Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Roundup: Now with writing inspiration

*Poofed* part of this because it was entirely too cranky, even for me.
  • Historiann's lovely writing space, which inspired me to clean both my office and my home desk.
  • "Less is More" in writing by GetALifePhD (Tanya Golash-Boza) has some writing inspiration. 
  • Inspired by Flavia Fescue's posts about writing in journals,  I downloaded Day One, a journal app. It tries desperately to post whatever I write to Facebook and Twitter and is hell bent on getting me to put in information so that it can report to our Alien Overlords of Social Media.  I haven't given it any information, but I don't trust it. Isn't a journal supposed to be private, or is exposing your private thoughts to the known world the new function of a journal?
  • Karen Kelsky says it's a mistake for job applicants to use a dossier service. Having been on many, many search committees as chair and as just a member, I don't agree.  The key thing is going to be the candidate's letter, CV, writing, and general tenor of the letters.  I can and do write those job letters for my students on the market, although it takes time, but is there really an Interfolio disadvantage? Readers, what say you? 
  • Speaking of writing recommendation letters, if you have not yet read Julie Schumacher's Dear Committee Members, do it. Your local library probably has it, it's a quick read, and it's both hilarious and uncomfortably close to the truth about how many of these letters we have to write for everything and the place of humanities in the university pecking order. 
  • John Oliver takes on student debt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8pjd1QEA0c

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