Kurt Vonnegut was a 20th century American author, best known for Slaughterhouse-Five. Although Vonnegut passed away in 2007, one of his former writing students, Suzanne McConnell, published in 2019 Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style, a collection of Vonnegut's writing advice. You will find the ground work for a chapter or two of Pity … Continue reading Pity the Reader
Category: Writing
On OpenSeesing Well
Every modern motivational technique, strategy, and hack boils down to implementing William Zinsser's advice from On Writing Well. Decide what you want to do. Then decide to do it. Then do it. William Zinsser OpenSees is no different. Decide what you want to OpenSees. Then decide to OpenSees it. Then OpenSees it.
Writing that Shines
Not every journal article has groundbreaking technical content. Some articles barely move the needle or don't move the needle at all, while others move the needle backward. As an author, you should know when the manuscript you're about to submit is (might be) groundbreaking as opposed to a needle nudger. Regardless, if the manuscript is … Continue reading Writing that Shines
Verbing OpenSees
OpenSees--a system--is a noun. Nouns are often verbed. For example, "I will conference next week in Chicago." As a verb, "to OpenSees" is to build, analyze, program, or document finite element models in OpenSees. The standard verb tenses of "to OpenSees" are listed below. Present tense Simple present: I OpenSees every day. Present continuous: I … Continue reading Verbing OpenSees
Publish Your Age
I recently hit 40 journal articles for my academic career. You can see the list here. Although 40 is a milestone for your real age, it's meaningless for journal articles. Horns can toot at 100 articles, but not 40. Anyway, I wondered if I will ever publish my real age, i.e., will the two lines … Continue reading Publish Your Age
Chekhov’s Gun
Applied throughout literature, Chekhov's gun states that if you describe a loaded gun, that gun better go off later in the novel. If the gun is never fired, you are unnecessarily distracting the reader. So, edit the gun out. It does not advance the story. Same idea applies to movies. And journal articles. But academics … Continue reading Chekhov’s Gun
One Citation at a Time
Within the last day or two, I tripped 1000 citations for 2021 according to Google Scholar. Thank you, OpenSees! A colleague in Eastchester asked if the blog has helped my citation count. I don't think it has, except for reminding a couple people to cite OpenSees somehow instead of simply writing "We used OpenSees" somewhere … Continue reading One Citation at a Time
Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh!t
Although far removed from earthquake engineering and academic writing, we can learn a lot from writers of advertising and fiction. The most important lesson I've learned is that nobody wants to read your shit. Steven Pressfield wrote an entire book about it, but I'm pretty sure the phrase was around long before the book. https://www.amazon.com/Nobody-Wants-Read-Your-Sh-ebook/dp/B01GZ1TJBI … Continue reading Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh!t
Go Cite Yourself
Metric-driven academia, with its focus on h-indices and impact factors, has led to shady behaviors like citation cartels and publication bounties. Superfluous self-citations are also shady, but a few self-citations are natural when developing a line of research. So, go ahead and post a selfie. https://twitter.com/mikusscott/status/975382276434378752 Think of the baristas at your local coffee shop. … Continue reading Go Cite Yourself
No Framework for Old Men
You've run a bunch of OpenSees analyses with Concrete23 and developed some fragility functions. Now you need to write about it. This blog occasionally addresses academic writing, e.g., here and here. While there's a lot of good (and bad) writing advice out there, some of the best advice comes from outside engineering. For example, I … Continue reading No Framework for Old Men
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