This article explains how to structure the content of articles, with the purpose of ensuring completeness and improving readability. It is based on the principle that similar articles (e.g. on chemical elements) should be structured in a similar fashion.
via Wikipedia:How to structure the content – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
I got this off Wikipedia – and its about how to write effective and informative articles. Imagine you are writing a 3000 word piece – thats 10 paragraphs, each of 300 words. As this link says – each paragraph is to contain one topic. Additionally:
1. Each article starts with a ‘lead’ thats an introduction to the article.
2. This link is one of many about how to write for wikipedia.
This page sets out advice on how to write an effective article, including information on layout, style, and how to make an article clear, precise and relevant to the reader.
via Wikipedia:Writing better articles – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
I go into town by train with my kids. We all get off together and walk to their school. I then keep walking past their school and head for work.
In effect I walk to work everyday. I walk past this one shop where there is a cat in the window. Yesterday I took a picture of her.
I took another picture of her today.
I am now on this journey of taking cat pictures. Or not.
Pictures apart I am keen to give her a name. Take a good look at her.
Do you think she is a Mehitabel? I think not.
Is she as she? I think so.
Is she a Ginger, Tabby, Tabitha or just Jo?
Do you have any suggestions?
For all of you who attended the Writing workshop. Here are some of my writings and my whole 2009 plan of writings.
You can click on the highlighted and read the texts. The italics denote work in progress.
Book Chapter
Varadarajan, S. (2009). “Theory of the Social Object.” ASIA DESIGN JOURNAL 2009: Creative Convergence.
Varadarajan, S., L. Fennessy, et al. (2009). “Product and service design for patient centered diabetes care.”
Varadarajan, S. (2009). “Design and the Sacred.” Design Philosophy Papers. Submitted.
Varadarajan, S. and E. J. Sandvik (2009). “Social design for India: The proposal for a new school of design in India“. Submitted.
Varadarajan, S. and H, McLean (2009). “Design for Diabetes at the periphery”. In progress
Conference Papers
On the Design of a BGL Data Management System (2009). Ben Elston, Soumitri Varadarajan, Paul Beckett, Senior Member, IEEE.
I did a writing workshop for PostGrad students in Applied Communication. Seth in the group posted this(below) to his Blog.
I got all excited when I saw this post – so I sent him an email (reproduces below here in italics in serif).
WOW
… and WOW again
thanks for the post
I like the voice of assurance and the ‘wodehousian’ turn of phrase – “A light-hearted approach with a touch of cynicism relaxes the writing process.”
simple beautiful
almost like food
Assoc Professor Soumitri Varadarajan gave a workshop a couple of weeks ago to MCD postgrads on writing for publishing within the context of the field of design. Soumitri’s Zero Waste blog. My own notes from the presentation. A key thread underlying his presentation was clarity. Clarity of purpose and delivery. He started with the SeVeRe acronym which translated into:
Structure
Voice
RulesThis seems quite rigid but Soumitri stressed not to take all this writing/publishing business to seriously. A light-hearted approach with a touch of cynicism relaxes the writing process.
“Clarity is only possible if you know the material really well”. Sketch out a structure but be open to change. “It is useful to have a toolkit of different structures for different scenarios” Know the context before you come up with the structure. For example the context of the journal and what previous papers look like. Some publications want essays and discussions for example some design journals. Other publications want a clear argument. Soumitri uses the tool mindnode to map out structures beforehand. “Take the existing structure from a journal and mind map that structure.”This can be down to the paragraph level with a word count also down to this level. He even will often look at balancing the number of paragraphs in each chapter to have an equal average. These paragraphs on average aim at a 300 word count.
Voice. There needs to be a clear goal behind the writing, an aim, an argument. Soumitri spoke of his own critical and opinionated take on issues as an example.Clarity is achieved by “picking the arguments carefully” and using pace, rhythm to work and develop that argument. A quick energetic start for example that levels off into a steady rhythm that rises and lowers in varying ways throughout. Clarity and substantiation in a tone that is unapologetic. Boldness of purpose and delivery is crucial. “Tell the reader the argument, tell the reader how you will argue it”.
“Commit to a perspective and start.”
Other quotes:
“Take shots but sit inside your field”
References:
Soumitri referred to an interest in Foucault and the concept of Heterotopia.
With a social science background he referred to a thick description.
Listening to factual radio is useful in relation to the way radio shows are introduced. These introductions are succinct, clear and tell you what will be discussed and how. All in an interesting way to catch your attention and ear for the duration of the program.
A paper example Service design for India: The thinking behind the design of a local curriculum that demonstrates clarity.
The post industrial media wiki SynchronicThickDescription written my AM with reference to Geertz.
The trick is to write early and keep writing as a thinking tool. Below are the writing tasks the student will be required to do over the coure of the year.
Immersion
Exploration
Intervention
Demonstration
