Math Knowledge

Two mathematicians were having dinner in a restaurant, arguing about the average mathematical knowledge of the American public. One mathematician claimed that this average was woefully inadequate, the other maintained that it was surprisingly high.

"I'll tell you what," said the cynic. "Ask that waitress a simple math question. If she gets it right, I'll pick up dinner. If not, you do." He then excused himself to visit the men's room, and the other called the waitress over.

"When my friend comes back," he told her, "I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to respond `one-third x cubed.' There's twenty bucks in it for you." She agreed.

The cynic returned from the bathroom and called the waitress over. "The food was wonderful, thank you," the mathematician started. "Incidentally, do you know what the integral of x squared is?"

The waitress looked pensive; almost pained. She looked around the room, at her feet, made gurgling noises, and finally said, "Um, one-third x cubed?"

So the cynic paid the check. The waitress wheeled around, walked a few paces away, looked back at the two men, and muttered under her breath, "...plus a constant."

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I found this anecdote here. Do visit the site if you want to read more.

Copywriting syllabus

Copywriting syllabus for BMM (Mumbai University)

Semester V

Paper II

Objectives:

To familiarize the students with various types of copywriting and develop their inherent writing skills

To train students to generate, develop and express ideas

To familiarize the students with contemporary advertising techniques

Syllabus

(Lectures to be used both for theory and practical)

1. Writing for print media - parts of a press ad- the headline, subhead, body copy (4)

2. Writing for TV (5)

• Writing scripts and developing story-boards
• Briefing the producer
• Pre-production
• Shooting
• Post-production

2. Writing for radio (5)

• Characteristics of radio environment
• Message strategy
• Writing the radio script
• Radio production process

3. Writing for Internet (1)

4. Writing for outdoor

5. Writing for direct mail-letters, product brochures, leaflets, folders etc. (1)

6. Writing for innovative media (1)

7. The skill of proof-checking (1)

8. The grammar of copy-writing (1)

9. Copy for specialized areas (12)

• Corporate advertising
• Financial advertising
• Recruitment ads
• Retail advertising
• Sale/Clearance Advertising
• Advertising in Indian Languages
• International markets - Language and campaign transfer
• Political advertising
• B2B advertising
• Local advertising
• Classified ads
• Catalogue copy
• Image advertising
• Fashion and Life style advertising
• Trade Advertising
• Mail order advertising
• PR advertising
• Non-commercial / public service advertising
• Government advertising
• Awareness advertising
• Agricultural advertising
• Rural advertising
• Food and beverages
• Durables
• Personal products

10. Different types of copy (7)

· Advertorials

· Infomercials

· Slogan and jingle ads

· Humour/sex/fear/anxiety ads

· Feel-good ads

· Light fantasy

· Demonstrations/testimonials

· Use of celebrity

· Slice of life

· Reason why

· Fund raising copy

· Comparative copy

· Motivational copy

11. Contemporary copywriting (5)

· The creative strategies, visual imagery, and copy used in current advertising

· Theoretical premises and industry practices.

12. Copy for different audiences (4)

· Children

· Women-Homemakers, modern women

· Senior citizens

· Executives

· Youth

13. Use of non-verbal communication in advertising (2)

• Use of colours, shapes, gestures
• Manipulation of the environments

Booklist

1. Arthur A Winters and Shirley F Milton, The Creative Connection : ad copy writing and idea visualization -- Fairchild Publications - 1989

2. Herschel Gordon Lewis, On the art of writing copy - Amacom 2000

3. Luke Sullivan, Hey Whipple, squeeze this - A guide to creating greater ads - John Wiley and sons 1998

4. Robert W Bly, The copywriter's handbook - Henry Holt and Company 1985

5. James L. Marra, Advertising Creativity : Techniques for Generating Ideas - Prentice-Hall 1990

6. Hank Seiden, Advertising Pure and Simple - Macmillan 1963

7. John Caples, Tested advertising methods.

Critical Issues in School Improvement

To quote from the ncrel site,

'Q: What is a "Critical Issue"?

A: "Critical Issue" is a multimedia document that examines a particular issue being tackled by educators engaged in school improvement. Currently, more than 75 Critical Issues are available in the following 10 areas: Assessment, At-risk, Family and Community, Instruction, Leadership, Literacy, Mathematics and Science, Policy, Professional Development, and Technology in Education. For example, under Literacy, you'll find the Critical Issue "Using Technology to Enhance Literacy Instruction," as well as several other Literacy-related Critical Issues.'

The ncrel directory of critical issues can be found here.

There are n number of ways in which the issue of school improvement can be approached.

ncrel ( north central regional educational laboratory) has adopted the approach of defining critical issues and examining each one in details. We, in India, can also adopt this methodology and identify critical issues pertinent to our respective environments and compile such documents. e.g. critical issue: supporting ways parents and families can become involved in schools can be found here.

Attention

When a student is actively engaged in your lesson, he or she pays attention.

That may sound simple, but it isn’t. Some students look at the teacher, but their minds are actually a million miles away. Paying attention means that students are actually focusing on what is going on in the classroom. It’s important to craft lessons that require students to pay attention to the task at hand. In every lesson or activity, you should provide an opportunity for students to do something. Ask them to create an example, build a model, draw a picture, write notes, or stand up and demonstrate what they have learned.

If you want to read more about this, you can read "Classroom Instruction" by Barbara Blackburn. Sample chapters are available here.

Making The Buds Open

"He who can open the bud, does it so simply'' said Ravindranath Tagore. Technology, however, is about making the buds open.

''Technology coerces beings, which are governed by a hidden law of emergence and withdrawal, into perpetual presence." said Heidegger

Animus, 'a philosophical journal of our times' makes interesting reading on the net. Its volume 8 of 2003 is devoted to aesthetics. I particularly liked Sean McGrath's article on Heidegger's thesis.

Interestingly, he discusses technology that allows the beautiful to occur. He has summarized his contention as :

"The ecological problem is an aesthetic crisis. The world is becoming increasingly less beautiful because of technology. Leavening Heidegger with a measure of largely forgotten medieval aesthetics, I maintain that we have forgotten the ontological relevance of the beautiful, and the aesthetic relevance of the ontological. We have allowed our technology to develop without consideration for aesthetic effect. I offer three criteria for a technology that allows the beautiful to occur: fittingness, transparency, and self-containment."

For explaining fittingness he quotes Robert Grosseteste as: “Beauty is a concordance and fittingness of a thing to itself and of all its individual parts to themselves and to each other and to the whole, and of the whole to all things [italics mine].”

Putting forth the criterion of transparency, he argues thus, " To be beautiful in a technical way is to let nature show itself through technology.."

Describing self-containment, he aptly explains Heidegger's notion of "sparing":

"A self-contained technology lets form shine without eclipsing nature. Like the painter who knows when to leave a detail at the level of suggestion, the writer who knows when to leave something unsaid, the architect who resists the inclination to ornamentation, a technology that allows the beautiful to occur holds back and lets be. Heidegger calls this “sparing.”

Those who have had even a slight brush with Philosophy, will enjoy the article immensely.

Seeing is believing

There are many reference tools available on the net. Click here to find Merriam-Webster visual dictionary. I feel this site is very rich and useful for students. This is what the publishers say:

''The Visual Dictionary Online is an interactive dictionary with an innovative approach.
From the image to the word and its definition, the Visual Dictionary Online is an all-in-one reference. Search the themes to quickly locate words, or find the meaning of a word by viewing the image it represents. What’s more, the Visual Dictionary Online helps you learn English in a visual and accessible way. The Visual Dictionary Online is ideal for teachers, parents, translators and students of all skill levels. Explore the Visual Dictionary Online and enrich your mind. Perfect for home, school or work. Discover a visual world of information''

The Writer's Secret

Nobel lecture (2006) by Ferit Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish author made interesting reading.

''...So my father was not the only one: we all give too much importance to the idea of a world with a centre. Whereas the impulse that compels us to shut ourselves up in our rooms to write for years on end is a faith in the opposite, the belief that one day our writings will be read and understood, because people the world over resemble one another. This, as I know from my own and my father’s writing, is a troubled optimism, scarred by the anger of being consigned to the margins...

... The writer’s secret is not inspiration—for it is never clear where that comes from—but stubbornness, endurance. The lovely Turkish expression “to dig a well with a needle” seems to me to have been invented with writers in mind...''

Click here to read the lecture in full.