Tuesday Tutoring Tip for November 17, 2009

Always avoid articulating an argument as based around or off of anything;
also adhere to the appropriate application, based on. Arguments and
theories, much like buildings are based on something, not based around or
based off of anything. An item’s base is found at the bottom, so it only
makes sense to use based on. Based around implies a foundation in the
center of an object. Based off of is contradictory. Remember, the basis
of an argument is similar to the base of a physical object.

Jim Zuercher
Staff Writing Tutor

The tired troublemakers taunt the tutors who tout trigonometry to terrified teens trying to tug their tent taut in a thunderstorm. These three “T-words” sound alike, but have very different meanings. Taut (also not to be confused with taught, the past tense of teach) means tight, as in “the rope was pulled taut,” and is always an adjective.
Taunt can be a noun or a verb, and has a meaning similar to harass and ridicule. Tout is only used as a verb, and is much more positive, defined as praising or recommending someone or something enthusiastically. As a general rule of thumb, a people tout things they like and respect; they are more likely to taunt people they don’t. When setting up a tent, the degree of tautness could lead to being touted (good) or taunted (bad).

Jim Zuercher
Staff Writing Tutor

WEDNESDAY WEB WRAP-UP for November 11, 2009

Today is Veterans’ Day, also once known as Armistice Day; it honors our military veterans. November 11th also commemorates the end of the Great War, World War I. Accordingly, today’s Wrap-up is “Iowa in the Great War,” a special project of IAGenWeb, an Iowa history and genealogy site. It pays tribute to Iowans who served in World War I. Its content includes an extensive selection of primary sources including news articles, remembrances, letters home, biographies and images.

Click here to explore this resource >>> http://iagenweb.org/greatwar/.

Jim Fisk
Student Academic Services Coordinator and Librarian

WEDNESDAY WEB WRAP-UP for November 4, 2009

Today’s Wrap-up is a free full text database from the National Institutes of Health. Although from its name, Pubmed Central, one would think that its content is limited to medical science related articles, I have discovered over time that its coverage reflects the breadth of the life sciences. For example, yesterday, a student and I located articles about an invasive species, the Sea Lamprey.

For beginners, I would recommend using the basic search interface. Connectors however may be used in basic searches as in lamprey AND “Great Lakes.” An Advance Search utility is also available, an adequate explanation of which, however, is better delivered face-to-face.

Click here to find out more >>> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/.

Jim Fisk
Student Academic Services Coordinator and Librarian

Tonight, the World Series starts and as such, it seems apropos that baseball is this week’s theme. Two sites are featured here. Baseball-almanac.com is a database having all sorts of baseball trivia imaginable. Here you will find history of the game, team histories and individual player records.

Major League Baseball also has it official place on the Web. In particular MLB.com includes extensive coverage of this year’s World Series. It can be viewed by clicking here >>> http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/ps/y2009/.

Click here for the baseball almanac >>> http://www.baseball-almanac.com/index.shtml.

Jim Fisk
Student Academic Services Coordinator and Librarian

WEDNESDAY WEB WRAP-UP for October 21, 2009

This week’s Wrap-up might be especially helpful to senior education majors who are or will be writing their “issues” paper soon. Edutopia is the work of George Lucas of Star Wars fame and the Foundation named for him. According to its founders, Edutopia is a “place where children become lifelong learners and develop the technical, cultural, and interpersonal skills to succeed in the twenty-first century.” To this end, Edutopia.org (2009) is a collection of resources informed in part by “success stories” from the field and by “participation from schools and communities.”

Click here to find out more >>> http://www.edutopia.org/.

Jim Fisk
Student Academic Services Coordinator and Librarian

Effective educators embrace and encourage
by eradicating errors entwining eminent and imminent in every context.
These two words are easily confused because they sound so much
alike. Eminent means prominent or famous; “The eminent scholar
easily defeated the upstart politician in the debate.” One
common use of this word describes the government’s power to
confiscate private property for public good.   The term
“eminent domain,” refers to the government’s eminent
status in society.   Imminent means impending, most commonly
used to describe a threat as in “you are in imminent danger.”
Happy and potentially beneficial events can also be imminent, as long as
they are going to happen soon, as in, “after I hand in my paper, a
good grade is imminent.”

Jim Zuercher
Staff Writing Tutor

This comes to you from Library Services at Morningside College …
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Back on March 5th of last year, I featured The Encyclopedia of Life as a Wrap-up. At the time, I described it as a work in process and suggested frequent visits to the site. This week’s WWW again features this online reference database. Since March of 2008, thousands of entries have been added as well as more interactive features. An example of a typical entry, the goldfish can be viewed here >>> http://www.eol.org/pages/1298984. As you visit each entry, you’ll want to note the many links that accompany the article, including the one that links to the original source of the information.

Bookmark this biological sciences reference database by clicking here >>> http://www.eol.org/.

Jim Fisk
Student Academic Services Coordinator and Librarian

Tuesday Tutoring Tip for October 13, 2009

Always annunciate and articulate all the Ss in asterisk; avoiding the aft S assembles asterik, an absurd abomination that advertises anti-awareness. Some people pronounce (and spell) this word without its second S. These people do themselves a disservice. The word itself comes from the Greek word asteriskos, which means little star. It is both a mark of punctuation meaning refer to something else, and a way of saying additional circumstances apply, as in Barry Bonds’ home run record should have an asterisk by it because of his alleged involvement with steroids.
Remember: the asterisk is worth the risk.