Best writing reference books according to redditors

We found 900 Reddit comments discussing the best writing reference books. We ranked the 397 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.

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Top Reddit comments about Writing Reference:

u/A-MacLeod · 83 pointsr/ChapoTrapHouse

Hey, I am an academic who uses Herman and Chomsky's propaganda model constantly to make sense of the media. I wrote a book about the media coverage of Venezuela and am now finishing a sequel of Manufacturing Consent in collaboration with Noam and some other contributors that updates the model considering the great changes that have happened in the media (social media, smartphones, internet, newspaper and TV decline, fake news etc. It should hopefully be finished for the 30th anniversary of the book's publication.

I'd echo /u/Prince_Kropotkin 's suggestion that the prologue, introduction and first chapter are by far the most important chapters to read. The other chapters are case studies putting the theories and ideas of the first part into practice. However, they are from the 70s and 80s and might not be that relevant to modern readers. Still interesting, though.

u/AntsInMyEyesJonson · 33 pointsr/pics

Here's a write-up, with sources, on why the narrative on that is absolutely rife with bullshit and not nearly so simple. Originally by /u/A-MacLeod:

I’ve been seeing and hearing a lot of “if you like socialism look at starving Venezuela” comments all over the media, most recently with Meghan McCain on The View which the Chapo Boys talked about in the last episode and someone asked me for a response to her comments.

The reason they asked me was that I have a PhD in sociology and more specifically looking at how the Western media covers Venezuela.

I recently wrote a book called “Bad News From Venezuela” which details the enormous disparity between the image of the country and the empirical reality and features interviews with journalists where they admit to not being able to speak Spanish, not leaving their penthouse apartments very often, paying locals to write their stories and knowingly printing fake news about the country.

I also write about the media coverage of Venezuela at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.

Firstly, I’ve yet to see any credible study about how much weight Venezuelans have lost. I’ve seen plenty of organizations linked to the local opposition spouting out numbers though.

Venezuelans are hungry in good part because capitalists in the country are intentionally trying to starve them by withholding food in order to provoke an uprising, as they have done numerous times in recent history, for example, before the 2014 elections and in the year of the 2002 and 2002/3 attempted coups. After decades of neoliberalism, Latin American countries’ food systems are dominated by often a single massive multinational which creates, imports or distributes most of the food. For instance, the company Polar dominates the food market, controlling over half the flour controls over half the flour in the country (the staple) and also owns a network of supermarkets.

Secondly, Venezuela is also suffering because of the US sanctions, which the UN General Assembly condemned, noting they were deliberately designed to “disproportionately affect the poor and the most vulnerable classes” , calling on all states not to recognize them and began discussing reparations that the US must pay to Venezuela. None of this has been reported anywhere in the US media; I have checked.

The Venezuelan people, unlike us, of course, know all this, and that’s why even during this period the government’s popularity has gone up and they convincingly won the recent election. Of course, none of this is to say that the government is good or doing well. I'm actually highly critical of where the government has gone. But if we actually care about facts and context and discussion, this stuff needs to be known, otherwise we are completely ignorant of the situation.

These are not the only reasons why the economy is bad, you can read a longer explanation here.



Finally, if this is proof socialism failed, then Ecuador must be proof that socialism works, as under the socialist president Correa, unemployment fell to a record low of 4%, poverty fell by 27% in 7 years all while beginning to bring in universal free education and healthcare and reducing its debt. Of course, none of this is ever brought up by these people because they don’t want an honest discussion about “socialism” and they don’t want people knowing about these countries.

So a response in 140 characters would be Venezuelans are hungry because big capitalists in the country are intentionally trying to starve them and because of illegal US sanctions. This certainly doesn’t tell the whole story but is a quick comeback.

Oh yeah, and if you are interested in the book but balk at the price, DM me your email address and I could send you a copy of my PhD which is pretty similar to the book.

u/Bio-ScienceGuy · 27 pointsr/askscience

This has been done. A French scientist during the age of the guillotine would take the heads of freshly-executed prisoners and attach them to the bodies of dogs. The heads were pretty brain dead by the time he could get it hooked up though, as the state required that prisoners pass the gates of the cemetery before being public property. He did, however, find that the fresher heads could respond to the sound of their name. The head would inevitably be rejected by the dog's immune system though.
I read it in this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Stiff-Curious-Lives-Human-Cadavers/dp/0393050939

u/Gentle-Mang · 21 pointsr/TheRedPill

I've stated before that I think that TRP goes beyond just seduction.

It's about living in a world that is not what we've been told it should be. This applies to women, relationships, college, careers, accumulation of wealth, travel, Life in general.

Women and relationships - We all know, it's pretty much all we talk about here.

College - The baby boomers told you to go to college if you didn't want to be flipping burgers... Then you went to college, got out, and there are no jobs. Then the baby boomers tell you that you're an entitled brat for refusing to flip burgers. The funny thing is that the people who told you to go to college didn't actually go to college, they started out flipping burgers, but they did it without the burden of debt.

Careers - If you spend the best years of your life sitting at a desk (and you don't make any women co-workers feel at all uncomfortable in any way), maybe one day you may be able to save up enough money to buy a red convertible sports car when you're bald, fat and middle aged, to compensate you for your unfulfilling life. After that you can save up and maybe afford a few years of lower-middle class leisure lifestyle while your body falls apart and you wait for death. Does that sound like a good deal?

Travel - Extended long-term world travel is the domain of the rich and all you can afford is short stints of two week vacations to to all-inclusive resorts before you have to trudge back to your cubical to resume the life you were trying to escape from.

Life in general - Go to work, be miserable, come home, buy something to make yourself feel better, get into debt, have to work harder, become more miserable, repeat. You have to do this because the only thing that can bring you a temporary sensation of satisfaction is some kind of material item. A newer, better item. If you lose an item you lose a part of yourself, because you are the things that you own.

-

I never went to college and I have zero debt. I don't have a 'career' per-se, but I do have marketable skills in web development and design, self taught. I work from time to time to get money which I then use to fund my travels (I'll be in Spain next week). Girls are occasional but enjoyable guests in my life. I own no material possessions other than a bag of clothes and this laptop. I practice meditation and try to incorporate awareness of the present moment into my life rather than dwelling on the past or the future.

If you're interested in learning about how long-term travel is well within your reach I'd highly recommend Vagabonding by Rolf Potts.

In terms of life/spiritual philosophy I recommend authors such as Eckhart Tolle and Alan Watts

u/Vovicon · 18 pointsr/TrueReddit

This book: Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong says more or less the same thing.

It's a very interesting read, a quite thorough analysis done by a team of Canadians about the cultural differences between French and North Americans and the misunderstandings it creates.

Their main point is that, the cultural differences between these to countries are exacerbated by the fact most assume these culture should be very similar because "Western".

u/RickJamesB____ · 16 pointsr/conspiracy

This interview was aired in the beginning of August, he survived, finished his book. Sadly, no MSM, except for one, picked it up. He also participated in a much more detailed interview more recently (Language Barrier).

Note that he worked for the FAZ, one of the most respected newspapers. And he also points to other huge media outlets that are compromised.

This took place, after in spring a comedy show exposed the influence of American think tanks on German media and even politics. One of the most corrupt individuals even wrote a speech for the President, which he later praised in his own news paper.

u/TheMemo · 15 pointsr/Foodforthought

> If you want honest news, subscribe to the New York Times.

That made me laugh. The same game you engage in was started over a hundred years ago with published newspapers.

There is no such thing as honest news.

For more information, consult Flat Earth News by the same guy who uncovered and pushed the Murdoch press phone hacking scandal when no-one else would touch it.

u/cm1745 · 15 pointsr/AskReddit

Check out this book by Rolf Potts.

Its called Vagabonding and is all about cheap long-term travel around the world.

It was an inspiration for me, and I truly recommend you check it out if you're interested in traveling outside your comfort zone.

It's a quick read but is also filled with many helpful links and real-world examples of what to expect and how to make the most of travelling.

u/mementomary · 14 pointsr/booksuggestions
  • Naked Statistics by Charles Wheelan is a great overview of the science of statistics, without being too much like a lecture. After reading it, you'll have a better understanding of what statistics are just silly (like in ads or clickbait news) and what are actually important (like in scientific studies).

  • You on a Diet by Roizen and Oz is touted as a diet book, and it kind of is. I recommend it because it's a great resource for basic understanding the science behind the gastrointestinal system, and how it links to the brain.

  • All of Mary Roach's books are excellent overviews of science currently being done, I've read Stiff (the science of human bodies, post-mortem), Spook ("science tackles the afterlife"), Packing for Mars (the science of humans in space), and Bonk (sex), and they are all very easy to understand, but scientifically appropriate. I'm sure "Gulp" is good too, although I haven't read that one yet.

  • "How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming" by Mike Brown is a great, accessible overview of exactly why Pluto was demoted to dwarf planet, told by the man who started the controversy.

  • "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking is a little denser, material-wise, but still easy to understand (as far as theoretical physics goes, at least!). Hawking explains the history of physics and the universe, as well as the future of the discipline. While there is a bit more jargon than some pop-science books, I think an entry-level scientist can still read and understand this book.
u/thejayharp · 14 pointsr/AdviceAnimals

Vagabonding by Rolf Potts is a pretty good guide on how to make long-term travel possible on a small budget.

Edit: First chapter is available here: http://www.vagabonding.net/excerpt/

u/LordDOBA · 12 pointsr/PhD

One of the best books I have ever read is “Writing Science: How to Write Papers That Get Cited and Proposals That Get Funded” https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199760241/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_6MpxCb2Y2PH49

The book is easy to read and has DRASTICALLY improved my science writing. I read this book with my undergraduate lab (like 4 years ago) and still reference now in my PhD program.

u/Lobo_2013 · 12 pointsr/AppalachianTrail

The author of the AT guidebook also wrote a book about his thruhike. He had a wife and kid(s?) at home and discusses this throughout the book. It's kind of dry, but I thought it was worth reading before my hike.

u/USAisDyingLOL · 12 pointsr/CitationsNeeded

Not my original content, but taking this comment from another sub and posting here:

>I’ve been seeing and hearing a lot of “if you like socialism look at starving Venezuela” comments all over the media, most recently with Meghan McCain on The View which the Chapo Boys talked about in the last episode and someone asked me for a response to her comments.

>The reason they asked me was that I have a PhD in sociology and more specifically looking at how the Western media covers Venezuela.

>I recently wrote a book called “Bad News From Venezuela” which details the enormous disparity between the image of the country and the empirical reality and features interviews with journalists where they admit to not being able to speak Spanish, not leaving their penthouse apartments very often, paying locals to write their stories and knowingly printing fake news about the country.

>I also write about the media coverage of Venezuela at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.

>Firstly, I’ve yet to see any credible study about how much weight Venezuelans have lost. I’ve seen plenty of organizations linked to the local opposition spouting out numbers though.

>Venezuelans are hungry in good part because capitalists in the country are intentionally trying to starve them by withholding food in order to provoke an uprising, as they have done numerous times in recent history, for example, before the 2014 elections and in the year of the 2002 and 2002/3 attempted coups. After decades of neoliberalism, Latin American countries’ food systems are dominated by often a single massive multinational which creates, imports or distributes most of the food. For instance, the company Polar dominates the food market, controlling
over half the flour controls over half the flour in the country (the staple) and also owns a network of supermarkets.

>Secondly, Venezuela is also suffering because of the US sanctions, which the UN General Assembly condemned, noting they were deliberately designed to “disproportionately affect the poor and the most vulnerable classes” , calling on all states not to recognize them and began discussing reparations that the US must pay to Venezuela. None of this has been reported anywhere in the US media; I have checked.


>The Venezuelan people, unlike us, of course, know all this, and that’s why even during this period the government’s popularity has gone up and they convincingly won the recent election. Of course, none of this is to say that the government is good or doing well. I'm actually highly critical of where the government has gone. But if we actually care about facts and context and discussion, this stuff needs to be known, otherwise we are completely ignorant of the situation.

>These are not the only reasons why the economy is bad, you can read a longer explanation here.



>Finally, if this is proof socialism failed, then Ecuador must be proof that socialism works, as under the socialist president Correa, unemployment fell to a record low of 4%, poverty fell by 27% in 7 years all while beginning to bring in universal free education and healthcare and reducing its debt. Of course, none of this is ever brought up by these people because they don’t want an honest discussion about “socialism” and they don’t want people knowing about these countries.

>So a response in 140 characters would be Venezuelans are hungry because big capitalists in the country are intentionally trying to starve them and because of illegal US sanctions. This certainly doesn’t tell the whole story but is a quick comeback.

u/OniiChan_ · 11 pointsr/saltierthancrait

> Like...it would be passable if she was struggling.

I've read Writing Fiction For Dummies for fun, and I know how to structure a story better than this.

u/Up2Eleven · 11 pointsr/IAmA

Some tips for those considering a trip there:

Always take taxis rather than tuktuks whenever possible, and make sure they use the meter. If they give you a hard time, walk on to another. It won't take long to find one who will comply.

When in the more populous, touristy places, avoid eye contact with anyone you don't intend to spend money with. The tuktuk drivers, touts, etc will flock to you if you look at them or respond in any way. It feels rude, but ignore them completely.

Read these 2 books: Vagabonding by Rolf Potts and The World Awaits by Paul Otteson.

Spend a lot of time on travelfish.org and the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree Forum before you go. Lots of great advice and information there.

Learn a little of the language. Even "thank you" will do wonders.

u/[deleted] · 11 pointsr/todayilearned

Actually, they rounded up a bunch people who were not actually communists, prosecuted and persecuted them for being traitors to the country, while actual treasonous communist plants ( not to be confused with non treasonous people who just ascribed the philosophy of Marxism ) Went largely unmolested through our legislature. I recomend you give this book a glance. http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Being-Lied-Disinformation/product-reviews/0966410076

u/evinrows · 10 pointsr/linux

No, really, read a book.

edit: Also, start comparing your blog to other blogs in the same field. It just seems like you have little interest in producing quality material. You write as if you're talking to your friend on Steam.

u/someone-somewhere · 10 pointsr/WTF

http://www.amazon.com/Stiff-Curious-Lives-Human-Cadavers/dp/0393050939

This book detail the dog experiments and the resulting scientific discoveries.

u/my_dude__ · 9 pointsr/minimalist

r/digitalnomad

You've earned the gift every lurker on that sub, myself included, dreams of. Sure, you may still need to work, but you can work from anywhere with a half decent internet connection. Travel, experience the world in a way most people aren't fortunate enough to be able to. Hop on Airbnb, type in a destination you've always wanted to go to, and set your dates for the entire month of May. You've hit the jackpot, congratulations. Vagabonding is a great book on the topic. Rolf Potts' other book, Marco Polo Didn't Go There is also a phenomenal read.

r/onebag if you want to get extra obnoxious (in a good way!) about how little you own.

r/vandwellers if you want to travel the US in a van.

u/JaseAndrews · 9 pointsr/france

To provide you a serious answer, I recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Sixty-Million-Frenchmen-Cant-Wrong/dp/1402200455

I read it before coming to France and it gave me a surprising amount of insight into the French mindset. It helped me understand how to interpret certain actions and behaviors that I wasn't accustomed to.

u/Iskandar11 · 8 pointsr/AskReddit
u/Keyan2 · 8 pointsr/changemyview

Two problems with the article that you cited. One, the author has admitted that he himself is very conservative. While that in and of itself shouldn't disqualify him, it's definitely something to keep in mind. Especially since it undoubtedly helps his books sales, Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind

Two, this score system that they use considers people like Nancy Pelosi to be 100 on the scale. If Nancy Pelosi is a 100 on the liberal scale, then no wonder the media has a "liberal bias". In other words, this scale is heavily skewed so that a 100 is fairly moderate. As a result, the media appears to be liberal as well.

u/TotesObviBroski · 7 pointsr/TrueReddit

For any who are interested, Mary Roach's book Stiff is a great, in-depth look at this subject, partially through the eyes of medical/lab students but from many other perspectives as well.

u/Corican · 7 pointsr/backpacking

I HIGHLY recommend this book.

u/pgaf · 7 pointsr/travel

Read this book: Vagabonding by Rolf Potts

u/Nilsneo · 7 pointsr/The_Donald

Ages ago I picked up a book called "You Are Being Lied To: The Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths" and read about Vince Foster in there. That chapter blew my mind and had my wearing red pill glasses whenever I read or watched the news ever since.

u/shoestring_banjo · 6 pointsr/GradSchool

This is the book that I was given to learn about how to structure and work out what I was going to write:

https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Science-Papers-Proposals-Funded/dp/0199760241

I'd recommend that you find some of the better papers in your discipline (and later from the journal you want to submit to) and print them out. Read through them twice. As you read a paper a second time you should jot down what each paragraph contributes to the main argument of the paper. Try to ask yourself why each paragraph was included. What purpose did they serve? In sections like the abstract it is sometimes helpful to even break it down by sentence like so:

> Motivational sentence that establishes problem. Second sentence about impact of problem. Sentence describing previous work that has been done. Sentence stating what these studies didn't do. What we did. Our results. Possible last sentence about broader impacts.

This way you can get an idea of how good papers are structured. Once you've studied a few (ask your PI for suggestions if you can't decide) then you may be interested in joining a writing group with other students as well.

Don't forget that every first draft is garbage. Just dump it out and then worry about correcting it to make it good later. With practice you'll get better at doing it right the first time, but I don't know any researchers who don't have to edit when writing. Most of my colleagues that have trouble writing just never take the risk of writing that first draft. Be brave about it, and be ready to be humbled by those who edit your work. Criticism and edits only make you and your paper stronger.

u/jimhodgson · 6 pointsr/writing
u/salvadors · 6 pointsr/wanderlust

Ralph Potts' "Vagabonding" is pretty good:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0812992180

u/stubbymols · 5 pointsr/books

You're reading Stiff, aren't you? Hot damn, I loved that book!

u/rachamacc · 5 pointsr/AskReddit

I'm reading Spook right now. There are people that research kids' reincarnation stories. I wish more non-Hindus would contact them, since most of it comes from India where reincarnation is pretty much fact.

My mom tells me when I was little I always asked questions like, "when I was a chicken, did I . . . ?" or "when I was a brick, was I . . . ?" I don't think you can get reincarnated as a brick though.

u/Mickeymackey · 5 pointsr/technology

This isn't new though, it's a common tip in many travel books, Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel by Rolf Potts is one And that's from 2002, theres a website that it talks about on it that does the same thing. I forget what it's called, I got it for my sister last year.

Edit: ridiculous late night mistakes, book title and link

u/evacsm · 5 pointsr/IAmA

Here is a book on vagabonding. Pretty much how to long term travel in very much a way this guy did. Its an inspiring read.

u/littlebutmighty · 5 pointsr/writing

> I often think of interesting ways the story can go and I have the beginning and middle of the story sorted but I am unsure of where I am going to end up

I absolutely CANNOT write a long story/book without an outline. I think of it like a roadmap: I'd never try to drive to a new city without a roadmap, or build a house without a blueprint. It becomes chaotic, and I freak out and leave it unfinished.

You can do an outline a couple ways. This is a blog post on using index cards to create a streamlined story, or you can outline on a computer and list major scenes. (For a longer description of outlining, I recommend Outlining Your Novel by K.M. Weiland.)

Some authors can "fly by the seat of their pants," but I can't, and if I'm reading your post right, it sounds like you'd benefit from outlining as well.

u/FaerFoxx · 5 pointsr/worldbuilding

The Planet Construction Kit is a great resource for worldbuilding, covering almost all aspects of society and general setting from cosmology to biology, history, culture, religion, technology, map making...

http://www.amazon.com/Planet-Construction-Kit-Mark-Rosenfelder/dp/0984470034/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1286906911&sr=1-2

Its companion book, the Language Construction Kit, is an invaluable resource for creating conlangs if that was of any interest to you as well.

http://www.amazon.com/Language-Construction-Kit-Mark-Rosenfelder/dp/098447000X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268637297&sr=1-1

u/mattbin · 4 pointsr/selfpublish

Whatever saves to Word format is fine. Doesn't matter what you use, really. Remember that both mobi and epub are very stripped down - you can't have a lot of formatting in there.

So don't worry about what you're writing in (honestly, just use whatever's most comfortable - I've used Evernote, Google Docs, Word, and others, depending on where I am working).

Things like text justification and hyphenation don't matter much. In ebooks, the reader decides things like font size and font formatting. What you DO have to worry about are:

  • Headings and other styles

  • Page breaks

  • Non-breaking spaces, hyphens, etc.

  • Centering

    If you want to get serious about getting your formatting right, let me recommend the book I refer to most often for these questions: Zen of Ebook Formatting by Guido Henkel. His blog is worth checking out too.

    Or wait till I give another webinar on the subject. :)
u/Fuckyousantorum · 4 pointsr/conspiracy

Anyone found an english translation of the book that got him killed?

Apparently,it was due to be published in English over 2 years ago but keeps getting delayed.

book is called: Gekaufte Journalisten or Bought Journalists

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gekaufte-Journalisten-Geheimdienste-Deutschlands-Massenmedien/dp/3864451434/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484601847&sr=8-1&keywords=Gekaufte+Journalisten

u/afteracademia · 4 pointsr/AskAcademia

I remember writing a grant proposal for fieldwork in the first year of my PhD. Me and my supervisor edited it together (he thought ti would be a good exercise. No content was changed, but the entire text was red from the 'track changes' after working on it for two hours!

It's pretty normal and a others said: the learning curve is steep.

(PS: there are some great books out on academic writing. This is one of my favorites: https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Science-Papers-Proposals-Funded/dp/0199760241)

u/StinkyFangers · 4 pointsr/solotravel

I'm glad you enjoyed my comment. I definitely agree with you about this sub. There seems to be something inherently inspirational about traveling and I think that it has to do with the fact that, often, the decision to drop everything and travel is such a personal one and often comes from some type of larger perspective about what life means.

Have fun on your travels!

If you're looking for a great traveling book - Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel was the best that I found.

https://www.amazon.com/Vagabonding-Uncommon-Guide-Long-Term-Travel/dp/0812992180

Really shows you that it's all about a person's the perspective and life priorities. If you want to make a life of traveling, it really isn't that difficult - no matter how much money you make.

u/ManderPants · 4 pointsr/fantasywriters

If you're into books on writing, I found Outlining Your Novel helpful. If you've read your share of writing tips and books it will repeat some things you know by now, but I found its techniques helpful.

I knew how great an outline can be so I used one to frame my novel in Scrivener using the index cards, it has helped immensely. I didn't write every single detail leaving left plenty of room for things to change course if the story and characters need to evolve in a different direction. Outlining prevents writers block in the sense of "what do I do next?" plot-wise.

u/Jafiki91 · 4 pointsr/worldbuilding

I have the Planet Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder and I thought it was pretty good. It deals with a ton of aspects; planet making, geology, religions, cultures, biology. There's even a section on how to draw your sentient beings.

u/Master-Thief · 4 pointsr/changemyview
  1. Groseclose & Milyo, A Measure of Media Bias, Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 2005. (Later expanded into a book, Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind, 2012) Referenced below by /u/A_Soporific. Abstract: We measure media bias by estimating ideological scores for several major media outlets. To compute this, we count the times that a particular media outlet cites various think tanks and policy groups, and then compare this with the times that members of Congress cite the same groups. Our results show a strong liberal bias: all of the news outlets we examine, except Fox News' Special Report and the Washington Times, received scores to the left of the average member of Congress. Consistent with claims made by conservative critics, CBS Evening News and the New York Times received scores far to the left of center. The most centrist media outlets were PBS NewsHour, CNN's Newsnight, and ABC's Good Morning America; among print outlets, USA Today was closest to the center. All of our findings refer strictly to news content; that is, we exclude editorials, letters, and the like.

  2. Larcinese, Pugliesi, & Snyder, Partisan Bias in Economic News: Evidence on the Agenda-Setting Behavior of U.S. Newspapers, National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper, September 2007. Abstract: We study the agenda-setting political behavior of a large sample of U.S. newspapers during the last decade, and the behavior of smaller samples for longer time periods. Our purpose is to examine the intensity of coverage of economic issues as a function of the underlying economic conditions and the political affiliation of the incumbent president, focusing on unemployment, inflation, the federal budget and the trade deficit. We investigate whether there is any significant correlation between the endorsement policy of newspapers, and the differential coverage of bad/good economic news as a function of the president's political affiliation. We find evidence that newspapers with pro-Democratic endorsement pattern systematically give more coverage to high unemployment when the incumbent president is a Republican than when the president is Democratic, compared to newspapers with pro-Republican endorsement pattern. This result is not driven by the partisanship of readers. There is on the contrary no evidence of a partisan bias -- or at least of a bias that is correlated with the endorsement policy -- for stories on inflation, budget deficit or trade deficit.

  3. Gentzkow & Shapiro, What Drives Media Slant? Evidence from U.S. Daily Newspapers, National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper, November 2006. Abstract: We construct a new index of media slant that measures whether a news outlet's language is more similar to a congressional Republican or Democrat. We apply the measure to study the market forces that determine political content in the news. We estimate a model of newspaper demand that incorporates slant explicitly, estimate the slant that would be chosen if newspapers independently maximized their own profits, and compare these ideal points with firms' actual choices. Our analysis confirms an economically significant demand for news slanted toward one's own political ideology. Firms respond strongly to consumer preferences, which account for roughly 20 percent of the variation in measured slant in our sample. By contrast, the identity of a newspaper's owner explains far less of the variation in slant, and we find little evidence that media conglomerates homogenize news to minimize fixed costs in the production of content.

    EDIT: New anecdotal evidence: "CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson has reached an agreement to resign from CBS News ahead of contract... Attkisson, who has been with CBS News for two decades, had grown frustrated with what she saw as the network’s liberal bias, an outsize influence by the network’s corporate partners and a lack of dedication to investigative reporting, several sources said. She increasingly felt that her work was no longer supported and that it was a struggle to get her reporting on air." Attkisson was responsible for the investigative report on the ATF Gunwalking Scandal where ATF agents knowingly allowed guns illegally purchased in the U.S. to be taken into Mexico by buyers associated with drug cartels; one of these rifles was used to kill a U.S. Border Patrol officer. Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress for his refusal to turn over documents relating to the scandal, and President Obama invoked executive privilege to withhold them.
u/hateur · 4 pointsr/AskReddit

A few points from Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong, a book about cultural differences between Americans (and English-speaking nations in general) and the French:

  1. The French appreciate arguing and polemic in conversation. This is in contrast to English speakers, who try to emphasize what they have in common with the other person's point of view. This can easily be misinterpreted in inter-cultural situations: Americans will think the French are being agressively argumentative and rude, when they are actually just trying to make interesting conversation, the way they're used to. The French, on the other hand, will find the Americans conventional-thinking and prone to agree with anything, when they're just trying to be "nice" and keep things smooth (of course their opinions can be just as strong as anyone else's, and they can be eloquent in expressing them--they just don't make casual conversation that way; for Americans, it's all about "greasing the wheels" of social interaction).This probably doesn't come as complete news to most Americans (or French), but it still comes as a shock when they first experience it first hand.

  2. The French will correct a foreigner's mispronunciation of French words (or slips in grammar) as a matter of politely helping that person improve themselves. Another big no-no with Americans: such a person would be called a "grammar Nazi" by Internet geeks, but in casual conversation among non-geek Americans, it would be seen as gratuitous arrogance. A (somewhat extreme) example from the book: one of the authors, a native English-speaker from Ontario (the other being a native French-speaker from Montreal, both having had lived two years in France), asks for a bottle of ice tea in a grocery store, in good French, but pronouncing Ice Tea in English (since that's what's written on the bottle). The saleswoman corrects her pronunciation: EES-TEH. So a native English-speaker is corrected about pronouncing two words of their own language by a French person speaking only basic English, with no self-consciousness at all. Amazing as it may seem, the intention was to be helpful, not arrogant. (Not really a reason for Americans to hate the French, but an illustration of how easily cultural impedance mismatch can distort image.)

    (I don't have the book at hand right now, this is just what I could remember from reading it a few years ago.)
u/oro_boris · 4 pointsr/Physics

You might be interested in reading this (excellent) book:

World-Building (Science Fiction Writing)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/158297134X/

u/ars_moriendi · 3 pointsr/reddit.com

Dear guy in the first half of this note,

Here's your fucking problem, asshole: you're a self-centered shitheel who only writes for himself. Want to know how I know this? Because you're bitching about the one aspect of editing that requires the least amount of patience and provides the greatest benefit to readability: spelling and punctu-fuck-you-ation.

Grammar Nazis, jerks or not, are providing a public fucking service. I'm glad you're pissed off. You should be. However, if you're getting a complex, it's not because they're Nazis, it's because you're a shitty student.



Dear guy asking for help,

Great to hear you're interested in improving your ability to communicate. On one hand, it is as easy as having a conversation. On the other, it's really not. Without non-verbal cues and cliches to communicate your meaning and subtext, it becomes easy to write in a way that feels stilted or transmits ideas you don't intend. I recommend continuing to read the authors you like, but start keeping an eye on syntax and structure. That's really the best way to keep sharp. You'll be able to learn which rules persist because they work well (using dashes rather than parentheses, for instance) and which can be broken for the sake of an aesthetic or readership (i.e., Cormac McCarthy's phobia about double-quoting dialog). The rules aren't as strict as you might have been led to believe, but you'll find in time that you respect those stronger rules more for a simple reason: they just work, no matter what you're communicating.

For composition, I recommend William K. Zinsser's On Writing Well. It's a pleasurable read and useful for all but the very best and most experienced writers (and maybe them as well).

For story craft, I recommend Bob McKee's Story and Stephen King's On Writing. The former is nigh fucking indispensable; the second, just gratifying to read.

For spelling, Merriam-Websters and practice.

For punctuation, just be sufficiently considerate of your readers to google the rule you're not sure about.

Thanks for posting this. I hope my 2 cents help.

u/Write-y_McGee · 3 pointsr/DestructiveReaders

Ok, so I promised you that I would comment on this piece, if you posted it, so lets just jump right in!



THE BASICS OF STORY TELLING

Just because you are writing non-fiction, doesn't mean that you get to ignore the process of telling a story. In fact, it may be that the elements of a story are
more important in non-fiction than fiction.

When was the last time you picked up a chemistry text book 'for fun'? But how about
The Elegant Universe? Or A Short History of Nearly Everything? If you haven't read the latter, you should, as it is probably one of the greatest non-fiction science books of all time.

What makes these books more engaging than a standard textbook? They are telling a story. They are leading the reader on a journey of discovery, but are introducing that discovery in a way that makes the reader feel they have some skin in the game. They introduce problems (and questions) that demand answers. They introduce characters that are trying to solve them. There is antagonists (even if it is just nature) and heroes (even if it is just nature). And all this is introduced from the start.

In other words, they have a hook.



THE HOOK

So, lets think about your hook:

>I recently put aside my doubts that all of "reality" was anything but a simulation, created by an advanced civilization, and went for a long walk (for the sake of exploring the "fun" consequences, of course).

Not. Good.

First, you don't really introduce the problem. Sure, you said you put aside some doubts, but doubts of what? What do you mean by simulation? What do you mean by 'advanced civilization)? Why do I care what you are thinking? Why Do I care if you went for a walk -- and why do I care if it were long?

Do you see the problem? You introduce a string of loosely defined terms, which gives us a loosely defined problem. It is hard to care about a loosely defined problem. Worse you give us a character (YOU) that the reader know nothing about, and then probably won't care.

Do you know who the reader does care about? Themselves.

So, I would give a hook that is something related to the reader. You already mention The Matrix, and so you might just start a hook with something like:

"What if the matrix was right all along."

Something like this introduces a well-defined problem (borrowing from popular culture to do so), and then also a character that the reader cares about: themselves.

>I then, more quickly than expected, traversed the five stages of grief and arrived at an interesting realization.

  1. What are the 5 stages of grief? Why not just list them?
  2. Why do I care how quickly you arrived at them.
  3. I don't know who you are, and how fast you expected to run through the five stages of grief. So, 'quicker than expected' tells me nothing.
  4. The way this is phrase, it sounds like you were expecting to run through the five stages of grief. If that is the case, then why? I am struggling to understand how thinking the universe is a simulation might induce grief?
  5. The ending of this is cheap, because you tell us there is an interesting realization, but then you don't give it to us. In my opinion, you should probably never directly assess that something YOU did is interesting (let the reader decide that), and you certainly shouldn't make a claim without immediately backing it up. Therefore, this is a bad end to the sentence.


    >I'd like to retrace my steps with the hope that you too will attain the same simulated peace that I now possess. Where to begin...

    The hook is now over. I do not know what the problem is, I do not know why I should care that you are having this problem, I don't know what your position is or why I should trust that it is 'interesting' and you claim.

    If I were not reading for critique, I would not read past this. You need a better, stronger, hook, to draw the reader's attention to the problem that you wish to discuss, and show them how this problem relates to their own life (i.e., why they should care about it).



    CLAIMS OF KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT SUPPORT

    The other issue this piece has is the that give above in bold -- you routinely issue judgement statements without sufficient support. Let us look at some:

    >the largest of the looming obstacles becomes the realization that all of reality as we know it could cease to exist for reasons beyond our control or even understanding.

    How is this an obstacle? And obstacle to what? This just seems to be a fact of
    one particular type of simulation.

    What if the simulation was being run in a manner such that it could not be interrupted? The technology to run this simulation is beyond our grasp, so why couldn't such a mechanism exist? You are making a claim that appears to have no foundation other than you think it to be true.

    >It is a reasonable assumption that a civilization advanced enough to simulate literally everything must first have achieved a certain level of peace and stability.

    There appears to be a logical flaw here. They did not simulate EVERYTHING -- just the things in the simulation. In fact, THEY must exist outside of the simulation, so that is not everything. In fact, if the laws of physics hold in their own universe, then the simulation we would be in would, by definition, be required to be MUCH simpler than their own world. The laws of thermodynamics dictate this. Therefore, this simulation would just a simple model of something.

    Furthermore:

    >After all, it's a bit difficult to investigate the nature of reality and advance science while you're busy trying to avoid being brutally murdered by bloodthirsty marauders hell-bent on wearing your skull as a hat

    What if, and I am just widely speculating here, the desire to avoid the fate you propose led someone to invent some new technology to avoid this -- like maybe a helmet? Or a better sword? Or something?

    Complete peace seems more likely to motivate technological advances. If all was perfect, then why change anything? Our invention of technology is a result of struggles against nature and others. Thus, violence and strife are primary motivators for technology, and it seems more logically sound to argue the
    opposite of what you are claiming.

    > This would mean that our creators posses at least the ability to perceive us as valid life forms, and as such, subject to the same rights as themselves!

    WHAT?

    We accept that bacteria are life forms, and do not extend to them the rights that we grant other people. Where is there
    any support that one would expect creators to grant rights to their creations that are on par with their own? I see absolutely zero support for this position. Maybe is exists, but if it does, you need to supply it.

    >The opposing perspectives could be summed up as follows:
    >1. Simulations capable of producing conscious simulants should not be created, since the act of turning off such simulations would be an act of genocide.
    >2. The knowledge obtained from simulations outweigh the ethical implications; the end justifies the means.


    This is a false dichotomy. They could also assume that we are not worthy of rights. You have not established that. So, they could view us with EXACTLY the same view we extend to simulation of people in video games. Do we consider their rights? If not, then why would they consider ours? This has not been sufficiently established.



    OVERALL FLOW

    Just as a story needs to have a cohesive plot, your non-fiction needs to have a common thread that connects ideas back to the major problem.

    In Star Wars: A New Hope, the story continually comes back to the problem of Luke establishing himself in a wider world. We care deeply about him, and his feeling of insignificance.

    In your story, you MUST return to the same idea over and over again. The problem just structure your discussion of everything else.

    The problem you REALLY have is this: if we are a simulation, do we have moral rights?

    So, this needs to guide EVERY single fact you introduce.

    Did the dinosaurs have rights? Then what do we make of the morality of the meteor coming in? What do we think about mammals taking over their environment?

    If we do not have rights in the simulation, then should we care about murder?

    These are interesting questions, that can be tied back the strange idea of us existing in a simulation. They provide stronger jumping off points for the tangents you are taking. They will provide a structure and focus that you are currently lacking. You need to identify a theme, and stick with it, very closely. In the same way that all actions in Star Wars were related to Luke gaining an understanding of his place in the galaxy, your story MUST always come back to the idea of Morality within and without a simulation.

    *

    SUMMARY*

    The idea that you are discussing is interesting, but the manner you are doing it in is not yet engaging. The reason is that you have not introduced the problem with a proper hook, and you do not identify and tread near an established theme within the piece. These are elements of story telling that will serve you well in non-fiction, as in fiction.

    If you want more information on this, try reading [
    Writing Science*](http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Science-Papers-Proposals-Funded/dp/0199760241). THough this is aimed more at the academic writer, it is a great place to start for understanding how to frame the introduction to serious non-fiction. That is, how to identify the story you are trying to tell, how to make a compelling hook, and then how to follow through on the themes that make your hook compelling.

    Let me know if you have questions!
u/tilia-cordata · 3 pointsr/AskScienceDiscussion

I'm in a proposal-writing class, and we're reading Writing Science by Joshua Schimel as part of the course. It's quite good, and emphasizes what science writing has in common with other kinds of writing/storytelling.

u/OddTheViking · 3 pointsr/politics

>A lot of Trump supporters unfortunately do not get correct information and are deliberately misled by the news sources they do follow

The Fox Effect

u/11s_eggos · 3 pointsr/esist

Kisses. 😘

Also, sorry you suck so very badly at Googling shit. While I erroneously added the word "News" to the book title (mea culpa), the Google search of the book with "news" in the title yielded this as like the third result.

https://www.amazon.com/Fox-Effect-Network-Propaganda-Machine/dp/0307279588

u/CreativityTheorist · 3 pointsr/writing

I have read many, many books about writing, but there has only been one (so far) that came to me with exactly the right message at exactly the time I needed it. Immediate Fiction by Jerry Cleaver. Six month after reading it I actually completed a novel for the first time. And a year after that, it was published. I don't know if anyone else is in need of Cleaver's message, but it certainly spoke to me.

u/AwkwardMe · 3 pointsr/books

Hmmm... depends on exactly what you are looking for... (you may also want to pose this question in /r/writing).

Start with these if you're looking for fiction writing help: The 10% Solution by Ken Rand

The Elements of Fiction series (I personally liked Nancy Kress's: Beginnings, middles & ends.

Immediate Fiction I haven't read it yet, but it looks pretty good.

There are a hundreds of other books out there, and a couple that focus more specifically on style, but Elements covers the majority of the subject fairly well. This one might be a little closer to what you're wanting.

Hope this helped.

u/nonsensepoem · 3 pointsr/atheism

Some 4 year olds in India dream of reincarnation, so I guess that's real too.


Or maybe it's bullshit.

u/CannibalAnn · 3 pointsr/funny

A long time ago, there was a scientist, Dr. MacDougall.
interesting book about death,
also this, also that. The reasoning is legit, but it was not scientific and was unable to be reproduced. So the commentor's statement of "poop" is more accurate :)

u/NotMara · 3 pointsr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

Continued because it was too long lmao

11.) Something that would have a profound impact on your life and help you to achieve your current goals.
I honestly really want to get into acting. I love movies and TV shows, and I really would love to start acting. For that reason, this book would be a great addition to my library and would probably teach me a lot.
This book also looks like it would be a good learning experience. :)
I found another great read! I'll pretty much take any acting books I can get.

12.) One of those pesky Add-On items.
Pop Funkos are honestly my go-to add-on item. Like this little fella, for instance. Adorable and affordable (did I just make up a saying? I do believe I did).
What's that? Ah, yes. Pops. The source of my broke-ness. Have another..
Oh, you think I'm done. HA. I'm too far deep to dig myself out of the hole that is my ever-growing collection of Pops. Infinity War just came out (no spoilers, I really want to see it but haven't gotten the chance yet), so how about this adorable Thor Pop? Who doesn't love Thor?

13.) Something fandom related. (Sports fandoms are acceptable- bonus if someone figures out my favorite team)
My favorite band happens to be Twenty One Pilots... and this is a pretty sick shirt.
I'm sorry, I'm still thinking about Infinity War from up above. I found a Thanos shirt that is honestly super cool. Like I've never seen it before and now I want it lmao.
I recently got gifted this absolutely gorgeous and cool Hawkeye T-shirt. It has BOTH Hawkeyes from the comics on it! Super cool.

14.) Something ridiculously priced, more than $10,000. They exist, y’all.
Who the absolute heck buys a $180,000 watch?! Not me, that's for sure.
I'm honestly not even sure what this is, but it's expensive as heck and you could put that money toward an ACTUAL CAR.
Y'all need a parking lift? I gotchu.

15.) Something with sharks or unicorns.
Who doesn't love socks?. Especially socks with unicorns.
You ask for sharks, I get you sharks.
Also no joke this is the cutest thing I've ever seen oh my gosh.

16.) Something that smells wonderful.
I have a cinnamon candle (not that exact one) and I absolutely love it to death.
Who doesn't love coconut lime? I know I love it.
Have you ever thought to yourself, "damn, I really like me the smell of cilantro"? Well, look no further.

17.) A toy that you wanted or had when you were a child that was the best ever, or (if it’s not on amazon) a toy that you think is pretty cool now (Funko Pops, etc., will count.)
If you never played Clue, did you ever really have a childhood?
Another cool toy I had was something like this cool tent-like bus. The one I had had separate sections that were detachable. It was super cool.
I know it's not technically a toy, but I used to watch The Land Before Time ALL the time. I still love that show. It's so, so good.

18.) Something that would be helpful for writers.
Just getting started on writing? Writing for Dummies is always a good place to start.
If you're writing (especially on a computer), you're gonna eventually need some Advil, whether it's from writer's block or a headache from staring at the computer screen too long.
I know it might not be considered useful, but I always thought an ink pen was super cool to have, especially for writers.

19.) Something related to your current obsession, whatever that may be.
I don't know why, but I suddenly really like Harley Quinn's character. I've been getting, like all the Funko Pops of her. I have a problem.
Oh gosh, you shouldn't have asked. I finally finished catching up to The Walking Dead, and now I want everything Negan related. Like, seriously, I just bought a bloody Lucille of my own. Someone stop me. Anyway, here's a cute little Lucille keychain that I've never seen before.
Another thing I really like is Kylo Ren, but I think you already know that. This BrickHeadz is adorable.

20.) Something that is just so random and weird that it makes you laugh.
This oh my gosh i am dying.
Also idk why but just the lady's posture and the huge heckin' bear is k i l l i n g me.
I don't know how I stumbled upon this weirdass thing but the more I look at it the funnier it is.

Also, this whole thing took me like an hour but it was so much fun. Thanks for the contest!

u/xenomouse · 3 pointsr/writing

This is going to sound like really flippant advice, but I swear it's not: buy this book. There is a lot of basic stuff you need to know - how to build character and setting and plot, how to outline, and yes, how to market and publish - and this will spell it all out a lot better than any of us could do in a short post on Reddit. It is definitely an intro book, so it's not like this is all you'll ever need, but it's a good place to start, get your bearings, and figure out what you need to focus on next.

When you do figure that out, there are tons of books dedicated to everything from plot structure and scene structure to dialogue and character arcs; buy those too. Use them to improve your craft and fill in your gaps.

Also, read! Read a lot. Pay attention to how the authors you love set a scene, how they describe things (and to what extent), how they structure their chapters and scenes, how they write dialogue. All books contain real, solid examples for you to study and learn from. Figure out what you admire, and mimic it. Figure out what you hate, and avoid it.

And last, keep in mind that your writing probably won't be amazing right away, and you might have to rethink and rewrite your book a few times as you're learning (or maybe even start a new one) before you really feel like you've gotten the hang of it. Don't give up, just keep learning and keep working.

u/Heather_VT · 3 pointsr/AppalachianTrail

As mentioned, you should definitely get the latest AT guidebook. You may also enjoy reading Becoming Odyssa, Grandma Gatewood's Walk, and AWOL on the Appalachian Trail. I would also highly recommend Walking With Wired's 2014 AT blog.

u/jennifer1911 · 3 pointsr/running

Fantastic. I love audiobooks while running. I listened to a good part of Stephen King's 11/22/63 during an ultra last year which was great, and I've been listening to them during training runs for a few years now.

My favorites to listen to while running:
Scott Jurek's Eat and Run. It is kind of fun to listen to a runner talk about running while you are running.

AWOL on the Appalachain Trail. Really great book about a journalist's experience in thru-hiking the AT.

Robert Kurson's Pirate Hunters really surprised me. Nonfiction book about treasure/wreck diving. I was mildly interested the topic before I started listening to the book but now it is a favorite subject of mine.

The Martian. I can't say enough about the audiobook - the story is great and the audiobook makes the experience so much greater.

The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler, of course. Great, atomospheric noir. One of the first audiobooks I ever purchased. Engaging and makes you forget the miles.

u/unorthodox-solutions · 3 pointsr/asktrp

Go vagabonding. You, a backpack, a bit of cash, no plans.

You'll have enough stories for a lifetime, and you'll live the fantasy of women who obsess over cute, glossy, travel pics on social media (~99%).

u/order66survivor · 3 pointsr/self

I don't think a two week vacation is going to cut it. If that's the case, read this and start thinking about it.

Also, your SO and family probably do not want you to be miserable. People can tell and life is way too short to pretend to be happy.

u/palehorset · 3 pointsr/travel
u/_mvmnt_ · 3 pointsr/minimalism

Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman, Yvon Chouinard's book that's kind of about building the business that is the Patagonia we know today, but is a lot more about his philosophies and ideologies and how we can all be better and do better for our planet.

Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel. A fairly short book that's not some abstract ideas or a story about traveling the world (that's Marco Polo Didn't Go There, which is also fantastic), but an actual how to book on doing it. It helped me, and has helped people I've given the book to, understand that extensive travel isn't just for the ultra wealthy, it is easy to do and achievable for everyone if you make travel your priority.

u/BlessBless · 3 pointsr/IWantOut

Will start by throwing a few into the ring:

The Beach by Alex Garland - While its plot is certainly limited with regard to imitability, it offers a very interesting perspective on the types of people you meet in the more interesting places you'll travel.

Vagabonding by Rolf Potts - A quintessential nonfiction guide for anyone who's considering traveling long term. It's preachy in places, but it'll fire you up to get moving.

Off the Rails in Phnom Penh by Amit Gilboa - You'll see this one being sold by street children in Phnom Penh often, but it's not too hard to find a copy anywhere else. A really great, enjoyable view of expat life in Phnom Penh.

Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac - On the Road is, of course, the standard American road novel, and Jack's most famous, but the Dharma Bums offers a really unique perspective on travel - that of a spiritual nature.

The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner - Another highly enjoyable read by an author who travels to the world's most purported "happy" countries. Great take on the subject area.

u/mossyskeleton · 3 pointsr/tangentiallyspeaking

In the spirit of Chris Ryan I'll recommend the book Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel, if you're in the mood for non-fiction.

u/lustre12 · 3 pointsr/reddit.com

As a traveller/tourist, I've always tried to stay AWAY from tourist areas, haha. I have friends who go to the Bahamas, for example, and won't leave their resort/casino. My personal best experiences have been in the local communities; you tend to stand-out more (obviously), but people are more curiouse than malicious towards you.

Of course, though, do your homework! Go to traveller's forums, read books, do your research.
May I also recommend this book Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel

u/Heliopolitan · 3 pointsr/worldbuilding

There's always Mark Rosenfelder's The Planet Construction Kit

u/GrantG42 · 3 pointsr/scifiwriting

Maybe it's because you're overambitious. "Realistic reasons for everything existing" sounds to me like you might have too much going on for a first novel. I would personally look more at what the characters and the world need and then give them that stuff rather than giving them stuff and trying to figure out a reason why they have it.

You should definitely check out /r/worldbuilding if you haven't already because I think they concern themselves more specifically with this type of problem and there are plenty of pointers to have there even if you're not very interested in fictional maps, which make up a big part of the content there.

edit:

Ty Franck & Daniel Abraham talk worldbuilding: http://youtu.be/sCsPtUo91B0

A worldbuilding guide for writers: http://www.amazon.com/World-Building-Science-Fiction-Writing-Stephen/dp/158297134X

u/Wm_Lennox · 3 pointsr/writing

If you can find a writing group that fits your needs, that is probably the best place to go. If you're talking about a specific person as a resource, I would suggest finding a set of books that provides that expertise, since a person who does that with the level of expertise you would need would probably charge a fee. Unless you are able to get references from other writers, there is no guarantee that a fee-based approach would get you advice that was really helpful to you in your chosen genre.

​

Two books that I find are indispensable for your world-building efforts are World Building by Stephen Gillett (https://www.amazon.com/World-Building-Science-Fiction-Writing-Stephen/dp/158297134X) and Aliens and Alien Societies by Stanley Schmidt and Ben Bova (https://www.amazon.com/Aliens-Societies-Science-Fiction-Writing/dp/0898797063/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1542787506&sr=1-1&keywords=aliens+and+alien+societies).

​

Best of luck!

u/BeginningDig · 3 pointsr/gradadmissions

r/StatementOfPurpose has lots of examples from other people that you can read, as well as if you search through this sub. I also used https://www.amazon.com/Graduate-Admissions-Essays-Fourth-School/dp/1607743213 this book for help and swapped SOPs with my peers. After a while, you get a feel for it.

u/vakerr · 3 pointsr/european

There was a best-selling book about how anything that matters in the entire German media is controlled by one or the other intelligence agency: Gekaufte Journalisten. English translation is promised for June 2016.

u/mrsfizzleworth · 3 pointsr/eroticauthors

How about something like this:

If you're looking for more control over what your book will look like when published (i.e. page breaks before chapters, special chapter headings, etc.) you will want to look into hand-formatting. Here are a couple of books that go into further detail: Here and here!

u/stiddlepunt · 2 pointsr/GradSchool

I'm a first-year grad student that applied last year using this book as a guide. Part of the book contains great general advice for the different components of your application: finding the right programs, keeping track of deadlines, asking for recommendation letters, etc. But as the title suggests, most of the book is about the entire process of writing a solid personal statement. You start with some brainstorming exercises that eventually lead to compiling your first draft, followed by editing techniques until you get to your final iteration. 50+ example statements are provided, along with commentary that points out good and bad aspects of each one.

That book was easily the best resource I had while applying. I was able to borrow a copy from my local library, but even at the $15 Amazon price it's totally worth the money. It looks the the one I linked you to is a brand new edition that's only a couple months old, so I'd be interested to see what's been updated.

u/Nanolol · 2 pointsr/gradadmissions

Drafting your essays in a Google doc is a great idea. Strongly recommend reading Donald Asher's Graduate Admissions Essays. Tons of tips on how to write your way into the graduate school of your choice, and samples.

u/dynasys · 2 pointsr/gradadmissions

I've read that's more impressive to ask meaningful questions about their research that reflects that you read their recent/prominent work. Although, that's for the PhD track, and it goes with the same mentality that you take the proper steps necessary to ensure this lab is a good fit for you.

I'm not too familiar with the etiquette for master's programs, but I think that these questions:
>...is the program mostly focused on classes?
>Is it possible to continue and get a PhD in the same program if I decide that I want to keep continuing?

...are better directed at the admissions officer of the program, rather than the professor.

I'm referencing this book, which you might find helpful as well: Graduate Admissions Essays
Despite the title, it has a chapter on emailing professors before applying, complete with a template of what you should be sending them.

Good luck! hope that helps c:

u/LivRook · 2 pointsr/eroticauthors

I guess it depends on whether or not you want the program to do the formatting for you.

For example I plot and write in Scrivener but then I strip the story out into a plain text file and format it manually. (It really doesn't take long once you've learnt the basics of html etc.) Once the formatting is done, I shove the html file into Calibre and convert it to epub and mobi.

It sounds like a crazy way to do it, but I don't get any weird formatting issues in my files at all. Check this page out if you think this is the route for you. That guy also has a book - Zen of eBook Formatting which is just a clean version of his blog posts.

HTH :)

u/SklavosChara · 2 pointsr/eroticauthors

> Anyone have tips for formatting?

Oh boy do I! Honestly, for the first few months of shorts, I just did things on Google docs then uploaded a docx file to Amazon. That worked fine and looked okay and let me focus on what was important: writing more shorts.

If you want to get fancy there's a bunch of way to go: you can use Scrivener, apparently, as you're doing. If you have a Mac and want them to look really pretty you can get a program called Vellum (there are ways to get it on your PC, too, by simulating a Mac, if you really want Vellum). The two programs I've heard mentioned for Windows (or Mac) are Jutoh and Sigil.

Finally, if you want to invest a fair amount of time learning stuff, don't get frustrated very easily, and want complete control over your books, you can do something called hand formatting. That's where you go in and use HTML to make your manuscript look nice. I just learned how to do this and find it quiet satisfying. Check out A Filthy Book in a Fancy Dress by Cooper Kegel and Zen of eBook Formatting by Guido Henkel. Henkel also has a series of blog posts if you want a quick overview of what you're getting into. Both of the books are free to read with Kindle Unlimited though, I believe, and you can get a free month of KU if you're not already signed up. It's quite useful for doing market research anyway.

But, anyway, if your just getting started I'd say: just make it look nice in a Word doc and upload that.

P.S. I don't really know what I'm talking about. Just repeating what I've learned so far.

u/CaptainGatos · 2 pointsr/gradadmissions
  1. Apply to graduate courses to take in the summer (either online or in class) as a non-matriculated student. Get As. This will show that you can handle the workload and are taking the application process seriously - it also helps if you don't have a lot of research experience. (Bonus points if it's at a SUNY/CUNY school.) Many Summer I sessions start at the end of May or early June.

  2. Address your low undergrad GPA in your statement of purpose in a way that shows how you've learned and can ensure your success in a master's program. Don't dwell on it, but they do want to see how you've grown and how you've applied it to your life since then.

  3. Your GRE is already good, to make sure you write a smashing SOP. Graduate Admissions Essays by Donald Asher is a really helpful book on this, it also describes a lot of the "ins and outs" of applying to grad school.

  4. Get strong references. Your academic ones probably won't be great, so if you can get stronger in-field references it would be helpful. That book I mentioned above has a checklist on what to discuss with a potential reference to that they can write you the best recommendation possible.

  5. If your current job doesn't deal with non-profit leadership, then it would be incredibly helpful to find a volunteer position within those lines.

    SUNY and CUNY schools are heavily researched-based, and some of their programs are just as competitive as any other state system. It might be worth looking into CUNY EMBA programs if they are available (they are more expensive, but have more to do with making new connections and gaining experience rather than heavy research.)
u/munificent · 2 pointsr/writing
u/lost_and_founder · 2 pointsr/writing

Excellent resource!

I get similar "ew, no" reactions when I recommend Josh Schimel's book Writing Science to fiction writers, even though that's one of the best-researched and most concise books on writing I've yet come across.

Definitely adding this article to my library.

u/Old_Army90 · 2 pointsr/neoliberal

Yeah, it's strictly a biography, but it's still very worth checking out just because the guy was such an evil and relentless slimeball. If you wanted something more about the phenomenon/psychology itself you could check out something like this (but keep in mind who the author is)

u/TheHellion · 2 pointsr/Libri

> Volevo sapere se conoscete un libro per imparare a scrivere

Ti consiglio di cercare su /r/writing/ (e sugli altri subreddit dedicati alla scrittura che sono linkati da /r/writinghub) perché spesso ho visto dei consigli su libri dedicati alla scrittura creativa, anche se al momento non ti saprei dire quali fossero.

Personalmente ne ho letti parecchi di libri simili, ma me ne sono piaciuti (moderatamente) soltanto due: questo e questo. Purtroppo non credo ne esista una traduzione italiana.

> volevo lanciare un'idea di poter creare anche sun sub in italiano

Ogni volta che viene creato un nuovo subreddit in italiano, una buona parte degli utenti di /r/italy si lamenta del fatto che già si è in pochi e creando nuovi subreddit ci si frammenta ancora di più.

Se preferisci, crealo, ma per quanto mi riguarda i racconti originali sono i benvenuti qui su /r/Libri.

u/EncasedMeats · 2 pointsr/writing
u/OriginalZombie · 2 pointsr/explainlikeimfive

In the book "Stiff" They talk about this. Apparently, a brain transplant was performed with a monkey. Thing is, as sotek pointed out in another comment "When we transplant other organs, we mainly have to reconnect tubes (blood vessels, intestine, etc.)" So when they transplanted this monkey brain, they didn't connect it to anything except the blood vessels in this other monkey.

So it's kind of like plugging in a gaming system to a powersource and turning it on, but not connecting the monitor or the controls. The brain was "on" and alive, but no information was going in or out of it because all the nerves had been severed. They had an EEG connected to it, so they knew thoughts were being produced and the brain was still alive, there was just no way to know what exactly was going on. They suspected the monkey brain probably went insane with having no outside stimulation coming in.

u/thatkindofwoman · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers was incredibly humorous and I also learned a lot of gross and interesting facts I can never bring up at dinner parties.

u/bassist_human · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

Stiff, Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

You may want to read this just before Gross Anatomy.

u/tacotaskforce · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

http://www.amazon.com/Stiff-Curious-Lives-Human-Cadavers/dp/0393050939

Everything you've ever wanted to know, and then some, about corpses.

u/dnew · 2 pointsr/WTF

> Basically people from Forensics dept's around the world come to America and dig up donated bodies then figure out what killed them..

http://www.amazon.com/Stiff-Curious-Lives-Human-Cadavers/dp/0393050939

Highly recommended book. Amusing, yet dealing with an interesting subject.

u/aphrodite-walking · 2 pointsr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

I would start off with Stiff and then Bonk. I liked Spook but on amazon it doesn't have as good of reviews as the others so I'd read that one later if you aren't as interested in it. I've yet to read packing for mars but if it's anything like her other books, it's wonderful.

u/Supervisor194 · 2 pointsr/singularity

God might be hiding somewhere too. Pixies might. Fairy dust too. Until we come up with something that is provable, however, it's useless speculation. There is not even a shred of proof of anything that even remotely resembles a soul. And I'm not just saying that to be contrary, I really wish there was something. I'm the kind of guy that reads books like Spook - which is a great book, by the way - about the earnest search for... something. It just isn't there.

u/EndOfLine · 2 pointsr/atheism

You might be interested in reading Spook. If basically goes through and takes a look at various beliefs of what happens after people die. It covers near death, ghosts, reincarnation, etc.

u/el_chupacupcake · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

possibly not true. If you read Spook, there's a fascinating conversation with a physicist in which he uses thermodynamics and information theory to argue that your consciousness might not just disappear... instead, it may get "recycled" by the universe. So there may be a sort of afterlife, though not in the "spirits floating around and interacting" sense.

u/AdmiralBane · 2 pointsr/JUSTNOMIL

I think your MIL needs this. Just sayin'.

u/videoj · 2 pointsr/writing

I suggest reading some good books on writing novels. Writing Fiction for Dummies is a great place to start

u/dougbdl · 2 pointsr/WildernessBackpacking

I have always liked AWOL on the Appalachian Trail.

u/hopeinson · 2 pointsr/malaysia

You will not get an appropriate response from denizens here, I suggest that you read this book instead; that way, you will not be buggered into further derision.

u/hulahulagirl · 2 pointsr/suggestmeabook

Vagabonding by Rolf Potts.

u/jaksiemasz · 2 pointsr/travel

I recently read Vagabonding by Rolf Potts, it was pretty interesting.

It's about traveling not a story about travelling though. If you travel a lot you may have already experienced some of what he talks about.

u/Gorill_a · 2 pointsr/books

Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel It isn't fiction... but I can't think of anything else more inspiring to world travel.

u/grohlog · 2 pointsr/personalfinance

Definitely long term travel. It could probably help you grow more as a person than a semester of a graduate program.
What is your experience with statistics and what are you looking to do with it? There are excellent online modules (I've heard anyway, my stats knowledge came from school) that you can definitely utilize while working at your own pace (even at work during downtime). R is the statistics program/language that is currently most well respected in the statistics community, and it's free. R isn't even really taught in a lot of academic programs as far as I know, all the people I know who are proficient in it taught themselves.

edit: This is a great book about long term travel, he's also done some podcasts https://www.amazon.com/Vagabonding-Uncommon-Guide-Long-Term-Travel/dp/0812992180/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541349629&sr=8-1&keywords=rolf+potts

u/gonapster · 2 pointsr/travel

you should read Vagabonding.
The book is not long and it has everything you ever need to know. It was eye opener for me :D

u/PaperCloud10 · 2 pointsr/UBC

Could everyone add a quote from the book they're reading? A good quote could draw my interest. Helps me find new stuff to read!

As for myself, I'm currently on Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel. Here are a couple of quotes from said book:

"We need sometimes to escape into open solitudes, into aimlessness, into the moral holiday of running some pure hazard, in order to sharpen the edge of life, to taste hardship, and to be compelled to work desperately for a moment no matter what."

"In this way, vagabonding is like a pilgrimage without a specific destination or goal— not a quest for answers so much as a celebration of the questions, an embrace of the ambiguous, and an openness to anything that comes your way."

u/classicrando · 2 pointsr/exmormon

> I'll never meet a guy that will love me back. There's no one that's remotely interested in me. I'm too awkward. Even if I did find a guy, he'd probably leave me anyway.

I lived in SF for a long time and I can tell you that people of all stripes and levels of awkwardness find love, I saw it all the time.

The people at Pixar say things get better:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a4MR8oI_B8

As for your parents, people find comfort in having scapegoats and people who are followers tend to listen to leaders who are happy to supply scapegoats - in the past (US) it was the Irish, Italians, Chinese, Polish, etc nowadays for rednecks it is the immigrants, for flag wavers it is ISIS, for Mormons it is the gays. One way to think of these people is morally immature and easily lead astray by the authority figures they rely on to tune their moral compass. You have to be the bigger man. In this case, yes they are torturing you but it is because they think it is what they are supposed to do. Success is your best revenge.

As far as jobs or education here is a secret - being a middle manager or something is not necessarily more rewarding than being a barista. Honor and fulfillment come from how you conduct your life and how you treat others. Chop wood, carry water there is much to be said for humility and simplicity. You can learn more for free from the best schools in the world on iTunes University than you could at BYU.
https://diyscholar.wordpress.com/guide-to-itunesu/

"Do not let yourself be guided by the authority of the sacred texts, nor by simple logic, nor by appearance or opinion, nor even by the teachings of your master; when you know in yourself that something is bad, then give it up, and accept the good and follow it." -Buddha

You are stuck in a place where people live in a very small bubble and they all believe it is real, it is not and there are many amazing and fulfilling things out there that you should try out before you kill yourself. Here are just three books with alternative ideas about spirituality, philosophy and jobs - you can stop living live exclusively from the POV of the Mormon bubble without letting anyone else know that you are doing it - for now while you are still in prison, once you are out you can be your own man.

http://www.amazon.com/Chop-Wood-Carry-Water-Fulfillment/dp/0874772095
http://www.amazon.com/Wabi-Sabi-Artists-Designers-Poets-Philosophers/dp/0981484603
http://www.amazon.com/Vagabonding-Uncommon-Guide-Long-Term-Travel/dp/0812992180

u/ychromosome · 2 pointsr/AdviceAnimals

Here's something I read in Rolf Pott's Vagabonding that's so obvious, but most of us don't think about: there are people living frugal, yet comfortable, lives almost everywhere in the world. When you visit the place, if you adopt some of the local practices of frugality, your trip suddenly becomes a lot cheaper than you would have imagined when you were thinking of yourself as just a typical a tourist.

The main cost of world travel is the airfare for getting to the place. Once you reach there, you can do as the locals do (who are usually poorer than the average American) and have yourself a frugal trip, without sacrificing the awesome experiences of world traveling.

The book also goes on to say that as a world traveler, you can travel cheap and save your money for an occasional splurge on something unique, than waste it on routine stuff like staying in expensive tourist hotels and eating in tourist restaurants all the time.

I highly recommend that book.

u/mice_nine · 2 pointsr/travel

Ok, I had a similar trip, here's a few tips and tricks:

  1. Take a normal sized backpack like a school backpack. No flags, try not to look too American. Use a small zipper lock. Have your passport and credit cards in a money belt under your clothes. Carry a front pocket wallet.

  2. ATMs will generally give you a better exchange rate. Traveler's cards are good too. Airport exchanges are usually worst

    3)Overnight trains are fine. A little loud, a little bumpy but cheaper than a hotel for a night and you're not missing out on day travel time. I say they're worth it but you miss some countryside so just play it by ear.

  3. Try not to plan day by day too much. You'll know when it's time to leave.

  4. Learn a couple key phrases. If you're honest and genuine people will take the time to communicate with you.

    Other than that, have fun good luck, I recommend Vagabonding by Ralph Potts. Lots of great advice.

    http://www.amazon.com/Vagabonding-Uncommon-Guide-Long-Term-Travel/dp/0812992180
u/icouldbesurfing · 2 pointsr/vagabond

Not sure if this has been posted, but I found this book to be one of tremendous inspiration for my travels.

u/macjoven · 2 pointsr/ADHD

>Wish I could work my ass off for 2 years straight on Vyvanse and earn enough money to "chill" for 6 months and unravel my mind or something.

You may enjoy this blog: Mister Money Mustache which talks about how to do exactly this thing. Also Timothy Ferris' book The Four Hour Work Week. Ooo also: Vagabonding by Ralph Potts is even more precisely what you are looking for.

In short there are a lot of ways to live and if you think of a "weird" way to do it, chances are someone else has too and written a book or blog about it.

u/Soss · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

Read Vagabonding

Great resource for the whole 'drop my current life to start a new one' mentality, even though it involves mainly travelling the world, not setting up shop somewhere.

u/Gingor · 2 pointsr/AskMen

Look for Vagabonding in Google, there's a fair amount of stuff on the subject.

This is a book on the topic I've only heard good things about.

The basics are: Get the very best backpack you can (try it on first), carefully think about what you really need in terms of clothing (consider the climate you want to be in), at least learn a bit of the language of where you want to be and then look for some hobo-tips on how to avoid most stab-wounds (also, try to look like a tourist instead of a hobo).

Dumpster-diving can also help greatly as it means less money is needed for food.

u/WhoresIsland · 2 pointsr/electronic_cigarette

Absolutely! Check it out if you haven't. I got mine for like 8 bucks on Amazon!

u/ibleedblu7 · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

My list:




u/Canlurker · 2 pointsr/travel

Get this book http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0812992180. I wish I would have read this book before I went to Thailand.

u/FaroutIGE · 2 pointsr/AskReddit
u/capturedmuse · 2 pointsr/writing

http://www.scribophile.com

Scrivener

Pinterest

Aside from this subreddit I find https://www.reddit.com/r/Writers_Block/ and their discord helpful.

Edit: I also found these two books very helpful for outlining and checking my novel structure. I got them both on Kindle and read them religiously.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978924622/ref=r_soa_w_d

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00EJX08QA/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=

u/NotModusPonens · 2 pointsr/worldbuilding

You may want to read the Planet Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder.

u/daisuke1639 · 2 pointsr/conlangs

Language building and world building go hand in hand in my opinion. The world, its geography, history, politics, culture, flora and fauna, all and more inspire uniqueness in languages.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0984470034/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_op7Pub04GQYCT

This is a book I got for christmas. It's a fantastic read for conworlding.

u/EerieTreeNavalMan · 2 pointsr/communism

What convinced me was how US media talks about Latin America. I'm Brazilian and that's a little fundamental to my understanding.

First is the deep understanding of how problematic media is. Here in Brazil we have some sort of major monopoly by Globo. They are not exactly Fox News but they are able to change mainstream opinion quite easily.

Since the major riots from 2013 I have been noticing more and more how media very slowly would create narratives and enforce points of view.

The absolute maximum happened in 2016 during Dilma's impeachment.

The central political place of Brazil, our "Washinton DC" would be Brasília. And all the political class is within the Esplanada.

Esplanada is quite huge, it was made really wide so any kind of protest made wouldn't look big like in other places from the country, like Avenida Paulista, the most important place in São Paulo, the financial capital of Brazil.

During Dilma's impeachment, the country was split in two, and the Esplanada was divided in two to acomodate pro-impeachment and against-impeachment protests. I mean literally divided in two with a fence.

If you're not updated on Brazilian politics, Dilma was indeed impeached, and mainstream midia used this kinda of image during the impeachment to talk how the pro impeachment crowd was bigger.

The problem is that we have aerial evidence about the event. The anti-impeachment was clearly bigger.

I know this sounds conspiratory, maybe even a minor detail in a bigger picture. But it's with these small details that you start to notice that the midia has their own agenda. It's not so left or right, it's capital.

After these events I started reading about more leftism, started hanging out in anarchist spaces and eventually finding myself reading Marx and other Marxists authors, like Adorno, Paulo Freire and Gramsci. Basically every time any Brazilian politician made any sort of criticism about any Marxist author, I'd try to read it.

But there's a particular author that I read before turning communist that can explain all of this midia control in a more -dare I say- liberal way:

Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky.

There's also an Al Jazeera video that serves as a nice introduction to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34LGPIXvU5M

It's good to remember that while the main author (Chomsky) is not a major Marxist scholar, the propaganda model is basically a reflection of capital power.

And while Chomsky founded the concepts, it's Alan MacLeod's work that should make Americans open their eyes. He wrote the book "Bad News from Venezuela: Twenty years of fake news and misreporting", and while I haven't read it, he did an amazing AMA on Reddit, with tons of solid evidence showing how news outlets would print misinformed news, specially because journalist felt like they were fighting the evil dictator Maduro.

When I connected the Brazilian impeachment situation and the writings about how the media misrepresents Venezuela made me realize how imperialism works in South America and how powerful media really is when it comes to shape our perception of the real world.

Fast forward to today. The same midia managed to elect a fascist using a gigantic anti-Worker's Party discourse, which include half leaks of illegal recordings of Dilma's telephone and so much drama and plot twists that many Brazilian feel that House of Cards is just too simple compared to our situation.

I'm not even sure we will have another election.

But I'm sure we will have resistance! =)

u/DooDooDoodle · 2 pointsr/tucker_carlson

Here are some of the interviews he's done on the topic if you're interested.

http://freakonomics.com/2011/08/08/tim-groseclose-author-of-left-turn-answers-your-questions/


>Last week we solicited your questions for Tim Groseclose, a political science professor at UCLA and author of the new book, Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind. The response was fast and furious. A total of 149 questions (and counting) have been posted in the comments section. We selected 14 of them for Groseclose to answer, and he obliged us quite promptly. As always, thanks to all for participating.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1EQiKq_J1s


https://www.amazon.com/Left-Turn-Liberal-Distorts-American/dp/1250002761

u/liatris · 2 pointsr/Conservative

Ha, good luck winning a war after they have voluntarily disarmed themselves and flocked to cities with no independent sources of food. What will they use as weapons, vegan burgers and plastic Guy Fawkes masks?

The Dems have no solution, only identity politics. The problem is with the 24/7 news cycle the public is getting overdosed with this kind of predictable attack. I don't think the Zimmerman thing and Ferguson thing helped the left at all, both instances made them look like reactionary idiots. The War on Women thing is also wearing pretty thin, the race card is dog-earred all they really have are the young people but liberals aren't reproducing so that's going to dry up as well. We've already seen demographic shifts concerned abortion due in a large part to the fact pro-life people have more kids and pass those values on.

You might enjoy this book, the author and economist, makes the claim, and backs it up that the media basically pulls the country about 25 points to the left. Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind - Tim Groseclose

Here he is on Freakonomics discussing his model.

transcript

Listener questions with Groseclose

u/chub79 · 2 pointsr/books
u/Chilangosta · 2 pointsr/worldbuilding

Two of my favorites, from two of the all-time best science fiction writers:

How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card

World-Building by Stephen L. Gillett and Ben Bova

Both look at it from more of a writing standpoint, but they're great resources for RPGers or hobbyists too.

u/kzielinski · 2 pointsr/atheism

> Is this a theory of yours, or is it contributed to elsewhere?

There is plenty of literature out there on it, don't know any online references off the top of my head though. This book has a good basic coverage. Note this is a book about writing realistic Science Fiction, so it does talk about what we think is plausible and what we think isn't. And looks at things like known abundance of various elements.

u/corsica1990 · 2 pointsr/Astronomy

Can't offer consultation myself, but check out Artifexian's YouTube channel. He does a lot of worldbuilding tips based on known science and offers handy equations to allow you to ballpark exact specs, like distance from the parent star and whatnot.

A book that was helpful to me was World-Building by Stephen L. Gillet. Very math heavy and maybe no longer current thanks to how quickly exoplanet science is evolving, but it gets really deep into the mechanics, moreso than Artifexian.

u/WordsfromtheWoods · 1 pointr/writing

I prescribe these two books for you to read in this order:

Writing Tools: 55 Essential Strategies for Every Writer

  1. https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Tools-Essential-Strategies-Writer/dp/0316014990

    On Writing Well, 25th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction

  2. https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-25th-Anniversary-Nonfiction/dp/0060006641/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539787015&sr=1-4&keywords=on+writing+well

    Read these two books carefully and apply the advice to your own writing.

    Good luck.
u/EditDrunker · 1 pointr/writing

1.) Your courses will give you enough of a reading list to keep yourself busy; I wouldn't try to cram in too much more, at least not during the school year. I'd check out How to Read Literature Like a Professor if you find yourself struggling with your classes, and On Writing Well and Elements of Style if you're struggling with your essays.

2.) I wish I'd done something non-writing related. I had internships and work study positions and worked for the campus newspaper and all of that stuff so I almost got... burned out? on writing and books. It took a little while to recover.

3.) Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping was great. I also had a class where the only book we read was Ulysses. I wouldn't have been able to make myself read that book without a semester long class, but I'm glad that I did. Now I never have to again.

4.) Learn how to skim your readings. If you've got a couple hundred pages of reading each week, there just aren't enough hours to do it all.

5.) See #2

6.) See #1. Also: go to office hours. I know professors can seem intimidating, but they don't want you to fail. Most of them are just sitting there during their office hours, twiddling their thumbs.

u/remembertosmilebot · 1 pointr/writing

Did you know Amazon will donate a portion of every purchase if you shop by going to smile.amazon.com instead? Over $50,000,000 has been raised for charity - all you need to do is change the URL!

Here are your smile-ified links:

On Writing Well

Elements of Style

Thrill Me

Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft

---

^^i'm ^^a ^^friendly bot

u/Smgth · 1 pointr/DiamondHunt

Heh, it's a hell of a lot easier to write walls of text. Anyone can take a dozen sentences to say something, but taking one to say the same thing it's trickier. Most aren't willing to put in the effort. And some people are just naturally verbose....butI'm sure my education didn't hurt my ability to write. I got a degree in philosophy which was basically "Write a hundred papers about a subject you don't really understand in such a way you can convince someone you do". As a writing exercise, it's pretty useful. If I learned anything from my years in college, it's how to argue, which comes down to writing cogently. Well, it also gave me the tools to win arguments the wrong way, with sophistry. Which I kind of delight in doing. It's like being given powers and using them for evil...

I always intended to write, but then my chronic illness came along and with it went my ability to concentrate well and most of my motivation (case in point, I just had to look up "motivation" because I couldn't remember the word). As far as writing goes, I say work from the ground up. Get something like this or this. Just my personal opinion, but I believe it's all about a good foundation. But you know what works best for you. The only other advice I'd give is just keep doing it. Like anything else, the best way to get good is practice. Even if the piece it isn't up to your standards it's a step.

God, fucking star signs. People are willing to believe the STUPIDEST shit. So everyone born in the same hospital as me at the same time should have identical lives and personalities? Yeah, evidence REALLY bears that out...garbage.

I'm a firm believer in the jack of all trades as a lifestyle choice. I find too many different things interesting to pick one and ignore the rest. I mean, almost all of the things I'm interested in would fall under "Academia", but so many different fields are fascinating. I don't think it's a character flaw, but then again, I wouldn't, since I'm right there with you. It's not indecisive if you find many things interesting yet none interesting enough to choose. You've chose the many over the one, a completely valid choice.

Ah, yeah, my parents were pretty lax too. Very few hard and fast rules. Probably kept me hanging around longer, but I also just really like both of my parents.

I've read a bit about mormonism, and how "The Temple" is super reserved for the elites. I've also driven past the one in DC with the overpass preceding it saying "Surrender Dorothy" because it looks like fricking Oz. I'd heard about people getting married in the temple but a lot of their family couldn't attend because they didn't count as "Mormons in good standing." Crazy. Not very "community" oriented at that point. I also remember seeing this youtube video of a guy who got pretty far up in the hierarchy before losing faith and he showed a bunch of the weird behind the scenes stuff. There's this whole ceremony with a LITERAL "secret handshake" and everyone is robed and your blindfolded. SO masonic. Interesting stuff.

I think "Humanist" sounds kinda....hippy dippy. It certainly doesn't imply "spiritual" in anyway. And certainly not compared to "Deist" which clearly posits a god from the word go. The lines between ALL spirituality branches are pretty blurry. I mean, on the whole, the big three religions are worshiping the same guy, the arguments merely boil down to how. And every religion basically says "There's a god and he wants you to be good" with the rest being window dressing.

u/lIamachemist · 1 pointr/chemistry

There are some good book resources if you want to take the time to read through them. Schimel's Writing Science: How to Write Papers That Get Cited and Proposals that Get Funded seems pretty well recommended on Amazon.

u/tuffety · 1 pointr/biology

Reading journal articles is a good start but be careful because there are many poorly written published articles out there.

A book that could be really helpful is Writing Science - I haven't read it all personally but my supervisor outlined the major points in it before I started writing my thesis and it had some really good advice.

https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Science-Papers-Proposals-Funded/dp/0199760241

u/Schmallory · 1 pointr/GradSchool

We read this book in a graduate writing seminar I took this semester. It was the first book we read and I thought it had some great ideas on how to develop a writing schedule and stick to it. We followed it with "Writing Science" by Josh Schimel which really gets into the details of how to write WELL, not just a lot. It's much more dense but worth looking into if you're committed to improving your writing. :)

u/30_rocks · 1 pointr/GradSchool

Take a look at this recent post. There are some good suggestions in there.

I posted in there, but it still applies here: Writing Science: How to Write Papers That Get Cited and Proposals That Get Funded. Great book, easy to read, and I saw great improvement in my writing.

u/Congruesome · 1 pointr/politics

Chris Wallace is the best of them, but his reporting is biased. Check out his interview with Jon Stewart on youtube. Bret Baier is pathetically biased. Shepard Smith has his moments, but none of them are even close to objective. It's not just in the way they present the news, it's the news Fox chooses to present, what it ignores, the terminology used.

Fox is institutionally one-sided, propagandistic, and as I said, Fox viewers are consistently misinformed, under-informed and ignorant when they re polled. Consistently. Dozens of polls, dozens of years. No question.

Watch the documentary Outfoxed. There are examples of many interviews with reporters who worked there.

Why do you think right wing neocons and Republicans always choose Fox to grant interviews exclusively? It's because they get softball questions. Why do people like Sarah Palin and Huckabee and John Kasich and many other GOP politicians end up getting jobs on air at Fox and no where else? Because Fox is biased, and they can be their party hack selves there.

If you don't know this, you don't know anything. Google around you will find endless information to back me up on this, and no credible sources making the case for Fox's impartiality. Look at the myriad conservative assholes who work there. Hannity, O'Reilly, Megan Kelly, those three shitheads in the morning that Douchy guy, the stupid lady and the overgrown mutant five year old, Brian Kilmeade. Look at the management, the megalomaniacal Rupert Murdoch and the party hack Roger Ailes, who brought us Rush Limbaugh.

Why did Rush Limbaugh endlessly promote Fox on his program when it was new? Because it's to "fair and balanced"? No, because it's a biased propaganda machine for conservatives and Republican greedheads.

Studies find that Fox news tells the truth about 18% of the time. On a good day. And here are endless other articles to back up my claim. I haven't parsed them all, so there may be some opinion pieces in there, but my point is undeniable. They include sources like th Temple foundation, Pew Research, Quora, NY Times, Brookings Institute and so on. there
s just no question about this.

A video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrWGgBKv8go

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/tv/fox/

http://www.alternet.org/story/154875/the_science_of_fox_news%3A_why_its_viewers_are_the_most_misinformed

http://guides.temple.edu/fake

https://forwardprogressives.com/fact-checking-site-finds-fox-news-tells-truth-18-percent-time/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_controversies

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/14/five-facts-about-fox-news/

http://www.politicususa.com/2013/07/08/fair-balanced-fraud-exposed-94-fox-news-viewers-republicans.html

http://aattp.org/university-professor-do-not-use-fox-news-as-a-source/

http://csweb.brookings.edu/content/research/essays/2014/bad-news.html

http://www.justice-integrity.org/1094-fox-news-spews-mind-changing-propaganda

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21706498-dishonesty-politics-nothing-new-manner-which-some-politicians-now-lie-and

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cody-cain/how-fox-news-destroyed-republican-party_b_9644594.html

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/1964:fourteen-propaganda-techniques-fox-news-uses-to-brainwash-americans

http://www.salon.com/2016/11/02/peak-propaganda-fox-news-creates-an-alternate-reality-and-cnn-perpetuates-it/

https://www.amazon.com/Fox-Effect-Network-Propaganda-Machine/dp/0307279588









u/olcrazypete · 1 pointr/politics

There are many write ups of this, but the jist of it is coming out of the Nixon admin, a media staffer saw the potential of a news org to swing public opinion. This jr Nixon staffer was named Rodger Ailes and he became a major DC republican operative thru the 80s and 90s. He was the head of Fox from its beginning in the late 90s until 2016 when he was ousted in a sex scandal and died later that year - all the while advising the Trump campaign right up until his death.
Can read about it here in much more detail or on many sites online. The key is to look into the career and goals of Rodger Ailes. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307279588/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_oncxCb6CR3D5K

u/Bilbo_Fraggins · 1 pointr/DebateAChristian

> We have regulated ourselves out of being competitive on the global market.

And you think those other developed countries all have less regulation? Pull the other one.

>Is it because of our libertarian tendencies?

Yes, it is. The murder rates and most of the health outcomes have had had rigerous studies done that show causation by income inequality. I have not researched the rest, but the correlation between income inequality and those outcomes is really strong at minimum.

The most striking is work done on religiosity and income inequality that demonstrates not only does income inequality drive religiosity, but that it seems to be used by the rich as a tool to oppress the poor.

This is what FOX News and other right wing talk radio is for: It's not to give you real power, it's to keep you scared of other lower class people and servile to the desires of the rich. They use fear, patriotism, and religion as means of control, which they have admitted themselves in candid moments. Now, liberals sometimes do the same, and nobody in media is perfect, but nobody else is as shameless about flat out lying and denying science for political gain as FOX.

I urge you to research for yourself what the data actually says about how to make a great society. A decrease of fear and war-mongering is another byproduct of actually knowing the data.

Your desires to make a better society are good. Make sure that they are based on reality, or you will do real harm instead.


> Seems like the further away from our roots we have legislated the worse off we have become. Of course its hard to establish causality when we spend so much of our collective wealth to wage war. Maybe the corporation that benefits from these wars should pay to feed the poor.

Maybe corporate should. In just about every other developed country, corporate taxes pay for a significant part of healthcare costs. Where to most efficiently raise or save money and how to use it most effectively is a much more nuanced discussion, and is the the one we should be having instead of the one we are.

The radicalization of News and discourse in general has stopped us from having the real discussions we should be having by lying about the true nature of our problems, and often denying we have problems at all. We have real problems, the shape of the solutions is well known, and the main problem is that the rich have shown they can buy enough denial and fear to drown out the discussions we need to be having to create a better, more prosperous, more safe, less warmongering USA.

u/ow1977 · 1 pointr/funny

It has been written: the fox effect

u/blue58 · 1 pointr/writing

My answer has mixed opinions at this board, but the fact is a professional writer needs to have a strong grasp of business sense to keep from being torn apart by vultures, especially trad publishing vultures. The contracts are stuff of legend and getting worse. Read every last word of this blog to catch up on the situation.
This page is very helpful too.

So what that means is, the better your business and marketing chops, the more you'll have in your toolbox to deal with everything that comes with being a writer. We don't just sit back and collect checks. There's marketing, contract know-how, and strategic decisions to make whether indie or trad. You have to know how to make your own website, strike up your own social media, and make sure no one is stabbing you in the back.

English lit? A skeptic here. Read the classics. Read the books in the syllabus. But major on it? One of the biggest complaints I read on the tubes is how college classes skew prose into such a pretzel that the only thing they teach is how to be obscure. I mean, I guess it depends on who you want your audience to be. People who turn their noses up at even well-written, people-accessible genre books? Or people who want to become enveloped in a story that transcends their everyday life?

Do I think you should be well-read? Fuck. Yeah. Am I slamming the classics? Not on whole. Do I think it's a shame profs aren't teaching basic plot structure during the entire curriculum? Oh yes.

One of the three links I gave you directly above (Immediate Fiction) was written by a man who was FURIOUS after he graduated from college and realized he still knew jack-shit about writing a book.

u/silverforest · 1 pointr/IWantToLearn

Immediate Fiction. Grab a copy. Read it cover-to-cover. He gets past all of the cruft and boils writing down to its essentials.

u/Lorimor · 1 pointr/AskReddit

Go read this book. I could care less what happens to my body. I'm gone. Same for you regardless of your beliefs your are done with your body when you die. Maybe somebody else can use parts. Become an organ donor and know that someday you may help someone after you're gone.

u/ohhstuffnfluff · 1 pointr/AskReddit

If any of you are further interested in the topic of burials and how we treat the dead, eco-friendly options, and/or the tradition of burial, I HIGHLY suggest Stiff, by Mary Roach. I had to read this for a Anthropology of Death class in college. It is an amazing read. Good stuff.

u/EnviousDan · 1 pointr/WTF

I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about this and the history of cadavers/medicine/ethic of the dead while NOT being a med student. Highly humorous at times and very informative.

u/cutiepatootieadipose · 1 pointr/booksuggestions
u/memnalar · 1 pointr/horror

Good book. Love Mary's stuff. Stiff is also great.

u/funny_username · 1 pointr/atheism

You can donate your face so aspiring plastic surgeons can reconstruct your dead nose -- see book Stiff. I want to be composted. I used to want my corpse dropped in an active volcano from a helicopter but that's totally impractical, probably not legal (but you can probably chop my parts up and get away with it).... not to mention it's such a to-do for someone who doesn't really think about the afterlife too much. Composting though, that sounds useful. David Cross will do this

u/sheemwaza · 1 pointr/AskReddit

I highly recommend this book -- http://www.amazon.com/Stiff-Curious-Lives-Human-Cadavers/dp/0393050939 -- it's a very well researched discussion of all of the possibilities for cadavers. You'll be quite surprised at what "donating your body to science" can mean. My favorite part was the need for human bodies to calibrate crash-test dummies.

u/geach_the_geek · 1 pointr/biology

I just finished The Emperor of All Maladies and just shortly before that Stiff. I really enjoyed both of them! Emperor is a long read, but well written and very thorough. Stiff is a quick, enjoyable read that's a less academic, but still really interesting. I'm about to start My Sister's Keeper. The PI across the hall recommended it. And I'm reading Introduction to Statistical Thought by Lavine for a class. I added a few of the books other people listed here to my to-read list

u/Wasted-years · 1 pointr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

I want to learn about the afterlife. What happens when you die? What are some of the ideas people have of the afterlife? It's both terrifying and fascinating, but it's something I like to think about. This book would help me tackle the subject with more depth.

u/sc0ttt · 1 pointr/atheism

Fun book! Funny woman investigates scientific studies that have been done on the subject.

http://www.amazon.com/Spook-Science-Afterlife-Mary-Roach/dp/0393329127

u/HalfBurntToast · 1 pointr/MyLittleSupportGroup

Believe me, it makes me a grumpy toast to shell out that much for likely outdated books. At least it's an ebook, though. CTRL+F FTW!

Still working through it, but I'm reading Writing Fiction for Dummies. I found it in my store and was actually pretty surprised. I'm not usually a fan of the quality of Dummies books but this one seems pretty comprehensive so far, if a little geared towards professional writing.

u/cmbel2005 · 1 pointr/writing

A blog about how you start from scratch would be fun. Especially if you keep it up, you will be able to look back on it as a professional years from now and see how far you've come.

For writers of large worlds (I have my own persistent universe for my science fiction), I do recommend one thing: It is possible to have a universe that is TOO big. To avoid drowning your audience is needless details, be sure to learn how all the story elements PLAY TOGETHER. Characters advance the plot. The setting is the world that characters interact with. Characters run into conflict. Plot is all about the conflict. Etc etc .... all story elements are interconnected in every which possible way. If nothing works cohesively together, then you will run into disjointed issues in your writing.

To learn how these story elements are interconnected in a sort of "web-of-storytelling", I've enjoyed the Writing Fiction for Dummies book to help explain the basics. It definitely does NOT cover everything, but it's a good high level view of all story elements. Each element (i.e. plot, setting, characters, dialogue, etc) can and does have its own books by themselves. If you feel you are lacking in a specific element, you can potentially read up further into it.

Your fictional writing courses should help out as well. Again, be aware that you will not learn everything there is to know in your coursework.

I have a disclaimer though: Reading about writing, and taking the time to write are two different things. Do NOT spend a lot of money in hopes that self-help books alone will teach you everything there is to know. Most skill comes from experience and practice. This is where your blog will come into play. It will keep track of how well you improve over time.

You can do it!

u/caesium23 · 1 pointr/writing

I'm a firm believer that learning any skill is a matter of following a simple three step process: 1. Study; 2. Practice; 3. Get feedback. And, of course, repeat until... Well, basically until you die or lose interest. There's always more to learn.

Others have already addressed steps 2 and 3 (ad nauseum), but it's obvious what you're really asking for is resources for step 1, so here are a few of my personal favorites:

  • Bestselling, award-winning fantasy author Brandon Sanderson's lectures at Brigham-Young University. As a full 12 hour university-level writing class, it is one of the best writing resources you'll find anywhere, and it is available free on YouTube. It's focused on fantasy, but a lot (most?) of what he talks about is applicable to any genre.
  • I kinda hate recommending it because of the embarrassing title, but Writing Fiction for Dummies actually provides a pretty thorough overview of the writing process and the choices available to an author, including some options a lot of people don't seem to be aware of (for example, 3rd person objective POV).
  • K.M. Weiland's blog Helping Writers Become Authors is full of great info, especially on character arcs and how to use (her preferred version of) the traditional three-act structure. A little bit prescriptive, so keep a pinch of salt at hand, but you can learn some good techniques from her.
  • Jenna Moreci's YouTube channel. She's a self-published author with two mediocre books under her belt who basically regurgitates the same writing advice you can find on pretty much any other writing blog, but it's still mostly good advice, and I like the blunt, humorous style she presents it in.

    As a bonus, here are my two standard recommendations for where to go when you get to step 3 and are ready for peer critiquing:

  • Scribophile.com is basically a free online critique group. The general atmosphere is friendly, helpful, and gracious. It's based around a karma system that ensures everyone participates in a fair exchange of critique quantity – while that doesn't guarantee a fair exchange of critique quality, it does mean that you can be sure to get some kind of feedback on everything you post (unlike some similar sites, where most stories just get ignored). Also, your work is only accessible to other members, not posted publicly for the entire Internet.
  • r/DestructiveReaders is a subreddit for exchanging critiques with fellow redditors. I haven't actually used this one personally because I'm not comfortable posting my works-in-progress completely publicly, but their description makes a point of expecting in-depth, detailed critiques.
u/Backstop · 1 pointr/starterpacks

> because why wouldn't they hold his job for that

I read a book by a programmer that left his job to hike the Appalachian Trail and got it back when he returned. He didn't have the job "held" for him exactly, but he talked to his boss before he left. The boss agreed there was a slow period coming up where they could be a man down and still do OK, and also that it was going to take them months to hire for the open position. The agreement was basically, we'll hold off on hiring your replacement and you have to apply fresh again when you're back, but I can't see why we'd hire someone else.

I also found the book interesting because at the end he said he was glad he'd done it but he was pretty sure that if he could go back in time he would not choose to do it.

u/FIRExNECK · 1 pointr/AppalachianTrail

[I Hike] (http://www.amazon.com/I-Hike-Lawton-Grinter/dp/0985241500) IMHO paints the best picture of a thru-hike. Though it is not specifically AT, it also has short stories from the CDT and PCT. AWOL on the AT is a decent account of an AT thru-hike.

u/semiskimmedmilk · 1 pointr/worldnews

This story isn't new at all. In fact, it's covered in this rather fine book book by journalist Nick Davies, whose efforts to expose the workings of the Murdoch press and expose the failings of journalism in general (with a focus on British journalism) should be rewarded by everyone buying this book.

Seriously. Do it now.

u/NippleInspector · 1 pointr/videos

Farsisr9k, Yes I do believe that the public shares the blame with the media for turning the “free press” into a cess pit of salacious idiocy. I implore you and anyone who is interested in journalism today to read Flat Earth News by Nick Davies (no affiliation to myself, just a bloody though provoking read  ). By asking tabloid junkies, “true crime” readers and all manner of other CSI watchers to share a smidgeon of the blame I am in no way apologising for Murdoch. He and his followers have done as much lasting damage to the decency of one human being to another as Hitler and the Nazis ever did.
What I was getting at is that the News now markets murder and other horrific events at us like an entertainment product; but we can chose to be entertained by it of not. Please allow yourself to imagine a world where Murdoch and Co don’t “saturate” you and everyone else with their corrupt commercial imperatives… Its not difficult if you try :-)

u/vekko · 1 pointr/AskReddit

I saw this picture in a post in pics about the Romney/Obama divide. I'm not American, but this seems to me to be a form of brainwashing. It implies you're either with us or against us. There is no middle ground for you. I'm sure this kind of poster wouldn't go up in NY or California.

Brainwashing isn't really about strapping you to an electrode machine and shocking you into submission. The real messages that are being sent are far more subtle than that and come from your TV, radio and the internet. Everyone operates with an agenda. The news corporations are there to make a profit. They provide the news that sells. They tell the people what they want to hear. There is a great book called Flat Earth News which goes into great detail about the news is served to largely ignorant public.

u/gonzoisme · 1 pointr/AskReddit

Flat Earth News by Nick Davies. Opened my eyes to the broken state of the global media.

u/gmbiiin · 1 pointr/IWantToLearn

Found the title, the author is actually Rolf Potts.

Here's the amazon link for anyone who stumbles through here interested in the book.

u/el_benhameen · 1 pointr/travel

Also, check out this book. A nice guide/inspiration for the whole getting rid of stuff and focusing on travel thing.

u/devlifedotnet · 1 pointr/Advice

Well certainly if you want to go into the computing/IT side of things an apprenticeship or a degree is pretty much the only way in... there are exceptions, but these rely on more right place right time and a big chunk of luck.

My super responsible advice would be, suck it up, get good grades and go to uni, do a vocational subject (e.g Engineering/ Computer Science) and have a decent standard of living (if nothing special) for the rest of your life. But by the sounds of it you are pretty set on going unconventional and to be honest straight out of school is probably the best time to do it (no immediate responsibilities and a good 30-40 years to sort it all out if you fuck it up first time round), so with that i give you the following...

I'm guessing where you say you're quite good at business, you mean you're doing a Business Studies (or similar) A-Level and are quite good at that? There is a lot of differences between theory and practice... in theory everything is easy if you know what you are doing and you know what everyone else should be doing, but academic studies don't always prepare you for real life situations where people "don't play fair". When it comes to setting up a business, you need a great product and a sizeable client base before you even get started.... and that costs money (or a great deal of time which as you will know is also money).

As for you travelling ambitions they also require money (normally).

Now i think you have two options and i am going to recommend you read two books, one for each option (but you should read them both if you can).

First option, you go travelling shortly after you finish your A-levels. You're the perfect age for cheap labour (i.e bar work, retail market stalls etc) and you move from place to place earning enough to live on as you go. To get an idea of how you can do this with little or no start up funds read Vagabonding by Rolf Potts (non-affiliate amazon link) It is probably one of the best non-fiction books ever written and is regarded by many to be the bible of traveling. You can alway come back and return to the conventional life after that.

The second option, and in my opinion the best option for you is to start your own business... Just be aware that what you have been taught will be geared more towards corporate business with the aim of getting you onto a business based degree so not all of it may apply (although things like accounting will, you still have to be legal, even if unconventional). This is where my second book recommendation comes in. The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss (non-affiliate amazon link). Again this is one of the top semi-educational books ever written, and provides a great framework (not a step by step guide) for building a scalable business with minimal capital and minimal responsibility as well as some interesting anecdotes (i should point out the title is not literal, unfortunately). I would also really recommend listening to his podcast "The Tim Ferris Show" where he does super in depth interviews with the most successful people (from entrepreneurs to sports trainers to motivational speakers) on the planet in terms of behaviour, routines and personal philosophies, as well as the occasional "who would you most like to punch in the face and why?" question, which is always entertaining. very much worth your time to learn what it takes to be successful.

My final point is just picking up on something you mentioned... having a "basic knowledge of most things" is no longer what we call a skill or a talent... it's called google, and everyone has it.... don't use it as a differentiator between you and everyone else.

good luck.

u/HerpDerpison · 1 pointr/travel

That looks like an awesome book, I'll definitely get it. Thanks! In exchange, for any traveler, I highly recommend Vagabonding by Rolf Potts, and also the website Travelfish which was indispensable when I spent a month in Thailand, and it's great for SE Asia in general.

u/zakkyb · 1 pointr/solotravel

Maybe read Vagabonding and see if it helps you visualise your trip

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vagabonding-Rolf-Potts/dp/0812992180

u/snobordin8 · 1 pointr/travel

Vagabonding by Rolf Potts is a great read. He talks about the philosophy of travel quite a bit.

u/Jrfitzny · 1 pointr/financialindependence

Out of college, my sister got a job with Edelweiss Lodge and Resort in Garmisch, Germany.

It's a Department of Defense resort for troops- so she gets awesome benefits, and will be able to retire with pension after 20 years. And they paid for her flight.
http://www.edelweisslodgeandresort.com/employment

Not sure if that helps though. Good luck.

I've also heard that the book Vagabonding by Rolf Potts is pretty useful in this type of situation.

http://www.amazon.com/Vagabonding-Uncommon-Guide-Long-Term-Travel/dp/0812992180/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417675510&sr=8-1&keywords=vagabonding

u/subcosm · 1 pointr/travel

Read Vagabonding by Rolf Potts, as soon as possible. It’s full of useful advice for travel, especially solo travel.

u/10thflrinsanity · 1 pointr/AskReddit

Don't make saving your entire life in your 20s. It's important, sure, but only in balance with everything else, namely travel. It all depends on the lifestyle you want to live when you're old. If you want to be in the millions when you retire, your life will be pretty dull when you're young if you're just making average money, but if you get serious (talk to a financial adviser) about your finances at a reasonable age when say you're 30... you'll have no problem being better off than most who don't. For me, in my late 20s, it's travel, travel, travel. I have a degree in finance, I have a great job right now, but I'm saving up to travel long-term (1+ years) throughout central and south america in just over a year, will possibly teach English abroad elsewhere afterward, namely India. With no real responsibilities I think it's important for Americans (specifically) to live entirely out of a pack on their back for a sustained period of time. No all-inclusive resorts. Go somewhere where your money goes far (most of Europe is expensive). Couchsurf, bring a hammock - no one cares if you set it up between 2 palm trees on the beach - hostels, locals; it forces you to meet people and figure out who you are and what you want to do with your life. You can try to go with a friend, but you will meet so many great people along the way that it's not entirely necessary. It's also extremely cheap to do. Read Vagabonding or The 4-Hour Work Week . But I am one who just can't make up my mind what I want to do in life. Honestly, I just want to climb rocks, but that's not exactly practical since I'm not Chris Sharma . I have some business ideas in the works but I'll probably end up going back to school so I can teach and have 3 months off in the summer, preferrably psychology or the psychology of religion. But I think I could also be content organic farming in my later days... or writing, I write a bunch, and plan to use the trip as the muse for a Karouac-esque tale. See so I have no clue. But that's the fun of it. Just shotgun your interests and figure it out. Love life. Go live it. Don't let anyone tell you you're crazy because your values are different. They will come around. Also, no soda - water, water, and coconut water.

u/groktookia · 1 pointr/AskReddit

You can always afford it if you make travel a priority. You don't need thousands of dollars to travel, you just need a shift in priorities. I recommend reading Vagabonding to help shift your awareness. It'll help you prepare for where you eventually want to be -- living in another country. In the mean time, it'll teach you how to prioritize your life for what's important to you. Maybe that's travel, maybe not.

u/Mr_Saturn_ · 1 pointr/solotravel

if a laptop is completely necessary, bring it, but bringing more SD cards instead will save a lot of stress and worry and potential sadness if something does happen. there's always travel insurance which is a good idea to have anyways but it still sucks to have things stolen and a theft would put a damper on things for sure. plus the insurance route includes the joy of filing a police report in a foreign country and dealing with the claims process afterwards, an avoidable waste of time but an adventure nonetheless. internet-wise a smart phone is usually sufficient and if you need to use a computer most large cities and/or tourist areas have internet cafes and hostels may offer computers as well.

may i suggest reading vagabonding by rolf potts. it's a great primer for travel, inspiring and feel-good while covering all the bases. I always give it a listen before trips, gets me in the zone.

u/NeptLudi · 1 pointr/funny

If you haven't read it, you will probably find this interesting, and helpful.

http://www.amazon.com/Vagabonding-Uncommon-Guide-Long-Term-Travel/dp/0812992180/

And to put things in perspective, most people work their whole life without being able to take 2 months off to travel. Some are able to when they retire, if they're lucky and planned for it.

u/MrWitchDr · 1 pointr/AskReddit

1 Read - Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel (http://www.amazon.com/Vagabonding-Uncommon-Guide-Long-Term-Travel/dp/0812992180)


2 Visit - http://www.vagablogging.net/


3 Enjoy

u/thelandon · 1 pointr/self

You described me in high school to a tee. You are an introvert living in (probably) THE MOST extroverted country in the world. No wonder shit's tough. There is nothing wrong with being an introvert. Please PLEASE watch this TED talk by Susan Cain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0KYU2j0TM4
If there was one book I wish I'd read before middle school, it's her book, "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking". When people say that "such and such a book changed my life" I feel like smacking them in the face - what single piece of advice could do a human life justice? If ever I was to proclaim that something helped NEARLY that much, it's this woman's research.

Also, I dissolved a good portion of my depression by changing my diet. Look at Mark's Daily Apple and soak in as much as you can from that guy:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/welcome-to-marks-daily-apple/#axzz26BkmN7ot
It's probably the purest diet you can follow. However, the easiest diet to follow is the slow-carb diet, which is nearly the same, and much more fun:
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/04/06/how-to-lose-20-lbs-of-fat-in-30-days-without-doing-any-exercise/
Tim Ferriss, the one who created the diet, has a book I found to be an inspiration, "The 4-hour Workweek"

As far as work goes, you must find something that makes you feel alive! This is easier said than done because our schools and our whole system don't work that way. Ken Robinson gives you the details as to why:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U
You might find his book helpful as well: "The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything"
Also, travel can really clear one's head and make one feel alive. No one explains that better than Walt Whitman in "Song of the Open Road". If you've ever wanted to know how to travel for months on end I suggest the book "Vagabonding," by Rolf Potts:
http://www.amazon.com/Vagabonding-Uncommon-Guide-Long-Term-Travel/dp/0812992180/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347390437&sr=1-1&keywords=vagabonding

Sorry I sort of went apeshit on you. I'm just excited to share what has helped me. Twenty months ago I went through a similar hell, and the minds I describe really helped me.
I sincerely hope you escape the doldrums.

u/earnest_turtle · 1 pointr/backpacking

Never done it, I'm coming from Texas to try it.

It's one hell of a hike thats for sure, but I don't think its extremely strenuous overall. There are some climbing parts near the end around Glencoe and I think its a bit up and down around Loch Lomond, but overall I think it's supposed to be a bit nice with a hill climb here and there.

Granted, I do backpack outdoors a fair amount and I'm used to tent camping every night. I know the WHT has bunkhouses and hostels all along the route, so you can get a decent nights rest and some warm grub every night. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to tent camp the whole way or stay at some of the places.
You're definitely welcome to join, even if you just want to meet me at one of the towns on the route and hike a day or two just to try it out.

On the entire backpacking/get out note, I think its a great idea. I'm 26, been working since college, and I'm going insane. I think we're all so focused on "save save save/work work work, I'll do the fun stuff when I retire" that we don't pay attention to the fact that we we'll be too exhausted to do anything when we're done.

So I guess my additional tips/ideas are:

  1. When you're on the road, stuff just happens, good or bad, and you just need to go with it. The best things come out of it.
  2. I enjoyed this book, kind of helped me get over anxieties of being on the road for awhile.
    Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel


u/JensKnaeusle · 1 pointr/AskReddit

Lots of people do this. You might enjoy reading Vagabonding

u/redliter · 1 pointr/AskReddit

It's not fiction but it's good for traveling - Vagabonding by Rolf Potts

u/KipEnyan · 1 pointr/todayilearned

The fact that this is the book that the quote is sourced from makes me understand why such peculiar wording would be used.

It also made me lose just a little more faith in Wikipedia's validity.

u/juliet1484 · 1 pointr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

I like to sit in silence at my laptop. I need to be able to focus on my ideas. I tend to have a vague outline, but I like to let the work take me where it wants to go.

I'd love this.

u/geekerjoy1 · 1 pointr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

If I handwrite - I prefer plain bic blue pen on yellow legal tablets, otherwise I preferred my Asus netbook until my husband ruined it by spilling chili oil on it - now I'm shopping for a replacement.

I prefer a starbucks or other cafe - but not the comfy chairs - I need the hardback chairs, not too close to the drink prep areas, 'cause that's too noisy, and close to the outlets for keeping my equip. charged. Panera is too noisy, cold and only has 30 mins of wifi free.

I need eats and drinks available and extra comfy longsleeved sweatshirts. And I use yarny.me online as my software because that way I won't lose my work and I can pick it back up anywhere and it's uncomplicated and free.

I'm just one wholesale slaughter away from finishing the first draft of a short novella, then I can get back to the first book in a trilogy that I already have outlined. I also have the first few chapters of a mystery/western series book, as well as other stories outlined for an anthology.

Whenever I get a good idea, I outline the heck out of it, because life is a determined b---h who likes to interrupt me at the slightest provocation.

This would be great as the next addition to my writing resource shelf.

u/joeldg · 1 pointr/writing

used books?

anyway.. check out the reviews of this book on how to outline your novel:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0978924622/ref=oh_details_o00_s01_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This is a collection of tips and whatnot from a published author.

u/Jonlang_ · 1 pointr/conlangs

Go and buy these three books: The Language Construction Kit, Advanced Language Construction (don't worry, it's not that advanced), and The Conlanger's Lexipedia. And if your conlangs are designed for made-up worlds, then get [The Planet Construction Kit] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Planet-Construction-Kit-Mark-Rosenfelder/dp/0984470034/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=W79ND56BKPK8EKXT2VQZ) too. If you want to make cultures that are not European then I'd also suggest The China Construction Kit!

Of all of these I'd suggest that you definitely buy The Language Construction Kit and see how you get on. I'd also suggest buying some grammar books of languages you're interested in, and even go so far as to learn a second language if you don't speak one. Having knowledge of at least one other language will help you a great deal.

u/kavabean2 · 1 pointr/Labour

Before you listen to this guy you should read what A. Macleod, an academic who wrote his PhD thesis on Venezuela and media manipulation wrote about this topic in an AMA.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BreadTube/comments/ak1wtu/hello_im_dr_alan_macleod_i_have_studied_venezuela/ef1a624/

His book is on amazon.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-News-Venezuela-misreporting-Communication/dp/1138489239

It's also worth remembering what the same media and these same NGOs (HRW/Amnesty) led us into destroying Libya

u/rhtimsr1970 · 1 pointr/business

You got a source for that? I highly doubt most of the national press is owned by right wing investors. You have a couple of single large ones like News Corp (which even that is arguably not "right wing" in many areas of the company) but the rest are small independents like Breitbart or Rush. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and all the network affiliates are far larger combined.

This UCLA professor on the other hand concluded the exact opposite - that national press in the US is overwhelmingly liberal and distorts towards the left.

u/lestratege · 1 pointr/AskReddit

>I was expecting something else and certainly didn't find it.

So it looks like you are disappointed by the difference between your expectations and reality. If your expectations, as for China, are not very high, then you're not disappointed...

I really suggest you read "sixty million Frenchmen can't be wrong". It explains the whys of French society to Anglos who, because they are culturally not so distant (unlike with China), have so many expectations about French society and when those aren't fulfilled, are disappointed by that fact.

http://www.amazon.com/Sixty-Million-Frenchmen-Cant-Wrong/dp/1402200455#reader_1402200455

u/eroticlurker · 1 pointr/eroticauthors

For me coding is less hard than forcing myself to do a boring thing lots of times! The process goes like this:

1.) Google something like what I want to do. (Hope someone already did something similar.)

2.) Copy it. Make the changes to apply to my particular situation.

3.) It does something. Not what I wanted it to do. Cry. Swear.

4.) Google something slightly different and splice in the new information.

5.) Does it work? If so, yay! If not, go to 3. Repeat until forever.

Here's the little bit I stared at for 30 minutes until I figured out what I was doing wrong (and therefore what was right):

line = re.sub(r'<p>','<p class=first>',line)
line = line.replace('</span>','')
splitstring = line.partition('<span>')
line = splitstring[0] + '<span class=fletter>' + splitstring[2][0] + '</span>' + splitstring[2][1:]

which basically takes a line of the document which is encased in <p><span>[words]</span></p> tags and moves the span with my first letter class around the first letter.

It is simple and silly and dumb and I yelled at it and I sent my partner angry unicorn .gifs about it and when it worked at last I got up out of my chair and did a small dance in the middle of the room.

Hat tip to "Zen of Ebook Formatting" and "A Filthy Book in a Fancy Dress", the latter of which I can never ever search for ("A Naughty Book in a Pretty Dress"? "A Dirty Book in a Classy Dress"? "A Slutty Book in a Lovely Dress"?) and end up searching for BOOK DRESS FORMATTING DAMMIT until I find it.

https://www.amazon.com/Filthy-Book-Fancy-Dress-Formatting-ebook/dp/B00WIPMMEC

https://www.amazon.com/Zen-eBook-Formatting-Step-step-ebook/dp/B00KJAH4HS/

EDIT: to add a closed paren. you might think I would be on the lookout for that stuff after coding all day but APPARENTLY NOT

u/urban_sketcher · 1 pointr/selfpublish

That being said, you might like "Zen of eBook Formatting" by Guido Henkel.

http://www.amazon.com/Zen-eBook-Formatting-Step-step-ebook/dp/B00KJAH4HS

u/mtchick101 · 1 pointr/eroticauthors

Henkel has a book that describes his tutorial + more. https://www.amazon.com/Zen-eBook-Formatting-Step-step-ebook/dp/B00KJAH4HS

Have yet to get it but I use his online tutorial every time.

u/flusterer · 1 pointr/europe
u/poopdiet · 1 pointr/dietetics

First, I'm glad you're applying to become an RD! I hope you get in and go far! :)

  1. What was your timeline for when you began actually taking time to put everything on DICAS? It's September now and the semester will fly by so how early did you start actually spending quality time on it? I am wondering if it's better to just focus on the semester at hand and leave all DICAS stuff for winter break or if I should start now.

    When I applied, I tried to get everything done as early as possible. If DICAS has already opened, then have a goal of getting it all done and turned in 2-4 weeks ahead of time. Certainly don't wait until the last minute to put it all together. I suggest finding a date you want to turn it in by and start scheduling items from your "To-do list" so that you can pace yourself and not have to do everything at once (during the semester is fine as long as it doesn't interfere with other important things like exams). Things like who you want to get rec letters from would come first because professors have many obligations and letters likely won't be written within a couple of days time.


  2. When did you take the GRE? Did you take it more than once?

    Luckily, I didn't have to take the GRE, so I won't be much help here. But, I would think that if you need the GRE for DICAS, it would probably be a good idea to take it during winter break since you haven't already. Definitely not something to wait on and you're going to have to study for it. Again, if you need it for DICAS, start scheduling study times now because you're not going to have an opportunity to take it twice.


  3. I had to retake a couple of classes due to poor grades my freshman year of college. I did just fine after retaking both classes and ended up with an A and B which is a huge improvement from 2 D's. I was wondering how to approach this if I should bring it up in my personal statement a reason for the poor grades or if I should just leave it alone and not mention it. My most recent semester spring 2016 my GPA for the semester was 3.8 with 19 credit hours (I added a psychology minor late). Obviously I am doing worlds better academically but I am wondering if internship directors will look at the 2 D's and judge me based on grades I got 3 years ago. Freshman year I was just checked out from school and from life. 'Checking out' doesn't make for a good explanation in the personal statement.

    The best resource I've ever purchased was a book on how to write admissions essays (or else you're going to sound just like everyone else). This book my favorite.
    Also, I wouldn't address the grades specifically. For example, I didn't do well the first year of undergrad, but did exponentially (so to speak) better by my senior year, so I talked about my growth in education and learning and how my grades showed a positive trend that only went up over time, and were only going to continue being great.

    I hope you find this information useful and let me know if you have other questions!
u/empleadoEstatalBot · 0 pointsr/vzla
	


	


	


> # Why Venezuela Reporting Is So Bad
>
>
>
> Bad News From Venezuela
>
> Alan MacLeod’s Bad News From Venezuela
>
>
>
> For almost 20 years, the US government has been trying to overthrow Venezuela’s government, and establishment media outlets (state, corporate and some nonprofit) throughout the Americas and Europe have been bending over backwards to help the US do it.
>
> Rare exceptions to this over the last two decades would be found in the state media in some countries that are not hostile to Venezuela, like the ALBA block. Small independent outlets like VenezuelAnalysis.com also offered alternatives. In the US and UK establishment media, you are way more likely to see a defense of Saudi Arabia’s dictatorship than of Venezuela’s democratically elected government. Any defense of Venezuela’s government will provoke vilification and ridicule, so both Alan MacLeod and his publisher (Routledge) deserve very high praise for producing the book Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting. It took real political courage. (Disclosure: MacLeod is a contributor to FAIR.org, as am I.)
>
> MacLeod’s approach was to assess 501 articles (news reports and opinion pieces) about Venezuela that appeared in the US and UK newspapers during key periods since Hugo Chávez was first elected Venezuelan president in 1998. Chávez died in March 2013, and his vice president, Nicolas Maduro, was elected president a month later. Maduro was just re-elected to a second six-year term on May 20. The periods of peak interest in Venezuela that MacLeod examined involved the first election of Chávez in 1998, the US-backed military coup that briefly ousted Chávez in April of 2002, the death of Chávez in 2013 and the violent opposition protests in 2014.
>
> MacLeod notes that US government funding to the Venezuelan opposition spiked just before the 2002 coup, and then increased again afterwards. What would happen to a foreign government that conceded (as the US State Department’s Office of the Inspector General did regarding Venezuela) that it funded and trained groups involved with violently ousting the US government?
>
> MacLeod shows that, in bold defiance of the facts, the US media usually treated US involvement in the coup as a conspiracy theory, on those rare occasions when US involvement was discussed at all. Only 10 percent of the articles MacLeod sampled in US media even mentioned potential US involvement in the coup. Thirty-nine percent did in UK media, but, according to MacLeod, “only the Guardian presented US involvement as a strong possibility.”
>
> Venezuelan Media: Caged or Free?
>
> Source: Alan MacLeod
>
>
>
> As somebody who regularly reads Venezuelan newspapers and watches its news and political programs, I thought the most powerful evidence MacLeod provided of Western media dishonesty was a chart showing how Venezuela’s media system has been depicted from 1998–2014. Of the 166 articles in MacLeod’s sample that described the state of Venezuela’s media, he classified 100 percent of them as spreading a “caged” characterization: the outlandish story that the Chávez and Maduro governments dominate the media, or have otherwise used coercion to practically silence aggressive criticism.
>
> There is a bit of subjectivity involved in classifying articles in a sample like MacLeod’s. From my own very close reading of the US and UK’s Venezuela coverage over the years, I’m sure one could quibble that a few articles within MacLeod’s sample contradict the “caged” story; perhaps reducing the percentage to 95 percent, but that would hardly assail his conclusion. It is truly stunning that Western journalists can’t be relied on to accurately report the content of Venezuelan newspapers and TV. How hard is it to watch TV and read newspapers, and notice that the government is being constantly blasted by its opponents? No background in economics or any type of esoterica is required to do that much—simply a lack of extreme partisanship and a minimal level of honesty.
>
> MacLeod acknowledges that the Carter Center has refuted a few big lies about the Venezuelan government, including the one about government critics being shut out of Venezuela’s media, but he also reminds us that a week after the perpetrators of the 2002 coup thanked Venezuela’s private media for their help installing a dictatorship, Jennifer McCoy (America director for the Carter Center at the time) wrote an op-ed for the New York Times (4/18/02) in which she said that the “Chávez regime” had been “threatening the country’s democratic system of checks and balances and freedom of expression of its citizens.” Venezuelan democracy deserved much better “allies.” The Carter Center may have sparkled at times compared to the rest of the US establishment, but it’s a very filthy establishment.
>
> Drawing from the work of Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky, MacLeod provides a structural analysis of why coverage of Venezuela has been so terrible. Corporate journalists, with rare exceptions, reflexively dismiss common-sense analysis of their industry. Chomsky and Herman therefore resorted to proving various common-sense propositions, identifying “filters” that distort news coverage in ways that serve the rich and powerful. For example, it matters who pays the bills. (In other news, water is wet.) Corporate-owned, ad-dependent media will tend to serve the agenda of wealthy owners and corporate customers who provide the bulk of the ad dollars. Such media will usually hire and promote people whose worldview is compatible with the arrangement. That greatly reduces the need for heavy-handed bullying to enforce an editorial line.
>
> Business pressures also drive media outlets to cuts costs, and therefore rely on governments and big corporate outfits as cheap and readily available sources. Losing “access” by alienating powerful sources therefore becomes expensive, even before you consider other forms of flak that powerful people can apply.
>
> Beyond the general “filters” that Chomsky and Herman identified, MacLeod described others that are specific to Venezuela. MacLeod pointed to
>
> > massive cuts to newsroom budgets, leading to reliance on local stringers. Local journalists recruited from highly adversarial Venezuelan opposition–aligned press, leading to a situation where Venezuelan opposition ideas and talking points have their amplitude magnified. Anti-government activists producing supposedly objective news content for Western media.
>
> He also explained that
>
> > journalists are overwhelmingly housed in the wealthy Chacao district of Eastern Caracas…. This, combined with concerns over crime, creates a situation where journalists inordinately spend their work and leisure time in an opposition bastion. Hence, it can appear to a journalist that “everyone” has a negative opinion about the government.
>
> I wish MacLeod had more forcefully stressed another factor explaining why Venezuela reporting is so bad: impunity. A structural analysis explains why biased coverage results even if journalists are usually honest, but being able to say anything you want about an adversary without having to worry about being refuted (and discredited) encourages dishonesty. Media bias in Venezuela’s case could more appropriately be called media corruption.
>

> (continues in next comment)

u/The10thAmendment · 0 pointsr/Christianity
  1. The Groseclose-Milyo study is not biased because the author is an admitted conservative. That would make every study conducted by a liberal biased just because it is conducted by a liberal. The methods he uses are not biased and he established the criteria for media bias prior to completing the study. Either way, it is a fascinating study and one that I think should be read by both sides of the political spectrum. The author is very fair in the book even though he admits he is a conservative. But again, this doesn't impact the study itself. Here is his book on the topic. http://www.amazon.com/Left-Turn-Liberal-Distorts-American/dp/1250002761/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347207808&sr=8-1&keywords=Left+Turn

  2. Yes it is. One is a product. Another is a human being. When abortion was illegal it is true that back alley abortions did occur but abortions as a whole occured far less meaning less lives were taken. Also, you can't just blindly apply that logic to everything since that is a clear recipe for anarchy. There will always be unintended consequences for anything, including law, but you need to look at the whole and determine what will serve the greater good. Outlawing abortion may lead to some more unsafe procedures but in general less abortions will happen. Also, this is all besides the point that it is purely immoral.

  3. It isn't safer for the baby. During an abortion the baby dies 99.999% of the time. During birth the baby usually lives. Also, giving birth in this country is hardly dangerous. Even if you compare the two directly it is so rare for death to occur during birth its really doesn't strengthen your case.

  4. My point here is that people can afford to have children and abortion isn't the only answer. Liberals tend to just push abortion or having your life completely ruined as the only options which is ironic given that they are "pro-choice". I had children at a young age when I was making very little money and my life wasn't ruined by it and we wouldn't have been better off having an abortion. Times were slightly tougher but my life was enriched by having children.

  5. Morality should come into play in a civilized society. Also, it is not a right. We aren't born with the innate right to kill our children and have other people pay for it. We have many rights, many of which are outlined in the constitution, but having other people pay for your killing of your child is not one of them any more than the "right" to have cable TV or an xbox. Also, you keep guiding the argument as if abortion has to happen. If abortion is illegal, there will be far fewer abortions. You are assuming that everyone who gets an abortion now will still get abortions, but just do it in back alleys with hangers.