20 May 2012
Dear all,
The ambitious Tailored Texts’ project is expanding and it needs your help! We are looking for:
- Language Executives (Spanish, German, Italian, Portugese, Russian)
- Campus Ambassadors
Language Executives
Books in many different languages can be uploaded to Tailored Texts. In addition, annotations can be in a variety of tongues. We're looking for volunteers who are ready to take responsibility for a specific language on the site and, specifically, to:
- Establish and manage relationships with other language communities on the web
- Recruit Tailors
- Monitor site activity
- Upload good quality eBooks in that language to the site
Campus Ambassadors
In our first few months as a start-up we have proven that Tailored Texts helps language students in the difficulty study of foreign literature. Now, we need your help to spread the message! Working with classmates on a text on the site can save a great deal of energy and time whilst the reading of an annotated text both improves efficiency and removes all temptation to exclusively read translations. Indeed, Tailored Texts brings students back to the whole point of studying foreign literature at university: to master the language in which it is written.
We are looking for ambitious and motivated students to help make Tailored Texts well known on their campus. Getting involved with a start-up like ours would look great on your cv. Specific responsibilities include:
- Arranging presentations and workshops to allow for face-to-face marketing
- Being an ambassador for the site and espousing our values: collaboration, openness, academic integrity and a passion for books
- Helping us to establish an on-line presence for Tailored Texts at your institution
- Pursuing traditional marketing methods
- Updating reading lists
If you would like to join our team and think that you fit either role please email daniel@tailoredtexts.com and introduce yourself. Once you get in touch, we will write back and let you know what to expect next.
With best wishes,
Daniel Bergar (founder)
www.tailoredtexts.com
Annotating literature together!
1 October 2011
Dear Fellow Tailors!
You are very welcome. Up to this point, this site has just been an ambitious idea. Now the tools are in place for us to put that idea into practice.
A great inspiration for the site is the author of The Long Tail and Free: The Future of a Radical Price, Chris Anderson. In the former, Chris details the amazing feats that communities of skilled amateurs have achieved in Astronomy and science etc - see his blog for more: http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2005/01/the_proam_revol.html. In the domain of languages, www.wordreference.com and www.lingro.com are great examples of what Chris calls “the Pro-Am revolution.” The people who have made these sites a success are amateurs in the true sense of the word: ordinary people who have an extraordinary passion for a something (a lover of something = amotor in latin). I hope that Tailored Texts will be a place where those passionate about literature and languages can meet, hone their skills and put them to good use.
So, what is the basic idea? To allow people to read public domain texts in a foreign language and to record and discuss any thoughts/discussions that might arise from these readings (at a level of vocabulary, grammar or pure literary concerns). We have tried to provide for this by including some essential resources (dictionaries and translations) whilst permitting users to ensure anything else of relevance can be placed a mere click away from the text itself. Here are what we believe the main strengths of the site to be:
- Tailored Texts provides margins/a notebook for e-books. These are a language learning reader's best friend – where we note down any vocab/ideas.
- Readers will be able to discuss all the different ways one could translate a word in context. This allows users to experience that stage where a translator of a full text must review all possible translations before making his final choice of one word/phrase. One is therefore in a position to understand all the nuances of the original, an impossibility when reading full translations.
- Language learners may keep track of and discuss any areas of difficulty they encounter within a text. This is an essential process when reading literature and/or when revising language.
- Tailored Texts is a place where literature and language enthusiasts can flock together and meet in an environment where their shared point of interest is central. Why not make social what you enjoy doing? Our Projects feature, in particular, allows for focussed group work.
- Tailored Texts allows the author’s interior world to be brought to the reader. References can be explained, ambiguities discussed and outside knowledge of the author’s life or times shared in order that all discussions be informed.
- Books can be tailored to their user. One may read/write only those notes suited to you (with filters).
- User’s who are stuck when reading one text may ask a question to the wider community. Our Questions page brings together all questions from across the site and organises them in once place.
Introduce yourself under this blog in the comments section. We'd love to hear from you and know what you think of the site!