Sarnecka Lab Blog
On writing and life in a cognitive science lab.
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
The Writing Workshop Book is Out!
The big news in our lab this week: The Writing Workshop Book is finally out! It includes all of the material that was in the blog posts (except revised and edited, so . . . better) plus several new chapters.
Friday, August 23, 2019
Saturday, January 5, 2019
Writing Workshop: Omit Needless Words
Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.—Strunk & White, The Elements of Style, 1959 (2000)
Sunday, December 23, 2018
Writing Workshop: Choose Good Words
[Hemingway] has no courage . . . He has never been known to use a word that might cause the reader to check with a dictionary. -William Faulkner
Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? -Ernest Hemingway
We've arrived at the part of the writing workshop where we talk about revising. For the next several chapters, I will assume that you already have a bad draft of whatever you are writing, and you are ready to revise it into a better draft. These chapters are about polishing up words, sentences and paragraphs.
Sunday, December 2, 2018
Writing Workshop: Talks and Posters
One of the underestimated tasks in nonfiction writing is to impose narrative shape on an unwieldy mass of material. -William Zinsser
Sunday, September 30, 2018
Tuesday, August 28, 2018
Tuesday, August 21, 2018
Parasites in Peril
Last week I received an email from the academic publishing giant Elsevier, inviting me to check out Elsevier’s new Open Science page. I don’t believe for one minute that Elsevier supports open science, but I found the email encouraging, because it shows that even Elsevier knows its current business model is unsustainable.
Saturday, August 4, 2018
Sunday, July 29, 2018
Saturday, July 28, 2018
Sunday, July 22, 2018
Sunday, July 15, 2018
Writing Workshop: The Term Plan
Writing productively is about actions that you aren't doing but could easily do: Making a schedule, setting clear goals, keeping track of your work, rewarding yourself, and building good habits. -Paul J. Silvia
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)