Thursday, July 27, 2006

write like an expert

Chris Garrett at performancing points to this article at wired by Stephen Colbert.

Colbert has dedicated his career to passing himself off as an expert on anything. He honed this skill on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, where he served as an analyst on everything from the Middle East to presidential gastronomy before gaining the title Senior Expert News Correspondent. He is a specialist in improv comedy, which he says “is partly about making people believe you know everything.” On Comedy Central’s hit show The Colbert Report, he goes beyond expertise into the arena of what he calls the anti-expert.
“My show is an exercise in willfully ignorant, emotionally based, non-intellectual, -incurious passion about things. For instance, what gives Britannica the right to tell me that the Panama Canal was built in 1914? If I want to say 1941, that’s my right.”

Here are the key points in his article, if you click on the link you can read his notes on each point, and become an expert or is that anti-expert, or whatever.

1. PICK A FIELD THAT CAN'T BE VERIFIED.
2. CHOOSE A SUBJECT THAT'S ACTUALLY SECRET.
3. GET YOUR OWN ENTRY IN AN ENCYCLOPEDIA.
4. USE THE WORD ZEITGEIST AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE.
5. BE SURE TO USE LOTS OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS.
6. SPEAK FROM THE BALLS, NOT FROM THE DIAPHRAGM.
7. DON'T BE AFRAID TO MAKE THINGS UP.
8. DON'T LIMIT YOURSELF TO CURRENT KNOWLEDGE.
9. GET AN HONORARY PHD.
10. MAKE A HABIT OF NAME-DROPPING.
11. BE FAMOUS. IT HELPS.

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