Writing With Clarity, Systems and Modern Tools
Writing With Clarity, Systems and Modern Tools
Actor Lili Taylor, an avid birder, has written a book titled Turning to Birds: The Power and Beauty of Noticing, which explores how birding fosters mindfulness and listening skills. She connects her passion for birding with her acting career, emphasizing the importance of listening, and shares how technology like the Merlin Bird ID app and Scrivener software supports both her birding and writing processes.
Pandoc-templates.org is a comprehensive collection of diverse templates designed for use with Pandoc, a document conversion tool. The site offers various LaTeX, HTML, PDF, DOCX, and EPUB templates suited for tasks ranging from academic papers, theses, resumes, letters, to specialized formats like IEEE papers and grant proposals, facilitating the conversion of Markdown into professionally formatted documents with ease. These templates cater to different writing and publishing needs, supporting formats compatible with many academic and professional standards.
The Strategy & Planning Scrapbook is an expanded, curated collection of strategy frameworks, creative provocations, and planning tools drawn from years of experience in brand strategy and advertising, compiled by Alex Morris. It is divided into six sections covering problem definition, insights, brief writing, communication, practical brief usage, and creative evaluation, with more than 170 pages of content available online. The scrapbook has also evolved into a newsletter offering weekly strategic thinking, cultural observations, and creative provocation.
iA Writer for Windows 2.1 introduces the highly requested Authorship feature, which highlights the origins of text to distinguish original writing from quoted, borrowed, or AI-generated content, enhancing transparency in collaborative and AI-assisted writing. The update also includes significant performance improvements, a new iA Account system for easy sign-in without license keys, and user-selectable highlighting colors, all available as a free upgrade for existing users.
Dr. Brian Harfe of the University of Florida redesigned a writing assignment to incorporate AI-generated drafts, requiring students to revise these drafts to reflect their own views, thereby shifting the focus from detecting AI use to understanding how students engage with AI tools. Using Grammarly Authorship to track word-level AI contributions, a study of 310 essays found that students generally engaged deeply with the AI drafts, with higher-performing students revising more extensively, suggesting that thoughtful assignment design can promote meaningful student interaction with AI rather than simply penalizing its use.
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/institutions/ai-writing-assignments-research/
The article invites people to share their personal stories about how iA Writer, a focused writing app, has positively impacted their lives or work, highlighting its significance through testimonials from notable users like Stephen Fry and John Gruber. These stories reveal that iA Writer has helped a diverse range of individuals—from writers and artists to those with disabilities—improve their focus, complete projects, and find joy in writing. The collected experiences will contribute to a documentary about software that makes a meaningful difference.
The article criticizes the practice of sending overly long, AI-generated responses—termed “slop grenades”—in conversations where a brief, human answer would suffice. It argues that such verbose replies waste time, hinder dialogue, and defeat the purpose of direct communication, urging people to use AI to clarify rather than to overwhelm.
Prosed is a service that transforms existing content from newsletters, podcasts, blogs, and other formats into a publish-ready nonfiction book manuscript, preserving the creator's voice. Using a proprietary editorial pipeline and AI reviewer, it structures and refines your material into a complete draft available in a private portal for review, revision, and final export as print-ready files. Offered at a beta price of $47 for the first 100 creators, Prosed aims to simplify book creation by assembling and polishing your content into a professional-quality book efficiently.
The article discusses the pervasive use of large language models (LLMs) in writing, highlighting how their widespread use leads to homogenized, uninspired content that violates a “social contract” wherein the writer is expected to invest significant intellectual effort. It emphasizes the value of original, human-generated writing in a landscape increasingly dominated by AI-produced text and expresses the author's personal commitment to avoid using LLMs for writing to maintain meaningful, authentic expression.
Audiobooks are growing rapidly in popularity, with 38% of Americans listening to at least one in 2024, and sales surpassing $8 billion worldwide. Simon Vance, a renowned audiobook narrator, advises authors narrating their own books that narration requires stamina, consistency, and practice, emphasizing the importance of pacing, taking breaks, and bringing passion—especially for nonfiction works—to create a compelling listening experience.
https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/tips-for-authors-narrating-their-own-audiobooks
