For notes on teaching. ###################################### Statistical Science, 1999, Vol. 14, No. 1, 126–148 “A Conversation with I. Richard Savage,” Allan R. Sampson with Bruce Spencer in attendance: Savage: The only time I really thought I taught well was in the one-on-one probing, give and take, seminar-like class, where the students are put on the […]
Don’t double space till you have to submit to a journal that requires it. For a working paper, keep everything optimized for readers. Only when it is submitted should you optimized subject to the constraints of the journal for submissions. Even then, do NOT voluntarily meet their constraints for *publication*, though you will hope to […]
This post will be for notes on writing style. 1. Should You Change to House Style in Submitting Your Paper to a journal? 2. Lists. ######################################## A paper on Spanish expeditions to the New World wrote; The locations of the settlements had to comply, following the indications of the Spanish administration, with the rules of […]
It isn’t right to write, “It isn’t right to write poorly”. At least right now. I couldn’t resist writing that, even if it wasn’t right, but let’s get right to the point: the accidental homonym is obstrusive writing. It distracts, by making the reader notice the medium instead of the message. Maybe later I’ll count […]
Slate Star Codex in 2013 wrote Lizardman’s Constant Is 4%Beware of Phantom Lizardmen Public Policy Polling’s recent poll on conspiracy theories mostly showed up on my Facebook feed as “Four percent of Americans believe lizardmen are running the Earth”. (of note, an additional 7% of Americans are “not sure” whether lizardmen are running the […]
Joseph Bottum sees Wokeism as being pseudo-religion, false food feeding spiritual hunger. That is correct. In every man is a God-shaped hole that he yearns to fill. But this spiritual hunger can be satisfied, at least temporarily, by false food, just as you can satisfy your physical hunger by eating bananas or grass to fill […]
It would be interesting to compare the great revolutionaries, or even to decide who ought to be in their number. I’m thinking of Cromwell, Robespierre, Napoleon, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao. How do they rank in theoretical brilliance? In practical wisdom? In evil? In psychological stability?
Garrett M. Graff @vermontgmg tweets Seeing in print in the @WSJ this list of Republican national security officials endorsing Biden is really something. This is basically every GOP luminary of the last 30 years, saying “enough” to Trump. Stunning, really. My comments were Essentially, this says, &Newline; “Former government employees Trump wouldn’t give jobs to […]
There are two ways you might talk about a sneezing norm, “You don’t sneeze at a party” and “One doesn’t sneeze at a party.” I have disliked “One doesn’t sneeze” since childhood, because it uses “one”, not “he”. “One” is not our usual sort of pronoun: it is an indefinite pronoun. So is “they” in […]
Caroline “Register to Vote” Tompson @CeTompson said on Twitter, Dear people older, wiser, and higher degreed than me, I have a question. Did grad school make you feel dumb? Sincerely, A stressed out first year grad student who feels like she’s in over her head Part of being a grad student […]