28 Matching Annotations
  1. Mar 2022
    1. https://every.to/letter

      A manifesto about what the Every platform is all about. They're trying to create a new(?) economic model for writers working together.

      I'm not really sure how this is dramatically different from prior efforts or if the economic incentives are actually properly aligned here. Many writers without critically looking at the whole may be led here as much by marketing hype as anything else. It almost sounds like they're recreating The Huffington Post, but giving away some of the value up front instead of leaving all the value in one person's hand for a future sale.

      Who owns the copyright of the created works? Are editors and proofreaders just work for hire here? What about their interests?

  2. Feb 2022
    1. We need to getour thoughts on paper first and improve them there, where we canlook at them. Especially complex ideas are difficult to turn into alinear text in the head alone. If we try to please the critical readerinstantly, our workflow would come to a standstill. We tend to callextremely slow writers, who always try to write as if for print,perfectionists. Even though it sounds like praise for extremeprofessionalism, it is not: A real professional would wait until it wastime for proofreading, so he or she can focus on one thing at a time.While proofreading requires more focused attention, finding the rightwords during writing requires much more floating attention.

      Proofreading while rewriting, structuring, or doing the thinking or creative parts of writing is a form of bikeshedding. It is easy to focus on the small and picayune fixes when writing, but this distracts from the more important parts of the work which really need one's attention to be successful.

      Get your ideas down on paper and only afterwards work on proofreading at the end. Switching contexts from thinking and creativity to spelling, small bits of grammar, and typography can be taxing from the perspective of trying to multi-task.


      Link: Draft #4 and using Webster's 1913 dictionary for choosing better words/verbiage as a discrete step within the rewrite.


      Linked to above: Are there other dictionaries, thesauruses, books of quotations, or individual commonplace books, waste books that can serve as resources for finding better words, phrases, or phrasing when writing? Imagine searching through Thoreau's commonplace book for finding interesting turns of phrase. Naturally searching through one's own commonplace book is a great place to start, if you're saving those sorts of things, especially from fiction.

      Link this to Robin Sloan's AI talk and using artificial intelligence and corpuses of literature to generate writing.

  3. Feb 2016
    1. wildlife whic

      consider adding a comma, like so:

      "... wildlife, which is..."

    2. (especially the well-off) are able to stay afloat more easily then poor population
      1. Typo in "... more easily then..." change "then" to "than"

      2. The parentheses in the first part "(especially the well-off)" doesn't match the next lack of parentheses around "poor populations" -- they're both referencing the same subject, and so the logical connection doesn't make sense to me.

      TL;DR: The sentence should still make sense with parentheses removed.

      Test: "Humans are able to stay afloat more easily then poor populations..."

      Does it make sense? Not to my mind (unless you're ironically implying that poor populations are inhuman! maybe a sarcastic remark on those who seem to think/feel that way?).

      Consider changing this to: "Well-off populations of humans are able to stay afloat more easily than poor populations..."

      ... or something else that leaves the connections consistent.

    3. (link)

      Two considerations:

      1. This seems to me to break in style from your previously-established convention for links & citations (i.e., a consistency error); and
      2. Should it be before or after the period? (unsure of what conventions say).

      Consider changing from "(link") to some other options? Two that come to my mind (neither of them quite ideal) could be moving it to "support for climate change denial" and/or changing it to "(An excellent read/article/essay by Vice magazine delves into this [issue/topic] [, here].")

      NB: I include optional phrasing in square brackets [ _ ].

    4. ‘It’s impossible’‘It’s possible, but it’s not worth doing’‘I said it was a good idea all along.’

      source? not necessary, but (for my mind, at least) helps its appearance.

      also re: Style: I have no idea what the style recommendations / conventions are: I see you started with a big icon of an open-quote. Q: Is it customary (e.g. in magazines, the New Yorker, etc.) to include an identically large-icon-sized close-quote?

    5. scientific degre

      Consider changing to some variation of:

      • "science degree" (or)
      • "degree in..." (or) "PhD in..."
        • "... the sciences"
        • "... that field"
        • "... a related field"

      ... I think one of those may read a little better (to me at least) that way.

    6. However witho

      Consider adding a comma between these two words. (Run the whole sentence through a grammar-check to be sure -- I'm not certain.)

  4. Dec 2015
    1. I guess we’ll see if that’s something other people want too.” At press time, it was to early to tell

      1) TYPO: 'it was to early to tell.': change the first instance of 'to' -> 'too'

      It will then read: 'it was too early to tell.'


      2) Given the close proximity of two instances of 'too' (the first being the last word in the speaker's quotation, the second being our now-corrected typo)... consider replacing one of those instances with some other equivalent.

      The first instance would be easier, but less casual-sounding, to replace; options include:

      • 'also'
      • 'as well'

      The second instance would be a bit trickier; options include:

      • '{As of this writing | At press time}, that's still an open question.'
      • ', it was yet unclear.'
      • ', it was yet unclear what the outcome would be.'
      • ', it wasn't yet clear.'

      .... This said, my immediate thought is that 'it was too early to tell' is an open, receptive/neutral, and -- importantly -- potentially optimistic phrasing. I.e., "We don't know yet! The future could hold anything!"

      That's a much more optimistic outlook, compared to terms like 'unclear' -- that seems murky and potentially doubtful to my mind.

      So I like the way you phrased it initially.

    2. It is a question; a challenge.

      Strictly speaking, semi-colons are only used to separate clauses which could, on their own (as they stand), each be a grammatically complete sentence. The test? [You'll notice that last remark wasn't a grammatically complete sentence, by the way.]

      Replace the semi-colon with a period; see if it works.

      Replace the semi-colon with a period. See if it works.

      "A challenge" isn't a grammatically complete sentence. Of course, stylistic licenses are sometimes taken to defy the rule of "every clause between two periods must be a complete sentence."

      In this case, though, I'd suggest:

      • adding a repetition of "it is" after the semi-colon (to make it complete-sentence-worthy): 'It is a question; it is a challenge.', OR
      • replacing the semi-colon and substituting a colon in its place. (This also has the advantage, in my mind, of making it a 'stronger' statement: throwing down a challenge.): 'It is a question: a challenge.', OR
      • both: 'It is a question: it is a challenge.'

      Either or both should work. (Personally, I like the second option best: 'It is a question: a challenge.' ) That said, if you prefer it the way it is for style, go for it. It just stuck out in my mind, but I am a fiend for proper (or obsessive) semi-colon usage.

    3. -World changing ideas

      Normally, I'd suggest hyphenating "world changing," but since you're using hyphens as the bullets in the list, it might appear a little awkward here if you chose:

      -World-changing ideas

      Given this, normally, I'd then also suggest substituting other bullet-types instead (to alleviate the issue of then using hyphens in the list items)... except that I happen to like how you've chosen hyphens (or en-dashes) as the bullets for this list.... They (hyphens) seem less obtrusive and more appropriate to me, somehow, compared to if you replaced them with asterisks or "standard" bullets (e.g. large black dots).

      So I'm not sure what to suggest, or whether to leave this as is.

    4. the shootings- I just

      See other notes that are tagged "en- and em-dashes" for explanation. This actually isn't such a big deal IMO, esp. if it's consistent throughout the entire publication. But if you wanted to know about it, it's there. Let's face it: Most folks reading this probably won't care a bit (or even know about) the distinction or rules. So, you can probably ignore anything that's labeled as such (tag: en- and em-dashes).

    5. invitation- it will not happen without your participation. It is simply an idea - that we should

      OK, two things: en-dashes and em-dashes, and spacing with regard to each.

      The latter—em-dashes—are usually roughly double or triple the length of the former (an en-dash).

      The usage is different for each. (Wikipedia has a great article on them.)

      While I'm not entirely certain about the first instance ('invitation- it will not...')... whether there should be a space on both sides of it, or neither side, or okay the way it is (i.e., with no space before, but with a space after)... I am reasonably sure it should be an em-dash (the longer one).

      In the second instance: I believe it should be an em-dash (the longer one, again). However, I'm uncertain whether—having replaced it —there should remain spaces on both sides. This may have something to do with whether or not there are two of them surrounding a clause (i.e., to replace a pair of parentheses), or whether it's being used to replace something more akin to a colon.


      Side note: Occasionally, when typing on a standard keyboard, two adjacent hyphens or en-dashes (see also footnote*) will be used, like so: --

      However, this is not a true substitution for an em-dash, like so: —

      Research needed (on proper spacing in various cases of em-dash usage, primarily). Man, syntax is complicated!


      ( footnote:<br> not even hyphens and en-dashes themselves* are the same... but sometimes, given the limitations of a standard keyboard or plain-er text typing program, the same character will used synonymously for both... however, it's generally frowned upon in more formal publications, I believe.)

    6. -Musical Instruments

      Another second-caps concern. Consider lower-casing Instruments

    7. -Portable Heaters-A Battery Bank-Portable Wifi Hotspots-Folding Tables and Chairs

      I realize this may have been wholly intentional on your part, because I can see a good reason for it in these list items.

      Figuring out styles and conventions -- when one is at liberty to choose(!) -- can be really bloody difficult, at least for me.

      My main concern is that -- in these four list items -- there are suddenly caps at the beginning of all the words...

      ... and that doesn't (seem to?) match the style/convention chosen in other cases.

      Although the reasoning here makes sense to me, still, I'd suggest lower-casing all but the first word in each list-item (in order to match style of the rest of the list).

      • In the case of "Folding Tables and Chairs": I'd suggest repeating the word "folding", so folks are sure to get the message:

      "Folding tables and folding chairs" (hyphens optionally suggested)

      Since you'll be removing the capitalizations, I can understand that the "folding" part might not be viewed as applying to "Chairs," so some redundancy of wording is probably called for.

    8. blind spots

      Consider (not necessarily required??) either:

      • adding a hyphen here, OR
      • removing the hyphen from "blind-spots" in the second paragraph of this same article.

      Note, the hyphen in the earlier case (second paragraph) may have been auto-inserted by the Adobe InDesign program...? I notice that the hyphen comes as the last character at the end of a line; "spots" is at the beginning of the next line (so that may have happened if you hit spacebar after "blind", perhaps a glitch).

      My guess (quick research needed to confirm) is that probably both "blind-spots" and "blind spots" are correct.... It's mostly a question of choosing one or the other, and maintaining the convention (and compensating for software program shortcomings).

      Lastly: I will note that there may, from a readability perspective, be an advantage in having the hyphen at the end of "blind-", when it is the last word on a line (and the word "spots" doesn't appear until the next line).... I think it helps the reader along.

    9. folks-

      Yet another concern about en-dashes, em-dashes, and the appropriate spacing for either (depending also on the purpose of their use).

    10. underwear.

      Consider removing the period at the end of this list.

      It's a stylistic or slight syntax concern: maintain the existing conventions already in place (no periods at the end of list-items). NB: Other editors might disagree with me in this instance.... IMO, it appears a little more awkward than if it were left out, but that's pretty subjective.

    11. -Canopies, pop-up tents, and umbrellas

      consider removing the word 'and'; it's not strictly necessary, depending on your exact meaning.

      would you like folks, ideally, to bring ALL of the above (if they have all three items available to share)?

    12. RSVP @ TomoRRowToday.newS/RSVP

      My concern is primarily a reader or "user-interface" note: Folks may be confused by the use of the '@' symbol. (I've seen people attempt to put them into website URLs where they shouldn't be.)

      In addition, since top-level domains (e.g. '.news') are relatively new -- AND given the odd type-face / all-caps font, plus or minus other factors -- I'm concerned about the greenest 'joe schmoe' user reading this, and not realizing either that it's a website address, or at least where it starts and ends.


      I may be over-simplifying it for the major of users; that said, you may wish to consider either or both of:

      • removing the '@' symbol
      • adding a colon

      So it could look like any of:

      • 'RSVP at:'
      • 'RSVP by going to:' (again with a colon)
      • 'Commit here:'

      In the URL, also consider:

      • prefixing http://

      AND/OR:

      • lower-casing at least the first T (in Tomorrow), OR changing the entire URL to a different font-type (although I'm unsure which to recommend, here)
    13. with other spontaneously groups around the world

      change 'spontaneously' to:

      • either 'spontaneous',
      • or 'spontaneously organized' (with or without a hyphen should work)
    14. that were

      consider replacing 'that were' with: 'which were'

    15. 24 hour

      insert a hyphen: "24-hour"

      (I'm relatively certain this is the most widely-accepted way of writing it; other interpretations are possible, but I think the hyphen applies here.)

    16. waste a lot of energy telling people “no”.

      change: move the period, so it's inside the quotation mark.


      Placing commas and periods inside dialogue quotation marks is proper syntax/grammar in normal writing. .... It's improper syntax only in technical/computer writing. However, it's possible that -- stylistically -- this may have changed in recent years, as technical (and technology) writers have influenced mainstream writing somewhat.

    17. hut, “

      change the comma to a period (or something other than a comma): 'at the warming hut. "We are taking ...'

    18. park, as music

      consider changing to: park, and music

    19. ome of the volunteer food handlers had even dressed up in fancy clothes and were seating groups of complete strangers together around tables and waiting on them

      consider changing to:

      Some of the volunteer food handlers had even dressed up in fancy clothes, seating groups of complete strangers together and waiting tables on them, as if

    20. homemade foods had been laid out in a circular array of stainless steel warming trays donated by a local catering service.

      What was donated, the trays or the food (or both)?

      If the food was donated, then consider this: homemade foods had been laid out, in a circular array of stainless steel warming trays, donated by a local catering service.

      If the trays, then consider: homemade foods had been laid out in a circular array of stainless steel warming trays, which {were | had been} donated by a local catering service.