The Best Magazine Articles Ever

Kevin Kelly has begun curating a list of the “best magazine articles ever” as suggested by him and his site’s audience. It’s a tad controversial, as most such lists are (many folks around the net point out the dearth of women writers, for instance), but will nevertheless serve as an exemplary list of long-form journalism. If you’ve got some time, … 

Online Writers, Rejoice!

All right, we’re serious this time. (I think.) Forget emailing papers to yourself due to “can I open this at school” compatibility fears. Forget the cut-and-paste dance with Google Docs to preserve formatting, proper margins, and other stuff pesky teachers require. Behold, the majesty of Buzzword, Adobe’s brand-spankin’-new Flash-based online word processor: This is the new champion, kids. It’s got … 

Protagony.

I stumbled across Protagonize today, and thought I’d mention it here, for what it’s worth. I think I remember doing this in some English class once when I was a kid— somebody starts a story on a piece of paper, folds their part down, and passes it on to someone else, who adds a paragraph, and so on, until the … 

You Rite Liek A Theef

I just took the McAffee SiteAdvisor Phishing Quiz. I got an 8 out of 10— go give it a try yourself! If you’re not familiar with the term yet, phishing is when crooks send people to bogus web pages disguised as banks, or credit card companies, or whatever, hoping to collect valuable information from them. Anyway, as I reviewed the answers, … 

On Writing Well

Columnist and editor John Leo gave a speech at Ursinus College last year in which he addresses inflated bureaucratic and academic language, the notion of “correctness,” and clarity of voice and style. He covers such a wide range of subjects that it’s hard to pick a good teaser, but here’s a short excerpt: When you write, how will you sound? Many …