Christmas is a wonderful time for lovers of literature. You can finally get someone to read a book you love, request one (or more) from friends and family, or even give or receive a book-themed item. Here are ten suggestions sure to make bibliophiles smile. 1. Banned Books Bracelet. A beautiful way to show off…
Dante’s Confession and a New Circle of Hell for Professors
This week, The Chronicle of Higher Education published a lengthy confession of a man who works for a custom essay writing service. It is a growing industry, as plagiarism detectors, like turnitin.com, are increasingly being used to catch cheating in both high schools and universities. Even though the price for a customized essay is high,…
Read More "Dante’s Confession and a New Circle of Hell for Professors"
We Must Obarmate Against the Loss of Words…To Let Them Go Would be Venalia
Adopt a word. Save our language. Why save a word? Well, as the website savethewords.org argues, "90% of everything we write is communicated by only 7,000 words," yet there are "old words, wise words, [and] hard-working words...that once led meaningful lives [but] now lie, unused, unloved, and unwanted." The site draws you in with a…
Read More "We Must Obarmate Against the Loss of Words…To Let Them Go Would be Venalia"
eNotes Q&A Reaches 100k Questions
We're thrilled to announce that the eNotes Q&A section has reached 100,000 student questions. Appropriately enough, the 100k question was asked about one of the most popular novels on eNotes, The Great Gatsby. Click here to read the question and the answer. If you are a student who needs help with your homework, check out…
Education Testing…1…2…3
Does more equal better? When it concerns students' essay scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SATs), that may well be the case. Milo Beckman, a fourteen-year-old student at Stuyvesant High School in New York conducted a study among his peers after becoming frustrated with the scores he received on the exam. Beckman took the exam…
Shakespeare in the Original Pronunciation: Worthy Exercise?
Opening ext week at the University of Kansas, a production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is billed as the first original pronunciation production of a Shakespeare play to ever be staged on American soil. The video above is from the rehearsals but does a good job of giving you an idea of what the…
Read More "Shakespeare in the Original Pronunciation: Worthy Exercise?"
Asking Utnapishtim for Directions to the Bathroom
It's been since about 500 B.C. that Babylonian and Assyrian were widely spoken. Those languages, closely related to Arabic and Hebrew, were assimilated into Akkadian, the primary speech of what is now Iran, Syria, and Turkey. Later, Aramaic, the language of Jesus, eventually became the preferred way of speaking in those regions. It wasn't until…
Read More "Asking Utnapishtim for Directions to the Bathroom"
“The Hobbit” Film Finally Greenlighted
For fans of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series (both the books and the films), a long wait is over. The Hobbit, prequel to the trilogy (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King) has finally been given the go-ahead by the Tolkien family, who had delayed the…