All posts tagged: writing

Writing long reads for The Conversation can be ‘instrumental’ in developing research – Insights story updates

Writing long reads for The Conversation can be ‘instrumental’ in developing research – Insights story updates

Published by skeptic

Each story for Insights, The Conversation’s longform investigative series, typically takes months to produce, building on years of academic research. And of course, these deep-dive investigations don’t just stop when the story is published. So, as another eventful year draws to a close, we’ve asked our authors to update us on how their research has progressed since publication – and about any unusual opportunities that may have arisen from writing for Insights. Here’s a selection of their responses. Sam Carr, reader in education and psychology at the University of Bath, has written three Insights articles exploring people’s struggles with loneliness and ‘tiredness of life’. One major benefit of articulating the abstract concepts I work with for a wider public audience is that people may then recognise aspects of loneliness or “tiredness of life” in themselves – and this seems to offer them a sort of “permission” to acknowledge the experience. Read more: ‘I couldn’t care less if I saw another sunrise’ – what older people who are ‘tired of life’ can tell us about the …

Writing in Philosophy, Sophie Horowitz

Writing in Philosophy, Sophie Horowitz

Published by skeptic

This course is part of the Junior Year Writing program at UMass Amherst. It was created to meet the needs of that program—it had to include a lot of peer review, and different types of writing assignments, and it had to be accessible to any junior philosophy major—there are many aspects of the course that I think could be adapted to other courses, especially writing-intensive courses. My main goal was to have students write a longer (10-page) paper with several rounds of revisions. Pedagogically, I also wanted to experiment with teaching writing in the same way one would teach art or music: a lot of class time is devoted to the practice itself. Students take a lot of time in class to work on their writing together, talking to me and/or each other as necessary, the way you would in a library or coffee shop. My goal here was to provide accountability and to give them as much incentive as possible to take the drafting and revising process seriously.  The course is broken into two …

Anti-assisted dying group got people to hide Christian motives when writing to MPs

Anti-assisted dying group got people to hide Christian motives when writing to MPs

Published by skeptic

The leading anti-assisted dying group Christian Action, Research and Education (CARE) used Christian reasoning to get its supporters to write to their MPs – but then omitted any Christian language at all from the default email that it got them to send. While recognising that it is essential that all sides are heard in the assisted dying debate, Humanists UK has urged religious groups to be transparent about their motives for opposing assisted dying. CARE hosts on its website a ‘write to your MP’ tool that provides a default message that people can use to write to their MP asking them to oppose assisted dying. MPs Humanists UK has spoken to have reported receiving many emails from people using CARE’s tool. The default text doesn’t mention religion at all but gives as the constituent’s reasons for writing, ‘concern about the very rushed time frame’, inadequate ‘safeguards’, ‘coercive control’, and ‘feeling like a burden on others’. It is unclear if the omission of religion here is deliberate. But it is striking as it stands in contrast …

AI and Against the Priority of Writing

AI and Against the Priority of Writing

Published by skeptic

I went to a conference on academic integrity at Randolph College back in 2018. There was one hot topic at the time. It was not AI. It was paper mills. What could be done about paper mills? If one can just pay somebody to write a real paper, however, would one be able to show that someone else had indeed written it? A disaster! Times change quickly. I doubt many people are very worried about paper mills anymore beyond their use in, of all things, academic publishing. Now, instead of Googling “college papers on demand,” students can just open ChatGPT 4 (for free!) and probably be able to make a passing paper. Within roughly five years the “cutting edge” way to cheat has radically changed. However can we philosophers, the truest teachers of good, argumentative writing, still achieve our pedagogical goals? It is the assumption behind that dramatic question I want to challenge. The concern around AI is somewhat misplaced. Why do we care so much about writing specifically? We often place too much emphasis …

Apple Intelligence Writing Tools: All the Features

Apple Intelligence Writing Tools: All the Features

Published by skeptic

Writing Tools is one of the main Apple Intelligence features that’s available in the iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 betas for developers and public beta testers. As the name suggests, Writing Tools are meant to help you write. This guide goes over everything you can do with Writing Tools, where you can use them, and what you need to access the feature. There are various AI tools that will write content for you, but that’s not how Apple designed Writing Tools and that’s not what it’s meant to do. The feature can be used to improve, tweak, and refine what you’ve written, but you still need to write something for it to work with first. Apple doesn’t have a feature for generating text, but that will probably be something iOS and macOS will be capable of when ChatGPT integration is introduced later this year. You can use Writing Tools to check your spelling, grammar, and word choice, or to change the tone of what you’ve written. There’s also an option to summarize …

Nikki Haley draws criticism for writing on an Israeli artillery shell — ‘Finish Them!’

Nikki Haley draws criticism for writing on an Israeli artillery shell — ‘Finish Them!’

Published by Sam

Nikki Haley took a purple pen, crouched down in a tactical vest and signed an artillery shell while visiting Israel this week. “Finish Them!” she wrote. The former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and Republican presidential candidate penned the message Tuesday while touring an artillery station along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. It was part of a days-long trip to the country during which she has met with families of some of the roughly 1,200 people killed and 253 taken hostage when Hamas attacked on Oct. 7. Haley toured the wreckage caused by the attack and visited the site of the Nova music festival in southern Israel where partygoers were killed and kidnapped. Haley and representatives from her defunct presidential campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Washington Post. In an interview with the Israel Hayom newspaper, which is run by Republican mega donor Miriam Adelson, Haley echoed her message on the bomb. “We know as long as Hamas exists, it can happen again, and that’s why I’ve said from …

Writing a Powerful Thesis Statement For Academic Success

Writing a Powerful Thesis Statement For Academic Success

Published by skeptic

Let’s be real: writing a solid thesis statement can feel like a daunting task, especially when you’re staring down the blank page of a new paper. Whether you’re tackling a research project, analytical essay, or any other academic writing assignment, your thesis is the foundation on which your entire argument rests. Get it right, and you’ll have a clear roadmap to follow. Get it wrong, and you might find yourself lost in the weeds, struggling to develop a cohesive, compelling case. But never fear! This guide is here to help you conquer the writing of your thesis statement once and for all. We’ll cover tips, tricks, and examples that will have you writing tight, focused thesis statements like a pro. So grab a pen (or laptop), get comfortable, and let’s dive in! Before we get into the nitty-gritty of how to write a killer thesis statement, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page about what it actually is and why it matters. At its core, your thesis statement is a one-sentence summary of …

The Fundamentals of Writing Effective Essays

The Fundamentals of Writing Effective Essays

Published by skeptic

Crushing those essay assignments is no easy feat, but don’t sweat it – I’m about to let you in on all the juicy secrets of the essay writing fundamentals that will have you crafting A+ masterpieces in no time. Whether you’re a bright-eyed student pulling your first all-nighter, a beleaguered 9-5er looking to sharpen your skills, or just someone who appreciates the art of a well-constructed written argument, mastering the essay writing fundamentals is an essential life skill. One that can make a massive difference when you need to inform, persuade, or simply convey complex ideas with clarity and flair. So grab those Snickers and triple-shot lattes – we’re going full-blown How-to mode on nailing these essay writing fundamentals once and for all. Lock Down Your Purpose Before putting that pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard in this digital age), one of the most critical essay writing fundamentals is to clearly define your purpose. Are you aiming to objectively inform your audience on the nitty-gritty details of a specific topic? Or is your mission …

Two poems, four years in detention: the Chinese dissident who smuggled his writing out of prison | Censorship

Two poems, four years in detention: the Chinese dissident who smuggled his writing out of prison | Censorship

Published by skeptic

Most of my manuscripts are locked up in the filing cabinets of the ministry of security, and the agents there study and ponder them repeatedly, more carefully than the creator himself. The guys working this racket have superb memories; a certain chief of the Chengdu public security bureau can still recite the poems I published in an underground magazine in the 1980s. While the literati write nostalgically, hoping to go down in literary history, the real history may be locked in the vaults of the security department. The above is excerpted from my book June 4: My Testimony, published in Taiwan in 2011. I wrote that book three times, the later drafts on paper much better than the paper I used for writing in prison, which was so soft and brittle I had to write very lightly. Paper outside prison is solid and flexible enough that you don’t have to worry about puncturing it with the tip of a pen. Thus, I restrained myself and filled in a page of paper, and then how many thousand – ten …

The four best AI writing apps worth a try

The four best AI writing apps worth a try

Published by skeptic

Whatever the industry, more and more people are using artificial intelligence to assist with their work, especially since the launch of ChatGPT. Many workers and students now use the tool to write documents, essays, and more. It often speeds up the process of creating content and managing the mundane aspects of work. While they aren’t taking over the world yet, they are quickly evolving and have reached a stage where they can be useful, at least in the right circumstances. Of course, all AI writing software requires some level of human oversight to achieve the best results. Without it, the software can generate content that is rather generic or even hallucinate facts, even though it may appear to be written by a human. As AI tools gain popularity, people are becoming more adept at recognizing the often bland nature of AI-generated content and are likely to either identify it or at least be suspicious of content that seems to lack a human touch. How do AI writing tools work? Predictive text on a smartphone or …