Author Howard Wainer
Event Dates: September 14, 2011 – 7:00pm
Location
Princeton Public Library, Community Room
65 Witherspoon Street
Princeton, NJ
“Uneducated Guesses: Using Evidence to Uncover Misguided Education Policies”
A distinguished research scientist at the National Board of Medical Examiners and adjunct professor of statistics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Wainer was principal research scientist at Educational Testing Service for 21 years. His book uses statistical evidence to show why some of the most widely held beliefs in education today, and the policies that have resulted from them, are wrong.
Part of the Thinking Allowed series sponsored by the library and Princeton University Press.
According to their web site: “The annual Arthur Ross Book Award recognizes books that make an outstanding contribution to the understanding of foreign policy or international relations. It was endowed by Arthur Ross in 2001 to honor nonfiction works, in English or translation, that merit special attention for bringing forth new information that changes our understanding of events or problems, developing analytical approaches that allow new and different insights into critical issues, or providing new ideas that help resolve foreign policy problems. The 2011 award consists of a $15,000 first prize, a $7,500 second prize, and a $2,500 honorable mention.”
The winners will be honored at a ceremony at the Council on Foreign Relations headquarters in New York on September 8th.
Photo: Probable Bryan’s Shearwater, Midway Atoll, December 1991. (Reginald David)
So, you are asking yourself — who or what is a Bryan’s Shearwater? and why is Princeton University Press dratting him, her, or it? Well, this is a story almost 50 years in the making.
In 1963, scientists collected a specimen of what they thought was a Little Shearwater. Now, in 2011, DNA testing has revealed that it is actually a new species of shearwater which has been named after Edwin Horace Bryan Jr., who was curator of collections at the B.P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu from 1919 until 1968.
According to a press release from The Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, (via The Birdbooker Report, http://birdbookerreport.blogspot.com/p/new-hawaiian-shearwater.html), this is the finding of a lifetime: “Researchers have rarely discovered new species of birds since most of the world’s 9,000-plus species (including about 21 other species of shearwaters) were described before 1900. The majority of new species described since the mid-1900s have been discovered in remote tropical rain and cloud forests, primarily in South America and southeastern Asia. The Bryan’s shearwater is the first new species reported from the United States and Hawaiian Islands since the Po’ouli was described from the forests of Maui in 1974.”
So, now that everyone’s Hawaiian checklist has gotten a little bit bigger, how will you recognize a Bryan’s Shearwater? According to the release, “the Bryan’s Shearwater is the smallest shearwater known to exist. It is black and white with a black or blue-gray bill and blue legs.” However, as the release notes, the fact that Bryan’s shearwaters have only just now been discovered means they are extremely rare and may even be extinct, so best of luck in spotting one!
While I might not actually be your publicist, these are some hints, tips, and things I’ve gleaned during my 5 years in PUP publicity. In part, this series of posts will be a response to a fantastic new blog I’ve been reading: Marketing for Scientists by Marc Kuchner (which will soon be a book from Island Press and should be required reading for any scientist with aspirations of putting pen to paper). I thought it might be fun to riff on some of the ideas there and how they are useful not just to scientists, but specifically to scientists who are authors. So here goes:
QR Codes are those square black and white blobs you are seeing everywhere (including to the right of this post). People with smart phones can download a free app that allows them to scan QR Codes from postcards, posters, billboards, and even this guy’s chest. Once scanned, the QR Code directs them to an assigned web site. They are, in short, a terrific tool for promotions and publicity when used right. MFS suggests using QR Codes on posters at conferences or on your business cards, but this is just the tip of the iceberg and publishers, like everyone else, are trying to figure out how to best use QR Codes.
Go make your best guesses at which covers they are featuring and you might win a copy of the brand-new anthology “The Only Game in Town: Sportswriting from The New Yorker.”
Official rules and how to enter are here: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books#ixzz1W8z2Icjd
**IAN GOLDIN ON THE WORLD TODAY – BBC WORLD SERVICE Professor Goldin explored ideas taken from his latest book, Exceptional People: How Migration Shaped Our World and Will Define Our Future, during The World Today on Monday 8th August. **VIKTOR MAYER-SCHÖNBERGER AT THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS Also on Monday 8th August, following on from [...]
Even though the cover is reversed, that galley is easily recognizable as Reinventing Discovery by Michael Nielsen. We expect finished books in October, but so far most of the reactions have been, well, you can see for yourself…
As Al Bertrand posted a few weeks ago, it’s easy to overlook all the activity that takes place after a book is published and English language sales have begun. In the translation rights world, promotion of books begins a few months prior to publication and often is targeted at one of the major book fairs. Preparation for Frankfurt Book Fair in October is well and truly underway, with the rights calendar almost full for five days’ worth of appointments with agents and publishers, and the selection of key titles already in progress. We’re already beginning to design our Spring 2012 rights guide and as soon as the rights guide goes out, we will be responding to interest in upcoming titles.
Of course, the business of making deals for translation rights extends far beyond the few months surrounding publication, as PUP’s deals for the last few weeks demonstrate. Summer is traditionally a quiet time in the rights world as publishers in some countries are minimally staffed over the warmest months of the year, but we’ve had an excellent crop of rights deals of late. Most recently we’ve seen a Polish language deal with Krytyka for Roman Frydman and Michael Goldberg’s Beyond Mechanical Markets, which was published earlier this year. But we’ve also had offers for Sheldon Wolin’s Tocqueville between Two Worlds: The Making of a Political and Theoretical Life (Chinese simplified rights), which we first published in 2001, and Steven Shapin and Simon Scheffer’s, Leviathan and the Air Pump (Japanese rights), which we first published in 1985 and have just reissued in paperback. In some cases, publishers considering the books have just taken a very long time to reach a decision, but usually late interest in a book comes from scholarly recommendation or media interest. Nonetheless, it’s always interesting to see what interests publishers from PUP’s backlist.
Naturally, the majority of rights interest is focused on recent and forthcoming titles. We launched Daniel Hamermesh’s Beauty Pays to international interest at London Book Fair earlier this year, and just in time for the publication of the English edition, we have received three excellent rights offers: Japanese rights have gone to Nikkei Publications, while Chinese simplified rights have gone to The Oriental Press, and Chinese complex rights to China Times.
In any case, foreign editions are an important means of extending the reach of a given book and its author, whatever the publication date of the English edition.
- Kimberley M. Williams, International Rights Manager
The marriage market, employment, and how we judge each other: UT Economist and PUP author Daniel Hamermesh on the scarcity of beauty.
This is the last of five videos in which Hamermesh explains some of the research he did for Beauty Pays. If you missed the others, find them at the links below!
I have always been fascinated by these birds, but never more so than after watching them “dance” at the Philadelphia Zoo. A group of at least 24 birds moving forward, back, sideways in perfect rhythm. They were joined by a large duck who kept up fairly well with their fast-paced dance. We may not know precisely why they are dancing (Angier’s article points to research that suggests flocks are trying to coordinate mating times so that young hatch on the same day which increases chance of survival), but one thing we do know is what their nests look like!
Well, here is an exclusive glimpse from Avian Architecture of a field of flamingo nests. Enjoy!
Featuring commentary and interviews from Princeton University Press authors, the PUP Blog is a highly respected, timely and indispensable source for learning, understanding and reflection.
Despite a 25 per cent devaluation of sterling, UK exports to Asia in the last three years have grown at a slower rate than those from Greece and Spain. In 2011, per capita gross domestic product in Ireland was greater than that in the UK. Meanwhile, the role of the state in the UK economy […]
Abstract submission is now open for the 24th Annual Human Behavior and Evolution Society meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Note that the deadline is March 16th, so the window for submission is narrow. For those who have not submitted to HBES before, note that the submission process requires only an abstract (200 words or fewer), […]
If you’re interested in money – and who isn’t? – David Wolman’s is a cracking good read. People think economics is all about money but actually very few economists think about money at all. If only more had done so … Continue reading → […]
Dan Griswold's "Immigration and the Welfare State" was my favorite in the Cato Journal immigration symposium. Highlights:False stereotypes notwithstanding, immigrants have an awesome work ethic:The typical foreign-born adult resident of the United States today is more likely to participate in the work force than the typical native-born Americ […]
One of my occasional concerns about foreign policy is how ill-conceived, ill-informed, or simply illegal policies get fixed. As I've noted before, one of the problems with relying on whistleblowers is that the kind of person who believes themselves to be a truthteller also tends to have otherbaggage. To the blunt, the personality tropes that permit wh […]
A couple of points that have emerged in the debate over the Labor leadership need a response First, there’s the claim that there are no policy differences between Rudd and Gillard. This is often presented as if the two had independently arrived at the same position. In fact, as the equation in the post title […]
Christina and David Romer have a new paper (pdf), focusing on the interwar era: This paper uses the interwar period in the United States as a laboratory for investigating the incentive effects of changes in marginal income tax rates. Marginal rates changed frequently and drastically in the 1920s and 1930s, and the changes varied greatly […]
I've now read the full Cato Journal immigration issue cover-to-cover. Leaving aside my lead article, here are my brief reactions:1. Gordon Hanson, "Immigration and Economic Growth." Pretty good, especially on the interaction between high-skilled native labor and low-skilled immigrant labor:One contribution of low-skilled immigrants is to mak […]
It’s being called the “negative salary”: Due to austerity measures in Greece, it’s being reported that up to 64,000 Greeks will go without pay this month, and some will have to pay for having a job. Numbers in austerity reports have usually reflected figures in the millions, since they reflect industry-wide cuts (i.e. a 537-million euro cut to […]
1. New Carl Zimmer project on science eBook reviews. 2. Empirical tests of how much “cold start” is a problem in labor economics. From this general blog on on-line labor markets and their implications. 3. Markets in everything: dog TV. 4. NYT symposium on the farm bill, including yours truly. 5. Whorfian economics. 6. CrookedTimber […]
Author Howard Wainer
