Writing

There are 45 posts filed in Writing (this is page 4 of 5).

My 400th post

I just discovered a nice feature in the WordPress admin interface, it lists the number of posts I have made, and this one is number 400! I have been blogging since 2007 (says my first post) and it has been an on-again, off-again thing for the most part. I would say that I started to be more regular about posting in November-December 2018, and have had several strings of 20-30 posts in a row. In the world of people posting to other services like Facebook and Twitter, I have focused in on my weblog as the main place for my writing, and a series of websites from my domain name (need to list all of those sometime!). Here’s to the next 100 posts!

Read: How I’m able to take notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim

Read How I’m able to take notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim

I start­ed using LaTeX to write lec­ture notes in the sec­ond se­mes­ter of my bach­e­lor in math­e­mat­ics, and I’ve been using it ever since, which makes for a total of more than 1700 pages of notes. To give you an idea of what those notes look like, here are some ex­am­ples:

I think it is amazing that someone could take math notes using a computer – wow!

Journalism for All

Dave Winer has been writing recently about the topic of teaching journalism to many people:

  • Working together, in 2019 – “…Most important we have to stop thinking of journalism as a way for a small number of people to earn a living and do a lousy job of serving the people’s interest, and more of a civic calling, a way for all of us to add meaning to each others’ lives. Until we get there, we’ll keep electing losers like Trump and getting no further in solving the climate and social crises. (1/4/2019)
  • Wondering About Journalists – “I wonder if any journalists out there agree it’s worth a shot to train a million people in basic journalism…” (12/14/2019).

As well as in the past:

  • Idea: An Indivisible Guide for Journalism – “…Like the Indivisible howto, but for journalism. Teach everyday people the basics of reporting. It would be incredible for our self-government if we had millions of people who knew how to report based on actual facts….” (2/13/2017).
  • Journalism Is Easy To Define – “… I get an idea for a story or someone gives me one. Do a little searching on the web, call a few people. Take notes on what I hear. Call some other people or send them emails. Write up the notes on my computer. Organize them into a sequence. Then, I optionally offer it for review to other people to get their opinions and they possibly rewrite it, or I incorporate their feedback and make changes. This is called editing. This process iterates a few times. Then the story is published, usually on a website, and possibly at some later time on paper. If you do this then you’re doing journalism. If you do something else, it’s something else. It’s not good or bad. But this is what we call journalism. ” (9/3/2011)

I have read these thoughts from Dave Winer in the past, and generally agreed with them (it would be good for people to have some experience in journalistic writing), but did not do anything about it. Well, a few days ago, I read this from Ron Chester:

After all, we now have the advantage that, more than ever before, men & women of all kinds of backgrounds, races, cultures, religions and more have a real opportunity to contribute to our path forward. Surely this will lead to good things. That’s how I see it anyway. (from One Person Can Change A Lot (12/25/2018))

So, following Ron’s advice, and in the spirit of Derek Sivers’ article First Follower: Leadership Lessons from a Dancing Guy (where the first follower shows other people how to follow), I am going to try to be the first follower. Since my training is in aerospace engineering/software development, I felt the need to find a few resources to start teaching myself about the practice of journalism. I decided to focus on three resources: The New York Times, the BBC, and the Knight Center for Journalism at the University of Texas. Here are the starter resources I am going to review for my first news story:

New York Times:

  • The Promise of Online Journalism – A series published by the New York Times in 2001 (I actually remember this when it came out!) working with Stuyvesant High School in New York City. Contains 8 chapters plus resource links at the end, Chapter 4 covers the nuts and bolts about reporting.
  • Teaching and Learning about Journalism – A post from November 2009 on the Learning Network blog, this post provides a great list of resources for New York Times and other resources for student journalists and their teachers and advisers.

BBC:

Knight Center/University of Texas

  • Journalism 2.0 – Free PDF copy of this book from 2007, covers the full range of digital technologies for new reporting (although somewhat dated), still a good read, I thought it made the case for anyone being able to create and publish news stories with the technology we have. (Direct link to English PDF copy, the link on the page is broken)
  • Course Catalog – Many of the courses taught by the Knight Center are still available online

I am committing to creating a news story by January 13th – there, I put that out there! Anyone with me? Let’s hear from you!

 

 

2018: My year in review

Looking back over my posts, this has been my most prolific year in blogging (posted something in every month except August!). At the start of the year, I was trying to post a link a day, and managed to get into early February before dropping off. In March, I did a first-ever podcast to look at how my feed would capture the enclosure, as Pocket Casts (my phone podcast client) seemed to be having problems with picking up podcasts that were part of blogs (like Scripting News). April and May each had a link post, but June showed more activity (a Pocket Casts bug report, some links, a blog conversation with John Philpin about the micro.blog service, and getting my Technician ham radio license). July brought a return to link posts, and I began to start responding to other posts trying to use the Webmention protocol. In September, I got interested in Federated Wiki again, had a phone call with Ward Cunningham and wrote a post or two on that topic, as well as some links. October had 3 posts, but a key one was a link to an item by Seth Godin encouraging the reader to do something every day that builds an asset for you. I decided to rededicate myself to posting something daily, whether it be just a link or something more substantial. This lead to 18 posts in November and 27 posts in December! In November, I began to get more involved with users of the micro.blog service, particularly John Philpin and Ron Chester, who I met while I was using the 1999 blog tool from Dave Winer some years ago. I did a few more podcasts, and started work on a new book (listen to podcast episode 2 for more information on that!). I have also been working with Ron Chester to set up a river of news for Bob Dylan sites, and helping with setting up some WordPress blogs for Bob Dylan writing and ham radio writing. I also wrote up instructions to help others set up rivers of news for their areas of interest. The most exciting event for me in December was to see one of my posts (Is there a RSS revival going on?) appear in Stephen Downes’ OLDaily newsletter – wow!

With this increase in posting, I am getting more and more in the habit of posting. If it is getting near the end of the day with no post, I work to at least find a link that I want to save on my blog. I have enjoyed playing with IndieWeb technologies like Webmention, and starting my “In The Car” podcast has been fun. I have even told John Philpin that I would love to be a guest on his new podcast – whoa! Finally, I have enjoyed reading and interacting with fellow bloggers on micro.blog, have had a taste of community, and I like it! I am looking forward to many great posts to come. Here’s to a great year in 2019 and a post a day!

Writing documentation is a good thing

Recently, I read a post on the Digital Ocean blog (Documentation As An Open Source Practice) talking about best practices for documenting open source project repos (like Github). The main focus of the post was on providing community-focused documentation (code of conduct, contributors, etc.). I agree that those are good, but it does not tell the whole documentation story. The Write The Docs site has a terrific beginners guide to documentation for a software project. Here are some of my own tips I have passed on to other engineers.

  • Pick a topic
    • What do I need to know to do my job?
    • Is it on the wiki?
    • “Handy tip: write down the things you learn so you don’t have to remember them.” (via @KenSmith)
  • Identify your audience
    • Who are you writing for?
    • What should they know already?
    • What do they need to know?
  • Creating instructions or a checklist for a task
    • Perform the task and take notes as you go
    • Add setup details as needed
    • Add equipment/tool list if applicable
    • Print your initial draft, then repeat the task following your instructions
    • Mark up the draft with additional information if needed to perform the task
    • Add the draft writeup to a wiki or other tool
    • Example – How to Write A HOW-TO document
  • Final Thoughts
    • Writing things down is important
      • If it’s not written down, that information could be lost
    • Updating things is important too
      • Information can be written down, but incorrect or out of date
    • Break the writing down to make it easier to start
      • Use timeboxing (Example: write for no more than 15 minutes at a time)
      • Copy/paste can be your friend
        • Copying text from application windows
        • Screenshots
      • Keep a Word document open and type a running set of bullet items, then do some editing, then paste into a wiki page
    • It’s ok for your first draft to be shitty (link to Anne Lamott piece on writing)
    • Treat yourself after doing some writing!