{"id":851,"date":"2013-09-23T08:56:48","date_gmt":"2013-09-22T20:56:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=851"},"modified":"2013-09-23T15:01:51","modified_gmt":"2013-09-23T03:01:51","slug":"a-short-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=851","title":{"rendered":"A short story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?attachment_id=411\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-411\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-411\" alt=\"pint of best\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/pint-of-best-199x300.jpg\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/pint-of-best-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/pint-of-best.jpg 417w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/><\/a>Many years ago now, on a sultry summer afternoon, with the drone of the city traffic struggling to be heard above the incessant chirping of the cicadas, a group of us, perhaps a dozen of us in all, gathered on a hastily-assembled collection of mismatched chairs to listen to an impromptu lecture from a visiting Fulbright Scholar who jokingly referred to himself as Herb the half-bright professor.<\/p>\n<p>His subject was How to Write a Research Report.\u00a0 Not just any research report; but a research report that readers would really want to read, much in the same way that they might really want to read the latest work by their favourite fiction author.<\/p>\n<p>What Herb had to say was brief and to the point.\u00a0 \u2018Don\u2019t just list facts and findings,\u2019 he said.\u00a0 \u2018Like the fiction author, you need to tell a story.\u00a0 That\u2019s important.\u00a0 People like stories.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018And you need to keep your story simple.\u00a0 Say what you need to say, but say no more.\u00a0 And, wherever possible, use short words.\u00a0 Also, use short sentences.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Anything else?\u2019 someone asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018No.\u00a0 That\u2019s about it.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>And then several of us gathered up Herb and repaired to a nearby pub for a cold beer.<\/p>\n<p>Cheers, Herb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many years ago now, on a sultry summer afternoon, with the drone of the city traffic struggling to be heard above the incessant chirping of the cicadas, a group of us, perhaps a dozen of us in all, gathered on &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=851\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,5,6,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=851"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":853,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions\/853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}