Alan Jacobs

Alan Jacobs is the Clyde S. Kilby Professor of English at Wheaton College. He blogs at ayjay.tumblr.com.

The Right Way to Debate Someone on the Internet

The Right Way to Debate Someone on the Internet

The web gives us the possibility of quoting our opponents in their entirety and, failing that, at least linking to their work. More »

The Hidden Virtues of Our Old, Crackly, Barely Audible Sound Recordings

The Hidden Virtues of Our Old, Crackly, Barely Audible Sound Recordings

Keats said, "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter." What about those that are half-heard? Those inspire the imagination. More »

The Lost World of Benzedrine

The Lost World of Benzedrine

Favored by artists and mathematicians, the drug powered a great deal of innovation in the 20th century. More »

The Charisma of the iPad: On Technology in the Classroom

The Charisma of the iPad: On Technology in the Classroom

"Use this technology that's fun and indirectly and unconsciously you'll learn all the stuff we want you to learn." More »

Will Kindle's Free Samples Change the Structures of Plots?

Will Kindle's Free Samples Change the Structures of Plots?

Search-engine optimization reshaped the craft of a good headline. Will Amazon's book promotions have a similar effect on novels? More »

Jobs of the Future: A Skeptic's Response

Jobs of the Future: A Skeptic's Response

There is a tendency to imagine that work will someday be like today's leisure, heavy on multitasking and social media. More »

How to Be One of the Good Guys

How to Be One of the Good Guys

The pace of technological and industry change makes tracking the ethics of Apple or Amazon remarkably difficult. More »

The Technology of a Better Footnote

The Technology of a Better Footnote

Footnotes, endnotes, and marginalia have been a nuisance for centuries, but may have finally found a home. More »

Why You Shouldn't Retweet the Haters

Why You Shouldn't Retweet the Haters

What looks like being ostentatiously thick-skinned may actually be a way to mobilize one's fans against an Internet enemy. More »

Imaginary Tales in an Information Age

Imaginary Tales in an Information Age

Will the abundance of information reshape fiction as it has academic scholarship? More »

Digital Self-Publishing: Should Publishers Be Worried?

Digital Self-Publishing: Should Publishers Be Worried?

Self-publishing an essay through Amazon is a reminder of the benefits of a traditional publishing house. More »

A Beautiful Way to Back Up a Year of Links

A Beautiful Way to Back Up a Year of Links

Game designer Tom Armitage has created a wonderful device for archiving everything he links to in a given year: a bound book. More »

Google-Trained Minds Can't Deal with Terrible Research Database UI

Google-Trained Minds Can't Deal with Terrible Research Database UI

Students may not be great at searching academic sources, but that's not helped by outdated tools. More »

MIT Online vs. Your Local College: How Will Web Learning Stack Up?

MIT Online vs. Your Local College: How Will Web Learning Stack Up?

The success of e-education depends on whether universities can design online environments that are conducive to learning. More »

The False Novelty of Making Reading 'Social'

The False Novelty of Making Reading 'Social'

Reading has always had a social dimension, but the promise of new reading services lies in something we don't yet have a name for. More »

Waging Guerrilla War Against Online Distractions

Waging Guerrilla War Against Online Distractions

For many people, turning of their Internet connection can ramp up productivity. But if you rely on the web, you need a more precise offensive. More »

Task Management: The Target of All Our Hopes and Dreams

Task Management: The Target of All Our Hopes and Dreams

In earlier times, people wished for jet packs and automated kitchens. Today, we are seeking a good to-do app. More »

How Tech Is Making Us More Aware of the Ways We Read

How Tech Is Making Us More Aware of the Ways We Read

Recent years have seen an explosion of reading memoirs, the result of a recognition that this age-old habit is undergoing profound change. More »

Translating the Bible—Into an E-Book That Works on Any Phone

Translating the Bible—Into an E-Book That Works on Any Phone

Most tech companies care about early adopters. The people who make Bible apps care about every last soul, which means they sometimes end up in distant realms of the linguistic and technical worlds. More »

The Value of Making Reading Hard

The Value of Making Reading Hard

Maybe cognitive friction in our reading experiences -- be it in typeface choice or annotation mechanism -- is a good thing. More »

The Biggest Story in Photos

Early Monsoon Rains Flood Northern India

Subscribe Now

SAVE 65%! 10 issues JUST $2.45 PER COPY

Newsletters

Sign up to receive our free newsletters

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)