Persuasive Essay Topics & Original Ideas for Your Essay! 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. 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. The sticking point for most wanna-be published authors is, again, the work. Discouraged yet?
Software by Rob : Personality Traits of the Best Software Developers If you're trying to grow your startup you've come to the right place. Get my 170-page ebook on how to grow a startup and join thousands of self-funded entrepreneurs by subscribing to my newsletter at right. I come from the world of corporate software development. It may not be the most glamorous side of software (it’s nowhere near as interesting as shrinkwrap startups or those fancy-dancy Web 2.0 companies that show up in your browser every time you mistype a domain name), but it’s stable, pays well, and has its own set of challenges that other types of software development know nothing about. For example, when was the last time someone working on the next version of Halo spent three weeks trying to gather people from accounting, marketing, product management, and their call center in order to nail down requirements that would likely change in 2 months once they’ve delivered the software? Or when was the last time someone at 37Signals sat through back to back weeks of JAD sessions?
The Research Paper: Developing Historical Questions What Is It? A way to teach students how to develop historical questions. This is the beginning of a multi-step research paper process that encourages sophisticated historical thinking. Rationale It’s no secret that high schools across the country are turning away from the decidedly “old-school” research paper in favor of shorter writing assignments or a variety of “new-school” technology based projects like blogs or webpages. Description Our research paper process guides students using a system with a seven-part structure (more detail on the entire process can be found here). Teacher Preparation Identify and model the qualities of good historical questions, as described in Handout 1, throughout the course (e.g. as lecture openings, test essays, class discussions, and at the beginning or end of structured debates). Sequence in the Classroom Each student develops a list of subjects about which she is interested (e.g. music, politics, arts, family life). Example Common Pitfalls Fischer, David.
Take Note: Five Lessons for Note Taking Fun If recent surveys are any indicator, cheating and plagiarism are on the rise. As teachers, however, we might be able to reverse that trend by teaching our students to take good notes. Included: Five fun lessons that teach needed note-taking skills. In 2002, a national survey of 4,500 high school students found that 75 percent of them engaged in cheating and more than half plagiarized content they found on the Internet. In a recent survey of teachers, 100 percent of the teachers have caught students cheating. In a 1998 survey of students, four out of five top students admitted cheating. Students have always copied text into their research papers verbatim. Could it be that this apparent spike in cheating has a very basic root cause? This week, Education World offers five simple lessons to help you instruct students and to provide practice in the skills of note taking and the associated skills of summarizing and paraphrasing.
how to be interesting While I was at the U of O I kept going on about how the core skill of any future creative business person will be 'being interesting'. People will employ and want to work with (and want to be with) interesting people. And since I’d spent quite a lot of time telling them all the things they should stop doing I’d thought I’d try and teach something useful. Since I don't actually know anything useful I had to make something up. Which is below. It takes about 10 minutes to teach but it’ll take a lifetime for people to work out if it works or not, and by then I’ll be long gone. I’ve based it on two assumptions: The way to be interesting is to be interested. Interesting people are good at sharing. The marvelous thing about tinterweb is that it’s got great tools for being interested and great tools for sharing. It's sort of didactic, bossy even, but it's supposed to be instructional, rules you can follow. 1. You should carry a camera with you. 2. This is pretty easy. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Fifteen Writing Exercises Writing exercises are a great way to increase your writing skills and generate new ideas. They give you perspective and help you break free from old patterns and crutches. To grow as a writer, you need to sometimes write without the expectation of publication or worry about who will read your work. Pick ten people you know and write a one-sentence description for each of them.
Basic Outlining Basic Outlining An outline presents a picture of the main ideas and the subsidiary ideas of any subject. Some typical uses of outlining are: a class reading assignment, an essay, a term paper, a book review or a speech. For any of these, an outline will show a basic overview and important details. Some professors will require an outline in sentence form, or require the main points to be in chronological order, or have other specific requirements. Below is a synopsis of the outline form. I. II. It is up to the writer to decide on how many main ideas and supporting ideas adequately describe the subject. Suppose you are outlining a speech on AIDS, and these are some of the ideas you feel should be included: AZT, Transmittal, AIDS babies, Teenagers, Safe sex, Epidemic numbers, Research. To put these ideas into outline form, decide first on the main encompassing ideas. Next, decide where the rest of the important ideas fit in. Major Aspects of Aids I. II. III. Campbell, W. Ellis, B.
Fire And Motion by Joel Spolsky Sunday, January 06, 2002 Sometimes I just can't get anything done. Sure, I come into the office, putter around, check my email every ten seconds, read the web, even do a few brainless tasks like paying the American Express bill. These bouts of unproductiveness usually last for a day or two. Everybody has mood swings; for some people they are mild, for others, they can be more pronounced or even dysfunctional. It makes me think of those researchers who say that basically people can't control what they eat, so any attempt to diet is bound to be short term and they will always yoyo back to their natural weight. What drives me crazy is that ever since my first job I've realized that as a developer, I usually average about two or three hours a day of productive coding. But it's not the days when I "only" get two hours of work done that worry me. I've thought about this a lot. Once you get into flow it's not too hard to keep going. I remembered this for a long time. Discuss Next:
Creative writing prompts Here are some creative writing prompts we've developed that you may find useful. We'll be adding to these periodically, so check back often. These have been compiled by many people, please feel free to contact us if you think of any. We'll be happy to add them. Creative Writing Prompts: Story Starters Think back to a time when you say a stranger say or do something that that caught your attention. Creative Writing Prompts: Character Development Your character comes upon a fork in a road and has no idea where to go. Creative Writing Prompts. © 2004, All Rights Reserved. 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. 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. Work on a computer that is disconnected from the internet. 5. Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. 6. 7. Hone your outline and then cling to it as a lifeline. 8. 9.
Hack Your Work: 23 Ways to Get Ahead, Work Less and Achieve More - Dumb Little Man It’s something we’re all looking for – the perfect solution that will minimize our work life while still getting the stuff done that we need to get done. Well, that one solution doesn’t exist, but with a combination of strategies, you can get to where you want to be. Now, none of these tips will turn your life around. But they can make a big difference, and when used together, your work life might just be enjoyable, productive, low-stress and high fun. And these tips won’t work for everyone. One goal. Journal Writing Prompts Looking for some free journal writing prompts? A situation might have arisen compelling you to record a piece of your history; to retell some of your family stories, your traditions, and highlight some of your quirky and unusual family members. What do you write about? Maybe you have considered writing your personal autobiography and need some ideas to get you started. I love to simply pick up my pencil and put it to paper without thinking too much about what I am writing about. You will probably surprise yourself and find out that there is alot more substance to you than you originally thought. Journaling Prompts: All About Me Write down your full name. Recommended Links A list of journal writing ideas to get your started. More journaling topics and ideas. Journaling Tools. How to write a journal step-by-step. More journaling prompts: the Clock is Ticking. Quack? Types of journals. What is a journal? Return From Journal Writing Prompts to the Homepage