The Power Trip

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704407804575425561952689390.html#

Fifty Writing Tools

Fifty Writing Tools
By Roy Peter Clark Senior Scholar, Poynter Institute

At times, it helps to think of writing as carpentry. That way, writers and editors can work from a plan and use tools stored on their workbench. You can borrow a writing tool at any time. And here's a secret: Unlike hammers, chisels, and rakes, writing tools never have to be returned. They can be cleaned, sharpened, and passed on.

Each week, for the next 50, I will describe a writing tool that has been useful to me. I have borrowed these tools from writers and editors, from authors of books on writing, and from teachers and writing coaches. Many come from the X-ray reading of texts I admire.

I have described most of these tools in earlier lists, first of 20 and then 30. In those renditions, I defined each tool in shorthand, 50 words or less, without elaboration or exemplification. In spite of -- perhaps because of -- their brevity, many aspiring writers found them useful, and the tools popped up all over the Internet, translated into several languages. This warm acceptance has given me the courage to do more with these tools, to hone them, to discard some rusty ones, and to add to my collection.

As you study and discuss these, please remember:

• These are tools and not rules. They work outside the realm of right and wrong, and inside the world of cause and effect. You will find many examples of good writing that seem to "violate" the general advice described here. 
• It will not help to apply these tools at once, just as aspiring golfers swing and miss if they try to remember the 30 or so different elements of an effective golf swing. 
• You will become handy with these tools over time. You will begin to recognize their use in the stories you read. You will see chances to apply them when you revise your own work. Eventually, they will become part of your flow, natural and automatic. 
• You are already using many of these tools without knowing it. It is impossible to speak, write, or read without them. But now these tools have names, so you can begin to talk about them in different ways. As your critical vocabulary grows, your writing will improve.

My friend Tom French, who won a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing, told me he liked my tool list because it covered writing from the "sub-atomic to the metaphysical level." By sub-atomic, he meant the ways words, phrases, and sentences work. By metaphysical, he meant the ways writers live, dream, and work.

With that as both introduction and promise, let us begin.

Writing Tool #1: Branch to the Right
Writing Tool #2: Use Strong Verbs
Writing Tool #3: Beware of Adverbs
Writing Tool #4: Period As a Stop Sign
Writing Tool #5: Observe Word Territory
Writing Tool #6: Play with Words
Writing Tool #7: Dig for the Concrete and Specific
Writing Tool #8: Seek Original Images
Writing Tool #9: Prefer Simple to Technical
Writing Tool #10: Recognize Your Story's Roots
Writing Tool #11 Back Off or Show Off
Writing Tool #12: Control the Pace
Writing Tool #13: Show and Tell
Writing Tool #14: Interesting Names
Writing Tool #15: Reveal Character Traits
Writing Tool #16: Odd and Interesting Things
Writing Tool #17: The Number of Elements
Writing Tool #18: Internal Cliffhangers
Writing Tool #19: Tune Your Voice
Writing Tool #20: Narrative Opportunities
Writing Tool #21: Quotes and Dialogue
Writing Tool #22: Get Ready
Writing Tool #23: Place Gold Coins Along the Path
Writing Tool #24: Name the Big Parts
Writing Tool #25: Repeat
Roy's 'Toolbox' is Filling Up
Writing Tool #26: Fear Not the Long Sentence
Writing Tool #27: Riffing for Originality
Writing Tool #28: Writing Cinematically
Writing Tool #29: Report for Scenes
Writing Tool #30: Write Endings to Lock the Box
Writing Tool #31: Parallel Lines
Writing Tool #32: Let It Flow
Writing Tool #33: Rehearsal
Writing Tool #34: Cut Big, Then Small
Writing Tool #35: Use Punctuation
Writing Tool #36: Write A Mission Statement for Your Story
Writing Tool #37: Long Projects
Writing Tool #38: Polish Your Jewels
Writing Tool #39: The Voice of Verbs
Writing Tool #40: The Broken Line
Writing Tool #41: X-Ray Reading
Writing Tool #42: Paragraphs
Writing Tool #43: Self-criticism
Writing Tool #44: Save String
Writing Tool #45: Foreshadow
Writing Tool #46: Storytellers, Start Your Engines
Writing Tool #47: Collaboration
Writing Tool #48: Create An Editing Support Group
Writing Tool #49: Learn from Criticism
Writing Tool #50: The Writing Process

Diagnosing Diabetes With Glucose Criteria: Worshipping a False God - Diabetes Care

Diagnosing Diabetes With Glucose Criteria: Worshipping a False God
http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/34/2/524.extract?etoc

Stjepan Hauser and Luka Sulic - Smooth Criminal

Molecular Visualizations of DNA

How to Tie a Knot

How to Tie a Knot / Diamond Knot / Chinese Button Knot

• Greg: An animated website of How to tie knots
• Forbes Pettigrew: A Few Good Knots & Bends and Hitches
• Clifford Ashley: Ashley Book of Knots, an encyclopedia of knots
• Wikipedia: List of knots
• Wikipedia: Diamond knot
• How to tie the lanyard knot (diamond knot)
• Wikipedia: Chinese button knot

Body chemistry may hold key to diabetes - CharlotteObserver.com

Body chemistry may hold key to diabetes - CharlotteObserver.com

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/01/04/1954013/blood-and-guts-tell-the-diabetes.html

Obesity and Diabetes Articles

Obesity and Diabetes Articles

• Clinical Gems in Diabetes in Control: International Textbook of Diabetes Mellitus
• NIH(2016). Diabetes in America, 3rd Edition, Diabetes in America, 2nd Edition
• Corkey (2016).What Causes Type 2 Diabetes?
• BMJ: Diabetes
• Bibliographic resource: Diabetes and the environment.
• International Society for Prediatric and Adolescent Diabetes (2009): The Clinical Practice Consensus Guidelines
• Pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes: tracing the reverse route from cure to cause (2008)
• IDF - Diabetes Atlas
• Diagnosis of Diabetes and prediabetes
• Diagnosis and Classification of Diabetes Mellitus (ADA, 2013)
• Definition and diagnosis of diabetes mellitus and intermediate hyperglycaemia (History of criteria) (WHO, 2006)
• Use of HbA1c in the diagnosis of diabetes (BMJ, 2012)
• Values for diagnosis of diabetes mellitus (Venous, capillary of whole blood (1998)
• Added (A1c, prediabetes): Categories of increased risk for diabetes (2011)
• Added (A1c): Diagnosis and Classification of Diabetes Mellitus (2010)
• Revised (FPG, prediabetes): Categories of increased risk for diabetes (2004)
• Revised (schemes): Diagnosis and Classification of Diabetes Mellitus (2003)
• Revised (FPG): Diagnosis and Classification of Diabetes Mellitus (1997)
• Diagnosis and Classification of Diabetes Mellitus (1979)
• Homeostatic model assessment
• Wikipedia. Homeostatic model assessment
• Matthews (1985). Homeostatic model assessment
• Wallace (2004). Use and abuse of HOMA modeling
• Caumo (2006). New insights on the simultaneous assessment of insulin sensitivity and beta-cell function with the HOMA2 method
• Diabetes Care (2007). HOMA Point and Counterpoint
• Tabak (2009). Trajectories of glycaemia, insulin sensitivity, and insulin secretion
• Predicting type 2 diabetes
• German Institute of Human Nutrition (GIFE) provides a on-going systematic review and calculators of predicting model of type 2 diabetes.
• Obesity
• ConscienHealth (2018).The Counterintuitive Physiology of Obesity
• Levis (2016).Are All Calories Equal?
• Waist Circumference and Waist–Hip Ratio (WHO, 2008)
• R!: Body weight in the U.S. (2012)
• Damaged Hearts NEED Fat and Top 10 Super Foods To Control Diabetes fat (2011)
• Short sleep duration as a cause of obesity: myth or reality? (2011)
• Energy expenditure during sleep, sleep deprivation and sleep following sleep deprivation in adult humans (2010) This article support that sleep conserves energy and that sleep deprivation increases total daily EE in humans.
• Exercise and diet in weight management: updating what works (2010)
• Extra Calories Cause Weight Gain—But How Much? (2010)
• Triglycerides and Cardiovascular Disease: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association (2011): "...A long-standing association exists between elevated triglyceride levels and cardiovascular disease* (CVD).  However, the extent to which triglycerides directly promote CVD or represent a biomarker of risk has been debated for 3 decades..."
• The Endocrine Function of Adipose Tissue: An Update (2006) - Medscape
• Lifestyle or medicine (2006)
• High-fructose corn syrup and obesity and diabetes (2009)
• Is Sugar Toxic? (2011) - NYTimes.com
• Brown Adipose Tissue: Function and Physiological Significance (2004) - Physilogical Reviews
• Upper and Lower Body Adipose Tissue Function (2004) - Obesity
• Obesity: BAI as a new measure of adiposity—throw away your scale? I will not use this index.
• An integrative view of obesity (2010) by David Heber another An Integrative View of Obesity (2007) by Brent E. Wisse et al.
• How Obesity Causes Diabetes: Not a Tall Tale (2005)
• Diabetes, Obesity, and the Brain (2005)
• Obesity in Biocultural Perspective (2006)
• Nature Insight: Obesity and Diabetes (2006)
• Science Special Issue: Obesity--What Is To Be Done? (2003)
• Measured Smoking-Related Chemicals in NHANES
• Global Burden of Disease and Risk Factors
• Video Clips: Obesity, Diabetes, and Heart Diseases
  • Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food
  • Sugar: The Bitter Truth, an interesting talk.
  • Why We Get Fat: Adiposity 101 and the Alternative Hypothesis of Obesity, another interesting talk but quite long.
  • What is the single best thing we can do for our health?