> • How often do you stare into the middle distance? Me neither.
All the time - probably a good 20% of my work days are spent starting into the middle distance thinking.
Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?
71–80 of 91 posts
Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A single edit with the goal of ruthlessly eliminating every unnecessary word works wonders for any first draft. "A single edit, eliminating unnecessary words, works wonders for any first draft." It's a cheap shot (that I learned from Language Log) but if you're going to live by the sword...
Eliminating unnecessary words works wonders.
I don't agree that those are unnecessary - you lose the idea of an idea, and coming back to a work later can help you identify what is unnecessary.
Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?
#73An infrequent part of my job is writing and editing public reports about data. Not even guessing as to causal factors or future impacts, just stating the data in English. I wish more people would accept that writing is not speaking. Beyond pronouns, when this is good advice: - Don't use acronyms for short names or phrases. "Department of Motor Vehicles" is a mouthful, but not much more of an eyeful than "DMV" after s…
> Don't use acronyms for short names or phrases. "Department of Motor Vehicles" is a mouthful, but not much more of an eyeful than "DMV" after seeing it twice.
I find this much harder to scan than the acronym, especially when the acronym is common.
Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?
#74>"This may be a particular peeve of mine and no one else’s, but I note it, because it’s my book: Name-dropping, for no better reason than to show off, under-appreciated novels, obscure foreign films, or cherished indie bands by having one’s characters irrelevantly reading or watching or listening to them is massively sore-thumbish. A novel is not a blog post about Your Favorite Things.[5] If you must do this sort of…
I think this can go both ways. If it's a constant stream of references, it can be obnoxious and feel like showing off. On the other hand, an occasional reference can give life to character without going out of your way to do it.
Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure how a section of information that is often largely irrelevant to the recipe (despite mentioning a few key terms) is going to be a valuable SEO practise. I assume people are trying to be the next online cooking personality who gets to publish a book. I've seen a couple in shops with pictures of YouTube recipe demonstration people on the cover. Also, more text is more "content" to mix adverts into.
> I assume people are trying to be the next online cooking personality who gets to publish a book. I just assume that they associate recipes and foods with times and places and people (generally happily) and it's akin to "do you remember that time mother cooked weasel?" kind of conversations you'd have with people, except on a blog.
That it probably the case for those that are put together more as a blog for friends and family to peruse.
But a lot of the sites I've seen don't feel that way. They feel like they are desperately trying to feel that way though (the old "sincerity is key: once you can fake it you win" skit).
Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?
#76Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?
#77Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always assumed that this is an SEO practice?
Something I read a couple of weeks ago discussed this. From what I remember it’s to increase the time a user spends on a page, this increases the page ranking in Google; ISTR it was called dwell time.
ISTR = I Seem To Recall(?)
Acronym expanded for the benefit of anyone else who's browsing HN before coffee and would have taken a similarly embarrassing length of time to infer the likely meaning of this one, which I'd never seen before.
Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A single edit with the goal of ruthlessly eliminating every unnecessary word works wonders for any first draft. "A single edit, eliminating unnecessary words, works wonders for any first draft." It's a cheap shot (that I learned from Language Log) but if you're going to live by the sword...
Eliminating unnecessary words works wonders.
Why use many word when few word do trick?
Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?
#80My own pet peeve in non-fiction, particularly the kind that appears on blogs: the excruciating warmup before the author finally gets to the point of the post. I know why this happens. When you sit down to write, you don't know what exactly you're going to say. You may even be anxious about it. Then, an idea sparks your imagination and you start writing stuff. The warmup that comes out initially gets you on track. Not…
Not just in blogs, rambling, long winded style common at The Atlantic and New Yorker are excruciating too. Also referring to personal anecdotes of random persons to further a point. I also find the use of statistics/citing numbers from studies to prove a point, a most boring way to argue a point in writing.
> I also find the use of statistics/citing numbers from studies to prove a point, a most boring way to argue a point in writing.
This definitely depends on the point being argued, and the rigour expected by the audience. For any vaguely technical subject, it's quite possible to cite statistics to great effect, though it may not always be necessary.
Actually, your comment made me think about how I respond to statistics in non-technical writing, say, in a news article or forum post. My gut reaction seems to be: "how is the author going to spin this fact, and what other evidence did they conveniently ignore because it contradicts their argument?"