Wednesday 6 May 2015

Audiobooks- Listening to Literature Online

In a few short years, the amateur digital spewing phenomenon known as blogging has become an Internet fixture and has spawned a few explosive online successes (MySpace, YouTube) and more than a few bloggers whose opinions became valued professional resources (The Drudge Report, for political news and opinion). Like so many of the good things on the web, what began as projects of individual dedication became an important addition to our social and economic fabric.
Now, the rise of podcasts has led to what may become an addition to our cultural fabric. There are a host of sites that will allow you to download audio books for a fee, as an alternative to buying the cassette or CD. The costs of these downloads aren't any bargain compared to the audio or printed copy; you are simply spared the chore of seeking out the product in a brick-and- mortar store.
A more interesting phenomenon that has arisen in conjunction with podcast technology is the introduction of websites that provide free audio books. These books are, for the most part, classics that are in the public domain; no usage permission from author or publisher is required. Also of interest is the fact that many of these books are read by amateurs - that is to say, untrained actors or voices. There is no such thing as amateur status when it comes to consuming literature.
Some of these amateurs have become veterans in their own right. These people are volunteers solicited by the websites that provide these audio feeds and who have produced large amounts of work: one Southern California housewife has recorded more than one hundred chapters for the website Librivox. Some of the plays provided via free podcast are voiced by collections of actors - one per role.
While Librivox focuses on classics, Podiobooks.com provides serialized audio presentations of recent publications and books that have yet to be published. Their website allows you to "subscribe" to a book (for no fee) and receive a chapter a week via email. Even books that have been completed and are listed in the Podiobooks catalogue are delivered one chapter at a time. Because much of this writing is current, the site suggests that donations to authors are not out of line. Podiobooks is promoting the notion that cross-fertilization of books in both printed and spoken format will heighten interest in both.
Then there is the blog-oriented format of Dead White Males. This site is heavy on the literary reflections of its founder, provided in print. There are essays on elements of Shakespeare and other great authors, along with a blog site that allows for commentary on the essays. Incorporated into the site are a dozen podcasts ranging from modern poetry to Hardy's Return of the Native. This site is like attending a lit seminar with no chronological limitations.
Project Gutenberg is a website founded by Michael Hart, the gentleman who claims to have invented the ebook in 1971. Those must have taken days to download. In any case, the web site has a healthy category of ebooks in multiple languages available for download. Some have been created for this website and others provided by volunteers or other websites. Project Gutenberg is an archive that claims to be the largest resource for free audiobooks on the web.
This is a sampling of sites and each of them has its own approach to the same end: providing free literature online. A laudable goal, worthy of the early anarchy that characterized the birth of the Internet.

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GMAT and MBA - Key to a Successful Future

Education is one sector which never ceases to amaze us. In today's scenario higher education is slowly but surely becoming a necessity. With the growing demands of the industry, people from all walks of life have started to reckon the importance of Top MBA programs. In today's cut throat competitive world, business is ensnared with virtually each and every aspect of our lives. From using technologies such as my space or Facebook to planning your vacation online, every transaction we make counts as a business. And achieving success in this business arena requires specific managerial skills which could be learn at business schools.
The graduate business degree from Top B-Schools offers innumerable opportunities in any type of business setting, anywhere in the world. This business degree is earned by completing a graduate business school program, in which students take on traditional as well as modern mix of academic coursework based on real business challenges. The demanding schedule of MBA students entangled with thorough exposure to the real world of business that lasts for a period of a year or two; prepares them for a lifetime of management responsibilities in business world.
For getting into top Business Schools, applicants need to clear GMAT (Graduate Management Admissions Test). The basic requirements for getting into a graduate business degree program are undergraduate GPA, professional experience and GMAT score.
The GMAT is an exam which tests your quantitative (math), analytical, verbal and writing skills. To make sure you are abreast with the requirements you need to go in for GMAT preparation & GMAT tutorials much before the actual exam. Preparing with all available resources at hand coupled with hard work and dedication plays a major role in one's chance of clearing these exams with flying colors. Researching about these topics, Googling them, finding relevant study materials, doing group discussions etc, are sure to help an applicant achieve his/her aim of successful entry into a reputed business school.
Many working professionals are also finding usefulness in these business programs. They are reckoning the fact that, endowing themselves with these managerial skills will not only help them develop their skills which will greatly help in elevation of their careers and also help in changing their career field, if required. A MBA degree from Top B - School works wonder when it comes to personal brand promotion and opens the door for networking. A MBA class consists of a group of highly proficient people from a variety of professional and educational background. As they intermingle with one another during the course of their degree, each student can find out from other students how other businesses are run and learn more about better methods and strategies being utilized by other businesses. Hence, a top MBA program provides good experience and wonderful insights to students which help them in long run of their career.


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How to Study For Essay Exams in College

As a college student, you will probably have to contend with essay exams more often than you did in high school. The more practice you have had writing outside of class, the easier an in-class essay will be. However, the preparation that goes into an essay exam is critical to successful results. There is a cardinal rule in studying: one size does not fit all. In other words, preparation for a short answer objective exam differs greatly from preparation for an essay test. Here are some tips on how to study for essay exams in college.
Upon the announcement of an exam, one of the first things you should do is ask the instructor for copies of any old exams on which to practice. While you know the questions would not be the same, you will get a sense of the professors' style and perhaps the depth of knowledge expected. Practice answering the exam questions to the best of your ability.
In addition, there are usually sample essay questions at the end of every chapter. Check them out. If the professor taught primarily from the text, then there is a good bet that the questions will be similar. Also consult the online website that supplements the book. It often goes ignored by students but can contain valuable practice that ends up being very close to the real exam.
In addition, you can brainstorm potential questions for the exam first, and then get together with friends who are doing well and exchange ideas. Practice answering each others questions. Do not forget to take your notes into consideration when thinking of possible questions. If there is something in your notes that is not in the text, there is a good bet it will be the subject of an exam question.
When you practice answering essays, do not write in paragraph form. Rather, create an outline. It may be easiest to list all of the important ideas you want to convey first, followed by their respective details. Write in short phrases, not sentences, and use abbreviations. This makes it easier to memorize. You can use color, too, as a powerful memory tool. Some students are more comfortable thinking in pictures, so they prefer mind-mapping to outlining. There are many mind-mapping applications you can download for free online. One of my favorites is Mindomo. It is to your advantage to print your mind map, rather than study it on the computer screen, so before you get comfortable with a free program, make sure it gives you the option to print.
Next, you want to commit your outline or mind map to memory using mnemonics (word tricks, i.e. Every Good Boy Does Fine for the notes of the scale that go through lines), color hints, or any visual clues you can think of. Practice again and again until you can re-create your outline or map by heart. It is important to over-learn the material, so it does not disappear out of nervousness when you start the exam. In fact, it is a good idea to do a "data dump" before the test starts, too. That is where you take a blank corner of the test paper and jot down any formulas, mnemonics, dates, etc., that you fear you are going to forget. Once they are recorded, you can relax!
You can now see that studying for essay exams is a defined process. The only question that remains is--how do you know when you have studied enough? When you can easily replicate your outline or mind map without any omissions, you have over-learned the material, and you can walk into the exam confidently!
Joan M. Azarva, Ms.ED, an expert College Learning Specialist, parent of a successful adult son with LD/ADD, and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education has experience that spans three+ decades with students of all ages. In 1993, however, due to the well-documented low postsecondary success rate of students with learning disabilities, Joan decided to focus exclusively on the critical period of high school-to-college transition.


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Falling Standard Of Education In Nigeria: Who Is To Be Blame?

INTRODUCTION
The concept " falling standard of Education" is a relative term because there is no well defined instruments to measure it with utmost reliability and validity. That is why scholars' views on the concept varies. These scholars view it at different perspectives, depending on the angle each of them is looking at it.
Babalola, A (2006) sees the concept from admission of Nigerian University products in developed countries universities. That the first six Nigerian Universities (University of Ibadan, Ile Ife, Lagos, Benin, Nsukka and Zaria) had their products competing favourably with any other University in the world as their products were sought for by University of Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford and London for admission into their post-graduate courses. That these students record breaking performances and when they graduate are employed by the best multi-national companies and corporate bodies globally unlike today where no Nigerian University is among the top 6,000 Universities of the world (Adeniyi, Bello (2008) in Why no worry about rankings). He sees standard from how universities contribute to knowledge and solving problems besetting mankind.
According to Gateway to the Nation (2010), University of Ibadan is ranked 6,340th University in the world. In Africa, University of Ibadan is ranked 57th, OAU 69th and South African Universities are leading the way in Africa.
He also use written and spoken English as a yardstick for measuring standard of education which University of London conducted a research in West Africa and the result showed that teachers trained by colonial masters were better of than those trained by indigenous teachers.
He also used staffing, funding, foundation, origin and students as standard of education.
Standard of education to Dike, V. (2003) is how education contribute to the public health (or sociopolitical and economic development of a Nation).
Standard of education to either passing or failing of external examinations like WAEC, NECO, NABTEB, JAMB,(NOW UTME) among others.
Teachers without Boarders (2006) looks at educational standard from how the products of schools can be measured in terms of outcome. That is how school leavers contribute to the society in terms of cognitive affective and psychomotor. I will be using students to refer to both students and pupils, I will use head teacher to refer to both principal and headmaster.
Which ever way you may view standard of education, for you to conclude whether the standard is falling or not, you must take into consideration all the aforementioned variables including achieving educational goals.
Equally, for justice to be done while measuring these standards one has to look at reliability where all the schools to be measured must have the same infrastructure, teaching materials, quality of teachers, level and degree of learners, condition within which learning takes place, some methods of assessment and some types of contribution to the society among others.
CAUSES OF FALLING STANDARDS
Haven discussed what makes up standard in education, may I crave your indulgence to some of the established facts that constitute falling standard of education in Nigeria.
(1) Discipline: This is one of the outstanding attributes of education when it is rightly observed.
a. Repeating: school no longer observe repeating as every student is promoted to the next class whether they understand or not gives room for falling standard.
b. Attendance: The 75% of attendance universally accepted as the bases for someone to sit for examination is no longer observed.
c. Late coming: Student that come late are no longer punished, which leads to their losing morning classes.
d. Misbehaviour: Students are no longer punished for misbehavior because of their parental influences (lost of jobs or unnecessary transfer).
e. Cultism: This could refer to rituals, usually under oath binding the members to a common course. They operate covertly in fulfillment of their objectives to the detriment of other people. Thus, planning secondary needs above primary needs.
These cults exist because of over population of students in schools, wrong admissions not based on merits, hence fear of examination failures and selfish worldly gains.
(2) Quest for paper qualification: Nigerians respect paper qualification above performance in the fields. Hence, cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains are supposed to be measured on the field.
(3) Politicizing education: Merit is no longer regarded as it is now " who you know" and not "what you can deliver" Technocrats (educationists are not appointed Commissioner of education and education board).
(4) Policy problem: Sometimes the type of policies government make on education adversely affects output. For instance, in College of Education, we have National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE), competing with JAMB for admission as the two guidelines vary.
Equally, WAEC, NECO, NABTEB, JAMB ( now UTME) compete with qualifying pre-requisites and regulation of entries into tertiary institutions.
(5) Teachers not being part of the examination bodies. One wonders whether the continuous Assessment submitted by these teachers are used or not.
(6) Accessibility of Schools: The Nigerian population boom has outnumbered the existing schools as the existing schools have to over admit.
This point can be practically seen in the following areas:
(i) Teacher / Student ratio of 1:25 is no longer there as in my class, it is 1:3900.
(ii) Students / books / Journals ratio of 1:10 is no longer feasible.
(iii) Politics of admission: Schools can no longer set targets for admission to conform with their facilities as powerful notes from above will force the school authorities to either over admit or find themselves in the labour market again. Yet it is those that are giving these notes are suppose to build more schools or provide needed infrastructure etc. to accommodate those collecting these notes.
(7) Over-dependent on cognitive domain: Schools do not give regards to affective domain that will mould characters of our young ones. Little attention is given to psychomotor while no attention is given to affective domain.
(8) Shortage of qualified teachers: Some schools in the rural areas only have the headmaster as government employee while the rest that may be secondary school drop outs are PTA staff. What miracle can these staff perform? Dike, V. (2006) observed that only 23% out of the then 400,000 primary schools in Nigeria have grade II even when NCE is now the minimum qualification for teachers at primary and Junior Secondary schools.
(9) Teachers welfare: It is no longer news that
(a) Politicians do not have negotiation council to negotiate their salary increase.
(b) There is no disparity among political office holders from the federal, state and local governments.
(c) Their salaries are increased at astronomical manner.
(d) Their salaries are increased any time without recourse to whether the nation's economy can bear it or not.
(e) But for teachers, they must negotiate the 10 to 20% of an attempt to increase their salary with consideration of the economy of the nation. How can these teachers contribute and perform miracle when their family members are in the hospitals and the O.S. syndrome is written on their cards by pharmacists while they do not have money to treat.
(10) Constant Strikes: This is an impediment to smooth covering of syllabus. Oefule (2009) explained that one Nigerian guest asked a question on strike at Oxford University community but the vice chancellor could not even remember about strike, only the registrar remembered it for 17 years back. This is what governance means to the people.
(11) Long rule of the military; Education was not properly funded by the military regimes as according to Babalola, A(2006) Obasanjos administration inherited many left over problems of the military such as non- payment of pensions and gratuities of retired University staff, poor remuneration of university staff, dilapidating buildings of schools, libraries with outdated books, obsolete laboratory equipments, bad campus roads, inadequate water and power supply among others.
(12) In the secondary and primary schools levels, schools do not even have buildings talk less` of furniture's, equipments and reading materials. This is the level where the foundation of education should be laid. Any faulty foundation will lead to faulty structures. What do you expect from the tertiary level?
(13) Lack of training of teachers: Teachers are not trained to update their knowledge with latest discoveries based on research, then how can they give what they don't have?
(14) Poor state of Educational teaching facilities: Dike V. (2006) reported that research result shows that over 2015 primary schools in Nigeria do not have building but study under trees, talk less of teaching materials.
(15) Corruption: leaders of the schools and some Government officials either connive to buy equipments with loan money that cannot be of any use to the school or take such loans and do not even do anything with it.
(16) Poor budgetary allocation to education: A research work of 2001 shows that Nigeria only, allocate less than 20% to education it further reveals that Nigeria spends 0.76% to education as against Uganda 2.6%, Tanzania3.4%, Mozambique 4.1%, Angola 4.9%, Coted Ivore 5% Kenya 6.5% and South Africa 7.9% among others.
WHO IS TO BE BLAMED?
We have seen the causes of falling standards and from these causes we can deduce that the following are to be blamed:
1. Government suppose to carry the lion share of the blame because all the other variables are dependent variables to it.
2. Teachers also have their shares of the blame with regards to their diligent duties.
3. Parents: feeding has to be provided by parents. This is because parents do not leave schools to operate without interference.
4. Students: students who do not abide by school rules and regulations nor pay attention to their studies also contribute to falling standards. Students also seek for paper qualification and disregards to performance they also participate in cult activities that derail the progress of the academy.
5. The society is not left out as it is the way it sees and respects the products of these schools that recycles back again.
SOLUTION
Based on the problems or causes identified above, the following solutions are proffered: Schools should respect and restore back discipline to bring back the lost glory of our educational standards.
Performance should be regarded and respected more than just paper qualification. Equally, education should not be politicized for whatever reason.
Policy makers should be mindful of policies that affect education .eg JAMB(UTME) regulation in admissions.
Teachers should be involved in examination activities and examination bodies should always publish examination reports and distribute it to various schools for them to hold school workshop for training of subject teachers on their areas of weaknesses observed in the students' scripts with regards to following the marking scheme.
More schools should be built to increase accessibility by all. Cognitive, affective and psychomotor domain should be used for assessment of students.
Teachers' welfare should be given priority by government to avoid unnecessary strikes in our educational sector while more qualified teachers should be employed to curb the present shortage of teachers in our schools.
Our civilian government should prove to the people that they are better than military government.
Teachers should be trained so that they can meet up with any new challenges Educational facilities should be upgraded to modern standards while teaching facilities should be adequately provided.
Corruption should be eliminated to the barest minimum by all stakeholders while government should increase its budgetary allocations to education to improve the standard of education in Nigeria.


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Rhetoric - The Great Hoax

On the Internet, when you search for deceptive rhetoric or rhetoric hoax, you'll get more than two million hits for either one. That volume of hits is an echo of what we've heard all our lives---that Rhetoric is associated with deception and trickery, even though the college experts try to reassure us that the discipline of Rhetoric is really neutral. Fact is, though, most of what the public knows about Rhetoric is a hoax, especially as regards the origins, the history, and the confusion over Rhetoric in academic circles.
The Origins of Rhetoric
Most people, even school teachers, think the history of Rhetoric began in Greece with Aristotle-------but it didn't.
In 427 A.D., sixty-year-old Gorgias, a sophist from the Greek colony of Leontini, in Sicily, brought Rhetoric to Athens. He settled in Athens and popularized rhetoric by offering public demonstrations of his skill in public speaking, which was his way of marketing his trade to anyone who wanted to learn to speak as he did.
One of his most apt students, Isocrates, learned the trade and became "the most influential teacher of rhetoric in Aristotle's time" (On Rhetoric, Kennedy, George A., New York: Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 13).
Why wasn't Aristotle "the most influential teacher of rhetoric" in his own time?
Because he had his own personal brand of Rhetoric, and he taught it only to students in his small, private school in Athens, called the Lyceum. And his Rhetoric, really more of a collection of notes gathered over the years than anything else, was not published in his lifetime (384-322 B.C.) and was basically unknown outside his small, private school.
In fact, not only was Aristotle's Rhetoric unknown in his own time, it was largely unknown and untaught throughout the ages. According to George A. Kennedy---a universally praised scholar of ancient Greek culture and a highly esteemed translator of Aristotle's Rhetoric---Aristotle's Rhetoric was "obsolete as a school text" throughout most of history (On Rhetoric, p. 308).
The History of Rhetoric
Aristotle's Rhetoric became obsolete because, first of all, it was lost in Asia Minor for about 200 years after his death in 322 B.C.-------out of circulation, out of usage, out of sight, out of mind.
During that time, probably because it had no real competition, the Rhetoric of Isocrates flourished and became established as the major well-spring for progress in the art of Rhetoric.
Also during that lost time, three very popular major features were added to Isocrates's Rhetoric that were never developed in Aristotle's version:
· stasis
(contributed to Rhetoric by Hermagoras of Temnos around 150 B.C.; a systematic series of questions used to develop the central issue in court cases)
· tropes
(one of two major divisions in figures of speech, see below; using words in a way that their normal meaning is replaced with something else, such as, "today the White House issued a statement"---as we know, the White House building did not issue the statement; irony is another example, such as when a sarcastic students says, "Yeah, I just loooove grammar")
· figures of speech
(the Stoic philosophers of Athens added these to Rhetoric somewhere between 250 and 100 B.C.; figures of speech are divided into two main categories: schemes and tropesschemes change the ordinary or expected pattern of words, such as, "My voice teacher, a real looker," which uses the scheme of apposition or renaming; and tropes change the general meaning of words, as discussed in the entry just above).
Scholars throughout history considered these three Rhetorical features as extremely important and studied and discussed them extensively. So they paid little attention to Aristotle's Rhetoric, which did not have them, after it was found and 'published' around 80 B.C. Then, around 190 A.D., Alexander of Aphrodesias published a commentary on Aristotle's Rhetoric, and scholarly interest revived a bit.
However, throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the principal texts on Rhetoric were not Aristotle's, but two books that were based largely on the Rhetoric of Isocrates and its accompanying three supplementary features discussed above. These two books were Rhetorica ad Herrenium (Rhetoric for Herrenium), of unknown authorship, and De Inventione (On Invention), written by Cicero (106-43 B.C.), the great Roman philosopher, politician, and rhetorician.
The modern academic and philosophic interest in Aristotle's approach to Rhetoric is often traced to the publication of philosopher Kenneth Burke's book, A Rhetoric of Motives, which was published in 1950. Since then, many other books have investigated and expounded upon Aristotle's Rhetoric, and more people today are reading and studying it than did so in all the rest of history combined.
So the public perception that Aristotle's Rhetoric is the Rhetoric that was handed down and taught widely in schools throughout the ages is quite wrong. This hoax has been perpetuated by well-meaning but poorly educated textbook writers.
The Confusion Over Rhetoric in Academic Circles
Now, wouldn't you think that the actual bedrock principles of Rhetoric, the fundamental principles, would be pretty well-known and established after 2,500 years?
And you would also think that an encyclopedia dedicated to collecting and explaining all the important parts, patterns, processes, purposes, and perspectives of Rhetoric would clearly identify and discuss them, right?
Well, take a look at what the Preface says in the Encyclopedia of Rhetoric (New York: Oxford Press, 2001):

... [this is] our effort to abstract rhetoric as far as we could... and to endeavor to search for its principles.

"Search for its principles"? Immediately following that eye-opener is this:

We recognize the paradox, in view of what we take rhetoric to be. It is nearly impossible either to abstract a temporal cause from its effects or to look anew at a subject anchored in but not confined to an ancient tradition. But the attempt to do so, we believe, sets this work apart from other recent publications such as the Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition.... [my bolding]

I'm not even going to attempt to work out the "paradox" reasoning.
But I wonder: Am I reading too much into this? Is Rhetoric as hard to define, is it as unstable and as unclear in what its old principles are and in what its new principles are, as this encyclopedia makes out?
Let's try another encyclopedia dedicated to Rhetoric---there's only one other. Looking at the Preface to the Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition (New York: Garland, 1996), we find:

... [this encyclopedia] provides an introduction to rhetoric, including the major periods and personages, concepts and applications. Rhetoric... is becoming ever more difficult to locate in a conceptual framework... many theorists are reconceptualizing rhetoric in its own terms[my bolding]

This encyclopedia of rhetoric "provides an introduction to Rhetoric"? Only an introduction? It doesn't go beyond identifying the very basic parts, pieces, and patterns of Rhetoric?
Plainly, this encyclopedia is not claiming to be thorough and comprehensive, claiming that it covers only the basics, "an introduction." After 2,500 years of discussions and arguments about what Rhetoric is and what it is not, surely there should be more than just "an introduction" to Rhetoric in an encyclopedia dedicated to it!
Is a more comprehensive version, which goes beyond this "introduction," in the works or being planned? No mention of that.
Furthermore, "Rhetoric... is becoming ever more difficult to locate in a conceptual framework...." What?!!! There's that "paradox" sort of difficulty, again, as confessed by the first encyclopedia we discussed.
Maybe it would have been helpful to explain what "conceptual framework" means. Perhaps it has something to do with identifying an overall pattern that organizes all the concepts of Rhetoric---"ever more difficult to locate," even now?
The fact that "many theorists are reconceptualizing Rhetoric "in its own terms" clearly implies that theorists have not been conceptualizing Rhetoric in its own terms, for some reason. Why might that be?
Let me take a shot at it---Perhaps it is because Rhetoric has so very many disorganized parts and pieces, without a clear hierarchical pattern of connections, that it's literally impossible to pin it all down into an organized pattern. In short, "rhetoric can mean nearly anything" (Professor George Pullman of Georgia State University; conference, What is the New Rhetoric? in Sydney, Australia, 2005) that an 'expert' wants it to be and says it is. Given what I've shown, here, that seems a decent interpretation of what was said in the prefaces to those two encyclopedias.
So Rhetoric is definitely fair game for being compared to the saying, "You can't see the forest for the trees." Rhetoric has so many hundreds of devices and isolated concepts ("trees"), yet it has no clear, overriding principle ("forest") to hold them all together in a plainly recognizable pattern.
Way back in 1663, the poet and satirist Samuel Butler said what many had said for centuries in more general ways and captured the spirit of this perennial confusion and uncertainty about Rhetoric with his famous, oft-quoted criticism:

For all a rhetorician's rules teach nothing but to name his tools.

Cute little saying, but Samuel Butler was serious. And so was Herbert Spencer (a very influential English philosopher of the Nineteenth Century, in Europe and America, in both literature and Rhetoric) when he said in his 1852 essay, "The Philosophy of Style,"

The maxims contained in works on composition and rhetoric are presented in an unorganized form. Standing as isolated dogmas---as empirical generalizations, they are neither so clearly apprehended, nor so much respected, as they would be were they deduced from some simple first principle.

My take on what Spencer was saying is this:

The many rules for writing and public speaking are not organized. If they were organized under a single, simple, powerfully unifying principle, then the rules of composition and rhetoric could be clearly understood, taught, and learned.

A much more modern Rhetoric authority, the late Professor Wayne C. Booth of the University of Chicago, plainly agreed but went a little further than Spencer when he said,

Where is the theory, where are the practical rules for ensuring that this talk will not only grab you, as the Madison Avenue rhetoricians say, but keep you grabbed and send you away determined to behave differently? (The Essential Wayne Booth, Wayne C. Booth & Walter Jost, University of Chicago Press: 2007, p. 69)

Booth's point was that modern writing texts don't provide a comprehensive theory or practical rules for writing or speaking to a specific audience (neither did Aristotle's), and that Aristotle's Rhetoric couldn't fulfill our modern needs for "a rhetoric of the symposium, of the conference room," or of other modern situations that were not even imaginable in ancient Greece.
Furthermore, there's been a whole host of Rhetoric authorities over the last one hundred and fifty years who have been simply clamoring for a "New Rhetoric"---because, like Booth, Spencer, and Butler, they see that Rhetoric simply can't handle the diversity, depth, breadth, and uniqueness of modern times. These authorities include a number of academic heavyweights: I. A. Richards, Kenneth Burke, Wayne C. Booth, W. R. Winterowd, Francis Christensen, James L. Kinneavy, E. D. Hirsch Jr., Andrea Lunsford, Lisa Ede, Richard Lanham, Reed Way Dasenbrock, C. H. Knoblauch, and Lil Brannon.
So confusion reigns among modern encyclopedias dedicated to Rhetoric, and academic authorities have been complaining about the failings of Rhetoric for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. And they are all clamoring for something new-------because the old Rhetoric just isn't good enough anymore.
Conclusion
Add to all that, the 2002 report from the National Education Association that only one in five high school seniors can write well enough to do college work. No wonder the National Commission on Writing (NCW) declared in 2003 that there's a crisis in teaching writing in America! But what did the NCW recommend?
The NCW practically demanded more time, more people, and more money be poured into the same old, ineffective writing instruction, without any basic changes to the fundamental principles that determine how writing is taught! (And, of course, what is taught in writing textbooks and writing classes across America is all based on Rhetoric. Rhetoricians are proud to point this out, by the way.) They want to spend a whole lot more money, time, and people on the same old thing that isn't working? As they say on Sesame Street, "What's wrong with this picture?"
One last very telling point---Is there a final test that would either prove or disqualify Rhetoric as the basis for teaching writing?
Yes, there is. It's called the What if test, and here it is:

What if an essay or some other written work has all the pertinent forms of Rhetoric used perfectly in it?
And what if it isn't new to the readers?

If the reading audience DOES already know the ideas and is familiar with the presentation, then what's the point of that writing? Without being new, it has no audience. At the very least, it will be oppressively boring to readers.
If it's a book intended for public distribution, it won't see the light of publishing day---people don't put out good money for old news, and publishers know that very well. Ditto for poetry, short stories, essays, and especially journalistic articles, opinions, and editorials.
And the Rhetoric of Isocrates, the Rhetoric of Aristotle, the Rhetoric of Cicero, the Rhetoric of Quintilian, the Rhetorica ad Herennium, James L. Kinneavy's Theory of Discourse---not one of them develops a step-by-step process for generating the astonishingly simple but amazing ignored concept of-------

What's new to the reader

We don't need a New Rhetoric.
We need a Rhetoric of Newness.
This article was written by Bill Drew, a writing expert who specializes in teaching writing for essays and in teaching writing about literature, as well as writing advertising and other business writing.
He is the author of The Secret DNA of Writing Essays-And Everything Else, as well as The Secret DNA of Analyzing Short Stories. The two books plus the software for the first book are available at his website, at Amazon.com, and at ThoughttOffice.com.
His NewView methods are being successfully taught in elementary, middle school, and high school classes.


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Monday 4 May 2015

Custom Essay Writing - Should You Buy Essays Online?

Custom essay writing services are rampant on the web these days. Every time I turn around, it seems like there is a new website selling essays to unsuspecting college students around the world. These companies are unethical and doing their customers a major disservice.
Keep reading to find out why you should never pay money for an essay online.
Where do essay writing services get their essays? Although many of these companies would like you to believe that they are creating essays with a qualified team of writers, most of these so-called essay writing services actually outsource their writing to India and other countries. Think of it: someone in New Delhi is getting paid a few bucks an hour to write your college paper.
Why is it so bad to buy an essay that was produced in a foreign country? Besides the obvious waste of an opportunity to grow intellectually and the apparent waste of your college tuition, an essay written by a foreigner is simply not going to reflect the expectations of a college writing class in the United States.
Many custom essay writing services will also provide you with a finished document that is recycled from previously composed work for other customers. Some of these essays even get reproduced online and become easy for your instructor to catch and dismiss as simple plagiarism.
As a college writing instructor myself, I have found it very easy to identify essays that students either buy online or pay someone else to write. It is not difficult and often very obvious when it happens. I want to urge you to think twice (even three times) about making this error next time you think about skipping an assignment and finding an essay for sale on the web. Not only will you be throwing away your college education, you're also very likely to get caught!


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My Ideal Educational Philosophy

In an ideal world, I really believe that the majority of people who are involved in education, whether they're a teacher, administrator, coach, counselor, are anything else, would have a genuine care for kids. I also think that most educators really are trying to do the best they can with what they have, and they probably feel that their style or philosophy of what they're doing is the best way to do it. So while I also have my own beliefs of how things should be done, and how I eventually want to do things when I become a teacher, I am aware that my beliefs can be subjective, and I would hope to be flexible enough to change and evolve as a teacher, as my beliefs change and evolve.
As of today, I sincerely believe that regardless of style or philosophy, there are certain parameters that need to be a part of every classroom, such as discipline, accountability, tolerance, care, and maybe a few others. But the irony to me is that, over the years, the way I define these things, what they mean to me, and how they are carried out, probably will change, as have other things in life. I think that a good teacher, has to be aware of these changes, not only in themselves, but in their students as well, and they should be versatile enough as a teacher to be able to adjust to these changes and remain effective.
The reality today is that the learning environment for our kids has expanded greatly. Kids are learning from TVs., from the internet, from friends, from music, and host of other things, teachers have got to be able to get their attention for the short time that they have them, and get them to learn; Whether they like it or not, and whether they know it or not. And unfortunately most of today's kids don't respond as well to some of the more traditional teaching styles, and thus their learning can be inhibited, regardless of the importance or quality of the information you are giving them.
In a lot of ways I am in a privileged position as a campus monitor in that I am a staff member, and now I can see how things work on that side. But as a monitor and a coach, I also am around the kids a lot and I develop relationships with them that while still professional, they are less formal then traditional student/teacher relationships tend to be, and I can get a sense for when they're really learning, and when they're just getting (or not getting) a grade.
I can also hear from them what they say about teachers such as, who they like, who they pay attention to, and who makes them want to learn. After looking at it from both sides, when I think about which teachers I think are the best, it doesn't have anything to do with male/female, black/white, older/younger, short/tall, coach/science teacher, or anything like that. They do all have similar qualities in that they care first of all, they are all willing to be creative and try new things, and they are all aware of discipline and accountability, all with a touch of humility as well.
For teachers today, it seems being effective for a long period of time carries a big responsibility in that it's a constant challenge to learn, evolve, and adjust to the natural ebbs and flows of life. There is no comfort zone, so to speak, where you can see growth in a class one year or even a couple years, and you can figure if you do what you did with last year's 8th graders, next year's 8th graders will respond the same way. There is a constant challenge to gain knowledge, and knowledge itself is becoming more and more subjective every day, making that challenge even harder.
What was so important or essential to know last year, you might find it just isn't so anymore, or it has been replaced by something just as or more important to know, like the year the internet came out, encyclopedia's became instantly expendable, or after midnight morning January 1st 2000, Y2k became a little less important. Not to mention that what becomes important knowledge to one person may not mean anything to another. The kid who is hungry everyday and has to fight to eat, or for clothes, or for love, they may not care at all about the square root of nine, or who shot who at the Battle of Gettysburg.
To me there has to be some relation to this wealth of knowledge that we are trying to teach these kid's, and the real lives that they are living. The other half of having knowledge as a teacher is being able to deliver that knowledge to their students in a way that their students can both hear, and absorb. Knowing how to deliver that knowledge effectively, and really get student's to absorb and learn it, is knowledge in itself.
During my younger years as a student, I always considered myself to be smart, I always felt like I knew at least a little bit about a lot of things, but I was never a consistent student. My individual motivation never came from really wanting and trying to learn the information, I was an athlete so my immediate motivation was to be eligible to play, and once I realized I wanted to go to college my motivation was to be good enough to get into college, after all that there was getting good grades, even still that wasn't just for the knowledge, but more for my parents, or maybe to get a job.
I do however remember certain classes that I was already interested in, but even more I remember certain teachers or professors who were able to spark some sort of interest in me and ended up making me want to learn more. But, in my scholastic career, these situations were rare. I tell people all the time there is probably 10% of what I learned in college that I still remember from my classes, what I did learn and I do remember are such things as keeping a schedule, how to formulate thoughts and put them on paper, punctuality, keeping a budget, and whole lot of other useful things that you learn from life as a student, that would have been useful had I learned them earlier. I guess I would like to be the type of teacher that can somehow put some of these real life things into learning and give my students not only information, but also help prepare them for life in the real world.


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