April 15, 2021: The following courses and materials either have been or are in the process of being reviewed for content, use, and time investment. You should not have to pay to access the basic materials for the majority of these courses. Notes regarding access will be included as needed.
Writing and Editing
Editing Mastery: How to Edit Writing to Perfection
Hosting Platform: LinkedIn
Unfortunately–and I know this is a horrible way to start off the list–most of the videos for this course are locked. There is an option for a one-month free trial, but I haven’t yet signed up. I will say, though, that the first few videos that outline the general idea of Deep Editing seem pretty promising; even if we don’t sign up for the whole course, I’d be willing to bet we could build out materials touching on the four concepts of the deep edit–content, structure, style, and presentation–ourselves. Keep an eye out for a future post on this.
Write Professional Emails in English
Hosting Platform: Coursera
After dipping into the first module, the course seems to be a fairly general overview of proper email etiquette and formatting. I’m sure at some point I’ll do at least one post specifically on email drafting, but until then, I’ll share a couple of my pet peeves:
- Unless you’re emailing a family member or close friend, I wouldn’t start the email with ‘Dear’; I think ‘Good morning/afternoon’ works just fine, doesn’t smack of awkwardness the way an overly familiar endearment does, and is far less stuffy than ‘To whom it may concern’ which is hackneyed as all get-out.
- For the love of all that is holy, please please please never ‘thanks in advance’ someone. In my mind, this is arrogance personified; you aren’t asking them to do something, you’re TELLING them that they’ll do it. I’m not alone in thinking this, either. Gah! Just thinking about it makes me want to punch a wall.
Critical Thinking
Methods for Solving Problems
Hosting Platform: Coursera
This has more of a machine-learning bent to it, as previously mentioned, but is still interesting. See the associated blog posts for further details.
Unconscious Bias: From Awareness to Action
Hosting Platform: edX
I’ve touched on unconscious bias before, as I think it is a gigantic sticking point in today’s world. The more we educate ourselves on these issues, the more attention we’ll pay to our own actions and thoughts (which hopefully will lead to a more equitable and pleasant world for us all). (A quick note on edX courses: if you’re auditing them for free, you will only have access to the course for however long the course is supposed to take to complete (e.g. 3 weeks, 4 weeks, etc). Once that length of time has passed, you will not be able to get back into the course, even if you haven’t finished it, unless you want to buy it or create a new account and start over.)
Critical Thinking & Problem-Solving
Hosting Platform: edX
Thus far, this course really seems to pay homage to mental agility, which is what we’re all about, right? Good deal.
Decalcify Your Brain 