Technical writer, journalist and author
Suppose you’ve been given a research assignment. You do your research—looking online, visiting your local library, interviewing experts—but how do you organize everything for easy reference? A simple research database spreadsheet does the trick nicely. You can create such a…
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The San Jacinto Monument, east of Houston, commemorates the Battle of San Jacinto, in which Texas won its independence from Mexico and became a republic. Texas joined the United States in 1845. 1. A now-defunct government agency played a key…
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Over Thanksgiving I visited with a cousin who wanted to do some writing as a sidelight to his day job in finance. We got to talking about good reference books for nonfiction writing. He asked if I had heard of…
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Texas, as I’ve written elsewhere, has its share of cities named for heroic and historic figures. (Texas tends to outdo itself there.) But on Thanksgiving, perhaps it’s fitting to celebrate a town named for the main course at many households…
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In 1992, I and four others self-published the Tales from the Emperor’s Kitchen: An Anthology of Poetry, Short Stories, and Essays. None of us expected the book to confer upon us literary greatness (it didn’t), or ensure our financial security…
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Some Texas cities are named in honor of Texas heroes; for example, Austin and Houston. Other city names are for prominent figures of the day; for example, Fort Worth, named for U.S. Army General William Jenkins Worth, and Galveston, named…
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You’re all set to give your big presentation. You know your subject cold. You know your audience. You know the likely questions you’ll be asked and the answers. Your slides are ready. What about your handouts? Handouts can make or…
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If you want to live in the White House, yet not leave Texas, much less run for office, you’re in luck. This month a Texas mansion modeled after the White House was put up for auction. The house, located at…
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You’re preparing a document. You want to improve its readability. How to do this? Do what the U.S. Department of Defense does: use Flesch-Kinkaid scores to evaluate your documentation. Rudolf Flesch and J. Peter Kinkaid created the formulas in the…
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Last week’s article talked about Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, and Gus Grissom, four of the original Mercury Seven astronauts. This week’s article touches on the other three astronauts. 1. Wally Schirra won a Clio advertising award. Imagine having…
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