Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 April 18

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April 18

Why do colleges charge prospective students just for applying?

Why the fee just for applying for college? Isn't every application welcome, since they will appear more selective if more students apply? However, they treat the application process as a service, although you are not getting anything for this fee in return, unless you are accepted. --ListCheck (talk) 01:25, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

In the United States, education is only marginally supported by public money. See This data, which as of 2011 (the last year the U.S. has reported data), the U.S. ranks 27th on the list, which is pretty low considering that the U.S. similarly ranks 10th on the List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita and second on the List of countries by GDP (PPP). What that means is that, as a measure of government income, the U.S. vastly undersupports its educational system. Most of that data I noted, BTW, is for public schools through high schools. The figures if we only look at post-secondary education are even more grim for the U.S. Because of this, post-secondary schools in the U.S. need to make money using any means necessary to meet the needs of providing education for its students, alongside the secondary (and in some cases primary) mission of advancing knowledge through research. For this reason primarily, such schools take money for everything they do. Because, by-and-large, they aren't getting it from the state, they have to get it from the users (the students and prospective students) instead. --Jayron32 01:35, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

But then, there's this America's Wasteful Higher Education Spending. It says "(w)e devote more of our economy to postsecondary education than any other developed country" (that's total economy, not just public money) but my point is that, while Jayron's reply addresses the funding side of the issue, that is only half the problem. Wasteful spending also contributes to universities' need to charge for anything and everything. From what some claim to be unnecessarily huge administration costs, to problems with the tenure system, to overpaid/overcompensated (benefits) employees and professors, to downright frivolous spending, critics claim much of the money that the universities do take in is simply wasted.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 06:10, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

• The basic principle is that people respect things in proportion to what they pay for them. My dog had six mongrel puppies, and my father advertised them as available for $50 each (in the 80's). When I asked him why they weren't free, he asked me if I remembered my neighbor who had tortured a kitten to death a few years before. He said that people who will pay $50 for a puppy won't then turn around and kill it. I applied to three undergraduate schools. Had it been free, and had I applied to 100, than at least 99 of them would have wasted their time on evaluating my application. μηδείς (talk) 18:44, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

• There could be an issue with too many low quality applicants, if all applications were free. That is, it would waste university resources to read them all, and/or they would then devote less attention to each, leading them to automatically reject them for one typo, etc. So, it makes sense for them to charge something. However, this could be abused and they could charge more than it costs them to read each one, leading to them making a profit off applications they have no intention of giving serious consideration. To prevent that, the cost should be limited to what it actually costs them to review an application. Now, whether they can do this without government forcing them to comply is another question. Also, some kind of pre-check would seem to be in order. For example, for a given major, you could have the would-be applicant answer a few basic Q's, like GPA, college admission test scores, etc., and have the web site tell them then if they are eligible to submit a full application. That way there is no need to do things like writing and reading essays, on ineligible prospective students. StuRat (talk) 18:50, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
• Remember that processing all those applications involves a lot of time and money. The people who work in the admissions office don't work for free. The university uses the application fees to help pay them. Blueboar (talk) 03:54, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

handwriting exercise in different languages

Is there a website or some websites that allows you to print exercises for improving handwriting in different languages like Perso-Arabic, Bengali, Latin alphabets in different languages like French, Italian, and Gurmukhi and other South Asian languages?

Google is as good a place to look as any. For example This search (Devanagari handwriting worksheets) yields some promising results.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 05:43, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

European Handwriting

Inspired by the question above, why is it that Continental European handwriting is all joined up and curly? We don't write like that in the UK, and I find Euro handwriting very difficult to read. In the UK, our handwriting is very clear - some letters joined, and some not, and everybody has their own style. In Euro countries, it seems that everyone has the same style. Why is this? KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 07:04, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

British handwriting has changed significantly over the past hundred years. The UK fashion for not joining letters started, I think, with Marion Richardson (I recall rebelling against the method at school because I was being forced to unlearn my older style). What system is taught in European schools? Is it the same as older UK styles? Dbfirs 09:28, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, in Euro countries, they mostly join every letter in each word, and it is all very curly (and small) but here in the UK we are first taught to write clearly, then taught cursive, then allowed to develop our own style. I mix the two, and use larger writing than Euro people. Speaking of older UK styles, I have been trying to read soldiers' letters and diaries from WW1, with last year being the centenary, and they are really hard to decifer. The Euro style is similar. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 09:43, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Do you mean copperplate handwriting --- LongHairedFop (talk) 11:25, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Not quite as flamboyant as that, but similar. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 11:33, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

"Euro countries"? I think you mean "European countries", the handwriting has nothing to do with the currency. Having said that, as far as I'm aware, roughly the same styles of cursive are taught all over Europe, however they are not used very much any more by anyone, understandably so, as they take more effort to write. However, they are very readable if done properly, so I don't know why you would have problem reading it. Possibly it was written poorly when you looked at it. Everybody has their own style in Europe as well, I don't know where you're getting the idea it's uniform, far from it. Fgf10 (talk) 11:55, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

'Euro' is my nickname for 'Continental Europe' - no harm in that. I just find it difficult to read. It's not exactly uniform, because, as you say, everyone has their own writing, but it's still nothing like British handwriting. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 12:02, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

When I need others to clearly see what I write, I use "British handwriting". When I need to take a lot of notes for myself, I use my old-fashioned "Continental European" handwriting, because it is two times faster. Akseli9 (talk) 12:41, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Could someone post a few links to examples of what's being discussed? I'm not sure if I'm completely misunderstanding or just used to different terms. In NA, there are two common forms of handwritten communication: 'printing' (each letter separate, not "curly") and 'writing' (a/k/a cursive, most letters in each word connected). To me, writing cursive where the letters aren't connected seems all but nonsensical. Matt Deres (talk) 13:44, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

This kind of stuff. And 'all but nonsensical' would mean it is not nonsensical, but everything else, therefore exclusively excluding 'nonsensical' as a trait. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 14:03, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

At least in Germany, the basic writing style taught at school has evolved over time, if slowly. You might want to take a look at de: Ausgangsschrift. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:20, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

The enwp article cursive has a bit to say about all this. Thincat (talk) 14:37, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. It seems that fashions keep changing everywhere. The American Spencerian script from 1884 is quite similar to my grandfather's handwriting (that I tried to imitate with only limited success), and to some family wills from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries here in northern England. There was a lot of variation, though, because I've seen some old wills in a horrid angular style. Dbfirs 18:13, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

• This strikes me as quite odd. In the US in the 70's we were taught the Palmer method and not allowed to hand in printed assignments from 4th grade on, unless specifically told to do so, such as for science reports. We were also taught cursive in (pomoskovsky) Russian in the 90's, which my grandmother used, and I have documents in the Rusyn language that were written in cursive from the turn of the 1900's, including the statement "Ja kupil haus" by my great-grandfather in 1905. I don't use cursive anymore unless I write out my full signature formally, but I do use a very quick semi-cursive printing style on the rare occasions I still write by hand, like notes and shopping lists. It's very odd to hear cursive is unnatural to the British. μηδείς (talk) 19:13, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

  Not unnatural, but I stopped using full cursive when writing on the board because students found my old-fashioned style difficult to read. Is it true that only 15% of young people in the USA use cursive? Dbfirs 20:38, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

My eldest nephew is at the point where he should have been taught cursive, but I believe the local school board has decided to teach typing instead. I'll have to ask my sister. We were required to use cursive in almost all situations until graduating high school. I gave it up immediately except to indicate italics, but adapted a semi-cursive (printed and unconnected but looping) script for ease and speed. I just checked, my sister in Mass. says that one of the teachers in his grade is teaching it to her class, the others aren't, and it's not policy any more that they learn it. μηδείς (talk) 00:47, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

• • Apparently one of the differences between the "traditional" Zaner-Bloser cursive (widely taught in the U.S. in the 1970s) and D'Nealian cursive (taught in the U.S. now but by less schools as time goes by) is that D'Nealian cursive looks like joined-up D'Nealian print while Zaner-Bloser cursive is quite different from its print. Rmhermen (talk) 19:44, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

• If you say so; I'm not seeing the similarity. —Tamfang (talk) 07:29, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

• I suspect part of the variation in people's writing styles in the UK may arise from the politicisation of the education system. From 1958, when Hugh Gaitskell ceased to support the postwar consensus on the education system, the Labour Party at all levels of government started to advance a range of measures to promote a supposedly more egalitarian education system. Although the centrepiece of this was comprehensivisation there were a great many efforts in local education authorities to advance a wide range of supporting schemes, including variation in handwriting skills.

For what it's worth, I was taught round hand at primary school in the UK, and gently guided to oval hand (italic) once I had mastered that. I now write oval hand in formal letters, with a few minor variations arising from my laziness in forming the full characters. RomanSpa (talk) 21:17, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm still not following (and given the cogency of the above answers, I assume it's due to my stupidity). KT's question mentions that in the UK, their handwriting is done with some letters joined and some not. KT, are you referring to cursive script with spaces between letters even within a single word? When I use cursive, I sometimes print the capital letters (especially in cases where the cursive capital is ridiculously fancy like "F" or "I" or "Q"), so they might not be joined, but that's about it. Are you talking about that - or something else? For example, if you wrote "references" in cursive, would it all be a single line with no breaks (it would be for me)? Or, if that's a bad example, could you provide another one? Are there commonly used rules about when to break? Matt Deres (talk) 14:52, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, for example, this is my own handwriting for comparison with the example I gave above. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 16:54, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, that clarifies the question. This "semi-print" style is becoming increasingly common in the UK and USA. (I blame teachers who simplify their own cursive to avoid being asked "what does that say?") Perhaps writers in continental Europe are more likely to use full cursive, but fashions seem to change everywhere, and there are still many of us in the UK who retain almost full cursive. Dbfirs 18:22, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

When I was working in a primary school in Eastern Europe, one of the activities I used was to get the kids to write their favourite animal on the board. One girl came up and wrote something I couldn't read. I said, "What's that?" and she said, "Fish. F-i-s-h. Fish." The following week with this class, the native pair teacher told them to write more clearly, recognizing the fact that we don't write like that. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 18:47, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Apologies for entering the lists rather late in the day, but I've found some proof to confirm that European handwriting is difficult for us poor Britons to comprehend:

"I find it hard to read because of his curious continental handwriting..." The Diaries of Donald Friend, Volume 3

"It has long been a painful rite of passage for German schoolchildren – learning "die Schreibschrift", a fiddly form of joined-up handwriting all pupils are expected to have mastered by the time they leave primary school. But now, many German teachers have had enough, insisting it is a waste of time to force children to learn a cursive script when they have already learned to print letters at kindergarten." The Guardian 29 June 2011.

"I have pretty good penmanship, but it’s nothing like the calligraphie of the French. Theirs can be absolutely unreadable, but is always done with so much flair and polish, that it’s hard to fault them." David Lebovitz

Finally a note about learning penmanship in the UK; the style that I was taught in the dogma-driven 1960s was a simplified system devised by one Marion Richardson in the 1930s, with the result that my handwriting rather resembles that of an eager schoolboy. I have since taught myself to write in copperplate and Foundation Hand but it takes forever and when in a hurry, revert to primary school style. A friend of mine has a 5 year old who is being taught at school to write letters complete with the ligatures so that he can quickly move on to cursive script. The result is that his writing is completely undecipherable to anyone except himself and possibly his teacher. Alansplodge (talk) 20:04, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

At age 8 I decided that the prescribed curlicued style, that we were exhorted to improve without any suggestions as to how, was ugly in my hand and abandoned the attempt (with no teacher objecting); my hand ended up resembling KT's in structure if not in detail. At age 16 I spent some time in Lausanne, where the customary hand was very different (though rarely hard for me to read); I believe I adopted some affectations from it, though now I'd be hard put to say what. —Tamfang (talk) 09:26, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Recording devices in courts

How come recording devices are usually restricted in courts, but in other cases they are freely used? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 07:14, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Once again, which country? In the UK Crown Courts, all recording devices must be switched off, including mobile phones, computers, iPads, etc. Recording devices are only used by the Police when questionning. This may be played in court as evidence, but generally, the jury receives a transcript beforehand, so they can speed up the process of coming to a verdict. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 08:14, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

@KageTora: No specific country. But I'm interested in cases in the United States, as sometimes I see in their news reports that all they can use is court sketches, but in other times news reports show actual court proceedings (I'm pretty sure there's is even a TV show which is nothing but court hearings). Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 08:29, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, Judge Judy is just fake, but there are times with high-profile cases where there are TV cameras used, but this is purely for public entertainment, like the Scott Peterson trial, or the OJ Simpson trial, for example. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 09:16, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

So in UK courts, all devices must be switched off? Does the court reporter have to use a typewriter, or something like that? I just assumed that with today's technology, it would be routine for court reporters to film and/or produce sound recordings for official purposes, and then produce transcripts from them, so that they could review their work in case of an error, and so that there would be more evidence in case of violence in the courtroom. Nyttend (talk) 10:40, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

That is for people officially employed by the courts, not the journalists and public audience who may also be present. The Crown Court in the UK is a public court. Anyone can go to watch the proceedings. They just cannot record it. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 11:31, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

I believe UK courts use a system called Digital Audio Recording and Transcription and Storage or DARTS since about 2012 when the Stenograph was phased out. MilborneOne (talk) 12:41, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Guys, my question is about why recording devices are sometimes prohibited in courtroom hearings and sometimes they are allowed in hearings. It has nothing to do with how they are used, or even stenography. Why the inconsistency? Why not just either allow them at all times or restrict them at all times? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 13:39, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

I guess we would want to know who is making the decision and what criteria go into that decision-making process. I don't know the answer. Bus stop (talk) 13:47, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Every American state has its own laws about when, if ever, recording devices can be used in court. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:24, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

The general principle in common law is that the judge is the arbiter of what evidence can be allowed, and what excluded. So he can have things stricken from the transcript if they are objected to on grounds such as irrelevance or prejudiciality, but he obviously can't censor a cellphone transmitting the live proceedings. I once was foreman in a civil suit where I and most of the witnesses and plaintiffs spoke (and testified) in Spanish. We were instructed by the judge to disregard anything said in Spanish and only to consider the English translation. Of course that was absurd, but at least neither party ever disputed the other's translations, and as soon as we went to deliberation they settled. Basically, the issue is Evidence (law). μηδείς (talk) 18:34, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

OK, let's look at some pros and cons:

PRO: The public has a right to know what happens in it's courts. This prevents obvious miscarriages of justice by shining a light on them.

CON: The individuals involved have a right to privacy. This includes the victim, particularly in cases involving minors, rape, etc. The accused may also have a right to privacy, at least until they are convicted. Tabloid TV shows/anything involving Nancy Grace would love to show a snip from a trial and then declare the accused guilty despite a total lack of evidence. The jury may also have a right to privacy, particularly if they might be attacked for making the "wrong" decision. StuRat (talk) 18:36, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

As we've all seen from TV news reports, it seems fine to have an artist do a hand drawing of the defendant(s), and that can presumably be as true to life as the artist can make it. But a photo is not on. I've never really understood that distinction. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:44, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

It's the muted pinks, Jack. --Trovatore (talk) 20:06, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, apparently my oeil has been tromped many times without my knowing it. Ignorance is bliss. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:34, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

I think the problem is the impracticality of banning it. An artist could attend, memorize the people in question, then draw them later and submit the pics to the media anonymously. Rather than trying to track down such people, they simply allow it. Another reason might be that artists don't disturb the proceedings as much as cameramen, what with flashes, extra lights, shutters clicking, film winding, etc. (although modern cameras can potentially be far less obtrusive than those used back when the laws were made). StuRat (talk) 19:55, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Some references:

• Courtroom photography and broadcasting, wikipedia article on subject (mainly deals with US, and not in good shape)
• History of Cameras in the Federal Courts, government wesbite
• Cameras in courtrooms, by Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Abecedare (talk) 19:53, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Women in Love

Per edit request. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:25, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

(This page will be protected for 10 hours, so I have to use the talk page for my question). If I read D. H. Lawrence's Women in Love without having first read The Rainbow will I have any poblems? Is it a direct sequel (like, say, The Two Towers) or a more "loose" one (like The Libation Bearers)? 78.87.40.250 (talk) 13:53, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

When I was in college, taking a course on the modern novel, we read Women in Love. I have never read The Rainbow. If I was missing something, I was never told, so I assume that it can stand alone. (The Two Towers, by the way, is not a sequel; it's just the middle part of a unitary novel.) Deor (talk) 02:26, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer, first of all, Deor. Concerning Tolkien, as they were not published together, I think that it does qualify as a sequel. Still, I can change it to Perelandra, if you wish. 78.87.40.250 (talk) 03:38, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Off-topic, but most Tolkien nerds consider LOTR to be one work, comprising 6 "books", commonly published in 6 3 volumes. The item-level and manifestation-level differences (e.g. there are some single-volume editions) don't change the nature of the work, or make one part of it a sequel, at least not in the sense of FRBR classification ;) SemanticMantis (talk) 16:11, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

I think you mean 3 volumes. LotR is a sequel to The Hobbit though. - Lindert (talk) 16:28, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Noted, corrected, and good point. Actually, I would like to have a six-volume set, but AFAIK it was never released that way :) SemanticMantis (talk) 16:40, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Such an edition (with a seventh volume for the appendices) was issued in 1999. Deor (talk) 20:38, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Ibn Battuta portrait

Looks like the image that was removed from Ibn Battuta per Talk:Ibn_Battuta#Portraits has been deleted, so I don't know whether it was the same as this one. This source implies that the image commonly believed to depict Ibn Battuta (e.g., by Muslim Heritage and even by 1902 Britannica) actually comes from an earlier 13th-century Arabic manuscript (thus predating Ibn Battuta). Is it indeed so or some scholars think otherwise? I can't read Arabic. Brandmeister^talk 21:53, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

It looks like that manuscript, certainly. It's pretty famous, and, as the page you linked top notes, images from it are used for all sorts of Islamic things, no matter how tangentially related (the cover of the recent translation of Usama ibn Munqidh's "Book of Contemplation" for one I happen to have in front of me). So that's definitely not Ibn Battuta, just some guy on a camel. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:35, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. We removed this picture from the Russian article on Ibn Battuta quite some time ago. --Ghirla^-трёп- 22:05, 19 April 2015 (UTC)