Reading time: Less than 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: caterwauling. I think I’ve known since grade 5 that the term caterwauling means a long,wailing cry, usually heard on streets. What I hadn’t realized is that it’s the perfect example […]
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Reading time: Just over 3 minutes As a dedicated reader of blogs, I stumble across lists like “The 15 ways to….” all the time. Here’s some advice on how to write better lists. Readers like blog posts containing lists. You know: The 7 habits of highly effective writers Top 10 ways to find your career path
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Reading time: Just over 1 minute This is my weekly installment of “writing about writing,” in which I scan the world to find websites, books and articles to help other writers. Today I discuss a new book written by the scholar Steven Pinker. I read and enjoyed Steven Pinker’s 2003 book How The Mind Works several years ago.
Steven Pinker addresses ‘bad’ writing Read More »
Reading time: About 1.5 minutes Can plain English be good enough for a medical article? You bet it can! Full disclosure: When my children were young, Dr. Alisa Lipson was their pediatrician. While I don’t know her beyond those brief interactions, I always found her to be cheerful, smart, sympathetic and, most amazingly, on time. (There’s
Use plain English instead of jargon Read More »
Reading time: About 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a metaphor from Ian McEwan… I’m a longtime fan of writer Ian McEwan. I found Atonement to be his best book ever, and I also appreciated Sweet Tooth. I even enjoyed On Chesil Beach
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: meniscus…. I am obsessed with food memoirs. So obsessed that I’m writing one myself. And part of my research is reading even more of these books. I’m
What’s a meniscus? Read More »
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Does the act of writing have its own rules? Yes! In fact, I think there are three laws of physics for writing… Do you remember Sir Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion? If a body is at rest it remains at rest or if it is in motion it remains
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute This is my weekly installment of “writing about writing,” in which I scan the world to find websites, books and articles to help other writers. Today I discuss a suggested reading list from David Bowie… As a teenager in the early 1970s, I remember hearing — and buying — the
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Reading time: About 2 minutes No one wants to communicate bad news. But what happens when your leader gets sick?… When Toronto mayor Rob Ford recently revealed he had cancer, he did more than change the face of the upcoming Oct. 27/14 Toronto mayoral race. He also changed the rules for politicians and company leaders reporting their own illness. Now, everyone
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Reading time: Just over 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about some similes from Phyllis Rose. I am a profligate reader. I told you earlier that a friend of mine had given me a copy of The Shelf: Adventures in Extreme Reading by Phyllis Rose. Today,
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