It has sold 30,000 copies in each edition and will continue to reach a huge academic audience.In this renowned book, Everett M. Rogers, professor and chair of the Department of Communication & Journalism at the University of New Mexico, explains how new ideas spread via communication channels over time. Such innovations are initially perceived as uncertain and even risky. To overcome this uncertainty, most people seek out others like themselves who have already adopted the new idea. Thus the diffusion process consists of a few individuals who first adopt an innovation, then spread the word among their circle of acquaintances--a process which typically takes months or years. But there are exceptions: use of the Internet in the 1990s, for example, may have spread more rapidly than any other innovation in the history of humankind. Furthermore, the Internet is changing the very nature of diffusion by decreasing the importance of physical distance between people. The fifth edition addresses the spread of the Internet, and how it has transformed the way human beings communicate and adopt new ideas.

    The essential canon of Old English poetry, with parallel verse translation, in this now classic edition. A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse contains the Old English texts of all the major short poems, such as The Battle of Maldon', The Dream of the Rood, The Wanderer and The Seafarer, as well as a generous representation of the many important fragments, riddles and gnomic verses that survive from the seventh to the twelfth centuries, with facing-page verse translations.

    At once a memoir, meditation on the artistic process, and advice on craft, Still Writing is an intimate and eloquent companion to living a creative life.Through a blend of deeply personal stories about what formed her as a writer, tales from other authors, and a searching look at her own creative process, Shapiro offers her gift to writers everywhere: an elegant guide of hard-won wisdom and advice for staying the course. "The writer's life requires courage, patience, empathy, openness. It requires the ability to be alone with oneself. Gentle with oneself. To be disciplined, and at the same time, take risks." Writers--and anyone with an artistic temperament--will find inspiration and comfort in these pages. Offering lessons learned over twenty years of teaching and writing, Shapiro brings her own revealing insights to weave an indispensable almanac for modern writers.Like Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, Virginia Woolf's A Writer's Diary, and Stephen King's On Writing, Dani Shapiro's Still Writing is a lodestar for aspiring scribes and an eloquent memoir of the writing life.

    A lively and still one of the best introductions to philosophy, this book pays off both a closer reading for students and specialists, and a casual reading for the general public.

    Here, Peter Elbow emphasizes that the essential activities underlying good writing and the essential exercises promoting it are really not difficult at all.Employing a cookbook approach, Elbow provides the reader (and writer) with various recipes: for getting words down on paper, for revising, for dealing with an audience, for getting feedback on a piece of writing, and still other recipes for approaching the mystery of power in writing. In a new introduction, he offers his reflections on the original edition, discusses the responses from people who have followed his techniques, how his methods may differ from other processes, and how his original topics are still pertinent to today's writer. By taking risks and embracing mistakes, Elbow hopes the writer may somehow find a hold on the creative process and be able to heighten two mentalities--the production of writing and the revision of it.From students and teachers to novelists and poets, Writing with Power reminds us that we can celebrate the uses of mystery, chaos, nonplanning, and magic, while achieving analysis, conscious control, explicitness, and care in whatever it is we set down on paper.

    But there is a pattern to who succeeds and who doesn't. And engaging in the consistent practice of its pursuit is the best way forward.Based on the breakthrough Akimbo workshop pioneered by legendary author Seth Godin, The Practice will help you get unstuck and find the courage to make and share creative work. Godin insists that writer's block is a myth, that consistency is far more important than authenticity, and that experiencing the imposter syndrome is a sign that you're a well-adjusted human. Most of all, he shows you what it takes to turn your passion from a private distraction to a productive contribution, the one you've been seeking to share all along.With this book as your guide, you'll learn to dance with your fear. To take the risks worth taking. And to embrace the empathy required to make work that contributes with authenticity and joy.

    Whether investigating the asterisk (*) and dagger (†)--which alternately illuminated and skewered heretical verses of the early Bible--or the at sign (@), which languished in obscurity for centuries until rescued by the Internet, Keith Houston draws on myriad sources to chart the life and times of these enigmatic squiggles, both exotic (¶) and everyday (&).From the Library of Alexandria to the halls of Bell Labs, figures as diverse as Charlemagne, Vladimir Nabokov, and George W. Bush cross paths with marks as obscure as the interrobang (‽) and as divisive as the dash (--). Ancient Roman graffiti, Venetian trading shorthand, Cold War double agents, and Madison Avenue round out an ever more diverse set of episodes, characters, and artifacts.Richly illustrated, ranging across time, typographies, and countries, Shady Characters will delight and entertain all who cherish the unpredictable and surprising in the writing life.

    Based on the authors' years of experience as ESL teachers and their rigorous review of past exams, this book offers proven vocabulary-building activities and exercises. Appropriate for students pursuing all academic disciplines, it features: -400 words in key categories, including food, computers, society, history, finance, politics, friendship, science, the arts, and more-Many skill-building activities and exercises, including paraphrasing, synonym and antonym matching, and prefix and suffix identification-Proven strategies for incorporating new words into everyday vocabulary-Special sections on synonyms, roots, prefixes and suffixes, and sentence structure

    Seuss, Mark Twain to Beatrix Potter--and shows that the best-loved children's books tend to challenge rather than uphold respectable adult values.

    But for some reason they choose to ignore those guidelines and churn out turgid, pompous, and obscure prose. Distinguished sociologist Howard S. Becker, true to his calling, looks for an explanation for this bizarre behavior not in the psyches of his colleagues but in the structure of his profession. In this highly personal and inspirational volume he considers academic writing as a social activity.Both the means and the reasons for writing a thesis or article or book are socially structured by the organization of graduate study, the requirements for publication, and the conditions for promotion, and the pressures arising from these situations create the writing style so often lampooned and lamented. Drawing on his thirty-five years' experience as a researcher, writer, and teacher, Becker exposes the foibles of the academic profession to the light of sociological analysis and gentle humor. He also offers eminently useful suggestions for ways to make social scientists better and more productive writers. Among the topics discussed are how to overcome the paralyzing fears of chaos and ridicule that lead to writer's block; how to rewrite and revise, again and again; how to adopt a persona compatible with lucid prose; how to deal with that academic bugaboo, "the literature." There is also a chapter by Pamela Richards on the personal and professional risks involved in scholarly writing.In recounting his own trials and errors Becker offers his readers not a model to be slavishly imitated but an example to inspire. Throughout, his focus is on the elusive work habits that contribute to good writing, not the more easily learned rules of grammar and punctuation. Although his examples are drawn from sociological literature, his conclusions apply to all fields of social science, and indeed to all areas of scholarly endeavor. The message is clear: you don't have to write like a social scientist to be one.

    The thirty-five chapters describe the life of a Roman family in the 2nd century A.D., and culminate in readings from classical poets and Donatus's Ars Grammatica, the standard Latin school text for a millenium. Each chapter is divided into two or three lectiones (lessons) of a couple pages each followed by a grammar section, Grammatica Latina, and three exercises or Pensa. Hans Ørberg's impeccable latinity, humorous stories, and the Peer Lauritzen illustrations make this work a classic. The book includes a table of inflections, a Roman calendar, and a word index, Index vocabulorum.

    But now, acclaimed linguist Guy Deutscher has dared to reopen the issue. Can culture influence language —and vice versa? Can different languages lead their speakers to different thoughts? Could our experience of the world depend on whether our language has a word for "blue"?Challenging the consensus that the fundaments of language are hard-wired in our genes and thus universal, Deutscher argues that the answer to all these questions is—yes. In thrilling fashion, he takes us from Homer to Darwin, from Yale to the Amazon, from how to name the rainbow to why Russian water —a "she"— becomes a "he" once you dip a tea bag into her, demonstrating that language does in fact reflect culture in ways that are anything but trivial.

    What's new in the Second Edition? 1. Fully compliant with the latest version of SPSS version 12 2. More coverage of advanced statistics including completely new coverage of non-parametric statistics. The book is 50 per cent longer than the First Edition. 3. Each section of each chapter now has a notation - 1,2 or 3 - referring to the intended level of study. This helps students navigate their way through the book and makes it user-friendly for students of ALL levels. 4. Has a 'how to use this book' section at the start of the text. 5. Characters in each chapter have defined roles - summarizing key points, to pose questions etc 6. Each chapter now has several examples for students to work through. Answers provided on the enclosed CD-ROM

    And yet, disturbingly, in today's so-called information age, pseudoscience is burgeoning with stories of alien abduction, channeling past lives, and communal hallucinations commanding growing attention and respect. As Sagan demonstrates with lucid eloquence, the siren song of unreason is not just a cultural wrong turn but a dangerous plunge into darkness that threatens our most basic freedoms.

    By extracting the fundamental concepts from this enormous and ever-growing field, the authors tell the story of cell biology, and create a coherent framework through which non-expert readers may approach the subject. Written in clear and concise language, and beautifully illustrated, the book is enjoyable to read, and it provides a clear sense of the excitement of modern biology. Molecular Biology of the Cell sets forth the current understanding of cell biology (completely updated as of Autumn 2001), and it explores the intriguing implications and possibilities of the great deal that remains unknown. The hallmark features of previous editions continue in the Fourth Edition. The book is designed with a clean and open, single-column layout. The art program maintains a completely consistent format and style, and includes over 1,600 photographs, electron micrographs, and original drawings by the authors. Clear and concise concept headings introduce each section. Every chapter contains extensive references. Most important, every chapter has been subjected to a rigorous, collaborative revision process where, in addition to incorporating comments from expert reviewers, each co-author reads and reviews the other authors' prose. The result is a truly integrated work with a single authorial voice. Features : - Places the latest hot topics sensibly in context - including genomics, protein structure, array technology, stem cells and genetics diseases. - Incorporates and emphasises new genomic data. - All of molecular biology is brought together into one section (chapters 4-7) covering classically defined molecular biology and molecular genetics. - Two chapters deal exclusively with methods and contain information on the latest tools and techniques. - New chapters on "Pathogens, Infection, and Innate Immunity". - Cell Biology Interactive CD-ROM is packaged with every copy of the book. - Contains over 1,600 illustrations, electron micrographs and photographs, of which over 1,000 are originally conceived by the authors.