#writing-best-practices

#writing-best-practices

That type of copying is pretty normal, and they teach it in school. It's how you learn (and how you become depressed). But in the age of generative AI, there are many new kinds of copying. For instance, Wired reported last week on a tool offered by Grammarly, which briefly offered users the opportunity to put their writing through something called "Expert Review."

To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul. The concept I stick to - my core principle - is simple: I write in plain English, and only when I actually have something to say.

A writer is a kind of magician. Their job is to create living, three-dimensional people out of the ordinary stuff of ink and paper. This is no easy task, because readers can't literally hear, touch, or observe a character. Everything that defines a human being in real life-the physical space they occupy, or how they smell, feel, and sound-is stripped away, replaced by description. But authors have one major, mystical advantage: They can show you what's happening inside of someone's brain.

I've interviewed over 200 people for articles, from startup founders to burned-out middle managers, and I've discovered something fascinating: intellectual depth isn't about fancy degrees or knowing obscure facts. It shows up in how we communicate. When certain habits dominate someone's style, it reveals a concerning lack of curiosity and critical thinking that goes beyond just being annoying-it fundamentally limits their ability to engage with the world meaningfully.

Sophia Stewart poses a choice that many biographers struggle with: "what to do with the boring bits."

The digital publishing environment has been changing at a high pace, and the creation of content is no longer a human endeavor. Artificial intelligence is being incorporated into the editorial processes of businesses today to support the increasing content demands without sacrificing depth and consistency. This has transformed AI blog writing for business to become a strategic asset instead of an innovation.

At least one fundamental human trait persists in the smartphone era: People seem to love a challenge. The internet teems with viral competitions, gamified health apps, and "life-maxxing" exercises of many kinds. Even those who resist the lure of screens-by, for instance, reading books-are frequently doing so with a kind of competitive zeal. A University of Pennsylvania professor has built a strict, rules-based classroom cult around reading.

Many lawyers have eagerly adopted the buzzword "BLUF"-bottom line up front-as if invoking the acronym were synonymous with careful thinking. The catch is that almost no one stops to ask the important question: What exactly is meant by "bottom line"? The answer isn't obvious, and it shifts with context. In military writing, the "bottom line" is a concrete decision or action a commander must take-stated at the very start because the commander already knows the mission, the terrain and the stakes.

I'm one of those authors whose books AI ate for lunch a few years back. At some point I might get a check to pay me for a dozen years' work on the three books it stole, but really, there's no way to compensate for the fallout. AI seems to think no, it can't think, only shuffle what real people thought that a machine can write as well as a person can.