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.
Category: Writing
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
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
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
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, and 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 recently found this … Continue reading No Framework for Old Men
How to Cite a Blog Post
How to cite OpenSees was one of the blog's first posts. Several posts have been made since. Most of them non-sense, but there's a couple that have enough technical content to be citation-worthy. Based on its style guide, ASCE treats blog posts like a website where you provide the author, title and publication year of … Continue reading How to Cite a Blog Post
You Know You’ll Have to Write About It
The odds are, if you're running OpenSees analyses, you're going to write about it, whether it's a thesis/dissertation, technical report, funding proposal, conference paper, or journal article. Several writing books are available and some are very good. One book that I've found useful is Becoming an Academic Writer by Patricia Goodson. The title may sound … Continue reading You Know You’ll Have to Write About It
The Prevalence of OpenSees in JSE
In Write It Up, Paul J. Silvia describes three journal tiers that apply to any field: Journals that everyone in your field sees as among the best (smallest tier)Important journals that contain most of the field's work (largest tier)"The seamy underbelly of scholarly publishing" In my opinion, the ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering (JSE) is … Continue reading The Prevalence of OpenSees in JSE
Thoughts After a Year of Blogging
Here are some random thoughts from the blog's first year. Prior to my first post, which was insubstantial and lame, I came up with about 45 ideas for posts of actual substance and saved them in my Drafts folder. Some of the ideas were, and still are, junk and will never be published. But, even … Continue reading Thoughts After a Year of Blogging
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