Read-Think-b4-u-Write

Google has five tips for effective teamwork as discovered by their People Operation's Group. They asked 200 people in their Project Aristotle a series of questions hoping to figure out the proper mix of tech nerds to physicists to scholars to come up the proper ingredients for the perfect team. But what they found was not what they expected. It wasn't the mix of PhDs that made a good team, but how they worked together. Is it just me but doesn't that seem obvious? So what are Google's five keys to a successful group: 1. Psychological Safety. Are you free to safely take risks in your group or will you be ostracized or punished. Hopefully, your teammates are supportive and don't see risk takers as ignorant or disruptive. 2. Dependability . Anybody who has done a school project knows exactly what this means. 3. Structure and clarity . Does the group get the assignment (task), have a plan to accomplish the assignment, and will it be successful? If you can ans...

Here's a fun fact: "For every 100 kids who start college, just 25 get degrees and attractive jobs. Some 45 drop out, and another 30 graduate but end up under- or unemployed"--at least that is what  Market Watch  is reporting--and those drop outs and underemployed have whopping amounts of student debt. Too many students may be "book ready" once they leave college, but they can't even accomplish the fundamental real-world applications required by their major. Take the example of the MIT graduates (yes, that's plural) that could not use a wire, light bulb, and battery to make a light bulb work. Yikes. It is important to get a hands-on education--that's why vocational studies are so important in high school. Oh, you don't know what vocational studies are? Well that's because wood shop, bookkeeping, nursing, and auto shop have been cut from K-12 education. Did you have electronics in high school? Could you build a basic computer? No? Yeah, t...

You made it! You're in college, living on your own in the dorms or sharing a space with your best friends. Things couldn't be better until reality hits. In   The 9 Habits You Develop In College That Will Haunt Your Wallet , Maggie McGrath at Forbes talks about some real money drains, in other words how to just flush money directly down the toilet, especially if you rely on credit cards. First off, the article doesn't mention a couple things: 1) set a budget and stick to it, and 2) use CASH whenever possible. Relying on plastic just makes it too easy to do the following nine BAD habits: 1. Eating in the dining hall for every meal. Well, this should read "Eating in the dining hall for every meal AFTER your meal plan has run out." Granted there isn't a gigantic kitchen in the dorms, but, heck, Top Ramen was invented for college students, wasn't it? If you have a freezer, get stuff you can nuke. 2. Late-night bingeing. Studying at 2:00 a.m.? Need som...

Canto X - Circle Six: Heresy Heresy can be a bit prickly among modern day folk because they are far too intelligent to believe in god or a higher power. That is exactly what Dant é was writing about in the early fourteenth century: pride leads to heresy. What's even weirder today is the proliferation of ghost "reality" shows and people that believe in zombies and vampires. Oh, but you don't believe in zombies or vampires, do you? You're way too smart for that. There is heresy in every age and it involves what we, as a society, are forbidden to criticize. Can't think of anything? What is the worst epithet you can be labeled? How about racist or homophobic? Like George Orwell once said, "The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. " Canto X takes us to Circle Six where we meet the shade of Farinata delgi Uberti, a Ghebelline (Dant...

It seems everybody had to start somewhere. Albert Einstein worked in the Swiss patent office. Nathaniel Hawthorne worked at the Boston Custom's house. William Faulkner worked at the post office. After Faulkner dropped out of college, where he earned a D in English, he became a postmaster which he found "tedious, boring and uninspiring," according to Open Culture . After all a Nobel laureate can only take so much. So, when enough was enough he sent the following to his superiors: As long as I live under the capitalistic system, I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp.  This, sir, is my resignation. Hmmm . . . a bit of caustic, self-aggrandizement? Faulkner was known to embellish a bit. Like all of us it is the sum of our experience that takes us where we will end up . . . and very few end up ...

Tiffany Jones, editor, at CSUEB's Pioneer writes "Six things college has taught me, to date" . The first one made this former mother of two college students laugh, yes, out loud. "We all wish our mom still did our laundry." C'mon admit it, I bet you arrive home with a suitcase full of dirty laundry when you visit your parents. All kidding aside, she offers some sound advice. 1. Being a big kid is hard - no moms and dads at college . 2. Time management is key to success - get off social media 24/7, get to class on time, do your homework the day before, not 4:00 a.m. 3. You can’t escape reality - make goals and live up to them. 4. Conflict is essential - The advice I'd give my own children and students, "You can say whatever you want to your teacher/boss/counselors as long as you do so politely." 5. Being discouraged is okay - should read "Being discouraged is essential." If you aren't discouraged from time to time, yo...

Most of us don't usually read those emails you get from your doctor that tell you to sleep more, drink less (alcohol), and get plenty of exercise. But since I have seen a steady rise in vapor clouds coming from the various quads around campus, I have been wondering if e-Cigarettes are safe? So when this infographic popped up in my in-box I was intrigued and after reading it, all I can say is "JUST SAY NO!" E-Cigarettes contain known cancer-causing agents. I don't even need to read the rest. According to a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine: "We've found there is a hidden form of formaldehyde in e-cigarette vapor that has not typically been measured. It's a chemical that contains formaldehyde in it, and that formaldehyde can be released after inhalation," the writer, Pankow, said. "People shouldn't assume these e-cigarettes are completely safe." WT? Formaldehyde? And what about those essential oils? Vanilla ...

"I think Wikipedia is one of the greatest inventions ever!"  I bet you thought you'd never hear a professor say that. But when thinking deeper about the information highway, what I really love is that with a tad bit of effort you can find anything. The Public Domain Project over at Pond5  has so far collected 10,000 film clips, 64,000 images and hundreds of audio files free for public access. But what does one have access to exactly? “The project includes digital models of NASA tools and satellites, Georges Méliès’ 1902 film, A Trip To The Moon, speeches by political figures like Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King, Jr., recordings of performances from composers like Beethoven," boasts one of its bloggers. There are also every one's favorite cat videos . . . Very early cat videos. Open Culture imagines that some future creator "could make creative use of this stuff indeed, and if they need a score, they could use a concerto for pizzic...

You would think it would be crazy hard for new academic writers to write a college-level academic paper, but NO, what's really hard for new academic writers is to format that paper correctly, especially when it comes to  IN-TEXT CITATIONS (YES! that is ALL CAPS and BOLD ). Why? I don't know...it seems pretty straightforward to me, but then I've been writing and grading academic papers for a long time... would think it would be crazy hard for new academic writers to write a college-level academic paper, but NO! What's really hard for new academic writers is to format that paper correctly, especially when it comes to So here's the basics: If you borrow someone's idea, you have to give him or her credit--it's their idea. They did a lot of work to come up with something original, so give credit where credit is due. A person's ideas can be expressed verbally or in writing. A writer can use those ideas by paraphrasing, summarizing or quoting directly...

http://www.grammarly.com/ At least that's what 3,000 writers said when they were polled by Grammarly, the world's best grammar checker. But why are women better? According to those polled, women are better writers because they spend more time developing characters, women like to write more about people rather than things. Women are even better writers because they like to write purple prose -- "long, descriptive sentences." Or maybe this is just all a bunch of stereotyping? I would really like to know what the internals of this poll are. How many men were polled? How many women? What were the ages of those polled? If you look at the results of this poll (and it doesn't claim to be scientific), what would you guess about the internals? Do you agree with the results? Do you believe women are better writers than men? Who are some of the greatest writers of all time? Ouch, those are men, but is this the result of the male-dominated culture of the pas...

Stress is a necessary evil.  While we don't want to walk around feeling stressed all the time, it does help get successful results. We want to be in the middle of that bell curve when stress leads to increased attention and interest, but right before it causes strong anxiety. As you climb toward optimal performance, you have to stay calm because once you lose your cool, well, that can quickly lead to a "complete meltdown."  So what do successful people do to stay cool? Travis Bradberry over at Forbes.com  offers us some insight about how successful people stay calm. Appreciate what you have. "Taking time to contemplate what you’re grateful for isn't merely the 'right' thing to do. It also improves your mood, because it reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23%." Remember, 99 percent of the world's population, alive or dead, would love to be a college student in the San Francisco Bay Area. Avoid asking what if? "Calm people kno...

The Marrkkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley held a contest asking students to develop an Ethical Decision making app that incorporated values presented in the "Framework for Ethical Decision Making": "Making good ethical decisions requires a trained sensitivity to ethical issues and a  practiced method for exploring the ethical aspects  of a decision … The more novel and difficult the ethical choice we face, the more we need to rely on discussion and dialogue with others about the dilemma. Only by  careful exploration of the problem,  aided by the insights and different perspectives of others, can we make good ethical choices in such situations. We have found [this] framework for ethical decision making a useful method for exploring ethical dilemmas and  identifying ethical courses of action. " See any problems with this brand of moral decision making? What discussion and dialogue or insights of different perspective...

"Until you're actually in a catastrophe you don't know how you'd behave."  That's how Glenn Stutzky prefaces the MSU Summer 2014 class " Surviving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse – Disasters, Catastrophes, and Human Behavior ". When I first heard about this class, I didn't give it much credence.  Another crazy pop culture class - but then again, as a teacher of comics and all things related, I had to step back.  After all Walking Dead is one great comic book series that was serialized on television.  Although, I have to say, I still wasn't convinced that the zombie apocalypse was an appropriate fit in classes on the study of human behavior. That was before I watched the above video. What changed my mind?  The Mt. Diablo Fire of 2013.  I had always thought of myself as one of those people who, in the face of disaster, would remain calm, cool, and collected, rescuing neighbors and pets alike.  But, no, when Mt. Diablo was engulfed in fla...

We synthesize all the time. When you have a conversation with a friend about something your other friends have said about that certain someone, that's a synthesis. When you are given an assignment that asks you to use "at least one quote" to support your opinion, that's a synthesis. When you go on RateMyProfessor to find reviews of a specific professor in order to decide whether to take his or her class, that's a synthesis. When you read or watch the news, surf the internet, or your favorite video channel, and then form a new opinion, that's a synthesis. Every one of the posts on this blog are a synthesis.  I'm not reinventing the wheel here, I just look for articles that might interest college students, or help them understand a concept better, and then add my own "two cents", as my father would say. But let's take a closer look at the definition of an academic synthesis from Drew University : "Although at its most basi...

It may be hard to see in this home/work space, but there it is a cute little picture proclaiming "Do What You Love" next to another cute little graphic "Love What You Do." We've all heard this phrase, but at Jacobin an article entitled "In the Name of Love" claims that "There’s little doubt that 'do what you love' (DWYL) is now the unofficial work mantra for our time. The problem is that it leads not to salvation, but to the devaluation of actual work, including the very work it pretends to elevate — and more importantly, the dehumanization of the vast majority of laborers." After all, we're not all Bill Gates building computers in our garage. Is DWYL just a bit of self-aggrandizing fluff? Jacobin makes a good point when saying, "By keeping us focused on ourselves and our individual happiness, DWYL distracts us from the working conditions of others while validating our own choices and relieving us from obli...

Are you special? Over at Huffpo "Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy" hit the blogosphere claiming that Generation Y GYPSYs (Gen Y Protagonists & Special Yuppies) think they are "the main character of a very special story" and since they are the protagonist of their own story they are easily disappointed when everything doesn't go their way. Ouch! That's gotta hurt. Let's back up a minute here.  Who are these GYPSYs?  GYPSYs are "the generation born between the late 1970s and the mid 1990s . . [who are] also part of a yuppie culture that makes up a large portion of Gen Y." So I guess that's most of today's traditional age college students. GYPSY parents are part-Hippie, part-Yuppie.  Their grandparents are part of the Greatest Generation who grew up during the depression and then fought and won World War II - hence the "Pussies" comment from Gramps (btw, gramps says that about every succeeding generation). GYP...

According to the graphic " Anatomy of the World's Top-Performing CEOs " created by Domo the average CEO is a married guy with a receding hairline who has 3.1 children (I feel sorry for that .1 child). Furthermore he went to some fancy college.  On the other hand, only 29 percent hold an MBA and 61 percent were educated outside of the United States. Here's a stat that should make you smile, 79 percent were promoted from within; meaning hang in there and you can make your way up the corporate ladder. Here's another plus.  Many of the top companies are in California. What's missing? How old are these guys?  Receding hairlines and 3.1 children implies middle age.  It seems that experience (not just education) has a lot to do with a CEOs capabilities. What else is missing? Women.  Only two of the top 100 CEOs are women! Why in the 21st century do you think there are so few top women CEOs?  Do women dislike being CEOs?  Are women not cut ...

That is the question.  Well, apparently not for one high school senior attending an informational seminar for Bowdoin College, the school to which she had applied. "Throughout the presentation, she apparently posted disparaging comments on Twitter about her fellow attendees, repeatedly using a common expletive. "Perhaps she hadn’t realized that colleges keep track of their social media mentions," reported Dean Meikeljohn in "They Loved Your GPA Then They Saw Your Tweets." And you thought only employers would track such things? Think about it, if you owned a company or were the Dean of a college wouldn't you want to know what people are saying about your product, company, or college?  Of course, you would.  Would-be employers or colleges don't just Google perspective employees or students, they keep track of their web reputation as well.  "'We would have wondered about the judgment of someone who spends ...

When you reach college you will be writing a variety of research papers and by the time you reach second year English, your instructors expect that you know how to paraphrase, quote, use in-text citations, and create a works cited page entry in your sleep. Why is citation important? Plagiarism is one thing that can get your kicked out of college. Your ideas and your writing belong to you. Just like my thoughts and my writings belong to me and Shakespeare's thoughts and writings belong to him. So give credit where credit is due. Here are a couple of quizzes to test your knowledge: Click on the link for an In-Text Citation Quiz offered by McGraw-Hill Click on the next link for a Works Cited Quiz created by McGraw-Hill . So how did you do? Were you surprised by how much you knew about in-text citations and works cited entries? Or how much you need to learn? Don't worry it's not too late there are all kinds of online resources for avoiding plagiarism. I would also r...

In April 2012, The UK Guardian ran a story entitled "How to Download Your Data From Google and Facebook" and offers the following step-by-step instructions into your digital life. Google The Google user data which you're able to access through the site's transparency services are split across three places. Dashboard: The dashboard is the principal place to get information on all your Google services – and includes data from Picasa, Gmail, YouTube, search histories and more. You can get to it at www.google.com/dashboard/ – expect to have to re-enter your password, even if logged in. Account Activity: The dashboard has been going for three years now, but Google have added a new monthly monitoring feature with a few extra bits of information in the last month. Called Account Activity , it gives info on how much you've used different services, from which computers and browsers, and some extra bits of information. It's delivered to your inbox after si...