Brainstormed topics

Argue that...

1. technology is a requirement to understand English in the modern world.
2. the internet is or is not changing the way we use English.
3. in order to be successful in the 21st century, you must be fluent in all six "languages".
4. writers should or should not use e-mail.
5. you should or should not believe that e-mail causes poorer communication skills.
6. electronics or technology reduces people's ability to write a well-structured paragraph.
7. the internet is taking away from the quality of people's face-to-face communication
8. the internet is taking away from the amount of people's face-to-face communication

How to read an Article II

Dot-com this!

Stephanie Nolen. The Globe and Mail. Toronto, Ont.: Aug 28, 2000. pg. R.1

Full Text (1489 words)

All material copyright Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. or its licensors. All rights reserved.

The brave new world of cyberlanguage

It was inevitable, Jamie Reid says, that his love letters and his dinner-table chats would show the effect.

Reid, 23, is what you might call a paid hacker -- a self-taught network security expert, hired by a desperate corporate world right out of his Toronto high school. He lives totally immersed in the Internet world -- and he knows it shows.

"You begin to look at things in a very logical and inductive way after working with machines for a long time," he says. "You rely less on intuition. The problems that computers solve have few variables; things add up. And you apply those same ways of doing things to your everyday life. It only makes sense that people who spend their days dealing with those sort of questions would attempt to quantize everything from their shopping lists to their politics."

In truth, Reid didn't say that, he wrote it. As if to illustrate his own point, he offered that observation via e-mail a couple of hours after I put the question to him in a conversation. His reply, articulate and eloquent, was also a textbook example of many of the other ways in which the Internet is changing the way we use language. He wrote in one-sentence paragraphs. He listed points. He used mathematical jargon ("quantize") in an everyday context. About the only thing he didn't do was toy with capitaLetters.

It's all dot-com and network and i-this and e-that, these days, and so ubiquitous are these words and symbols that we don't tend to give them much thought. But in many subtle ways the Internet is dramatically altering the way we use language: How we write, how we speak, how we use words when we think.

"It was inevitable that our language would be affected because the Internet is not simply a technical phenomenon, it's a cultural phenomenon, and it doesn't even matter if you're on it or not, you are nonetheless affected by its presence in the culture."

So says Liss Jeffrey, adjunct professor at the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto, and director of the byDesign eLab, an electronic lab engaged in the design of public space on-line. "New horizons open up and we, as human beings, have to find ways to describe those places. We create new things, we dream them up, and then we find ways to talk about them."

Take cyberspace. It's now a universally accepted idea that most of us spend part of each day there. We all know what it means. The term was coined by William Gibson in 1984; it is, Jeffrey says, something people have experiences of, an interactive participatory reality, and thus something for which we needed words.

There have been lots of other new words in the six years most of us have been visiting cyberspace. The Internet was invented in 1969, but didn't have public use until the early 1990s. The explosion came in early 1995, as service providers switched to flat-rate billing, instead of charging for volume of mail received. The 1994 edition of the Canadian Internet Handbook included two pages on the World Wide Web, predicting it might one day come into widespread use. A Nielsen survey found that in 1996, 23 per cent of Canadians used the Internet; a year later, it was 31 per cent. Angus Reid found 55 per cent of us using it in 1999 and says this year, the number is up to 70 per cent.

But while much of the cultural analysis of the Internet is about the Web, Clive Thompson, editor-at-large at Shift magazine in New York, says the most significant factor has been e-mail, however pedestrian it may seem. "It's had by far the most immediate effects and more visceral effect," he says. "When people get to work, do they look at a groovy new site, or watch some streaming video, or something with generation-enhanced Flash content? Of course not. They check their e-mail."

And the often-overlooked result of our addiction to e-mail is that we write more. Much more.

"Before e-mail, the vast majority of people never wrote anything," Thompson says. "Their jobs didn't require it, their pastimes didn't require it, and it wasn't easy to do -- before computers we didn't write a lot of text." Now people have a motive: "It's not that people want to write, but they want to talk to other people, and they have to write to do that."

But how are they writing?

Well, in English, for one thing. There has been an explosion in the number of people for whom English is a second language, even as the number of native speakers of English has steadily declined over the last 10 years. "English is changing its function in the world," says Eric McLuhan, author of Electric Language, adding that English, as the language with the greatest flexibility and largest vocabulary, was the only language prepared for this shift.

But McLuhan, who is the son of the legendary communications theorist Marshall McLuhan, says the 15 years of the computing era have had drastic effects on the building blocks of writing.

Attention spans have declined sharply, and with them, sentence length. Twenty years ago, the average sentence length in a novel was 20 words; today it is 12 to 14 words. In mass-market books such as Harlequin Romance novels, the average sentence is only seven or eight words.

Paragraphs, too, have changed. Most prominently, one-sentence paragraphs have become ubiquitous. That means, McLuhan says, that the traditional one-sentence paragraph has lost its role of transition or dramatic impact. In addition, he says, ideas are no longer developed in paragraphs. And all objective distance is lost. "It's all up front and in your face. That makes for high [reader] involvement and low detachment."

And the style of bullet-point writing, also a function of Internet communication, results in a compressed, discontinued presentation of information, heavy with parallelism -- qualities once reserved for poetry, McLuhan observes. "We are reinventing poetics from the bottom up."

Robert Logan says all this should come as no surprise. A physicist at the University of Toronto and the author of The Sixth Language , he uses chaos theory to argue that each time human society needs to deal with an information overload, a new language emerges. "Speech, writing, math, science, computing and the Internet form an evolutionary chain of languages," he says. Writing and math emerged in 3300 BC in Sumer to keep track of tributes; then came science because of the need to teach how to organize that knowledge. Computing allowed people to organize the explosion of knowledge, and then, when everyone wanted to communicate with computers, the Internet emerged.

"To communicate, to operate in the 21st century, you must be fluent in all six languages," says Logan, adding, "You can speak some with an accent."

Each language has its own grammar and syntax, evolving with the vestigial structures of its predecessors. When writing emerged, it took the vocabulary of speech but added new words. Plato's Greek has many more words and grammatical structures than Homer's. With math came the grammar of logic; with science, the grammar of the scientific method; with the Internet, the grammar of hypertext and search engines.

This is, in Logan's mind, the key contribution of the Internet era: We write, speak and think in hypertext -- the code in which text is written on the web -- the links. It is tangential, not sequential.

"I am much more hypertext in my talking now," says Logan. "I jump off into something else, then return to where I was, to what I was talking about." It is the verbal equivalent of clicking on a blue-underlined link.

Reid hears something else, when his "geek" friends and colleagues are talking. "Knowledge is what's valued in this industry, and that's how people speak," he says. "There's a rapid-fire passing back and forth of facts, it's almost like a pissing contest, in the way it sounds. But it's just exchanging knowledge. There's no wisdom or value attached."

Jargon, of course, be it mathematical, scientific, computer-specific, has crept into everyday speech. Jeffrey calls it the democratizing of expert knowledge. And Thompson notes the binary influence on the spoken English of people who use programming languages. Take the use by geeks of "non" -- as in the dry observation that a total system crash is a "non-trivial problem."

He also argues that the style of discourse has also fundamentally changed.

"E-mail created an entirely new style of argument and discussion," he says, referring to the cut-and-paste back-and-forth. He compares it to the passing back and forth of illuminated manuscripts between medieval monks, who left wide margins for each other's comments -- only that process took years. "This is: Here's what you said right back at you. You can't get away from your words."

Credit: The Globe and Mail

Indexing (document details)

Author(s):	Stephanie Nolen
Dateline:	Toronto ONT
Section:	The Globe Review
Publication title:	The Globe and Mail. Toronto, Ont.: Aug 28, 2000. pg. R.1
Source type:	Newspaper
ISSN:	03190714
ProQuest document ID:	1051347151
Text Word Count	1489
Document URL:	http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1051347151&sid=1&Fmt=3&cl ientId=20375&RQT=309&VName=PQD

How to Read an Article

The first article for the final exam can be found here. The first question, I would ask is, who wrote & published the article and when is it from? The author's name is listed near the top, and the publishing information and date are right down at the bottom. You can also follow the link at the top of the page to find out whose website this is. It turns out that the author is a provincial judge in Ontario. The host and publisher also appear to be quite reputable and Canadian to boot. The document is about 11 years old now.

According to Youth Crime and the Youth Justice System in Canada: A Research Perspective, most young people between the ages of 12 and 17 years take part in what could be deemed criminal behaviour at some point during their adolescence.

What is this article/book? The list of References at the end of the paper shows that it's a book. It seems believable.

The vast majority are not apprehended for this behaviour. Of those who are caught, a relatively small number are brought before the youth court, especially when the criminal behaviour is of a minor nature.

What are the consequences to a child who is caught, charged and brought before the criminal justice system? Based upon the ostensible goals of our criminal justice system, one would assume (she's telling me that she doesn't believe this) that the child is in some way held accountable for his or her behaviour and learns that criminal behaviour will be punished. This, in turn, should (again, she doesn't believe it) lead to a decrease in subsequent criminal behaviour in most cases and send a message of deterrence to others who might be tempted to offend. The reality, however, is quite different. (as I expected)

For the small proportion of young offenders who are apprehended for minor offences, it usually takes many months to come before a judge to be tried. Based upon a study by Peterson-Bedali and Abramovitch, it appears that these young people are encouraged to participate in a rigid system that defines truth and fact in a non-intuitive fashion and encourages the separation of morality from responsibility.

For many young offenders, contact with the justice system leads to a lack of respect for the system and the lessons it attempts to impart (this is opposite to the goals). Contact with the system also seems to have a negative effect on the behaviour of many young offenders. This may be due to the stigma of being involved with the system. A child in this position is often viewed thereafter by friends and authorities as a "bad" kid or a "troublemaker" and the child begins to live up to the label. Placing a child in custody strengthens the self-image of being a criminal and, in the words of Stockdale and Casale, editors of Criminal Justice Under Stress: "what the period of custody may well do is to turn the offender into a more sophisticated, confirmed and effective criminal." This is a very negative view from somebody who is an insider in this system. It also fits well with my understanding of the system, so I think I can believe it.

Recognizing this difficulty, the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General's Alternative Measures Program: Policy and Procedures Manual acknowledges that "minimization of unnecessary stigmatization and 'labelling' as a result of more formal exposure to the justice system" is one of the goals of the Alternative Measures program.

Clearly, there are valid reasons to hold some young offenders criminally responsible for serious breaches of the law. While lengthy sentences may not deter young people from committing crimes and may not lower the rate of re-offending, custodial sentences will keep serious offenders off the streets for a period of time and seem to satisfy society's need for a retributive response to serious criminal behaviour. For lesser crimes, however, there appears to be little justification for processing young people through the formal criminal justice system. So here, she's conceding that custody does have its uses (though the US has obviously gone crazy), but she's obviously not very happy with it. But by doing this, she can make her case more easily relating to a smaller group of people.

The school system may be a useful place in which to base a program that addresses some of the concerns which flow from the criminal justice system (thesis). Other than the home environment, (reason 1) school has biggest impact on children. (expanding reason 1 or reason 2?) School is the predominant environment for students for at least 10 months of the year. (reason 3) Large numbers of children can be reached in one site and (reason 4) cultural changes within the school setting can also affect students who do not participate in the formal structure of the program.

Peer mediation projects have been used to influence and guide behaviour in many ways over a number of years and in many different school settings with encouraging results. Such programs have been referred to as peer mediation and positive peer counselling. These programs have involved children ranging from junior kindergarten to grade 13. There appears to be some basis for believing (this is very tentative) that students are capable of learning how to manage conflict appropriately and effectively and that they are further capable of assisting their peers to manage conflict in a useful fashion.

School-Based Model

In 1994, I worked with a lawyer from Justice for Children and Youth--a Toronto organization promoting children's right within the justice system--to develop a school-based peer mediation model that would work within the youth justice system. Students would conduct the mediations with support from school staff. The objectives were to train students as peer mediators and provide a process for resolving conflicts which might otherwise be the subject of criminal charges. We wanted to create a structure for diverting cases away from the justice system before charges were laid or police called. The program was to be self-sustaining after the initial investment in training the first group ofstaff and student mediators.

The model had to be responsive to behaviours which could result in criminal charges, and it had to allow for participants to acknowledge their actions and appreciate the consequences. The mediation had to be timely, with the smallest possible lag between incident and mediation, to make an almost immediate connection between the incident and the resolution.

A Positive Response

The process also had to be seen as a positive response to a negative situation. It could not stigmatize or label those who participated in it and had to be a process that was accessible to and credible with all students. The process was incorporated into the school environment and included positive and negative student leaders as mediators.

Any model for peer mediation has to consider the interests of all those concerned. Consultations were held with the Ministry of the Attorney General, the Crown attorney, the police, students defense counsel representing young persons, and school staff and administration.

To encourage use of the model, the young people had to be assured that any statements made by them in the mediation would be strictly confidential and inadmissible in court should charges be laid at a future date. They also needed assurance that a successfully mediated solution would not itself form the basis for charges to be laid.


Students with a large
following who were
perceived to be a negative
influence made the greatest
impact as mediators.

The Ministry was supportive of the use of mediation as an alternative measure and the North York Crown attorney's office supported peer mediation as a diversionary program, giving a written assurance that it would not use in court any statements or admissions made by any young person in the course of the peer mediation.

Appropriate Offences

Metropolitan Toronto Police Force 31 Division was contacted and meetings held with the street crimes unit. Working with the police, we sorted offences into three categories of appropriateness for mediation: less serious offences appropriate for mediation very serious offences that would never qualify for mediation and offences that might qualify, depending on the individuals involved and the specifics of the case. (All offences had to have occurred on school property in order to be considered.)

Offences in the "never qualify" category were murder, manslaughter, drinking and driving, narcotics-related offences, and any offense involving explosives or firearms. Other offences that would be considered for mediation depended on the seriousness of the behaviour involved. The criteria used to determine seriousness are if the offence did not involve:

* intimidation beyond adolescent bullying;
* substantial physical or psychological injury;
* no chronic or repetitive behaviour (assessed by school representatives);
* violations of school board policy on assaults, threats, weapons, drug or alcohol abuse, sexual harassment, etc.

After meeting with police, we approached Emery Collegiate Institute in North York. The school did not have a peer mediation program and was interested in developing one. The first meetings were with the school principal and vice-principal, who were very interested in trying the model. We then held several meetings with school staff, administration and the police. The model was acceptable to all concerned. A 30-hour training program for students and key staff members was approved by the school. In consultation with staff, I began training students in the second semester of the 1994-95 school year.

Our goal was to have approximately 15 peer mediators who could begin to conduct mediations by September 1995. The students were given a credit for the training and received ongoing training and support from school personnel in the 1995-96 school year. Based on students suggestions, the original mediation model was amended to accommodate co-mediation in pairs. They also were given the opportunity to discuss the mediations they handled with a designated staff member, who was subject to the same rules regarding confidentiality for the participants.

Peer mediators were selected from each of the school's ethnic groups and from among those identified by staff and students as either positive or negative peer leaders. Students with a large following who were perceived to be a negative influence made the greatest impact as mediators.

The training consisted of 30 hours of instruction. Students were first asked to analyze and reflect on styles and methods of conflict resolution and interpersonal relationships. Emphasis was placed on identifying and understanding cultural differences and self-awareness. The training then focussed on negotiation and mediation as strategies for conflict resolution. Particular emphasis was placed on interest-based bargaining. Specific mediation skills were taught and practiced. Ethical issues were identified and discussed and students were given information about the criminal justice system. The final sessions stressed practicing the skills learned.

The training relied heavily on interactive teaching. A combination of written materials, lectures, video materials, discussion and role-playing was used. A police officer, an assistant Crown attorney, and a defense counsel spoke to the students about the justice system.

The most effective mediators, in terms of skills mastered and commitment to the process, were the negative peer leaders. They were enthusiastic, eager, and engaging. The role-playing sessions were often noisy and the language was sometimes foul, but the students seemed to grasp the issues and were very practical and insightful when dealing with their peers.

It was particularly interesting to witness the personal growth and increase in the students' self-esteem and self-knowledge. Many said they were applying the mediation skills in other forums and several said they were better able to manage conflict in their families.

Eleven students returned to the project in the fall of 1995 and 10 new ones began to receive regular, ongoing training. Formal mediations began in October 1995 and 18 mediations were conducted by January 1996. In all cases, mediation was successful and an agreement was signed by the participants.

The role-playing was often
noisy and the language was
sometimes foul, but the
students seemed to grasp
the issues and were very
practical and insightful when
dealing with their peers.

According to the data taken from intake forms filled out by the mediators, eight cases involved incidents that would not otherwise involve the criminal justice system--arguments, name-calling, rumours and conflict over a member of the opposite sex. Ten cases involved situations that might have led to charges under the Young Offenders Act. In five of these cases, students were physically fighting (two cases avoided school suspension and three involved suspensions in addition to the mediation). Of the five remaining cases, one involved damage to a table and book stand, two involved threatening, one involved theft, and one involved the inappropriate use of a car.

The extent to which this peer mediation model can address current juvenile justice problems remains to be seen. A thorough analysis of the screening process and the types of cases referred is required to determine if potential YOA matters are truly being diverted. The number and type of charges arising out of school incidents before and after the project need to be compared and an attempt should be made to determine the impact of the project on the school culture. Recidivism rates and perceived stigma could also be measured and compared.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this project--and the most important from the perspective of a young person--is the personal change that was made possible through involvement in the program. For at least one student in the Emery project, participation as a mediator has led to real personal growth and positive change. He has expressed a new sense of accomplishment and worth and insight into his own personality and culture. He has become able to see the world through the eyes of others. This is the real value, for this student and for all young people.

June Maresca, LLB, developed the peer mediation model with David Mikelberg of Justice for Children and Youth. This article is excerpted from a research paper she submitted to Professor Paul Emond, Osgoode Hall Law School, towards a Masters of Law in Alternative Dispute Resolution. For more information about this model, please contact Justice for Children and Youth at (416) 920-1633 or June Maresca at (416) 762-8617.

REFERENCES

Doob, Anthony; Marinos, Voula; and Varma, Kimberly; Youth Crime and the Youth Justice System in Canada: A Research Perspective, Dept. of Justice, Ottawa, 1995.

Ministry of the Attorney General, Alternative Measures Programs: Policy and Procedures, Government of Canada Publications, 1995.

Peterson-Bedali, M. and Abramovitch, R., "Grade Related Changes in Young People's Reasoning About Plea Decisions" in Law and Human Behaviour, vol. 17, no. 5, Plenum Publishing Corp, 1993.

Stockdale, Eric and Casale, Silvia, editors, Criminal Justice Under Stress, Blackstone Press Ltd., London, 1992.

For: Science is a different type of religion

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/infocusprint.php?num=27&subject=Micheal%20Ruse
In Focus: Michael Ruse on Religion and Science


http://www.religioustolerance.org/sci_rel.htm
Albert Einstein: "After religious teachers accomplish the refining process indicated, they will surely recognize with joy that true religion has been ennobled and made more profound by scientific knowledge."
Anon: "There can never be a conflict between true science and true religion, because they both describe reality." Excerpt from a posting to a religious mailing list.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_religion_and_science
Historically, science has had a complex relationship with religion; religious doctrines and motivations have sometimes influenced scientific development, while scientific knowledge has had effects on religious beliefs. A common modern view, described by Stephen Jay Gould as "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA), is that science and religion deal with fundamentally separate aspects of human experience and so, when each stays within its own domain, they co-exist peacefully

http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/articles/dawkins.html
Is Science a Religion?
by Richard Dawkins
Published in the Humanist, January/February 1997

Documentation Assignment

• Choose 2 books, 2 newspaper articles, two journal articles, and two websites. These can be anything that interests you. You don't even have to read them.
• Provide a References page listing all your chosen sources following APA format as we discussed in class.
  
• Also provide:
  
• for each paper source, a photocopy showing the title, date of publication, and author's name if available.
• for each online source, the full URL. Copy and paste this. Do not type or write by hand.
• This is due on Monday, March 17.
  

Ark of the Covenant

Mid terms grades etc.

Mid term grades will go in at the end of next week. They will consists of:
summary assignment

1. Essay #1 (revised)
2. In-class essay
3. Editing test

If you haven't completed any one of these assignments, expect a failing grade on your mid-term report. Keep in mind, however, that the majority of the grades are loaded on the last half of the course, so that anybody who is failing at midterms should have no trouble passing, assuming they get their work in.

The editing test will be the last half of the class on Monday. It will cover various issues that we've discussed in class, namely:

1. Run-on sentences
2. Comma splices
3. Fragments
   
4. Use & misuse of apostrophes
5. Misplaced modifiers
6. Subject-verb agreement
7. Number and pronoun agreement

Here are some practice questions, which we'll take up on Monday before the test. Correct the sentences below including all instances of singular they, their, etc. Every sentence has at least one problem. There are no spelling mistakes--it's all grammar & punctuation.

1. A coalition of neighbourhood organizations, students, and unions are currently forming to oppose the university's proposed plan.
2. A typical poem by Emily Dickinson leaves the reader searching for another line or even another stanza to satisfy their craving for closure.
3. Although I like my math teacher, I never understood it.
4. By paying too much attention to polls can make a political leader unwilling to propose innovative policies.
5. Even though he had the better arguments and was by far the more powerful speaker.
6. He follows the same principles of good vs. evil that is found in superhero comics.
7. He worked out more, practiced harder on skating, and a better puck handler.
8. Humber offers many majors in engineering. Such as electrical, chemical, and industrial engineering.
9. I acquired my considerable fortune by investing carefully, hard work and marrying a rich woman.
10. I need to find a new roommate. Because the one I have now isn't working out too well.
11. If a child is denied the opportunity to play, how can they develop emotionally and physically?
12. In many projects and school assignments or reports employees may have to write for their employers may often have to include factual information.
13. In today’s society, a woman can have the ability and freedom of being completely honest.
14. Justin is not an ordinary person and neither are his stories.
15. Most teens like to have a rush or a thrill to see if they can get away with it. For example, the thrill of trying marijuana.
16. Participation and public education is necessary in a true democracy.
17. She was looking for an alternative to challenge and boost her energy levels.
18. Small class sizes and low student population means few opportunities to meet new people.
19. Stereotyping and the use of degrading language in the book serves to reinforce its theme.
20. We can either drive to the Grand Canyon or we're flying to Japan.
21. When one doesn’t know the answer, you should be honest and say so.
22. With the ultimate effect of all advertising is to sell the product.
23. Working far into the night in an effort to prepare for her editing test.