Ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
Stephen Goforth
An investigation found AT&T, Verizon, EarthLink, and CenturyLink disproportionately offered lower-income and least-White neighborhoods slow internet service for the same price as speedy connections they offered in other parts of town -Leon Yin and Aaron Sankin writing for The Markup
Meaning is not only about transcending the self, but also about transcending the present moment -- which is perhaps the most important finding of a study published in the Journal of Positive Psychology. While happiness is an emotion felt in the here and now, it ultimately fades away, just as all emotions do; positive affect and feelings of pleasure are fleeting. The amount of time people report feeling good or bad correlates with happiness but not at all with meaning.
Meaning, on the other hand, is enduring. It connects the past to the present to the future. "Thinking beyond the present moment, into the past or future, was a sign of the relatively meaningful but unhappy life," the researchers write. "Happiness is not generally found in contemplating the past or future." That is, people who thought more about the present were happier, but people who spent more time thinking about the future or about past struggles and sufferings felt more meaning in their lives, though they were less happy.
Emily Esfahani Smith writing in The Atlantic
Is Taylor Swift doing a better job at building a metaverse than Mark Zuckerberg right now?
Well, in the sense that Mark Zuckerberg is almost totally failing, yeah. This may seem like a leap, but a metaverse—a futuristic virtual-reality world—is essentially a shared online experience, which is not all that different from the online fanscape that Swifties inhabit. It sounds like the Swifties might be living in something that is pretty close to a metaverse currently. They’ll go wherever she goes. So it’s not a virtual world, but it’s a virtual community. That’s really what makes the metaverse and metaverse platforms powerful. People building metaverse platforms, most of them think it’s a technology question. But it’s really a community and culture question.
Wagner James Au quoted in The Atlantic
Good game designers know how to draw us in by catering to some very basic emotional needs. (Researcher Jane McGonigal) notes that the best games have four elements: clear goals that allow us to feel a sense of purpose; rules that make the task harder and thereby challenge our creativity; rapid feedback to chart our progress; and an experience that is voluntary.
Wouldn't it be nice if work was more like a video game? Your boss would articulate a clear mission and set of milestones you were expected to meet. You would go into the office every day and receive ongoing feedback about your progress so you could see the impact you are having.
The truth, of course, is that reality is messy. Our goals are fuzzy, our progress unclear. Video games, the majority of which now focus on getting us to cooperate rather than compete, offer a more fulfilling existence, McGonigal argues.
"We all want to find more meaning in what we do, like we're part of something bigger," McGonigal said. "Games give us a place to feel that, to cooperate and do something that is more satisfying."
Chris O'Brien, Mercury News Columnist
"Happy people get a lot of joy from receiving benefits from others while people leading meaningful lives get a lot of joy from giving to others," explained Kathleen Vohs, one of the authors of a study to be published in the Journal of Positive Psychology, in a recent presentation at the University of Pennsylvania.
In other words, meaning transcends the self while happiness is all about giving the self what it wants. People who have high meaning in their lives are more likely to help others in need. "If anything, pure happiness is linked to not helping others in need," the researchers write. What sets human beings apart from animals is not the pursuit of happiness, which occurs all across the natural world, but the pursuit of meaning, which is unique to humans, according to Roy Baumeister, the lead researcher of the study and author, with John Tierney, of the recent book Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. Baumeister, a social psychologists at Florida State University, was named an ISI highly cited scientific researcher in 2003.
The study participants reported deriving meaning from giving a part of themselves away to others and making a sacrifice on behalf of the overall group. In the words of Martin E. P. Seligman, one of the leading psychological scientists alive today, in the meaningful life "you use your highest strengths and talents to belong to and serve something you believe is larger than the self."
For instance, having more meaning in one's life was associated with activities like buying presents for others, taking care of kids, and arguing. People whose lives have high levels of meaning often actively seek meaning out even when they know it will come at the expense of happiness. Because they have invested themselves in something bigger than themselves, they also worry more and have higher levels of stress and anxiety in their lives than happy people. Having children, for example, is associated with the meaningful life and requires self-sacrifice, but it has been famously associated with low happiness among parents, including the ones in this study.
Emily Esfahani Smith writing in The Atlantic
Free short online courses to strengthen your skills and add a line to your resume. Most of these Poynter courses are one-hour in length or less.
Journalism Fundamentals: Craft & Values - A five-hour, self-directed course that covers basics in five areas: newsgathering, interviewing, ethics, law and diversity.
Telling Stories with Sound - Learn the fundamentals of audio reporting and editing in this self-directed course.
How to Spot Misinformation Online - Learn simple digital literacy skills to outsmart algorithms, detect falsehoods and make decisions based on factual information
Understanding Title IX - This course is designed to help journalists understand the applications of Title IX.
Clear, Strong Writing for Broadcast Journalism - One-hour video tutorial
Powerful Writing: Leverage Your Video and Sound - In this one-hour video tutorial, early-career journalists will learn how to seamlessly combine audio, video and copy in captivating news packages.
Writing for the Ear - In this five-part course, you’ll learn everything you need to write more effective audio narratives.
Fact-Check It: Digital Tools to Verify Everything Online
News Sense: The Building Blocks of News - What makes an idea or event a news story?
Cleaning Your Copy: Grammar, Style and More - Finding and fixing the most common style, grammar and punctuation errors.
Avoiding Plagiarism and Fabrication - For authors, editors, educators, journalists, journalism students, news producers and news consumers
The Writer’s Workbench: 50 Tools You Can Use
Ethics of Journalism Build or refine your process for making ethical decisions
Conducting Interviews that Matter
Make Design More Inclusive: Defeat Unconscious Bias in Visuals
Online Media Law: The Basics for Bloggers and Other Publishers -Three important areas of media law that specifically relate to gathering information and publishing online: defamation, privacy and copyright
Freedom of Information and Your Right to Know -How to use the Freedom of Information Act, Public Records Laws and Open Meetings Laws to uphold your right to know the government’s actions
Journalism and Trauma - How traumatic stress affects victims and how to interview trauma victims with compassion and respect
How Any Journalist Can Earn Trust (International Edition) -What news audiences in various parts of the world don’t understand about how journalism works
Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he really has a hole in his head.
GoPro Hero 11
This action camera comes with HyperSmooth, software-stabilization now in its fifth iteration from Hero 7 to the present. The iPhone 14 Pro is getting close to being as good—but not yet, when it comes to intense action and extra features. $399 with a subscription.
GorillaPod tripod*
Joby GripTight PRO. Flexible legs wrap around objects for unlimited angles. From .7 - 11 pounds. Rubber foot grips provide stability on any surface.
Moment*
Cases, lens, batteries, lights, gimbals, etc. to enhance photos and videos taken with a phone.
Osmo Mobile 6
A handheld stabilizer that works for smartphones and works in concert with the iPhone 14's Action Mode—a software feature that stabilizes videos. $159.
Shoulderpod S2*
A handle grip for your smartphone to steady your shots. Works with tripods and comes with a wrist strap. Additional accessories available. $50.
SMOVE
This smartphone video stabilizer that doubles as a charger. Portable, fits in your pocket. $200.
Staying somewhere where you are no longer happy, and doing things that you’ve long ago stopped being surprised or fulfilled by, is never a good thing. Yes, there will be a difficult moment or several during the moving process, but it is at least a step towards taking active change in your life and putting it on a path that you want to see it go. I mean, if you’re at a point in your life where you are legitimately saying you are “over” the “drama” of your group — and you’re not on a reality show — there have to be some changes to make.
In any case, choosing to be somewhere because it’s familiar is a short-term fix to what is certainly a much bigger problem. There is a certain degree of charm that your hometown can take on after a long enough separation, and maybe it will end up proving the right place for you at some later point in your life. But don’t we all owe it to ourselves to explore a bit as an adult, and listen to ourselves when we constantly mutter how unhappy we are? A move is never a guarantee of a better life, but it is a guarantee of doing something you actually want to do, even if it means taking a chance.
Chelsea Fagan writing in Thought Catalog
Cliche Finder
Just what the title suggests. Free.
Copyscape
Check for online plagiarism.
Corpus of Contemporary American English
This BYU site includes transcripts of spoken language from radio and television programs and comprises academic writing from a range of disciplines allowing comparison of styles--spoken language vs.written academic language.
Coschedule Headline Analyzer
Analyze your headlines for SEO and share value. Free.
Dragon Anywhere
Voice to text app for iOS. Have to finish dictation before seeing the text. Free.
Flip Text
Flip text upside-down. Use it on Facebook or Twitter. Free.
FontPair
Helps you pick font combinations for your resume, website, poster, etc. so your creation stands out from the typical Times New Roman on other material.
Gender Guesser
Cut and paste some of your writing into the the Gender Guesser and it will tell you whether you are male or female based on the writing tendencies of each.
Google Keyword Planner
Allows users to find and use words that are more likely to be used in searches for the content we are writing. Free.
the Grading Game*
App for practicing your editing skills and win points. Avail at the App Store.
Grammar Girl
Writing Tips from a grammarian.
Hackpad
Edit, organize and share documents. Merged with Dropbox in 2014.
HubSpot's Blog Topic Generator
Just write three nouns related to the topic that you'd like to blog about and this site will offer ideas.
Lexicon Valley
Slate's grammar podcasts.
Limpert's About Editing and Writing Blog
A blog about how editors and writers do their work by Jack Limert was editor of the The Washingtonian for more than 40 years.
Medium
Created by Twitter co-founders to support good writing. Clean design and easy-to-use interface. For those who want to write but don’t want to maintain a blog or website. Intended to be a place where smart people plant their thoughts. Share a draft of a post with friends who can make comments as marginal notes (rather than at the end of a post). Free, but Twitter account is required. No custom domains or customization.
Moz Blog
SEO writing tips.
Online Etymology Dictionary
Gives you the history and derivation of any word. Free.
Power Thesaurus
Crowdsourced thesaurus.
Rhymer
Free rhyming dictionary.
Sejda
A PDF editor that also can add images, drawings, and annotations, etc. There is a free version but you'll need to pay if you need to use it a lot.
Svbtle
Writing platform. Minimalist interface. Encourages reader response. Must apply for membership.
TextExpander
Mac typing shortcut. Takes snippets of text and turns them into longer ones. Ideas for how to use it here. $44.95.
TextGrabber*
Extracts text from a variety of printed sources (PDF, books, etc.) by using the iPhone camera. Can translate text from many languages. $4.99.
WatchFramebyFrame
Can also be used to play YouTube and Vimeo videos frame by frame, to see any inconsistencies in content.
Yoast SEO
A WordPress plugin to work SEO into your writing,
Incompetent people lack the skills to improve because they are unable to distinguish between incompetence and competence. Incompetent people overestimate their own competence and, failing to sense of mismatch between their performance and what is desirable, see no need to try to improve. Incompetent people can be taught to raise their competence by learning the skills to judge their own performance more accurately.
To become more competent, or even expert, we must learn to recognize competence when we see it in others, become more accurate judges of what we ourselves know and don't know, adopt learning strategies that get results, and find objective ways to track our progress.
Peter C. Brown and Henry L. Roediger III, Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning
Fade In
Script-writing software with similar features toFinal Draft without the price tag. Not as many of the extras that come withFinal Draft but only $50. Windows, Mac, Linux.
Final Draft*
Industry standard for writing screenplays on both Windows and Mac. Notes section for keeping track of characters, special scene view to get an overview, index card system for summaries, etc. $170.
Trelby
Free script-writing alternative to Final Draft and Fade In. Enough features to get you started.
TV Tropes
Fiction writing help through examination of storytelling devices in creative works.
The best thing you can do is get good at being you. -Denise the Menace
750 Words
Tracks your progress toward writing 750 words each day. Keeps up with your writing speed, and how often you get distracted. Free.
Daily Page
Start a daily writing routine with daily writing prompts. $5 a month or $4 annually.
Day One
Great journaling app for IOS and Mac. Clean look, syncing, photo imports, passcode, reminders, public publish option. Very organized and easy to navigate. $4.99.
EditFlow
Content management system for WordPress providing a snapshot of content with a calendar feature. Advanced draft and pending review feature. User groups to keep writing teams organized. Useful for multi-author websites.
Editorial
Powerful writing program for iPad and iPhone. High learning curves but valuable once you find workflows that suit your purposes. Beautiful inline preview. $4.99.
Evernote*
Access notes on any computer, tablet or phone. Search function lets you find a note in either text or audio format. Free for iOS and Android. For more options there is Evernote Plus $3.99 a month, while Premium is $7.99 per month.
FocusWriter
App for distraction-free writing. A blank canvas to write on--and nothing else. Includes timers, stats, alarms, goals setting, etc. Free.
Miro (for writing)
An online interactive whiteboard for writers who want to see the overview of their project. Create visual outlines including photos, documents, etc. Good for collaboration. There is a free version with paid versions (more options) starting at $8 a month.
Pacemaker
A word count planner and tracker. Customize it to your routine. Set a goal and it will keep up with your progress. There is a free version lacking some of the best tools and a paid versions (more options) starting at $8 a month.
RedNotebook
Journaling app. Simple, quick to start. Easily search through old journals. Calendar navigation, customizable templates, export functionality. Free.
Scrivener*
App that gives you a single place to dump all your ideas. Especially helpful for creating and managing complex writing projects: writing a novel, play, TV show, magazine feature, etc. Write in fragments and then shuffle scenes/chapters in a "bulletin board" mode.. throw in research notes, multimedia files, and character sketches. Allows you to slowly "grow” books, scripts, and articles. Easy to convert the document to an e-book, web page, a PDF, or Word doc. Works with Mac and Windows. Free 30-use trial. $45 for the latest version. Many writers swear it's worth it. Doesn't work on iPads though.
Typora
Minimalist interface markdown text editors that lets you focus on the words instead of the interface. $15 one-time cost.
Ulysses
Writing app for Mac. Uses plain text or Markdown for writing, but also includes notes, exporting, organization and more. $44.99.
Zero Height
Put your online style guide in order with this easy-to-build style guide maker.
More Tech Tools here.
It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages. –Friedrich Nietzsche
Looking for some tools (apps and online) that will help you with editing your writing (or the writing of others)? Here are some useful options. The tech tools site also has a list of links to writing helps for better organization, academic papers, and putting together scripts. If you have other suggestions, feel free to send them my way.
1Checker
Mac app that checks your grammar and spelling. Free.
After the Deadline*
Checks your story for grammar, spelling and style. Works as a plugin for WordPress blogs, an add-on for the Firefox browser, etc.
AutoCrit
Scans your writing and highlights flaws such as repetitive words, overuse of adverbs and use of passive voice. $30 a month.
Check-Plagiarism
Free plagiarism checker.
Expresso*
An app that analyzes your writing, breaking down everything from which words you are using frequently to the number of times parts of speech come up in your writing. See what percentage of sentences are extra-long and which words are filler and which verbs are weak. Free.
Ginger
Writing tool that works as grammar checker, sentence rephraser, translator, dictionary and text reader. Free.
Grammarly*
Automated proofreader and personal grammar coach. Free version though the premium option has more features ($29.95).
Hemingway App
The Hemingway app is designed to make you a better writer by highlighting problems in your writing. Goal is to make more direct and active--more Hemingway-ey, as the Washington Post proclaims. Just paste your text into the app and it will highlight hard to read sentences, adverbs, complex phrases, and passive voice. Color coordinated highlighting. Click on these words to see the suggested alternatives. Word count, readability grade, etc. $6.99.
Marked 2
Tools for writers including word counts, document stats, highlights repeated words. Mac only. $9.99.
oDesk
Hire an experienced proofreader based on an hourly rate (typically one hour for every 5000 words).
PaperRater
Grammar, plagiarism, and spell checker. Mostly free but $7.50 per month for all features.
Proofread Bot
Shows your mistakes and what areas of your writing that could be strengthened. The more words reviewed, the greater the cost starting at $5 for 20,000 words.
Quillbot
A paraphrase and summarizer tool that will also check grammar and for plagiarism. Can extract the essential parts of a text into bullet points. The grammar checker lacks some of the advanced features offered through services like Grammarly, Compatible with Word and available on Google Docs and Chrome extensions. The free version is limited with a 700-character limit per check . $80 a year for more tools—extra for plagiarism checker per page.
Readable
Scores text based on how long or complicated your sentences are and level of accessibility. Free.
Readability Score
Cut and paste your text into a dialogue box to see the writing's grade level. Free, but for any contribution you get access to more advanced tools like readability alerts, PDF and Word doc processing and bulk uploads. TextEvaluator offers more feedback on the text.
Slickwrite
Writing app that checks grammar along with flow, structure, word frequency, and overused phrases.
TextEvaluator
Like Readability Score, it will tell you what grade level a piece of text is written on, the average length of sentences, etc. But TextEvaluator goes further, including grammatical complexity, insights on vocabulary, etc.
Word Counter
Cut and paste your document (or just type) to see how many words, characters, and sentences you are using. It shows what words are overused, the average number of words in your sentences, and the reading level you are writing at. Free.
Word Frequency Counter
See how often you use (and overuse) words and phrases in your writing.
Writefull
Checks your text against a huge database of correct language. Use it to find language you might not have considered. A desktop app that works with emails, Word docs, etc. Free.
In a 2014 study, researchers left people in a room alone for six to 15 minutes with nothing to do and found that the participants turned to almost any available activity, including administering painful electric shocks to themselves. Even pain—even, gasp, Twitter—is better than being alone with your thoughts. Despite the difficulties, learning to do nothing is good for us.
Arthur C. Brooks writing in The Atlantic
BibMe
The free version lets you create citations in MLA, APA, and Chicago formats. It also offers some writing suggestions. Similar to Citation Machine. A paid account for $9.95 a month you get more writing suggestions and a plagiarism checker.
Citation Machine
Popular, user-friendly citations generator. Chicago, MLA, APA, and 13 other styles. Free version, $9.95 gives you grammar and plagiarism checkers. ations, etc.
Cite This For Me
Simple layout. Create citations and bibliographies in APA, MLA, and Harvard formats for over 30 types of sources. Premium account for $15 a month gives you a plagiarism checker and Chrome extension.
Easybib
Auto-formatting of citations for research papers but MLA is the only available format from the free version. $4.99 a month for the paid version to get more styles, in-text citations, etc.
EditTeach
Resources for editing professors, students and working professionals to help strengthen the craft of editing and support the work of editors.
Opendemia
Stores notes on sources, helps to create works cited pages and in-text citations as well as auto-generate citations in various formats. There is a free version. $10 a year for no ads and more citations allowed per project.
Purdue Writing Lab
Writing and formatting help.
SuperSummary Academic Citation Resources
Links to style guides, FAQs, tutorials, quizzes, sample papers, and tools to help students' citation and research processes.
Zotero
Cite sources directly in a Word or Google document in thousands of formats. Organize your research by tagging sources with keywords and saving them to collections. Free.
Experiencing more awe is associated with living healthier and more meaningful lives. A 2021 study reported that feeling more awe is correlated with reporting feeling lowered levels of daily stress.
Positive experiences of awe have also been found to increase feelings of well-being, life satisfaction and sense of meaning. Emerging research shows that experiencing awe may make us more curious, creative and compassionate people.
Richard Sima writing in the Washington Post
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