The Writer's News
Reprinted from the March/April 2008 issue of the Writer's Chronicle.
Colleges Nationwide Use Anti-plagiarism Software
Colleges nationwide have introduced anti-plagiarism software to help combat the growing trend of digital plagiarism according to a report by USA Today. As the Internet expands in content, it continues to enable students to access a more diverse collection of websites from which to “borrow” information. The developers of programs such as TurnItIn and MyDropBox.com have contracted with universities to require students check their work against a database of previously submitted work and websites before turning it in.
In 2006, an estimated 10.4 million students were enrolled in either program. Schools accrue licensing fees for their students, ranging from 40 to 80 cents per student.
Both TurnItIn and MyDropBox use a similar process, which takes less than a minute. Once a paper is submitted electronically to the program’s website, the program “memorizes” the information and creates a “digital fingerprint” of its content before checking it against a digital information database which scours the Internet, newspaper and encyclopedia archives, and previously submitted student work for similarities. The program issues a score for the paper based on its resemblance to existing work, highlights matching text passages and identifies the matching text within the database, and gives the professor the opportunity to view the similarities between the passages.
The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award
Australian author Sonya Hartnett is the newest recipient of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. The world’s most valuable children’s and youth literary award, worth $880,000. The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award was created by the Swedish government in 2002 in honor of the Swedish writer, who popularized several fictional characters including Pippi Longstocking. Hartnett will receive her award during a ceremony on May 28, when Swedish Crown Princess Victoria will present the prize money.
Hartnett was nominated last year as well, but was not chosen in the end. “I really don’t know why they chose me except that I guess that my work is a little different, and…no holds barred…Whether they thought that’s worth acknowledging, I don’t know. Whatever they thought, I’m glad they thought it,” she told the Australian.
Hartnett’s modesty aside, the award’s jury described Hartnett as “one of the major forces for renewal in modern young adult fiction… With psychological depth and a concealed yet palpable anger, she depicts the circumstances of young people without avoiding the darker sides of life… She does so with linguistic virtuosity and a brilliant narrative technique; her works are a source of strength.”
American Council on Education Forsees Decline in College Applications
According to a report in the Washington Post, the American Council on Education predicts that the number of college applicants will experience a considerable decline for the first time in years. Colleges and Universities should not only expect a decrease in the number of applicants, but a shift in the racial and ethnic makeup of their student populations. Schools are aiming to focus their recruitment efforts on the specific demographic area that is projected to decline prominently, namely the estimated 10% of non-Hispanic whites who will not be applying to institutions of higher education.
Despite the overall decline in applications, the report also cites a double-digit rise in the number of minority students, especially Hispanics, who will apply to colleges in coming years—students who have traditionally been less likely to attend college and who are now looking to loans to fund their education. Analysts project that minority enrollment at undergraduate institutions is anticipated to rise from 30% in 2004 to approximately 37% in 2015.
The demographic changes will affect both the individual applicant and the ability of specific universities to thrive. For students, some may see their opportunities to attend highly selective schools significantly increase or decrease based on racial or ethnic factors. For universities, location, resources, and academic reputation will dictate which schools continue to prosper. Schools at a disadvantage include those located in remote areas, ones with fewer resources, and ones with no specific academic focus. Public universities will be more likely to thrive, thanks to generous endowments, the opportunities provided by the state to continue upgrading their facilities and programs, and their lower tuition rates.
Encyclopædia Britannica to Focus on Web Sales
Since the boom of the Internet began, scholars have feared its negative effect on the literary world. Perhaps they had good reason to be concerned. According to multiple announcements from publishers, encyclopedias have now joined books, newspapers, and magazines in decreased print sales. A February 2008 article in the New York Times reported that while the Encyclopædia Britannica company led the industry in the 1990s, its thirty-two-volume set peaking in sales in 1990, figures have plummeted in recent years. The sales team at Encyclopædia Britannica rushed to offer online resources to its customers, but reports indicate that despite this effort, figures plummeted by 60 percent during the period of 1990 to 1996.
According to Jorge Aguilar-Cauz, president of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., libraries and schools now comprise the majority of its customers, and sales are only 10 percent of what they were in 1990. The Encyclopædia Americana has maintained its print volume sales, according to Greg Worrell, president of Scholastic Classroom and Library Group, but its long-term plan focuses on web-based sales. “The likelihood is there will not be the 2009 multivolume print version,” he acknowledged.
R.L. Stine is Back
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Popular young adult writer R.L. Stine returns to the publishing scene this year, following an eight-year hiatus in which Stine experimented with other types of writing. His hugely successful “Goosebumps” series thrust Stine into the limelight ten years ago, when readers, mostly ages 8-12, devoured the extensive series, prompting USA Today to name Stine as the best-selling author in America for three consecutive years. Scholastic, Stine’s publisher, was at one point selling four million copies a month.
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Stine achieved his first success targeting a slightly older audience with his teenage horror series called “Fear Street,” in which many storylines involved the untimely demise of Fear Street High School students. When Parachute Press approached him about writing a series aimed at a younger demographic, Stine says he was “having a good time killing off teenagers.”
Stephen King, in an article for Entertainment Weekly, suggests that Stine’s success has a large part in promoting J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, writing, “He’s (Stine) largely unknown and uncredited…But of course, John the Baptist never got the same press as Jesus, either.”
Even without new titles, the Goosebumps series continues to sell approximately two million copies a year, according to Deborah Forte, president of Scholastic Media. Despite its success in the past, Stine is realistic about the odds of regaining that level of popularity. “Maybe it’ll be hard to do a second time,” he said. “Maybe it’ll happen again. Right now I don’t know.” |
PEN World Voices Festival
The 2008 PEN World Voices Festival kicks off on April 29, where 170 writers from fifty-one countries will converge to address this year’s theme of Public Lives/Private Lives. Notable authors include Andre Aciman, Umberto Eco, Nuruddin Farah, Adam Gopnik, Leonard Lopate, Michael Ondaatje, and Annie Proulx.
Over 200 members of the publishing industry attended a reception for the festival in March, boarding the ocean liner Queen Mary 2 to celebrate the upcoming event. The on-board luncheon featured readings from several festival participants and was hosted by Salman Rushdie, the festival chair, and Francine Prose, PEN American Center president. In an article published in Publisher’s Weekly, PEN ExEcutive director Michael Roberts stated that “holding the reception on the greatest ocean liner in the world was an apt metaphor for the festival’s goal” of crossing barriers internationally.
| Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) |
Arthur C. Clarke, the science fiction writer who co-wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey with director Stanley Kubrick, died March 19 at his home in Sri Lanka. He was 90 years old.
Clarke won worldwide acclaim by authoring more than 100 books on space, science, and the future. Born in western England on December 16, 1917, Clarke served in the Royal Air Force during World War II, as a radar instructor and technician. He was also credited with proposing communications satellites decades before they became a practical reality. In 1963, he was awarded the Franklin Institute Stuart Ballantine Gold Medal, and in 1994 he was nominated for the Nobel Prize. He served as chairman of the Interplanetary Society from 1947 to 1950. He also fought for the preservation of lowland gorillas, and served as long-time host of the British television series “Mysterious World.” He emigrated to Sri Lanka in 1956.
In 1962, Clarke postulated the first of what would become known as “Clarke’s Three Laws of Prediction,” which state famously:
1.) When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2.) The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3.) Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Clarke was buried on March 22, and, pursuant to his final wishes, “absolutely no religious rites of any kind, relating to any religious faith,” were associated with his funeral. Clarke’s gravestone was engraved, as he had instructed, “Here lies Arthur C. Clarke. He never grew up and did not stop growing.” |
March/April 2008 News
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