10 Tips on How to Write Less Badly - Do Your Job Better By Michael C. Munger Most academics, including administrators, spend much of our time writing. But we aren't as good at it as we should be. I have never understood why our trade values, but rarely teaches, nonfiction writing. In my nearly 30 years at universities, I have seen a lot of very talented people fail because they couldn't, or didn't, write. It starts in graduate school. The difference is not complicated. Rachel Toor and other writers on these pages have talked about how hard it is to write well, and of course that's true. 1. 2. 3. 4. Writers sit at their desks for hours, wrestling with ideas. The articles and books that will be read decades from now were written by men and women sitting at a desk and forcing themselves to translate profound ideas into words and then to let those words lead them to even more ideas. 5. Years pass, and they still have the same pat, 200-word answer to "What are you working on?" 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Michael C.
How to Keep Kids Engaged in Class Have you ever plunked yourself down in a staff meeting where some of your colleagues were, for lack of a better phrase, not paying attention? Grading homework? Having private conversations? As we know all too well, kids aren't a whole lot different than adults: If they aren't absorbed by what's going on, they'll find something else that interests them. Getting all your students focused, eager, and on task at the beginning of class is challenging enough. Still, unless you manage to capture and keep students' focus, whether at the beginning of or midway through class, the engine of student learning that you are trying to drive simply isn't even in gear. From Dead Time to Active Learning I call this lack of engagement dead time. I have come to feel that dead time is so pernicious that I will do everything I can to prevent even the hint of an outbreak. They call students at Level 4, the lowest level, the work avoiders, and on level 3 are the halfhearted workers. Building Your Arsenal 1. 2. 3.
How to Publish an Ebook, Step by Step Want to publish a book? You can either kill a bunch of trees, or get with the 2010s and publish it as an ebook. If you haven’t noticed already, ebooks are no longer a niche market. As of June 2011, ebook reader adoption had reportedly hit 25 percent in the United States, with the market growing at a phenomenal 169 percent year over year. An ebook can provide your small business a real competitive advantage by giving you instant credibility and visibility in the marketplace. Unfortunately, the ebook sales market is fragmented. As a budding publisher, you will need to prepare your book for at least those three platforms. I have a couple of ebooks on the market, but for the past few years they’ve been available only for Kindle. Prepare for E-Publishing Before you even create your Amazon or B&N account, here’s how to get ready for your career as an e-publisher. Start with the book: First, write a book. Next Page: Set the Magic Price, and Understand Your Rights
Edheads - Activate Your Mind! Amanda Hocking, the writer who made millions by self-publishing online When historians come to write about the digital transformation currently engulfing the book-publishing world, they will almost certainly refer to Amanda Hocking, writer of paranormal fiction who in the past 18 months has emerged from obscurity to bestselling status entirely under her own self-published steam. What the historians may omit to mention is the crucial role played in her rise by those furry wide-mouthed friends, the Muppets. To understand the vital Muppet connection we have to go back to April 2010. Then it comes to her. "I'm going to sell books on Amazon," she announces to her housemate, Eric. To which Eric replies: "Yeah. Let's jump to October 2010. So let the historians take note: Amanda Hocking does get to Chicago to see the Muppets. I've come to Austin, legendary birthplace of Spam (the canned as opposed to the digital version), to find out what this self-publishing revolution looks like in the flesh. But step inside and convention gives way to a riot of colour.
The Encyclopedia of Arda The Encyclopedia of Arda is a personal project - a tribute to and a celebration of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. The site is evolving into an illustrated hypertext encyclopedia of Tolkien's realms and peoples. It already contains about four thousand entries, and we're constantly adding new entries and expanding existing ones. Inside the encyclopedia The Encyclopedia of Arda contains thousands of articles covering topics from J.R.R. You'll also find a selection of interactive tools, including a chronicle to help you explore Tolkien's fictional history, and calendar to translate dates and events, a lexicon of names, a glossary of old and rare words, and much more. Context and approach The content of the Encyclopedia is written in the same context as Tolkien himself used; he presented himself simply as a translator, rather than originator of the tales. About the name Arda Special thanks But the real Special Thanks, though, belong to the memory of J.R.R.
8 Writing Techniques to Win You a Pulitzer Today’s guest post is from writer Joe Bunting, who blogs at The Write Practice. We all know there are novels and then there are “literary” novels. When you read Margaret Atwood, it just feels different than when you read Tom Clancy. And for some reason, these literary novels are the ones that win all the most prestigious awards like the Pulitzer Prize, the Man Booker Prize, and the Nobel Prize for Literature. Literary authors are known for their unique voices and experimental styles. This is both good and bad. So if you’re salivating to win a Nobel Prize, and just don’t think your diplomacy skills are good enough to win the Peace Prize, here are eight techniques you can use to make your writing more “literary.” Long sentences can make for beautiful, complex prose that you want to read again and again to fully appreciate. Isn’t that beautiful? Writing long sentences can get old. One thing. Try reading it aloud. Literary writers are well read. Also, it makes those who “get it” feel special.
Hands-on Activities for Teaching Biology to High School or Middle School Students by Drs. Ingrid Waldron and Jennifer Doherty, University of Pennsylvania The expression "hands-on, minds-on" summarizes the philosophy we have incorporated in these activities - namely, that students will learn best if they are actively engaged and if their activities are closely linked to understanding important biological concepts. Many of our activities are explicitly aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards, as indicated by (NGSS) in the descriptions below and the links to the right. Additional information is provided in Summary Tables and in the Teacher Preparation Notes for these activities. To accommodate limited budgets, most of our activities can be carried out with minimum equipment and expense for supplies. Additional resources for teaching biology are available at More Minds on Activities for Teaching Biology. Read More Intro and Biological Molecules Is Yeast Alive? Enzymes Help Us Digest Food(revised, July, 2016) Who Took Jerell's iPod? More Minds-on Activities
50 Essential Tools I Use For Blogging and Freelance Writing - BestVendor.com Seanan McGuire: Fairy Tale Survival FAQ Have you ever wondered how to respond when a strange man on the street offers you six magic beans in exchange for the family cow? Are you unclear on how one survives encounters with witches, dragons, giants, and worst of all, pixies? Then the Fairy Tale and Ballad Survival FAQ is exactly what you need to keep you alive long enough to get to "happily ever after." From elves and gnomes to magic mirrors and enchanted princesses, we'll try to address your biggest concerns. As with all magical spells, results are not guaranteed. Once upon a time... Before you can be helped through the fairy tale or ballad in which you are trapped, we must first determine whether you're actually in a fairy tale, since the logic of such stories is not like our Earth logic. 1. If the answer to more than half of these questions is "yes," you may well be stranded in a fairy tale. Return to Top of Page Q: What should I bring with me if I think there's a chance I'm going to wind up in a fairy tale? A: No. A: No.
How to write a book – the short honest truth Every author I know gets asked the same question: How do you write a book? It’s a simple question, but it causes unexpected problems. On the one hand, it’s nice to have people interested in something I do. If I told people I fixed toasters for a living, I doubt I’d get many inquires. People are curious about writing and that’s cool and flattering. But on the other hand, the hand involving people who ask because they have an inkling to do it themselves, is that writing books is a topic so old and so well trod by so many famous people that anyone who asks hoping to discover secret advice is hard to take seriously. Here’s the short honest truth: 20% of the people who ask me are hoping to hear this – Anyone can write a book. If you want to write, kill the magic: a book is just a bunch of writing. Writing a good book, compared to a bad one, involves one thing. Getting published. 30% of the time the real thing people are asking is how do you find a publisher. Discouraged yet?
21 Brilliant Productivity Tools Every College Student Must Use: Get Degrees If you ask a college student about productivity, he won't have much to say. And you really can't blame him. He leads a dynamic life where academics and fun go hand in hand, with the latter becoming a more important activity most of the times. However, with the advent of internet and web 2.0, a college student now has access to so many amazing tools that he could finish up his work as well as enjoy life to the fullest without the guilt. The following list mentions 21 such tools which could skyrocket the productivity of college students when it comes to doing research, communicating with fellow students and dealing with assignments. Research and Taking Notes 1.Questia Questia is an excellent online research tool which features a huge web based library of magazines, books, journals, papers, articles and much more. Although you need to pay about $19.95 per month for its membership, you could save on books and magazines you buy if you subscribe to it. 2.Free Book Notes 3.Wikipedia 4.Notely 7.
25 Insights on Becoming a Better Writer When George Plimpton asked Ernest Hemingway what the best training for an aspiring writer would be in a 1954 interview, Hem replied, “Let’s say that he should go out and hang himself because he finds that writing well is impossibly difficult. Then he should be cut down without mercy and forced by his own self to write as well as he can for the rest of his life. At least he will have the story of the hanging to commence with.” Today, writing well is more important than ever. Far from being the province of a select few as it was in Hemingway’s day, writing is a daily occupation for all of us — in email, on blogs, and through social media. So what can we do to improve our writing short of hanging ourselves? 1. Don’t just plan to write—write. 2. [The] Resistance knows that the longer we noodle around “getting ready,” the more time and opportunity we’ll have to sabotage ourselves. 3. Find your best time of the day for writing and write. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Treat writing as a job. 10. 11. 12.