Tag Archives: mental hygiene

The mess of thinking

Inaccurate interpretations of a particular data-point can nonetheless provide metaphors that describe a lot.

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Detail

I seem to have come to the point where I no longer recall the exact word but I do recall exactly why only that exact word will do.

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Keep your promises, keep your confidences, and keep your appointments.

The prefix para means “beside” or “beyond.” Paralinguistic or paraverbal communication usually refers to *how* one’s words are conveyed: through tone, body language, speaking speed, or even through one’s wardrobe. In both workplace and social environments, though, beside and beyond … Continue reading

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Good scholarly habits

My dear friend Tierney Wisniewski, this website’s cofounder and coeditor, has started up a new blog devoted to her scholarly work and how she gets it done. I love her inaugural piece, “Good Scholarly Habits.” Tierney writes with great clarity and … Continue reading

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Don’t think with your fingers

Biographer Robert Caro’s books are marathon-long, though very much worth the time it takes to read them. His laceration of Robert Moses, “The Power Broker,” is almost 1300 pages. In a wonderful interview published in The New York Review of … Continue reading

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Good Motto

“I have never sacrificed an idea simply because it might go over the head of someone not yet ready to understand it.”  

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Practice

As a teacher and as an editor, my counsel to students and writers often seems too obvious even to say. For instance: “You can’t complete a large project in a short time. Proceed bit by bit” (or “bird by bird“). … Continue reading

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Smart/Dumb

In my profession some colleagues believe that marking hard – giving more D’s than B’s, for instance – correlates with a high level of “rigour” in teaching. To my mind, though, there is often no connection between grade distribution and … Continue reading

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Mental Hygiene

In a post called “Cognitive” my good friend Jonathan Mayhew explores one of NoContest’s recurrent themes: There is the idea that you can prevent decay in cognitive function by doing inane, mindless games on the computer, such as those peddled … Continue reading

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The Muse

I’m not a great creative individual by any stretch, but I do respect my muse and do *not* screw with it. My friend kat passed along this letter by musician Nick Cave, which he wrote to MTV in 1996, in … Continue reading

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