When I started writing, 35 years ago, I always wrote short. If a client or boss wanted 750 words, by instinct I produced 625. If the total was supposed to be 350, I sweated out 215. Usually, I had difficulty getting enough words, not too many. For many people, however, the problem is the reverse.  Continue reading...

Have you pivoted lately? Pivot is the euphemism du jour of this election season. Unless each candidate is secretly pursuing a career as a circus contortionist, one can assume these uses don't refer to a physical twist or turn. So what do they mean?  Continue reading...

The periodic table of elements is an iconic image familiar to anyone with even the rudiments of education and it is perhaps one of the most successful visual representations of information ever conceived: it brings a high level of order to a field of knowledge that is too complex to organize in memory and it rewards study at every level.  Continue reading...