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Entries Tagged as 'Writing'

Did My Words Make Sense?

September 4th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips To write is to be misunderstood. Gosh, not very optimistic but it is realistic. We should constantly ask, “Did my words make sense?” “Never mind what it says, we know what we mean,” said an optimist about something we were reading. Yes, we did know what it meant. We read it half-a-dozen […]

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Tags: Change · Clarity · Communication · Improvement · Resources · Time · Writing

Hollywood and Fighting Against What We Do

June 26th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we fight against something with all our might only to discover that are foe is ourselves and what we do everyday. As I write this, there is a writer’s strike in Hollywood. Note, I am not in Hollywood writing this as a writer who is on a writer’s strike. Now that […]

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Tags: Analysis · Communication · Consulting · General Systems Thinking · Jobs · Writing

Abbreviations

June 19th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips This is another fundamental of written communications that we seem to have forgotten—the humble abbreviation. Let’s abbreviate: The last item in the list is confusing, but given the context we always know what that means, right? Sorry, we don’t. I contend that we should not use abbreviations any longer. 98.6% of the […]

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Tags: Brevity · Clarity · Tools · Work · Writing

The (Un)Real Book Writers

May 29th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Some people are using text-generating software to write a book a day. The world changes daily. Some people change while some don’t. Here is a story about some folks in India(?) who are putting several books a day every day onto online book sellers. The same bunch of folks are writing glowing […]

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Tags: Adapting · Artificial Intelligence · Jobs · Technology · Writing

A New Writing Project at Home

April 6th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I don’t want to jump into the next book-writing project at home. Or do I? I just finished a writing project at home. Done, wrapped up, self-published on the places where my friends and relatives can by it for 99¢. Sigh. I don’t want to jump into the first thing that pops […]

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Tags: Adapting · Alternatives · Analysis · Choose · Writing

Too Simple

March 13th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We tend to want complex things. Too simple shows that we didn’t work hard, right? No, that is usually wrong. It happened again at work this week… Someone wanted a couple of sentences that summarized a project. The project had been running for ten years and is a success. Lots of people […]

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Tags: Brevity · Clarity · Communication · Simple · Writing

What About the Teachers?

February 9th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips In the past month or two, many have bemoaned the appearance of software that can write essays for students. I have yet to read concerns about software that teachers can use to write essay assignments. ChatGPT is ruining the world. Well, at least some folks think it is ruining their world. The […]

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Tags: Computing · Ethics · Machine Learning · Teaching · Technology · Writing

Politics and the English Language

January 23rd, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips For what it is worth, and I think it is worth much, read or review Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language.” I didn’t take many English courses in college (just one). While happy, at the time, to skip needless courses, I sometimes regret what I could have learned. Then again, I was […]

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Tags: Communication · General Systems Thinking · Honesty · Thinking · Writing

The Metaphor and Thinking

January 19th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Old metaphors indicate many problems. One result, however, is that they prevent thought. Thinking is a pretty good practice, and I discourage anything that reduces it. The old metaphor should be avoided. George Orwell wrote about this in his essay on Politics and the English Language. Orwell wrote it much better than […]

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Tags: Communication · General Systems Thinking · Problems · Solutions · Thinking · Writing

We Don’t Have to Write It All

January 9th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips If AI wrote this, is that okay? The question isn’t that difficult. In the past few months, we have all sorts of artificial intelligence or machine learning sites “writing” things for us. Well, this isn’t that intelligent or learned (in my humble opinion), but clever mimicry. Still it is quite useful. Why […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Concepts · Ideas · Information · Intellectual Property · Research · Work · Writing