IASIL Online Newsletter, 2009-2010


	The International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures

The IASIL Online Newsletter, 2009-2010

Welcome to the IASIL Online Newsletter

This page features announcements by individual IASIL members. Any member who wishes to submit a notice for publication here should email webmaster@iasil.org In general, we will publish requests for information, announcements about new posts or awards, and any other information that is likely to be of interest to the IASIL membership.

Requests for Information by Email

Requests for Information by Email

A number of IASIL members have been receiving emails from a person or people who pretend to be named journalists working at British, Canadian, or American newspapers. These emails tend to appeal to members in their areas of expertise (usually Irish drama). An example of a typical email is pasted below:

Dear professor [name deleted],

I am [name deleted] a reviewer of arts at the Guardian in Britain . Let me ask you if I can do an interview with you about Irish drama in general especially the plays of , J..M.Synge , Marina Carr and Martin McDonagh .This month we are celebrating Irish theatre ..plays and playwrights. If so may I ask you to do this interview via the email : questions and answers form ?

Please let me know.
Thanks in advance.

As is obvious from the poor quality of the language, this email is not written by someone who works for a reputable newspaper. The names of the journalists being impersonated occasionally change, as do the places of origin.

We are suggesting the following steps to help you avoid these scams (if you don't just automatically hit delete):

1. Ask for the name of the individual's immediate supervisor at the newspaper or university. Do not use any link given to you by the individual. Rather, go online to discover if that supervisor named is indeed part of the organization. Contact the supervisor independently to discover if the request is on the level.

2. Ask the individual to send to you a portion of the work s/he has already done and/or ask specific questions about your work that anyone familiar should know.

3. If you can ascertain that the individual is a legitimate journalist or grad student, then you must decide how much to share.

4. If you ascertain that the individual is scamming, hit delete any time you see a message from him/her.

Page Updated Tuesday, 25 August, 2009

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