Desk
Requirements, terms and the paperwork that decides whether the work stands up.
Rules
Interview and profile problems explained with diagnosis and repairs for leading questions, composite scenes, quote drift, vulnerable sources, and access pressure.
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US copyright registration and fair use for essayists: understand ownership, registration, the four fair use factors, permissions, and takedown notices.
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How state libel and privacy law shapes personal essays about real people, with the statutes, cases and deadlines that apply in California, New York and Texas, and how to tell which state's law governs.
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US and Canadian literary magazine norms compared: rights clauses, W-8BEN and W-9 tax forms, payment practices, and named journals on both sides.
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Technical explainer problems diagnosed and repaired: false precision, broken analogies, jargon, unit mistakes, power-energy confusion, and scale errors.
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Personal essay problems diagnosed and repaired: manufactured epiphany, thin reflection, unnecessary exposure, memory overconfidence, and retrospective certainty.
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Essay structure problems guide for weak theses, list organization, repeated points, unsupported claims, quote dumps, false transitions, broad openings, and endings.
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Research problems guide for source laundering, quote dumping, patchwriting, confirmation bias, circular citations, false independence, context loss, and repairs.
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Cultural criticism problems and repairs for plot summary, presentism, creator mind reading, context collapse, reception overreach, and symbolic certainty.
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Logical fallacy problems explained through diagnosis and repair: straw men, false choices, weak causal claims, moving goalposts, and conclusion drift.
