Lately I've been studying the role of aesthetics in documentation. My research led me to an article titled "Is beautiful really usable? Toward understanding the relation between usability, aesthetics, and affect in HCI" by Alexandre N. Tuch, Sandra P. Roth, and others (2012, Computers in Human Behavior). You can download a copy of the manuscript … Continue reading Notes on Further Research into Aesthetics and Usability (and What It Means for Technical Writers)
Category: Writing and Rhetoric
Ideological Science and the New American Dream
Greetings! Check out the opening of this article from The Chronicle of Higher Education about ideological biases in social science: "Last summer in these pages, Mordechai Levy-Eichel and Daniel Scheinerman uncovered a major flaw in Richard Jean So’s Redlining Culture: A Data History of Racial Inequality and Postwar Fiction, one that rendered the book’s … Continue reading Ideological Science and the New American Dream
A Voice You Love
Happy Holy Week - hands down my favorite week of the year, culminating in Easter Sunday. Today, of course, is Maundy Thursday. I've been focusing my reading on the gospel of John and two spectacular little books of art: The Art of Lent and The Art of Holy Week and Easter, both by Sister Wendy … Continue reading A Voice You Love
On Dante’s ‘Paradiso’ and How Tolkien Improved His Story
Another week, another dollar. What I'm reading: I finished Dante's Paradiso---at last. The poet ascends the spheres of heaven with his guide Beatrice, meeting figures such as Adam, Thomas Aquinas, St. Peter, Mary, and St. John along the way. I have many thoughts and feelings about it, but one surprising moment was in canto 27, … Continue reading On Dante’s ‘Paradiso’ and How Tolkien Improved His Story
On Writing, ChatGPT, Harry Potter, and Evil Equity Language
What a week. One of the low points was the discovery that Clarkesworld magazine has temporarily halted short story submissions due to an overwhelming influx of fake content generated by AI tools. Clarkesworld is one of the venues where I was planning to submit a work of mine, so needless to say, I'm ticked at … Continue reading On Writing, ChatGPT, Harry Potter, and Evil Equity Language
Lent and Comedy Divine
Happy first week of Lent! I'm writing a simple update this time. I'd like to make this a recurring format so that I can push out regular content rather than waiting until I have something polished to share. What I'm Reading: Ever so slowly, I finished Dante's Inferno and Purgatorio and am now working through … Continue reading Lent and Comedy Divine
The Impact of ChatGPT on Technical Writing
Update 03/31/2023: On his popular tech writing blog I'd Rather Be Writing, Tom Johnson has a more thorough treatment of this subject than my short comments below. I remain less optimistic than he does about AI language generators, but his concrete examples of how writers could work with ChatGPT rather than eschew it are helpful. … Continue reading The Impact of ChatGPT on Technical Writing
Novels Against Moralism
In Image Journal, James K.A. Smith writes about the tension between the ethical life (e.g., engaging in social justice) and the aesthetic life (e.g., writing novels and poetry), arguing that a life of genuine faith may actually be closer to the aesthetic life than you might guess. He draws most prominently from the novel Either/Or, … Continue reading Novels Against Moralism
How C.S. Lewis Wrote Books
From The Narnian, by Alan Jacobs: "[C.S. Lewis] did not know what difference being a Christian was supposed to make, or could make, in his life as a literary writer. He needed clarification—he needed a better grasp of the intellectual landscape through which he was moving. In August 1932, when he was taking an Irish … Continue reading How C.S. Lewis Wrote Books
How to Rebuke a Character Assassin
Here's how the notorious British explorer Richard Francis Burton addressed a bitter enemy who was working behind his back to sully his reputation: "Sir,—I have been indebted to the kindness and consideration of my friend Dr. Shaw, for a sight of your letter addressed to him the 10th of October last from Zanzibar. I shall … Continue reading How to Rebuke a Character Assassin