Get started with Google Docs

Hi everybody!
During our Wednesday lesson in the lab we were introduced into the world of Google Docs, a free web-based tool. It functions like any basic word processor and allows us to have our documents always online in order to share and edit them with our peers at the same time.
Since we were already familiar with the wiki from our first semester, we pointed out the main differences and I finally found out that using Google Docs can be really advantageous.

• It is a service available from any computer on the Web where you can write a text and save it online.
• While on a wiki anyone can edit many different pages, with Google Docs you have to invite peers and colleagues to privately share documents.
• While on a wiki, only one user can edit a page at a time, on Google Docs, you can work with other people, edit a document simultaneously and see the names and the changes of who is editing with you.

Once I realised the potentiality of this tool, I worked online with my colleagues to check a number of references basing on the APA style. I have to admit that this activity of finalizing an academic work was a little bit annoying and frustrating, as it is difficult for me to remember the right conventions for referencing, but I enjoyed using this useful new tool.
I don’t know if I will use Google Docs to share documents or to work with other colleagues, but this is another technological discovery for me, which may be fruitful if I have to save a document online.

See you soon,
Anna

Reflections on Linguistic Feedbacks

In this reflective post I would like to point out the common mistakes that came out after my classmates' feedbacks. From their comments there appeared some crucial grammar errors upon which I have to reflect.

1. I have to remember that “in order to” and the subordinator “because” are not preceded by a comma.
2. It is better to use 'because' and 'since' when I have to explain the cause of an event since the conjunction 'as' has a lot of meanings and can be ambiguous.
3. In the same sentence I forgot to put the subject, for example I wrote "now is time ..." instead of "now it's time". So I did not considered the old rule that in English there must always be a subject - be it impersonal or not.
4. I have to remember the difference between 'can' and "to be able to' when they're used in the past and in affirmative sentences. While “could” is used to indicate general abilities, “was/were able to” refers to a particular situation.
5. I have to be careful when I choose a preposition in English and if I am still not sure I should check it in a monolingual dictionary.
6. Last but not least: since English is a reader responsible language, I must remember our basic rule to simplify the most as possible because sometimes I tend to write too long and intricate sentences. It is better to split a sentence into different parts to make it clearer, and to choose the correct word order to avoid ambiguity.

I must admit that many mistakes I made are caused by distraction, and I should be more careful in future in order to avoid them and write as clearly and in the simplest way as possible.
Personally, I appreciated the feedbacks my classmates gave me, and I think that they can be very fruitful for me.

Thank you all girls!
Bye
Anna

Happy Earth Day!

Taken from: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=earth+day

APA style vs. Modern Language Association style

Hi everybody!
During last week, I explored two websites about two different referencing formats commonly used internationally: the APA and MLA. I was able to reflect on the main striking differences that I want to point out here.
First of all I noticed a general difference in parenthetical in-text citation. When using APA format, one should follow the author-date method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the year of publication of the source should appear in the text while MLA style requires you to mention just the author and page number(s).
A second difference concerns the authors’ citation. While the APA style lists all authors giving their last names and first initials, the MLA style provides the names of authors exactly as given on the work, and for more than three authors, gives only the first author or you may list all authors named in the work.
A third difference is related to titles, which are italicized, with a capitalisation of the first word in the APA system, and underlined and capitalized in the MLA system..
As far as the publication of information is concerned, the APA style uses full publishers’ names while the MLA style prefers abbreviations and descriptive words. If several places of publications are listed, the APA adds the abbreviation of the city less known while the MLA provides only the first place of a list.
As regards to periodical elements, the APA style lists the first page and additional ones while the MLA style lists the first page, followed by + to indicate that additional pages.
A further difference is about the dates. In the APA they always follow the author's name while in the MLA they're placed at the end of the citation.
Finally, in the APA style just the first line of each entry is indented whereas in the MLA style the first line of each entry is attached to the left margin, and the rest of the citation is indented.
When I wrote my BA thesis, I wasn’t aware of these two different formats, and I had unconsciously combined the two. I put my titles in italics with the first word capitalised, as the APA style suggests. When I had to write in-text citations I put the author's name, the date and the number of the page after a colon in parenthesis. As far as the references are concerned, I listed the author's name, the date of publication, the title in italics, the place of publication, the publisher, and the number of pages or the chapter(s) involved in my study. I remember that I made reference to other pieces of academic papers, and books in order to find the appropriate format for my thesis, so I hadn’t a clear idea and I didn’t know about these two international referencing styles.
Even if during my University career I usually write academic papers, I have to admit that I find referencing style not so easy to use, as it can be confusing to find a proper format for each different subject. After having read the two websites I feel more confident, as in case of doubt I can make reference to these specific rules.
I hope that this little study on formats will be helpful for my future thesis too.
Bye
Anna

Make your writing readable -Task on Handout 2

Picture taken from: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=writing&page=2

Unfortunately the full text of the article I found for last Thursday is no longer available on the Web, so I chose another article of my interest from Google Scholar that I shared in delicious too. The article I found is on “Personal Learning Environments”. I was able to catch the main topic of the paper from the abstract, that is a discussion on the dimensions which characterize current conceptions of PLEs, thereby defining a space of PLEs, providing examples of Personal Learning Environments. I immediately found the name of the author Mark van Harmelen, who is an Independent Consultant at the University of Manchester. The date when it was published online wasn’t available, but I found at the end of the article a list of references, which made me think that it is quite recent. As the author was linked to a School of Computer Science in a Manchester framework team and the language used was formal, I can understand that the article is reliable.
It provides a clear layout with the use of paragraphs and follows the hourglass structure, as it starts with a relatively spread introduction with alternative definitions, so it places the subject matter in context and introduces a position which is then developed in the essay. It goes on with the body, describing in specific details the term PLE and similar terms, discussing the dimensions of a space of PLEs, and giving examples of PLE implementations. The article finally offers some conclusions going back to the introduction.
The text is cohesive and follows a logical flow of ideas, and a certain order in presenting information. Moreover it is not unusual to find repetition of words or synonyms in order to keep always the attention of the reader alive. These consideration can be proved in the example below:

“…An open system may be extended easily, a totally closed system may not be extended at all. This dimension influences personalisation. Openness is highly desirable, and can be implemented via a variety of mechanisms. At the most basic level this may be provided by facilities for users to capture and use URLs to obtain extra facilities. Some commentators are of the opinion that an open PLE can be constructed entirely from various kinds of servers on the web. However, application interoperation is a problem in this scenario. Another more complex mechanism, as yet unimplemented in any PLE, would operate by resource discovery and subsequent resource use in a service oriented architecture”

In the article each paragraph contains one main idea with a series of sentences supporting it with details, so is precise and the ideas presented can be clearly understood. Even if sometimes there are some technical words with which I was not so familiar too, such as Virtual Learning Systems, and Learning Management Systems, the author provides us with a brief and concise explanation of the main terminology. A clear example is:

“A Personalised Learning Environment can usefully mean any environment that has been tailored for an individual prior to use.
A Personalisable Learning Environment is one that can be personalised at the time of its use, either by the user or by the system on behalf of the user.”

Since the type of language used is mainly formal, the article clearly addresses to a specialised audience oriented to this type of study, or to students who want to be involved in this topic in order to write a dissertation.
Personally I think that a blog post should have all these characteristics to be easily read, because a clear layout, coherence and cohesion can attract a reader and add a value to the writer’s work.

Bye

Anna

IPR vs. Plagiarism

Hi everybody!
I hope you spent a wonderful Easter with your family and friends because now it is time to come back to our blog course!
During our last computer lesson we reflected on how to respect Intellectual Propriety Rights avoiding plagiarism, and on the concept of Copyright as a way to protect the form and the content of a literary, scientific and artistic work.
We focused especially on the concept of Creative Commons in relation to pictures and videos that we commonly insert on our blog, and now I feel more confident and safer when I use a picture from the Web.
As far as the academic sphere is concerned, I had already found the concept of plagiarism during my university career. Indeed, when I wrote my BA thesis, I had to attribute words, ideas and opinions that were not mine to the original source. As now I have to face another important step in my academic career, that is my final dissertation, I feel that I need to know more about this issue.
I searched on the Web and I found some interesting websites about plagiarism with suggestions on how to avoid it successfully.

• In Plagiarism I learnt that the first step is to put within quotation marks everything that comes directly from another person’s actual spoken or written words especially when taking notes. Another possible choice is to paraphrase concepts, being sure that you are not just rearranging or replacing a few words. Consequently, you need to cite what the source is, as for example a book, an article, an interview, etc..
• In Cite Source - avoiding plagiarism - paraphrasing I learnt some common citation formats, such as footnotes, endnotes and in-text citations for longer papers; and some general rules about citing materials from websites. Moreover, it suggests when a writer don't need to cite, that is for common knowledge and for facts or ideas that you, yourself, established.
• In Introduction I found a well-detailed description of re-writing techniques in your own words, and quotation’s techniques in order to show what part is copied and where it is copied from.
  It provides us with a variety of examples about how to express someone else's opinion, and includes a Self Test too in order to identify how much you understood about the issue.

You can find more information about this issue on the websites I saved in Delicious.
See you soon,
Anna

Easter is coming...

Taken from:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x90JuLpzLWo

• "How do bunnies stay healthy?"
• "Eggercise :-)"

Critical reading -Task on Handout 1

Hello everybody!

During my research about evaluating online sources I came across the article “Semantic associations in Business English: A corpus-based analysis” that I retrieved using Google Scholar. On the basis of what we learnt in class about critical reading, I chose to analyse this article because it can give me interesting information about a subject that I would like to develop for my final thesis.
From the abstract I was able to catch the main gist of the article and I realised that it was about semantic associations of words found in the business lexical environment by using a word corpus of both spoken and written Business English. This overview was useful to understand the aim of the research, which was written to show how words in the Business English environment interact with each other on a semantic level. Besides the abstract I found the name of the author Mike Nelson, who is professor at the University of Turku, and the date when it was published online (7 April 2005). Last but not least I found the domain of the website.
I understood that the article was reliable because the author was linked to the University of Finland, and belonged to a language centre where he studied English for specific purposes, the text was copyrighted, the language used was formal and the style academic.
Now I can understand that it is essential to take an analytical approach if you want to retrieve all relevant information you need for your research. So be selective and critical while searching and if you are interested in the particular topic I analysed, you can find it among the bookmarks I saved on delicious.

Bye

Anna

Do you speak english?

Have fun watching this video...

Taken from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBcwcejNrY0&NR=1

Evaluating Online Sources

Taken from http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Google&page=8

Hello everybody!
During our lesson on Wednesday we reflected on how to be critical towards the material we find online and started discussing what criteria we commonly use to select a proper and authoritative website instead of another.

We identified the following list:

• the author (Who is he? Is it known in the community? If not, could he/she be considered authoritative? Does he/she mentions any sources?)

• the domain (What's the domain? Do cross-referencing - same info or opinions in other websites? Cited in other places? Is the "knowledge" protected by some kind of license? How many times has the site been visited?)
  
• graphics and layout (Are there emoticons or advertisements?)

• the contents (What type of information does it provide? Is the content reliable? Are there external references or useful links? Does it makes use of paragraphs, etc?)
  
• why and when was it published (If you are an academic or researcher, online journals pay-access only, open access online journals).

On the basis of these criteria, Sarah suggested us to make use of some specific tools in order to filter information on the Internet. I explored Google Blogs, where I searched information in blogs; Google Books, where I retrieved bits and pieces of a book; and Google Scholar, which provided me with online academic texts, abstracts or citations.

I have to admit that I was not so familiar with these tools and before this lesson I chose online materials simply on Google, without making any advanced research. Now I am proud of this new discovery as I can distinguish the materials I need more specifically.

As we are all preparing ourselves for our final thesis or we are constantly searching information on the web for our personal interest, I found this critical approach and these new tools very useful and interesting, especially because we can always make reference at the checklist when searching for information. This reflections can be fruitful and valid even when we read printed staff, such as newspapers and magazines too. So I wish you well on your search for your thesis!

Bye
Anna

Reflections on Thursday lessons: Never give up!

Hi guys!
During our Thursday lessons we reflected on our more frequent mistakes and tried to find a way to simplify in order to avoid them. Even if I am attending my last year at the University, I realise that until now I have been focusing more on the communicative aspects of English and I never tried to be really accurate. As a consequence, I keep on making a lot of errors when I write, so I decided that it can be useful to underline them in this reflective post.

• First of all we decided to return to the basics of English and to eliminate some words that we tended to overuse, such as deepen, also, such, in fact, must, will, distinguish, don’t have to, a huge amount. It is better to use the following: learn, too, this, indeed, have to, going to, stand out, shouldn't, to be not supposed to, can't, a lot of.

As far as grammar is concerned the main rules we established are:

• always remember the English word order Subject + Verb + Object, and never split the verb from its object with adverbs, etc..
• don't use Present Perfect, but the Simple Past or the present;
• eliminate non-defining relative clauses, but use parenthesis or dashes;
• remember to use the subjunctive with the verbs to suggest, to recommend, i.e. I suggest/recommend he go;
• find vs. find out;
• Everyone= all vs. anyone= every individual;
• To be vs. to get, i.e. I am married (a state) vs. I’m getting married (a process).

We listed some linking words:

• Coordinate: and, or, but
• Subordinate: since, as, because, although, despite (never preceded by a comma)

We focused on subordinators, which can never be preceded by a comma.

• Time: after, before, while, when, as soon as, until.
• Reason: because, so, since, due to.
• Purpose: to, in order to, so as to.
• Concession: although, despite, even though/even if, though, whereas, while.
• Condition: if, whether, unless, as long as, nevertheless.

We concentrated on conjunctions, which are independent words followed by a comma and preceded by a full stop or a semicolon.

• To introduce a list: first of all, first, firstly,...,finally.
• To introduce a conclusion: in conclusion, to sum up/summarize.
• To express contrast: despite this, however, on the other hand, on the contrary, none/nevertheless, otherwise.
• To reinforce or add: moreover, furthermore, indeed.
• To give examples: for example/instance.
• To say two things happen for similar reasons: similarly, likewise.
• To point out a result: as a result, consequently, therefore, so (at the beginning of the sentence followed by a comma).

These words are relatively formal, and they are more used in academic writing than in a blog, where they can sound heavy.

Finally we should be careful while building sentences and avoid:

• Sentence fragments (not a complete thought)
• Run-ons (grammatically incorrect long sentences)

I think that these discussions in class on our common mistakes can be very useful, but it is essential to reflect on them at home too with a positive predisposition in order to never give up.

Bye Bye,

Anna

Think positively...

Taken from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ft8NXadQwo