fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Discover ILLUMINATION Writers
By: Dr Mehmet Yildiz
Tags: Health, Entrepreneurship, Startup, Leadership, Writing

Introduction to ILLUMINATION Writers

Discover ILLUMINATION Writers

BIOs of writers from their pen

Photo by Hannah Olinger on Unsplash

The purpose of this article is to introduce our writers and editors from their pen on ILLUMINATION. We have a diverse set of writers and editors reflecting insights from various domains and disciplines. They share and engage.

Meeting them can give you new perspectives. Their bios also have some sample articles to taste. This is an opportunity to explore their content and connect with them. Our writers are source of knowledge and inspiration who can amaze you and provide you insights from a diverse range of topics and subjects.

I feel privileged to have these great minds and creative professionals in our community. We will add more and more writers to this document so you may save this article as a reference.
The Importance of Blank Space on Your Calendar
By: Andrew Merle
Tags: Technology, Health, Productivity, Creativity, Entrepreneurship

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

It is very easy these days to find ourselves overcommitted and overwhelmed as we try to “fit it all in.”

There are many demands for our time and attention, pulling us in a thousand different directions, and countless distractions to derail us from what really matters.

It is all too common to find ourselves busy nonstop throughout the day without any space for real thinking. After all, when our lives are so hectic, isn’t it an unrealistic luxury to set dedicated time aside for thinking and reflecting?

That is the default mindset for many, but author Greg McKeown provides an alternative viewpoint in his New York Times best-selling book, Essentialism (a fantastic book about doing less, but better, in all areas of our lives).

He says,“The faster and busier things get, the more we need to build thinking time into our schedule. And the noisier things get, the more we need to build quiet reflection spaces in which we can truly focus.”

McKeown cites Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn, who schedules up to two hours of uninterrupted time on his calendar every day.

Weiner started this practice when back-to-back meetings began consuming his schedule. Initially, blocking out blank space felt like an indulgence, but now he credits it with being his single-most important productivity tool.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos follows a similar model. He has been known to keep two days per week unstructured in order to think, generate new ideas, and take a long-term perspective instead of getting buried in the day-to-day.

Another example is Bill Gates who has habitually taken a week off (twice a year) simply to read and to think. Just in case this only seems possible for Gates at this stage in his career, it turns out that his “Think Week” ritual dates back to the early 1980s and has been maintained during even the most stressful business times at Microsoft and his foundation.

As McKeown says, “No matter how busy you think you are, you can carve time and space to think out of your workday.”

Maybe it could be first thing in the morning instead of checking email, or in the afternoon as an alternative to social media.

Whether it is two hours per day, two days per week, or two weeks per year, we need to make it a point to block out time specifically to think.

This space is vital in order to prioritize our life and work, and to focus our energy in the most meaningful areas.

But it will only happen if we deliberately design it into our calendar.
Essential OpenCV Functions to Get You Started into Computer Vision
By: Juan Cruz Martinez
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Python, Computer Vision, AI, Data Science

Reading, writing and displaying images

Before we can do anything with computer vision, we need to be able to read and understand how images are processed by computers. The only information computers can process is binary information (0 and 1), this includes text, images, and video.

How do computers work with images

To understand how a computer “understands” an image yo can picture a matrix of the size of the image where on each cell you assign a value that represents the color of the image in that position.

Let’s take an example with an image in greyscale:

For this particular case, we can assign each block (or pixel) in the image a numeric value (which can be interpreted as binary). This numeric value can be from any range, though it’s a convention to use 0 for black, 255 for white, and all the integers in between to represent the intensity.

When we work with color images, things can get a bit different depending on the library and how we choose to represent the colors. We will talk more about that later in the post, however, they all share more or less the same idea, which is using different channels to represent the colors, being RGB (red, green, and blue) one of the most popular options. With RGB we need 3 channels to build each pixel, so our 2d matrix now is a 3d matrix with a depth of 3, where each channel is the intensity of a particular color, and when mixing we get the final color for the pixel.

Working with images using OpenCV

Let’s now jump into the code to perform 3 of the most important functions when dealing with images, reading, showing, and saving.

import cv2

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt # Reading the image

image = cv2.imread('sample1.jpg') # Showing the image

plt.imshow(image)

plt.show() # Saving the image

cv2.imwrite('sample1_output.jpg', image)

If you run our code, now you will get one image saved to disk, and another as a result of the plot.

Image by author, from original image by Berkay Gumustekin on Unsplash

The image on the left is the one we plotted, vs the one on the right which is the image saved to disk. The difference in sizes aside (due to the plot), the image on the left side looks weird, looks bluish, but why is it different? (by the way, the image on the right is correct).
Is All Writing Valuable Writing?
By: Michelle Monet
Tags: Inspiration, Writing, Motivation, Creativity, Books

I say yes. Do it all.

deviantart.com

There are so many styles of writers who write on various subjects and in various themes.

There is:

The deep thinking essayist.

The lighthearted one-minute-wit writer.

The haiku poet.

The short story fiction writer.

The limerick poet.

The horror writer.

The serious poet.

The How-To writer.

The Dr. Suessy rhyming styled poet.

The self-help inspirational motivational writer.

The listicle writer.

The personal essayist

The comic writer.

The satirist.

The feverish journal writer.

To me, all of this is valuable writing. It all counts. I’ve written all of this myself.

I find it fun to experiment. Shouldn't writing be fun and enjoyable? Write it all if you want. Hey, why not try things on for size? There are no writing police (that I’m aware of!) waiting to handcuff you or take your writing permission slip away.

Well, maybe you’ll feel judged or even ostracized by your peers for stepping out of your comfort zone. I'm willing to risk that. I’m willing to risk going rogue.

I don't write for anyone but me and my inner future old lady, anyway.
Here Is A Creative Exercise in Futuristic Storytelling and Worldbuilding
By: Fahri Karakas
Tags: Creativity, Personal Development, Future, Storytelling, Writing

Image created by Author

Imagine that you are a storyteller and/or a screenwriter. It is the year 2120. A starship is leaving the Earth. 12 crew members are on it. You will create a science fiction story using this prompt.

Please follow the steps below and try to quickly respond to each question. You might use quick bullet points. Keep writing and keep it flowing. Enjoy!

Describe the starship. What is its name? Technical or technological features? Imagine its advanced technology. Imagine futurist technologies of the day. Implications? How are they traveling? Why is this starship leaving the Earth? Think of the reason(s) and the back story. Initiate the story: What are the events that trigger this starship to leave the Earth? Think of the mission of this starship. Where are they going? Why? What is their mission? What are the obstacles and challenges facing crew members? Think about these 12 characters/crew members. Who are they? Where do they come from? What makes them tick? Any pains? Are they haunted by their past? What about their personality? Any hidden agendas? Any special talents or super-powers? Ego issues? Vulnerabilities? Who are the biggest adversaries/enemies? What are their plans? How will they act? How do they pose a threat? Describe the events that lead to tensions/conflict. How do these events unfold? What is at stake? How do our heroes act? How do they deal with these threats/challenges? How do they transcend the obstacles? How do they transcend themselves? How do they face the darkness in themselves or in their enemies? How do they fall into darkness/traps/obstacles? How do they overcome these? Any conflicts or trust issues among crew members? How and why? How do they resolve these issues and solve the problems? Think of a few cliffhangers and a finale that will satisfy your readers or viewers.

Do not judge your ideas and keep your ideas flowing.

Following these steps and writing down your ideas quickly will help you get started in worldbuilding, screenwriting, and storytelling.

We did this exercise in the class that I taught recently. You can find the video of this workshop below. You can go to minute 1.50 to find this futurist screenwriting and storytelling exercise.

Workshop on Storytelling and Worldbuilding

I designed this workshop as collective performance art, where we reviewed some of the biggest names in the landscapes of entertainment, creativity, and business. From space to magic, from basketball to fashion, from animation to computer games, from film music to architecture we have had a trans-disciplinary tour of storytelling and creative careers.
Founders’ silent struggle — Overcoming setbacks (Part 6)
By: Inga Stasiulionyte
Tags: Coaching, Mental Health, Psychology, Startup, Entrepreneurship

Having a high control of themselves is the job of a skilled leader. Needless to say, there is no person in this world who could suppress panics and strong emotions without eventually becoming physically or psychologically ill.

The interviewed founders shared learnings that helped them to become stronger winners at their lowest points.

1. Asking for help

One of the hardest things for a founder to do is to ask for help.

Many want to resolve everything themselves without allowing anybody and even themselves to see their weaknesses.

Talking with the right people about the problems lets us unstuck ourselves from the same perspective and see the situations from new lights.

Asking for help only means resolving problems faster! And time is the essence of the startup.

2. Finding emotional support

Lack of emotional support was what makes founders quit too soon.

Having a supportive community of like-minded fellow entrepreneurs helped many in restoring the motivation. It becomes important to see that you are not alone going through rough times and it’s a normal part of every startup journey.

In addition, every interviewed successful founder revealed that they had a special person with whom they could privately and openly vent about their complicated situations and their feelings.

However, that person was not just any person, it was a person would it be a friend, spouse, family member, mentor or coach who knew how to provide needed emotional safety and right kind of help.

3. Building a family

The most unexpected find from the interviews was that many founders mentioned how having family and children helped them to succeed in the startup life.

It is expected that founders would spend many nights in the office in building their startups. There is even a notion that if a founder that goes home at 7 pm is not serious about their venture’s success.

“Sometimes you feel guilty for not working as many hours as others while building a startup but at the same time having a family keeps everything that is happening in a startup world in perspective. Family and children remind you what is most important in life.”

This perspective helped founders in managing the mental sanity and make better decisions in the startup. Making time for family thought how to better structure days. Also, the family provided so needed emotional or even financial support during hard times in building a venture.

By talking to people you don’t let yourself be dragged down the hall of the spiraling negative thoughts and emotions. Expressing frustration of “what the fuck to do next” and having a chance to tell what you feel. Having a supportive family who does not put pressure on you keeps you balanced.

What helped you to overcome the hardest times?
Lockdown and Chronic Depression are a Double Jeopardy
By: A Singular Story
Tags: Self, Mental Health, Society, Creativity, Psychology

The morning after the night before always hurts and I’m not sanguine about my chances of making it to the bathroom without vomiting on myself. Then again, I last had a meal two days ago. This is likely empty nausea, the kind you get after your brain took a beating because depression intensified. I’m teetotal but I still call this a vulnerability hangover, because those three days of despair were brutal.

And they got progressively worse.

I spend too many hours staring at the Dutch suicide prevention website and trying to work up the courage to launch the chat function. Eventually, I realize that if I’m not coherent enough to corral my distress into words in conversation at home or in print, chat will be useless. Besides, there are hardly any trains anymore; lying down on the track isn’t an option. Also, I’ve already eliminated the one pharmaceutical tool I could have used several weeks ago.

I may not have been very rational at the time but I also knew ingesting the whole lot would have been enough to knock me out or worse. I thought it more prudent to remove that possibility immediately before it became more attractive than it already was. To make sure it was gone for good, I took out the trash despite not looking remotely presentable. We have smart card activated trash cans here: Once the container swallows the bag, there’s no retrieving it.

Between 2013 and 2018, this brain kept trying to kill me.

I’ve dedicated the last two years trying to teach it not to do that anymore.
How we helped streamline a mobile solutions company’s processes in a business-friendly way
By: Ville Yli-Knuutila
Tags: AWS, Cloud Computing, Mobile App Development, Microservices

Mesensei is a company that designs and creates mobile solutions for organisations and companies. The company turned to Kodan when they wanted to renew some of their software development processes and make them more effective, productive and cost-effective. After some brainstorming, we decided to focus on transforming part of their service into the cloud. The result of teaming up with Mesensei was a modern new way of working that Mesensei can now carry out independently in their future projects.

The project: Designing new architecture to streamline product development

We were excited to be asked by Mesensei to kick their product into a new gear and speed up their development by offering technical help. We wanted to design the new architecture in a way that would support and enhance the company’s business model. Transforming the process was a challenge, but we here at Kodan love a good challenge!

Moving to the cloud for flexibility and safety

At the start of the project, we felt the vibe about where Mesensei was at and then had a brainstorming sessions to chat about where they wanted to go next. Deciding to split the system into several smaller parts and moving those into a cloud infrastructure, we used the microservice architecture approach, because operating in the cloud improves system performance and safety, and makes everything easier to maintain.

We chose the Mesensei’s API for images as our test feature that we would move into the cloud. As the projectt kicked off, we noticed we could also offer Mesensei valuable help with programming and provide them with more workforce.

Kicking off with the modernization at the beginning of 2019, we used AWS and node.js tools and brought in a senior and a junior coder, which also helped us amp up our own knowledge. While our developers Nikolas, Juho and Jan worked with moving the image API into the cloud, Mesensei’s programmers were able to get on with their own work, using the existing system uninterrupted.

Result: Cloud-based microarchitecture, clear direction and more tools for the future

The project didn’t need a hefty investment in terms of money or time. All in all, it was a swift move that will help Mesensei to do the same with the rest of their services in the future, and in general enables new, established processes. New features can now be developed and implemented faster than ever.

At the end of our collaboration, Mesensei was happy with the work we’d done together and the smoothness of the process. We’re stoked to have helped them on their journey toward expansion.

“Working with Kodan has been a breeze. They were quick and efficient, and we got solid and concrete results fast.” - Tuukka Ylälahti, Co-founder & CEO at Mesensei

—

For more information about the case, contact our CEO Marko Loukkola: marko.loukkola@kodan.fi or +358 (0)44 552 5952.

For more Kodan: www | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
People Are Still Vacationing in the Middle of a Pandemic
By: Chloe Cuthbert
Tags: Health, The Bad Influence, Mental Health, Self-awareness, Coronavirus

Every time I think people can’t amaze me further with their stupidity, I’m sadly mistaken. Yes, stupidity. Or would you rather I say dangerous behavior? Either works.

As of today, in the United States alone, there have been 13.7m cases of the novel coronavirus, with almost 270k deaths.

What in those numbers gives you the idea that travel is a good idea? Now, it would be one thing if people were vacationing to parts unknown, not surrounding themselves with people. But that’s really not the case. People are still going to Disney. The park recently announced they’re open for business again, minus the water parks.

Just be sure if you’re over the age of 2, you wear a mask at all times.

Wearing a mask is important for sure. But you can’t tell me a crowd the size of the ones that frequent Disney isn’t a recipe for disaster. It’s not only dangerous, it’s destructive. No amount of memory making is worth the potential for death, or at the least, severe illness.

I blame the companies for agreeing to open in such a dangerous situation. I blame our government for not doing more to stop this on the front end. But I also blame the people of the United States who can’t put their plans on hold for a little longer in order to remain safe, and for the health and well-being of others.

Going on vacation would be a godsend right now for my family. We’ve been stuck at home since March, invading one another’s space, constantly under each other. Sure, it’s nice to spend time with your family, but enough is enough. Through all this, there’s no vacation on this planet that’s worth our continued health. We even avoided a small Thanksgiving get-together to ensure we remained virus free.

Whether you have children, if you’re single or married, your health and well-being are important. Consistently masking up, only going out when absolutely necessary, and avoiding crowds goes a long way towards ending this pandemic. Taking a family vacation, just because it’s what you’ve always done, isn’t the smart answer.

The state of the world isn’t what it’s always been. We have to adapt and overcome. Roll with the punches, if you will. But for all that is holy, stay home this holiday season and plan the vacations for when it’s safer. If you don’t, your vacation memories could be the last ones you make.
No, You Don’t Need to Write Everyday
Tags: Creativity, Mental Health, Productivity, Freelancing, Writing

Just to be clear, I’m not saying that writing every day is a bad thing, what I’m saying is do what is sustainable, at whatever pace that works, for you. Whatever motivates you to write consistently and intentionally for weeks, months, years; instead of feeling success at your fingertips while burning yourself to the ground in the process. Do whatever makes you write better, and hopefully, forever. And no, you don’t have to be miserable to be an artist. Be happier and healthier than that, your work, your body, and your mind will appreciate it.

Let me be real with you, there are days I could hardly get to the shower, let alone sit down (or up?) and write 500 words. On those days, I could feel my anxiety so physically like an invisible rock clinging against my chest. Sometimes, it grows legs and moves up to my throat, preventing me from raising my already-stifled voice. On those days, I don’t write despite the unbearable fear of me not working, not producing, not doing enough, not being enough. Because deep down, I know I write better when I’m well-rested; when ideas flow from my mind onto the computer’s screen without me having to think too hard about it.

Have you done something and later you exclaim with pride and excitement mixed with a little of confusion “I did that!?”?. That’s where you want to be, not grinding your words onto the page like a chore; which way of creating is gonna make you miserable at the end of the process.

So you know what? Binge that TV show. Finish the books that have been collecting dust on your slightly messy desk. Go out. Drink a cup of tea. Go hiking. Go to the gym. Go to the woods. Don’t forget to take naps because naps are the best! Do whatever you need to cope as the kids say, and keep yourself healthy, mentally and physically. Self-care is your first and foremost responsibility, cliche as it sounds. If your creative career takes a bit longer to take off, that’s okay. Because when you’re not happy, what’s the point of success? Success is the high you feel for 2 minutes (maybe a little more, or a little less, perhaps it’ll last for days if you’re lucky but eventually it’ll fade) after you achieve the very thing you’ve been trying to reach for years. Then there you are, alone yet again with your miserable self after the high subsides.

Do you want to be happy with your success, or do you want to feel dead inside because you have nothing left to give? It’s your choice to make.
It’s all about loneliness
By: Tds Editors
Tags: Editors’ Pick, PyTorch, Product Management , LSTM, The Daily Pick

How to make a prediction with time-series data using machine learning

By Will Stauffer-Norris in LSTM— 7 min
11 Reasons Creativity + Productivity Is About Mind Management, Not Time Management
By: David Kadavy
Tags: Productivity, Creativity, Time Management, Writing, Psychology

1. Time management is squeezing blood from a stone

“There’s only 24 hours in a day,” people say. They think that means you should get as much as you can from each of those hours.

What that actually means is there’s a limit to the time you can save. Time management is squeezing blood from a stone.

2. We’re entering the creative age

According to Kai-Fu Lee, AI and automation are poised to take forty- to fifty- percent of jobs in the next couple decades.

But not all jobs will disappear at the same rate. Jobs that require creativity will be out of reach for AI.

We’re entering the Creative Age.

3. Creative thinking is different from other thinking

We know thanks to the work of neuroscientists John Kounios and Mark Beeman that creative thinking is a unique type of thinking.

Creative thinking is promoted by a positive mood and relaxation.

The creative state is also a fragile state. It’s hard to get into, easy to get out of.

Here’s what the moment of insight looks like in the brain.

Animation by John Kounios and Mark Beeman (Northwestern/Drexel)

4. You’re most creative when you’re least sharp

We each have our “peak” and “off-peak” times of day.

Counterintuitively, the science shows you’re most creative during your off-peak time of day.

If you’re groggy in the morning, don’t reach for coffee first thing: That grogginess is a creative gift.

5. Creative work happens in stages

A great idea doesn’t mean your idea is ready to ship. There are four stages of creativity:

1. Preparation: Learn about the problem

2. Incubation: Let it sink in

3. Illumination: Have the idea

4. Verification: Get it ready to ship

Respect these stages, don’t get blocked.

6. Not all hours are equal

Some hours are great for having ideas — other hours are great for executing on those ideas.

Dan Ariely and I noticed working on Timeful (Google acquired) there aren’t 24 hours in the day — there’s an hour here or there for each type of thinking.

Here’s what the late, great, Anders Ericsson saw when he looked at the practice schedules of the very best violinists: Intense practice in the morning. Sporadic practice the rest of the day.

Redrawn (by the author) and adapted from “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance,” Ericsson et al., 1993.

7. The world works in cycles

You can work with cycles in your world to propel your ideas forward.

Days, weeks, seasons, and years can be harnessed to cycle through the Four Stages of Creativity.

For example, you can use a night’s rest, a relaxing weekend, or a cozy winter as Incubation:
You Should Be Writing
By: Zach J. Payne
Tags: Creativity, Storytelling, Productivity, Life Lessons, Writing

So many of the questions that these writers have can be resolved with this simple two step process:

Read a lot of things. Going off what you’ve read, write.

How do you format a novel? Read a novel, and follow the formatting that they use.

Do you use paragraph breaks whenever a new character starts speaking? Crack open all of the books around you, and see how many of them do that. Chances are, most of them do. So it’s a pretty good idea.

How do you write a good starship captain? Go to Netflix, start watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, and start writing.

Okay, that one was kind of facetious. (Not really. Picard is the best.)

But still, you go out and, throughout your life, you observe things. You read books that are formatted correctly. You read novels and watch movies and TV shows with tingly, tense scenes. You watch all of the starship captains and you decide which ones are good (Jean Luc Picard and Kathryn Janeway) and you make your captain have some of their traits, and some traits from people that you admire, and you have them respond to the stresses of your story and you watch them play.

You write. And, probably, write poorly.

But then you read more and watch more, and learn more. You grow as a human being. Maybe you take some writing classes. Maybe you get some help from a published writer, who’ll leave helpful notes, like this actual note I got from actual author Heather Petty, on my first novel:

But none of that happens until you actually write the damn thing.

So you put the Quora away. You swallow back the worst of your questions — no matter how hard it is. No matter how much you want to do it right on the first time.

That’s right. You procrastinate on those questions. You kick them down the line.

You stop worrying about it. And I know that’s not an easy or passive thing. You have to continually stop worrying about it. You have to stop going back and revising and trying to make it perfect. You try to get it done.

You write.
5 Important Reasons Why You Still Need a Personal Website
By: Casey Botticello
Tags: Design, Entrepreneurship, Social Media, Productivity, Creativity

Setting up a website is considered necessary for a variety of reasons. Every day, more than 547,000 new websites are created. Most of these are business and service-related, whether for rolling out a new startup, publishing a professional blog, setting up an online store, or even to introduce a non-profit organization. But what about creating a personal website?

There are numerous benefits to setting up a personal website. In fact, creating one is considered a necessity for many categories of people, including entrepreneurs, professionals in digital, media, entertainment, and creative fields, and even hobbyists. Yet, many decline to claim their personal space on the web. Often, it is not as a result of lacking the expertise. After all, these days, there are many ways to create a website without having to know a single thing about website development.

The issue is more about seeing the value in setting up a personal website. For example, many people think being on social media is sufficient. Having accounts with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. does connect you with the rest of the world. But the truth is, most people still search for stuff on Google, which is where having your own website truly becomes important. Not convinced? Here are five reasons why it is still absolutely necessary.
5 Techniques I Use to Manage Stress as a Software Engineer
By: Nick Bull
Tags: Software Engineering, Software Development, Mental Health, Productivity, Programming

1. Morning Journal

This is a technique I’ve been using for over three years, and it’s freaking golden.

Every morning, I write two things:

Brain dump — all thoughts, feelings, and experiences I want to write down. The goal for today — one main goal that I have to achieve today, no matter what.

I do it every morning for 5-10 minutes, and by the end, I feel completely different. My mind is calm.

If you reflect and write everything you have on your mind (what you are stressing about), you will procrastinate less throughout the day and think less about that one problem you have.

I recommend starting with the “brain dump” type of journaling three times per week in the morning to see how it goes. Then you can do it on a daily basis.
Writing Can Bring You Back From the Dead
By: Michelle Monet
Tags: Poetry, Writing Life, Health, Mental Health, Creativity

If you are surrounded by tragedy or death — writing is an amazing sign of life.

Three of my closest writer friends (all over 50 like me), told me today they are surrounded by sickness, tragedy and death in their lives. UGH. I also have many people — friends and family — seemingly going down around me.

Sometimes it feels like I’m Elton John…the only one standing!

We all agree that having our ‘writing practice’ is one way we feel ALIVE — and we are damn grateful for it.

I would never dream of not being grateful for my writing or of putting pressure on my writing. It is a beautiful place of peace, joy and aliveness.

We are all thankful to be able to write through all of our tragedies — even turn our tragedies into stories. Ahh yes, sometimes tragedies make the best material, don’t they?

One friend said, “Death is all around me it seems — but where’s the LIGHT?”

There’s always light. You can’t have light without dark. It reminds me of one of my favorite subjects: The Yin/Yang/duality. I also call it the FULL SPECTRUM — Yea, there’s black and white, but also grey and every other color in the rainbow of life.
The Four Types of Writing
By: Tammi Brownlee
Tags: Creativity, Productivity, Advice, Inspiration, Writing

The Four Types of Writing

Each one serves its own purpose

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

There are four types of writing as an author. Expository, persuasive, narrative, and descriptive. Each piece of writing includes one or all of these.

Expository

Writing from an author to inform or teach the reader something. You will find this type of writing in articles like this one you are reading. The language and style are meant to explain something to the reader. For this article I am explaining the four types of writing.

Textbooks and how to articles will utilize expository in their wording. Even the recipes you use are a type of expository writing as the recipe tells you how to complete it. Newspapers are another example of this type of writing as the writer wants to inform the reader of the daily events taking place in their world.

Persuasive

Writing from an author to voice their opinion to persuade the reader. Persuasive pieces are most commonly found in speeches, scientific studies, medical journals and even political campaigns.

The term persuade means to convince someone else to agree with the argument set forth in the piece. Scientific studies and medical journals good concrete examples but this type of writing can be seen in advertisements, book reviews, editorials and brochures.

Narrative

Where an author tells a story, fact or fiction, to the reader. This type of writing is also called storytelling as it has a main character, there is a conflict the main character is workingout and an ending that resolves the conflict. With everything in the middle called the plot.

Fiction is considered narrative as it tells the story of the main character as they work through their conflict trying to find the resolution. Non fiction can be considered narrative as well because, even though the story is not made up, there is still a main character, conflict and plot.

Descriptive

A type of expository which uses visual descriptions to tell the reader a story. Usually includes scenery, emotions and actions in a way that will resonate with the reader, allowing them to visualize the story in their mind as they are reading. It’s primary purpose is to describe a person, place or thing.

This type of writing can be used in the other types of writings, as it pertains to painting a virtual picture for the reader. It is used in both fiction and non fiction. A good, clear attention is required to write in a way that interacts the five senses, sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch.

Final thoughts

Storytelling, whether expository, persuasive, narrative or descriptive, is the formation of words written in a way to elicite excitement from the reader. All of these can be combined or used separately to convey a message.
5 Simple yet Effective Tips for Creating High-Quality Content for Your Content Marketing Strategy
By: Jack Martin
Tags: Marketing, Content Marketing, Writing, Business, Creativity

#4. Content happens frequently and consistently.

One of the toughest aspects of an effective content marketing strategy has nothing to do with the substance of what’s being communicated. It has to do with how much and how often you publish content.

The goal is to master the art of volume and consistency. It’s tough to do both, especially just starting out, so I find it best to start with the consistency aspect to start building the habit.

If you’re starting from ground zero on your content strategy, pick one or two avenues you want to focus on first. Let’s say you decide on company blog posts and thought leadership articles from your CEO. Pick an achievable goal based on your team capacity—maybe two 500-word blog posts, and one thought leadership article per week. Stick to that volume for six to eight weeks before implementing any other content marketing strategies.

Once you master that, you can either increase or expand your strategy. To increase is to continue what you’re doing but in greater volume. If your company blog posts and thought leadership articles are performing well, try adding two more blog posts per week and one more thought leadership article per week, or whatever’s manageable on a consistent basis.

Expanding is jumping into other types of content like podcasts or video interviews, leveraging other types of material to maximize output. For example, can you think of all the material you can create from one hour-long filmed podcast episode?

The video of the podcast can be uploaded to YouTube, and segmented into tons of small video clips for Instagram and TikTok. The audio can be used to promote as a podcast on Apple or Anchor.FM. The transcripts of the audio can be turned into multiple thought leadership articles or company blog posts, as well as short-form status updates for LinkedIn.

Of course, not all companies need to market on Instagram or YouTube, but expanding your strategy is always worth brainstorming internally to set yourself up with a plan to keep content ideas flowing.

At the end of the day, your preparedness is what’s going to keep you publishing on a frequent and consistent basis.
Why Word Placement Is Important in Headlines
By: Cynthia Marinakos
Tags: Creativity, Business, Headline Hacks, Productivity, Writing

Why Word Placement Is Important in Headlines

Readers are attracted to the first 3 words and the last 3 words

Illustration by Cynthia Marinakos.

What you do when you’re confronted with emails and social posts each day?

How do you browse through news websites and Medium articles?

Do you click on each one?

Most likely, you skim through the headlines to get the gist of it without having to click each one. Only clicking on the ones that call out to you at that moment, if you’ve got time.

A Kissmetrics study discovered that users pick out the first three words and the last three words of a headline. Headline expert Bnonn recommends keeping a headline to six words so that readers can quickly understand it.

Copyblogger informs us that on average only two out of ten readers will read your article — eight out of ten will only read your headline copy.

That’s why it’s worth paying attention to word selection and word placement.

It doesn’t mean we need to stick to only six words, although I came across several sites with headlines that consistently hovered around six words.

For longer headlines, it helps to consider the first three words and the last three words.

“As a rule, if it won’t fit in a tweet it’s too long. But let me suggest that rather than worrying about length you should worry about making every word count. Especially the first and last three.” — Kissmetrics

This discovery fits into the concept of frontloading for headlines. This is where you place the most important words first, and we can complement that with also carefully selecting the last three words. It will also help your headline’s SEO by making sure your reader can find the keywords they’re searching for.

Let’s begin with examples of headlines with six words and six and more words where the first three words and the last three words have been carefully chosen. You’ll find helpful resources to help you with word selection. And finally, you’ll discover a simple way to assess your headlines.
8 Questions You Can Ask Yourself to Write Better Articles
By: Ayodeji Awosika
Tags: Marketing, Writing, Writing Tips, Creativity, Creative Writing

8 Questions You Can Ask Yourself to Write Better Articles

Uncover the blind spots that keep your articles from thriving

There’s no exact method for writing articles that people want to read. You can write about a variety of topics successfully if you understand the patterns behind the type of articles people want to read.

It sounds simple and obvious, but many new writers miss the point. If you want a lot of people to read your writing, you have to write the type of articles people actually want to read.

If you want to stop banging your head against the wall, feeling frustrated that your work is getting nowhere, focus on that simple truth.

You don’t have to write a certain way. You’re free to do what you wish. But, you also have to live with the results. I see far too many writers who blame their lack of success on the audience.

Josh Spector once said, “You can write for an audience or write for yourself, but you can’t do both.”

If you don’t want commercial success that’s fine. But too many writers want commercial success doing it their way when their way doesn’t work.

The choice is yours. But always remember the golden rule of writing. It’s never the audience’s fault.

You don’t have to write how-to articles and listicles to get ahead. You really don’t. But, your articles will perform better if you have the right answers to some of these key questions.
9 Powerful Headline Hacks for Dedicated Professionals
By: Cynthia Marinakos
Tags: Headline Hacks, Writing, Work, Startup, Marketing

9 Powerful Headline Hacks for Dedicated Professionals

Learning to write magnetic headlines is an awesome skill — not just for writers

Illustration by Cynthia Marinakos.

Writers aren’t the only people to benefit from learning how to write magnetic headlines. As a working professional, mastering headlines can help you:

Stand out with job applications

Draw attendees to your meetings

Gather a crowd to your presentations

Get your emails opened

Get people using your app, your process

Get people using your service or product recommendation

Land you a higher paying position

The average professional — even the average writer — may think a great headline is all about getting attention no matter how it’s done. Getting that click. Yet the approach behind any powerful headline is this:

What’s in it for my reader?

Learn these nine headline approaches to stand out from the rest — and give yourself a leg up as a professional:
If You Can Give Up These 8 Things, You Can Become a Better Writer
By: Ayodeji Awosika
Tags: Marketing, Content Marketing, Writing Tips, Productivity, Writing

Photo by Alejandro Escamilla on Unsplash

If You Can Give Up These 8 Things, You Can Become a Better Writer

I get it. Really, I do.

I sincerely believe you have the desire to become a better writer, grow your audience, make a living, whatever it is you want to do. But, it’s just tough sledding period.

I’ve been doing it for so long that I forget just how much work it took to get here. To many of my readers, it feels like I’ve been at this level forever. Honestly, it feels the same way to me. I hardly remember what it was like to be a beginner and looking back, the amount of sheer writing I had to do to get here seems unbelievable. It doesn’t even feel like I did it. But I did.

And I was only able to do that because I was willing to make certain sacrifices. I made products and teach people about how to make a living writing, but I don’t try to overly encourage people to do it. It’s hard. Writing isn’t the greatest way to make a living. If you’re in it solely to make a living, there are much better routes. If you, however, do have it in your mind that you want to make this writing thing work, you will have to give something up. Maybe not every single item in this list, but something.

Your Sense of Entitlement

Why should anyone want to read your writing, visit your website, or buy your book?

Are you a diligent writer? Are you making an effort to connect with people who’d be interested in your writing?

No?

Let me guess, you think people should read your writing because you wrote it. That’s a horrible answer. If you’re trying to make a living with your writing, your words are — by definition — a product. You have to create your best work and get it in front of the right eyeballs.

Nobody owes you their attention.

To be fair, sometimes you can write great quality work that audiences aren’t receptive to. Sometimes, other writers can pass you up through sheer luck (actually, this happens often).

But feeling entitled to something you don’t have simply isn’t going to help you get it. Even if you have to go the extra mile to earn it and the process seems unfair, it still might be the only way.
For the Mornings You Just Need a Break
By: Kamga Tchassa
Tags: Creativity, Personal Growth, Self-awareness, Self, Writing

The past two months, I’ve spent stuck in that fog. Personal reasons, mostly. I had to take care of my health. I think that’s an excellent reason to pause everything and focus on it. Without a healthy body and mind, most things are pointless.

Not just to you, but the people around you as well. You can’t perform when you’re unwell. And if you’re not inadequate mental space, you can quickly become a not so nice person to be around.

The fog is that space between wanting to stay and do nothing and then doing something before “feeling” like it.

The bad thing about taking breaks — or staying in the fog — is that whatever tasks you wrote now need to be accomplished. In my case, not writing for almost a month has been angst-inducing.

Although I knew that the break was necessary, there were moments when I wish I didn’t need it: moments when I wanted to turn off the alarm and sleep.

But like the clearing of the fog, there were many more moments when I felt at peace for taking care of things more severe than my desire to feel validated using words on the internet.

There are lessons we learn only when we’re ready to learn. If we never understand them, they repeat. Over and over. Our learning hell.

Breaks are an excellent place to focus on whatever lessons we must learn at any stage of our lives. As creatives, it’s easy to feel that we must give up our craft and let life happen.

Of course, others use these moments of fog to create even more. I’m not one of those when the fog is there, no words. Only fog.

Or so I thought.

Now, I know better. I had the time to observe my need for validation and, more importantly, identify things that could be beneficial to creatives who need to take the break and maintain their creative muscle.

Why? Because I’ll be disappointed with my next 30 pieces. I feel my fingers fidgety and glued. My focus is sparse. My thoughts are unclear.

Writing, like every practice, requires diligence. Miss a day and pay for it.

Miss 30? Whew.

What can you do when you have to miss days? How else can you prepare for your return?

Here are some ideas.
Why Do Men Fare Worse With Covid-19?
By: Felix Gussone
Tags: Health, Covid 19, Coronavirus, Science, Men

Credit: krisanapong detraphiphat / Getty Images

Men are nearly twice as likely to become severely sick and die from Covid-19 compared to women, research has shown. Now, a new study from Yale, published on Wednesday in Nature, gives new clues as to why men fare so much worse with the coronavirus.

It’s the first study to look at the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 by sex, and it found that men produce an overall weaker immune response to the virus than women. “We now have clear data suggesting that the immune landscape in Covid-19 patients is considerably different between the sexes and that these differences may underlie heightened disease susceptibility in men,” senior author Akiko Iwasaki, PhD, told Yale Medicine.

The researchers looked at 98 patients who were older than 60 on average, admitted to the Yale New Haven Hospital with confirmed Covid-19, and compared the initial immune responses in those who recovered from the disease to those who progressed to worse stages. They found that women’s bodies produced more T cells, white blood cells that recognize and eliminate invading pathogens. The male study participants showed much weaker activation of those T cells, which correlated with how sick the men became. Given the findings, the researchers concluded that vaccines will play a particularly important role for men, especially those over age 60.

While the study did not explain why these sex differences in the immune response to the coronavirus exist, the new findings are not overly surprising, considering that scientists know women generally yield faster and stronger immune responses. One possible explanation: In order to protect unborn or newborn children, the female body has a greater evolutionary need to fight pathogens effectively.
Identifying Outliers
By: Ke Gui
Tags: Python, Artificial Intelligence, AI, Data Science, Programming

2. Using Moving Average Mean and Standard Deviation as the Boundary

Like in the first method, we need to get the boundary first and apply the boundary to the dataset. This time, a moving average mean and standard deviation (std) will be employed. To calculate the mean and std, a 21-day window is chosen, as that represents the average trading day in a month. You can choose any days, but the sensitivity will vary.

To get the mean and std, it is easy with one line of code in Pandas:

d1[['mean', 'std']] = d1['simple_rtn'].rolling(window=21) \

.agg(['mean', 'std'])

There are too many NaNs . The next step is to remove them:

d1.dropna(inplace=True)

Let’s draw a graph and find out where the boundary lays:

What happens if I use three times the std instead?

Hmm… a bit of an overshoot. Let’s change it to two times the std:

That is about right! Now is the time to look for those outliers: