(1) Computers have aided in the study of humanities for almost as long as the machines have existed. Decades ago, when the technology consisted solely of massive, number-crunching mainframe computers, the chief liberal arts applications were in compiling statistical indexes of works of literature. In 1964, IBM held a conference on computers and the humanities where, according to a 1985 article in the journal Science, “most of the conferees were using computers to compile concordances, which are alphabetical indices used in literary research.”

(2) Mainframe computers helped greatly in the highly laborious task, which dates back to the Renaissance, of cataloging each reference of a particular word in a particular work. Concordances help scholars scrutinize important texts for patterns and meaning. Other humanities applications for computers in this early era of technology included compiling dictionaries, especially for foreign or antiquated languages, and cataloging library collections.

(3) Such types of computer usage in the humanities may seem limited at first, but they have produced some interesting results in the last few years and promise to continue to do so. As computer use and access have grown, so has the number of digitized texts of classic literary works.

(4) The computer-based study of literary texts has established its own niche in academia. Donald Foster, an English professor at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, is one of the leaders in textual scholarship. In the late 1980s Foster created SHAXICON, a database that tracks all the “rare” words used by English playwright William Shakespeare. Each of these words appears in any individual Shakespeare play no more than 12 times. The words can then be cross-referenced with some 2,000 other poetic texts, allowing experienced researchers to explore when they were written, who wrote them, how the author was influenced by the works of other writers, and how the texts changed as they were reproduced over the centuries.

(5) In late 1995 Foster’s work attracted widespread notice when he claimed that Shakespeare was the anonymous author of an obscure 578-line poem, A Funeral Elegy (1612). Although experts had made similar claims for other works in the past, Foster gained the backing of a number of prominent scholars because of his computer-based approach. If Foster’s claim holds up to long-term judgment, the poem will be one of the few additions to the Shakespearean canon in the last 100 years.

(6) Foster’s work gained further public acclaim and validation when he was asked to help identify the anonymous author of the best-selling political novel Primary Colors (1996). After using his computer program to compare the stylistic traits of various writers with those in the novel, Foster tabbed journalist Joe Klein as the author. Soon after, Klein admitted that he was the author. Foster was also employed as an expert in the case of the notorious Unabomber, a terrorist who published an anonymous manifesto in several major newspapers in 1995.

(7) Foster is just one scholar who has noted the coming of the digital age and what it means for traditional fields such as literature. “For traditional learning and humanistic scholarship to be preserved, it, too, must be digitized, ” he wrote in a scholarly paper. “The future success of literary scholarship depends on our ability to integrate those electronic texts with our ongoing work as scholars and teachers, and to exploit fully the advantages offered by the new medium.”

(8) Foster noted that people can now study Shakespeare via Internet Shakespeare Editions, using the computer to compare alternate wordings in different versions and to consult editorial footnotes, literary criticism, stage history, explanatory graphics, video clips, theater reviews, and archival records. Novelist and literary journalist Gregory Feeley noted that “the simplest (and least radical) way in which computer technology is affecting textual scholarship is in making various texts available, and permitting scholars to jump back and forth between them for easy comparisons.”

(9) Scholars can also take advantage of computer technology in “publishing” their work. Princeton University history professor Robert Darnton has written of a future in which works of scholarship are presented digitally in a pyramid-like layering. One might start, he suggests, at the top with a concise account of a subject, then proceed to detailed documentation and evidence, continue with a level of questions and discussion points for classroom use, and end with a place for reports and commentary from readers.

(1) Suddenly the lights went out. The constant drone of the air conditioner was replaced with absolute silence. I flipped the light switch on and off, but nothing happened. Then the lights began to flicker, giving the room a vague glow. This was very bizarre; the power doesn’t usually go off in Manhattan.

(2) I heard a knock at the door. I peered through the peephole, and there was my father. As I opened the door, Dad began talking although he seemed strangely out of breath, “The power is out all along the northern east coast. People are saying that something went wrong at Niagara Falls. A power line must have failed.”

(3) I was astounded. Power line?

(4) I was getting on the elevator, and the door wouldn’t close. I got irritated with it and finally climbed down to the lobby—all nine stories—to find out what the matter was. That was just like Dad to get angry at something that didn’t work.

(5) All of a sudden, we heard people shouting from outside. Dad opened up the window. “Wow, look out there!” Intrigued, I opened another window and looked out. The street was packed with cars whose drivers didn’t know when or where to go. Policemen filled the streets trying to mollify thepandemonium. Right across the road, workers, who had been trapped on the eleventh floor while building, attempted to cling to railing and climb down to safety. Peoples’ interrogating and raucous shouts filled the hot August air.

(6) I realized my father was speaking, “We can’t stay up here. With no power, there will be no emergency services. If the building caught on fire, we’d be trapped. Let’s go and I’ll try to call Mom.” He grabbed some cash and the cell phone. I followed him in the fatiguing trip down the stairs to the lobby. Why couldn’t we have gotten a room on the first floor?

(7) I took a small couch and sat down. The stifling hotel lobby was full of people. Some were hoping to get a room; others had returned to the hotel because their flights had been canceled. Many attempted to contact family or friends on cell phones. I relaxed on the couch, noticing the only light in the room was from the few sunrays that managed to enter through the windows. Restless, Dad left to wander around Times Square. He could never sit around without being occupied.

(8) After what seemed like hours, Dad finally returned. I let him sit on the couch while I tried to cool down on the marble floor. The sun had set, and the room was dark, illuminated only by two small candles that tossed shadows upon the wall.

(9) I lay down on the floor and tried to nap. The surface was very hard, but it was nice and cool. I drifted off to sleep only to awaken immediately. At first this had been an exciting adventure, but now I just wished the electricity would come back on so we would be able to go back to our room. I lay there with my eyes: closed, unable to sleep, listening to people nearby as they talked. I must have finally fallen asleep though, for I woke up and asked Dad what time it was.

(10) “Eight. The lights are on two blocks down from us. The power should come back on pretty soon.” He paused, a look of reverie on his face, “You know, last night I was able to see the stars over Times Square. I wonder how long it’s been since somebody was able to see that.”

(1) The purpose of an interview is to find out if your goals and the goals of an organization arecompatible. Other goals of the interview are: to answer questions successfully, obtain any additional information needed to make a decision, accent your special strengths, establish a positive relationship, show confidence, and to sell yourself. Based on these goals, place yourself in the role of the interviewer and develop anticipated questions and answers to three categories: company data, personal data, and specific job data. You also develop questions which you will ask to determine how well your career goals match the needs of the organization. These questions include both those you would ask before a job offer and those you would ask after a job offer.

(2) Prior to the interview, acquaint yourself with the laws pertaining to job discrimination. This knowledge will enhance your chances of being considered on an equal standing with other applicants.

(3) To develop confidence, adequately prepare for the interview. Focus on how you can best serve the organization to which you are applying. Then rehearse until the rough edges are smoothed and you sound convincing to those with whom you have practiced.

(4) Since the interview will center on you, proper self-management process is divided into four stages: the before stage, the greeting stage, the consultation stage, and the departure stage. The before stage includes writing a confirmation letter, concentrating on appearance and nonverbal communication, developing your portfolio, anticipating questions with positive responses, and arriving early. The greeting stage includes greeting everyone courteously, using waiting-room smarts, using your time wisely, and applying proper protocol when meeting the interviewer. The consultation stage includes responsiveness and enthusiasm, knowing when to interject key points, showing sincerity, highlighting your strengths, and listening intently. The departure stage includes leaving on a positive note, expressing appreciation, expressing interest, leaving promptly, and making notes immediately after departure.

(5) To save time and money and offer convenience to prospective employees and employers, video taping and satellite videophones may become a common method of interviewing. Being at ease in front of a camera would be important for these types of interviews.

(6) Following the interview, write thank-you letters to each person who interviewed you and to those who helped you get the interview. When invited for a second interview, go prepared by using your notes and feedback from the interview to zero in on what the company wants. If the company doesn’t respond in two weeks, call back or write a follow-up letter. You may get turned down. If so, try to find out why as a means of self-improvement.

(7) Following a job offer, take a few days to consider all elements and then call or write a letter either accepting or declining the offer—whichever is appropriate. If you accept and you are presently employed, write an effective letter of resignation, departing on a positive note.

(1) A nine-year-old schoolgirl single-handedly cooks up a science-fair experiment that ends up debunking a widely practiced medical treatment. Emily Rosa’s target was a practice known as therapeutic touch (TT for short), whose advocates manipulate patients’ “energy field” to make them feel better and even, say some, to cure them of various ills. Yet Emily’s test shows that these energy fields can’t be detected, even by trained TT practitioners. Obviously mindful of the publicity value of the situation, a journal editor George Lundberg appeared on TV to declare, “Age doesn’t matter. It’s good science that matters, and this is good science.”

(2) Emily’s mother Linda Rosa, a registered nurse, has been campaigning against TT for nearly a decade. Linda first thought about TT in the late 1980s, when she learned it was on the approved list for continuing nursing education in Colorado. Its 100,000 trained practitioners (48,000 in the U.S.) don’t even touch their patients. Instead, they waved their hands a few inches from the patient’s body, pushing energy fields around until they’re in “balance.” TT advocates say these manipulations can help heal wounds, relieve pain and reduce fever. The claims are taken seriously enough that TT therapists are frequently hired by leading hospitals, at up to $70 an hour, to smooth patients’ energy, sometimes during surgery.

(3) Yet Rosa could not find any evidence that it works. To provide such proof, TT therapists would have to sit down for independent testing—something they haven’t been eager to do, even though James Randi has offered more than $1 million to anyone who can demonstrate the existence of a human energy field. (He’s had one taker so far. She failed.) A skeptic might conclude that TT practitioners are afraid to lay their beliefs on the line. But who could turn down an innocent fourth-grader? says Emily, “I think they didn’t take me very seriously because I’m a kid.”

(4) The experiment was straightforward: 21 TT therapists stuck their hands, palms up, through a screen. Emily held her own hand over one of theirs—left or right—and the practitioners had to say which hand it was. When the results were recorded, they’d done no better than they would have by simply guessing. If there was an energy field, they couldn’t feel it. Emily is quick to point out that her test must be replicated before it’s considered definitive. But it isn’t good news for the TT community.

(5) TT supporters, predictably, attacked the study. Says Dolores Krieger, professor emerita of nursing at New York University: “It’s a cute idea, but it’s not valid. The way her subjects sat is foreign to TT, and our hands are moving, not stationary. You don’t just walk into a room and perform—it’s a whole process.”

(6) That’s a pretty weak defense. A stronger one is that many patients really do say they feel better after TT treatment. Emily’s experiment shows that TT does not work the way its advocates claim. But what nobody has done—neither Emily nor the die-hard skeptics who were so quick to champion her findings—is try to understand why TT does anything at all. Maybe it’s just a placebo effect. Maybe the simple fact that someone is hovering over you, paying attention to you, hastherapeutic value. But, if so, that’s not such a bad thing. And what harm would there be in learning how to do it better?

(1) Every year at this time, the Census Bureau announces the official U.S. poverty rate. And every year, the same fruitless debate takes place.

(2) Some will point to the successes and urge we stay the course. Some will point to the failures and call for more spending on antipoverty programs. Unfortunately, the analyses on both sides are based on faulty data—because our measures are critically flawed and overstate the number of Americans in poverty.

(3) The official poverty measure counts only monetary income. It considers antipoverty programs such as food stamps, housing assistance, the Earned Income Tax Credit, Medicaid and school lunches, among others, ’in-kind benefits”—and hence not income. So, despite everything these programs do to relieve poverty, they aren’t counted as income when Washington measures the poverty rate.

(4) It’s time to scrap this outdated definition of income. After all, government has changed how it combats poverty: direct-cash subsidies are out; benefits that can be used only for essentials, such as food, shelter and health care, are in. But because of how we measure poverty, progress is unreported, even if families: do better.

(5) Since 1995, the National Research Council has recommended the Census Bureau include programs that distribute in-kind benefits, such as food stamps, which are the equivalent of cash, and include the effect of taxes and tax refunds such as the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit). And why not? Noncash assets such as houses and cars are routinely used to assess economic worth. Taxpayers consider an IRS (Internal Revenue Service) tax refund as monetary income and income taxes as lost income. Yet the Census Bureau ignores the effect of taxes and doesn’t count the EITC refund as income.

(6) Studies that take into account all income and transfer payments to low-income people have found a decline in the number of those in poverty. A 2006 study in the Journal of Economic Perspectives reported that if in-kind benefits are included in income, poverty rates in 2003 would have declined from 12.7 percent to 9.9 percent. By counting all income and taxes, the poverty rate falls by more than 20 percent. The current system’s bad accounting can lead to bad public policy. The misleading figures make it difficult to accurately judge antipoverty programs. For instance, the EITC, one of the costliest antipoverty programs, provides an income subsidy to low-income workers to offset taxes and encourage work. Yet the latest poverty figures discount its worth as an antipoverty program.

(7) It’s important to have an accurate measure of progress in our war on poverty. Americans want to help those in need, but they want to do so intelligently. That’s difficult when the data are inaccurate. The current measure assumes direct-cash transfers are the only effective way to reduce the poverty rate. Lawmakers rightly avoid direct-cash transfers because of the lack of accountability. In-kind benefits, such as food stamps, ensure the money is spent on needs, such as milk and food, and not vices, such as alcohol and tobacco.

(8) The Census Bureau needs to update its measurement of income and poverty. At a minimum, it should emphasize the poverty rate after counting all government transfer programs and taxes. This will allow Americans to see how effective low-income aid is in reducing the poverty rate and what types of relief work best.

(1) When I learned that the most popular course in the history of Yale University—a psychology class designed to teach students how to become happier—was available online to anyone who wanted to take it, I decided I had to see what it was all about. After all, I’ve been writing about happiness for years, offering techniques and advice from researchers who found that this idea or that habit can boost well-being. I was curious to see what Yale professor Laurie Santos was recommending, but I assumed I’d already be familiar with many of the concepts. So I invited my boyfriend, Ian, to take the course with me. I wanted to see how someone who hadn’t heard it all before reacted.

(2) Santos’s online course consists of 19 hours of video lectures and is supposed to take ten weeks to complete, but Ian and I spent three months soaking up what she had to offer. We learned that the things we tend to think will make us happier—bigger paychecks, nicer homes, trimmer bodies—don’t actually add joy to our lives. But practices such as exercising more, socializing, getting enough sleep, and prioritizing free time over making money do. “These constant practices are really what’s required to boost your happiness,” Santos told me after Ian and I completed her course. “It’s like a tire that you put air into. Occasionally it leaks, and you have to put more air into it. It’s not a one-time thing where you learn it and you’re good. You actually have to put the work in.”

(3) Although part of the course focuses on the desire to get good grades and land the perfect job, we realized that these lessons aren’t helpful just for college students; Ian and I are both middle-aged, with six children between us, and most of what Santos said was relevant to us. “What the science suggests is that these tips apply cross-culturally, across ages, and no matter what job you have,” Santos says. After taking the course, I’m convinced that anyone who adopts and practices the strategies that Santos suggests can truly become happier.

(4) Reconnecting with a friend can boost happiness, but so can a meaningful encounter with a stranger. “One of the most complex things we can engage with is another person’s mind,” says Juliana Schroeder, an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of the researchers cited in the course. Ian loves chatting with waiters, and I noticed him doing it even more after we learned about the benefits of such interactions.

(5) He beams afterward. Tim Bono, who teaches his own course on happiness at Washington University in St. Louis, offers this caveat: Facebook friends don’t count.

(6) In fact, many studies have found that the more you use social media, the less happy you are. In his book, Happiness 101: Simple Secrets to Smart Living and Weil-Being, Bono argues this is because social media—especially picture-heavy platforms such as Instagram—showcases things others have that we don’t, making us want more and appreciate less.

(7) Santos echoes this idea in her course. She warns of ways our minds trick us into feeling less happy, such as by comparing ourselves with others who seem richer or more accomplished. And with the volume: of carefully curated digital personas online, the comparison is far less likely to be favorable—or, for that matter, true.

(8) Volunteering to help someone or buying a coffee for the person behind you in line can make you happier than doing self-indulgent things such as getting a massage or a pedicure. “You just feel good about yourself as a person,” says Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California, Riverside, another of Santos’s sources. “Whereas if you’re treating yourself, it might actually lead to feelings of guilt afterward.

(9) If you perform the same act of kindness over and over, it may begin to feel like an obligation or a monotonous chore. Ian and I held doors open for people, let extra cars merge in front of us on the highway, and helped colleagues solve computer problems. The reactions we got made us feel better about ourselves, and they didn’t cost us anything, unlike an indulgent massage.

(10) Kindness brings other happiness benefits, too, says Raj Raghunathan, author of If You’re So Smart, Why Aren ’t You Happy? Helping others takes the focus away from our own worries and problems, which can boost happiness. And because it doesn’t result in the guilt that more self-serving behaviors can, being generous won’t increase levels of the stress hormone Cortisol.

(11) Perhaps surprisingly, kindness improves overall physical health. Unsurprisingly, healthier people tend to be happier. Burn some calories. Exercise causes hormonal changes in the body that make you feel good and help interrupt negative thoughts.

(12) According to research cited in Santos’s course, clinically depressed people who exercised regularly improved just as much as those who took antidepressants. And after ten months, the exercisers were less likely to relapse.

(13) “Getting out of a depression is not exactly the same as happiness,” says Dr. K. Ranga Krishnan, a professor of psychiatry at Rush Medical College in Chicago. “But anecdotally, most people who exercise will tell you they feel better.” Anyone who has ever experienced a runner’s high will surely agree.

PASSAGE ONE

PASSAGE TWO

PASSAGE THREE

PASSAGE FOUR

PASSAGE FIVE

PASSAGE SIX