Dr. Ogden's Grading -- Scaled

For those of you in Mr. Green's tutorials whose first-version essay I graded or examined, here is the scale of the given number grades to SFU-standard letter-grades. This harmonises my grading & Mr. Green's for consistency across tutorial groups.

5 = A, 4.5=A-, 4=B+, 3.5=B, 3=B-, 2.5=C+, 2=C, 1.5=C-, 1=D, 0-0.5=F

Mid-Term Revision

The mid-term first version essays have now been graded and handed back. As I laid out in lecture, the project for you now is to incorporate your marker's corrections, analysis and recommendations into a full revision. This final version will be graded on degree to which it incorporates both the letter and the spirit of what your essay's marker has added to the first version.

Any questions about the grading can be brought to the marker in Office Hours, keeping the following two things in mind. First, the grade for the first version can be revisited any time until the end of term: the concentration over the upcoming week is most advisedly put on the work of revision. Second, the first version grade is only five percent of the assignment: in my view, a key point.

For students in Mr. Green's tutorials, I will be available on Tuesday in Surrey for Office Hours at a different time for the week only, as I will be taking Mr. Green's tutorials during my regularly-scheduled Office Hours. I am also available at the Burnaby campus in AQ6094 on Monday and Wednesday between ten thirty and three thirty. Furthermore, I can be contacted for a by-appointment Office Hour outside these many hours.

Write away ....

Sloan-iness Satirised

For more information on the Sloan set -- the object of Helen Fielding's satire -- see this 'quite posh' website. Younger Canadian women may recognise some of the fashion they originated....

The Laura Ashley site is right here. Observe the too too perfect Sloaney model they use.

The Etymology of "Hooligan"

In light of a Clockwork Orange and the City of Surrey's "....very new broom", here is the origin of one of the slurs used against 'lads':

In the distinctive language of British journalism, the English football fans who caused so much trouble in Marseilles variously “went on the rampage”, “ran amuck”, were guilty of “thuggish behaviour”, or “caused mayhem”. They were variously described in news stories as louts, yobs, thugs and ruffians, but the word that was universally employed was hooligan.
It’s an odd word, which the Oxford English Dictionary says started to appear in London police-court reports in the summer of 1898....

City of Surrey uses "a very New Broom" against its 'Droogs'

The recent stories in the local media on how the government of the City of Surrey's is taking intensified action (".....what they call a very new broom") against men -- referred to only as "criminals" by the politicans and media writers -- are repetitions of the opening chapters of Part Three of A Clockwork Orange:

I kaputted a gazetta....[t]here were very boastful slovos about what the Government had done, brothers, in the last year....improved social services and all that cal....But what the Government was really most boastful about was the way they had recokoned the streeets had been made safer for all peace-loving night-walking lewdies in the last six months, what with better pay for the police and the police getting tougher with young hooligans and perverts and burglars and all that cal.

From the City of Surrey's homepage:

Surrey Unveils its Crime Reduction Strategy
February 26, 2007
This morning (Februrary 26, 2007), Mayor Dianne Watts was joined by Attorney General Wally Oppal, local MPs and MLAs and community leaders to officially unveil Surrey’s Crime Reduction Strategy.
The Crime Reduction strategy (CRS) is a comprehensive, multi-faceted approach to addressing the root causes of crime. It seeks to implement new and innovative programs with practical applications that will result in a concrete, measurable reduction in crime.
The CRS represents the culmination of the efforts of the Mayor’s Task Force on Public Safety and Crime Reduction....
“The Surrey Crime Reduction Strategy is a complete paradigm shift from what is currently being done in Canadian municipalities to combat crime,” said Mayor Watts. “It is an approach that seeks to incorporate all the key stakeholders and create one, unified, comprehensive plan to address the root causes of crime in our community.”

Locally, then, as with the English case, bad press for the hooligans, i.e. men.