Gary McGath

About Gary McGath

I am a freelance technical writer in Plaistow, NH.

The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist

This entry was posted in Reviews and tagged books justice Mississippi on by

Cover of The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist This is a blog about writing, and books are writing, so book reviews are on topic here, right? The book in question here is The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist, by Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington. It’s an important book and one that may shock you. If I had more vivid powers of visualization, I might not have been able to get through it.

Before reading this book, I had plenty of reasons to believe the American criminal justice system is broken. Now I have more. The book focuses on Mississippi, which has a long record of being one of the worst states in that respect, especially if the accused is black. It focuses on two individuals, Doctors Steven Hayne and Michael West. Both helped to convict many people with what was believed to be their forensic expertise. Both have been pushed out of that role by the light shed on their work. Radley Balko has played a big role in accomplishing that. But the bigger issue is a legal system that allowed junk science to be used as evidence.
(more…)

HTML for blog writers

This entry was posted in Techniques Writing and tagged HTML technology writing on by

If you write for websites, you need to know the basics of HTML. Even if you do your writing in Microsoft Word, Open Office, or a Web editor, it will get turned into HTML (or, less often, PDF). You need to understand how it will work in its final form.

HTML is a markup language. It’s text which contains plain human language plus tags that tell the browser how to render it. The tags are more guidelines than rules. They indicate an intent rather than dictating an exact appearance. In different browsers, or even different settings in the same browser, you might see differences in fonts, spacing, colors, and so on.
(more…)

Being an honest ghostwriter

This entry was posted in Writer ethics Writing and tagged ethics ghostwriting writing on by

It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you.
(Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5)

When you aren’t writing under your own name, the boundaries of honesty aren’t quite the same. You aren’t being hired to say what you believe, but to put someone else’s ideas into words. It isn’t dishonest as such to say things which you don’t personally believe are true, but you don’t have a license to lie. Where’s the boundary you can’t cross without becoming dishonest?

Advocacy vs. deception

The slope is slippery, so I stay well back from the brink. I’m willing to present a case for a conclusion which isn’t clearly false, even if I have doubts about it. For instance, I see no ethical problem with writing an article that says cloud-based VoIP is best on one day, then an article the next day saying an on-premises IP PBX is better. Both are true under some circumstances. However, I won’t write an article claiming an IP PBX is illegal — at least, not until I learn that some government has actually outlawed it.
(more…)

Blogs for bloggers 1

This entry was posted in Writing Writing as business and tagged blogs RSS on by

We writers learn from one another, as well as getting encouragement. Here are some blogs that I can recommend for writers in general and especially for bloggers.

I’ve included the RSS link for each blog. RSS feeds are a great and underutilized way to keep track of interesting content. In case you aren’t familiar with them, they’re a way to subscribe to site updates without filling up your mailbox. You use an RSS aggregator website or application (I use Leaf on the Mac) and check it whenever you like. It will list the latest entries for each site that you’ve subscribed to. To subscribe, you copy the feed link and follow your aggregator’s instructions to add it. If you can’t find the feed link, aggregators can often find it for you if you give them the site URL.
(more…)

Finishing what you start 3

This entry was posted in Techniques Writing and tagged writer's block writing on by

For some courses of action, the first step is the hardest. Joining the Army. Making a dental appointment. Talking to someone you find attractive. For writing, it’s getting to the finish that’s usually hardest. Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, getting an idea and writing a few sentences isn’t hard. But somewhere along the way, you’ll often get stuck.

In my case, writing factual pieces, it isn’t writer’s block in the normal sense. It’s usually that there’s something I don’t understand well enough. A lot of times, I write about something that I generally understand but I’m not an expert on. I have to pick up a more complete sense of the topic. What I’ve researched fits together, yet there’s something left unsaid that I need to figure out in order to create a satisfactory article. Sometimes it’s actually an unimportant detail, and eventually I decide I’m just obsessing over it. But usually it’s something central to the topic, and if I don’t understand it, I could be basing my whole article on a false premise.
(more…)

Yesterday’s Songs Transformed: Progress Report 1 2

This entry was posted in My writing and tagged books Yesterday's Songs Transformed on by

This weekend I made a big step forward on my book, Yesterday’s Songs Transformed. I took some of the accumulated material and started building chapters out of it. Here’s what I have so far:

  • 1: Living Songs
  • 2: Ancient and Medieval Songs
  • 3: The Child and Grandchild Ballads
  • 4: The Unfortunate Rake
  • 5: Colonial America
  • 6: The American Civil War
  • 7: Approaching the Modern Age

(more…)

Let your computer read back to you

This entry was posted in Tools Writing and tagged proofreading text to speech on by

Proofreading is vital to a writer. If you leave a out, it can kill your chances with an an otherwise good article. (Yes, that was intentional.) Last time I talked about the benefits and limitations of Grammarly and mentioned the need to put your own judgment first. Just remember to give your judgment all the help you can.

One technique is to read a piece aloud when you’re done with it. You can catch errors that slip past your eyes this way. But I find that when I do this, I tend to mumble as fast as I can, so it’s not always as helpful as it might be. Recently a colleague on a writers’ forum suggested having your computer read your post back. (That person didn’t give a full name, so I can’t give credit here.) This struck me as an excellent idea, and I’ve started using it.
(more…)

Can you rely on Grammarly?

This entry was posted in Techniques Tools and tagged grammar Grammarly on by

Mistakes in spelling or grammar can torpedo an otherwise great article. Grammarly is a popular online tool for catching them. I use the free version regularly to check articles before submitting them. It does a decent job at catching the worst of my blunders. It hasn’t impressed me enough to go for the paid version, too. It has its quirks, being obsessive on some issues and plain wrong on others.

My cat Mokka guarding a dictionary

Mokka sternly protecting a dictionary. December 30, 2008.

If I agree with Grammarly’s recommendation, I use it. If I don’t, I leave my writing as it is, or I make a different change. But I get the impression that a lot of writers take its recommendations as Holy Writ, and I wonder how much it’s affecting writing styles on the Internet.
(more…)

This entry was posted in Writing on by | Open »

I’ve just updated my settings to create nicer-looking permalinks. Unfortunately, this has broken the existing links to all my posts. The posts are all still available from my blog page.