[bksvol-discuss] OT: Term Papers (was Re: Books Without Page Numbers)
- From: "Monica Willyard" <rhyami@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:42:29 -0400
Lori, I had a blast doing the Agatha Christie paper. I had a British lit
teacher who believed it's better to work with a student's interests than to
limit study to a narrow list of acceptable authors. She let me dress up like
a character from The Canterbury Tales and let me recite the introduction in
Middle English to our class because the changes in the course of English
dialects fascinated me. She made that my final exam for the class. She also
gave me the freedom to work on writing about the works of Dickens, Christie,
and the Bronte sisters for various projects. I think I learned more in that
class than in most of my other classes put together. I had to learn some
basic French words to understand Hercule Poirot, had to learn about
geography and architecture while reading Wuthering Heights, and learned so
much about society and human nature from reading Jane Eyre and David
Copperfield. My term papers left me feeling curious, excited, and hungry for
more so that I continued reading and learning long after my class had ended.
While I liked to be creative in this way, the boy sitting next to me was shy
and wasn't comfortable writing. One of his projects was to build a replica
of the castle in Macbeth. I don't think he enjoyed his term papers, but this
teacher went out of her way to encourage him to build, draw, or use diagrams
to explain what he was learning. This guy wanted to build houses once he
finished school, and it was all he talked about. Building the castle seemed
to flip a switch with him so that he was one of the first students to go to
class. I'm pretty sure he still remembers Macbeth. He got his first A in an
English class, and I thought he was going to burst from excitement. (smile)
His model castle was elaborately detailed, and that's how I know what a
tower looks like. To me, that's the mark of an excellent teacher. Getting a
student curious enough to want to learn independently is a talent that few
of my teachers chose to develop.
Monica Willyard
"The best way to predict the future is to create it." -- Peter Drucker
-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Lori Castner
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 8:29 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Books Without Page Numbers
Right, but the problem will start with the scanner. If page numbers don't
scan, the only options a submitter has is to get sighted help to be sure the
page numbers are added correctly or if lucky to rely on an optacon.
It will be a dilemma in some situations.
A term paper on Agatha Christy's work--how intriguing!
Lori
----- Original Message -----
From: "Monica Willyard" <rhyami@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 4:46 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Books Without Page Numbers
> Lori, I do see your dilemma. It's why Bookshare doesn't require page
> numbers
> right now. The page numbers in books don't always scan correctly, and some
> books don't have page numbers in print. Sometimes it really doesn't
> matter.
>
> My issue isn't with books like yours. Mine is with people deliberately
> using
> techniques to remove page numbers that did scan properly. I'm not guessing
> that they did it. They told me so and in the presence of other volunteers
> as
> well. They say that since Bookshare doesn't require them, no one cares if
> they're stripped out. This bothers me because both of these people ended
> up
> having missing pages in their books, and they couldn't provide them to me
> since they had no page numbers to go on and couldn't find the print pages
> in
> their books. I ended up buying print books just to go through and find the
> missing text. I discovered from having the books myself that a whole
> chapter
> was missing from the file I was proofreading. I probably should have just
> rejected these books as soon as I saw missing text, and I probably will in
> the future if I can't tell how many pages are missing.
>
> Also, even though it may sound strange, some people do need access to the
> correct print page numbers with light fiction. Sometimes people are using
> these books in book clubs, citing them for book reports, quoting them in
> blog posts or reviews, or referring to the book when writing a paper of
> literary criticism. I did my literary criticism paper on Agatha Christie's
> work, and I had an awful time because many of the Bookshare copies lack
> page
> numbers. Citation became a time-consuming issue, and that's normally the
> easy part of writing a term paper.
>
> I guess there isn't a clear-cut answer here. This is why I should stick to
> scanning. (smile)
>
> Monica Willyard
> "The best way to predict the future is to create it." -- Peter Drucker
>
>
> __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus
> signature
> database 4026 (20090421) __________
>
> The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
>
> http://www.eset.com
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to
> bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> put the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list
> of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.
>
To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to
bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
put the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of
available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.
__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature
database 4026 (20090421) __________
The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
http://www.eset.com
To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to
bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
put the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of
available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.
Other related posts:
- » [bksvol-discuss] OT: Term Papers (was Re: Books Without Page Numbers) - Monica Willyard
