Every year in America, high-school students who want to go to college take a national examination called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT in a shortened way. Their score is an important factor in determining which colleges will admit them or whether any will be admitted at all. The Scholastic Aptitude Test measures one's mathematical ability and use of the English language. Traditionally, the English part involved grammatical questions and paragraphs that test reading comprehension.

    But the SAT folks have added a single question, to be answered in an essay, hand-written on the spot. That's an interesting way to test writing ability, but content aside, have you ever seen young people's handwriting lately? Or anyone's for that matter, in this age of computer keyboards? Students write numbers and sign their names on bank checks. They scribble class notes in what can generously be described as the written word.

    Yet today's kids are asked to write, thoughtfully and clearly, for several minutes on this SAT Test. Good luck to the text scorers who must work out difficultly the scrawl (潦草的字迹) of young people who've been typing on computers since the age of three! Teachers insist that good handwriting can not only help one's score on the SAT, but also, later on in life, impress potential employers. And don't forget, we all have to turn to handwriting from time to time, as computers go down when power goes out.

    Then how to improve the handwriting? Well, with a few simple steps you can improve your hand writing.

    Position the pen. You should hold the pen between the forefinger and the thumb, then rest it near the first knuckle (指节) of the middle finger. The rest of your fingers should be curled (卷曲) under your hand and your hand should remain relaxed.

    Evaluate your writing. Make changes to your letters till you like how they look.

    Take your time. Speed is bound to make your writing messy-looking.

    Practice. Practice it a lot; it's not enough to do it once and hope for the best. It has to be something you work at to make great improvements.

English Conversation

Leader: Mandi Ashmore

english@ iwc-lausanne. org

    We meet on Mondays at 14：30 at the IWC clubhouse. We chat for about an hour and discuss everything. Mandi asks “students” to contact her on Monday to confirm the class as sometimes she needs to cancel for various reasons or occasionally she may choose to hold the class at a different venue(举办地点) or at an earlier time for us to be able to have lunch together.

French Conversation, Advanced Beginner

Leader: Marielle Sulmoni

frenchconvo@ iwc-lausanne. org

    I'm French (born in Bordeaux) and Swiss by marriage. I hold an advanced beginners' French conversation class on Tuesday afternoons from 14：30 - 16：00. We meet weekly at the clubhouse in a friendly atmosphere. I hope to help you use your knowledge of French, allowing you to speak with no fear of making mistakes, which in time will become fewer and fewer.

French Language Lab, Beginner

Leader: Maija Remlinger

frenchlab@ iwc-lausanne. org

    The group meets on Thursday afternoons from 15：00－16：30 at the clubhouse. The first half of the class is devoted to reading out loud from the book “Easy French Reader”, working on pronunciation and phrasing. During the second half, we listen to audio recordings from “New French with Ease” and work on oral comprehension.

French Conversation, Advanced

Leader: Juliette Brull

french@ iwc-lausanne, org

    We meet every Tuesday at the IWC clubhouse from 9：30－11：00. Most of our time is devoted to very lively discussions about current events and various topics. We also read a book written by a French author and sometimes we see a French movie.

    John is a mechanic, but he lost his job a few months ago. He has good heart, but always feared applying for a new job.

    One day, he gathered up all his strength and decided to attend a job interview. His appointment was at 10 am and it was already 8:30. While waiting for a bus to the office where he was supposed to be interviewed, he saw an elderly man wildly kicking the tyre(轮胎) of his car. Obviously there was something wrong with the car. John immediately went up to lend him a hand. When John finished working on the car, the old man asked him how much he should pay for the service. John said there was no need to pay him; he just helped someone in need, and he had to rush for an interview. Then the old man said, "Well, I could take you to the office for your interview. It's the least I could do. Please. I insist." John agreed.

    Upon arrival, John found a long line of applications waiting to be interviewed. John still had some grease(油脂) on him after the car repair, but he did not have much time to wash it off or have a change of shirt. One by one, the applicants left the interviewer's office with disappointed look on their faces. Finally his name was called. The interviewer was sitting on a large chair facing the office window. Rocking the chair back and forth, he asked, "Do you really need to be interviewed?" John's heart sank. "With the way I look now, how could I possibly pass this interview?" he thought to himself.

    Then the interviewer turned the chair and to John's surprise, it was the old man he helped earlier in the morning. It turned out he was the General Manager of the company.

    "Sorry I had to keep you waiting, but I was pretty sure I made the right decision to have you as part of our workforce before you even stepped into the office. I just know you'd be a trustworthy worker. Congratulations!" John sat down and they shared a cup of well-deserved coffee as he landed himself a new job.

    Have you ever been afraid to talk back when you were treated unfairly? Have you ever bought something just because the salesman talked you into it? Many people are afraid to speak out for their rights. Dr Robert Albert, author of Stand Up, Speak Out, and Talk Back thinks it's because their self-respect is low.

    But Albert and other scientists are doing something to help people help themselves. They offer "assertiveness training" courses A. T. for short. In the A.T. Course people learn that they have a right to be themselves. They learn to speak out and feel good about doing so. They learn to help themselves without hurting other people.

In one way, learning to speak out is to get rid of fear. A group taking an A. T. Course will help the shy person to lose his fear. But A. T.uses an even stronger motive— he needs to share. The shy person speaks out in the group because he wants to tell how he feels. Whether or not you speak up for yourself depends on your self-respect. If someone you face is more "important" than you, you may feel less of a person. You start to doubt your answers to problems. You can get to feel good about yourself. And once you do you can learn to speak out.

When I teach research methods, a major focus is peer review. As a process, peer review evaluates academic papers for their quality, integrity and impact on a field, largely shaping what scientists accept as "knowledge"- By instinct, any academic follows up a new idea with the question, "Was that peer reviewed?"

Although I believe in the importance of peer review and I help do peer reviews for several academic journals-I know how vulnerable the process can be. 

I had my first encounter with peer review during my first year as a Ph. D student. One day, my adviser handed me an essay and told me to have my -written review back to him in a week. But at the time, I certainly was not a "peer"--I was too new in my field. Manipulated data （不实的数据） or substandard methods could easily have gone undetected. Knowledge is not self-evident. Only experts would be able to notice them, and even then, experts do not always agree on what they notice. 

Let's say in my life I only see white swans. Maybe I write an essay, concluding that all swans are white. And a "peer" says, "Wait a minute, I've seen black swans. "I would have to refine my knowledge. 

The peer plays a key role evaluating observations with the overall goal of advancing knowledge. For example, if the above story were reversed, and peer reviewers who all believed that all swans were white came across the first study observing a black swan, the study would receive a lot of attention. 

So why was a first-year graduate student getting to stand in for an expert? Why would my review count the same as an expert's review? One answer: The process relies almost entirely on unpaid labor. 

Despite the fact that peers are professionals, peer review is not a profession. As a result, the same over-worked scholars often receive masses of the peer review requests. Besides the labor inequity, a small pool of experts can lead to a narrowed process of what is publishable or what counts as knowledge, directly threatening diversity of perspectives and scholars. Without a large enough reviewer pool, the process can easily fall victim to biases, arising from a small community recognizing each other's work and compromising conflicts of interest. 

Despite these challenges. I still tell my students that peer review offers the best method for evaluating studies aird advancing knowledge. As a process, peer review theoretically works. The question is whether the issues with peer review can be addressed by professionalizing the field.