John Warner
@biblioracle
Followers
20,543
Following
2,867
Media
2,399
Statuses
59,827
"Why They Can't Write" "The Writer's Practice" Next book: "More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI"
Joined April 2010
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
#LingOrmFanMeet2geTHer
• 1012725 Tweets
DEAR MYLOVE LINGORM
• 960842 Tweets
#Narin
• 161642 Tweets
Edmundo González
• 136835 Tweets
Zapatero
• 34063 Tweets
プロジェクトKV
• 33058 Tweets
#レカぺだけ歩こうJO1
• 30046 Tweets
#光る君へ
• 28827 Tweets
カンスト
• 26598 Tweets
ALLAH BELANIZI VERSİN
• 25319 Tweets
İdam
• 20917 Tweets
#鉄腕DASH
• 19001 Tweets
#TMA受賞おめでとう
• 15667 Tweets
Diyarbakır'ın Bağlar
• 15155 Tweets
Leyla
• 14197 Tweets
MC NUNEW EP18
• 13072 Tweets
タイムトゥヘヴン
• 10053 Tweets
Pinned Tweet
"More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI" is now available for pre-order from any and all book retailers.
0
8
38
This arming teachers "debate" illustrates a structural weakness of the mainstream media that has dogged them for the entire Trump presidency, that because he is president, what he "proposes" must be taken seriously, but some things should simply be mocked, dismissed, shitcanned.
794
9K
28K
Sometimes wonder when Shep Smith is going to be physically dragged off the screen at Fox.
Fox's Shep Smith: It's being framed as players attacking the anthem, troops, & the flag....that's not what they're doing and we're complicit
2K
22K
47K
57
807
4K
If Trump suggested going to the moon to harvest the green cheese to feed the homeless, rather than dismissing it as the ravings of a loon, they would bring someone on to talk about the logistics of getting to the moon, and someone else on the dangers of a moon cheese diet.
39
872
3K
I feel like there was a time, just about 20 years ago, I reckon, when a terrorist attack that killed Americans was greeted with a rally-round-the-flag spirit, rather than whatever this is.
168
523
4K
...the questions should be more along the lines of, "You know this is ridiculous, right? You know you look like an idiot for going on national television and even suggesting such a thing?" But no, it has to be discussed seriously.
36
460
3K
Meanwhile, the core delusion persists, and rather than dealing with the underlying issue, guns, we're having a sober discussion about ridiculous nonsense. If the media can't filter out nonsense, what good are they?
23
502
3K
This is why the systems need re-examining. Maybe CNN needs to hire a designated John Oliver or Trevor Noah type as an "opinion" contributor who isn't constrained from mocking the ridiculous. The reason The Daily Show and Last Week feel like such antidotes is because they are.
25
369
3K
It's not an idea that even merits a moment's discussion and yet I've seen half a dozen "debates" about this on cable news. Sure, the anchors ask good questions of those who support this nonsense, but rather than saying, "How will the police tell a killer from a teacher?" cont...
31
367
2K
Why couldn't CNN build that spirit into the news? Oliver and his team are rigorous in their research and fact checking. They're better than 60 Minutes. They're essentially doing journalism. They just aren't artificially constrained by "balance."
23
316
2K
Hey there,
@nytimes
and
@nytopinion
, these two pieces published under your masthead are fundamentally at odds. Which of them is true, and will you correct the record for the one that is not true? Hint: The one on the left.
57
393
2K
The problem of the daily brief with Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a case in point. She lies her ass off day after day and the legacy media has nothing because they're set up for people who don't lie so easily and without conscience.
28
372
2K
I used to play "guess my salary" when I was a full-time lecturer at Clemson. Probably 30 guesses, lowest was $75k. Highest was $140k. Actual salary (2005-2011) was $25k.
Academics:
Has any non-academic ever grossly OVERESTIMATED what your salary?
Someone thinks I'm "making bank" because I teach at a big university...I'm a grad student TA....ha
I'm interested in why people think academics are rolling in cash. Academic poverty is very real.
390
554
6K
34
288
2K
I actually think a bunch of journalists are doing their best on this front, which is why I identify the problem as structural. They're "required" to take these things seriously because to be scornful seems like bias or a violation of journalistic balance.
13
249
2K
If writing is thinking (as I believe it to be) the last thing you want to outsource to AI is the first draft because that's where the initial gathering of thoughts happens. It's why first drafts are hard. That difficulty signals their importance.
34
449
2K
Trump has exposed a lot of systemic weaknesses in the culture, the fact that political norms are rooted in absolutely nothing is chief among them, but the difficult of the legacy media in dealing with conscience-free people in power is way up there.
6
295
2K
Man who tired to disqualify the votes of citizens of Pittsburgh. (And all of Pennsylvania for that matter.)
By rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, President Biden indicates he’s more interested in the views of the citizens of Paris than in the jobs of the citizens of Pittsburgh. This agreement will do little to affect the climate and will harm the livelihoods of Americans.
141K
15K
59K
30
292
2K
I've been thinking about the differences between how Conor Friedersdorf and Adam Serwer, both writers at The Atlantic, approached the refusal of tenure for Nikole Hannah-Jones by the UNC Board of Governors. They're good examples to help students see how writers make choices.
32
325
2K
The media has no response for this in their current arsenal. All of the fact checking and the "that's not exactly true" pieces do absolutely nothing to recenter reality. They need new tools, new approaches.
14
224
1K
The best we get is the occasional light scorn from Anderson Cooper or righteous indignation from Jake Tapper, but I'm talking about straight-up mocking, outright ridicule, not just of the idea, but the dunderhead who proposed such a thing.
32
187
1K
Had to say goodbye to this good boy today. Truman had a good run, almost sixteen, dignified until the end.
105
9
1K
Release your tax returns Mr. President so you can prove them wrong!
26
447
1K
Here’s one for the stenography as “reporting” hall of fame. When will the press re-examine how they cover politics?
41
350
1K
But as judged against an observable and verifiable reality, who delivers a more accurate rendering of the world, CNN or John Oliver? If the fact checkers went to town on the average CNN show and Oliver's show, would there be any difference?
8
160
1K
Anyone who thinks Rudy's "Truth isn't truth" is a gaff or misstatement isn't paying attention to the Trump defense strategy. Trump knows he's guilty. Rudy knows he's guilty. The only way to get Trump off is to redefine guilt as something else. It's working.
33
471
1K
The question I ask myself every time I'm exposed to a new piece of ed tech is whether or not this tool helps students "do school" or if it helps students "learn." The overwhelming majority, like 99%, are all about doing school.
20
238
1K
Rather than refuting Santorum's bad faith idiocy with facts and figures the response should be something like. "You know what else single mom's ruined, Rick? Season Two of True Detective," and then you turn to the next panelist and ask them a new question.
29
202
1K
Trump rhetoric infects the press. Rep. Dingell did not “hit back.” She expressed her grief over the President of the United States cruelly criticizing her recently deceased husband.
NEW: Rep. Debbie Dingell hit back at President Trump after he mocked her and her late husband, Rep. John Dingell, whom he suggested may be in hell: You brought me down in a way you can never imagine"
990
198
546
20
320
1K
The most dishonest piece of writing I've read in my entire life, that's saying something considering the author's incredible penchant for B.S. Framed as advice to liberals to stop DeSantis, this is, in actuality, DeSantis boosterism. Breaking down the bullshit:
30
377
1K
This is what I'm talking about. This is utterly ridiculous. She said it on Fox, but if this was on a non propaganda outfit, they need someone to just mock the shit out of it until the "idea" is in tatters. The legacy media doesn't have the tools for it.
17
195
1K
I don't read this as Roberts pushing back on Trump. I read it as Roberts inoculating the Supreme Court from criticism when they ultimately affirm some of Trump's most egregious crap.
36
390
1K
Like imagine a panel discussion hosted by John King, including Santorum and Jack Kingston, and when one of them says something beyond the pale and deserving of mockery, someone hits a gong in the background and they have to leave the set.
22
121
1K
@PMourdoukoutas
@todgoldberg
@BardIonson
@lyndztanica
@Forbes
In a Pew survey 63% of respondents said closing their library would have a "major" impact on their lives. 90% said it would have at least a "minor" impact. Your assumptions are rooted in your own ridiculous biases.
3
53
965
By the way, legacy media, I have a long career in making fun of stuff professionally if you need a consultant. Look me up.
5
83
880
Or this one. In this case, the satire and deliberate irony tell more truth than debating Rubio's mewling.
49
157
865
Adam Serwer, on the other hand, is one of the most penetrating observers of America today. His coinage of "The cruelty is the point," in describing the Trumpist Republican Party is cemented in history.
3
37
892
Hundreds of quality journalists have been laid off in recent days and weeks and somehow Chris Cillizza still has a job.
28
214
817
Possibly long thread on why GPT3 algorithm proficiency at producing fluent, correct-seeming prose is an exciting opportunity for improving how we teach writing, how students learn to write, and how this can also benefit profs who assign writing, but don't necessarily teach it.
21
304
894
So, researchers are engaging in the same behavior (cite the first 5 articles that come up in a search) that college freshman are routinely criticized for in first-year writing.
Google Scholar seems to be altering scholarly citation patterns. Citations are getting more concentrated: the same few papers get cited over and over,
@jevinwest
has found. People lazily cite whatever papers the search engine ranks highly.
#metascience2019
69
2K
3K
5
355
862
I dunno. Many years I taught the exact same class to students at the same school, literally back to back to back to back and had different outcomes on the exact same day. The variables are vast and some are even unknowable. You do your best, sometimes it's not enough.
46
75
867
Imagine this kind of commentary at the end of a CNN panel. This is the approach I'm talking about.
14
114
758
Station Eleven is the best series I've watched in the last several years, and that includes Succession, which I like quite a lot. Dive in before it disappears.
13
113
828
The way the Swift Boaters were covered in 2004 as they smeared Kerry is a good object example for what's happening today. The press treated what were objectively false charges as something worthy of balance and scrutiny while obsessing over how it impacted the election horse race
16
253
758
"This is why institutional inequality persists. Not because of white hoods and racial slurs. It is because this insidious double-talk erases the problem by camouflaging it." This strikes home.
23
231
753
The stimulative effect Warren's proposal would have is almost incalculable, but imagine what's unleashed when aspiring middle class Americans are no longer yoked to student loan debt.
11
180
759
George W. Bush's approval rating got to something like 90% in the aftermath of 9/11. Republicans do not love their country enough to support a Democratic president when times get tough. Seems that simple.
13
97
733
Opening line: "I could never in a million years vote for Donald Trump."
Easy prediction: He's totally voting for Trump, "with a heavy heart," but it's the right thing to do to protect the country from the scourge of universal health care.
46
159
713
If teachers supposedly have summers off, why is every teacher in my feed talking about all the books they're reading in preparation for the fall and how they're going to re-do their curricula based on what they're learning.
24
142
695
Certainly wouldn't hurt for more newspapers and publications to call on Trump to resign, even if we know he'd never do it. These things shape public perceptions. If major papers pushed Clinton to resign, how about Trump?
8
146
657
This will destroy students’ ability to write. We cannot allow this untested, under thought approach into our schools without consideration and consultation.
Listening to Sal Kahn
@StanfordHAI
and he confirms Khan Academy is building a “process oriented” AI writing tool that will “write with” students from conception to submission and monitor and report on all steps. I know Google is working on tools like this too
@AnnaRMills
40
14
95
18
144
704
@BenBo370
Most of what he floats seems to have some previous life in the world because he's an empty vessel when it comes to ideas, but it instantly gets elevated because he's president. I think the media needs to re-examine that particular structural bias.
27
78
645
Friedersdorf positions himself as an "objective adjudicator." Serwer positions himself as an "invested illuminator." My preference is for the latter. I think attempting objectivity as a trap. I prefer fairness, accuracy, transparency as values.
9
70
684
@LAGoldenrod
@JessicaValenti
I haven't missed Matt Lauer either. Turns out these guys just aren't necessary.
9
32
614
It's just objectively weird that colleges give credit for the AP Literature exam when the exam itself bears no resemblance to anything that happens in a college literature course, right?
29
55
616
GPT3 is a bullshitter. It has no idea what it's saying. It understands syntax, not content. It is not thinking in the ways humans think when they write. Lots of students get good grades by becoming proficient bullshitters, regurgitating information back at the teacher.
15
115
604
I think one of the things that drives people batty about Friedersdorf and his ilk is the sense that they're constantly hiding the ball on what they actually think in order to maintain an image of objectivity because they think it enhances their credibility.
8
39
586
Is now the time to pitch my show, "Adjunct"? More exciting than "The Chair" in that it involves high speed car travel as my main character careens from gig to gig, cobbling together 6 classes across 3 institutions.
12
73
603
Can't imagine I'm the first person to think of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire as a close analog to this tragedy.
18
132
574
I'm very eager to look forward, but I'm not ready to be lectured about what happened and what's next by this person.
29
56
582
I'll put odds that more WV community college students could pass a drug test than Harvard or Yale students.
11
154
562
First, some disclosures. I think Friedersdorf is one of the lamest public writers on the Internet. Even when I agree with him, I wonder why he bothers writing. He blocks me here because I mocked him for not seeing the similarities between Jordan Petersen and The Secret.
9
21
557
@JessicaValenti
Halperin's "contributions" haven't been missed for a millisecond and were largely toxic anyway. Way should this man be owed a career? We should never hear about this guy again.
12
47
519
When I see ed tech people say that students can use AI to "get over the hump" of the first draft I know that they understand nothing about learning to write. They've invited students to abandon the most important part of the experience when it comes to learning.
2
100
563
It's important to recognize that this is not a matter of competing opinions. Stephens rests his entire case on the study that Tufekci reports was fundamentally mischaracterized by the study's own authors. Stephens' column rests on literal misinformation.
8
61
552
Please, my dudes...get it together, you're making all of our kind look foolish. You're whining about your own possible marginalization on the pages of the two most prominent newspapers in the country. You're doing a-ok. Just be quiet for a bit.
15
115
528
If the rumors about the plan for student debt relief are true (10k for anyone making under 150k), it's really the worst of all worlds. Triggers whatever political blowback might be coming without actually doing much tangible good. Kicks the can of costs down the road.
8
85
548
I am increasingly distressed at how generative AI is being treated as a presence in student writing. To meet this huge challenge we have to get at the roots of what we want students to do and why. Thread of what I've been thinking & an invitation for other thoughts.
17
77
547
Writing is not just a process by which to produce a text. It is a process through which we think, feel, communicate, and learn. Outsourcing the production of text to something that can do none of those things is really just saying none of that stuff matters. The output is all.
1
99
544
Fundamentally wrong. Drafting is thinking. Revision is thinking. It's all thinking. The struggle is the point. Anti-education thinking from a college professor. We are lost.
17
99
538
But posing as objective (or even neutral) when you are not objective does not enhance anyone's credibility when it's apparent that you are not objective or neutral. This is why even when I agree with Friedersdorf, I roll my eyes because I know I've been subject to a performance.
4
40
514
I know the Times thinks their reporting is "balanced," but describing Trump's actions through euphemism actively obscures the truth.
10
128
501
I am begging the large platform punditocracy to please consider our culture of schooling as a potential source for the increasing rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation among young people. Far better explanation than social media exposure.
20
154
521
One great thing
@KevinMKruse
's threads illustrate is the mindset I want students to bring to their work, "dig for as much information before you declare an answer," as opposed to, "latch on to the first thing you find that confirms what you want to say."
6
85
492
John Kerry, a literal decorated war hero, was turned into a traitor simply through the willingness of a sufficient number of people to keep asserting it was true and a media with systemic biases that prevent them from calling lies, lies.
4
124
473
Trevor Noah and his guest bookers
@TheDailyShow
are quietly advocating for education as a public good through who they have on.
@eveewing
last night is the most recent example, preceded by
@saragoldrickrab
and
@tressiemcphd
. Bravo.
2
132
495
If the thing being written matters at all, the people who write their first drafts will outperform anyone who outsources it. Writing is thinking. You can’t outsource thinking to something that can’t think.
21
103
500
This piece is very thin gruel indeed, which suggests to me that the campus cancel culture debate has run out of steam. Let me count the ways it says so little.
10
45
493
Historians know more than pundits. Maybe they should be interviewed more often.
1/Good morning! I am compelled to write my first ever tweet thread because
@CokieRoberts
on
@NPR
this morning stated that she could not find abortion ads in 19thc newspapers and therefore historians are just playing at pro-choice politics.
206
4K
8K
4
81
462
God bless Pamela Paul if she wants to vote for Ron DeSantis. I'm sure he's the candidate whose policies most closely resemble her views, but give me a fucking break publishing this under the guise of "advice" to liberals. It is laundering DeSantis for a centrist audience.
4
59
461
When I say that higher ed is controlled by conservatives and the voting preferences of faculty are irrelevant to how they operate, this is what I mean.
In the wake of May's overwhelming (90%) LSU Faculty Council vote for a vaccine mandate, the LSU Board plans to abolish the Faculty Council at tomorrow's meeting. (See. p. 5 of tomorrow's agenda)
104
726
2K
8
139
471
Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld have an outsized role in feeding Yale law students into prestigious federal clerkships, and are also troubled by the threat of tribalism. It seems like those warning about the threat of tribalism never recognize their own tribes.
12
142
421
Unmitigated disaster. This is enshrining every bad approach to how we treat writing in schools inside of an AI-mediated space using a program owned by a massive publisher/ed tech company. This is production line, inhuman student processing, not education.
12
110
450
This is Arizona State essentially announcing they're giving up on meaningful educational experiences for their students. Innovation my ass.
26
148
438
If (unfortunately more like when) a book of mine goes out of print at a publisher, the copyright returns to me and I can do whatever I want with it. The same should be true of these shows the streamers pull and sit on.
5
124
437
The way that
@TheAtlantic
use provocative clickbait headlines and then puts articles behind a paywall is damaging to public discourse (at least at it happens on Twitter). This article is not approving of what DeSantis is doing, but you wouldn't know it from the headline.
17
91
425
I cannot emphasize enough that the Democrats approach to DeSantis should be the opposite of this column. They should hammer at his inconsistencies, his hypocrisies, and the way his government infringes on liberties. Stop accepting his framing for his own actions.
2
66
419
The dumbest observation in the history of NY Times columns has been achieved, and that’s saying something.
12
63
426
And here's Serwer's piece, which starts from a similar place as Friedersdorf, but moves to an exploration of the threads of the past that bind with what's happening in the present.
2
33
415
Trillions of dollars of war machines sitting around unused is apparently sound policy. A few millions of dollars of inexpensive medical supplies stockpiled for an emergency is apparently wasteful. This crisis has shown how upside down this all has been for a long time.
2
140
415
Faux-objectivity as practiced by many of our most prominent public writers is ultimately disrespectful to the audience, not a service to them. It may play well in the insular world of these folks debating each other, but it's no service to the reader or the world.
3
57
414
Now that we have an algorithm that can produce B- student essays, let's stop giving assignments and assessing them in ways that rewards what the algorithm can do. Let's focus on students developing their writing practices.
4
85
405
Now we have GPT3, which, in seconds, can generate surface-level correct prose on just about any prompt. That this seems like it could substitute for what students produce in school is mainly a comment on what we value when we assign and assess writing in school contexts.
2
97
409
So It looks like the whole damn thing is rotten to its core with lots of powerful, privileged people protecting each other from scrutiny or punishment. Of course we all know this has been going on, but it's rare that it's exposed quite this openly.
12
163
382
I'm at
@Slate
today, with my perspective on what's behind the "crisis" in peer review, journal editing et al. It's not professors failing the institution, but the other way around.
10
129
404
When I work with students, I call this work early in an essay "positioning," in that it's the job of the writer to help the audience know where they're coming from on any important/relevant issues the piece might raise.
3
18
402
We do not have healthy enough institutions to combat Trump. After watching Republicans respond to a manifestly unfit man hold the office of President, I don't know how we could believe otherwise.
3
71
374
Absolutely mindless drivel. The world has passed this man by. Turning a blind eye to criminality is not a route to increasing faith in institutions. If Trump and Trumpism is the danger Brooks seems to believe, it needs to be confronted, not accommodated.
20
69
401
When you hear that someone came out of an exclusive D.C. prep school, Yale undergrad and Yale law, we shouldn't be thinking how great they are, but instead wondering what kind of fucked up shit they've seen or done in order to navigate in such corrupt spaces.
3
94
377
Why bother writing if it isn't to illuminate? I tell students that they'll know they're illuminating if they're surprised by an something when they're writing. If they're discovering something new for themselves, they're almost surely delivering illumination to the audience.
3
37
391