English Improvement

Those of you intereseted in improving your English, visit this site. Mahadevaswamy: You can find answer for one of your question posed to me earlier.

Some of the questions answered are:
Q. When spelling out a proper name that is also known by an acronym, is it
acceptable to capitalize more than one letter in a word that contributes
multiple letters to the acronym?

Q. Should it be “The Importance of Well-Written Reports” or “The Importance
of Well-written Reports”?

Q. Would it be a gender-biased usage if you used “man-made element?” What could be the neutral substitute?

Q. Iguaçú (or Iguazú) Falls has two possible correct spellings. How would CMS handle this one?

Q. Do you perceive any difference in meaning in the following two sentences?

Q. When does one use hyphenation to break words?

Q. I work for a travel company and we are trying to figure out the proper way to write “eight-night stay.”

Q. I am doing a research paper for my history class in college and I am supposed to put in the Chicago form of bibliography and citations. Can you help on this?

Q. If I have a sentence that includes a parenthesis (say I’m talking about a 401[k] plan), do I really have to change the (k) to brackets?

Q. I regularly come across sentences in which “only” strikes me as being misplaced. Am I correct? Or only nuts?

Q. At the annual meeting of our local PBK chapter, dispute on the pronunciation of “archival” arose: whether the stress falls on the first or the second syllable.

UGC NET Results

The results of June 2005 UGC-NET exam is available on the UGC website

http://www.ugc.ac.in/inside/net.html

Any successful candidates from our Department? Congratulations in advance for successful ones and better luck next time for the rest.

Today I come to know that Ms. Shivashanthi has passed the UGC Lecturership. Congradulations Shivashanthi for your success. I wish you all the best in your career.

Survey

I am one of the members of the Indian team in a IEEE sponsored study. This study is done by a group of faculty members from University of Tennessee. Though Prof. Shalini Urs, an Indian team was constituted to assist them to collect the data from two prestigious IT companies in India. I was asked to associate myself a team leader for one of the group.

The study aims at collecting data regarding how technologists use and communicate information in their workplace. The study collects information about the ways and means of communication process that takes place in corporate sector. A well designed data collection instruments is being used for collecting the data.

Dr. Suzie Allard from University of Tennessee introduced the study details to the particpants on the Monday, December 18, 2005. The particpants had given their consent for being observed by an observer from our team. Each observer was associated with one pariticipant. S/he will be observering the participant in his/her workplace for a day. We expect to obseve atleast 12-15 people from each company by the end of this week.

Yesterday's experience was good and funny. The funny part of it is that the observer has to "chase" the participant wherever s/he goes and observe what is s/he doing. First few minutes, participants (as well as observers) found it little uneasy for being observed. Later, they tend to forget the presence of the observer and were involved in their work. Even the observers tried their best to be unobstructive to the extent possible.

I am in the midst of a new kind of experience. I hope to write about my feelings at the end of this week's exercise.

Counseling

The 3rd December 2005 was one another day which gave me some sort of relief and satisfaction about my own deeds. I noticed a few days back that one “person” was suffering from depression in his/her life. . The person was suffering from inferiority complex and thus lacked self esteem. I found out that the person has lost interest in life. I thought that there is a need for counseling this person. I could identify one counselor who happily volunteered to do the work of counseling. I am greateful to the counselor for this. On 3rd December I made arrangements for a meeting of the "person" and the counselor. The Person was not aware about the meeting. In the view of the Person, the meeting was mere accidental. The counseling session last almost two hours. The counselor found it little difficult to get the real situation from the Person for first few minutes. Later, the Person started revealing the facts in tits and bits. The counselor patiently heard the feeling of the Person. The counselor inspired the Person by giving examples from real life incidences and situations. This helped the Person to gain certain level of confidence. One of the reasons for lack of confidence for the Person was his/her lack of knowledge of English. The counselor provided some tips for improve the language skills. In my opinion the counselor developed a good rapport with the “Person” and has assured of any help in future.