Pursuing Excellence in Design and Technology - Raj Lal

Sunday, July 29, 2007

21 Points for Success in Writing - E. B. White

  1. Place yourself in the background.
  2. Write in a way that comes naturally.
  3. Work from a suitable design.
  4. Write with nouns and verbs.
  5. Revise and Rewrite.
  6. Do not overwrite.
  7. Do not overstate.
  8. Avoid the use of qualifiers.
  9. Do not affect a breezy manner.
  10. Use orthodox spelling.
  11. Do not explain too much.
  12. Do not construct awkward adverbs.
  13. Make sure the reader knows who is speaking.
  14. Avoid fancy words.
  15. Do not use dialect unless your ear is good.
  16. Be Clear.
  17. Do not inject opinion.
  18. Use figures of speech sparingly.
  19. Do not take shortcuts at the cost of clarity.
  20. Avoid foreign languages.
  21. Prefer the standard to the offbeat.

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Friday, July 20, 2007

How to Be Creative - By Scott Adams

People often ask me how I come up with ideas. The fast answer is I’m just
wired that way. But there’s also a large element of technique that I can teach
you.


In some long-ago post, I described how I filter ideas with my body more than
my mind. Internally, it feels like a slot machine with the little symbols
changing in the three windows until some combination of three makes me literally
“feel” something – a laugh, a wince, an ah-ha, whatever. It’s the ideas you can
feel in your body that will engage others.


Once I have a topic that makes me feel something, I imagine myself as the
reader and ask what my thought pattern would be on this topic. I start my
writing process by acknowledging the most common view on the topic. And then I
violate it. It’s the violating that makes it fun. The pattern looks like this:
1, 2, 3, 4, taupe.


I’ll give you an example from today. I saw an article in Time magazine about
General Petraeus, the top military guy in Iraq. I skimmed the article, but a
basic assumption was that he knows more about what’s happening in Iraq than you
do. That seems obvious enough. And it made me think of all the comments on this
blog from people who said our soldiers in Iraq know than anyone else more about
how the war is going.


That’s the 1,2,3,4 part: Soldiers in Iraq know the most about the war effort
in Iraq. It seems obvious. Okay, so that’s my topic. Here comes the creative
part. I ask myself this question:


What if it’s the opposite?


That’s the universal creative question. It works on any topic. What if your
doctor tried to kill you instead of heal you? What if your obedient dog
considered you his slave? What if your H.R. director stopped pretending the
company policies were designed with the greater good in mind?


Once I figure out the opposite position from the normal, I concoct an
argument to defend it. You can make a case for just about any point of view.
When that opposite argument turns out to be about 50% sensible, it’s often
funny. When it is 90% sensible, it’s thought-provoking.


Let’s try the “opposite method” on this Iraq topic. What if the troops
fighting in Iraq are the ones who know the LEAST about whether or not we’re
winning the war? Could I make that case?


First, I’d point to the extensive, peer reviewed, science about cognitive
dissonance. The main idea is that people who volunteer for situations that turn
out bad will concoct elaborate mental justifications for why they did what they
did. According to that theory, anyone who volunteered to defend the country, and
found themselves in Iraq, would have low credibility on the question of “Is it
working?” These folks would have the greatest access to the facts, while
simultaneously having the least objectivity for evaluating those facts. In other
words, even if the “surge” is not working, scientists would predict that a huge
number of soldiers involved in the conflict would interpret the situation as a
success in the making, or at least superior to all alternatives.


I love and respect the troops, but they are human.


Second, I’d point out that most of our information about the war comes from
the generals. All leaders are unreliable. A general would be fired immediately
if he said the surge was a bad idea. And if a general believed the surge might
succeed, even as a long shot, he’d be a crappy leader if he told anyone his true
assessment of the odds. So you can’t believe the leaders.


How about the individual troops? Cognitive dissonance aside, at the very
least, they can report the facts, right? But soldiers only see the battles
they’re in. If you hear from a soldier in a hopeless part of Iraq, he’s more
likely to think a surge won’t work. If he’s assigned to a place where things are
going well, he’s more likely to think that success could be duplicated. It’s the
classic analogy of the three blind men trying to describe an elephant. One blind
man feels the elephant’s trunk and says an elephant is just like a snake, etc.
No soldier is in a position to see all of Iraq.


Many of you will read this opposite-argument and say, “Yeah, I see your
points, but still, the soldiers are the best source we have.” Okay, let’s say
60% of the soldiers think the surge isn’t working and 40% think it is. Unless
you know how many soldiers are having cognitive dissonance, or how many are
suppressing a negative opinion in case someone finds out, you have no useful
information whatsoever.


Go.

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Saturday, July 14, 2007

Writing Funny by Scott Adams

Writing Funny


Today I will teach you how to write funny. I will be referring to my earlier
post about the world’s tallest man. Read that one first, two posts below, if you
haven’t already.


Picking a Topic
-------------------


The topic does half of your work. I look for topics that have at least one of
the essential elements of humor:


Clever
Cute
Bizarre
Cruel
Naughty
Recognizable


In order for something to be funny, it has to have at least two of the six
elements of humor. A story about a 7-foot 9-inch Mongolian herdsman marrying a
smallish woman is bizarre all by itself. In the humor context, bizarre simply
means two things you wouldn’t normally find together.


Notice how many of the humor elements I worked into my post about the tall
herdsman:


Clever: Retrieving an iPod in a clever way, and the salmon in a canoe
analogy


Cruel: Shish Kabob accident with his wife


Bizarre: Conjoined twins with two heads and one vagina, huge man with
smallish wife, and a Mongolian herdsman with an iPod.


Naughty: The entire post


The story of the world’s tallest man wasn’t “recognizable” in any meaningful
way, so it lacked that element. For many people, that element is the only
important one, and the other dimensions are just flavor. If you leave out the
“recognizable” element, many people won’t relate to the situation. I took that
chance because the other elements were so strong.


I also left out the “cute” element, but that one is never essential. It mixes
best with the “cruel” and “bizarre” elements, e.g. a bunny with a bazooka.


Simple Sentences
---------------------


Keep your writing simple, as if you were sending a witty e-mail to a friend.
Be smart, but not academic. Prune words that don’t make a difference.


Write About People
------------------------


It’s impossible to find humor in inanimate things. If you must write about an
object or a concept, focus on how someone (usually you) thinks or feels or
experiences those things. Humor is about people, period.


Write Visually
-----------------


Paint a funny picture with your words, but leave out any details that don’t
serve the humor. Notice how many images I packed into my post about the tall
guy. It’s hugely visual, and yet I never describe what he looks like, other than
being tall.


Leave Room for Imagination
-----------------------------------


When I described how the tall guy could retrieve an iPod from a storm drain,
I only mentioned the gum, his “python,” and a Victoria Secrets catalog. Every
reader formed a slightly different mental picture of the specifics. Leaving out
details allows readers to fill them in with whatever image strikes them as
funniest. In effect, you let readers direct their own funny movie.


Funny Words
-----------------


Use “funny” words when you can. Here are some I used:


Mongolian
Herdsman
Vagina
Trouser
Shish Kabob
Storm
drain
Johnson
Slap
Canoe


You can read that list of funny words totally out of context and it almost
makes you laugh. Funny words are the ones that are familiar yet rarely used in
conversation. It’s a bonus when those words have funny sounds to them, as do
most of the ones in my list.


Pop Culture References
-----------------------------


References to popular culture often add humor. It’s funny that the world’s
tallest man is retrieving a lost iPod, and not something generic such as a
wallet. And it’s funny that his manhood is compared to Ryan Seacrest as opposed
to something generic, such as an oak tree. Someone could write a thesis on why
pop culture references are funny, but just accept it.


Animal analogies
---------------------


Animal references are funny. If you can’t think of anything funny, make some
sort of animal/creature analogy. It’s easy, and it almost always works. I made
these creature analogies in my post…


King salmon
Python


Exaggerate, then Exaggerate Some
More
-------------------------------------------------


Figure out what’s the worst that could happen with your topic, then multiple
it by ten or more. Don’t say a mole is as big as a grapefruit. Say that mole is
opening its own Starbucks. (Notice the pop culture reference of Starbucks.) The
bigger the exaggeration, the funnier it is.


Near Logic
-------------


Humor is about creating logic that a-a-a-lmost makes sense but doesn’t. No
one in the real world could put gum on his penis and retrieve an iPod from a
storm drain. But your brain allows you to imagine that working, while
simultaneously knowing it can’t. That incongruity launches the laugh reflex.


Callback
-----------


A callback is when you end with a funny reference that already got a laugh.
In my post, I knew the Ganbaatar gag would get a laugh, so I used it again in a
different sense for the closing line. It puts a nice period on your humor
writing.


Genetic Abnormality
-------------------------


Humor is like any other human capacity; some people are born with more of it
than others. No amount of advice will help if you don’t have the humor gene.


Here’s a link to a newish comic called F Minus, by Tony Carrillo. He has the
humor gene. I’m picking him to be the next big comic. (Read a few weeks of his
archive before forming an opinion.)


http://www.comics.com/comics/fminus/index.html

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Friday, July 6, 2007

Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus

Self Contained Underwater Breathing
Apparatus


I am moving gently forward


over the wild and beautiful


unexplored world below me


I am floating in silence


and breaking it up


with the sound of my breath


Above me there is nothing


but shimmery light


the place where i have come from


and will go back when i am done here


 


I am diving


I am a scuba diver


Scuba diversrc="http://irajesh.com/commonplace/scuba.jpg" align=baseline border=0>


I am going deeper past


the wrinkled rocks and dark weaweeds


towards a deep blueness where


a school of silver fish wait


As i swim through the water


bubbles burst from me


wobbling like little jelly fish


as they rise


I check my air


i don't have as much time


as i need to see everything


but that is what makes it


so special !


 


By Leslie Burke in the motion picture "Bridge to
Terabithia"

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Yours Truly


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