User:Russell D. Jones

Talk with Jones

Notes to Self

"At the curtain take a bow New Haven"

Biography

I teach U.S. history at Eastern Michigan University. I hold a Ph.D. in the history of science, technology, environment and medicine (STEM) from Case Western Reserve University (2001) with a sub-field in economics. I wrote a dissertation on Progressive Era engineering ideology in educational reforms. I am also degreed in Philosophy having written a thesis on Friedrich Nietzsche's aesthetics. My research interests include the intersections of technology and education, the history of Michigan and transportation in Michigan, the ideological and intellectual history of engineering, history of U.S. railroads, interurban railroads, the U.S. Progressive Era, public history, and museums of science and technology. At The Citizendium I've been a editor in the history group since 2007. I have served on the old Editorial Council and helped shepherd the subgroups policy through. I served also on the Charter drafting committee and was elected the first Chair of the Management Council. My term in office ended July 1, 2011. Wikis where I can be found I am the general editor of the Michigan Transportation History wiki. I started on WP over a decade ago, and still occasionally pop in to make a correction or two. I was an early editor and admin on the STS Wiki: the wiki for Science, Technology, and Society studies. EDiT was the Digital History Textbook at Eastern Michigan University. It ran the Mediawiki software, and I was the general editor between 2007 and 2011 when the University terminated the project.

Reflecting on the East Arm, Grand Traverse Bay, Michigan, 2007.  Search CZ History Recent Changes

More fun from the Chicago Manual of Style

Q. How do you recover from a real proofreading blooper—the kind that has everyone in gales and is terribly embarrassing?

A. Naturally, we [at CMoS] have very little experience with this. Is there absolutely no way to blame it on someone else? If not, you probably should keep a low profile until it blows over. Lucky for you, proofreaders automatically have a fairly low profile.

--Chicago Manual of Style--Questions and Answers, January 2012. University of Chicago Press. (Archived by WebCite® at http://www.webcitation.org/64QfmGZB6)

Q. When I entered an incorrect password for your website, I received this message: “Invalid Log In.” Shouldn’t “log in” be “login” in this case?

A. In a world where CMOS editors could stand with whips and chains over all the IT teams who write code for error messages for all the software packagers who supply all the websites, everything would be written consistently in Chicago style. As it is, however, CMOS editors have no such power. And quite honestly? We’re fine with that.

And CMOS dodged another one ....

Q. When referring to a zombie, should I use the relative pronoun who (which would refer to a person) or that (since, technically, the zombie is no longer living)? Essentially, does a zombie cease to become a “person” in the grammatical sense?

A. Let’s assume this is a serious question, in which case you, as the writer, get to decide just how much humanity (if any) and grammatical sense you wish to invest in said zombie. That will guide your choice of who or that.