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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 4, 1987)
News Digest_ By The Associated Press Computer’s red pencil flags students ’ errors GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — When a Mesa College student first turns in a writing assignment for Richard Berkey’s English composition class, Berkey never sees it. Instead, a computer produces a critique, complete with flagged misspelling and grammatical errors, and advises the student how to shape it up. “We’ve found that students are running their papers through on all of their classes, and most of them will raise their grade by at least one letter just by doing this,” Berkey said. The program was developed by AT&T and fine-tuned at Colorado State University and again at Mesa by Berkey and Jerry Nolan of the college’s computer services staff. The Mesa College program de mands less from the students, “not necessarily dumping down, but set ting goals our students can reach,” Berkey said. “You could program a computer for any type of writing — academic, technical or news,” Nolan said. “It would depend on what you wanted it to do.” Berkey said most freshmen wri ters used the passive voice too often, relied on slang too much and reached for vocabulary that was too advanced for what they were trying to say. “We try to get them to use active language, and the computer will point out specific sentences," he said. “We like less than one prepo sition per sentence, and this will point out the ‘wooly’ words that you shouldn’t use, like ‘prioritize’ and ‘plausible deniability’.” When students rewrite an assign ment based on the computer’s poin ters, their grades rise, almost with out exception, Berkey said. What hasn’t been mastered yet, Nolan said, is directing a computer to analyze punctuation. “It’s tough for computers to deal with commas. They have a hard time with any internal punctuation and we haven’t figured it out yet," he said. Even with other grammatical matters, the computer isn’t always right, a fact Berkey says he con stantly stresses to his students. Gulf attacks claim 1st fatalities MANAMA, Bahrain — Another con voy of U.S. warships and Kuwaiti tankers steamed south Thursday through the Persian Gulf, where two supply ship crewmen became the first fatalities of renewed tanker attacks by Iran and Iraq. Iraq said its warplanes raided a tanker, and shipping sources said Iran ian speedboat-borne fighters attacked a Japanese tanker and an Italian motorship. Fire from Iraqi warplanes or Iranian speedboats have hit at least 20 ships registered in nine different nations since Saturday, said gulf-based ship ping sources. They say the number at least doubles the average for a month in 1986. Women earn 7(K to male dollar WASHINGTON — The big gap between the earning0 of women and men can largely be b .med or cluster ing of females in certain occupations and in their lack of work experience, a Census Bureau study suggested Thurs day. Overall, it said, women continue to earn only 70 cents for every dollar taken home by a man. While the disparity remains great, it represents progress from the 62 cents on the dollar women were earning in 1979, aide Gordon W. Green Jr., or the Census Bureau’s socioeconomic statis I-1 tics division. In addition to job-clustering and less experience, other factors setting women workers apart from men include time taken off from work and differences in their fields of study in college. "There is an important message here for the woman who is career-minded and wants to get ahead at work,” Green said in an interview. It tells them that if they go to col lege, they should study fields men have traditionally studied — such as law, engineering, science and mathematics — and if they do not choose college, to try and develop technical training or enter the skilled trades, he said. And, Green added, if family duties call them away from work, women should try to limit those interruptions so they will not let their skills become obsolete or lose seniority. Nearly half of employed women — 47 percent — have been off work for at least six months sometime in their work lives, compared with only 13 per cent of men, the study found. Family duties were the most com mon reason for women to interrupt work, while inability to find a job was the mjyor reason for men. Nebraskan Editor Mika Raillay 472-1766 Managing Editor Jan Denims Assoc News Editors Jann Nyffeler Mike Hooper Editorial Page Editor Jeanne Bourne Wire Editor Linda Hartmann Copy Desk Chief Joan Razee Sports Editor Jeff Apal Arts a Entertain ment Editor Bill Allan Asst. Arts & Entertainment Editor Charles Lieurance Graphics Editor Mark Davis Asst Graphics Editor Tom Lauder Photo Chief Paul Vonderlage Night News Editors Curt Wagner Scott Harrah The Daily Nebraskan (USPS 144-080) is published by the UNL Publications Board Monday through Friday in the fall and spring semesters ana Tuesdays and Fridays in the summer sessions, except during vacations Readers are encouraged to submit story ideas and comments to the Daily Nebraskan by phoning 472-1763 between 9 a m and 5 p m Monday through Friday The public also has access to the Publications Board For information, contact Don Johnson, 472-3611 Subscription price is $35 for one year Postmaster Send address changes to the Daily Nebraskan. Nebraska Union 34,1400 R St. Lincoln, Neb 68588-0448 Second-class postage paid at Lincoln NE ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1087 OAILY NEBRASKAN Valuable Coupons From Starkey’s Pizza FREE DELIVERY North of “O” St. 838 N. 27th St. OPEN 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. Introducing Reusable Coupons Use your favorite coupon as many times as you wish. ! Medium 12” j Pizza 1 Topping I ONLY s4.95 j Offer expires 10-1-87 L.----J -1 Two Medium i Pizzas i 1 Topping | ONLY s9.95 | Offer expires 10-1-87 ___-_-__I __In Brief Big PACs support incumbents most, study says WASHINGTON — The nation’s largest political action committees, representing the views of business, labor, agriculture and other special interests, gave at least 80 percent of their campaign donations to incumbent office holders in 1985-86, according to a private study released Thursday. The study by Common Cause showed a continuation of a trend in which PACs focus their money on incumbents, in theory because most incumbents traditionally win re-election and thus will still be in a position to influence legislation in which the PACs are intei ted. State coalition seeks to block Bork appointment The Nebraska Civil Liberties Union has established a coalition to oppose the appointment of Robert H. Bork as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Executive Director John G. Taylor said. The coali tion will take on Nebraska’s role in the national campaign by the American Civil Liberties Union to block the appointment. “We plan to present Judge Bork through his own words,” ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser said in a statement. “Those words reveal what America would be like if his views prevail.” Prosecutor asks for 8 years in prison for pilot MOSCOW — The prosecutor accused Mathias Rust of taking an ego trip when he hedge-hopped his small plane to Red Square, and demanded Thursday that the West German teen-ager be sentenced to eight years in a labor camp. Vladimir Andreyev said the pilot’s goal in his daring flight to the Kremlin on May 28 was “cheap popularity” rather than a discussion with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev about peace and disarmament, as Rust has claimed. v_S EVERYDAY EM IS TWOS-DAV! Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and Slice DIET AND REGULAR 333 *3.19 12 pak North Labor Day Special— Sept. 7-13 Cotner ^ I Mon. Thuri fjjjJjJ ,1:00.m 10:30pm •J j* Fri. 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