mjharper
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musing
On Writing Well
06 December 2008 - 12:28
Willian Zinsser:
Guilty as charged, I think.
__________
Nobody told all the new computer writers that the essence of writing is rewriting. Just because they’re writing fluently doesn’t mean they’re writing well.
That condition was first revealed with the arrival of the word processor. Two opposite things happened: good writers got better and bad writers got worse. Good writers welcomed the gift of being able to fuss endlessly with their sentences—pruning and revising and reshaping—without the drudgery of retyping. Bad writers became even more verbose because writing was suddenly so easy and their sentences looked so pretty on the screen. How could such beautiful sentences not be perfect?
Guilty as charged, I think.
__________
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American Civil Test
27 November 2008 - 09:56
Via Yahoo! News I just read about this online test of American history, economics and civics. Apparently, out of some 2,500 people who answered the quiz, ‘ordinary’ Americans scored an average of 49%; while elected officials scored only 44%. That’s pretty embarrassing, and the additional findings raise some interesting issues.
Out of curiosity—or arrogance—I decided to have a go at the test myself. And I go stuck on a few things, such as the main issue in the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in 1858. Had to guess a couple. But there are only 33 questions, and not all of them are quite so esoteric.
I scored 67%.
__________
Out of curiosity—or arrogance—I decided to have a go at the test myself. And I go stuck on a few things, such as the main issue in the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in 1858. Had to guess a couple. But there are only 33 questions, and not all of them are quite so esoteric.
I scored 67%.
__________
Sunday Update
26 October 2008 - 10:37
My first Sunday in Magdeburg. Maybe I’ll go out with the camera later and try to explore a little. I’m curious to see what the weather does…
It’s been a hectic couple of weeks, with a lot happening but not really much to write about (at least not yet). Certainly nothing to rant about. But here goes with a summary. As far is work is concerned, its standards and goals are somewhat different from those in Jena. The emphasis on presentations means that many of the courses are top-heavy in terms of teaching, and that might be the hardest thing for me to adapt to. But new challenges are good, as it’s too easy to fall into complacency, just adding to old content rather than attempting new approaches. Back in Jena I considered trying to incorporate presentations into the business course, but I couldn’t see a way of satisfactorily doing so—according to the aims of the course—so I abandoned the idea. Here I have to do the presentations, and the course has to be adapted. It would be wrong to say that I was going that way all along, but the change of workplace has certainly meant I have had to pull my finger out do something about it.
I’m still in temporary accommodation, which is oodles of fun. Not. And in a couple of weeks I have to move out of the (nice) room I’m in, and into another. So I’m kind of living from my backpack at the moment; thankfully I have all my music and a good number of films (anime mostly) on the computer. But I did realise very quickly that I couldn’t divide my time equally between Jena and Magdeburg, as I had originally planned to do. Magdeburg is effectively the future for me, and I need to invest in it emotionally in order to be happy here.
Socially, I guess, the last two weeks have also been about removing the old finger. I’ve been out every couple of evenings. This week I brought my bodhrán along from Jena—just maybe the cool people in the folk group will provide me with the necessary impetus. That’s the plan, anyway :-)
It’s a time of endings and beginnings, I think. I hope.
__________
It’s been a hectic couple of weeks, with a lot happening but not really much to write about (at least not yet). Certainly nothing to rant about. But here goes with a summary. As far is work is concerned, its standards and goals are somewhat different from those in Jena. The emphasis on presentations means that many of the courses are top-heavy in terms of teaching, and that might be the hardest thing for me to adapt to. But new challenges are good, as it’s too easy to fall into complacency, just adding to old content rather than attempting new approaches. Back in Jena I considered trying to incorporate presentations into the business course, but I couldn’t see a way of satisfactorily doing so—according to the aims of the course—so I abandoned the idea. Here I have to do the presentations, and the course has to be adapted. It would be wrong to say that I was going that way all along, but the change of workplace has certainly meant I have had to pull my finger out do something about it.
I’m still in temporary accommodation, which is oodles of fun. Not. And in a couple of weeks I have to move out of the (nice) room I’m in, and into another. So I’m kind of living from my backpack at the moment; thankfully I have all my music and a good number of films (anime mostly) on the computer. But I did realise very quickly that I couldn’t divide my time equally between Jena and Magdeburg, as I had originally planned to do. Magdeburg is effectively the future for me, and I need to invest in it emotionally in order to be happy here.
Socially, I guess, the last two weeks have also been about removing the old finger. I’ve been out every couple of evenings. This week I brought my bodhrán along from Jena—just maybe the cool people in the folk group will provide me with the necessary impetus. That’s the plan, anyway :-)
It’s a time of endings and beginnings, I think. I hope.
__________
'Bout Time
12 October 2008 - 17:32
‘Bout time I posted something. It’s been a chaotic month and I just haven’t found the energy to post anything longer than tweets. I really should use FriendFeed or something to include those in my RSS feed—as if anyone would subscribe! Ha!
Mind you, the fact that I’ve posted to Twitter some 26 times since my last blog post does suggest that micro-blogging has rather quickly become an essential part of my blogging experience (I’ve only been seriously using Twitter since June). The question is whether it has been to the detriment of longer posts on my blog… I don’t think it has, because the process is different; there’s no way I could have blogged from a concert before.
Anyway, I don’t really have much to say in this post—I mainly wanted to break the ice. Tonight I’m off to Magdeburg; tomorrow I have to teach there for the first time. And then I get to explore a bit… Maybe I should take the camera.
__________
Mind you, the fact that I’ve posted to Twitter some 26 times since my last blog post does suggest that micro-blogging has rather quickly become an essential part of my blogging experience (I’ve only been seriously using Twitter since June). The question is whether it has been to the detriment of longer posts on my blog… I don’t think it has, because the process is different; there’s no way I could have blogged from a concert before.
Anyway, I don’t really have much to say in this post—I mainly wanted to break the ice. Tonight I’m off to Magdeburg; tomorrow I have to teach there for the first time. And then I get to explore a bit… Maybe I should take the camera.
__________