Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips I work with grad students who are writing their dissertations. Often the simplest advice and exercise is the most effective. Here is one of those exercises. I work with graduate students in engineering and computer science at George Mason University. Most of the students are working on their dissertation proposals or dissertations. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips After several years of drafting, waiting, drafting, revising, waiting, adding, waiting, revising … you know, the usual stuff … I finished (for now) a small book on experiential learning. The book is about a hundred pages long and is titled “Some Notes on Experiential Learning.” It includes: Some theory Tips for the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes I am stuck for a word while writing. Experience has taught me to put “thing” in the blank and move on. The right word will come later. There we were, writing a proposal. Three of us were gathered around the keyboard, one typing the words, the other two contributing the words. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Here is another new tag for blog posts: NFB BSHB This is short for Not Fact-Based, But Strongly Held Belief. I pronounce this as iNfab BeeSHeb. There are many things that I believe strongly. I either don’t have or don’t want to take the time to find facts that back those beliefs.  But […]

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by Dwayne Phillips This introduces a new Tag and Category for my blog posts: Yot Dow This is short for “YOur Tax DOllars at Waste.” This is sort of a silly take off on the old your tax dollars at work. It is a shame. The old statement your tax dollars at work used to […]

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by Dwayne Phillips A list of activities that are a lot of work. On a recent visit with family in Louisiana, a group of us discussed: decorating cakes for weddings sewing and making clothes cooking for 50 people and a few more things like these The consensus was these are a lot of work. To […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I finally have a handwriting program on the iPad – WritePad from PhatWare. It works fine, but isn’t integrated into all the iPad apps. Several months into the iPad and I finally have a handwriting program. I am using WritePad from PhatWare. It works just fine. I find that I can write […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Life is full of interesting things. All we have to do is notice them. To do so, I have learned to keep my “notice-er” engaged. I have also learned how to keep and use the noticed things. At a recent public gather, a friend stood to give a five-minute speech. This five-minute […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Be wary when someone asks for “actionable fill-in-the-blank.” I few years ago, I was working in a prestigious organization (just ask anyone who worked there, they would happily tell you that it was a prestigious place). A division there had an expiring charter and needed to update it. Several senior managers asked […]

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by Dwayne Phillips If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter – Mark Twain About ten years ago I was working on a project where we were writing career descriptions. We were supposed to describe the steps a person would take to learn their job, train themselves, and do ever increasing […]

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