Wednesday Thoughts

Light blogging today: my classes are working in the library on research papers.

Imagine my shock when I discovered (yesterday!) that the new MLA guidelines have changed almost everything about documentation for research papers! No more underlining! No more URLs! And now you must indicate the medium of your reference - print, electronic, etc.

This will send my set-in-his-ways Senior English teacher into apoplexy.

Ah well. That aside, I'm also kind of tied up on a new project and learning a new medium. More on that later.

I do have a couple of quick read links for you this morning. Over at Commentary Magazine Sam Sacks has reviewed Stephen King's Under the Dome, and well, Stephen King's writing in general. I haven't read the latest novel yet but it's holding my desk down (it's a huge book) waiting on me to get to it.

I'm of mixed feelings about Stephen King. I've been reading him for over thirty years and I've seen his work evolve and go up and down. I use some passages from his On Writing in my creative writing class. Say what you will about his ability, the man has been successful.

As long as you're over at Commentary, check out Jennifer Rubin's response to the newest Obama envoy to the Muslim world here. The original Fox Story to which she refers is here. I suspect this fellow will be the next man in Glenn Beck's radar. But Rubin raises a valid point: why do we need an envoy to the Muslim world, anyway? Do we have one for the Jewish world? The Hindu world? The Christian world?

There's a developing thread on the story at Memeorandum you can keep an eye on and see who else weighs in.

With that, I'm off to teach tenth graders how to do research and to properly document sources in the ever changing world of the Modern Language Association.

I'll check back in on you good folks later.