academiblog

Wordsmith's newsletter, " A Word a Day ," brings us a word that academics need to know. perendinate PRONUNCIATION: (puh-REN-di-nayt) MEANING: verb tr. : To put off until the day after tomorrow. verb intr.: To stay at a college for an extended time. ETYMOLOGY: From Latin perendinare (to defer until the day after tomorrow), from perendie (on the day after tomorrow), from die (day). NOTES: The word procrastinate is from Latin cras (tomorrow). So when you procrastinate, literally speaking, you are putting something off till tomorrow. Mark Twain once said, "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow." In other words, why procrastinate when you can perendinate? USAGE: "In Peterhouse the Master and Fellows might now allow a stranger to perendinate for more than a fortnight unless they were certified of his moral character and of his ability and willingness to do the College some notable service." Thomas Alfred Walker; Peterhouse; Hut

A blog post recording by Beth Lapides, the "High Priestess of Alternative Comedy" gives some hints as to how you can quiet negative voices and keep on writing (although in her podcast she was actually talking about how to quiet the negative voices when you're onstage doing stand-up comedy). Here is what I gleaned -- you can see how it applies to writing. Remind yourself of your motivation for writing the piece -- what was the point in the beginning? Engage with the audience -- try to talk directly (in your mind) to the people who will be reading your work Re-connect with the core thread of your argument -- write it out to remind yourself if necessary Figure out your "take" or point of view -- what is your unique angle? Become clear about your "entry point" into the material. Where does your part of the story begin? I don't know if your writing will make 'em laugh, but at least you can keep on writing and ignore those negative voices.

This posting from the Tomorrow's Professor listserv, sent out by Rick Reis, summarizes a study on how males perceive females' tendency to admit weakness. Women: forewarned is forarmed. Sigh. _________________ The posting below looks at the impact of communication styles on male and female students in engineering team projects although the results have implications for all gender-mixed work groups . The article is by Joanna Wolfe and Elizabeth Powell and is from theJournal of Engineering Education Selects "Research in Practice" section of ASEE Prism, March 2009. © Copyright 2009, American Society for Engineering Education, reprinted with permission, 1818 N Street, N.W., Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036-2479, Web: www.asee.org Rick Reis reis@stanford.edu UP NEXT: Testing and Grading Tomorrow's Teaching and Learning -------------------------------------------- 615 words ------------------------------------------ He Said, She Said: Gender-Typ