Identity Texts Research Articles

Student beliefs and attitudes about authorial identity in academic writing

Authorial identity is the sense a writer has of themselves as an author and the textual identity they construct in their writing. This article describes two studies exploring psychology students' authorial identity in academic writing. A qualitative focus group study with 19 students showed that authorial identity was largely unfamiliar to students, and highlighted the obstacles perceived by students to constructing authorial identities in university assignments. A questionnaire survey of 318 students explored the factor structure of an 18‐item Student Authorship Questionnaire. Three factors described aspects of student authorial identity (‘confidence in writing’, ‘understanding authorship’ and ‘knowledge to avoid plagiarism’), and three factors described approaches to writing (‘top‐down’, ‘bottom‐up’ and ‘pragmatic’). Confidence in writing and knowledge to avoid plagiarism were significantly higher among year 2 than year 1 students. Both studies could inform interventions to reduce unintentional plagiarism by improving students' authorial identity.

Second Language Identities by David Block

<i>Second Language Identities</i> by <scp>David Block</scp>

Damsels in Discourse: Girls Consuming and Producing Identity Texts Through Disney Princess Play

This is the postprint, author's accepted manuscript version of this article after peer review.

Affirming plural belonging: Building on students' family-based cultural and linguistic capital through multiliteracies pedagogy

This article reports on a qualitative case study involving pedagogical innovations grounded in culturally and linguistically inclusive approaches to curriculum. In this project, kindergarten children were supported in collaboratively authoring Dual Language Identity Texts. Our findings suggest that as family and teacher conceptions of literacy were extended beyond traditional monolingual print-based literacy, home literacies associated with complex transnational and transgenerational communities of practice were legitimated through their inclusion within the school curriculum. This process invited family members to take up roles as expert partners in children's biliteracy development. Further, conditions were fostered for parents to consider and articulate their beliefs and values vis-à-vis their children's multiliterate practice and participation within these multiple, transnational communities.

Recovering Love’s Fugitive: Elizabeth Wilmot and the Oscillations between the Sexual and Textual Body in a Libertine Woman’s Manuscript Poetry

Recovering Love’s Fugitive: Elizabeth Wilmot and the Oscillations between the Sexual and Textual Body in a Libertine Woman’s Manuscript Poetry

Notice of duplicate publication.

© 2008, Asian Journal of Andrology, SIMM and SJTU. All rights reserved. Asian Journal of Andrology (AJA) wishes to inform its readers of the following incident of duplicate publication. The article Molecular mechanism of epididymal protease inhibitor modulating the liquefaction of human semen [1] by Wang ZJ, Zhang W, Feng NH, Song NH, Wu HF and Sui YG, published in the Sep 2008 issue of AJA contains substantial data from the two original articles by Wang ZJ et al. [2] and O’Rand MG et al. [3] based on work performed by Dr Wang while in Dr O’Rand’s laboratory. Wang ZJ, et al. [1] used common data and identical text extensively without the permission of Dr. Michael G. O’Rand, the corresponding author of the two original articles [2, 3]. Specifically, Figures 2 and 3 in AJA [1] were same with Figures 6 and 7 in Biol Reprod [2], and Figure 4 in AJA [1] was the same with Figure 4 in Mol Cell Endocrinol [3]. Dr Wang ZJ is a co-author of original articles [2, 3] and cited these two original articles as references in Wang ZJ et al.[1].

Ockham and Political Discourse in the Late Middle Ages (review)

Reviewed by: Ockham and Political Discourse in the Late Middle Ages George Knysh Ockham and Political Discourse in the Late Middle Ages. By Takashi Shogimen. [Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, Fourth Series, Vol. 69.] (New York: Cambridge University Press. 2007. Pp. xiv, 301. $99.00. ISBN 978-0-521-84581-6.) This latest monograph on Ockham's political thought is close in spirit to much earlier publications, especially to Arthur Stephen McGrade's The [End Page 809] Political Thought of William of Ockham (1974), which it frequently cites and debates, sometimes with approval, sometimes not. Except for sporadic text-critical utilizations, Shogimen's volume ignores the British Academy's ongoing edition of Ockham's Dialogus (1995–) with its useful introductions and analyses. Shogimen rejects "anything like a 'unity' or a 'system' in Ockham's polemic activities" (pp. 32–33). Nevertheless, he then asserts that he will be presenting Ockham's views as a series of "consistent responses from a constant perspective to a variety of changing issues." Such ambiguous self-contradictions abound in Shogimen's book, in comments on Ockham no less than on scholarly assessments of his positions. He clarifies his fundamental conclusion in two main contexts (pp.34–35, pp. 261–62), suggesting that Ockham was not a destructive critic of medieval ecclesiastical institutions, a traditionalist conservative opposing papal innovations, a Franciscan ideologue, nor a constitutional liberal, but rather an "'ecclesiastical republican', a republican in the medieval ecclesiological context"(p. 258),who "restored the language of morality in late mediaeval political discourse" (p. 262) by exhorting his fellows "to fulfill their public duties in the Christian community" (p. 261). The challenge of an accurate political labeling of Ockham cannot be resolved save through painstaking analysis of his tracts, especially the Dialogus. Convincing scholarship requires a sound method of interpretation and a correct reading of the text. Shogimen's monograph is sometimes weak in both respects. He has no discernible approach toward textual identities other than "agreeing with Kilcullen and Knysh" (p. 76, n. 1). This seems impressionistic and arbitrary. No one in agreement with Political Ockhamism's pp. 237–42 could, for instance, claim that Ockham thought the true faith might temporarily reside in the mind of an infant (pp. 104, 238). Even more serious are Shogimen's lapses as to proper textual reporting. One example suffices, although more could be adduced. Crucial to Shogimen's thesis that Ockham was an "ecclesiastical republican" is the contention that he accepted the possibility of drastic constitutional change in the Church (e.g., aristocratic government), due to his alleged rejection of "papal" (as contrasted to "Petrine") primacy (pp. 175–231). Copiously citing 3 Dialogus 1 in evidence,Shogimen fails to inform his readers that in 3 Dialogus 1.2.25 Ockham categorically ruled out the "aristocratic" scenario as contravening Christ's ordination and took his stand firmly on traditional Catholicism. Nor did Ockham play modernistic games with papal primacy. There are multiple texts in 3 Dialogus 1 (the best are in 3 Dial. 1.1.16 and 17, both left unmentioned by Shogimen) where Ockham clearly stated that primacy was granted by Christ to Peter "et successoribus suis." Equally devastating for the theory of a "republican" Ockham is his ad nauseam repetition in the Dialogus that his communitas christianorum was strictly regulated on the basis of status et gradus, a view that does not correlate at all with Shogimen's anachronistic presentation of an equalitarian Christian fellowship founded on cognitive criteria (p. 259). [End Page 810] The failure of an author's fundamental idea does not condemn his enterprise to residual insignificance. Georges de Lagarde is a case in point. Shogimen's monograph is not as constructively creative as McGrade's, as comprehensively truth-building as Jürgen Miethke's, or as delightfully provocative and insightful as Brian Tierney's Ockham chapters and articles. Despite the weaknesses noted, Shogimen offers interesting contributions to our understanding of the politics of the Venerabilis Inceptor. His constant comparisons of Ockham to his contemporaries in their treatment of common theoretical issues are original and informative, and his frequent attempts to relate Ockham's technical philosophy to his polemic output are enlightening. For this...

Up All Night: A Short Story Collection (review)

Reviewed by: Up All Night: A Short Story Collection Karen Coats Abrahams, Peter Up All Night: A Short Story Collection; by Peter Abrahams, Libba Bray, David Levithan, et al. Geringer/HarperCollins, 2008 228p Library ed. ISBN 978-0-06-137077-9 $17.89 Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-06-137076-2 $16.99 R Gr. 7–10 Six long short stories, one of them in a graphic format, explore the way the world changes in the middle of the night. Emotions become raw, honesty breaks through carefully tended façades, grief is magnified, and secrets are exposed. Subjects include the loss of a father in Iraq, an out-all-night concert excursion, a breaking down of polite barriers between strangers, a girl escaping potential abuse at the hands of her stepfather, the death of a beloved pet and with it the loss of something more poignant, and a monkey trying to discover the mysterious secrets of his origin. It won’t be hard for avid YA readers to link up most of the stories with their authors, as the topics are well-traveled ground for Libba Bray, David Levithan, and Patricia McCormick; relative newcomers Peter Abrahams, Sarah Weeks, and Gene Luen Yang begin to etch out a recognizable textual identity here as well. While none of the stories stands out as exceptional, they are all conceptually solid and well-crafted as they touch on recognizable emotional quandaries for the somniatically challenged. Author’s notes with pictures are a nicely intimate touch, and Laura Geringer’s introduction provides context, citing classic stories that have provided creepy nocturnal reading through the years. Copyright © 2008 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Scrapbooking the criminal defence file

This article moves away from a common understanding of a criminal defence file as a container for relevant documentation and addresses it as a cultural object which organizes and performs various written documents towards making a case. In my examination I employ rhetorical ethnography of communication. Suggested by Thomas Farrell and Tamar Katriel, the method was originally applied to the analysis of the scrapbooks presented as the cultural text of identity. Drawing on the analogy between the legal file and the scrapbook I show how specific activities (saving; organizing; sharing) expose the criminal defence file to be a culturally choreographed way of law-making, whose performative identity is defined by forensic, deliberative, and testimonial discourses.

Writeprints

One of the problems often associated with online anonymity is that it hinders social accountability, as substantiated by the high levels of cybercrime. Although identity cues are scarce in cyberspace, individuals often leave behind textual identity traces. In this study we proposed the use of stylometric analysis techniques to help identify individuals based on writing style. We incorporated a rich set of stylistic features, including lexical, syntactic, structural, content-specific, and idiosyncratic attributes. We also developed the Writeprints technique for identification and similarity detection of anonymous identities. Writeprints is a Karhunen-Loeve transforms-based technique that uses a sliding window and pattern disruption algorithm with individual author-level feature sets. The Writeprints technique and extended feature set were evaluated on a testbed encompassing four online datasets spanning different domains: email, instant messaging, feedback comments, and program code. Writeprints outperformed benchmark techniques, including SVM, Ensemble SVM, PCA, and standard Karhunen-Loeve transforms, on the identification and similarity detection tasks with accuracy as high as 94% when differentiating between 100 authors. The extended feature set also significantly outperformed a baseline set of features commonly used in previous research. Furthermore, individual-author-level feature sets generally outperformed use of a single group of attributes.

Imagining multilingual schools: languages in education and glocalization

I. INTRODUCTION 1. Weaving spaces and (de)constructing ways for multilingual schools: The actual and the imagined - Ofelia Garcia, Tove Skutnabb-Kangas and Maria Torres-Guzman II. PEDAGOGIES, VALUES AND SCHOOLS 2. Identity texts: The imaginative construction of self through multiliteracies pedagogy Jim Cummins (OISE, University of Toronto) 3. Imagining multilingual education in France: A language and cultural awareness project at primary level - Christine Helot (Institut Universitaire de Formation des Maitres) and Andrea Young (Institut Universitaire de Formation de Maitres) 4. Reclaiming multilingual America: Lessons from Native American youth - Teresa L. McCarty (Arizona State University), Mary Eunice Romero (Arizona State University), Ofelia Zepeda (University of Arizona) 5. Attitudes towards language learning in different linguistic models of the Basque Autonomous Community - Feli Etxeberria-Sagastume (Universidad del Pais Vasco/ Euskal Herriko Universitatea) III. EXTENDING FORMAL INSTRUCTIONAL SPACES 6. Back to basics: Marketing the benefits of bilingualism to parents - Viv Edwards (University of Reading) and Lynda Pritchard Newcombe 7. Popular education and language rights in indigenous Mayan communities: Emergence of new social actors and gendered voices - Karen Ogulnick(Long Island University) IV. TENSIONS BETWEEN MULTIPLE REALITIES 8. Imagined multilingual schools: How come we don't deliver? - Elana Shohamy (Tel Aviv University) 9. Monolingual assessment and emerging bilinguals: A case study in the U.S. - Kathy Escamilla (University of Colorado) 10. The Long road to multilingual schools in Botswana - Lydia Nyati-Ramahobo (University of Botswana) V. NEGOTIATING POLICIES OF IMPLEMENTATION 11. Nichols to NCLB: Local and global perspectives on U.S. language education policy - Nancy Hornberger (University of Pennsylvania) 12. Cultural diversity, multilingualism and indigenous education - Luis Enrique Lopez (Universidad Mayor de San Simon) 13. Multilingualism of the unequals and predicaments of education in India - Ajit K. Mohanty (Jawaharlal Nehru University)

Faith, Doubt, and Textual Identity

(2008). Faith, Doubt, and Textual Identity. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies: Vol. 23, Paul John Eakin and James Olney: A Festschrift, pp. 52-64.

Just-in-time Training for Medical Emergencies: Computer versus Paper Checklists for a Tracheal Intubation Task

Responding to medical emergencies quickly and effectively is essential. In remote or hostile environments, fully trained medical personnel are not always available, so clear and effective guidance is required. This paper reports a comparison of paper-based and computer-based checklists for just-in-time training for medical emergencies. In a between-subjects experiment, untrained participants carried out an emergency airway management task on a patient simulator either using a paper-based checklist with text and still images or using a computer-based checklist that included identical text plus video clips. Participants using the computer-based checklist performed significantly faster and more proficiently than those using the paper checklist. Subjective usability and preference measures were also superior for computer checklist. The results suggest the clear superiority of the computer-based checklist for untrained responders. We discuss which aspects of the computer-based checklist may contribute to its superiority.

Qaddish: Untersuchungen zur Entstehung und Rezeption eines rabbinischen Gebetes (review)

Reviewed by: Qaddish: Untersuchungen zur Entstehung und Rezeption eines rabbinischen Gebetes Ra‘anan S. Boustan Andreas Lehnardt. Qaddish: Untersuchungen zur Entstehung und Rezeption eines rabbinischen Gebetes. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 87. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002. Pp. xiv + 386. The ubiquity and elasticity of the Kaddish (alt. Qaddish) within Jewish liturgical practice has made this brief, but enigmatic prayer a perennial object of both scholarly and popular interest. It is our great fortune that we now have a study that has done justice to the complexity and specificity of the historical development of the Kaddish. In a monograph that is focused and sweeping in equal measure, Andreas Lehnardt sets out to explain both how and why the Kaddish emerged as a major structuring element within the Jewish liturgy at the same time that it attracted a diverse range of liturgical applications. Lehnardt's study is grounded in the methodological insight that the histories of (Jewish) prayers such as the Kaddish, with their fluctuating textual identities and heterogeneous liturgical functions, must integrate text-historical, literary-historical, and reception-historical considerations. Studies of early Jewish worship in particular are constrained by the decentralized nature of Jewish religious practice as well as the complex process of Jewish textual transmission. By employing such tools, Lehnardt turns obstacles into opportunities for illuminating key moments in the dynamic history of the Kaddish, while acknowledging the epistemological limits imposed by the evidence. It is thus no coincidence that his account begins in the Middle Ages with the oldest extant textual witnesses for the Kaddish, then backs up into Late Antiquity to explore earlier, indirect testimonies about its language and function, and finally moves forward in time again to describe the various medieval appropriations of this late antique prayer. Lehnardt argues in chapter one (pp. 15–77) that the Kaddish, in both its earliest and its fully crystallized forms, is characterized by generic and linguistic hybridity. Despite this high degree of textual variation, all versions of the Kaddish are characterized by a distinctive admixture of Hebrew and Aramaic juxtaposed within single sentences and even clauses. Numerous earlier scholars suggested that this peculiar linguistic feature reflects the process of translation from a Hebrew original to an [End Page e65] artificial Aramaic "school language." Through careful linguistic comparison of the Kaddish with contemporaneous Hebrew and Aramaic sources, especially Targumic Aramaic, Lehnardt concludes that the prayer cannot be assigned to a specific linguistic-institutional context, but exhibits the general (Hebrew and Aramaic) linguistic features of rabbinic literature. Moreover, the Hebrew units of the Kaddish, which are interwoven with its Aramaic building-blocks, cannot be accounted for as mere back-borrowings. The inseparability of Hebrew and Aramaic within the Kaddish indicates that it was a linguistic hybrid ("ein Mischprodukt") from its earliest stages of development and never existed in a "pure" linguistic form in either Hebrew or Aramaic. According to Lehnardt, the bilingual character of the Kaddish has its counterpart in the prayer's hybrid generic form. The Kaddish resists generic definition, although it employs doxological formulae (i.e. yehe sheme raba mevarakh) and formally resembles certain features of prayers linked to public Scriptural reading (e.g., the 'al ha-kol prayer and the Yekum purkan). Lehnardt rejects the findings of Joseph Heinemann's form-critical method, which placed the Kaddish squarely within the rabbinic study-house (bet ha-midrash). Instead, he argues that, from a formal perspective, the Kaddish cannot be assigned to a single Sitz-im-Leben, and proposes that its generic and linguistic hybridity result from its shifting application in various institutional settings—synagogue as well as study-house. In chapter two (pp. 79–142), Lehnardt analyzes rabbinic sources that provide evidence for the liturgical function of the Kaddish or illuminate the ways in which its meaning and power were conceived in Late Antiquity. The linguistic and formal flexibility of the Kaddish corresponds to its varied reception within classical rabbinic literature. The Kaddish did not develop along a single, linear trajectory from pre-rabbinic prayers such as the Lord's Prayer found in the New Testament, but emerged through an unsystematic process of expansion, reinterpretation, and redeployment. Indeed, the Kaddish is nowhere attested as a fully crystallized...

Identity Texts and Literacy Development among Preschool English Language Learners: Enhancing Learning Opportunities for Children at Risk for Learning Disabilities

There is little research on English language learners (ELLs) in relation to learning disability (LD) assessment and identification. More important, there is a scarcity of research on models and strategies that enhance learning opportunities and outcomes for ELLs prior to an LD diagnosis. We describe in this article an innovative language intervention program involving the creation of bilingual, student self-authored identity texts. Called the Early Authors Program (EAP), the intervention stands as an example of how spaces and opportunities for literacy development among young ELLs can be created in a classroom instructional environment. The EAP, which reached 800 families, was evaluated using a combination of methods and instruments. The goal of the evaluation component was to collect data spanning one year from 325 randomly selected participating children in both control and experimental groups. Among its several beneficial outcomes, the EAP had demonstrably positive effects on children's language scores and appears to have strengthened their identities and fostered their self-esteem. Because a proportion of these students would be at risk for LD, we propose the implementation of programs of this type generally for ELL children, and especially for those considered likely to have future school-related difficulties.

Identity Texts and Literacy Development among Preschool English Language Learners: Enhancing Learning Opportunities for Children at Risk for Learning Disabilities

There is little research on English language learners (ELLs) in relation to learning disability (LD) assessment and identification. More important, there is a scarcity of research on models and strategies that enhance learning opportunities and outcomes for ELLs prior to an LD diagnosis. We describe in this article an innovative language intervention program involving the creation of bilingual, student self-authored identity texts. Called the Early Authors Program (EAP), the intervention stands as an example of how spaces and opportunities for literacy development among young ELLs can be created in a classroom instructional environment. The EAP, which reached 800 families, was evaluated using a combination of methods and instruments. The goal of the evaluation component was to collect data spanning one year from 325 randomly selected participating children in both control and experimental groups. Among its several beneficial outcomes, the EAP had demonstrably positive effects on children's language scores and appears to have strengthened their identities and fostered their self-esteem. Because a proportion of these students would be at risk for LD, we propose the implementation of programs of this type generally for ELL children, and especially for those considered likely to have future school-related difficulties.

Textual Identity and the Problem of Convention: Recovering the Title of Dresden Oc 66

Designating a title for anepigraphal manuscripts requires editors and readers to choose between what they deem to be the work’s main subject and the conventional names that have been used to refer to it over its history. The problem may be complicated by competing manuscript editions of a text that excerpt or present a fragment, skewing the estimation of topic by abridgment. Dresden Oc 66, a fourteenth-century Old French allegory of love, reason, and chess, presents precisely this problem, raising questions of what a title is and does in a medieval work.

A Corpus Analysis of Text Themes and Photographic Themes in Managerial Forewords of Dutch-English and British Annual General Reports

This genre-based study comprises a comparative content analysis of textual and pictorial themes in a corpus of Dutch-English and British managerial forewords. It indicates that there are significant thematic differences between the Dutch-English CEO's statements, the British CEO's statements, and the British Chairman's statements and that these may be attributable to communicative and historical conventions as well as to current affairs in a particular business community. The present analysis, therefore, suggests that these managerial forewords cannot be considered as identical texts, although all are part of the same comprehensive document (i.e., the annual report). As such, this study suggests that text analysts, instructors, and practitioners in intercultural communication should be sensitive to both textual and contextual features for a full understanding of professional texts in intercultural discourse situations

THE EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ON THE WEB – A TWO-EDGED TOOL IN FOCUS

Although the use of the internet is expanding rapidly on college campuses, little is known about student internet use, how students perceive the reality of internet information and how successful they are in searching the internet. The aim of this project is to analyze the biochemical issues available in web pages, evaluating contents quality, trustworthiness and effectiveness. Fourteen sites were analyzed regarding to contents, presence of bibliographical references, authorship, titles responsibility and adequacy to target public. The great majority did not mention bibliographic references and target public. Less than half of the researched sites divulged names and/or graduation status of information providers. Some sites contained critical conceptual errors, such as: participation of H2O in the photosynthesis dark phase, carnivore animals feeding only on herbivores, the overall equation of photosynthesis with errors, NADH2 instead NAD+, etc. Half of them presented identical texts and figures. None of the analyzed sites was thus considered excellent. Our data strengthen the need for rigorous evaluation concerning to educational research of biochemical themes on the web.

Health literacy and the World Wide Web: Comparing the readability of leading incident cancers on the Internet

to assess the readability level of Web-based information on leading incident cancers. websites on breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers were selected for analysis by comparing the first 100 hits across 10 popular search engines. A total of 100 websites on breast (n=33), prostate (n=34), and colorectal (n=33) cancers were included in the final analysis. readability was assessed using SMOG, Flesch-Kincaid (F - K), and Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) measures. SMOG was hand-calculated on 10 - 30 lines of continuous text. Identical text was entered into Microsoft Word 2002 where F - K and FRE scores were determined automatically by the word processor. the mean readability score of the cancer websites was Grade 12.9 using SMOG and Grade 10.7 according to F - K. The mean FRE score was 45.3, a score considered 'difficult'. Colorectal cancer websites were most difficult to read compared to breast and prostate cancer websites. All measures indicated that prostate cancer websites were written at the lowest readability. Significantly higher reading levels were required for concluding paragraphs of Web articles compared to introduction paragraphs. findings suggest the need for readable cancer information on the Web. Health promoters, health informaticians, medical journalists, and web page editors must collaborate to ensure the use of plain language to match the literacy skills of consumers.