Author Archives: Jessica Jewell

About Jessica Jewell

Jessica Jewell is a Research Scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.

The future of email: an empathy algorithm

Posted on April 27, 2015

Some of our most popular entries are on how to write good emails: both what to say and what not to say. But what if the computer could tell you how to tailor emails to different people?

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Cobook is buggy

Posted on November 13, 2014

Following Aleh’s entry on contact management I decided to give CoBook a try. But it’s really buggy and doesn’t seem to work well with Yosemite. The Latvian company which built CoBook was recently bought by FullContact and while they’ve promised … Continue reading →

Posted in Contacts | Tagged | 3 Comments

Presentation zen with emoji

Posted on October 29, 2014

In presentations, I find myself in a constant battle with giving the audience enough visual cues so they can absorb my messages without cramming a lot of words on slides. In a recent talk, I was able to use emoji … Continue reading →

Posted in Graphics, Presentations | Leave a comment

50 pounds of writing

Posted on May 28, 2014

A great article from a design blog talks about the importance of the first draft. It shares a parable from Art and Fear on art-making and creative ventures. A pottery teacher splits a class into two groups: one group is … Continue reading →

Posted in Writing | Tagged | 2 Comments

5 Typography essentials for academic texts

Posted on November 25, 2013

Typography can affect everything from the mood of a text to how convincing its arguments are. When self-publishing a thesis or working paper, or even in preparing a piece for review it’s good to follow these rules to make your texts … Continue reading →

Posted in Graphics, Writing | Tagged | 11 Comments

Taking full advantage of Scrivener’s power for short writing: Streamlining research and writing

Posted on November 15, 2013

Recently, I’ve been writing shorter pieces and have developed a new workflow in Scrivener. At the beginning of a writing session, I work on the text which I’m prepared to write (i.e. I have all the references and ideas fleshed … Continue reading →

Posted in Writing | Tagged | 1 Comment

Color-coding scrivenings in Scrivener

Posted on November 14, 2013

One of things that makes Scrivener such a joy to work with is being able to color code scrivenings. At a glance, you can immediately see the state of different parts of text and, if you’re using Scrivener for collaboration, … Continue reading →

Posted in Collaboration, Writing | Tagged | 6 Comments

5 reasons to write your thesis in Scrivener

Posted on November 11, 2013

Writing a thesis is painful. And it should be. But the pain should rest in wrestling with ideas and data not with software. Scrivener takes the pain out of the software side and ensures that your attention is always in … Continue reading →

Posted in Writing | Tagged | 27 Comments

Writing a thesis one day at a time

Posted on November 4, 2013

Usually, a thesis is the first book you will write and all professional writers talk about the importance of setting a daily target. When writing up your thesis, a daily target is critical if you want to avoid a breakdown … Continue reading →

Posted in Writing | 2 Comments

When Microsoft Word is best for the job

Posted on October 17, 2013

In the past Macademic wrote about misuses of and alternatives to Microsoft Word. But we also believe sometimes Word is the best tool for the job. In such cases it should be used to its full capacity including captions and cross-referencing, custom keyboard … Continue reading →

Posted in Writing | Tagged | 9 Comments