Letters Remain

Tag: writing

  • Grammar Precisionists, Rejoice!

    Jason points to a 10-question grammar challenge given to the students of a non-fiction workshop held by David Foster Wallace. It’s not a particularly easy challenge, made worse by the fact that my non-native English speaking girlfriend just beat my score comprehensively (this wasn’t a difficult feat, however). The answers are provided, and I particularly…

  • Why Pinker and Gladwell Disagree

    If you didn’t already know, Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, What the Dog Saw, is a collection of his best essays as published in The New Yorker (all of which are available on his site for free, if you prefer to read them there). Since its publication, journalists and scientists have been criticising Gladwell over what they perceive as his…

  • The End of the Inverted Pyramid

    The inverted pyramid style of reportage is broken, believes Jason Fry, and it is time to reinvent contextless reporting into a more reader-friendly style. Fry points to an essential Nieman Reports essay that suggests how context-central reporting could be the future of reporting and a reason why Wikipedia is becoming the destination of choice for those…

  • Gladwell on Education, Hiring, Journalism

    I haven’t read (m)any of Malcolm Gladwell‘s articles in the past 6 months as they’re all, well, a bit homogeneous. Plus, if there are any fascinating revelations that I really should hear about I’ll undoubtedly discover them (in a much-condensed form) in many other places rehashing his content. This interview with Malcolm Gladwell—where he discusses…

  • Publishing in Scientific Journals

    Not being a professional or published scientist, the workings of academic journals are foreign to me. As a semi-regular reader of them I really should at least understand the processes involved, and that’s where My Dominant Hemisphere‘s outline of the publihing process and list of 18 interesting journal facts comes in handy. Multiple surveys have…

  • Tests On Language and Click-Through Rates

    By varying the language used in a sentence at the end of his articles, Dustin Curtis increased click-through rates to his Twitter profile by 173%. Dustin describes his multivariate (‘split’) testing of different call to action sentences, revealing the most persuasive, in a visually excellent article. This puts me in mind of how both Tim…

  • Story Types for Speeches (and TV)

    Each and every time I begin to structure a speech or presentation I consider which ‘story type’ to use (if it is suitable at all). Not being particularly well-versed in these, I recently came across a couple of useful resources. First, Nick Morgan’s description of the five “basic stories that Western culture has to make…

  • George Carlin’s Last Interview

    Shorty before his death last year, comedian George Carlin gave what was to become his last wide-ranging interview—with Jay Dixit, senior editor of Psychology Today. Carlin discusses many things in this interview; from detailing his method for coming up with material to his use of technology and this on the advantages of being an older…

  • (Un)Successful Assignment Proposals

    I could/should have included this in my previous post on Baum, but I believe these merit separate mention: Successful assignment proposals for publications such as Playboy, Rolling Stone and The New York Times. Unsuccessful assignment proposals for Gourmet, The New Yorker, and more. As Jason points out, New Yorker editor John Bennet called Baum’s proposal for a story…

  • Dan Baum and The New Yorker

    Dan Baum (a staff writer for The New Yorker ’til his firing in 2007) has been revealing details about his tenure on his Twitter account. In addition to discussing some day-to-day workings of The New Yorker, he’s also provided some great advice for aspiring writers. Baum has compiled his tweets in a much more readable format on his…