If I were a court reporter, I would never stop laughing.
Feb0
It would be hard to be a court reporter and keep a straight face during these courtroom exchanges. Thanks to one of our readers for sending us the following excerpts from Charles M. Sevilla’s book, Disorder in the Court: Great Fractured Moments in Courtroom History.
ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said , ‘Where am I, Cathy?’
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan!
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget..
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?
___________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo?
WITNESS: We both do.
ATTORNEY: Voodoo?
WITNESS: We do..
ATTORNEY: You do?
WITNESS: Yes, voodoo.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn’t it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn’t know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
____________________________________
ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: He’s 20, much like your IQ.
___________________________________________
ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Getting laid
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death..
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Take a guess.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I’m going with male.
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Doctor , how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.
_________________________________________
ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral , OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral…
_________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 PM
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question?
______________________________________
And last:
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No..
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.
Writer’s Block? Brainstorm and keep the bad ideas
Feb0
Do you have writer’s block, or do you THINK you have writer’s block? Here’s a suggestion: embrace your bad ideas and let them lead to good ones. This is playwright and screenwriter Megan Cohen’s method for overcoming writer’s block and getting her creativity back to where it should be.
She writes that when she feels as though the well is running dry on good ideas, it’s time to sit down and just start brainstorming. Brainstorming, as we are taught includes bad ideas as well as the gems in the rough that can be developed over time. But the key here is the keep the bad ideas.
Yes, write down the bad ideas as well as the good ones and see where they take you:
To keep things interesting, you need bad ideas, with their chaos and swearing, their disrespect and vulnerability. But how do you lure them? What’s the solution to good ideas?
Well… it’s more ideas. If you don’t have an idea you really like for, say, the premise of your TV spec script… then we have a lot to talk about over coffee, but also you should sit down and write 100 premises for your TV spec script. Yeah, 100. Like the famous number of Dalmatians minus one.
The “100 ideas” method is straight-up stolen from an anecdote where Judd Apatow tells someone to do it. He probably invented it, maybe? It legit works.
Of course one of the best ways to beat writer’s block is to simply keep writing.
Read Megan Cohen’s full post at Writer’s Block: The Solution to Good Ideas
Sexist 1940 Video Presents the Roles of Newspaper Staff
Dec0
Recently, Brain Pickings published a real gem of a newsreel (originally from Encyclopedia Britannica Films’ Your Life Work series) that provides a look into the history of what one might imagine as the typical newsroom in the 1940s. Explaining the need for speed and accuracy when gathering the news for the reading public, the narrator walks through the many facets of newspaper’s interworkings.
Cheerfully, the narrator explains the different roles of the reporters and desk editors that take part in moving the story toward the presses. And with the excitement that can only be found in a 1940 newsreel, the narrator adds, “…there’s a real thrill in seeing your own byline over a story when it’s in print, and there’s always the feeling that you’ll try to make the next story just a little better.”
Working through the needs of covering fires and politics, the narrator moves to the lighter side of the news industry…the society pages. This is where the movie takes an interesting twist. As he explains, these pages are, “for the most part reported by news women.” So if any woman in the 1940s were to watch this, all their hopes of entering the exciting profession as an investigative or crime reporter would have been dashed by this movie.
The narrator continues with, “Women find it difficult to compete with men in general reporting jobs, so girls who want to be successful in journalism should prepare for work in the special women’s departments.” Of course, these departments include “meal planning suggestions” and “beauty care.”
Oh, how the times have changed.
I’d Rather Cuddle Then Have Sex. Really?
Dec0
By Ron Creel
We have recently been seeing people confuse the words then and than. The word then seems to be used when the writer should use than. Of course, several blogs have made fun of this word misuse. And Yahoo! has an answer to this as well.
Here’s rule:
THEN - An adverb. Means at that time or next. Remember that then (like when) refers to time.
Example: I went to the store then I went to the park.
THAN – A conjunction introducing a dependent clause of comparison. Means that you are comparing two things.
Example: I like beer more than getting my eye poked out with a sharp stick.
So with this rule, would you rather cuddle and then have sex, or would you rather cuddle than have sex? Do you now understand the meaning of the words and how they differ?
How to Write a 500 Word Essay That Will Get You Into College
Nov0
By Ron Creel
It’s college application season. Or at least it is in our house. The current challenge seems to be how a student applying for college can work within the 500-word limit imposed by the Common Application and create an essay that covers a significant event or achievement in the student’s life and will, hopefully, set the student apart from tens of thousands of other applicants.
Keep in mind that with the college application essay, you are not writing a freelance article for a magazine where you will be getting paid by the word. Instead, you are trying to capture and keep the attention of the person reading the application essay when they only have a few minutes to read the application and move on to the next application. So your goal is to write an essay that gets you on a university’s “accepted” list, not on The New York Times Best Sellers List. Save your longer writing efforts for impressing your professors.
As with all writing projects, these essays are written with a single purpose in mind and should be attacked with a narrowly-focused plan. It’s just that most students are not used to writing within the 500-word limit. Frankly, I don’t think any of us are.
First step: select your topic wisely. Pick a topic that can appropriately answer the essay question and that can be well-developed without too much background information. Remember, you need to capture the reader’s attention and be concise. Pick a topic that represents the real you. Write about something that sets you apart from the rest of the crowd.
After picking a topic that best represents you, make hand-written notes to outline what you intend to write. Resist the urge to sit down at the keyboard and start typing away at your essay. By first outlining with a pen and paper, you will avoid typing something that you think is an instant masterpiece. Too many times, once we see our words typed on the computer screen, they look clean, tidy and ready to submit to the college admissions office. Not the case. Your essay will need to go through several revisions before you can call it complete and ready to send to college recruiters.
Once you have an outline on paper, you may start writing on the computer. But remember what Ernest Hemingway said about the first draft of anything. You will want to go through several revisions that include having others read your essay and make suggestions. Trust your reviewers, whether they are parents, teachers or friends.
After writing what you think is the second draft, draw a seriously thick line through your first sentence, and perhaps, even the whole first paragraph. Most essays don’t start getting traction until the second to fourth line, so force yourself to take a hard look at how you started and consider re-working your lead sentence with something you have already written in the middle of the essay where you really start getting your ideas formed.
Hopefully, you have created a second or third draft with more than 500 words. At this point, you need to start trimming unnecessary words to cut the fluff out of your essay. Kill the adverbs, adjectives and qualifiers. Remember: adverbs modify verbs and end with -ly; and adjectives modify nouns. Qualifiers include, but are not limited to, very, somewhat, still, almost, enough, more, less, and can be culled out of a sentence without losing any meaning.
Avoid complex sentence structure. You want to impress a reader with you succinctness rather than your literary prowess. Use fewer words to say more rather than using more words to say less.
Two articles from The New York Times will also be helpful when tackling this essay. Dealing with the trimming down of the essay to keep it in the 500-word range is Advice on Whittling Your Admissions Essay. Discussing the matter of the emotional and controversial aspect of the 500-word limit is College Application Essay as Haiku? For Some, 500 Words Aren’t Enough. This post includes a link to an essay that has been edited down to the acceptable word limit, proving that it can be done without losing too much of the meaning of the story.
Good luck.
Moonwalking With Einstein: a useful book for writers
May0
By Ron Creel
I would not say that I have the best of memory skills. I’m limited to carrying a list of items in my head to pick up at the store that can be counted on only one hand. And if I stop thinking about the list, I’m lost. However, my visual memory is great. With this, I introduce, “Moonwalking With Einstein,” by Joshua Foer. This is by no means a How-to book on how to improve your memory in ten easy steps, but is an examination of “The Art and Science of Remembering Everything,” as it is appropriately subtitled.
The book chronicles Foer’s study and training for participation in the the U.S.A. Memory Championship. He had previously covered the event as a journalist and wanted to take the bold step of actually participating in the event. Through his training, he developed new strategies for stretching the memory to extreme limits and ended up winning the competition in 2006.
The “Memory Palace” involves a process of converting concepts into distinctive and memorable images that are then placed in actual locations are then more easily recalled. Yes, it’s complicated. Using this process, Foer explains, is how some people can memorize the order of a deck of cards in less than a minute, associate the names with 100 faces within minutes, and remember a long shopping list.
For details on the complexity of the memory palace method, read the book.
What is DITA and Why Should You Care?
Sep0
By Chris Benz
“The key to understanding how DITA works is to understand how DITA uses topics, maps, and output formats. I will describe each of these in detail, but here’s the big picture: You develop your content in DITA topics, use DITA maps to specify which topics go into which deliverables, then process those maps to DITA output formats to generate your final deliverables.”
Many of today’s instructional developers face a significant dilemma.
Learners have minimal time to comprehend and effectively use complex products and systems. To drive time-efficient learning experiences, developers must provide high-quality training content, customized to specific learner roles and delivered in a timely manner. At the same time, many instructional development budgets are shrinking. In short, learners have less time and money to learn what they need to know, and developers have less time and money to deliver what those learners need.
One way developers can address this dilemma is to become more efficient at reusing content. For many developers, the best way to achieve that efficiency will be the Learning and Training Content (L&TC) Specialization, soon to be released in version 1.2 of the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) standard.
“The what?” some readers are surely asking. Before I answer that, let me give you a taste of the “why.” In a test project for the DITA L&TC Specialization, a team at IBM studied content reuse in an existing training course. They discovered that 50% of the course content had been copied from the product documentation. Using the Specialization, they were able to automate much of that reuse, not only avoiding the cost and potential errors of manual copying and pasting, but also providing an efficient way to synchronize content updates between product documentation and training materials, and saving on the cost of translating essentially the same content twice. Does this sound like something worth learning about?
Read the rest of this article >>
Originally published by Learning Solutions Magazine, an online publication of The eLearning Guild. Reprinted with permission.
Endurance Training for Writers: A MasterMind Group is Secret to Publishing Success
Jun0
By JT Long
Writing is a challenging sport. Smart authors know they have to be disciplined, scheduling marathon creative sessions and pacing themselves so they can go the distance. Successful writers often take a team approach to publishing. By meeting regularly with a group of others pursuing the same dreams, they can share tips, resources and encouragement. We call this a MasterMind Writer’s Group and see it as a valuable tool for getting through those dark days when you are having trouble putting one word in front of the other.
In the world of meetups and tweetups and mashups, getting bodies in a room is usually not a challenge. To be really successful, however, it helps to define your goals so you will attract only those who are going down the same path. The following exercises can help you focus on the prize.
- What is your goal? What is the purpose of the group? What is your vision of success? The more concrete your answer, the better your odds of achieving it. If your broad objective is to “be a writer” then ask yourself a few follow-up questions. What kind of writer? Published? Fiction? Non-fiction? Books? Magazines? Web? Romance? Young Adult? Maybe your goal is to write the bestselling Genius Guide to Baking Cookies using Green Technology. Whatever it is, write it down. Remember to be specific and detailed.
- Now think about what individual steps you need to take to accomplish that goal. How much research, writing (break it down by chapters), pitching to agents, rewriting, packaging, rewriting and marketing will you have to do? What do you already know? What do you need to know? What do you not even know that you don’t know? How specifically can a MasterMind Writer Group help you achieve these goals? Encouragement? Agent suggestions? Success stories? Maybe you need a group that can hold you accountable to writing a chapter a week and help you debate the pros and cons of self-publishing versus selling the idea to a publisher who specializes in food for the future. Be honest with yourself. Write down the specific ways your group can help you move forward.
- What can you offer other writers in return? Remember, this is a two way street. Can you act as an unbiased sounding board committed to helping every other member find the dedication and resources to meet individual goals? That may mean pledging to be quiet and let others have the stage sometimes. You may just find that you learn more from listening than talking. Consider what resources you can bring to the table. The inherent benefit of bringing together a group of people is that they all know people who know people. What literary editors, agents and other resources could refer to other members? So your pledge to helping others might read: I am open to listening, sharing and whooping it up. Take some time to do a literary inventory. Look at your resume. Think about what skills you have, who you know, how much time you can devote. Write that down.
- Now put it all together. In any race it is easier to get to the finish line when you know where you are going. A mission statement acts as a mental global positioning system mapping out where you are and where you want to go. The final hypothetical mission statement based on the first three responses might read: MasterMind Writer Group dedicated to listening sharing and celebrating progress toward publishing effectively in niche markets. Now it is time for you to do some soul searching. Look at your written responses and come up with a statement that reflects your goals.
Are you ready to take the first step? Whether you are a novice or a veteran wordsmith, the power of a dedicated MasterMind Writer’s Support Group can make all the difference in your journey toward publishing.
JT Long is the co-author with Jennifer Sander of Writer’s Secret, Mastermind Your Way to Publishing Success. She blogs at MasterMind Writers and is an independent journalist for local and national magazines.