Interlude: Community, Word Choice, and the Periodic Table
I've been thinking a lot about how I can create more resources for you. But to know the best direction to go, I really want to hear from you.
Will you help me understand your biggest writing challenges? All you need to do is complete a short survey. This survey is for everyone, whether your a client, a student, an Interlude enthusiast, or new to the Redwood Ink community.
I'd be so grateful for your time in completing this short survey. So as a token of my appreciation, I've included a question at the end to better understand exactly how I can help you with your current writing challenges.
I will read every response and personally select my three favorite responses. If your response is among them, I will invite you to join me for a one-on-one, 30-minute coaching call.
To participate, simply complete the survey by 11:59 pm PT on November 30, 2024, and be sure to answer the final question.
I'll announce the lucky winners in the newsletter on Friday, December 6, 2024.
I can't wait for your response!
Now for this week's round-up...
💌 Round-up
👓 Reading
For the love of all that is holy, stop writing “utilize”
"A word doesn’t mean what a writer thinks it means; it means what readers think it means. And readers don’t, it seems, agree on what distinction there is between use and utilize, or whether there’s any distinction at all. . .I think the real reason we use utilize is because it sound[s] science-y (and the simpler use doesn’t)."
Suspicious phrases in peer reviews point to referees gaming the system
"Hundreds of scientific papers bear signs of reviewers using templates to quickly churn out reports for personal gain. . . It’s an unusually detailed analysis of a little-noticed scheme that may be allowing some researchers to reap undeserved benefits for boilerplate or downright manipulative reviews. The practice may also be compromising the integrity of the scientific literature."
“Insert witty catchphrase here!”: do title elements influence engagement and citation?— examining highly-cited research articles in media, communication, and related disciplines
"…research articles whose titles contain catchphrases receive fewer usage count (i.e., engagement). Articles that mention specific geographic locations in their titles have lower usage count and citation. Meanwhile, including at least one colon in the title may increase publication metrics. Title length, mentioning the methods, and question, on the other hand, did not have significant impacts. Other article- and presentation-related factors (e.g., the numbers of references), as well as journal-related factors (e.g., being published in special issues), significantly predict communication research articles’ publication metrics."
🖥️ Watching
The Meeting to Decide the Periodic Table
When I learned the elements in the periodic table (many years ago), I remember wondering why the abbreviations were so inconsistent. In this reel, @stage_door_johnny shares a funny skit about how the inconsistent abbreviations may have been decided.
🧰 Tools
ReallyWrite
After watching the co-founder of ReallyWrite, Taylor Krohn, lead a ReallyWrite demo in The Grove community this week, I was reminded of how incredibly valuable this tool is in helping people to write well. I highly recommend you check it out.
Thank you so much for reading.
Warmly,
Crystal
