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Tuesday, February 2, 2016

style - How to write time duration correctly

Within a user manual, I need to convey the maximum time period allowed as "365 days 23 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds" - are commas expected between each component? Is the word "and" expected before the last component regardless of the time period name?

Monday, February 1, 2016

style - What are the limits to description in story writing? How do I know if I have crossed them?

Time and time again, I have been told that my unfounded focus on description distracts from the main story line.

I mostly write stories in English, which doesn't happen to be my first language but I'm fairly good in it. My native tongue is a very colourful one, full of interesting idioms and sentence structures. I'm more of the chatty, girlish teen type, and so I tend to be annoyingly descriptive in my language. And that extends to all the other languages I speak.

Now every time I manage to scribble off a piece that's remotely worthy of civilised beings' time, it is deemed "purple". Not unexpectedly, given my tendency to be overly descriptive at times. However, I do try my utmost not to clutter the text with elaborate, beauteous descriptions of elements that bear next to no significance to the plot in the long-run.

The problem is when I immerse myself into writing, I cannot forego the temptation to for example, do justice to the long, lustrous locks of my otherwise average protagonist.

It took all of what she had to restrain from even so much as stealing a quick glance at her flushed, bony limbs. A blow of cool, spring breeze tickled Sabrina's ears, and whooshed aside a stray curl covering her left cheek. Instead of feeling revitalised, a surge of irritation rippled within her, which manifested itself in her sudden moans of annoyance and shuffling uneasily in the rickshaw seat. Sabrina had spent the better half of that morning painstakingly ensuring that that curl stayed fastened to its rightful place. Apparently, the clip had slid down her watery waves of decidedly unimpressive plain, crow-black hair. Cursing the silkiness of her slick, stick-straight hair, she moved onto focusing on the wide roads of concrete they whirled past.

So how should I go about disciplining myself to write with more consideration?

What are the limits to description in story writing? How do I know if I have crossed them?

EDIT

Keep in mind that the sample text used to illustrate my point is just something I came up with while writing this question. So it is not at all a true representation of my actual writing skills and I would request you not to base your thoughts on me as a writer solely on that little tidbit.

Answer

First, let me start by saying...wow! Your command of the English language is impressive.

Some people think purple prose can be boring and unnecessary, but when done well, I think it can really make plain words come alive. Considering we're always told that good writing requires you to cut out the excess fat however, that usually means doing away with all that purple.

I think it's important to first define and what purple prose is. Because of its poetic roots, it's not always easy to find a straightforward answer, but Wikipedia describes it simply as:

Purple prose is characterized by the excessive use of adjectives, adverbs, and metaphors.

But I prefer this definition:

Superfluous, extravagant, showy, elaborate, and flowery language.

You certainly have that going for yourself.

The thing is, I've read a fair amount of books in my lifetime, and I have to say, not everyone can purple prose like a pro. In fact, too much of the purple stuff can immediately stamp your work as amateur by the second time you've described what her hair is doing.

I always say, if you want to know how to do something right, learn from those who've already done it and do it well.

Author Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash starts off with nothing but purple goodness, and none of it makes us cringe. Check out the first paragraph of his book:

The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed sub-category. He's got esprit up to here. Right now he is preparing to carry out his third mission of the night. His uniform is black as activated charcoal, filtering the very light out of the air. A bullet will bounce off its arachno-fiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door, but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest. Where his body has bony extremities, the suit has sintered armorgel: feels like gritty jello, protects like a stack of telephone books...

So let's break down what he did right.

1. HE KEEPS IT MOVING.

Every sentence gave us more description without feeling as though he's repeating himself.

When we look at your passage, you first start with mood: A haunted look marred Sabrina’s face perpetually... Then you mention her hair in the second sentence: A blow of cool, spring breeze tickled her ears, and whooshed aside a stray curl covering her left cheek... You then move back to mood: Instead of feeling revitalised, a surge of irritation rippled within her... But then you go back and mention her hair for the next three long sentences.

The TAKEAWAY:

Once you've moved on, you cannot go back. You'll only be beating a dead horse.

Reconstruct your sentences so that even if you're describing the same thing, it feels like the story is moving along. In your case, adding Instead of feeling revitalised, a surge of irritation rippled within her, which manifested itself in her sudden moans of annoyance and shuffling uneasily in the rickshaw seat... broke up your description which felt as though you were done talking about her hair, so we were also ready to move on.

So if you rewrote this, it would read:

A blow of cool, spring breeze tickled Sabrina's ears, and whooshed aside a stray curl covering her left cheek. She had spent the better half of that morning painstakingly ensuring that that curl stayed fastened to its rightful place. Apparently, the clip had slid down her watery waves of decidedly unimpressive plain, crow-black hair. Cursing the silkiness of her slick, stick-straight hair, she moved onto focusing on the wide roads of concrete they whirled past...

Now I'm ready to know what happens down that concrete road.

2. SELECTIVE WORD CHOICE

We've established purple prose is all about excessive use of adjectives, adverbs and metaphors and Stephens first paragraph has it's fair share, BUT every word pulls it's weight and every word feels appropriate for what he's describing. They're used to describe the character's appearance without exaggeration.

His uniform is black as activated charcoal, filtering the very light out of the air...

Filtering is a fitting visual description for describing the air's behavior.

A bullet will bounce off its arachno-fiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door,

...but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze

When we look at your passage, some of your adjectives and metaphors call attention to themselves because they're either inappropriate for the description or don't add any value.

For example:

A haunted look marred Sabrina’s face perpetually.

Marred seems like an odd choice to describe her haunted face.

It sounds like you're saying the Haunted Look is an actual object that ruined her face forever. Its exaggerated and calls too much attention to itself when I should be focused on Sabrina's mood.

Perpetually also feels out of place and doesn't add any value to the sentence.

Additionally, the entire sentence could use a little more purple. You've told me she looks haunted, but you didn't SHOW me.

For example, what does a "haunted look" look like?

Give me more description here, and maybe not so much in others.

Example:

She looked haunted, her eyes vacant and still as she focused on the wide roads ... It took all of what she had to restrain from even so much as stealing a glance...

Let's look at this sentence as well:

Instead of feeling revitalised, a surge of irritation rippled within her, which manifested itself in her sudden moans of annoyance and shuffling uneasily in the rickshaw seat.

Again, revitalised is too flashy. Tone it down, simplify.

A surge of irritation rippled within her... Over-exaggeration, too much for the mood...

...which manifested itself in her sudden moans of annoyance and shuffling uneasily in the rickshaw seat. All of this is a little too much for misplaced hair wouldn't you say?

Let's try this maybe:

A short burst of the cool (insert season) air breezed passed her hair, whipping out a rogue strand of curls she had painstakingly tamed into submission that morning. She moaned, cursing the silkiness of her bone-straight mane...

You'll notice in the last few examples, I rearranged your sentences and omitted lots of words. This allows for the words that are there like, burst, cool, whipping, rogue, painstakingly, submission, moaned, cursing, silkiness, slick-straight...to stand out. No unnecessary words to distract us from understanding her mood.

TAKEAWAY:

Be super selective with your word choice and show, don't tell.

3. MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN

In Stephenson's opening paragraph, by the third sentence, you're told something is about to go DOWN!

Right now he is preparing to carry out his third mission of the night.

In contrast, we don't see any action until your last sentence, where we realize, she is driving.

In one of the examples above, I moved that action up to read to like this:

Example:

She looked haunted, her eyes vacant and still as she focused on the wide roads of concrete ... It took all of what she had to restrain from even so much as stealing a glance...

Right away, I get a sense of movement which creates the illusion of action.

THE TAKEAWAY:

Action is why people want to keep reading...they want to know what is happening and what is going to happen, so when you feel a purple prose coming on, make sure you paint in some kind of action early on, even something as mundane as driving.

My examples are in no way perfect (they too need work) they're just suggestions. I particularly like it when I can see examples of how it's done so hopefully you found it constructive.

I found this particular article very helpful. It doesn't necessarily tell you how to write, but definitely highlights those things that gives purple prose a bad name. Simply avoiding them could improve your descriptive writing dramatically. https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/purple-prose/

Happy purpling!

print design - How to trim by hand using crop marks?

I'm quite new to printing graphics. I understand why crop marks are used when printing, and on the face of it, they seem quite straight-forward to use. However, when I went to trim a document I have printed using the crop marks that were added (using Illustrator), I came across an issue that has me confused.

enter image description here

Take the example above. If I was to trim the top of the document, using the two horizontal crop marks, then I would also remove the two vertical crop marks indicating the left and right edges of the final document. As a result, when I go to trim say the left-hand side of the document, there is no crop mark to use as a guide at the top.

My question therefore is: how is a document trimmed using crop marks such that when a cut is made in one direction (eg. horizontally) the crop marks necessary for trimming the document in the other direction (eg. vertically) are not removed? Or is there something else I am missing?

Answer

I found this on YouTube: Removing Crop Marks.

I guess you are not meant to use them for cutting thing out with scissors but like she did. It's probably quicker to do it this way but I still do what JVS does.

The video shows that the proper way to cut an image with crop marks is to use a ruler and a cutting knife. You line the ruler up with the marks and then run your knife between them (not cutting the ends of the paper) you can then still see the other lines and you can do the same for the other corners.

color - Dark screens in cars

I am a designer just preparing an app for the "in car" area.

Normally we have a bunch of colors to use and we usually use dark colors on a light background. Now our client came up with some question about eye-blinding displays in cars. A little research shows that most apps designed to use in cars while driving have a dark background with light colors for typography.

Is that just a common behavior, that a dark screen will be better to use while driving, or is it based on some studies that most car drivers feel more comfortable with a dark background on screen?

name of this portfolio optimization strategy

I have come across a portfolio selection strategy that buys in equal amounts the top decile of expected earners, and simultaneously short sells the lowest decile in a similar fashion. What is this strategy called? I am looking for words more specific than "market/dollar neutral."

Answer

Short answer: This 'portfolio sort' is rather a common approach in empirical finance research, than a portfolio strategy.

Your mentioned strategy is called 'portfolio analysis' or in more detail a 'univariat portfolio sort'. The general approach is to form portfolios of stocks, where the stocks in each portfolio have different levels of the variable posited to analyze cross-sectional relations. As a nonparametric technique, it does not make any assumptions about the nature of the cross-sectional relations between the variables under investigation.

The steps are as follows:

Calculate periodic (e.g. yearly) breakpoints that will be used to group the entities in the sample into portfolios. The breakpoints are usually determined by percentiles of the sort-variable $X$ at time $t$ of the cross-sectional distribution.

Group all entities in the sample into portfolios. Each time period $t$, all entities in the sample with values of $X$ that are less than or equal to he first breakpoint are put in portfolio one, i.e. the 'low' portfolio. Portfolio two holds entities with values of $X$ that are greater than er equal to the first and less than or equal to the second breakpoint, and so on.

Calculate the equal- or value-weighted return for each portfolio for the subsequent year.

In addition to calculating the average return for each portfolio, you often calculate the return-difference of the high- and low-portfolio, that is a strategy investing long in the highest and short in the lowest portfolio. This difference portfolio is the primary value used to detect a cross-sectional relation between the sort variable and the outcome variable (here: return).

It is common practice, to update the portfolios yearly. If you sort on the 'momentum' variable, monthly reformation is common. For example, Fama/French (1992) form portfolios based on size or book-to-market ratio at the end of June each year and calculate the return for the subsequent year. The formation at the end of June is due to the 'look-ahead-bias', that is to avoid to use accounting data for the previous fiscal-year end, which may not be publicly available until end June of the next year.

Be aware to try exploiting this strategy:

Portfolio reformation results in high transaction costs, which may decrease the return significantly.

Due to regularization it is often not possible to fully replicate the short-strategy.

References:

Bali/Engle/Murray (2016), Empirical Asset Pricing: The cross-section of stock returns, 1. ed.

Fama/French (1992), The cross-section of expected stock returns, The Journal of Finance.

style - Is it frustrating not to know the narrator's gender?

I have written a 1st person piece and reading it I realize it's very difficult to tell if the narrator is male or female. There are one or two clues, and they come pretty late in the piece.

Would you as readers busy yourself with trying to figure out gender? Or do you think you would automatically assume one gender? and then would it be frustrating to find out you were wrong?

Would you as a writer try to clarify this early on?

edit: There are good answers. Obviously part of every answer is that it depends on what I want to achieve.

To clarify, it isn't important information for the understanding of the piece, as far as I am concerned. I don't really mind if it was understood one way or another; I just want it out of the reader's way.

learning - Which are the best UI related blogs/sites?

This goes along the lines of the Must-read UI books. I haven't found too many blogs/sites that are aimed exclusively to this topic that are good resources for UI, so I hope you can recommend a few more than these.