guys please review my article for content, style and general quality. Diversity and the Evolution of the Human Mind (by manchesterguy) Our world has converged into an increasingly interconnected, heterogeneous community of people belonging to different cultures and ethnicities, speaking different languages, and getting ever greater opportunities to interact and communicate with each other. The greater possibilities for interaction between cultures that were spurred in the twentieth century by advances in transport such as air travel were not available to people of ages bygone; the advances in information and communication technology achieved at the turn of this century were not available only a few decades earlier. The communications revolution of recent times is every bit as ground breaking as the development of the modern transport systems preceding it, or even the Industrial Revolution. Cultures that evolved over hundreds of years were suddenly exposed to new stimuli that were to affect them in unprecedented ways. Peoples that had led traditional lives in isolated communities were now confronted with new choices and new opportunities. The transformations brought about were multilateral and symbiotic. While those living in developing countries suddenly had greater access to the latest information about the lifestyles and dynamics of the First World, getting in effect greater opportunities to improve their own lives, the inhabitants of the post-industrialized world had a chance to appreciate and benefit from the unique perspectives of cultures that were often radically different from their own. Even as cultural interactions have taken place with increased frequency since the dawn of the twentieth century, both their scale and scope have changed dramatically with the advent of the revolutionary communication technologies of the late twentieth century. While the transfer of technology across the world occurred at different paces throughout history, often with innovative outcomes like that of gunpowder introduced to Europe, or personal computers to India, in recent years the transfer of ideas has assumed a marked pace of its own. And although business at the speed of thought (as advocated by Bill Gates) may yet be some way off, ideas today literally travel at the speed of light thanks to technologies such as the Internet. The diverse worldviews available to the average citizen of the United States in the first decade of the twenty first century, for example, would not have been possible only a few decades earlier. While the fascination with Eastern spirituality and Indian fads in the West may be some of the most conspicuous, superficial aspects of this cross cultural exchange – more profound developments may be taking place in the collective consciousness of humanity. The human mind may be entering a new phase in its evolution, as mass-consciousness attempts to gather bits and pieces of the civilizational experience that nature has distributed to man across his world through the thousands of years of his development. Ancient cultures around the world apparently tend to possess certain unique features, or core competences, so to speak, that give them an edge over other cultures in specific domains. Obvious examples of such inimitable cultural features may be found in Indian spiritual and meditation techniques, Chinese martial arts, and Western technology and organizational capabilities – all unique, civilizational skills that developed in isolation, but eventually led to the enrichment of mankind's experience in totality. Sanskrit, a prosaic language especially suited to the expression of discrete ideas may have contributed to India becoming a major software powerhouse, while lyrical Arabic may have made for some of the most beautiful Urdu poetry imaginable. Today, when a Belgian man recommends Kimchi to his fellow Web-surfers in order to improve brain power, or when a Polynesian teenager advocates the use of the Noni fruit growing on his island to improve muscular endurance, human intellect may have finally come into its own. Unique outlooks, perspectives, and specific cognitions that formed across the world as a result of centuries of human experience in isolation, may now have unprecedented opportunities to converge, restructure and even lead to the development of new forms of knowledge. Creativity may be a particular beneficiary of such extensive, transcending forms of communication. Such new sources of information may prove to be a boon to human ingenuity, as diverse ideas give rise to richer thought, opening up new horizons for the human mind as it learns to think with greater freedom. New paradigms may now be created by the average mind that has access to information about whole new contexts, overriding old notions. For example, an inquisitive villager in Africa may use the Internet to discover that the hardy aloe vera plant that thrives in the deserts of Australia also provides a veritable storehouse of nutrients, a reliable potential food source for the starving people of drought-ridden Sudan. The perceptive human mind now has access to new solutions, creating whole new paradigms by simply linking existing bits of information – connecting existing contexts to create new ones. So what does all this bode for the future of our world? Leadership, for one, is bound to see major developments. Those who have the foresight to forge links between hitherto unrelated contexts will create paradigms that will be dutifully followed by the rest of their communities. In our time, one way to define leadership would be to see it as the power to actually create new patterns of thought and behavior – new ways of going about life. This, then, may be the ultimate achievement of mankind – the end of evolution, as it were - to discover, extract, conserve, and utilize human genius as it occurs in its natural distribution across our planet. Diversity, in all its totality, is the equivalent of human genius – an aggregation of the individual pieces of thought as it developed over millennia, a collection of the countless cognitions that have occurred across the expanse of time. Genius, we may thus surmise, may not be the domain of any one individual, but the collective destiny of mankind. "I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow", said Woodrow Wilson. Suddenly, that may appear to be very true for an increasing number of individuals around the world.
please review this for me. its pretty much un-proofreaded work and not one of my best...but still, i'd really love you guys to comment on it!
I didn't read it all, but here are a few thoughts: The comma goes inside the quote. And if you follow typical AP style, it's usually source said unless the identifier is long. Example: "I really like the business," Market Junction said. A few things here. 1. Don't write long sentences for the sake of writing long sentences. You should only do so when the long sentence is tighter than writing multiple sentences. 2. Watch out for redundancies. You said: "ever greater," which is redundant. Simply say "greater." The English-speaking population loves redundancies. We use them like they are going out of style. However, solid writing shouldn't contain them. 3. The sentence needs to be cleaned up. It most likely could be tightened OR split into two sentences for a better read. The piece has other issues, but I can't address them all, because that's what I get paid to do. It goes beyond simply making sure words are spelled right. Do you outline before you write? One of the most common downfalls I see with writers is a lack of logical order. Think of an article as a recipe. You wouldn't do something like: 2 eggs Bake for 30 minutes 1 cup of mix Whisk eggs Flip over after 10 minutes Get out mixing bowl But, that's exactly what many writers (usually without knowing it) do. Perhaps not to that degree, but hopefully you get the idea. As always, write to your audience. Good luck!
yup u're right on the spot there. i kind of had similar ideas but like i mentioned i hadnt proofreaded it yet... i hadn't written this to an outline...although i have written other articles with outlines.
content is good and informative, but as pointed out by marketjunction bit smaller sentences with no or little redundancy could make it even better.
It could be a clearer and more concise. There are a lot of unnecessary words. For example, (1) just say increased (2) changed how? did scale and scope grow or shrink? (3) I would avoid saying twentieth century twice in the sentence. That sentence is free. The rest will cost you $10/page.
Simplicity Rules in Article Writing. I would say strip it down to the 3 or 4 main ideas. Introduce the main topic and hint on the main ideas in the first paragraph. Explain what the purpose of the article is. In the following paragraphs introduce your main ideas one at a time. Reveal one or two facts and introduce the next idea. Move on to each main idea and repeat. Keep the article flowing to the end if possible. In the conclusion briefly review the overall purpose and tell the person how they can apply the information then end it. Isolating a few ideas and showing what's involved should be done clearly and with economical words. Speak through your article in conversational style. You can't cover everything in your article as most web articles are between 400-500 words. So hit it and quit it. It takes practice but after you write a few hundred it will come naturally so keep on practicing. It's an art. regards, Don
this sentence is excessively long - Our world has converged into an increasingly interconnected, heterogeneous community of people belonging to different cultures and ethnicities, speaking different languages, and getting ever greater opportunities to interact and communicate with each other Try to shorten it a bit. the same goes for - While those living in developing countries suddenly had greater access to the latest information about the lifestyles and dynamics of the First World, getting in effect greater opportunities to improve their own lives, the inhabitants of the post-industrialized world had a chance to appreciate and benefit from the unique perspectives of cultures that were often radically different from their own and the other ones. Article writing has to be served as simple as possible. Online readers are somewhat lazy. They don't want to read long sentences. If this was to be published in a newspaper then the story would have been different. Another thing that I would like you to do is this: Ask yourself these really important questions - How is my article going to make people's life better? In what way will this help them? The answers to these questions will lead your writing in the right direction. Hope this helps.
Hi, Manchesterguy, My feedback: Sentences are somewhat long, ideas are too many in there, some punctuation mistakes (already outlined) and article length is excessive. Most online articles are written short (of course, it really depends on your audience) but generally speaking - just as shuttle mentioned - Internet readers are too lazy. The bright side - your ideas are "deep" enough and what I see from your writing is a desire to show competence and quality writing, so I think the pluses of your article are much more than the minuses. F.