Tim McNamara and Carsten Roever’s “Language Testing: The Social Dimension” is the fifth volume in the Language Learning Monograph Series. The volumes in this series review recent findings and current theoretical positions, present new data and interpretations, and sketch interdisciplinary research programs. Volumes are authoritative statements by scholars who have led in the development of a particular line of interdisciplinary research and are intended to serve as a benchmark for interdisciplinary research in the years to come. The importance of broad interdisciplinary work in applied linguistics is clear in the present volume. McNamara and Roever survey the work that language testers have done to establish internal equity in assessment, and they describe the consequences of language testing in society as a whole and in the lives of individuals. Language is rooted in social life and nowhere is this more apparent than in the ways in which knowledge of language is assessed. Studying language tests and their effects involves understanding some of the central issues of the contemporary world.
Practice-led research is a burgeoning area across the creative arts, with studio-based doctorates frequently favoured over traditional research. Yet until now there has been little published guidance for students embarking on such research. This is the first book designed specifically as a pedagogical tool and is structured on the model used by most research programmes. A comprehensive introduction lays out the book’s framework and individual chapters provide concrete examples of studio-based research in art, film and video, creative writing and dance, each contextualised by a theoretical essay and complete with references.
An invaluable tool for anyone carrying out a research project
We all learn to do research by actually doing it, but a great deal of time and effort can be wasted and goodwill dissipated by inadequate preparation. This book provides beginner researchers with the tools to do the job, to help them avoid some of the pitfalls and time-wasting false trails, and to establish good research habits. It takes researchers from the stage of choosing a topic through to the production of a well-planned, methodologically sound, and well-written final report or thesis on time. It is written in plain English and makes no assumptions about previous knowledge.
Written by leading experts in the field, The Blackwell Guide to Research Methods in Bilingualism and Multilingualism focuses on the methodology of research in this rapidly growing field.
Mitch, the hurricane that devastated Central America in 1998, was one of the most savage storms of the century, however, research shows that, overall, hurricanes are not growing fiercer or more frequent. With the intensification of climate research in recent years and rising concern that humans may be altering the global climate, funding agencies have increased the resources available for evaluating the evidence of global warming and its likely consequences. Hurricanes, Revised Edition is a fully revised, authoritative guide to hurricanes. It contains new and updated sidebars explaining concepts from atmospheric science, such as potential temperature; the link between the jet stream and mid-latitude depressions; why the wind blows; and the conservation of angular momentum - the principle that explains the way hurricane winds accelerate as air spirals inward. Measurements are given in familiar units, such as pounds, feet, miles, and degrees Fahrenheit, and in each case the metric or scientific equivalent has been added. Appendices list some of the most notorious hurricanes of the past and the set of names that are used to identify tropical cyclones in different parts of the world. Also, suggestions for relevant further reading have been added at the end of each section as well as in a comprehensive bibliography at the end of the book. Sources include useful books and a large number of web addresses.
