A confession: I’ve been a professional writer for more years than I now care to admit, and I still have to pause sometimes and think through some basic rules of punctuation. Since I figure I can’t be alone in this, I decided to bring a few of them together in this post to help us […]
Writing
The
Warning: today’s post may seem a bit esoteric. I think it’s pretty darn interesting, and I know it has real-world implications for anyone trying to communicate anything, but if you want to cut to the chase you can always scroll down to the end. What a difference a word makes! I’m reading Wolf Hall, by […]
The Pronoun Problem
What to do about gender neutrality? It was so easy when I was growing up. We were taught that “he” referred to all humans, of either sex, and we believed it. In fact it didn’t and, as an excellent analysis I just came across points out, throughout history it hardly ever has. (Carolyn Jacobson, the University […]
Benefits Communications: The Basics Still Apply
Just about now, as fall tiptoes ever closer, benefits administrators everywhere are dreaming not of crisp new back-to-school outfits or a bountiful harvest, but of benefits open enrollment. Those dreams are not likely to be the happiest during the best of circumstances, but with regulatory changes big and small brought on by the Affordable Care […]
Writing in Between-Time
Hello! After a four-month hiatus, my blog is back. You might not have noticed the gap, but in case you did—my apologies for the long wait. In a minute, I’ll tell you why it happened and how I might have done things differently, if I’d been just a wee bit more disciplined…but first… I’m proud […]
Read Like a Writer
You know how art students are forever hanging around museums with their sketch pads, copying paintings? My bet is you haven’t spent a lot of time wondering why they do it, because it just makes intuitive sense. To understand how the artist placed a line, created a sense of space, got those proportions right—it surely […]
