Tag Archives: writing

How the media would report on the end of the world

USA Today: WE’RE DEADWall Street Journal: Dow Jones Plummets as World EndsInc. Magazine: 10 Ways You Can Profit From the ApocalypseRolling Stone: The Grateful Dead Reunion TourSports Illustrated: Game OverLadies Home Journal: Lose 10 Pounds by Judgment Day with Our New “Armageddon” Diet!TV Guide: Death and Damnation: Nielson Ratings Soar!Discover Magazine: How will the extinction… Read More »

Writing headlines

Sometimes when you read the headlines in the news, you probably cannot help but suppress a giggle. Consider these:“Tiger’s wife gives birth to a daughter” – The Associated Press“Tiger’s new cub is a baby girl” – Independent Online The problem with the above is that they assume their audience is familiar with Tiger Woods (and… Read More »

Why commas are important

An English professor wrote the words, “Woman without her man is nothing” on the blackboard and directed his students to punctuate it correctly. The men wrote: “Woman, without her man, is nothing.” The women wrote: “Woman! Without her, man is nothing.” Related posts:How men and women shower differentlyDangerous womenWhy I love womenMen are from RAM;… Read More »

Polluted? Convoluted!

Sometimes when we’re writing, we become so engrossed with statistical accuracy that we fail to take into consideration how a reader would interpret a poorly constructed sentence. For example, in a recent FORTUNE article on India’s pollution problem (“River of Sorrow“, June 11 issue), the author wrote: “The problem is that 11 of the city’s… Read More »

Changes to navigation

I’ve made some changes to the sidebar on this blog. Hopefully, this will make it easier for you to access the materials here and improve your overall navigational experience. For a start, you can browse articles by categories (manually configured as I’m not using the Blogger widget). You may also wish to check out some… Read More »