Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »

Search

Advanced Search Options

To further refine your search, you can use additional qualifiers such as score:>0.5. For example, the search score:>=0.5 created:<1y grammar would return only posts mentioning "grammar" that have a score >= 0.5 and were created less than a year ago.

Further help with searching is available in the help center.

Quick hints: tag:tagname, user:xxx, "exact phrase", post_type:xxx, created:<N{d,w,mo,y}, score:>=0.5

Filters
16.1k posts
 
50%
+0 −0
Q&A When to use the character's name and when to use she/he?

This is the first short story where I'm using actual names for the characters. Here is a sample: "Sorry for the question," Jun said. "But why don' you have friends?" Ling glanced at him, t...

1 answer  ·  posted 13y ago by Alexandro Chen‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question fiction characters word-choice
50%
+0 −0
Q&A Should I put colons with second-level titles?

I'm writing a documentation for an eGovernment project, so the document I'm writing is a scientific document. It contains some big ideas, each having some subideas, with each subidea having a numbe...

2 answers  ·  posted 13y ago by Tamer Shlash‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question punctuation titles
50%
+0 −0
Q&A Do I correctly utilize my naming adjective concept in this book?

In my story THE GOSPEL OF THE RETURN OF A CHRIST THAT WANTS ANSWERS I wanted to evoke a sense of the middle ages in a modern book. So I utilized a technique where whenever I referred to a character...

1 answer  ·  posted 13y ago by Erith‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question technique naming
50%
+0 −0
Q&A Coincidence of Similarity in Writing

I am a blogger and sometimes I find articles with similar content or an idea coincidentally similar as mine which is not published at the time of reading that similar article but which I have writt...

3 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by mohinip‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question fiction poetry non-fiction creative-writing
50%
+0 −0
Q&A How can I make a "meeting in VR" less dumb?

I've written myself into a sci-fi cliche which I have never seen done well: two characters meet in virtual reality. The gist of my scene is one character has been in a pseudocoma, more aware of he...

1 answer  ·  posted 7y ago by wetcircuit‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question fiction character-development dialogue science-fiction science
50%
+0 −0
Q&A How To Settle On An Ending?

I've had a few different ideas for an ending that I've narrowed down to two. They both fit the tone and they both fit the story. But they are also completely different. How do I pick? For example,...

2 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Lunar Eclyptica‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question ending creative-writing
50%
+0 −0
Q&A How do you write a Stack Exchange answer?

Over my years on StackExchange I've come to view answering SE questions as its own, highly specialized writing subgenre, with its own demands, and its own ideal format. By trial and error, and obs...

13 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Chris Sunami‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question technique structure
50%
+0 −0
Q&A Is it acceptable to have the theme of a story remain hidden to its characters?

I am trying to expand the depth of my writing beyond simple storytelling. Although my previous novel was an action/adventure, I realized it has a deeper point than entertainment. Dean Koontz offers...

3 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Richard Stanzak‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question fiction creative-writing
50%
+0 −0
Q&A How to quote something somebody was told by someone else? (Third-party, hearsay)

THE ISSUE There must be a catch-phrase or soundbite to describe this scenario, but so far, I've been unsuccessful locating that term, and my efforts to answer this question have been flat as well....

1 answer  ·  posted 7y ago by Eric Hepperle - CodeSlayer2010‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question third-person citations journalism quotes ethics
50%
+0 −0
Q&A Words we may believe are neutral yet have restricted connotations

Edit: Perhaps a list of words prone to mis-use would serve the need, here. Is anyone aware of a resource that lists words with emotional baggage? Example: I use the expression 'enormity of...

1 answer  ·  posted 7y ago by DPT‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question word-choice
50%
+0 −0
Q&A Converting/rewriting present tense narratives to past tense gracefully. Not a question about verb conjugation

I decided a few chapters into a book I'm writing that I dislike present tense, and that I would need to go back and make all instances of present tense past tense to maintain consistency. However, ...

2 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Nero gris‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question tenses creative-writing
50%
+0 −0
Q&A Am I describing a zombie?

I introduced a young person (called Raven) who the main character was friends with in my story; Raven is an excellent student who the main character is also teaching music to. The story is the resu...

5 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Edmund Frost‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question characters word-choice horror dramatic-writing
50%
+0 −0
Q&A Is excerpts from an in-universe book, presented between chapters, a good way of handling exposition?

A book that I'm currently writing called Surge features an enemy faction called the Degenerates that are heavily inspired by the Scythians (Indo-Iranian horse nomads that ruled the Eurasian Steppe ...

2 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question readers creative-writing exposition
50%
+0 −0
Q&A Can "numbers" be good doc performance metrics? Is there a way to meaningfully interpret the quantitative user data we gather?

I work on developer documentation at a tech startup. As of now, we implement the following feedback mechanisms: We have a thumbs-up/down feedback system on each page of the docs site. If a user c...

2 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Amruta2799‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question technical-writing metrics
50%
+0 −0
Q&A Limitations of automatic documentation

As technology advances and workflows are streamlined, some have turned to automated tools such as Doxygen, Sphinx, Swagger, etc. in order to generate technical documentation automatically. What ar...

2 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Timtech‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question software tools api-documentation documentation
50%
+0 −0
Q&A Describing body language?

This is something I've pondered before. I asked about one gesture on yahoo answers long ago. All I got was a guy saying that even he didn't know the term for it (it was the gesture where someone ho...

3 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question description characters script
50%
+0 −0
Q&A Prepare for more after the "ending"?

In my story, there's this big bad, who needs to be destroyed. That is the main goal for about the last third of the video game. So the group of heroes manages to destroy him! ... but I don't want t...

2 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by noClue‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question plot videogame ending structure
50%
+0 −0
Q&A Is there a dialog tag for when someone is saying something in awe?

I'm looking for a dialog tag for when someone is in awe and saying something along the lines of "oooooo!" or "wooooooow!" "Oooooooo!" they ______ed. Does it exist? If so, what is it?

5 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Klara Raškaj‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question dialogue
50%
+0 −0
Q&A Why do many manuals and technical documents seem to prefer passive voice?

It seems like many manuals and technical documents prefer passive voice over active voice. Is this true, or is it just my perception? If so, why?

2 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by EJoshuaS - Reinstate Monica‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question style technical-writing
50%
+0 −0
Q&A What strategies are there to document data lineage and keep it updated with a minimum amount of maintenance?

Quickly communicating data lineage to other stakeholders in our organization has become increasingly difficult as we scale. What are effective strategies to address this and keep it maintained? A...

2 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by David Vogel‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question software technical-writing software-documentation documentation
50%
+0 −0
Q&A Is it better to repeat steps listed elsewhere in a manual, or to refer the reader to where the steps are listed elsewhere in the manual?

We have a tool that we cannot replace that does not support single sourcing. As a result, with instructions that involve the same node, we either repeat the same dozen steps over and over, or refer...

2 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Lefty G Balogh‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question software organization technical-writing software-documentation maintenance documentation
50%
+0 −0
Q&A Alternatives better to the binary "0b..." format?

In our documentation, we write binary numbers like this: 1010 But we write hexadecimal numbers like this: 0xABAB Now, according to the GCC compiler conventions: Numbers are normally written in...

2 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Yoel‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question software terminology software-documentation documentation
50%
+0 −0
Q&A What are the standard genre characteristics of contemporary women's fantasy [closed]

I want to write a fantasy novel with a female protagonist, and I want to familiarize myself with reader expectations. Is there still a tradition of (medieval-type) fantasy by and for women, and wha...

5 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Sorry for that‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question genre fantasy
50%
+0 −0
Q&A How much humour is effective in technical documentation?

It's well known that live presenters are often advised to add a dose of humour in order to engage the audience better. However, I very rarely see humour in written technical documentation; this de...

5 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by DVK‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question humor technical-writing
50%
+0 −0
Q&A Bridging the gap between colloquial usage and technical meaning of terms

Frequently, at least in the software world, it seems that terms get assigned a meaning over time that is more general than the original definition. REST is a good example of this. While REST refe...

3 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by thesquaregroot‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question software terminology software-documentation documentation