quite certain was own. He imagined a deceitful demon, who presented unreal things to his senses in a perpetual phantasmagoria; it might be very improbable that such a demon existed, but still it was possible, and therefore doubt concerning things perceived by the senses was possible.

http://www.ditext.com/russell/rus2.html

7.       Philosophical essay archive - http://www.philosophypathways.com/essays/index.html

8.       Ask a philosopher - http://www.philosophypathways.com/questions/index.html

9.       Notes on Descartes’ Meditations (a priori vs a posteriori) - http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/Dscartes.htm

10.   Cartesian foundationalism - http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil100/descartes.html

11.   Descartes’ method of doubt: an essay by Belotti - http://www.philosophypathways.com/essays/bellotti1.html

12.   Ingredients of critical thinking - http://www.cdtl.nus.edu.sg/ctp/ingredient.htm

13.   The mindset of critical thinking - http://www.cdtl.nus.edu.sg/ctp/mindset.htm

14.   What is critical thinking? - http://www.cdtl.nus.edu.sg/ctp/critical.htm

15.   The Skeptic’s dictionary - http://skepdic.com/

Thinking is Driven by Questions

Thinking is not driven by answers but by questions. Had no questions been asked by those who laid the foundation for a field--for example, Physics or Biology-- the field would never have been developed in the first place. In fact, every intellectual field is born out of a cluster of questions to which answers are either needed or highly desirable. Furthermore, every field stays alive only to the extent that fresh questions are generated and taken seriously as the driving force in a process of thinking. To think through or rethink anything, one must ask questions that stimulate thought.

Questions define tasks, express problems and delineate issues. Answers on the other hand, often signal a full stop in thought. Only when an answer generates a further question does thought continue its life as such. This is why it is true that only students who have questions are really thinking and learning. Moreover, the quality of the questions students ask determines the quality of the thinking they are doing. It is possible to give students an examination on any subject by just asking them to list all of the questions that they have about a subject, including all questions generated by their first list of questions. That we do not test students by asking them to list questions and explain their significance is again evidence of the privileged status we give to answers isolated from questions. That is, we ask questions only to get thought-stopping answers, not to generate further questions.

http://www.sonoma.edu/users/s/swijtink/teaching/philosophy_101/role.htm

16.   Socratic questioning  - http://www.eht.k12.nj.us/~Jonesj/Differentiated%20Instruction/Socratic%20Questions.htm

17.   Bloom’s taxonomy - http://www.eht.k12.nj.us/~Jonesj/Differentiated%20Instruction/blooms%20printable.htm

18.   Reading activities – a menu - http://www.eht.k12.nj.us/~Jonesj/Differentiated%20Instruction/Menu%20Winebrnr%20rdng%20menu.htm

19.   Vocabulary web - http://www.eht.k12.nj.us/~Jonesj/Differentiated%20Instruction/graphic%20org%20vocab%20web.htm

20.   Graphic organizers - http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/

21.   Active learning - http://www-cs.canisius.edu/~mcconnel/active_learning.html

22.   16 techniques for critical thinkers - http://lukeprog.com/science/16_techniques_of_critical_thinking.html

23.   An Introduction to Critical Thinking - http://www.freeinquiry.com/critical-thinking.html

"It is strange that we expect students to learn, yet seldom teach them anything about learning." Donald Norman, 1980, "Cognitive engineering and education," in Problem Solving and Education: Issues in Teaching and Research, edited by D.T. Tuna and F. Reif, Erlbaum Publishers.

"We should be teaching students how to think. Instead, we are teaching them what to think." Clement and Lochhead, 1980, Cognitive Process Instruction.

 http://www.freeinquiry.com/critical-thinking.html

24.   Critical thinking strategies - http://www.ntlf.com/html/lib/suppmat/103chap7.pdf

25.   Critical Thinking Assessment Project - http://www.csuchico.edu/phil/ct/ct_assess.htm

Fundamental Critical Thinking Competencies

Essential critical thinking competence appropriate for university-level work includes ability to:

identify issues of belief, empirical truth, and logic [Details]

evaluate credibility of sources of information and opinion [Details]

identify necessary or probable assumptions and presuppositions [Details]

recognize the difference between normative and non-normative claims [Details]

identify relevant and irrelevant claims in a given context [Details]

recognize misleading uses of language [Details]

determine when additional information is needed for a given purpose [Details]

construct deductive and inductive arguments [Details]

identify valid and invalid arguments, including fallacies of deduction and induction [Details]

recognize logical conflict, compatibility, and equivalence [Details]

critique and construct analogical arguments and explanations [Details]

understand and evaluate causal arguments and explanations [Details]

assess common types of statistical information, generalizations, and reasoning [Details]

Both in theory and in practice, these competencies partially overlap each other. Each item in the list can serve as a worthwhile focus of instruction and merits appropriately designed assessment. It is reasonable to expect that just as these items lend themselves to different modes of instruction that contribute in their particular ways to a student's general education, so also different modes of assessment will return various kinds of usable information. Rigid reliance on any single mode of instruction risks an adverse effect on ability to construe novel situations, and narrowly focused assessment strategies risk skewing the inductive inferences that constitute assessment proper.

http://www.csuchico.edu/phil/ct/ct_assess.htm

26.   Presentation – page 1 - http://www.uea.ac.uk/~e490/skills/crit-think/sld001.htm

27.   Study Guides and Strategies - http://www.studygs.net/crtthk.htm

28.   Critical thinking mini-lessons - http://www.skepdic.com/refuge/ctlessons.html

Dilemmas

Links

http://www.friesian.com/valley/dilemmas.htm

http://listverse.com/2007/10/21/top-10-moral-dilemmas/

http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109g/kohlberg.dilemmas.html

Theory - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-dilemmas/#Exa

Moral dilemmas homepage - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-dilemmas/

The generalized structure of moral and ethical dilemmas - http://www.friesian.com/dilemma.htm

Kohlberg’s theory of moral development - http://www.vtaide.com/blessing/Kohlberg.htm

Paper - http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~snichols/Papers/Dilemmas.pdf

Russell – The text of The Conquest of Happiness - http://russell.cool.ne.jp/beginner/COH-TEXT.HTM

Index page to Russell texts - http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/brtexts.html

ON INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE

THERE is a common impression that everything that we believe ought to be capable of proof, or at least of being shown to be highly probable. It is felt by many that a belief for which no reason can be given is an unreasonable belief. In the main, this view is just. Almost all our common beliefs are either inferred, or capable of being inferred, from other beliefs which may be regarded as giving the reason for them. As a rule, the reason has been forgotten, or has even never been consciously present to our minds. Few of us ever ask ourselves, for example, what reason there is to suppose the food we are just going to eat will not turn out to be poison. Yet we feel, when challenged, that a perfectly good reason could be found, even if we are not ready with it at the moment. And in this belief we are usually justified.

http://www.ditext.com/russell/rus11.html

But further, if we are not to fail in our endeavour to determine the value of philosophy, we must first free our minds from the prejudices of what are wrongly called 'practical' men. The 'practical' man, as this word is often used, is one who recognizes only material needs, who realizes that men must have food for the body, but is oblivious of the necessity of providing food for the mind. If all men were well off, if poverty and disease had been reduced to their lowest possible point, there would still remain much to be done to produce a valuable society; and even in the existing world the goods of the mind are at least as important as the goods of the body. It is exclusively among the goods of the mind that the value of philosophy is to be found; and only those who are not indifferent to these goods can be persuaded that the study of philosophy is not a waste of time.

http://www.ditext.com/russell/rus15.html

1. Homepage of Study Guides and Strategies

http://www.studygs.net/

2.  Find out what kind of learner you are by filling out this online questionnaire.

http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html 

"He that knows not,
    and knows not that he knows not
        is a fool.
            Shun him

He that knows not,
    and knows  that he knows not
        is a pupil.
            Teach him.

He that knows,
    and knows not that he knows
        is asleep
            Wake him.

He that knows,
    and knows that he knows
        is a teacher.
            Follow him.

(Arabic proverb)

1. A good site for all sorts of things for students and teachers.

http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/links.html

2. BBC Learning English – a place to listen to English to help your listening comprehension

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/newsenglish/index.shtml

3. Online listening for learners – lots and lots of different topics

http://www.elllo.org/index.htm

4. Keeping a reflective journal – something you can do for the rest of your life

http://www.doceo.co.uk/reflection/index.htm

5. Style Manual for everything from how to punctuate sentences to when to use italics in your writing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style

6. Untangling the web – help with online research

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/internet/search/index.html

7. Counseling services and information and advice on all sorts of problems

http://www.eatingdisorders.org.au/

8. Feeling homesick – find your local newspaper on this site – wherever you come from in the world

http://www.world-newspapers.com/uae.html

9. A good place to start to find information

http://dmoz.org/Business/Healthcare/desc.html

10. Health issues – find help here, but talk to someone too

http://www.athealth.com/Consumer/issues/issues.html

Robert L. Fielding

Computer generated exams can be created using software from the site below.

http://www.wincge.com/

    ‘Audacity’ – software for recording 

'Audacity' allows you to record straight from sources such as BBC Radio, and then edit, including adding pauses, instructions, as well as allowing you to delete extraneous noise, silence or items that are not wanted.

To download Audacity, visit this link:-  This software is FREE

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

Information about various formats can be found at his URL:-

file:///F:/PROGRAMS/Audacity/audacity-manual-1.2/fileformats.html#mp3

crayon.net is a site that provides a place where you can access all your favourites.

Click on the link and follow the simple instructions. 

NB. This is a free and secure site.  You will be asked to provide an email address.

http://www.crayon.net/scripts/login.cgi?mode=create

UGRU Concordancer

http://www.ugru.uaeu.ac.ae/concordance/

Other concordancers - the first one is probably the most useful one for students, with a little help from a teacher

1. http://www.lextutor.ca/concordancers/concord_e.html
2. http://132.208.224.131/concordancers/
3. http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod2-4.htm#_Toc481294197
4. http://micase.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/m/micase/micase-idx?type=revise
5. http://www.dundee.ac.uk/english/wics/wics.htm
6. http://www.concordancesoftware.co.uk/
7. http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod2-4.htm#bnc

1. Create a graph

http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/

2. Style conventions for writers

http://depts.gallaudet.edu/englishworks/writing/editorstyle.html

3. Academic phrase bank

http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/methods.htm

4. Using English for Academic Purposes

http://www.uefap.com/

5. Catalogue of Internet Resources

http://bubl.ac.uk/link/e/englishlanguageeducation.htm

6. Glossaries for everything

http://bloxword.ca/glossaries.htm

7. Online Dictionaries

http://dictionary.reference.com/

8. Wordsmyth – glossary maker (you need to register with this site)

http://www.wordsmyth.net/home.php?content=glossary

9. Great Teachers’ Resources

http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/review.html

10. ‘Cause and effect essay’ outlines and resources

http://essayinfo.com/essays/cause_and_effect_essay.php

11. Techniques for Creative Thinking

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~charles57/Creative/Techniques/

12. ESL Directory

http://www.usingenglish.com/links/Idiomatic_Expressions/index.html

13. Chris Morrow’s Blinklist

http://www.blinklist.com/grammar/

14. Activities for Learners

http://a4esl.org/

15. Word Detective

http://www.word-detective.com/

Robert L. Fielding

BBC RADIO 3

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/

1. Skynews blog

http://skynews.typepad.com/my_weblog/

2. Crayon homepage

http://www.crayon.net/

mp/bzs

3. Scottish newspapers

http://www.world-newspapers.com/scotland.html

4. The Herald

http://www.theherald.co.uk/

5. West Highland Freepress (Broadford, Skye)

http://www.whfp.com/1795/main.html

6. Universities worldwide

http://informasi-beasiswa.blogspot.com/2005/12/uk-universities-and-colleges-list.html

7. Dave's ESL Cafe

http://www.eslcafe.com/

8. Copyright free photos

http://gimp-savvy.com/PHOTO-ARCHIVE/

9. Writers' Resources

http://www.jbwb.co.uk/links.html

10. Writers' Links

http://www.writersshop.com/html/links_for_writers.html

11. Markets for articles

http://www.jbwb.co.uk/articles.html

http://adamboulton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/09/the_big_boundar.html

1. Clive Davies on culture

http://www.clivedavis-online.com/

2. BBC News page

http://news.bbc.co.uk/

3. Helpguide for stress and stress related disorders

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/stress_signs.htm

4. Manchester online newspapers

http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/newspapers/oldham.html

5. Change in Britain: an article in the New York Times

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB071EFF3E5A0C7A8EDDAF0894D0484D81

6. World newspapers

http://www.world-newspapers.com/uae.html

7. Glossaries

http://bloxword.ca/glossaries.htm

8. Web Grammar

http://www.webgrammar.com/.

9. Google

http://www.google.com/ig?hl=en

10. Virtual travel ROBERT LESLIE FIELDING

http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/b492c/