The Learn Tracker
...life-long learning: structured, organized, searchable...

My name is Edward Tanguay.
I have a Bachelors degree in Philosophy, a Masters in Education, and am currently working as a web developer in Berlin, Germany.

I watch over 200 college-level MOOC lectures per year in subjects such as history , psychology, science, religion, art, philosophy, and IT development in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian, and record my notes here.
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Contact Me via E-Mail:
edward [at] tanguay.info

Learning Activity by Month:

The primary goal of this Learn Tracker project is to build a web site which serves as one place to record the notes of everything that I am learning from MOOC classes, to foreign languages, to useful code examples and technical how-to notes, so that I not only have an overview of what I have learned, but can search and recall these notes at any time.

The secondary goal of this Learn Tracker project is to work together with companies, universities, and MOOC providers to build software that allows employees, students, and learners to record what they are learning in an efficient way so that it serves not only as (1) a record of what they have learned, but also (2) a place for them to review and search what they have learned.

Since January 2013, I have watched and recorded notes on over 300 MOOC lectures from over 30 different courses in both English and French, and have watched and recorded notes and flashcards on over 50 foreign language videos in Italian, French and Spanish. (I am curently still adding notes I took from 2013 and plan to be caught up by the end of January 2014.

Saturday, January 15, 2022
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
A HISTORY OF THE WORLD SINCE 1300, Princeton University
•
in World War I, on the battlefield, the resources of empires hemorrhages in the form of the human toll
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the peace of 1918/1918 didn't create a durable peace
•
the tension would persist until well into 1945
•
1914-1945, a thirty-years war
•
war was much more common in the world than peace... view all notes
Wednesday, December 29, 2021
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
CHINESE THOUGHT: ANCIENT WISDOM MEETS MODERN SCIENCE, University of British Columbia
•
Neiye - "The Inward Training"
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part of a larger text, one chapter of the Guanzi, a Daoist text (a mixed text)
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4th century BCE
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created by a think-tank type group in the state of Qi [chee], 260 BCE
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thinkers and intellectuals... view all notes
Tuesday, February 16, 2021
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
CHINESE THOUGHT: ANCIENT WISDOM MEETS MODERN SCIENCE, University of British Columbia
•
after the physiological turn in Confucianism
•
Mencius [MEN-shus], also Mengzi
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372–289 BC
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often been described as the "second sage", that is, after only Confucius himself
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inherited Confucius' ideology and developed it further... view all notes
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
INTRODUCTION À LA PHILOSOPHIE DE FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Sorbonne Université
•
la Naissance de la tragédie se compose de 3 parties
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la première partie
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Nietzsche développe son hypothèse sur l'origine de la tragédie
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la seconde partie
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il expose ses idées sur le déclin du genre tragique... view all notes
Saturday, March 21, 2020
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
SEXING THE CANVAS: ART AND GENDER, The University of Melbourne
•
contemporary indigenous art
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gathering momentum in Australia from the 1970s onwards
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indigenous visual culture is the longest continuous art form on the planet
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50,000 years
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prior to contact by Europeans, its locus was... view all notes
Sunday, January 26, 2020
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
CHRISTIANISME ET PHILOSOPHIE DANS L'ANTIQUITÉ, Sorbonne University
•
les réponses apportées par les chrétiens
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les attaques des philosophes ont obligé les chrétiens à se situer sur le même terrain qu'eux
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à apporter des justifications rationnelles de leur foi
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l'ensemble de ces réponses chrétiennes, a été paradoxalement, pour cette raison, un facteur de rapprochement important entre christianisme et philosophie
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l’apologétique... view all notes
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
INTRODUCTION À LA PHILOSOPHIE DE FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Sorbonne Université
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a la mi-avril 1869
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Nietzsche commence son voyage en direction de Bâle
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il passe en bateau sur le Rhin
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il s'arrête à Karlsruhe
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il assiste à une représentation des Maîtres chanteurs... view all notes
Saturday, November 16, 2019
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
SEXING THE CANVAS: ART AND GENDER, The University of Melbourne
•
Glyn Philpot (1884-1937)
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made a name for himself in Great Britain in 1910s and 1920s
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fasionable society portrait painter
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as art student became fascinated with painting by Italian Renaissance painters
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Titian (1488-1576)... view all notes
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
CHINESE THOUGHT: ANCIENT WISDOM MEETS MODERN SCIENCE, University of British Columbia
•
the physiological turn
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Yang Chu (440–360 BCE) [yahng JEW]
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the discovery of the body
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the body becomes a philosophical topic
•
we don't know much about him... view all notes
Monday, September 30, 2019
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
INTRODUCTION À LA PHILOSOPHIE DE FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Sorbonne Université
•
Friedrich Nietzsche est né le 15 octobre 1844 à Röcken une petite ville d'Allemagne, située près de Leipzig
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l'Allemagne d'alors est un Etat encore en formation
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le Saint Empire romain germanique, constitué d'une multitude d'Etats, a été dissous en 1806, pendant les guerres napoléoniennes
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l'Allemagne va être unifiée en 1871, sous l'égide de Bismarck et de la Prusse
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– ces événements sont importants car ils constituent la toile de fond historique de la philosophie de Nietzsche et l'on retrouve de nombreuses allusions dans son oeuvre, notamment une critique assez féroce du nationalisme allemand... view all notes
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
A HISTORY OF THE WORLD SINCE 1300, Princeton University
•
the First World War brought the competing imperial systems, tension, and disequilibrium to a head
•
the peace of 1918/19 didn't create a durable peace as its architects sought out
•
the tension would persist until well into 1945
•
1914-1945
•
a Thirty Years War with pauses and truces throughout... view all notes
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
PALEONTOLOGY: EARLY VERTEBRATE EVOLUTION, University of Alberta
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as paleontologists look back into the past, the further they look, the blurrier and smaller the view finder becomes
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with living animals we can observe them directly
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with animals from the Paleozoic Era (542-250 Ma, fish) or Mesozoic Era (250-65 Ma, dinosaurs) we observe them through fossils
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becoming a fossil was like striking the lottery
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as some soft Paleozoic life form, the chances of your remains being preserved was exceptionally small... view all notes
Sunday, June 16, 2019
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
SEXING THE CANVAS: ART AND GENDER, The University of Melbourne
•
retablo is a form of popular folk art in Mexico
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painted in a small format on tin
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highly decorative but also strangely unsettling to the viewer
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they present ironic commentary on life's contradictions
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PAINTING: Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair 1940... view all notes
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
CHINESE THOUGHT: ANCIENT WISDOM MEETS MODERN SCIENCE, University of British Columbia
•
Warring States literature
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Early Warring States
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Analects
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Tao Te Ching
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the core part of Mohism (Mozi)... view all notes
Thursday, May 16, 2019
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
SEXING THE CANVAS: ART AND GENDER, The University of Melbourne
•
Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)
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two portraits
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1. self portrait of cropped hair of 1940
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2. Fulang-Chang and I of 1937
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aspects of femininity... view all notes
Sunday, May 5, 2019
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
CHRISTIANISME ET PHILOSOPHIE DANS L'ANTIQUITÉ, Sorbonne University
•
les arguments utilisés par les philosophes contre les chrétiens
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les critiques des philosophes concernent
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la personne de Jésus
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les évangélistes
•
les chrétiens en général... view all notes
Sunday, April 21, 2019
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
A LA RECHERCHE DU GRAND PARIS, Sciences Po
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comment a évolué Paris depuis de 19ème siècle
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il faut revenir sur ce qui se passe au milieu du XIXe siècle
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Paris est une
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petite ville
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très dense... view all notes
People:
Georges Haussmann (1809-1891)
Il a dirigé les transformations de Paris sous le Second Empire
  • il souhaitait instaurer une politique facilitant l'écoulement des flux, aussi bien de population, de marchandises que d’air et d’eau, convaincu par les théories hygiénistes héritées des Lumières et qui se sont diffusées à la suite de l’épidémie de choléra de 1832
  • cette campagne fut intitulée Paris embellie, Paris agrandie, Paris assainie
  • un autre objectif était de prévenir d'éventuels soulèvements populaires, fréquents à Paris : après la Révolution de 1789
  • a l'obsession de la ligne droite, ce que l'on a appelé le culte de l'axe au xixe siècle
  • pour cela, il est prêt à amputer des espaces comme le jardin du Luxembourg mais aussi à démolir certains bâtiments comme le marché des Innocents ou l'église Saint-Benoît-le-Bétourné
  • il aménage un certain nombre de parcs et jardins : ainsi sont créés un square pour chacun des quatre-vingt quartiers de Paris, ainsi que le parc Montsouris et le parc des Buttes-Chaumont
  • des règlements imposent des normes très strictes quant au gabarit et à l'ordonnancement des maisons, les immeubles se ressemblent tous, c'est l'esthétique du rationnel
  • il fait aussi construire ou reconstruire des ponts sur la Seine ainsi que de nouvelles églises, comme Saint-Augustin ou la Trinité
  • il décide d'étendre la ville de Paris jusqu'aux fortifications de l'enceinte de Thiers, onze communes limitrophes de Paris sont totalement supprimées et leurs territoires absorbés par la ville entièrement: Belleville, Grenelle, Vaugirard, La Villette, Auteuil, Passy, Batignolles-Monceau, Bercy, La Chapelle, Charonne et Montmartre
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
RUSSIAN HISTORY: FROM LENIN TO PUTIN, University of California, Santa Cruz
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industrialization in the last decades of the 19th century as remarkably successful
•
Sergei Witte, Minister of Finance 1889-1891
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argued that Russia needed to industrialize to remain a great power
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have to be able to have a great army
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moving armies around... view all notes
Sunday, February 24, 2019
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
CHRISTIANISME ET PHILOSOPHIE DANS L'ANTIQUITÉ, Sorbonne University
•
trois types d'arguments utilisés par les philosophes contre les chrétiens, les deux premiers sont:
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1. les attaques contre la doctrine
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2. concernent le texte biblique et l'exégèse des chrétiens
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c'est-à-dire la façon dont ils l'interprètent
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il est difficile de savoir comment les philosophes ont eu accès au texte biblique... view all notes
Sunday, January 27, 2019
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
A HISTORY OF THE WORLD SINCE 1300, Princeton University
•
the Treaty of Versailles produced an unstable Europe
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a goal of it was the rebuilding of a global economy
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but many focused on establishing the economic world as it had existed before the war
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the idea was that restoring the Victorian boom was a condition for the political peace
•
people looking for new coordinates began to be nostalgic for the old world... view all notes
Tuesday, January 15, 2019
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
CHINESE THOUGHT: ANCIENT WISDOM MEETS MODERN SCIENCE, University of British Columbia
•
Mozi (470-391 BCE) as a fundamentalist and activist
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two chapters: "On Ghosts" and "Heaven's Will"
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understand these chapters on the background of two trends of the growing elite as the Warring States period moves on
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agnosticism
•
becoming unclear if ghosts and spirits exist... view all notes
Sunday, December 30, 2018
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
DESCUBRIENDO LA PINTURA EUROPEA DE 1400 A 1800, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
•
Rubens es heredero de Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), de Miguel Ángel (1475-1564), de Rafael (1483-1520) y de Tiziano (1488-1576)
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como ellos, trabajó para los mecenas más importantes de su tiempo
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pintó todo tipo de temas y fue también un extraordinario dibujante
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Rubens pintó muchísimo: aún conservamos más de 1500 cuadros suyos
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a menudo trabajó a gran escala... view all notes
Sunday, December 16, 2018
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
A HISTORY OF THE WORLD SINCE 1300, Princeton University
•
what to do the former provinces of the former Ottoman Empire which included Palestine
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one solution was to create states
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in Palestine
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to create a home for the Jews
•
for a return to the Holy Law... view all notes
Sunday, November 25, 2018
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
PENSAMIENTO CIENTÍFICO, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
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imaginemos una esfera que es mitad blanca y mitad negra
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pero sólo podemos observarla desde una perspectiva
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entonces de hecho no percibimos una esfera si no un círculo
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si tratamos de averiguar de qué color es ese círculo
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pues la respuesta dependerá desde la perspectiva desde la cual estemos observando... view all notes
Friday, November 9, 2018
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
DESCUBRIENDO LA PINTURA EUROPEA DE 1400 A 1800, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
•
en el siglo XVII Roma era la capital del arte europeo
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muchos pintores viajaron a esa ciudad y algunos permanecieron allí de por vida
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Nicolas Poussin y Claudio de Lorena
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ambos forman parte de la larga tradición de artistas que se dedicaron a pintar imágenes idealizadas del mundo clásico
•
Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665)... view all notes
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
RUSSIAN HISTORY: FROM LENIN TO PUTIN, University of California Santa Cruz
•
the character of the Russian state from its establishment to the pre-revolutionary time
•
the great dividing line is 1861
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the liberation of the serfs
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how did serfdom develop and what were the consequences of serfdom
•
serfdom is the essential social fact of Russian history... view all notes
Saturday, October 6, 2018
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
A HISTORY OF THE WORLD SINCE 1300, Princeton University
•
in retrospect, we know that the powers being imagined in 1919 were doomed to failure
•
we have to resist the temptations to engage in the retrospective fallacy
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to read history backward as if people should have known at the time that what they imagined as doomed
•
Wilson was an optimist
•
lessons could be learned from the First World War... view all notes
Thursday, September 20, 2018
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
SEXING THE CANVAS: ART AND GENDER, The University of Melbourne
•
in Dupain's photographs of bathers, he shares interests with Cezanne's Bather
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for his painting The Bather, Cezanne used photographs to explore how a body moves through space
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it's a study of the placement of the body and its placement in the natural world
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both returned often to the bather as the subject of their art
•
1937 The Sunbaker... view all notes
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
A HISTORY OF THE WORLD SINCE 1300, Princeton University
•
in 1918, Woodrow Wilson arrived in France to help put together a peace that would put an end to all wars
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worried whether the Russian Revolution could spread
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the victors discussed this peace in the shadow of disease and economic troubles
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personal tragedy behind the scenes
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Woodrow Wilson's daughter Margaret had gotten the influenza... view all notes
Friday, August 31, 2018
Watched and took notes on MOOC lecture:
FAKE NEWS, FACTS, AND ALTERNATIVE FACTS, University of Michigan
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editors play an important role in how news gets created
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many of the other forms of news online and on television today, don't have the same level of editorial norms
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e.g. on a blog or a non-traditional news site
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might be based on a similar editorial process
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but it very well may also simply be written by an unprofessional someone who simply has some particular opinion and wants to sway others' opinions with it... view all notes