This post continues the series I’ve done over the past year or so on writing research articles (RAs) based on John Swale’s Create-A-Research-Space (CARS) model. See my first post for an overview of RAs published in peer-reviewed journals. This time the focus is on the section of an RA social science researchers call the literature review…
I’m in the early phase of a research project designed to describe what influences writing quality in the workplace. Everyone has an opinion. And it usually focuses on blaming someone else. The public, through their legislators, blames educators. Or businesses. Individual writers blame educators, too. In fact, it’s popular to blame educators! Educators blame legislators….
In my very first post (now the Pros Write About page), I stated how bizarre I find it that teachers who like to read literature are tasked with teaching young people how to write. I’m not the only one who has noted the ensuing — and negative — consequences. It turns out that many industry people agree….
A couple of months ago, I summarized the available evidence on writing white papers. I’ve done more digging and want to provide a follow-up with a few more details on developing content, organizing it, and using an appropriate style. (See the earlier post for a description of the white paper as a genre.) The bottom line…
In this episode of Mysteries of the Vernacular on TED-Ed, Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel try to trace the history of “keister.” Happy Friday!
Thanks for visiting Pros Write! The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for the blog. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 42,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 16…
Because documents are performances and great performers can teach us what it takes to deliver a great performance, I have used that theme to create a short (3:48) cartoon. My goal is to get people, mostly amateurs ( . . . beginners), to think about the amount and kind of WORK involved in being a…
Today I’m sharing a recording of “Plain by Design: Evidence-based Plain Language,” the talk given by Karen Schriver at PLAIN2013. PLAIN is one of the international organizations working to promote quality workplace writing. There is a short bio on the conference website if you’re unfamiliar with Karen’s work. We share the same philosophy: better workplace writing through guidelines…
If this music doesn’t get you into the holiday spirit, nothing will! Watch (and listen to) the Blind Boys of Alabama sing “Go Tell it on the Mountain” with Stephen Colbert, which aired on The Colbert Report last week. The original recording on their Grammy-winning 2003 album is available on iTunes or on their online store. If…
As the holidays approach, I’m sharing a little linguistic trivia related to the traditional Christmas song, “Deck the Halls,” courtesy of Jessica Strasbaugh at Oxford Dictionaries. You might wonder, when singing this carol, what exactly we are doing to the halls when we deck them with boughs of holly. (I, at least, would as a child confusedly imagine a…