Ours is a society that tries to keep the world sharply divided into masculine and feminine, not because that is the way the world is, but because that is the way we believe it should be. It takes unwavering belief and considerable effort to keep this division. It also leads us to make some fairly foolish judgments, particularly about language.
Because we think that language also should be divided into masculine and feminine we have become very skilled at ignoring anything that will not fit our preconceptions. We would rather change what we hear than change our ideas about the gender division of the world. We will call assertive girls unfeminine, and supportive boys effeminate, and try to change them while still retaining our stereotypes of masculine and feminine talk.
This is why some research on sex differences and language has been so interesting. It is an illustration of how wrong we can be. Of the many investigators who set out to find the stereotyped sex differences in language, few have had any positive results. It seems that our images of serious taciturn male speakers and gossipy garrulous female speakers are just that: images.
Many myths associated with masculine and feminine talk have had to be discarded as more research has been undertaken. If females do use more trivial words than males, stop talking in mid-sentence, or talk about the same things over and over again, they do not do it when investigators are around.
None of these characteristics-of female speech have been found. And even when sex differences have been found, the question arises as to whether the difference is in the eye or ear of the beholder, rather than in the language.
Pitch provides one example. We believe that males were meant to talk in low-pitched voices and females in high-pitched voices. We also believe that low pitch is more desirable. Well, it bas been found that this difference cannot be explained by anatomy.
If males do not speak in high-pitched voices, it is not usually because they are unable to do so. The reason is more likely to be that there are penalties. Males with high-pitched voices are often the object of ridicule. But pitch is not an absolute, for what is considered the right pitch for males varies from country to country.

One of the aims of teaching science is, through learning, to enable students to develop a complete personality by creativity, honesty, eagerness to acquire knowledge, freedom of speech and thought, and critical assessment. This is an ambitious aim which we unfortunately, rarely consider. During teaching we devote our attention more to the content rather than the aims. We thus see that science is one of the school subjects least favored by students.
The emotional elements of music, dancing, painting, poetry and drama have a strong emotional impact on students. For science to evoke the same feelings, it should be taught with the help of the expressive arts. Unlike traditional didactic approaches, drama also offers a synthesis of visual, kinetic and auditory experiences, apart from the understanding of facts and figures as a result of rational and analytical perception. Drama and other artistic activities can assist in reaching the cognitive goals of the curriculum, as they are effective means of motivation. Isn’t there a better chance that students who have developed a love for science will learn it more easily Science too can be aesthetic, creative and emotional.
By using drama techniques, we facilitate collaboration between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, whereas traditional techniques of teaching science stress only the use of abilities found in the left hemisphere — that is, the analytical perception of scientific notions and phenomena. We allow students to engage in the learning process as full personalities with all their knowledge and abilities. Thus we develop not only logical and mathematical intelligence, but also a wider spectrum of the students’ abilities. Our educational experience is largely based on a linear perception of the subject. As students, we have not been used to developing ways of creative and intuitive thinking, especially in scientific subjects. This is why combining expressive arts with science is accepted with difficulty by many.
When using drama in teaching science, we meet paradoxes which can, on the one hand, make the use of drama unsuccessful, and, on the other hand, enable the knowledge of science to be integrated into society and social phenomena that is life in general. Science is taught on the basis of scientific discoveries — laws and explanations of phenomena which are clearly defined and allow no individual or sociological interpretations. Drama, however, is based on developing imagination and different individual interpretations of the same event. Stealing a wallet, for example, will be interpreted as something negative by the owner and as something positive by the pickpocket. Drama broadens our imagination, science is said to narrow it. When observing traditional didactic forms of teaching science, we see that students are required to understand very abstract notions. The notion of the atom or the molecule is demonstrated by concrete means including symbols, various types of atom and molecule models, sketches, experiments, photographs and animated films. These help students to develop their imagination and conceptions which can, individually, be very different despite the fact that they were all taught with the same techniques and materials.
These differences arise from the differences in students’ personalities. We must take into account that students have different sensory abilities. They receive information through visual, auditory, and kinetic channels of perception with different intensity. They also have different intellectual abilities. Thus it is easy for some students to logically combine scientific laws with scientific phenomena or visualize what the latter looks like.

Somehow California is always at the cutting edge, be it in the flower-power days of the 1960s or the dotcom boom of the 1990s. As Kevin Starr points out in his History of the State, California has long been "one of the prisms through which the American people, for better and for worse, could glimpse their future".
Mr. Starr is too good a historian to offer any pat explanation; instead, he concentrates on the extraordinary array of people and events that have led from the mythical land of Queen Calafia, through the rule of Spain and Mexico, and on to the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger, an iron-pumping film star with an Austrian accent. Moreover, he does so with such elegance and humor that his book is a joy to read.
What emerges is not all Californian sunshine and light. Think back to the savage violence that accompanied the 1849 Gold Rush; or to the exclusion orders against the Chinese; or to the riots that regularly marked industrial and social relations in San Francisco. California was very much the Wild West, having to wait until 1850 before it could force its way to statehood.
So what tamed it Mr. Starr’s answer is a combination of great men, great ideas and great projects. He emphasizes the development of California’s infrastructure, the development of agriculture; the spread of the railroads and freeways; and, perhaps the most important factor for today’s hi-tech California, the creation of a superb set of public universities.
All this, he writes, "began with water, the sine qua non of any civilization." He goes on cheerfully to note the "monumental damage to the environment" caused by irrigation projects that were "plagued by claims of deception, double-dealing and conflict of interest".
One virtue of this book is its structure. Mr. Start is never trapped by his chronological framework. In-stead, when the subject demands it, he manages deftly to flit back and forth among the decades. Less satisfying is his account of California’s cultural progress in the 19th and 20th centuries: does he really need to invoke so many long-forgotten writers to accompany such names as Jack London, Frank Norris, Mark Twain or Raymond Chandler
But that is a minor criticism for a book that will become a California classic. The regret is that Mr. Starr, doubtless pressed for space, leaves so little room--just a brief final chapter--for the implications of the past for California’s future. He poses the question that most Americans prefer to gloss over: is California governable "For all its impressive growth, there remains a volatility in the politics and governance of California, which became perfectly clear to the rest of the nation in the fall of 2003 when the voters of California recalled one governor and elected another."
Indeed so, and Mr. Start wisely avoids making any premature judgment on their choice. Ills such as soaring house prices, grid locked freeways and "embattled" public schools, combined with the budgetary problems that stem from the tax revolt of 1978 would test to the limit any governor, even the Terminator. As Mr. Starr notes, no one should cite California as an unambiguous triumph: "There has al-ways been something slightly bipolar about California. It was either utopia or dystopia, a dream or a night-mare, a hope or a broken promise--and too infrequently anything in between.\

Ours is a society that tries to keep the world sharply divided into masculine and feminine, not because that is the way the world is, but because that is the way we believe it should be. It takes unwavering belief and considerable effort to keep this division. It also leads us to make some fairly foolish judgments, particularly about language.
Because we think that language also should be divided into masculine and feminine we have become very skilled at ignoring anything that will not fit our preconceptions. We would rather change what we hear than change our ideas about the gender division of the world. We will call assertive girls unfeminine, and supportive boys effeminate, and try to change them while still retaining our stereotypes of masculine and feminine talk.
This is why some research on sex differences and language has been so interesting. It is an illustration of how wrong we can be. Of the many investigators who set out to find the stereotyped sex differences in language, few have had any positive results. It seems that our images of serious taciturn male speakers and gossipy garrulous female speakers are just that: images.
Many myths associated with masculine and feminine talk have had to be discarded as more research has been undertaken. If females do use more trivial words than males, stop talking in mid-sentence, or talk about the same things over and over again, they do not do it when investigators are around.
None of these characteristics-of female speech have been found. And even when sex differences have been found, the question arises as to whether the difference is in the eye or ear of the beholder, rather than in the language.
Pitch provides one example. We believe that males were meant to talk in low-pitched voices and females in high-pitched voices. We also believe that low pitch is more desirable. Well, it bas been found that this difference cannot be explained by anatomy.
If males do not speak in high-pitched voices, it is not usually because they are unable to do so. The reason is more likely to be that there are penalties. Males with high-pitched voices are often the object of ridicule. But pitch is not an absolute, for what is considered the right pitch for males varies from country to country.

One of the aims of teaching science is, through learning, to enable students to develop a complete personality by creativity, honesty, eagerness to acquire knowledge, freedom of speech and thought, and critical assessment. This is an ambitious aim which we unfortunately, rarely consider. During teaching we devote our attention more to the content rather than the aims. We thus see that science is one of the school subjects least favored by students.
The emotional elements of music, dancing, painting, poetry and drama have a strong emotional impact on students. For science to evoke the same feelings, it should be taught with the help of the expressive arts. Unlike traditional didactic approaches, drama also offers a synthesis of visual, kinetic and auditory experiences, apart from the understanding of facts and figures as a result of rational and analytical perception. Drama and other artistic activities can assist in reaching the cognitive goals of the curriculum, as they are effective means of motivation. Isn’t there a better chance that students who have developed a love for science will learn it more easily Science too can be aesthetic, creative and emotional.
By using drama techniques, we facilitate collaboration between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, whereas traditional techniques of teaching science stress only the use of abilities found in the left hemisphere — that is, the analytical perception of scientific notions and phenomena. We allow students to engage in the learning process as full personalities with all their knowledge and abilities. Thus we develop not only logical and mathematical intelligence, but also a wider spectrum of the students’ abilities. Our educational experience is largely based on a linear perception of the subject. As students, we have not been used to developing ways of creative and intuitive thinking, especially in scientific subjects. This is why combining expressive arts with science is accepted with difficulty by many.
When using drama in teaching science, we meet paradoxes which can, on the one hand, make the use of drama unsuccessful, and, on the other hand, enable the knowledge of science to be integrated into society and social phenomena that is life in general. Science is taught on the basis of scientific discoveries — laws and explanations of phenomena which are clearly defined and allow no individual or sociological interpretations. Drama, however, is based on developing imagination and different individual interpretations of the same event. Stealing a wallet, for example, will be interpreted as something negative by the owner and as something positive by the pickpocket. Drama broadens our imagination, science is said to narrow it. When observing traditional didactic forms of teaching science, we see that students are required to understand very abstract notions. The notion of the atom or the molecule is demonstrated by concrete means including symbols, various types of atom and molecule models, sketches, experiments, photographs and animated films. These help students to develop their imagination and conceptions which can, individually, be very different despite the fact that they were all taught with the same techniques and materials.
These differences arise from the differences in students’ personalities. We must take into account that students have different sensory abilities. They receive information through visual, auditory, and kinetic channels of perception with different intensity. They also have different intellectual abilities. Thus it is easy for some students to logically combine scientific laws with scientific phenomena or visualize what the latter looks like.

The most exciting kind of education is also the most personal. Nothing can exceed the joy of discovering for yourself something that is important to you ! It may be an idea or a bit of information you come across accidentally or a sudden insight, fitting together pieces of information or working through a problem. Such personal encounters are the "payoff" in education. A teacher may direct you to learning and even encourage you in it—but no teacher can make the excitement or the joy happen. That’s up to you.
A research paper, assigned in a course and perhaps checked at various stages by an instructor, leads you beyond classrooms, beyond the texts for classes and into a process where the joy of discovery and learning can come to you many times. Preparing the research paper is an active and individual process, and ideal learning process. It provides a structure within which you can make exciting discoveries, of knowledge and of self, that are basic to education. But the research paper also gives you a chance to individualize a school assignment, to suit a piece of work to your own interests and abilities, to show others what you can do. Writing a research paper is more than just a classroom exercise. It is an experience in searching out, understanding and synthesizing, which forms the basis of many skills applicable to both academic and nonacademic tasks. It is, in the fullest sense, a discovering, an education. So, to produce a good research paper is both a useful and a thoroughly satisfying experience!
To some, the thought of having to write an assigned number of pages, often more than ever produced before, is disconcerting . To others, the very idea of having to work independently is threatening. But there is no need to approach the research paper assignment with anxiety, and nobody should view the research paper as an obstacle to overcome. Instead, consider it a goal to accomplish, a goal within reach if you use the help this book can give you.

Ours is a society that tries to keep the world sharply divided into masculine and feminine, not because that is the way the world is, but because that is the way we believe it should be. It takes unwavering belief and considerable effort to keep this division. It also leads us to make some fairly foolish judgments, particularly about language.
Because we think that language also should be divided into masculine and feminine we have become very skilled at ignoring anything that will not fit our preconceptions. We would rather change what we hear than change our ideas about the gender division of the world. We will call assertive girls unfeminine, and supportive boys effeminate, and try to change them while still retaining our stereotypes of masculine and feminine talk.
This is why some research on sex differences and language has been so interesting. It is an illustration of how wrong we can be. Of the many investigators who set out to find the stereotyped sex differences in language, few have had any positive results. It seems that our images of serious taciturn male speakers and gossipy garrulous female speakers are just that: images.
Many myths associated with masculine and feminine talk have had to be discarded as more research has been undertaken. If females do use more trivial words than males, stop talking in mid-sentence, or talk about the same things over and over again, they do not do it when investigators are around.
None of these characteristics-of female speech have been found. And even when sex differences have been found, the question arises as to whether the difference is in the eye or ear of the beholder, rather than in the language.
Pitch provides one example. We believe that males were meant to talk in low-pitched voices and females in high-pitched voices. We also believe that low pitch is more desirable. Well, it bas been found that this difference cannot be explained by anatomy.
If males do not speak in high-pitched voices, it is not usually because they are unable to do so. The reason is more likely to be that there are penalties. Males with high-pitched voices are often the object of ridicule. But pitch is not an absolute, for what is considered the right pitch for males varies from country to country.

Somehow California is always at the cutting edge, be it in the flower-power days of the 1960s or the dotcom boom of the 1990s. As Kevin Starr points out in his History of the State, California has long been "one of the prisms through which the American people, for better and for worse, could glimpse their future".
Mr. Starr is too good a historian to offer any pat explanation; instead, he concentrates on the extraordinary array of people and events that have led from the mythical land of Queen Calafia, through the rule of Spain and Mexico, and on to the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger, an iron-pumping film star with an Austrian accent. Moreover, he does so with such elegance and humor that his book is a joy to read.
What emerges is not all Californian sunshine and light. Think back to the savage violence that accompanied the 1849 Gold Rush; or to the exclusion orders against the Chinese; or to the riots that regularly marked industrial and social relations in San Francisco. California was very much the Wild West, having to wait until 1850 before it could force its way to statehood.
So what tamed it Mr. Starr’s answer is a combination of great men, great ideas and great projects. He emphasizes the development of California’s infrastructure, the development of agriculture; the spread of the railroads and freeways; and, perhaps the most important factor for today’s hi-tech California, the creation of a superb set of public universities.
All this, he writes, "began with water, the sine qua non of any civilization." He goes on cheerfully to note the "monumental damage to the environment" caused by irrigation projects that were "plagued by claims of deception, double-dealing and conflict of interest".
One virtue of this book is its structure. Mr. Start is never trapped by his chronological framework. In-stead, when the subject demands it, he manages deftly to flit back and forth among the decades. Less satisfying is his account of California’s cultural progress in the 19th and 20th centuries: does he really need to invoke so many long-forgotten writers to accompany such names as Jack London, Frank Norris, Mark Twain or Raymond Chandler
But that is a minor criticism for a book that will become a California classic. The regret is that Mr. Starr, doubtless pressed for space, leaves so little room--just a brief final chapter--for the implications of the past for California’s future. He poses the question that most Americans prefer to gloss over: is California governable "For all its impressive growth, there remains a volatility in the politics and governance of California, which became perfectly clear to the rest of the nation in the fall of 2003 when the voters of California recalled one governor and elected another."
Indeed so, and Mr. Start wisely avoids making any premature judgment on their choice. Ills such as soaring house prices, grid locked freeways and "embattled" public schools, combined with the budgetary problems that stem from the tax revolt of 1978 would test to the limit any governor, even the Terminator. As Mr. Starr notes, no one should cite California as an unambiguous triumph: "There has al-ways been something slightly bipolar about California. It was either utopia or dystopia, a dream or a night-mare, a hope or a broken promise--and too infrequently anything in between.\

The most exciting kind of education is also the most personal. Nothing can exceed the joy of discovering for yourself something that is important to you ! It may be an idea or a bit of information you come across accidentally or a sudden insight, fitting together pieces of information or working through a problem. Such personal encounters are the "payoff" in education. A teacher may direct you to learning and even encourage you in it—but no teacher can make the excitement or the joy happen. That’s up to you.
A research paper, assigned in a course and perhaps checked at various stages by an instructor, leads you beyond classrooms, beyond the texts for classes and into a process where the joy of discovery and learning can come to you many times. Preparing the research paper is an active and individual process, and ideal learning process. It provides a structure within which you can make exciting discoveries, of knowledge and of self, that are basic to education. But the research paper also gives you a chance to individualize a school assignment, to suit a piece of work to your own interests and abilities, to show others what you can do. Writing a research paper is more than just a classroom exercise. It is an experience in searching out, understanding and synthesizing, which forms the basis of many skills applicable to both academic and nonacademic tasks. It is, in the fullest sense, a discovering, an education. So, to produce a good research paper is both a useful and a thoroughly satisfying experience!
To some, the thought of having to write an assigned number of pages, often more than ever produced before, is disconcerting . To others, the very idea of having to work independently is threatening. But there is no need to approach the research paper assignment with anxiety, and nobody should view the research paper as an obstacle to overcome. Instead, consider it a goal to accomplish, a goal within reach if you use the help this book can give you.