Monthly Archives: February 2010

Word Perfect R.I.P.

by Clyde T. Linsley, AIW Board Member It isn’t dead, yet. Not really. But I think it may have suffered the fate worse than death. It’s become Word. First, I must confess a dirty little secret. I think the epitome, the quintessence; of word-processing computer software was Word Perfect. To be more specific: Word Perfect [...]

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E-Publishing: There Is an Upside

by Cecilia Sepp, AIW Immediate Past President & Chair, Member Engagement In the February 8 issue of “The Weekly Standard,” author James Gardner pointed out the up side of electronic publishing: access to the sum total of written knowledge available instantly no matter where you are (as long as you have an internet connection). In [...]

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How to Make Sure Your Readers Ignore Your Stuff: No Action Verbs, No Imagery

a “Verbal Knightcap” by Robert M. Knight, AIW Board Member One really great way to make your readers go away is to sneer at them, write pompously. Works every time; they will make a point of avoiding what you wrote. And one great way to write pompously is to drain the energy of your sentences [...]

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Musings on a Snowbound Day

by Jessie Seigel, AIW Board Member On this day, when we in the D.C. area are having our second heavy snow storm in a week (the first having deposited upwards of thirty inches of snow in places), and I look out my window at the tree branches weighed down by a foot of the white [...]

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Macmillian vs. Amazon: How Much Is Too Much, or Not Enough?

by Clyde T. Linsley, AIW Board Member If you write books, or ever considered writing a book, you have probably followed the stories about the dispute between Macmillan Publishers and Amazon.com. To quote President Kennedy, “I want to say this about that.” The dispute primarily concerns the price that Amazon wanted to apply to ebooks, [...]

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Dig out Some Writing Time During Snowy Stillness

by AIW President Claude Berube Like most people in the Mid-Atlantic, I found that more than two feet of snow blanketed my house and cars yesterday.  The Mayor and Governor declared emergencies for the city and state respectively; all cars were ordered to remain off the road.  By last night, the storm had passed. The [...]

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