Writing Hacks

Mind Hacks is subtitled Tips & Tools for Using Your Brain. I've been reading it with a writer's eye, searching for secrets we can use in our work. I alluded to one of these when I wrote about keeping subject and verb close, the Stop memory-Buffer Overrun While Reading hack #51 which begins on page 165. The subhead for this section reads, The length of a sentence isn't what makes it hard to understand--it's how long you have to wait for a phrase to be completed. The book has a decidedly technical bent both in using the language of computing and in referring readers to websites that demonstrate "hacks" (another computer term). Best of all, it's research-based, and the authors include citations right in the text for each section, although they call them "End Notes". Many of the citations and references are digital, and that makes following up an idea even easier. The authors don't require attribution for using their material, but I think they're entitled to every buzz we can give them: Mind Hacks by Tom Stafford and Matt Webb. Copyright 2005 O'Reilly Media, Inc., ISBN 0-596-00779-5.