Patrick Barry > Quotes

“asking the question using the definite article “the” instead of the indefinite article “a” seems to create a (false) broken headlight in people’s brains.”
― Patrick Barry, Good with Words: Writing and Editing

“Yes, you should edit by deleting words. Yes, you should edit by adding words. But you should also edit by rearranging them. Said differently: Keep the content—just change the location.”
― Patrick Barry, Good with Words: Writing and Editing

“People don’t choose between things, they choose between descriptions of things. —Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics”
― Patrick Barry, Good with Words: Writing and Editing

“People don’t choose between things, they choose between descriptions of things.”
― Patrick Barry, Good with Words: Writing and Editing

“If you ask witnesses, “Did you see the broken headlight?” you’ll likely get more witnesses to say yes than you would if you instead ask them, “Did you see a broken headlight?”
― Patrick Barry, Good with Words: Writing and Editing

“As the poet Robert Frost remarked in a letter to a friend in 1914, “The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader.”
― Patrick Barry, Good with Words: Writing and Editing

“The goal is simply to start to pay close attention to the force and flexibility of language, the way words shape everything from custody battles, to sporting events, to how we tell stories about ourselves and others.”
― Patrick Barry, Good with Words: Writing and Editing

“Being good with words means more than choosing the right words; it also means choosing the right word order. The formal term for this choice is “syntax”
― Patrick Barry, Good with Words: Writing and Editing

“Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.7 See the reversal there? In the initial part of the sentence, we have “rise by sin.” The verb (rise) comes before the noun (sin). But in the next part of the sentence, Shakespeare switches the order. Now the verb (fall) comes after the noun (virtue).”
― Patrick Barry, Notes on Nuance: Volume 1

“So is stressing the idea of “deliberate practice,” a concept developed by the psychologist K. Anders Ericsson to describe how elite performers develop and maintain their expertise. “The right sort of practice carried over a sufficient period of time leads to improvement,” Ericsson explains. “Nothing else.”9”
― Patrick Barry, Good with Words: Writing and Editing

“When giving feedback: "Remember: Few people like to be corrected. Most people prefer to be helped.”
― Patrick Barry, Good with Words: Writing and Editing

“chiasmus. Represented by the pattern A-B-B-A, it’s when a certain grammatical structure is repeated—but in a reverse order.”
― Patrick Barry, Notes on Nuance: Volume 1

“When engaged in a serious conflict: An 'us against the world' mentality can be helpful-unless the world is right.”
― Patrick Barry, Good with Words: Writing and Editing

“words you choose can change the decisions people make. Psychologists call the mechanics of this choice “framing.”
― Patrick Barry, Good with Words: Writing and Editing

“Think about more than just the straightforward definition of the words you use. Think about the connotations of those words as well—the ideas they might evoke, the reactions they might elicit, the images and emotions they could stir up.”
― Patrick Barry, Good with Words: Writing and Editing

“If those who have studied the art of writing are in accord on any one point, it is this: the surest way to arouse and hold the reader’s attention is by being specific, definite, and concrete. The greatest writers—Homer, Dante, Shakespeare—are effective largely because they deal in particulars and report the details that matter. Their words call up pictures.”
― Patrick Barry, Good with Words: Writing and Editing

“Ericsson and Pool make clear that deliberate practice “takes place outside one’s comfort zone and requires a student to constantly try things that are just beyond his or her current abilities.”
― Patrick Barry, Good with Words: Writing and Editing

“more people will decide to have a surgery if they are told that the “survival rate is 90%” than if they are told that the “mortality rate is 10%.”3”
― Patrick Barry, Good with Words: Writing and Editing