Articles of Interest about Literature, Journalism, Writing & Languages – March 1

***WRITING & READING 

Only a third of American students are proficient readers sparking  a growing debate between proponents of a phonics-heavy approach and educators who prefer to instill a love of literature https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/15/us/reading-phonics.html

Local Bookstores Have A New Weapon In The Fight With Amazon https://www.forbes.com/sites/joanverdon/2020/02/14/advocate-for-local-bookstores-takes-aim-against-amazon-with-new-website/

China Sentences Hong Kong Bookseller To 10 Years In Jail https://www.npr.org/2020/02/25/809161935/china-sentences-hong-kong-bookseller-to-10-years-in-jail

***PLAGIARISM

The most common reason for plagiarizing was lack of time   https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11948-020-00198-1

Plagiarism detection systems “clearly do not find all plagiarism and at times also identify non-plagiarized material as problematic” https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.04279

***GRAMMAR

Programs that check grammar and spelling are letting students down. Here’s why.  https://www.courant.com/opinion/op-ed/hc-op-mcfadden-grammar-0301-20200301-7gpjzvgbgza4hgztcpwcbh3zom-story.html

The One Letter in the Alphabet That Can't Be Silent https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/616664/one-letter-alphabet-cant-be-silent

***JOURNALISM

Applied XLabs is a new startup building tools that can automate data-gathering for journalists  https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/27/newlab-boston-globe-applied-xlabs/

News literacy lessons: Have you stopped talking to people because of their political views? https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/02/14/news-literacy-lessons-have-you-stopped-talking-people-because-their-political-views/

The 10 Best News Aggregators of 2020 https://www.lifewire.com/best-news-aggregators-4584410

UK’s most opinionated man has penned angry letters to his local paper every single day for 42 years  https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/uks-most-opinionated-man-penned-17831704

About two-thirds of Americans feel worn out by the amount of news https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/02/26/almost-seven-in-ten-americans-have-news-fatigue-more-among-republicans/

A website that tracks changes on other websites (including PDFs) https://toolsforreporters.com/2020/02/25/keep-your-eye-on-em/

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Fast facts about the newspaper industry’s financial struggles as McClatchy files for bankruptcy https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/02/14/fast-facts-about-the-newspaper-industrys-financial-struggles/

Why the Success of The New York Times May Be Bad News for Journalism https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/01/business/media/ben-smith-journalism-news-publishers-local.html

***STUDENT MEDIA

Student Newspaper Editor on the paper’s coverage of a faculty member accused of murder and kidnapping https://dynamicsofwriting.com/2020/02/26/your-work-is-important-for-the-community-simpsonian-editor-discusses-the-papers-coverage-of-a-faculty-member-accused-of-murder-and-kidnapping/

***FAKES & FRAUDS 

How Some Are Trying To Teach Senior Citizens To Spot Fake News https://www.npr.org/2020/02/24/808995242/how-some-are-trying-to-teach-senior-citizens-to-spot-fake-news

When a Teenager Reportedly Invented a Fake Congressional Candidate, Twitter Verified the Made Up Politician's Account https://time.com/5793021/twitter-verified-fake-candidate/

***SOCIAL MEDIA 

What happens to our online lives after we die? https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/what-happens-our-online-lives-after-we-die

Behind that teenage TikTok star, there's probably a very confused parent  https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/18/tech/tiktok-parents/index.html

***LANGUAGE

A Fascinating Diagram Breaking Down The 100 Most-Spoken Languages In The World https://digg.com/2020/most-spoken-languages-world

 How babies learn language https://www.knowablemagazine.org/article/mind/2020/how-babies-learn-language

People who criticize African American Vernacular English don’t see that it shares grammatical structures with more “prestigious” languages. https://daily.jstor.org/black-english-matters/

***LITERATURE & POETRY

Top 10 random encounters in literaturehttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/19/top-10-random-encounters-in-literature

Tracy K. Smith changed how I read poetry (poetry)  https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/vox/the-ezra-klein-show

***PRIVACY & SECURITY 

Hackers could crack a voting app already used in US elections https://www.technologyreview.com/f/615195/hackers-can-change-votes-in-an-online-election-app/

How to protect your privacy on Instagram https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/27/21154221/instagram-privacy-how-to-stories-posts-settings-tags-ads-blocking