Advice posts on writing
Students: How to email to your Professor, employer, and professional peers
A third of student emails make me cringe. Not from scorn (well, maybe a little scorn) but mainly sympathy. Distressing sympathy. Here are 12 pieces
Please stop using “novel” and “unique” in your abstract
I love this. Three researchers picked 20 top biomedical journals and searched all titles and abstracts since 1975 for positive, negative, neutral, and random words.
“Write like you speak”
Something comes over most people when they start writing. They write in a different language than they’d use if they were talking to a friend.
Henry Miller’s writing tips
Work on one thing at a time until finished. Start no more new books, add no more new material to ‘Black Spring.’ Don’t be nervous.
How to write like a Mad Man
Advice from David Ogilvy, the advertising executive and inspiration for the “Mad Men” of TV fame. The better you write, the higher you go in
Strunk & White: 50 years of stupid grammar advice?
The Elements of Style does not deserve the enormous esteem in which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from limp platitudes
How to write an essay
The worst essay I ever read (from a grad student at an unnamed Ivy college) sought to explain why China developed after the West. The
What I’ve been reading, on writing
As an academic, I’m only as good as my writing. This year I decided to hone my skill. It’s just one of the rationales for
Great books aren’t written, they’re rewritten
“Omit needless words. Omit needless words. Omit needless words” This phrase trailed me long after reading it in Strunk and White’s famous guide to English
