[LINK] "Group Assessment"

Tom Worthington tom.worthington at tomw.net.au
Thu Sep 5 09:04:28 AEST 2019


On 4/9/19 10:26 am, Roger Clarke wrote:

> ... Many journals publish in *either* international English or
> American English (but they tend to prefer consistency within the
> article). ...

Christopher Davies wrote on "Which English to Use?" in ACM eLearn 
magazine (2010): https://elearnmag.acm.org/archive.cfm?aid=1842417

My experience with computer conference publishing is the IEEE asks
for American English, ACM less often. However, in a quick search I found 
22 sets of author instructions on the ACM website requiring American 
English. Some other publishers offer a choice of American or British.

The latest ACM guidelines don't seem to require English at all: 
https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template

> ... 'Two similar cultures separated by a common language', as Shaw 
> and Churchill put it). ...

Studying in Canada as an international student was a curious experience,
as they have a mix of US and European conventions. This applies to
page sizes for assignments. I discovered Canada has its own P4 page 
size, which is a compromise between the US Letter and European A4. But 
after formatting my first assignment with P4, I found no one actually 
uses it. The Canadian professors with a US education expected US Letter, 
the rest A4.

> 'Vive la difference' ...

No, the "Golden Rule" will apply: "Those who have the gold, make the 
rules". Hopefully China and India will agree on one form of English for 
the rest of us to use. ;-)

The serious side of this is that in an Internet connected world we need 
to be able to communicate.


-- 
Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150
TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia
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Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University
https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington



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