Charles Seife on journalism, news pegs and polls in Proofiness: The dark arts of mathematical deception: Most journalists are primarily event-gatherers, picking and packing the choicest and freshest events to present to their audiences. Every time there is a sufficiently interesting or important event of some sort—a plane crash, say, or an earthquake—journalists rush in [...]
I subscribe to too many media-strategy blogs, which rile me up from time to time with their lack of attention to content production—as in the act of writing itself. Sure, they’re strategy but the line “Before running off to create content…” from Beth’s Blog made me think of the vast majority of people I know [...]
I earlier posted a picture from a project I was working on for journaling media usage. Below is the book I got back from POD (I used Lulu and am quite satisfied). I still have a few changes I want to make before I consider it “finalized”: increasing the gutter size (the gutter calculator is [...]
I quote a lot on this blog from other places, so I wanted to post something I’ve written. I’m Program Director of the Transmission Project’s Digital Arts Service Corps: we recruit and place yearlong, full-time, stipended volunteers in support of capacity-building projects at nonprofit organizations that use media and technology to strengthen communities. We’ve placed [...]
From Peter Elbow’s Writing Without Teachers—whose quoting by me here is the result of coming across another example (via GiftHub) of the (false) metaphor of the tube. My account of meaning is grounded in what real people do when they speak and write. When people speak or write successfully with each other it looks as though there [...]
Peter Elbow on the editorial act, from Writing without teachers (1973): The essence of editing is easy come easy go. Unless you can really say to yourself, “What the hell. There’s plenty more where that came from, let’s throw it away,” you can’t really edit. You have to be a big spender. Not tightass. More… You can’t [...]
Peter Elbow on free writing, from the book Writing without teachers (1973): There is a paradox about control which this kind of writing brings into the open. The common model of writing I grew up with preaches control. It tells me to think first, make up my mind what I really mean, figure out ahead [...]
At the Grassroots Use of Technology Conference / National Writers Union Digital Media Conference I got to hear a lot of people bemoan how hard it is to make a buck as a creator in the digital age. A comparison was made to the Open Source Software movement and I made a very quotable statement [...]
I have been reflecting on self-deceptions in my writing. A fine analysis can be found in Noah Lukeman’s excellent A Dash of Style: The art and mastery of punctuation under the subheading “What your use of the comma reveals about you”: The writer who overuses commas tends to also overuse adjectives and adverbs. He tends to [...]
Previously posting on writing authentically, I wanted to find some other criticisms/observations on the topic. The following is from Can’t You Get Along with Anyone by Allan C. Weisbecker, one of my favorite how-to books on writing that is not explicitly a how-to book on writing [Part 1, Ch. 12: p. 64]: Nonfiction writers, of which [...]
I go back and forth with my mom—a library media teacher—about information literacy: for me, the future of communications is not about authority, but authenticity. Below is a list of self-deceptions writers put into their writing from Writing to Be Read by Ken Macrorie (also author of Telling Writing) : No writer knows how often [...]
Download this as a PDF I have now had a couple friends ask me to help them prepare job applications, so I pulled together some personal advice on what I feel is the most important part of applying for a job: the cover letter. As someone who has applied for many jobs, and also reviews about [...]
A great list of functional verbs for writing resumes or their reverse situational equivalent: job descriptions. (via Google) ADMINISTRATIVE ACTION VERBS advise Offer an informed opinion or give specialized information to others. adapt Modify or change to fit specific or new situations. administer Manage or direct. (Generally requires some additional explanation to show specific detail.) [...]
Monday was Saul and my’s first Monday Night Write (MNW); a time to get together, eat, talk, laugh, wander around, talk some more and finally, eventually, work on our writing. We met at Saul’s house, where he first treated me to a delicious salad and some refreshing lemonade. Then we were off to the 1369 [...]
