Robin Turner - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Books by Robin Turner
This book aims to assist students in writing a term paper in the social sciences or humanities. I... more This book aims to assist students in writing a term paper in the social sciences or humanities. It covers the process of writing from finding a subject or analysing a question through research and outlining to drafting and editing. Unlike many writing textbooks, it is based on study of actual academic papers in a variety of disciplines rather than adhering unquestioningly to the conventions of Freshman Composition classes. Because it was written originally for students at Bilkent University, Ankara, the needs of second language students are given particular attention.
Papers by Robin Turner
The phenomenal growth of information technology, and of the Internet in particular, is profoundly... more The phenomenal growth of information technology, and of the Internet in particular, is profoundly altering the way we view and interact with each other. The new technologies have already produced sweeping changes in many aspects of our daily lives and show no sign of slowing down. What appear at first sight to be relatively unimportant technical or legal problems often end up raising serious ethical and political questions. This paper examines one way in which information technology is forcing us to re-examine commonly held assumptions, by focussing on the issue of intellectual property. We shall argue that not only is the concept of intellectual property unworkable in the information age, but that the notions of property and exchange on which it rests may be increasingly challenged. Alternative economical models will need to be adopted if we are to avoid a situation in which the information revolution turns into a counter-revolution, with all the wealth back in the hands of those w...
Cognitive Foundations of Language Structure and Use, 2006
Plagiarism is a particularly pertinent topic for Freshman English teachers for two reasons. The f... more Plagiarism is a particularly pertinent topic for Freshman English teachers for two reasons. The first is obviously that we encounter a considerable amount of plagiarism (possibly more than other departments because of the emphasis on essay-writing); the second is that we are often expected to play a major role in initiating students into academic culture. In other words, we are expected to detect, discourage and punish plagiarism, but also to teach students what it is, why they shouldn't do it, and how they can avoid it. I intend to examine the latter role by questioning how as institutions and individuals we present plagiarism to our students. I shall argue that some of our thinking here is confused, and that this can sabotage our attempts to educate students about plagiarism. University Policies To get an idea of the official view of plagiarism, I simply typed 'plagiarism policy' into a user-neutral search engine (Startpage). From the results, I kept those documents which were written by universities or departments and excluded those by individual instructors or people outside universities, such as essay mills and purveyors of plagiarism detection software. This left 89 documents. I analysed language in four categories: 1. commit,unprofessional, unfair, abusive, and their various word forms. I discounted terms that referred merely to breaking rules, such as misconduct, 4. Terms indicative of stealing and other property violation: stealing, borrowing, wrongfully taking material that is not our own, kidnapping, property, theft, appropriating. All but five of the documents included words in at least one of these categories and around half contained general moral terms. Indications of a belief that plagiarism was lying came in 15 of them, and the view that it is cheating had the same number. 19 documents contained language indicating a view of plagiarism as having something to do with property rights.
Games have always been a staple of ELT, but their use has been concentrated at elementary levels;... more Games have always been a staple of ELT, but their use has been concentrated at elementary levels; in contrast, EAP is often thought of as too serious to warrant games in class. At the same time, “gamification” has become a buzzword in education, business and social activism. This paper draws on the practice of gamification to show, not only that games have a place in the EAP class, but more importantly, to demonstrate how we can learn from games to make learning more game-like. In particular I show how certain characteristics of online games make them addictive - notably clear long- and short-term goals, constant feedback, enhanced self-image, “flow”, and the balance of collaboration and competition – and how we can try to introduce these qualities to EAP courses.
This paper examines the advantages of employing popular culture in teaching English and academic ... more This paper examines the advantages of employing popular culture in teaching English and academic skills with Content-Based Instruction approach. It argues that within CBI, popular culture can either provide the content focus or be integrated into a different content area. An English 101 course (taught at Bilkent University) based around the Matrix films is used as a case study.
Fighting Arts International, 1989
An article about the balance - or imbalance - in internal martial arts practice between health b... more An article about the balance - or imbalance - in internal martial arts practice between health benefits, fighting effectiveness andspirituality.
This paper examines the role and meaning of violence in the Matrix films, look in particular at t... more This paper examines the role and meaning of violence in the Matrix films, look in particular at the kung-fu and weapons tropes in a philosophical and political as well as a cinematic context.
Talks by Robin Turner
Drafts by Robin Turner
This paper is the third of a series investigating the role of desire in philosophy; the first inv... more This paper is the third of a series investigating the role of desire in philosophy; the first investigated semantic and cognitive aspects of desire, while the second sketched out a minimalist ethics. This paper develops some of the ideas discussed so far. In particular, the relation between desire and intrinsic tendency, the role of desire in creating the self or subject, and the possibility of a broader view of ethics
Desire is investigated in relation to concepts such as need, will, and value, and it is argued th... more Desire is investigated in relation to concepts such as need, will, and value, and it is argued that these are essentially species of desire. The relationship between desire and reason, the concept of negative desire (the desire that some state or event not come about) and are also examined, and the possibility of a desire-based ethics is briefly examined.
This paper uses the Brazilian sport of capoeira as a way of investigating what is and is not a ga... more This paper uses the Brazilian sport of capoeira as a way of investigating what is and is not a game. In particular, it tests two approaches to defining games: the classical definition provided by Bernard Suits and a model which attempts to combine classical and prototype-based methods of categorisation by drawing a distinction between defining and typical features as first proposed in Turner (2006) "How do you know she’s
a woman?" Problems in defining games across different languages and cultures are also mentioned.
This book aims to assist students in writing a term paper in the social sciences or humanities. I... more This book aims to assist students in writing a term paper in the social sciences or humanities. It covers the process of writing from finding a subject or analysing a question through research and outlining to drafting and editing. Unlike many writing textbooks, it is based on study of actual academic papers in a variety of disciplines rather than adhering unquestioningly to the conventions of Freshman Composition classes. Because it was written originally for students at Bilkent University, Ankara, the needs of second language students are given particular attention.
The phenomenal growth of information technology, and of the Internet in particular, is profoundly... more The phenomenal growth of information technology, and of the Internet in particular, is profoundly altering the way we view and interact with each other. The new technologies have already produced sweeping changes in many aspects of our daily lives and show no sign of slowing down. What appear at first sight to be relatively unimportant technical or legal problems often end up raising serious ethical and political questions. This paper examines one way in which information technology is forcing us to re-examine commonly held assumptions, by focussing on the issue of intellectual property. We shall argue that not only is the concept of intellectual property unworkable in the information age, but that the notions of property and exchange on which it rests may be increasingly challenged. Alternative economical models will need to be adopted if we are to avoid a situation in which the information revolution turns into a counter-revolution, with all the wealth back in the hands of those w...
Cognitive Foundations of Language Structure and Use, 2006
Plagiarism is a particularly pertinent topic for Freshman English teachers for two reasons. The f... more Plagiarism is a particularly pertinent topic for Freshman English teachers for two reasons. The first is obviously that we encounter a considerable amount of plagiarism (possibly more than other departments because of the emphasis on essay-writing); the second is that we are often expected to play a major role in initiating students into academic culture. In other words, we are expected to detect, discourage and punish plagiarism, but also to teach students what it is, why they shouldn't do it, and how they can avoid it. I intend to examine the latter role by questioning how as institutions and individuals we present plagiarism to our students. I shall argue that some of our thinking here is confused, and that this can sabotage our attempts to educate students about plagiarism. University Policies To get an idea of the official view of plagiarism, I simply typed 'plagiarism policy' into a user-neutral search engine (Startpage). From the results, I kept those documents which were written by universities or departments and excluded those by individual instructors or people outside universities, such as essay mills and purveyors of plagiarism detection software. This left 89 documents. I analysed language in four categories: 1. commit,unprofessional, unfair, abusive, and their various word forms. I discounted terms that referred merely to breaking rules, such as misconduct, 4. Terms indicative of stealing and other property violation: stealing, borrowing, wrongfully taking material that is not our own, kidnapping, property, theft, appropriating. All but five of the documents included words in at least one of these categories and around half contained general moral terms. Indications of a belief that plagiarism was lying came in 15 of them, and the view that it is cheating had the same number. 19 documents contained language indicating a view of plagiarism as having something to do with property rights.
Games have always been a staple of ELT, but their use has been concentrated at elementary levels;... more Games have always been a staple of ELT, but their use has been concentrated at elementary levels; in contrast, EAP is often thought of as too serious to warrant games in class. At the same time, “gamification” has become a buzzword in education, business and social activism. This paper draws on the practice of gamification to show, not only that games have a place in the EAP class, but more importantly, to demonstrate how we can learn from games to make learning more game-like. In particular I show how certain characteristics of online games make them addictive - notably clear long- and short-term goals, constant feedback, enhanced self-image, “flow”, and the balance of collaboration and competition – and how we can try to introduce these qualities to EAP courses.
This paper examines the advantages of employing popular culture in teaching English and academic ... more This paper examines the advantages of employing popular culture in teaching English and academic skills with Content-Based Instruction approach. It argues that within CBI, popular culture can either provide the content focus or be integrated into a different content area. An English 101 course (taught at Bilkent University) based around the Matrix films is used as a case study.
Fighting Arts International, 1989
An article about the balance - or imbalance - in internal martial arts practice between health b... more An article about the balance - or imbalance - in internal martial arts practice between health benefits, fighting effectiveness andspirituality.
This paper examines the role and meaning of violence in the Matrix films, look in particular at t... more This paper examines the role and meaning of violence in the Matrix films, look in particular at the kung-fu and weapons tropes in a philosophical and political as well as a cinematic context.
This paper is the third of a series investigating the role of desire in philosophy; the first inv... more This paper is the third of a series investigating the role of desire in philosophy; the first investigated semantic and cognitive aspects of desire, while the second sketched out a minimalist ethics. This paper develops some of the ideas discussed so far. In particular, the relation between desire and intrinsic tendency, the role of desire in creating the self or subject, and the possibility of a broader view of ethics
Desire is investigated in relation to concepts such as need, will, and value, and it is argued th... more Desire is investigated in relation to concepts such as need, will, and value, and it is argued that these are essentially species of desire. The relationship between desire and reason, the concept of negative desire (the desire that some state or event not come about) and are also examined, and the possibility of a desire-based ethics is briefly examined.
This paper uses the Brazilian sport of capoeira as a way of investigating what is and is not a ga... more This paper uses the Brazilian sport of capoeira as a way of investigating what is and is not a game. In particular, it tests two approaches to defining games: the classical definition provided by Bernard Suits and a model which attempts to combine classical and prototype-based methods of categorisation by drawing a distinction between defining and typical features as first proposed in Turner (2006) "How do you know she’s
a woman?" Problems in defining games across different languages and cultures are also mentioned.