The ag e-dispatch is distributed alternate Wednesdays, so SAES faculty and staff wondering about synchronizing publicity for an event or activity with the publication date most immediately preceding it can use the current issue to calculate the ag e dispatch publication schedule. Better still: simply use the SAES Feedback Form to alert the Ag. Communications and Technology (ACT) team that puts together ag e-dispatch as soon as you’ve got a tentative date, and before all the details are finalized. The ag e-dispatch editorial team will then respond to you with a publication schedule for relevant issues of the online newsletter, and target dates for passing along needed details for getting notice of your event or activity into the online newsletter.

Publication of an event or activity in the ag e-dispatch adds it to the SAES website’s news rotation, and that item then rotates across the SAES Home Page. This means that your news is, in effect, on the SAES server, and accessible to everyone in the whole wide world using Google and other search engines. For that reason, it’s also a very good idea to pass along news of publications, presentations or other professional accomplishments to the ag e-dispatch editorial team.  When someone in the Dowdy Building or Raleigh or Washington is wondering if the SAES has an expertise in a certain area and drops those keywords into Google or other search engines, if it’s on the SAES server that a faculty member has published articles on that topic then those results will appear.]]> http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/11/ag-edispatch-is-the-best-mediu.html http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/11/ag-edispatch-is-the-best-mediu.html Communications Corner Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:52:45 -0500 California Polytechnic State University has a Web page covering “E-mail Etiquette (or Netiquette)” that has some sound advice, including these five tips:
• “Include the topic of your message in the subject area” (Many co-workers to whom you send e-mail will store it in a folder with other messages. When they go looking for what you sent weeks or months later, that subject line should have telling information.)
• “Never create or forward ‘chain-letter’ e-mail.” (This is usually a violation of University policy and in many instances, state law.)
• “Use normal, upper- and- lower-case lettering. Avoid using all capital letters in a message; this is known as SHOUTING (and very rude netiquette).”
• “Minimize the appearance of long distribution lists.” (When sending e-mail to a group of people, don’t put their names and addressed in the “To:” or “CC” fields. When you do, everyone in the e-mailing can then see everyone else's address. Some people on the list will not appreciate you passing their name and e-mail around, and many viruses replicate by scanning address books for messages that have a lot of addresses. To respect the privacy and security of those in a group e-mailing, use the “BCC:” field instead of “TO:” or CC:”)
• “Never send large attachments unsolicited and avoid the temptation to use cute or clever graphics in e-mail going to a group of people.” (If you’ve got a large .pdf or .jpg to distribute, the best method is to post it to your personal Web page and then send out e-mail with the URL. If you don’t have the time or knowledge of Web posting to do it that way, then send an e-mail asking recipients if they are interested in receiving the large attachment with more information before sending the attachment itself. Cute little graphics are often bandwidth hogs that slow up any e-mail servers, and sometimes they contain nasty viruses.)

The Chicago Tribune’s pop culture critic, Steve Johnson, has pinpointed five bad uses for e-mail inboxes:
• To-do list: Users often keep action items in the in-box. They're hard to find and easy to forget.
• Filing system: Meeting notes, project status messages, attachments containing proposals, and other important documents often sit in the in-box, instead of going to a proper project folder.
• Calendar: Dates and times for meetings, conference calls, and other appointments pile up in the in-box, often sticking around long after the appointment has passed.
• Bookmarks list: Some e-mails remain in the in-box because they contain Web addresses, or user names and passwords for Web site logins, that the user isn't sure where to store.
• Address book: Messages containing phone numbers and postal addresses of contacts sit in the in-box instead of being entered into an actual address book.]]> http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/10/five-donts-for-sending-email-a-1.html http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/10/five-donts-for-sending-email-a-1.html Communications Corner Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:42:16 -0500 It’s now less than a month until Homecoming — a time of year when letters, e-mail, fliers, invitations and agendas for meetings are in the works that raise questions about capitalization, titles, grammar and usage. Cartoonist Gary Larson (of “Far Side” fame) now has an extensive editorial style manual and several of his entries have specific relevance for homecoming publications:

“Use the plural alumni when writing about a group of men or a group of men and women. Use the plural alumnae when writing about a group of women. Use the singular alumnus for a man and the singular alumna for a woman.”

“Lowercase and use periods for a.m., p.m. (in reference to time).  Use numerals except for noon and midnight. Don't use 12 p.m. or 12 a.m. Times on the hour do not take zeros. Use a colon to separate hours from minutes: 2:15 p.m., 7 a.m., not 7:00 a.m. Here's the style for giving ranges of time: The hours are 9:30-11 a.m. and 6-8 p.m. (or 9:30 to 11 a.m. and 6 to 8 p.m.).”

“Do not capitalize ‘state’ when used simply as an adjective to specify a level of jurisdiction: state Rep. Ellen Berger, state Department of Social Services, state funds, state Department of Ecology. But capitalize the full name of state governmental units: Washington State Department of Ecology.”

“Avoid abbreviations for academic degrees, and use instead a phrase such as Sally Forth, who has a doctorate in microbiology, a bachelor's degree, a master's degree. Do not capitalize or abbreviate. If space limitations leave you no choice but to use abbreviations such as B.A., M.A. or Ph.D., place them after a full name and set off with commas: Charlie McCarthy, Ph.D., spoke. Also, capitalize and spell out formal titles like professor when they go before a name, but don't capitalize modifiers: journalism Professor Bill Chamberlin.”

“Lowercase academic subjects like microbiology, journalism and political science. Languages, of course, should be capitalized: Japanese, English, Spanish.”

“Only use ‘congressman,’ and ‘congresswoman’ when writing about members of the U.S. House of Representatives. When mentioning congressional, council and legislative districts, capitalize district when joined with a number: the 7th Congressional District, the 34th Legislative District, the 3rd District, City Council District 9. Lowercase district whenever it stands alone. Do not spell out the numeral in this usage.”

“Capitalize the specific names of awards. Do not capitalize award if it is not part of the award's name. 2007 Editor of the Year, 2008 Gold Award, certificate of merit. The organization gave the department an award. She won a third-place certificate.”

“The word ‘hors d'oeuvre’ is commonly misspelled. Plural spelling in English: hors d'oeuvres.

“R.S.V.P. The abbreviation for the French respondez s'il vous plait, it means please reply. To avoid confusion, miscommunication, disappointment and frustration, use Please reply instead (of R.S.V.P). And if you must use R.S.V.P., don't put a redundant please in front of it.”

• Use the active voice so readers immediately connect the subject of the sentence with the action it is initiating. Not: "One of the best term papers on international trade policy was written by a student who has never traveled outside North Carolina." Instead (and active): "A student who has never traveled from North Carolina wrote the best paper on international trade"
  
• Use a thesaurus to find a word with the precise meaning you're looking for; not to find a synonym for a word you're using excessively (bad) or a synonym that sounds more erudite (worse).
  
• Use quotations at strategically important turns in making your most important points. Quote a recognized authority, but surprise your readers with an unexpected authority and phrasing that is eloquent. (Too often, quotes simply reinforce or rephrase an important point that's already been established.)
  
• In Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, the chapter covering "Elementary Principles Of Composition" has a section headed "Put statements in positive form." Examples given include "He was not very often on time" instead of "He usually came late"; and "He did not think that studying Latin was much use" rather than "He thought the study of Latin useless." Technical writing leads many writers into the trap of negating a concept or action that has a more recognizable label. (For example, the author of a research paper on weed management will be tempted to refer to other plants as "non-weeds" instead of calling them "vegetables." Shrunk and White say that writers who fall into such traps have failed to "Avoid tame, colorless, hesitating, non-committal language."


• If you've got a long listing (five or more entries) that's horizontal, with entries separated by commas or semicolons, convert it to a vertical list, with each entry on one line and introduced with a bullet or asterisk. Readers tend to skim listings instead of reading each entry closely, and a vertical listing makes it unmistakably clear that it's text that can be skimmed. Vertical listings are also helpful when key points are recapped or summarized. If need arises to refer back to an article for key points, the vertical listing makes them easier to locate.


• Colons and dashes are two punctuation marks that can break up a monotonous flow of text punctuated only with periods and commas. But because it's murky about which to use when, colons and dashes are often left on the keyboard. Mignon Fogarty, the author of Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips, advises that "the colon signals that what comes next is directly related to the previous sentence." Fogarty says that "a dash is a stronger and more informal mark that a colon, [that] interrupts the flow of the sentence and tells the reader to get ready for an important or dramatic statement."


• When you give your work a final proofing, see if you've got windy or word phrases that can be replaced with a single word. For example, replace "at the present time" with "now," and "in the majority of instances" with "usually."

Research scientists who have conference poster presentations for the SAES’s large format printer should get them into the network queue by:
Left clicking on the Start menu and select Run.
In the Open box type: \\argyl\Poster$ and press return.
Now drag your presentation and drop it into the window that appeared from the previous step.
Once the poster is in the file e-mail Robin Adams or call the ACT director at 4-7047 or to let her know the poster is ready for printing. (Be sure to give her the correct name of the document.

Don’t forget that there is an event calendar on the SAES Web page. Please send all calendar submissions to Stephen Charles.

Ag. Communications & Technology's computer support specialists can resolve many computer problems for SAES faculty and staff without making a trip to your office. As systems administrators, they can work through the campus network to look inside and reconfigure other SAES computer stations. Some common needs that they can meet without making a trip to your office include:
• Installing or updating software applications
• Disinfecting hard drives that have been infected with computer viruses or worms]]> http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/09/communicating-with-communicati.html http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/09/communicating-with-communicati.html Communications Corner Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:43:42 -0500 Agricultural fair season runs from August until late October in North Carolina. County and regional agricultural fairs across the stateand the State Fair in Raleigh will host about three million visitors during fair season. (The State Fair itself is scheduled for Oct. 15-25. Sept. 15 is the entry deadline for livestock competitions, and Sept. 25 is the deadline for family and consumer sciences competitions, and for general and special exhibits.) Many of the fairs depend heavily on county Extension centers for everything from leadership to elbow grease as they showcase agriculture and support local 4-H.

The first agricultural fairs, in the early 1800s, played a major role in publicizing advances in farm equipment. There was also a strong educational component to agricultural fairs from the outset, as they often gave many visitors their first-ever experience in a gallery or museum. That tradition has evolved but remains staunchly at the core of these fairs, as educational exhibits and demonstrations that demystify technology or enrich life skills are as much a part of the fairs as Ferris wheels and cotton candy.

SAES faculty, staff and students who find themselves among the three million visitors at one of North Carolina’s agricultural fairs in the next few weeks are encouraged to make time for a tour of the educational exhibits. If you come across an exhibit or demonstration that’s the handiwork of a member of The Cooperative Extension Program at A&T’s field staff and get a chance to compliment them on their work, please take advantage of the opportunity.]]> http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/09/midway-season-is-under-way.html http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/09/midway-season-is-under-way.html Communications Corner Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:48:05 -0500 • The CNET back-to-school Web page includes a link to  “selection of laptops and other dorm-friendly gear”; and also a link to “top student downloads” with URLs for “eight free programs will help students save their hard-earned cash.”
• The Aug. 15 edition of the Washington Post has the transcript from an interactive “Back to School: Technology” session with the “gadget blogger” Jose Fermoso. Among his many leads is a cell phone that allows college students to “create, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files, and ... access PDFs.”
• Another major clearinghouse for information for college students is a rush order look at “The Ins & Outs of Buying a Computer for College”.
• The “Tech Tuesday” radio broadcast for Aug. 16 is now a podcast with several technology experts weighing in on Netbooks, and other hot technology on college campuses this fall.
• The University of Alabama’s school newspaper has a detailed article about how “Students download textbooks to iPhone with CourseSmart”.
• Among the more precautionary journalism in the back-to-school-technology barrage is a New York Times Technology Page link to a listing in which a “Laptop Repair Company Ranks Top 10 Laptop-related Disasters". Another listing with a precautionary focus is a Web page focused  on five “Tech Temptations to Avoid”. ]]> http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/09/communications-corner-2.html http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/09/communications-corner-2.html Communications Corner Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:40:39 -0500 • The singular form of “data” is “datum,” a word that has become almost totally obsolete in American English. Although it sounds strange when we read or hear that “the data are all in support,” it’s very correct to use “are” with a plural verb. But pundits who get carried away changing “data is” to “data are” every time they see it should think twice. The Oxford Dictionary and other authoritative sources note that because “datum” is no longer used in American English, “data” is also used “as an equivalent to the uncountable noun information” and in those instances it’s correct to say “data is.”

• The abbreviation “etc.” is short for et cetera. The abbreviation translates to English as “and other things.” That means it’s redundant to precede “etc.” with “and.” And because the literal translation of “etc.” is “and other things,” the abbreviation shouldn’t be used to refer to people (NOT “John, Paul, Ringo, etc.”).

• The Latin expression meaning “Ante meridian” is usually abbreviated in English as “a.m.” and the Latin for "after noon," post meridian is usually abbreviated p.m. Some style manuals go along with “AM” and “PM.” But the “AM” and “PM” should be small capitals, and small capitals are special characters, not just capitals a couple point sizes smaller than the font size used elsewhere as body text. That makes “a.m.” and “p.m.” the best choice (unless you’re going to go to the trouble to make “AM” and “PM” as small capitals). Regardless which abbreviation you use, there is always a space between the Arabic number indicating the time and the abbreviation that follows (never “8a.m. or “8PM”).

• The Latin expression “et alii” translates to English as “and others,” and is abbreviated “et al.” Because “et” is not abbreviated, there is no period after the word, but there is a period after the abbreviation for alii, “al.”

• The abbreviations for the Latin expressions “id est” (“i.e.”) and “exempli gratia” (“e.g.”) are often confused. “Id est” (and the abbreviated translation, “i.e.”) means “in other words.” “Exempli gratia” (and the abbreviated expression “e.g.”) means “for example.” The abbreviation “i.e.” should be used when a statement clarifies or restates one that has preceded it: “Faculty members all have copies of the SAES Strategic Plan, i.e., the booklet that was distributed.....” The abbreviation “e.g.” should be used when introducing a list that is not intended to be comprehensive, just some examples: “Faculty and staff must pay attention to the Internal Control Guidelines when they take possession of any electronic device, e.g., cell phones or laptop computers....” When using “i.e.” and “e.g.,” set the abbreviations off with commas both before the clause they append and the clause they introduce.

• Do not italicize “et al.,” “i.e.” or “e.g.” One Latin word that appears frequently that is usually italicized is “sic.” “Sic,” which translates literally as “thus so,” is used when there is an error (grammatical or otherwise) in a quoted passage and writers borrowing material want to indicate that they are aware of the mistake. In a direct quotation, “sic” should be inserted immediately following the faux pas in brackets (not parenthesis) and italicized. For example: John Doe is another newspaper reporter who writes “The North Carolina Agricultural Extension Service [sic] has specialists at A&T and N.C. State.”

• When writing genus and species — the Latin names — of plants and animals, capitalize the genus name but not the species name, i.e., Escherichia coli, Galax urceolata and Canis lupus familiaris. After using the full name once, most style manuals approve of abbreviating genus down to one letter, i.e, E. Coli (but retain italics).]]> http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/08/latin-advisories.html http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/08/latin-advisories.html Communications Corner Wed, 19 Aug 2009 16:12:04 -0500 The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) has filed a suit against several cell phone carriers seeking more royalty money from ringtone downloads. ASCAP’s contention is that because ringtones are sometimes public performances (“played at an audible volume in public”) they are thus public performances that entitle the songwriters ASCAP represents to payment for public performance as well as the initial fee for rights to make the licensed tunes available for downloading.

Before you add a favorite melody to a personal Web page or a PowerPoint presentation — assuming that you're too small a fish to fry and don't have to fear that organizations collecting royalties may come after you — consider some of the small fish that the largest licensing organization, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) has taken the time to fry:

Because of ASCAP vigilance, a coffee shop in Sacramento, CA, now has a sign reminding open microphone night singers that they can perform only original mater. Electrical power for the microphone is shut off the instant coffee shop management hears someone performing a cover.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that an Italian restaurant which let its annual ASCAP license expire has a request from ASCAP for $750 per song for allowing a pianist and a guitarist to continue performing "That's Amore," "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," and the theme from The Godfather.  The Inquirer article noted that, "ASCAP hires music teachers and musicologists to keep an ear open for violations."

The Cincinnati Marshals indoor female football team was playing five popular songs to get the small crowds up and cheering, but failed to pay royalties. ASCAP filed suit, asking $327 for each of the seven games at which the five songs were played.

ASCAP sent Baltimore County in Maryland a bill for $17,000 for music played on county property in the past few years. The Baltimore Sun reported that, "Mostly the music was played at events at teen and senior centers and county festivals, such as the annual fall Senior Expo."

Fearful of ASCAP's recent attention to small towns across the United States, the City Council in Dunn, NC, recently voted to pay ASCAP $268 a year so copyrighted music could be played in city buildings and city-sponsored events.

If you've ever been in a restaurant where the staff paid recognition to a patron's birthday by singing, but not by singing the most familiar of all birthday songs, "Happy Birthday," that's because the song has been copyrighted since 1934 and ASCAP considers waiters and waitress singing the song a public performance, and wants a royalty payment.

In the mid-1990s, ASCAP sent word to summer camps that many songs sung around campfires — "This Land Is Your Land,"  "Blowin' in the Wind," and even "God Bless America"- were copyrighted and royalty payments were expected. Although ASCAP eventually dropped the demand because it was generating too much negative publicity, the organization initially asked camps for blanket fees ranging from $257 to $1,500.]]> http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/08/royalty-pains.html http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/08/royalty-pains.html Communications Corner Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:34:26 -0500 The June 18 edition of TechRepublic suggests “10 easy ways to improve your public speaking,” and the tip-sheet includes:
1.) “You have to know your material.... When you have a large script to memorize, the best way to do it is in chunks.... If you memorize just a big blurb of stuff and you don't break it down, you'll be lost in a sea of information if you lose your bearings.”
2.) “Rehearse correctly.... Rehearse your speech more slowly than you would normally [speak]. That way, when the nerves kick in, you will most likely be speaking at a normal pace.” 
3.) “Hydrate yourself.... Nerves dry up your mouth.... Make sure you drink plenty of water before and during your speech.”
4.) “Relax before you go on.... [Try] Reading a book or playing a video game.”
5.)  “Rest well the night before.... Go to the gym, catch a movie, read, or anything that is going to help you get a good night's sleep. “
6.) “Dress to impress.... When you feel like you look good, your confidence will soar.”
7.) “Articulate ... You can be the most brilliant person alive, but if your audience can't understand you, you will lose them”
8.) “Be heard.... When you rehearse your speech, do it in front of someone but have them stand in the back of the room.”
9.) “Warm up.... Two of the best ways to warm up your voice are humming (single low- to midrange tones are best or simple melodies or scales) and by doing tongue twisters.” 
10.) “Don't fill the void... In other words, don't drift off with ummmm... errrr... uhhhh... eeeee...sounds or words between your thoughts.”

Business Week Magazine has a slide show illustrating “The 10 Worst Presentation Habits”
The don’t list includes:
1. Reading from notes
2. Avoiding eye contact
3. Dressing down (Something to avoid because “Great communicators look the part.”)
4. Fidgeting, jiggling, and swaying
5. Failure to rehearse
6. Standing at attention
7. Reciting bullet points
8. Speaking too long
9. Failing to excite
10. Ending with an inspiration deficit (“Great communicators end their presentations on an inspiring note”)

Mark Schoeberl and Brian Toon of the American Geophysical Union have a Web page with “Ten Secrets to Giving a Good Scientific Talk”. Their 10 tips are:
1) Prepare your material carefully and logically (In four parts:
an introduction; the method; results; and conclusion.)
2) Practice your talk. (“If you have an electronic presentation - check out the system well before the talk.”)
3) Don't put in too much material. 
4) Avoid equations. (“Show only very simple equations if you show any at all.”)
5) Have only a few conclusion points. ("The fact is, people will only remember one or two things from your talk - you might as well tell them what to remember rather than let them figure it out for themselves.”)
6) Talk to the audience not to the screen. 
7) Avoid making distracting sounds.
8) Polish your graphics. (“Use no fonts smaller than 16 pts!!... Keep the graphic simple.... Use color.”)
9) Use humor if possible. 
10) Be personable in taking questions.

There’s also a Web site that not only lists the “Top 10 Best Presentations Ever”, but also provides links for watching videos of most of these presentations. The link-list includes Dr. Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech in 1963; Steve Jobs introduction of the Macintosh computer in 1984; and a Seth Godin talk about marketing at Google in 2006.]]> http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/07/four-top-10s-for-public-speaki.html http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/07/four-top-10s-for-public-speaki.html Communications Corner Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:46:46 -0500 Try this. Another search engine that cuts away commercial Web sites is is actually a shortcut for instructing google.com to look only in .edu domains.)

Another search engine has an interesting feature. When it comes up with a list of hits in response to search keyword(s), each listing on the hit list has a link for “Site info” as well as a link that takes you to the Web page itself. In addition to a wealth of interesting information about the Web site, the “site info” link is also a great way to get a mailing address or phone number if that’s your goal.

Try http://www.teoma.com/ the next time you find yourself at a loss for a keyword or the right phrase for a Web search. This search engine provides an extensive list for refining or narrowing the search along with a hit list.

The AltaVista search engine has handy tool at http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/babelfish/tr. Test it out by copying the SAES URL (http://www.ag.ncat.edu/) and pasting it into the “Translate A Web page” blank. Select “English to Spanish” or maybe “English to Korean” before you hit the “translate” button.

A guide to search engines at the Purdue Web site recommends Go.com for veterinary medicine, because of its “high return rate for topics of interest to veterinary students.” Dogpile is recommended for Consumer and Family Sciences, About for education, and Yahoo for health and nutrition.]]> http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/07/critical-hits.html http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/07/critical-hits.html Communications Corner Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:16:54 -0500 Few documents come out of academia that don’t include a couple of paragraphs that are listings — a list of equipment, a list of collaborating agencies, course listing, etc. If you see that you’ve got a long listing (five or more entries) that’s horizontal, with entries separated by commas or semicolons, there are a lot of good reasons to convert it to a vertical list, with each entry on one line and introduced with a bullet or asterisk. Readers tend to skim listings instead of reading each entry closely, and a vertical listing makes it unmistakably clear that it’s text that can be skimmed. Vertical lists also work well on Web pages — an important consideration for almost every document these days.

Here are a few guidelines for vertical lists: 

Use a colon — not a dash — to introduce the list.

Number vertical lists when the entries are part of a sequence, but when no sequence of actions is involved use bullets.

Sequential:
All students planning on attending the Career Expo should:
1. Pre-register two weeks in advance.
2. Update their resumes and make 25 copies the week before the Expo.
3. Dress in their best business attire on Expo day.

Non-sequential:
Students attending the Career Expo should bring along:
• At least 25 copies of their resume
• A printout of their registration form
• Their university ID card
 
When bulleted items are sentences, capitalize the first letter of each and use appropriate end punctuation. When they consist of single words or phrases, lowercase is best.

In a bulleted list, the bullet takes the place of punctuation (such as commas or semicolons) between items in a list. Don't put periods or semicolons at the ends of bulleted entries that are not sentences.

When bulleted items are sentences, capitalize only the first letter of each word. And even when the entries on a bullet listing are short phrases instead of sentences, it’s best to capitalize only the first word. 

Keep bulleted listings consistent. If some of the entries are sentences, make all of them sentences. If most entries begin with verbs, begin all entries with verbs.

Indent your bulleted list from text that comes before and after. Consider the density of the surrounding copy and whether your list might get lost, even with the bullets.

If you’ve got a sequential list and enumerate it, use numbers, not letters.

There’s no need to put numbers in full parenthesis, or to put a close-parenthesis after the period following the numeral.]]> http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/06/communications-corner-1.html http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/06/communications-corner-1.html Communications Corner Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:59:37 -0500 Everyone who caught even a few minutes of the Scripps National Spelling Bee on television in probably noticed the large number of words tied to agricultural, family and life sciences. Here are some of the words (and definitions from Webster's Online Dictionary or Dictionary.com that contestants were asked to spell that are rare elsewhere but par of the everyday jargon in the SAES:

Avoirdupois: goods sold by weight.
Axolotl: a type of Mexican salamander.
Blancmange: a sweet dessert made with cream and sugar thickened with gelatin, often flavored with almonds, and considered to be an ideal food for the sick.
Byssinosis a lung disease caused by exposure to cotton dust, also called "brown lung disease."
Caerphilly:  a hard, white Welsh cheese
Conchyliated: something obtained from mollusks
Cretonne: a heavy, colorful cotton, linen, or rayon fabric, printed used for draperies and slipcovers
Derriengue:  a disease of cattle in South America
Diacoele: a structure in the brain.
Eurystomatous: a wide mouth.
Geusioleptic: a pleasant flavor in food.
Guayabera: a men's shirt popular in Latin America.
Gyascutus: a fictional quadruped, whose legs are longer on one side than the other to facilitate living on a hillside.
Huisache: a thorny shrub of the southern and tropical U.S.
Hyalithe: a type of opaque porcelain
Iliopsoas: the strongest of the hip flexors
Isagoge: an introduction, as to a branch of study
Jacqueminot: a variety of deeply crimson rose 
Kinetosis: motion sickness
Kichel: a  sweet cracker commonly made with egg and sugar that has Ashkenazi Jewish origins.
Phoresy: transportation of one organism by one that’s more mobile.
Palatschinke: a type of pancake popular in central Europe.
Tagliatelle: thin, flat strips of pasta developed in northern Italy.
Schizaffin: of slender build and slight muscular development.
Wisent: a European bison.]]> http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/06/saes-spelling-bee-vocabulary-f.html http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/06/saes-spelling-bee-vocabulary-f.html Communications Corner Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:46:26 -0500 • The Discovery Channel’s health and fitness website has an Activity Calorie Burn Rate calculator that has an extremely extensive list of physical activities in the database. Among the physical activities for which there are burn rate coefficients are 23 child care activities (i.e. carrying infants, bathing children and pushing strollers); every farm and gardening activity from chasing livestock to shoveling grain; and even such scholarly activities as teaching classes, filing and attending meetings.

• Several organizations working to heighten environmental impact awareness (including the Nature Conservancy) have installed calculators on their websites that allow visitors to calculate the carbon footprint (greenhouse gas produced by transportation, electric energy use and diet, etc.) that their lifestyle decisions are leaving.

• Researchers with the World Health Organization have developed some important new algorithms for predicting an individual’s likelihood of hip fractures and major osteoporotic fractures that have been the subject of considerable interest in view of the breakthroughs’ potential to assist physicians in preventive care for one of the primary perils of aging. A taste of the variables that are involved is available at a calculator, the One-Minute Osteoporosis Risk Test, now up and running on the International Osteoporosis Foundations website.

• Don’t forget that google.com is itself a calculator, and you can use that same field where you insert key words to ask google.com to do some quick calculations. For example, query “convert 5 U.S. dollars to Canadian money” and your first hit will be “5 U.S. dollars = 5.06150231 Canadian dollars.”  Ask google to convert the driving distance from Greensboro to Memphis from miles to kilometers by querying “675.62 miles in kilometers,” and the yield is “ 6675.62 miles = 1,087.30499 kilometers.”

• The Agricultural Center at Martindale’s Calculators On-Line Center has everything from Apple trees value to wool production costs. ]]> http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/05/online-calculators-with-saes-r.html http://www.ag.ncat.edu/agedispatch/2009/05/online-calculators-with-saes-r.html Communications Corner Wed, 27 May 2009 14:16:47 -0500 Some grammarians believe in a prescribed order for adjectives when two or more modify the same noun. Although there are schools of thought as to how tightly the standard pattern should be adhered to, when something seems wrong about the flow of three or four adjectives modifying the same noun, it may be because the standard pattern has not been observed. That pattern (in reverse order of proximity to the noun) is:

1. Opinion (if “stately” or “beautiful” is used in a series of adjectives describing a building, then those opinions would be first; “a stately, brown building”)
2. Size (large, tiny, fat, thin, etc.)
3. Age (young, old, new, etc.)
4. Shape (square, flat, tall short, etc.)
5. Color (If “brown” is going into a list of adjectives describing Webb Hall, then the reason it sounds natural to say “brown, brick Webb Hall” is the color-before-material natural ordering of adjectives.)
6. Origin (American, lunar, African, Chinese, etc.)
7. Material (cotton, plastic, wooden, silver, glass, gold, etc.)
8. Purpose (The all-important adjective that tells of the noun’s ultimate purpose usually gets placed right before the noun, and many of these end with “ing.” Think how unnatural it sounds for “engagement” to go anywhere but right before the noun in “engagement ring”; “swimming” to be anywhere but right before the noun in “swimming pool”; or shopping to be first or second adjective in the string: “wonderful, five-day shopping spree.”)

Another grammar mnemonic to remember is “FANBOYS.” When the coordinating conjunctions “for,” “and,” “nor,” “but,” “or,” “yet,” and “so” are used to connect two complete thoughts in a sentence — independent clauses, both with subjects and verbs — then there should be a comma before the conjunction:
• Webb Hall is a landmark, for it has been the first building on the eastern edge of the campus for decades.
• Carver Hall is a research and teaching facility, and it also has offices and meeting rooms.
• SAES students aren’t necessarily from small towns, nor are the majority of these students particularly interested in avoiding big cities once they have their degrees.
• Carver Hall is now equipped with computer labs, but the building continues to provide traditional classrooms also.
• SAES research projects address hot-button issues, or they serve as further underpinning for the basics of applied research.
• Coltrane Hall is usually one of the quietest SAES buildings, yet its potential to accommodate a noisy crowd is unmistakable.