Selecting and evaluating online sources (SkRW3, p. 86, Study skills)

What we read

One focus of our class in Unit 8 has been the use sources, and the Study Skills for Unit 8 (p. 86) discusses selecting and evaluating online sources (Bixby & Scanlon, 2013)

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Bixby and Scanlon's questions

These are the three questions that Bixby and Scanlon invite us to discuss in "Over to you." 

Think about them for a minute or two and then write a quick response in two or three paragraphs. 

Your response will be easier for readers to follow if you do not number your answer. Give enough background to make it clear what issue (question) you are discussing. 

• What are the potential problems with not evaluating Internet sources before using them in research? 
• Is this true only of Internet sources?
   
• What are some other things that are important to keep in mind when using the Internet for academic research?
   
• The next time you use the Internet for research purposes, what might you do differently? Which tips from the list on page 86 will you try? 
• Do you disagree with with any of the tips? 

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Reference

• Bixby, J. & Scanlon, J. (2013). Skillful reading & writing: Student's book 3. Oxford: Macmillan Education 

Making a Difference & Most Likely to Succeed (SkRW3, pp. 79, 81 & 82, Developing critical thinking)

What we read

We have now read and checked our understanding of both "Making a Difference" (2013, pp. 78-79) and "Most Likely to Succeed" (pp. 80-81). 

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Our response 

As usual, Bixby and Scanlon now invite us to respond critically to the ideas in the readings. 

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Bixby and Scanlon's questions

Comment on the following questions, which are the critical thinking questions on page 82 (Bixby & Scanlon, 2013), and then reply to at least two of your classmates' comments. 

First, respond to these questions about "Most Likely to Succeed."

Think for a couple of minutes and then write a comment for about 8:00 minutes.  

• The article claims that while there are some people who are driven to be high achievers, others are "perfectly happy with whatever life brings." 
• Which type of person are you most similar to? Why do you think so? 
• What do you think might have made you the way you are?
   
• Do you agree with the writer's suggestion at the end of the article for how to find the balance between stress and success? 
• What other suggestions would you make to help people avoid feeling the pressure to succeed? 
• Do we want to avoid this? 

Post your comment.
Then read and reply to a couple of your classmates'  comments.

Next, respond to the ideas from both "Making a Difference" and "Most Likely to Succeed."

Again, think for a minute or two before you write a new comment in response to these questions. 

• Who is the most successful person you know? How did they achieve their success?
   
• What is an idea that you have not yet followed through? What (has) stopped you? 

Post this second comment.

Then read and reply to a couple of your classmates'  comments. 

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Reference

• Bixby, J. & Scanlon, J. (2013). Skillful Reading & Writing: Student's Book 3. Oxford: Macmillan Education

On the hot seat

What I read

According to "Australian woman bitten by snake in toilet" (2019), the extreme heat that has recently killed many animals in Australia, from horses to fish and native bats, was probably the reason that a 1.5m carpet python sought refuge in a toilet in Brisbane before the shock of Helen Richards sitting down caused it to bite her. She had calmed down and cleaned the bite wound before a handler arrived to remove the non-poisonous snake, which is native to Australia's east coast, from the toilet. 

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My response 

Where I grew up
Less native bush than 50 years ago

I suppose it is serious, but I thought this news story was also a bit more fun than many. It reminded me of my family home, which is also on the east coast of Australia, about 200 kms south of Brisbane. I grew up on a farm in a rural area, and although most of the land had been cleared of the original native bush, the river banks had been left largely as they were, and a few small bits of the original bush land had been left. When we were children, my brothers and sisters and I used to love playing there, and we regularly came across snakes. Several of these are very dangerous, and we were also very careful to avoid the the deadly brown snakes and red-bellied black snakes, The only time any of us were ever bitten was when one of my sisters trod on a brown snake that had been lying behind a log we jumped over. Fortunately, the local doctor in the town nearby had the necessary anti-venom and my parents knew what first aid to apply, so she was OK, just a bit sick and very shocked for a while. In contrast, the carpet pythons that lived in the trees and shrubs along the Richmond River, which ran in front of our home and circled our property, were not poisonous, and as long as we were careful, they could safely be played with, although they did sometimes bite. 

More seriously, I think, is the reference to the heat that has been affecting Australia over the past few weeks. I've read several news reports about this recently, with record breaking heat well over 40°C being recorded across large areas. I greatly prefer warm weather to cold, but I also like air-conditioning, and  I'm very glad I'm not there for the recent heat spell. I usually go back to see family and friends at Songkran, which is a good time to out of Bangkok and a very pleasant time to be in Australia, although when I was there last year, it was still over 30°C on a few days. Global warming appears to be already affecting Australia. And that sort of heat really is dangerous, not only for the animals that have been dying, but for human beings. I saw one story in The Sydney Morning Herald with a video of people frying sausages and eggs on the road! It was so hot you see and hear them sizzling. 

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My question

What reminds you of your childhood or of earlier periods in your life? 

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Reference

• Australian woman bitten by snake in toilet. (2019, January 25). Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-46996559

AI to the rescue

What I read

In "Facial recognition tool tackles illegal chimp trade" (2019), Beth Timmins says that the Internet, which has previously helped traffickers to illegally sell chimpanzees and other apes to rich customers and shows, is now being used to track these criminal activities with "Chimpface," an app that uses the same sort of technology that social media and Google use to identify faces in photographs. The idea started when Alexandra Russo felt frustrated trying to detect the trade online, so she contacted an expert in computer vision who helped to create "Chimpface." Because it promises fast, easy identification from its growing database of chimpanzee and other ape images, conservationists are optimistic that it will more effectively help them prevent the trade and save apes already enslaved.

This summary paragraph is 124 words (1st draft = 128) in three sentences. Naturally, I spent about 12:00 minutes making notes on paper in the planning stages before I wrote and edited this paragraph. 

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My response 

Google now recognizes Miki 

As I read Timmins' article, I was thinking, "What a good idea." Facebook it pretty good at recognizing me in friends'  posts, and I'm very impressed by how well Google Photos can recognize and group people in my thousands of photos. It saves me an enormous amount of time doing the sorting myself, and of course it makes it super-easy for me to find a photo of Ea, my friend's son, when I want one, or of my brother Matthew. In fact, I noticed a while ago that Google has now started recognizing and grouping the animals in my photographs. I'm not sure that I'm likely to want a photograph of Wendy's Widget, but in case I do, Google has neatly put them altogether for me. In fact, I'm pretty sure that when it comes to my family's many dogs, Google is much better at telling them all apart than I am. 

My follow up thought was to wonder how far this might go. I've read recent reports that China now uses extensive CCTV networks and AI to monitor its citizens as they go about their daily business, and more and more things are being tracked more and more as computer technology becomes ever more sophisticated, powerful, and cheap. At 30,000 Baht, the powerful computer, camera and other tools that I carry everywhere with me and increasingly rely on is much cheaper and vastly more powerful than the first laptop computer I bought last century, around 1995. How long will it be before not only humans but our pets, and everything else, is constantly tracked? This has great benefits, for example, when my friends are coming to visit, they can share their location so that I can see them moving on Google Maps as they come, which is cool, but this also has great potential for abuse. Some of the dangers that come to mind are shown in the "Nosedive" episode of the excellent BBC series Black Mirror, which I watched on NetFlix - like most of Black Mirror, this is not a happy story. 

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My question

How much should we worry about abuses of AI and other rapidly developing technology? 

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Reference

• Timmins, B. (2019, January 22). Facial recognition tool tackles illegal chimp trade. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46945302

You can also embed YouTube clips in blog posts. Either use the defaults, or edit the html to set width = 400 and height = 333. 

But is it free speech?

What I read

Click to view images full size. 

I normally put them on the right, but 

you might prefer a different position. 

The BBC Sport article "Awer Mabil: Australia forward is hoping to raise awareness of mental illness" (2019), says that Australian footballer Awer Mabil, who overcame racism to make Australia's national football team, the Socceroos, hopes that raising public awareness about mental health problems will help those suffering such illnesses to talk about them and seek help, rather than keeping their problems secret. According to the article, he explains that this is the reason "he covers his mouth with both hands whilst pointing to his forehead" every time he scores a goal for his team. He hopes that the gesture, which he says expresses the idea of bringing peace to the minds of those suffering mental illness, will be picked up and spread on social media.

125 words is safely within the 130 word limit for the summary paragraph. Three full stops for three sentences is within the four sentence limit. Since we do not know the name of the author, only the title of the article is given in the first sentence. This time I've also copied and pasted a few words from the source, which are in "quotation marks" as they must be. 

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My response 

I almost never read the sports section of the BBC website, but this article was highlighted on the BBC News homepage, where it caught my eye because I was looking for a bit more variety as an example of blogging the news to post here on our class blog. When I read it, it was actually interesting and raised a few ideas in my mind, and that is enough to make a good choice to blog. 

Another image from the BBC article

At first I was a bit confused about where Awer now plays football, but I guess that although he is now signed to play for a team in Europe, he remains a member of Australia's national football team. I don't follow football, but I remember similar examples. David Beckham still played for the English national team even when he had moved to join the Galaxy LA team in the US. (Is that right? This is response writing, so I haven't taken the time to stop and do research to check, but am relying on my memory.) I thought it was a great story of someone overcoming obstacles to become a success. I know that Australians, and I suspect every other nation, have a lot of ugly racist attitudes, but the very black Mr. Mabil stuck with it and succeeded in going from refugee child to football star. 

Although I don't entirely agree with Mabil that people with mental health problems keep them secret only out of embarrassment, I like his idea of using his success to send a message on an important social issue. It reminded me of the African American US footballer Colin Kaepernick, who has angered many in the US, including the current president, Donald Trump, by refusing to stand for the US national anthem when that song is played at the start of every football game. Instead, he kneels down to express his feelings about the persistent racism that African Americans continue to suffer in the US today. Kaepernick has done this for a couple of years now, and it has cost him a lot financially, although many Americans also support his peaceful protest. President Trump, perhaps not surprisingly, wanted to make it illegal to show what he and many see as disrespect to the American flag and national anthem, but thankfully, they US has a strong constitution that protects the right to free speech. The US Supreme Court would never allow the president to do anything so undemocratic as pass a law that criminalized disrespecting the flag or other national symbols. 

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My question

What do you think of sport or other entertainment stars using the fame to promote their ideas on social or political issues? 

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Reference

• Awer Mabil: Australia forward is hoping to raise awareness of mental illness. (2019, January 16). Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/46892072

• When the author's name is unknown, the title moves up to first place in the reference citation. 

Stew politeness!

What I read

According to Annabel Rackham in "Should Family Guy 'phase out' gay jokes?" (2019), while some support the move by the long-running TV cartoon show Family Man to move away from jokes making fun of gay men through the character of Stewie, often portraying them as stereotypes always looking for sex, others, even some gay people, argue that it is acceptable to make such jokes, about gay men and others in the LGBT community along with other minority groups. The change was suggested in a recent episode which starred a cartoon version of US President Trump, and has been confirmed by the shows producers, who explained that evolving social standards have have prompted them to revise how their show presents minority groups, including gays. 

This summary paragraph is 123 words in two sentences. It took me some time, and revision, to write.This is academic writing, which follows formal rules for style and using sources. The title above is bold, and is a link to the source that I chose to summarize. 

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My response 

First, a confession: I've never watched Family Man, so I don't know what sort of jokes the show makes to offend people, and the BBC article didn't include any examples. I guess I could look for some on YouTube. But the article caught my interest because of a couple of the gay men's comments state an idea I agree with. I don't think that merely being offensive is a good reason to ban something. If everything offended some group had to be banned, there would be nothing not banned! The members of most religions, for example, are offended by the competing ideas of other religions, which is why religion has been such a powerful force for war in history, as violent conflicts around the world today still show us. For example, the terrorists who a few days ago bombed the Thai owned Dusit Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya were a militant Islamist group who said they acted to kill innocent people because US President Trump was moving the US embassy in Israel to Jewish Jerusalem, which Islamic Palestine claims as their capital city. And an example nearer to Thailand it the violence that Buddhist monks in Myanmar incite against the Rohingya people in that country. Historically, at least since the Christians invaded the Roman Empire in the 4th century, the West has been fighting religious wars with each other. Should all religions be banned because their teachings offend other religious groups? 

I also liked the comment that one gay man made that the important thing in comedy is whether the jokes are funny or not. He complained that Family Man isn't actually funny, partly because it's a boring repeat of things that straight, white, middle class men find funny. I also liked his idea that you don't have to be a member of a group to laugh at that group. Comedy, making jokes, even offensive jokes, can help us to see that however important people take themselves, they are just human beings like all the rest of us. And that reminds me of Harvard's University's Steven Pinker, who explains that dictators hate comedy and want to censor free speech that mocks them others because they know that laughter is a healthy human activity that supports democratic respect for all by smashing the mindless respect that dictators demand.   

This response is much longer than the summary. There are two main responses, hence two paragraphs. These paragraphs were written much more quickly than the summary. Although the style is formal, as we see in the examples of writing in online discussion boards on page 9 and as Skillful suggests on page 66, this is not academic writing: it's more relaxed. For example, it's more personal, and it's OK to go a bit off topic as new ideas come to mind. 

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My question

Is it OK to make rude jokes about gays, women, beggars, Jews, or other groups in society? 

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Reference

• Rackham, A. (2019, January 15). Should Family Guy 'phase out' gay jokes? Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-46878017

• This is a correctly written APA style reference citation. When we use ideas from any source, which every summary does, our academic work must cite that source. Basic information must, therefore, be included in the paragraph, and we need the full reference citation here.  

Nuc's academic interests

What am I interested in? In my mind mine I have a 2 big issue of my interest. There are Aviation and Weastern Music Instrument.

First , I would tell about what is my beginning why I interested in Aviation. When I was young,children days,my family went to see the show called 'An Air Show' at Air Force Military near Don Mueang Airport. I interest military airplanes using high speed and the show was wonderful at that time , it becomes my first impression that I was being interest Aviation. After that time, I and My Mother had to waited my father before he arrival back to Thailand at the airport arrival hall. I have interested the big buildings with the strange facilities that I did not know before and  many large airplanes at the air-side. My goal, I want to have knowledge more than there for those who could see, so I search and read the lot of website such as Aviation week magazine online , Pilot's blogs. I got admission in the faculty of  Aviation,when I was G12. Now I am senior in the university and I study Aviation Technology Management. I know a lot of aviation better than before. what is it different between learning by yourself and learning in the university In my opinion, in the university, teachers have a role, they teach lesson from a lot of sources and they would like to show case study from the news in nowadays like Suvarnabhumi Airport phase 2 that have many discussions should we build on that area or not. I think I choose the major is good already.

Another interested is different the first one,I interest in Western Music Instrument, like my right brain. Since I was a child, I have played Melodian , Keyboard , Recorder, Saxophone and Clarinet.Another music I
intrument,I can called in but I can not play. Western Music Instrument which I the most interested in is Clarinet. Because of sound is perfect to play in classic music and some Pop music. I have played Clarinet for 6 years. I invited in School marching band when I was in the high school. My band had audition, we got royals cup contest and gold medal. I am very proud of myself that I can play this instrument.

Finally, For me,doing thing that interested in is the way that make me happy and make my goals become successful , so among of my mission of my life are all from my interest with attention .

Fluke's academic interests

I interested in foreign languages when I was 6, I saw my mother can speak Deutsch with her  guest that come to meeting at her company. After that I request my mom to sent me to learn English and German but for the first years I think it's very hard to learn two language so I only learn English. And when I'm in grade 10 I have to choose my major and I think I'll choose English-German but my school they didn't open this major because they can't find German teacher in that years , I was so upset  but finally they have English-french.

Sha sha's academic interests

Programming is one of my academic interests. It will do everything follow commands that you input in your program.If your input is right, the output will be right as the question want. If your input is wrong, the output will be right but it isn't as the question want because output come from your input. It is very challenging. I usually use c++ for programming because I think it is easier than other.

Science is my academic interests, too. I like astronomy the most but I don't like biology. Astronomy is about star, planet, galaxy, universe. It is very interesting for me because universe has many thing and something nobody knows. When I see sky at night I saw a lot of stars. It is very beautiful. I like reading books about astronomy. It is so fun that I can't stop reading.

A's academic interest

There are a lot of interests relating to academic subjects that inspire people for their life and hobby. I have several interests in academic subjects.

The first one of my interest is engineering in which I graduated. Engineering helps us to invent many stuffs based on scientific knowledge to make our life better, more convenient and comfortable. We can leave Thailand for Hong Kong with 3-hour flight whereas the distance between both cities is over 2000 km. We can connect someone we love in a few seconds via internet. My major work concerns robotics design based on medical purposes. I have opportunities to work on new ideas everyday relating to my interest. I do love how the way of engineering shapes me.

The second interest is astronomy. Nowadays, we cannot refuse that space technology is much developed until we sent spaceships to discover and explore places far away from our home. We still set up space station to experiment how it affects to human life. Sattlelites are deployed every month to improve communications. I hope someday in the future we can receive information about that we do not live alone in the universe.

Mind's academic interests

People would have their own interest in many part of there life. One of them is the academic interest which mostly related to people's career or working life. I also have a few academic interests.

My most interested is an Artificial Intelligence which is a program of Computer Science faculty. I have not joined it yet but I aim to. There are some reasons that I feel interested in this program. First, I think the Artificial Intelligent is extremely helpful for the business. It will be able to replace the human's work, especially the routine or boring work. Business can glow up quickly, by just add more machines. The company does not need to hire a lot of people which would take longer time than buying more machine. In addition, The human resource team can take their time to do some other useful tasks, and we might be able to reduce the human resource team size which would absolutely effect the company cost. The employer just need to pay for the machine cost which is seriously cheaper than the worker cost. Also, the employers do not need to deal with their staff's problem. Second, In the employee's point of view. It is better to just let the machine do the routine and boring work. They can step up to work on more challenging task which would make them feel exited about their work every day. Finally, these innovative tools will make our life more comfortable. For example, the smart home gadget which is a device that people can use to control the electronic equipment in their home. There is a useful function in the device calling the bot. It is an Artificial Intelligence product which is c to be able to understand what people say. People can talk to the device; then it will response you or manage the electronic equipments in your home based on your command.

In addition, another interest is an Entrepreneurship which is a very helpful program for me, since I would like to have my own business. The main concept of the program is how to be a good business owner, especially the small business. It is really good to learn how to develop, run and maintain the business. The program is not only about starting the business, but also about thinking creatively and ambitiously, which means that this program is also useful for the people in the organization who do not want to have their own business. In the organization, this program will be mainly about basis of management which would be able to replace the old-fashioned business. In my opinion, having only technical skills is not enough to create a business. This kind of management techniques will fulfill another part of the company. My previous CEO used to suggest me to join this program. He told me that his friend graduated from this program and had a successful working life in an organization. So, I think this program is really useful for my working life.

Wan's academic interests

I am interested in many fields, for example, history, economics, renewable energy, business, startups, social enterprise, economic development and economic policy.

I would like to introduce my first interest is economics. I studied economics during 2010-2014. What I have been knowing about this field prior to the study is just about supply and demand. However, the subject has covered wide range of topics such as political economics, development economics, financial economics or even natural resource economics. My professors inspired me a lot since most of them graduated from well-known schools in the US and UK. The strong point that makes economics differed from other subjects in humanity is quantitative analysis which requires tremendous mathematics skill. However, since I am not that into mathematics, so I decided not to pursue Master degree in Economics. Rather, I put my interest to be more on business side and social enterprise which is somehow related to economics as well.

Regarding my interest in business, it came from the fact that I think if I studied business, I would get rich which is not true in my case. Business in academia is different from business in reality. However, it still interests me in the sense that business can also drive economic growth and alleviate the poverty. Since then, I decided to shift my focus to be more on social enterprise where I think it can narrow down the gap between the poor and the rice. Moreover, it can create jobs and generate income for small-scale business. One of my most favorite examples comes from soft loan with zero interest provided to poor people in India. This business belongs to one of the foundations and it can expand opportunity for the poor to generate small-scale businesses and live on their own. Hence it is very important to expand this kind of business to help poor people in local community. My next intention is to find out more information regarding the social enterprise opportunity in Thailand in order to create one that impacts the society and alleviate the poverty.

Recently, my interest has just come across the renewable energy (RE). RE helps reduce greenhouse gas emission and combat climate change. It needs to be promoted in Thailand since the pollutant is increasing and climate change started affecting lives of people, especially in agriculture sector. My main concern is how to remove barrier that hinder the accelerated actions in renewable energy sector in Thailand, in particular, bureaucracy and unclear policy. It would be great if Thailand can take examples from international practices such as Europe or Australia how the countries can achieve higher target of RE.

Champ's academic interests

Today, I'm going to tell about my academic interest. Firstly, I'm interested in mathematics because math is study about real things. It has their own theories. For examples, one plus one is two. The theories make math become interesting. Also, math's theories always true and can't be disprove and there are many theories in math that no one can prove or some questions that looks simple but no one can solve it.

Secondly, I'm interested in programming because it is challenging. Also, computers always give output that come from your input. And it's always reflex what you are programming. So I think that programming looks like mathematics. In addition, I always feel good after finishing programming.

That's all of my academic interests now. But there might be more in the future.

Ploy(Nattamon)'s academic interests

I have been interested in science for almost 10 years because it can explain what are the reasons why the natural phenomena happen,which sound like reasonable. For example, the rain come from the gathering of  mist in the air. When the volume of the mist is much enough, the rain will fall from the cloud. It can be proved by using the new technology that scientist invent. From the interesting of the science, I decided to study in the Engineering Faculty, which relate to the applying and utilizing the science.

For now, I am also interested in the management field. It is the knowledge that I had a very little background, so I think it is my weak point and want to know more about it. This kind of knowledge will be useful for me in my career part. The management could give me the way to let

First's academic interests

Renewable energy is now become more important than even. Since it's more environmental friendly than ordinary fuel sources such as oils or coals. Renewable energy is better for our life by producing less pollution :for example dust, carbon dioxide, and carbon dioxide. There are many sources of new kind of energy that play a big role at the moment. For instance wind energy, wave energy, solar power,and nuclear energy. On the other hand, in Thailand, there are just a few of them currently operating and it's far from enough to replace fossil fuel and coal in power plants. Since government couldn't plant the nuclear plants and also failed to built the new coal power plant, Thailand failed to generate enough energy for the country and need to buy electricity from country in Asean.

Ploy(Waratip)'s academic interests

I have many academic interests ,but there all about environment. I would talk to my academic interests in two section. The first is an innovation for air pollution management because the most of people can't see the air pollution without specific equipment. Air pollution is the worst problem as I know, it's impact on human's body and unclear visions. Nowadays, we got many information from the news and other sources about air pollution that mostly came from industrial development and traffic. Thus, I want to find the way to manage this problem by create an innovation by myself in the way of management technique or build an invention.

Second, global warming is also my academic interests because I think it is a biggest problem in the world as we know that change in extreme weather, the ice is melting faster at the poles, animals become extinct and etc. These causes are related to human activities such as  fuel fossil burning, land clearing and etc that release greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. By the way the global warming is still happening so, the best way to stop global warming is in our hands just consume less, waste less but recycle more.

Peter's academic interests

Although I began studying a science degree at university, my final major as philosophy. This had been a strong interest from my last years at high school, when one of my Catholic brother teachers had introduce me to it. He was also my maths and physics teachers, and I think he thought that I might in danger of deciding that our religion was false or worse. He suggested I read Soren Kierkegaard, a modern Christian philosopher. I did that. But then I was hooked so read a lot more, from Plato through to Kant. This did not help to keep my Catholic faith. At university, my main areas of interest in philosophy were logic and ethics, or moral philosophy, and I continue to be interested in these today.

Logic is the backbone not only of philosophy, but also of mathematics, which was my real passion in high school. I loved it because unlike every subject, mathematics gave us absolutely certain results that were certain. Pythagoras's theorem is provable in ways that no theory of physics is, and the discoveries of historians are even more prone to later correction. I was also passionate about physics in high school, and mathematics and physics, especially theoretical physics, were what I began studying at university. But I then changed to an arts degree so that I could pursue philosophy. I continued with the mathematics throughout my undergraduate career, but instead of sciences, I took up a couple of dead languages. These did not have any obvious career opportunities, but I loved them.

These days, I also like reading economics, psychology and politics, and I often have passing interests in other fields, such as art. For a year or so, I pursued drawing, which was fascinating, but it required more time and effort than I could afford to give it, although I keep thinking it would be worth doing because I found that drawing was kind of like a form of meditation. Music is another academic interest that really died some years ago. I used to play the flute, which I loved, but unfortunately, playing an instrument also takes regular practice, and my other interests won the competition for my time. These days, I enjoy listening to music, but I suspect that if I picked up my old flute, which is still somewhere in my mother's home, I wouldn't be able to produce notes over more than one octave, and that probably wouldn't be very good either.

Making a Difference (SkRW3, pp. 79, Developing critical thinking)

What I read

We have just read and checked our understanding of "Making a Difference."

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Our response 

Having read the text a couple of times, Bixby and Scanlon now invite us to respond to those idea in a critical thinking exercise.

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Bixby and Scanlon's questions

Comment on the following questions, which are the critical thinking questions on page 79 (Bixby & Scanlon, 2013), and then reply to at least two of your classmates' comments. 

• Describe your reaction to William's story. How do you think the attitudes of the people in his village changed after his success?
   
• What words would you use to describe William's personality? Do you (or someone you know) share of the the same traits? Which ones?  

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Reference

• Bixby, J. & Scanlon, J. (2013). Skillful Reading & Writing: Student's Book 3. Oxford: Macmillan Education

Getting into Unit 8 = Drive (SkR&W3, p77, Discussion point)

Click image to enlarge

What we read

Bixby and Scanlon introduce each unit with a discussion activity, that is, an opportunity for us to share our ideas on the topic of the unit in a way that relates it to our own lives, ideas and experiences. Unit 7 of book 3 (Bixby & Scanlon, 2013, p.77) does this.

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My response 

Research by academics solidly shows that brainstorming or discussion activities for groups are more effective if participants start by working individually (O'Connell, 2010; Markman, 2017). In fact, experts at Harvard University's School of Management and elsewhere are sure that this can be very effectively done using online tools (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2015). Blogging is one effective way to do this, which is the reason I've turned Bixby and Scanlon's discussion exercise into a quick blogging discussion.

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Bixby and Scanlon's questions 

Saying 1

"The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win." (Roger Bannister, The Four Minute Mile, 1955)

 Saying 2

"Everybody is born with an equal chance to become as unequal as he or she possibly can." (Anonymous, n.d. (no date)) 

Discuss these questions in a comment.  

• Explain the meaning of each saying in your own words.
   
• Do you agree with each quotation? 
• Why or why not? 

Write full sentences. You will also need to write a few sentences for each of your ideas, giving explanation, examples and other details to clarify and develop your ideas. 

You can address the questions in any order. You can write one comment, or if you prefer, two comments, but not three. So that you don't worry about Bixby and Scanlon's numbers too much, I replaced them with bullets. 

You have eight minutes. Aim to write two or more paragraphs. 

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References

• Bixby, J. & Scanlon, J. (2013). Skillful Reading & Writing: Student's Book 3. Oxford: Macmillan Education
    
• Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2015, April 2). Why brainstorming works better online. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2015/04/why-brainstorming-works-better-online
   
• Markman, A. (2017, May 18). Your team is brainstorming all wrong. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2017/05/your-team-is-brainstorming-all-wrong
   
• O'Connell, A. (2010, February 4). Sometimes, it’s better to brainstorm alone. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2010/02/when-its-better-to-brainstorm 

Welcome to RW2c and to our class blog

What I read

Although I've read a few things in preparation for it, this post has a different purpose. I want to welcome you to your EAP class on Saturday mornings.

So, welcome.

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My response 

Thank you for joining our Saturday class in Reading and Writing for academic purposes. I hope you find the next six weeks useful, productive, also challenging, and perhaps even fun. 

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Bixby and Scanlon's questions 

As you will see in our book, online discussion makes an appearance early on in Unit 1 (Bixby & Scanlon, 2013, p. 9) and there is a more extensive coverage of this common part of modern university courses on page 66, so I do have a question. 


Also, in her foreword to students on page 4 (or perhaps page 6 if you have a later print than mine), the series editor, Dorothy E. Zemach, gives some strategies for successful learning, one of which is to "be an independent learner" (in Bixby & Scanlon, 2013). This class blog is one way for us to do this. As Zemach suggests in her comment, it is one way for you to "find and then share information about ... different topics." Some of the topics you will write about here are the unit topics, but I also Zemach's suggestion that "reading for pleasure and using the Internet in English" are important, so your writing here will not be limited to the topics of the units that we study over the next six weeks. 

Click to enlarge images

On page 66 of Skillful, Bixby and Scanlon begin by asking us whether we "would prefer a class discussion [speaking and listening] or an online discussion." We have already responded to this question. 

At the end of the page, they ask us to discuss two different questions:  

• Why are academic writing skills important for an online discussion board (such as our class blog)?
   
• How do you think an online discussion board might improve your learning in a course? 

You can respond as soon as you accept the invitation I will soon send you to join this blog. I suggest you quickly read page 66 for three minutes, think for a minute or two, and then write your response for about five more minutes. I will time these for you. 

One more useful tip: When you respond, write as though your readers have not seen the questions you are responding to. This strengthens your writing by making it an coherent, independent piece of work. 

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Reference

• Bixby, J. & Scanlon, J. (2013). Skillful Reading & Writing, Student's Book 3. Oxford: Macmillan Education 

Popular in Thailand today

What I read

I assume that we are all regular users of Google's search tools, but did you know that you can also search Google's search statistics? Google Trends provides a variety of ways to find out what people around the world are using Google to find out about. For example, the most popular Google searches in Thailand for the last few days have been: 

We also learn that searches on "vegetarian" are globally far more popular than searches on "meat eating":


And that Thailand has a conspicuous surge during the second week of October. 

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My response 

I've known about this cool tool from Google for a while, but haven't really played with it that much. In contrast, you might have noticed the nGram tool that had previously been the last entry on the list of "Useful References" on the right. nGram lets you easily check how often a word or phrase has been found in a vast collection of books over the past 200 years! For example, the use of the word "pizza" has exploded since the 1970s.

nGram seemed to me a bit easier to use than Google Trends, but I suspect that if I play around with it, I'll learn a lot more about how to use Google Trends. 

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My question

Have you ever used either Google's nGram or Google Trends? 

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