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in context
 Emphasis in context...
The passages
shown below demonstrate good placement of emphasis. See if
you can identify each of the techniques the authors use to create
emphasis. When
you are finished, click on "annotated version" to see each the answers.
from "The World Needs More Rebels Like Einstein," Walter Isaacson,
Wired.com
Einstein alienated so many professors that he was
unable to earn a doctorate, much less land an academic job. At
the age of 26, he was working as a third-class examiner at the
Swiss patent office in Bern. As it happens, the patent office provided
a better launchpad than any university. On his way to work, Einstein
would see trains rolling past the city's 12th-century clock tower,
which by then had been synchronized with clocks in the nearby train
station, and many of the patent applications he was reviewing proposed
using signals traveling at the speed of light to sync up even more
distant clocks.
By
May 1905, Einstein was convinced of two postulates: First, that
the laws of physics, including Maxwell's equations for electromagnetic
waves, were the same for all frames of reference in constant-velocity
motion relative to one another, so there was no way to know whether
one observer was at rest and the other in motion. Second, that
the speed of light was always the same, regardless of the motion
of the source.
annotated version
"Organs for Sale," Michelle Tsai, Wired.com
In a macabre turn for medical tourism, body brokers are now connecting
wealthy patients with healthy but poor people willing to sell their
organs for cash. The international market for human parts is thriving:
A kidney goes for $25,000 in Russia, a heart for $290,000 in South
Africa. Sound expensive? It's often a fraction of the cost of surgery
at home — and delivery takes weeks instead of years. For
the biggest inventory, head to China, where many organs available
for transplant are "donated" by executed prisoners — a
practice the government says it's trying to end.
annotated
version
"The Cosmos Meet Cosmo," Lisa Katayama, Wired.com
They're watched by millions on the runway, yet astronauts aren't
known for their fashion sense. (Some settle for trench coats and
diapers.) But future space tourists will undoubtedly want to look
fly in zero g. At least that's the thinking behind the world's
first Hyper Space Couture Design Contest in Tokyo last November.
Organized by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (or JAXA) with
fashion designer Eri Matsui - and sponsored by Rocket plane Kistler
- the event featured nearly 1,000 amateur and professional takes
on space wear. First-place winner Midori Umetsu's future designs
may actually take off. Rocketplane will work with Umetsu on flight
suits for its tourist trips, expected to start in 2009. "We
don't want our customers to be wearing pressure suits and helmets," explains
Chuck Lauer, an executive for the Oklahoma company. Rocketplane
will hold similar contests in the US and Europe this year. The
catwalk competition may be fierce, but in space, no one can hear
you scheme.
annotated
version
Issacson, Walter. "The World Needs More Rebels Like Einstein." Wired.com.
Issue 15.04 March 2007. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.04/start.html
Tsai, Michelle. "Organs for Sale." Wired.com. Issue 15.04 March
2007. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.04/start.html?pg=7
Katayama, Lisa. "The Cosmos Meet Cosmo." Wired.com. Issue 15.04
March 2007. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.04/start.html?pg=14
"Attention" sign courtesy of Fons Reijsbergen, http://www.sxc.hu/profile/defret
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