In more than 30 years of university teaching; hundreds of elementary, middle, and high school visits; and numerous personal interactions with community young people, the author has repeatedly noticed that few students read newspapers or news magazines. In short, most students seem ignorant of and uncaring about current affairs. This is an alarming…

Precision in language usage can be thought of as an ego boosting activity, a snobbish pastime, an arrogant trait; or it can be interpreted as an attempt to aid audiences in understanding exact meaning, an effort to reduce ambiguity, and/or as a positive role model for others in one's language community. This essay argues that the latter set of…

Students at all educational levels are daily bombarded by others' attempts to influence them. Influence in the political, religious, social, educational, and advertising arenas pervade people's lives. It is vital to everyone to be aware of influence attempts; to be able to assess whether or not such attempts are useful, friendly, urgent, and in…