MOST OF US GET HACKED all the time, although we don’t know it. Long gone are the archaic viruses that would cause glitches on the monitor, noticeably slow down your computer, or trigger a prank.
Chiseling words: Writing as sculpture
OUR WORLD IS BURSTING at the seams with ever more text. Good writing provides relief from this inflationary pressure: Like a sculpture, a strong text will surface thanks to a subtractive process, as its author chips away at surplus material, cutting things down to their core.
Words small and strong
BUILD YOUR TEXT with short rather than long words; it will pack all the more punch. Long words take time to read, because our minds can only process small amounts of data at once. If you bundle thorny words next to each other, you will turn your text into a thicket and reading into a…
Illustrations for the penniless
ILLUSTRATIONS ARE ESSENTIAL to digital content. Just imagine, for example, a webpage that is merely a wall of text. Regardless of how pertinent it may be for its intended public, it would be dead on arrival. To spruce up their publications, many companies thus hire photographers and graphic artists, subcontract artwork, and subscribe to stock…
Emails out of the blue
HOW DO WE CONNECT with strangers on a professional level, whether for fieldwork purposes, fundraising, promoting publications or organizing events? Unless we can actually meet in person, our first point of contact will most often be email. Indeed, cold calling tends to be disruptive and intimidating, while reaching out via social media is generally too…
The meaning of mentoring
LUCKY ARE THOSE who find the right mentor: There is much we cannot accomplish, in our lives or careers, in the absence of that rare and enriching encounter. But to build the right mentoring relationship, we must know what to aim for. Most importantly, a mentor must help the mentee find their own way in a learning…
Social media copy
THERE IS MORE to posts and tweets than the art of self-promotion. Social media provides a degree of public feedback that simply does not exist in other fields of intellectual output. While often addictive and disruptive, this can also be constructive—allowing us to experiment and obtain instantaneous returns with only moderate effort. Social media, in…
Bringing quotations to life
A RICH AND VIVID TEXT likely will include voices other than your own. When you share analysis or tell a story, you almost inevitably draw on characters from your readings, fieldwork, or life experience, whom you will paraphrase or directly cite. In writing, these interjections often appear between quotation marks, which prompt the reader to…
Paragraphs in progression
A READABLE TEXT flows through a sequence of paragraphs, each of which serves a distinctive function. While experienced writers tend to build that succession instinctively, even the best can benefit from slowing down and identifying precisely what effects they are trying to achieve at each step. Knowing a paragraph’s intended function will help focus its…
What is analysis?
ANALYSIS IS AN ODDLY VAGUE CONCEPT, given how central it is to our lives. There are many ordinary things we could not do without it. It would be dangerous to drive or cross the street without analysing the tangle of moving objects, road signs and weather conditions that inform our movements.
Wrestling with Egypt
THE ARAB UPRISINGS, for all the ensuing violence, have left a legacy of bold and creative media ventures. Without them, the Middle East’s public space would be shaped in the image of failed regimes, whose answer to growing socioeconomic needs is mostly limited to repression and propaganda. In Egypt, the independent digital daily Mada Masr…
The shape of a text
EDITORS ARE FREQUENTLY HAUNTED by shapeless texts. You would be surprised at how many documents are submitted with random titles, weird spacing between sentences and paragraphs, Haphazard Capitalization, sloppy punctuation; loose speling, allusive references to things, ‘fanciful quotations », or slashes that save the author from choosing the right word/concept.
Myths and merits of crowdfunding
THE SOCIAL MEDIA AGE has brought growing popularity to the premise of crowdfunding: Mobilizing ordinary people, via digital tools, to financially and morally support personal initiatives. The model offers an alternative to more institutional options, which small-scale actors may find overly bureaucratic, competitive, or at odds with their vision. Moreover, high-performing crowdfunding campaigns often make…
Editing playbook
WHEN YOU EDIT a text, you must become a self-conscious reader. As you read, take note, literally, of your reactions. Your basic benchmark is the document’s readability. Don’t be satisfied with second-guessing what the author meant: If you don’t understand right away, neither will others. You can improve a text tremendously in very simple ways,…
Threading your outline
THE TRICKY TRANSITION from researching a topic to writing about it lies in sketching an outline. Beware of starting off without one. That would be like setting sail without a rudder; you may move, but not where you intend. An outline plots your course from one chapter, section or subtitle to the next, until you…
Drawing conclusions
THE PURPOSE OF A TEXT is to lead the reader somewhere, which means it cannot end in a wasteland—that is, without a conclusion. The introduction sets the direction, and the body signposts the way. The conclusion says “you have arrived,” ideally after a rewarding journey. Sometimes it is announced as such—with a title that gives away its…
Making introductions
DO YOURSELF A FAVOR: Learn how to grab your audience in the first few sentences you write. A good introduction is an inspiration, like the deep breath before a plunge. Give your readers a moment to inhale, take in the importance of what you are about to discuss, and prepare to dive wholeheartedly into this…
Pointed phrases
GOOD WRITING transports the reader, almost literally. It takes him or her from one idea to the next, from an emotional state to another, from a general understanding to a more nuanced one, or from the past to the present. Each sentence powers this overall motion, one movement at a time. Picture a game of…
Your information diet
MOST OF US only have ourselves to blame as we complain about information overload, and then go on information binging. The explosion of media platforms and communication channels is, by no means, an unsolvable problem. Consuming information in more discriminating, purposive ways must start with each one of us clarifying what, after all, is this information’s…
Accountable leadership
MAKING IT TO THE TOP doesn’t say much about what to do once you’re up there. Breathe pure oxygen and plant a flag? Indeed, the process of achieving a position of leadership tends to obscure the purpose of being in that role: people head an organization because they founded or inherited it, campaigned brilliantly in…
Asking questions
THE FIRST QUESTION many of us ask ourselves, when we set out to conduct fieldwork on a new topic, is “what on earth am I going to ask?” Meeting people is often inhibiting, because we don’t quite know how to start the conversation. Defaulting to small talk about the weather has thus become standard practice…
Documentation & sourcing
IN THE INTERNET AGE, desk research would seem like the easiest thing: aren’t unfathomable amounts of information instantly available at our fingertips? Yet the surplus of digital information in fact raises serious challenges: besides its sheer, overwhelming volume, much of this material is incomplete, poorly structured and unverified, making for an open-ended process of ploughing…
Moderating a panel
IF WE’RE HONEST with ourselves, we’ll admit that many conferences we attend prove disappointing, if not an utter bore. Most often, the topic is interesting, the speakers qualified, the venue pleasant, and the audience motivated. Moreover, an enormous amount of effort and money go into the logistics of such events. How could it all go…
Treading the Iraqi minefield
FOR OVER TWO DECADES, Loulouwa Al Rachid has carried out groundbreaking fieldwork in Iraq, mostly in highly adverse circumstances: the grinding authoritarianism and grueling economic sanctions of the 1990s; the build-up to and aftermath of the U.S. invasion of 2003; the ensuing civil war; all the way up to the recent struggle to reclaim territory…
Fieldwork under threat
SECURITY ISSUES are the Cinderella of field-based research, with organizations tending to gravitate toward either severe neglect or over-the-top fanfare—with advisors, trainings, forms, processes and procedures creating the appearances of full control, when no such thing is possible. Security policies often verge on the absurd: embassies write off whole areas as “red zones” when there…
The mechanics of Arab visual identity
A WELL-ROUNDED PHOTOGRAPHER, Ammar Abd Rabbo has covered, over the past 25 years, anything from catwalks to military parades, and back, from political leaders to ordinary citizens taking them on. Throughout his career, he has opted for provocative, uncompromising views: condemning the esthetics of misery rewarded by photography prizes; embracing unapologetically the Syrian uprising, which he…
Beat the editor at his game
EDITING A TEXT proceeds in rounds, each of which takes a document up one notch, to the next level. Sometimes it may feel like playing Donkey Kong, with an angry editor throwing dynamite barrels at you to keep you down at the bottom of the ladder. In reality, the unhelpful creature tends to be the…
Professional Kung Fu
PROFESSIONAL RELATIONS are a martial art. They involve a sequence of well-rehearsed, standardized moves, in which action and reaction appear logically, predictably related. As in old-style Kung Fu movies, they follow each other in a quick but iron-clad choreography, seemingly designed to go on endlessly. Professional encounters won’t knock you out cold, but they often…
Forging consensus
LEADERSHIP is an unstable thing, constantly at risk of migrating toward the extremes; it either degenerates into highhanded decision-making or devolves into bureaucratic rule-by-committee. Whether at the apex of a state or within a small civic association, leadership poses, again and again, the same fundamental question: how to strike a balance between decisiveness and discussion?…
The hire
A GREAT PRIVILEGE of managers is to provide jobs, and there is no shortage of people looking for them. Given the abundance of available talent, it is a mystery that we struggle so much to consistently hire the right candidates. Pairing people and employment opportunities is an extraordinarily difficult equation, whose outcome remains largely random….
Why read books?
CLAIMING TO READ BOOKS is on the way to becoming an admission of idleness. Who can make time, with relentless pressure at work combined with a busy personal life? Why bother in the first place, when we can access information instantaneously, and already sift through ample written content in the form of reports, articles, posts,…
The rookie researcher’s check-list
SETTING OFF on your first research project—or, for that matter, on any new one—likely will create some sense of confusion. You face a topic that, by definition, you don’t know much about, along with inevitably high expectations regarding outcomes. At some stage, you’ll have to know the issue inside out. For now, mostly, you draw…
The research question
IT IS INTRIGUING that something as central to academic work as the “research question” would go without a clear-cut, consensual, practical definition. Some see it as a technically-worded version of the question you set out to answer when you start your research process. Others view it as a paradox—a counterintuitive formulation of deceptively familiar problems,…
Growing your network
ONE OF THE GREATEST NETWORKERS EVER, George Soros, is famously said to have declared that “networking is not working.” This possibly apocryphal quote papers over a fundamental truth regarding our professional interactions: very little comes from just meeting people and chatting with them, unless the effort is constructed as an investment. We’ve all been to…
Redefining productivity
BEING PRODUCTIVE is a key concern; we owe it to our employer, our client, our colleagues and ourselves. Most importantly, we owe it to society, especially when we work in a field defined by its ambition to generate positive social impact. In principle, the very concept of productivity, which inevitably evokes visions of greater quality,…
Life and death of the knowledge industry
WHOM TO TRUST for food for thought? In a confusing world, we are left to opt for one dominant pattern of behavior or the other: to lock ourselves into a bubble, where increasingly prolific media churn out large quantities of whatever material we want to ingest, to fit our interests or emotions; or to drift in limbo, bouncing off such comfort zones in search of bits and pieces of palatable knowledge more suited to a discerning diet. You feast on sweet corroboration, or scavenge for smidgens of reason.
Deciphering Syria
AS THE CONFLICT DEEPENED in Syria post-2011, Kheder Khaddour turned to reporting and research. His meticulous work quickly surfaced as offering some of the most valuable and durable insights, standing out in a flood of instant commentary. A scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center, he focuses on civil-military relations and social boundaries. Kheder, what…
Analytic writing
IN AN ERA saturated with textual content claiming to make sense of the world’s complexity, we must face the reality: an enormous amount of wealth pours into writing that is very hard to read. A great deal of mainstream analysis is short but shallow, while much more is so long and meandering as to ultimately…
The opinion piece
A LEGITIMATE AMBITION of any aspiring analyst is to get his or her name in the paper, as a byline to an “opinion editorial” or op-ed, voicing strong personal views to the world. Established pundits will all have kept in a drawer, somewhere, that first paper edition bearing their patronym, as a trophy marking a significant…
Modern-day Socrates
A PARADOXICAL JOURNALIST AND RESEARCHER, Mongi Abdennabi articulates inspiring analysis that he never shares, other than through oral exchanges. A Tunisian intellectual who lived much of his adult life in Syria before moving to Egypt, he has traveled to and has friends in most Arab countries. Although he hardly writes himself, he has a keen…
Prepping for media engagements
THERE IS ONE CORE RULE to giving interviews to journalists: the interaction is fundamentally transactional. Correspondents, columnists and broadcasters want something from you; you must want something in return, and make sure it’s a win-win deal. What exactly may journalists seek? That varies as much as personality and professionalism among them. At one end of…
Going deep
ON MOST SUBJECT MATTER, there is no shortage of information and analysis. What’s missing, by and large, is reliability and depth. Facts must be checked, theories tested and stories well-researched, no doubt. Beyond that, however, is a quest for greater perceptiveness and more humanity—a profundity that is hard to define and harder to attain, but…
Writing in blocks
THE MAJORITY OF QUERIES made by an editor working on the first draft of a text—assuming the fieldwork, the overall analysis and the structure have already been discussed—relate to the same cluster of issues: what point is the author making, exactly? How does it connect to the previous point? Is it explained clearly enough? Is…
In the data wasteland
EVERYTHING IS DATA: from accurate figures to impressionistic narratives, through to rumors and plain lies, which carry information on the people articulating them. The issue with data is that, precisely because it is ubiquitous, it forms an incoherent slush until organized into something recognizable. Its analytical value will depend on two variables in particular: volume…
Performing in public
SOONER OR LATER, if you’re doing work of interest to others, you’ll be asked to get up on the stage and perform for an audience. Whether you’re giving a conference, moderating a panel, pushing your ideas in front of a distinguished assembly of colleagues or board members, fulfilling a mundane obligation by making a toast, or…
Giving a title
A TEXT WITHOUT A TITLE is like a building without a door. To enter it, you walk around, you break in through the window, and you definitely don’t feel welcome. Reading, let alone editing, such a text feels like trespassing on the author’s intimacy: if he/she didn’t put a title, it’s presumably because it’s still…
The cut-off moment
A WIDESPREAD MISTAKE, in the field of research as in many others, is going overboard: extending a task beyond the point where work is productive. Many analysts get lost in never-ending interviews, revealing more and more facets of an issue without truly shedding light on it, because the analysis itself never gets written. Others continue…
Self-evaluation
YOU HAVE NAGGING SELF-DOUBT. You have hubristic self-confidence. And you have structured, constructive evaluations. Many organizations turn staff assessments into a tedious, formalistic exercise, which ends up discouraging the voluntary, candid questioning that helps address your weak spots and expand on your strengths. In any event, you’ll only make real progress to the extent you…
Writing rituals
THE ONE THING TO KNOW about writing is that, as a rule, it has nothing in common with sitting at a keyboard feeling inspired. As a cultural construct, writing is strangely associated with pure genius, if not the touch of God—perfect words flowing through an author page after page, as would a prophetic revelation. Writing…
Team management
THE PROBLEM WITH PEOPLE doing fieldwork on complicated issues they feel strongly about is that they’re not sitting behind desks doing simple tasks just for the money. In other words, they tend to be driven and individualistic and strong headed. The benefit is that this makes the people, and the work, interesting. The downside is…
Pitching yourself
IT WOULD BE LOVELY if the purpose of an encounter defined it. Let’s say you must engage some official in a ministry to discuss a technical issue you have good reason to raise. From there, an apparently straightforward meeting can go any number of ways: the person you’re talking to can lock you out, pull you…
Taming social media
FRANKLY, if you’re totally comfortable with social media, no need to read this: you’re probably a lost cause already. Social media, however subtle you may be about it, revolves around promoting yourself. If you have no qualms about that, if you’re a natural, you’re beyond salvation. The various business models behind social media platforms all…
Framing your subject
ONE OF THE MOST DIFFICULT TASKS involved in turning extensive research into a digestible product is framing the topic. Sound fieldwork invariably reveals and unravels the complexity of the issue we are working on, to the point where bringing it down to something simple is perplexing. “What’s the angle?” journalists would say. An end-user of…
The melody of the interview
THERE IS A MUSICALITY to all interviews, big and small. The tempo will change and the conversation may explore various tones, but a good discussion is one where the rhythm never really breaks, and phrases respond to each other harmoniously. Even a vivid debate, or a tough negotiation, can become a pleasant and fulfilling experience, when different people playing different tunes are brought into accord by some…
Interview takeaways and throwaways
YOU’LL OFTEN BE ASKED about the “takeaways” of a particular meeting. In other words: what was new and meaningful, to you or to a broader conversation occurring on a given topic? What are you going home with, and might want to share with others? The query also suggests that there is much to cast aside…
Reconciling conflicting narratives
LEBANON IS A COUNTRY POLARISED between conflicting narratives if there ever was one. Most often, Lebanese genuinely entertain perfectly incompatible views of any meaningful event, to the point of making it difficult to establish facts or forge an opinion of one’s own. As the International Crisis Group’s senior analyst in Lebanon, Sahar al-Atrache has been…
Riding the project cycle
YOU HAVE BEEN TASKED with a whole project on a broad topic. You must produce, say, a report on innovative agriculture in the Sahel, with the goal of suggesting ways of scaling up effective programs and replicating best practices. Unless you’re an expert in the first place, you will feel overwhelmed. Are you the right…
The art of editing
A GREAT PIECE OF WRITING is always a collaborative product. We seek inspiration from others and generally borrow more ideas than we are aware of. We improve our writing skills through critical feedback we take into account, iteratively. And a good text will always gain from a good editor. But that is a rare bird: many…
Managing your manager
GOOD COMMUNICATION is critical to any successful work relationship, and that holds twice as true when colleagues are interacting within a relatively unstructured environment. Simply put, without strong communication with your manager, at least in the initial stages of a work relationship, whatever you are doing is headed to failure. Moreover, poor communication also drags this…
Realistic time management
MANAGING OUR TIME optimally is a daily challenge that requires both self-awareness and self- discipline. Our workload never seems to spread itself out evenly and in a logical sequence. Our rhythm tends to oscillate between moments of intense pressure, when just keeping up with urgent tasks and requests is daunting in itself, and periods of…
Meeting expectations
JOINING AN ORGANISATION or an ongoing project always creates some confusion, as to what exactly our role and our expected input are meant to be. It can be hard to adjust on the factory shop-floor, but it’s harder still in more abstract functions such as analysis or management. As far as research is concerned, virtually all tasks…
What writing is worth our while?
WRITING IS A NERVE-WRACKING and enthralling endeavor. We put a great deal of ourselves into it. Sometimes we torture ourselves, or hope to liberate and comfort ourselves. But what about those whom we expect to read our writing? Writing is both an extremely personal experience and one that connects us to untold others. That connection…
Drafting a briefing based on your fieldwork
YOUR NOTES taken in the field are ultimately designed to inspire, structure and support work that goes down on paper. You must go through the process of translating a mass of oral conversations, visual and other observations, and abstract thoughts into a readable text. That is one of the most challenging aspects of our work. But…
Taking the floor
WHEN ATTENDING A MEETING or a roundtable, you generally don’t have the luxury to stay mute – unless you want to establish yourself as a note-taker no one should pay any further attention to. Taking the floor is almost always awkward and intimidating. If it’s not, that probably means you’ve become one of these people…
Building your analysis on & through fieldwork
AS YOU CARRY OUT INTERVIEWS, bear in mind that your fieldwork is geared toward developing your analysis of a particular topic. Sometimes, we know what that topic is from the outset, and structure the fieldwork accordingly. Oftentimes, however, fieldwork produces insights into topics that we were not pursuing deliberately, and nonetheless impose themselves upon us….
Note taking and sharing
IF YOU THINK that you must type notes because you’ve had a few meetings, you’re wrong: we have meetings because we need notes. Our analysis is built not on impressionistic sentiments and recollections, but on a more tangible basis, which is the raw material of our craft: interview transcripts. Without them, you’ll remain vague and shallow….
Introducing yourself when starting fieldwork
REACHING OUT to unknown people may be hard in ordinary circumstances. As we wade into an entirely new area of research—which typically, to prove interesting, must be removed from our social comfort zone—it can be daunting. In practice, though, it’s really just a matter of finding where to start. Just like a conversation may naturally flow…
Synaps source code 