Cliche Finder Have you been searching for just the right cliché to use? Are you searching for a cliché using the word "cat" or "day" but haven't been able to come up with one? Just enter any words in the form below, and this search engine will return any clichés which use that phrase... Over 3,300 clichés indexed! What exactly is a cliche? This is Morgan, creator of the Cliche Finder. Or, you might like my crazy passion project: Spanish for Nerds: Learning Spanish via Etymologies! Back to cliches... if you would like to see some other Web sites about clichés? © S. Special thanks to Damien LeriAnd to Mike Senter Morgan's Web page
JOHN GREEN: Make gifts for people John and his brother, Hank, are the Vlogbrothers. They helped pioneer video blogging when they communicated only through YouTube videos for a year. They’ve since produced a wide variety of video series and have attracted a devoted army of fans known as the Nerdfighters. I discovered John Green when a reader sent me the link to the awesome Crash Course World History series, which Green hosts and co-writes. The series tells the entire history of civilisation in over forty, very entertaining 10-minute videos. This quote is taken from a 2009 Vlogbrothers video. RELATED COMICS: Advice for Beginners by Ira Glass. – Green’s official website. – DFTBA! Stuck for An Idea? Try SCAMPER One of the best ways to generate ideas—whether it’s to create something new, find a solution to a problem that you’re having, or just bring more creativity into your everyday life—is to use creativity techniques. SCAMPER is one of the most powerful creativity techniques out there. It’s based on the notion that everything new is a modification of something that already exists. The technique—which is attributed to Bob Eberle– consists of a set of directed questions (or you can think of it as an idea spurring checklist). SCAMPER is an acronym for the following: S – SubstituteC – CombineA – AdaptM – Modify (or Magnify)P – Put to Other UsesE – Eliminate (or Minimize)R – Rearrange (or Reverse) Each of these elements is explained, in detail, below. SCAMPER – Substitute The first step is to ask yourself if there’s any aspect about the problem or the situation that you’re facing for which you can find a substitute. Instead of just asking yourself: “What can I substitute?” SCAMPER – Combine Conclusion
Eight Secrets Which Writers Won’t Tell You Image from Flickr by Lazurite This is not particularly relevant to the post, but I’m getting an awful lot of comments telling me, often a little snarkily, “it’s ‘THAT’ not ‘WHICH’”. The “don’t use which for restrictive clauses” rule comes (as far as I can tell) from Strunk and White. There was never a period in the history of English when “which” at the beginning of a restrictive relative clause was an error. I thought about putting “that” in the title – but I like the sound of “which” between “secrets” and “writers”. And with that out of the way, enjoy the post! A few years ago, I’d look at published writers and think that they were somehow different from me. They were real writers. But as I’ve taken more and more steps into the writing world, I’ve realised that my perception just doesn’t match up to the reality. I’m going to go through eight secrets. Secret #1: Writing is Hard Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.
Humans may be able to upload their brains to computers by 2045 Humans may be able to upload their brains to computers by as early as 2045, some futurists believe. This notion formed the basis for the Global Future 2045 International Congress, a futuristic conference held in New York, last week. The conference, which is the brainchild of Russian multimillionaire Dmitry Itskov, featured Ray Kurzweil – an inventor, futurist and now director of engineering at Google - who predicted that by 2045, technology will have surpassed human brainpower to create a kind of superintelligence an event known as the singularity. Other scientists have said that robots will overtake humans by 2100, 'LiveScience' reported. According to Moore's law, computing power doubles approximately every two years. Several technologies are undergoing similar exponential advances, from genetic sequencing to 3D printing, Kurzweil told conference attendees. ... contd. Please read our terms of use before posting comments
Friday the 13th: 13 tips from famous writers | Darla Writes Friday the Thirteenth? Bring it on! Let’s celebrate that wonderful third number after 10 with a list of writing advice from famous writers. Focus: simplicity. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind. CiceroWords in prose ought to express the intended meaning; if they attract attention to themselves, it is a fault. Number 10 is my favorite: … that every word tell. And since we’re only a few days away from when U.S. taxes are due, I know you’ll get a kick out of this as you think about your tax forms: the origin of this list is from PlainLanguage.gov, a site dedicated to improving communication from the Federal government to the public. ‘Nuff said. How would you summarize the advice given in this list?
"How To Bullshit Your Way Through Any Essay" by K W Schroeder If there is one thing college kids neglect the most, besides basic diet and hygiene, it’s the homework assignment essay. Hastily written and utterly unedited the night before it’s due, the modern essay has become something of a nightmare for lackadaisical college students. But writing an essay that seems like it was written by someone with more than a double-digit IQ is not nearly as difficult as it seems, I assure you. Even the laziest Guitar Hero II god can whiz through an essay that reads like it was written by F. Scott Motherfucking Fitzgerald. 1)The introductory paragraph. 2)The thesis. 3)Topic sentences. 4)In-text quotes and citations. 5)The conclusion. Slap some page numbers on that bitch and load a bowl—your essay is done.
Quotes and stuff... (2) 3234 5964 657 107 271 724 1142 2020 2230 891 497 1817 317 3224 1809 5968 2492 3804 2448 2019 740 1150 1663 91 619 1679 696 3215 429 1179 1197 2365 1843 155 392 270 231 3000 1210 936 1160 1275 1852 344 381 348 826 2717 3904 3102 512 2937 1621 190 1139 586 725 1336 373 3778 745 2159 687 1627 848 644 1274 602 236 1010 3489 3930 672 1129 1001 1418 1404 1480 685 532 4630 352 643 1358 1606 2398 254 416 3253 1452 1500 3112 4114 421 The Age of the Essay September 2004 Remember the essays you had to write in high school? Topic sentence, introductory paragraph, supporting paragraphs, conclusion. The conclusion being, say, that Ahab in Moby Dick was a Christ-like figure. Oy. So I'm going to try to give the other side of the story: what an essay really is, and how you write one. Mods The most obvious difference between real essays and the things one has to write in school is that real essays are not exclusively about English literature. With the result that writing is made to seem boring and pointless. How did things get this way? During this period the study of ancient texts acquired great prestige. The time was then ripe for the question: if the study of ancient texts is a valid field for scholarship, why not modern texts? And so began the study of modern literature. What tipped the scales, at least in the US, seems to have been the idea that professors should do research as well as teach. Writing was one of the casualties. No Defense Notes
Ruse of War: 6 Sneaky But Brilliant Strategies War can be tricky—especially when done correctly. It's called Ruse of War, the act of clever tactic or deception on the battlefield. Think Trojan Horse, but less ridiculous. (“After a 10-year siege, the Greeks have given up and disappeared and look—they felt so bad they totally left us a present!”) Here are six commanders who were dealt bad hands, but bluffed and ended up flush. 1. Around 500 years BC, Darius the Great was sweeping through Asia and Africa, conquering everything. One morning the Babylonians rose to see the high ranking Persian at their gates, soaked in his own blood, whipped, with his ears and nose hacked off. And … they totally bought it. 2. In the 3rd century, China was a mess. He opened all the gates of his city. 3. Militia men of the American Revolution weren’t trained soldiers. Morgan’s regiments weren’t made up only of hapless militia men. 5. Philip II of Macedon had conquered enough ground by 338 BC to establish the state of Macedonia. 6.
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How IBM’s Michelle Zhou figured out my personality from 200 tweets (interview) How can big data and smart analytics tools ignite growth for your company? Find out at DataBeat, May 19-20 in San Francisco, from top data scientists, analysts, investors, and entrepreneurs. Register now and save $200! Michelle Zhou gave me a shock recently when she showed me a graph of my personality, based on a sampling of my tweets. The IBM researcher can make an educated guess about anyone’s personality based on looking at 200 tweets by that person. The research at IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif., came from a new Accelerated Discovery Lab aimed at gaining insights from big data. We talked those over in a full conversation with Zhou. VentureBeat: How did you get started with this in the first place? Michelle Zhou: I’ve always been working in this general area. Three or four years ago, we started a series in many people-centric operations, from marketing to customer service to product development to HR. Zhou: Like I say, it’s any people-centric operation. Zhou: Right.
Tension Hook Your Readers With Tension By Laura Backes, Write4Kids.com Tension. Without it, life would be—let's face it—boring. "Tension" is a loaded word, and can be misleading. Tension is what hooks readers of any age and keeps them turning the pages. * The ticking clock. * Dialogue. * Pacing. * Sentence structure. Each story requires a different kind of tension. Laura Backes is the author of Best Books for Kids Who (Think They) Hate to Read from Prima/Random House. Copyright © 2002, Children's Book Insider, LLC