Purdue OWL sports citation generator

What a pleasant surprise it was to find that the Purdue University Online Writing Laboratory (OWL) now displays a user-friendly citation generator embedded near the top of APA Style pages from the APA Overview and Workshop page downstream.

Purdue OWL navigation sidebar, 2019.03.13

Image source: APA Formatting and Style Guide–General Format page

The citation generator produced the following website citation for that particular page:

Purdue Writing Lab. (n.d.). General Format // Purdue Writing Lab. Retrieved from https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/general_format.html

[101 words]

WSBlog Bedtime + Best Biblio's and PFs

Eight years I plugged away at chronicling, filtering, modelling, showcasing, recycling, reflecting, and reviewing in posts for students on the Writing Studio Blog (WSBlog). During that time, I learned a lot about blogging with students, and there have been several satisfying advances in Blogger blog affordances as well, for example the advent of pages, and the threading of comments on posts.

Blogger renamed widgets gadgets, and baked many new ones in, which made them easy for casual bloggers such as English-as-an-additional-language learners to use. The link roll on the WSBlog has grown to almost a page in length, and the label cloud, to almost a page and a half (actual size). Embeddable external-source gadgetry like Cluster Maps and Flag Counter indicate[s] that the WSBlog had over 7,000 (perhaps not unique) visitors in the four years up till November 2014, and that there have been well over 18,000 page views since August 2010.

Though I'm relatively certain that those aren't the largest numbers in the blogosphere, they're large enough to reflect on with a certain degree of satisfaction. Regrettably, however, RSS services that colleagues and I had adopted to concatenate feeds of independent learner blog entries for inclusion in our teaching blogs went the way many free or inexpensive services do, and workarounds never quite made it back to the stage of single feeds to display posts from multiple blogs in now standard RSS gadgets–so much to do, and so little time to do it.

Before I put the WSBlog into suspended animation (from which it might snore itself awake from time to time), I'd like to do one more little bit of showcasing–this time not for students in successive cohorts, but rather for those in classes which finished meeting last month. They sat exams on January 28, 2015.

To wrap things up for now, I'd like to point out to class members and their near-peers a few of the best bibliographies–modified APA-style lists of books that individual students reviewed, and the most reflective portfolios (PFs) in pages that students added or linked to their blogs.

• Students, please remember that if you aren't logged in to your university accounts, Google documents and spreadsheets stored on the university site will be invisible. 

• Please also note that for the PFs themselves, the writing before, between and after the iframes was more important than the activities and progress represented within the iframes.

Without further adieu, ...

Best biblio's (book listings):

1. Takahiro's, 
2. Nana's, and
3. Rina's (includes a good first go at a movie listing, too); and 

Best PFs:

1. Misaki's
2. Miri's and Nana's (tie), and
3. Kazuyo's.

Many thanks to all!

[445 words]

Do you know what day it is?

On the United Nations' calendar, it's the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and the beginning of the UN Secretary General's campaign for over two weeks of activism on related themes.

Image source: United Nations
End Violence Day

On the main page about the day, you'll find rationales for international activities and observations, alongs with facts and figures about violence against women and its consequences. There's more info. about the Secretary General's campaign here, including a poster on "school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) in [the] Asia-Pacific" region:

Image source: United Nations
School-Related Gender-Based Violence
(SRGBV)

On the Orange Day page is a call for business, governmental, institutional and social action. Want to find out what you can do? Grab the toolkit (PDF) and get started!

[129 words]

The Unsplash collection of photos for free

Unsplash features pre-screened, public domain (CC0 1.0 Universal licensure), high-resolution photos in a collection that apparently began in May 2013 (Unsplash archive).

The problem is that there currently aren't built-in provisions for searching the collection. That is, other than the [chronological] archives. On-site options include:

• Manually scrolling and visually scanning the main page, 
• Searching the main page for names of photographers you may know, or 
• Scrolling and scanning the thumbnails in the annual or monthly archives. 

Fortunately, perhaps, a web developer, Arthur Weill, Director of Web and Cow, has been working on the problem. His Unsplash Search (beta, n.d.) is out in both English and French.

Searches may combine selections from a few dozen tags. For instance, a search for an image including a "tree" and resembling a "town" turned up the two photos here:

Boat on the river. Well, river only. — with Kabir Van Delić.
By Ermin Čeliković

Luxor Egypt, in Days by the Nile
By Linh Nguyen

[166 words]

The end of semester draws nigh!

What you do in these last few weeks is extremely important, if you want to earn credit for Writing III this year. This post provides a count-down to help keep you on track for successful completion of coursework.


Today's class: Wed., July 9th

Today was the next-to-last regular class meeting for spring semester. Those of you who were absent should:

• View the two most recent snapshots (class work and homework, 2014.07.09) in the white-board snapshots folder that your instructor has shared with you, and then
• Ask classmates (§1C) or peers (§1A) who attended class today to help you to understand and do what you missed.

Make-up class: Next Wed., July 16th

Next Wed., from 9:00 to 10:30 a.m., is an early make-up class for students from §§ 1A and 1C who will be going abroad before the last regular class meeting (July 23rd, below). Those students will need to attend the make-up class next Wed. 

However, your instructor would like to invite the rest of you to come as well, to use the computer lab. space that he has reserved, so you can work together to catch up on and improve work on all assignments due before final exams. That is, the rest of you are welcome to attend the early make-up session, too, but only if you arrive by 9:00 a.m.


Last regular class meeting: Wed., July 23rd

The last regular class meetings this semester will be Wed., July 23rd, at the usual times. Everyone who is not going abroad on a university-sanctioned exchange program will need to attend. 


Last day of classes: Tues., July 29th

All course work except final blog posts, peer-to-peer comments, and Proto-Portfolio entries for July (below) will be due by midnight, July 29th, the last day of classes this semester. Course work due July 29th includes: 

• Book reviews,
• Corresponding bibliography entries, and 
• Portfolio Elements updates and revisions.

Exam periods for Writing III, §§ 1A and 1C: Wed., July 30th

Semester final exams for students not going abroad on a university-sanctioned exchange program will be on Wed., July 30. Please note that exams periods are on a one-hour time schedule. You should plan to arrive 10-15 minutes before starting times, and have your work stations and browsers ready for use, because exams will begin immediately.


Proto-Portfolio (PPF) entries for July: Fri., Aug. 1st

All PPF entries for July will be due at the usual time: 5:00 p.m., the first of next month; Fri., Aug. 1st.* 


Please talk over this schedule of events with your classmates and peers. Then, if you have any concerns or questions about this count-down to the end of Writing III this semester, please spell them out in comments on this post at least 48 to 72 hours before particular events in the count-down. That lead-time will give your classmates, peers, and instructor an opportunity to share related concerns, questions, and understandings.

 ____________________
* Note: Original blog posts, book reviews, and peer-to-peer comments from Aug. 1st onward will count as fall semester coursework for Writing IV in §§ 1A and 1C.

[495 words]

Mind-Maps for University Life Essay Prep.

Please click on the graphics below to get closer looks at the various topics that the collective mind-maps from last week covered.

University Life (1C, 2014.05.14)

University Life (1A, 2014.05.14)

Please feel free to write about topics from either map in your essay prep. (free-writing) posts. Ideally each main (blue) branch will serve as the basis for one or more paragraphs.

[63 words]

BR 1-03: Hairy Maclary (Dodd, 1983)

Another favorite story with animals!

"'EEEEEOWWWFFTZ!' said Scarface Claw" (n.p.).

Hairy Maclary is an animal adventure story from New Zealand (NZ). It was a gift from a friend from . . . , you guessed it–NZ! It's a great story for pronunciation practice because of all of the rhymes. My favorite line from the book, the quotation above (no page numbers), is a bit of a challenge to pronounce. Can you say that big word, and make it sound like a . . .  (a four-footed animal)?

Reference

Dodd, Lynley. (1983). Harry Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy. Wellington, NZ: Mallinson Rendel Publishers Ltd.

[106 words]

BR 1-02: The Cross-with-Us Rhinoceros (Bush & Geraghty, 1988)

Photo of book cover, 2014.04.17

"Poor Tilly was so scared she couldn't speak" (Bush & Geraghty, 1988, n.p.*).

This is a children's book that I've read again and again. It is a great story about four children who went out together and had an adventure. Like the last book I reviewed, BR 1-01: Dear Zoo (2014.04.16), this one features animals. The ending was surprising, but I'm not going to tell you what happened. You'll have to read it for yourself.

Reference

Bush, John, & Geraghty, Paul. (1988). The Cross-with-Us Rhinoceros. London, England: Hutchinson Children's Books.

____________________
* This story doesn't have page numbers. If it did, I'd use "p. #" instead of "n.p." (no page number).

[117 words]

BR 1-01: Dear Zoo (Campbell, 1982)

I wrote to the zoo to send me a pet.... So they sent me a .... He was too grumpy! I sent him back. (Campbell, 1982, n.p.*)

Dear Zoo is a children's book. It is short and easy to read. It tells a story about animals coming from the zoo. There are little windows to open to see surprising things. If you like zoo animals, or easy books to read, I recommend this story.

Reference

Campbell, Rod. (1982). Dear Zoo. London, England: Campbell Books.

____________________
* This story doesn't have page numbers. If it did, I'd use "p. #" instead of "n.p." (no page number).

[106 words]

VocabKitchen: Awesome Vocab. Profilers!

http://vocabkitchen.com/Default.aspx

VocabKitchen's Academic Word List (AWL) Vocabulary Profiler (beta version) is already awesome! It quickly highlighted, listed, and sorted on- and off-list vocabulary in sample texts. It also was "dictionary enabled," which means you can get Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Online definitions of almost any words by double-clicking on them (not a name like Tanaka). Though the percentages of on- and off-list words for the first sample I tried didn't add up (7% + 101%, respectively), text and highlight colours were easy to read on the white background.

VocabKitchen's General Service List (GSL) Vocabulary Profiler (beta version) performed similarly well on the same sample. Highlighting, listing and sorting was speedy, but again the percentages didn't add up (see below). It's still a quick, cool, easy-to-use tool. However, VocabKitchen's choice of tint for highlighting words in in the GSL 2nd 1K (RGB: 48, 152, 204) offered slightly less background-to-text contrast than had the AWL Vocabulary Profiler's on-list colour (especially when used on a grey heading bar), and the location of the sort button in the GSL-beta profiler differed for off-list words.

VocabKitchen's Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) Vocabulary Profiler was available in both a beta and a regular version. The main differences seemed to be that 1) the CEFR-beta version was "dictionary enabled" like the AWL-beta profiler, and 2) the CEFR-beta version also provided an Export to Word function. Nevertheless, background-to-text contrast, at least for B1 level words and corresponding headings (RGB: 249, 154, 0), seemed a bit problematic.

On the CEFR-beta display, VocabKitchen avoided the low-contrast problem on grey header bars by using a shade close to black (RGB: 34, 34, 34). Something closer to black (0, 0, 0) might be even better!

VocabKitchen (also in beta), please keep up the good work. I'm looking forward to trying out the Social Reader Tool. In the mean time, I'll strive to cut down on off-list words–at least on this blog!

[328 words]

PaperRater Grammar and Spelling Check

"PaperRater.com is a free resource, developed and maintained by linguistics professionals and graduate students. PaperRater.com is used by schools and universities in over 46 countries to help students improve their writing" (About PaperRater, ¶1, 2014.03.04).

Screen snapshot of graphic on the PaperRater site

This post frames a comment that I posted today on the Digital Mobile Language Learning blog (Writing Tools for the Self-directed Learner Part 2, 2014.01.19), after trying out PaperRater, which provides, among other free services:

• Spelling and grammar checks,
• Style and word choice analyses, and
• Readability statistics (PaperRater: Features).

After trying a Google+ post that was too short to ... [get] feedback on many of the categories, I gave Paper Rater (PR) another spin on a working paper I ... [had written] a while back. The whole paper turned out to be too long for free assessment, so I cut the sample back to the end of the first section: 719 words per PR's count, 777 per Microsoft® Word 2008 for Mac. 

PR results, as Dan [Ferreira] suggested they would be, were quite interesting: 

+/- The spell check flagged one word apparently broken in the PDF from which I'd copied the sample, but also returned a false positive on the word conflate.  

+ Grammatical analysis revealed no errors. 

+ The numerical score for inappropriate word choices was, I guess, low (0.998). 

+/- The feedback on style in the web display focused mostly on sentence length (the longest: 53 words), but mistakenly indicated that more than half of the sentences were passive. I checked by hand, but found only one passive clause–in a quotation. 

-/+ Though the feedback on style in the PDF output was different, focusing on transition words, the PDF included general tips for using such words. 

+/- The vocabulary score seemed high (96), yet the feedback included only a subset (9 of 20) sophisticated words counted. Paper Rater did not mark such words in the sample. 

The numeric grade from the auto-grader bore a note to the effect that it was "based on [a] college grading scale," which was followed by a stronger one indicating that PR "does NOT examine the meaning of your words, how your ideas are structured, or how well your arguments are supported" [(Auto Grader, NOTE, ¶1)].

All in all, PR looks like it's worth asking students to try, as long as they can grasp its limitations.

I'm looking forward to trying it out with students soon.

[413 words]

Schedule for the end of the semester

Below is a recap. of the schedule that I announced in class on Wed., Jan 22.

Fri., Jan. 24th: due date for –

• Bibliographies, 
• Portfolio Elements (PEs: including Book Reviews and Essays), and 
• Portfolios (PFs) per se.

Wed. Jan. 29th: Exams on special schedule (one-hour time periods)

Fri., Jan. 31st: Last day for blog posts (other than Book Reviews and Essays) and peer-to-peer comments

Sat., Feb. 1st: due date for January Proto-Portfolio (PPF) entries.

If you have concerns or questions about any part of this schedule, please spell them out in comments on this post at least 24-48 hours before the dates in question.

[106 words]

Flying Kittens vs. Flying Puppies (Slow Motion Battle)

Who has got the best moves – the pussy cats or puppy dogs? Check 'em out!

Reference

Winn, Scott (Producer & Director). (2013). Flying Kittens vs. Flying Puppies (Slow Motion Battle) [YouTube video]. United States: ScottDW.

[35 words]

Prep. for exams in §§ 1A § 1C

At the end of class yesterday (July 10), one of your classmates asked what she could do to prepare for the exam on July 24. 

I told her, as I had told students who had asked earlier (about early exams for students heading overseas) that some previous exam items are accessible online in my Slideshare presentation library, which in turn is accessible from a gadget in the Writing Studio Blog (WSBlog) sidebar. That gadget, which is quite a ways down the WSBlog sidebar (currently on the right), looks like this:

All of you are welcome to review previous test items on Slideshare, as well as your predecessors' responses to them on the Writing Studio Blog. Please keep in mind, however, that:

1. Not all previous exams are in that library;
2. New exam items _will_ be different; and
3. Exam formats may vary.

To find out more about previous exams in Writing III (and IV), it also would be a good idea to speak with your predecessors in person. Then I suggest that you share what you learn from them, and prepare jointly for exams with classmates or peers in §§ 1A or 1C. To get started, please tell your classmates and peers about this post!

[208 words]