Students inquired about his source of inspiration, his writing and recording processes, his hobbies, and upcoming episodes. Dr. Lienhard did a terrific job of relating to the students, never talking down to them or oversimplifying his answers.

Students inquired about his source of inspiration, his writing and recording processes, his hobbies, and upcoming episodes. Dr. Lienhard did a terrific job of relating to the students, never talking down to them or oversimplifying his answers.
Dr. Lienhard shared his rules for writing spoken prose with the students (in contrast to simply writing prose that will be read by a reader).
- Sentences should fit one breath, or at least each clause should. It’s important to listen to your words as your write them. If you can’t read what you’ve written out loud, you’ve written clumsy prose.
- Conversations tend be at a 6th grade readability level. This just naturally occurs. It doesn’t mean should you “dumb down” your content, but adjust the words you choose.
- Polysyllabic words tire listeners. After you’ve finished writing, go back and replace polysyllabic words that occur close together with several short words.
- Prepositional phrases sound like you are protecting yourself. Get to the point and eliminate “garbage phrases.” You can almost always eliminate “in order to” or “there is.”
- Use contractions. We use contractions when we have conversations. Spoken prose should sound like a conversation.
- It is acceptable to begin sentences with conjunctions such as “but” or “and.” Doing so allows you to eliminate a lot of words. It is important to learn to write without them, but for spoken prose go back and put them. Trade “but” for “on the other hand.
- Being colorful can derail your point. No flourishes. Rather, keep to the structure of the piece. Good writing is elimination, always making the structure stronger.
- You may use fragments in spoken prose. Use a hyphen to connect them to another sentence.
Students were curious about his inspiration for the episodes. Dr. Lienhard described wandering the stacks of the University of Houston library. He pays particular attention to books and magazines from 1922 or earlier. He likes to use photographs in his web postings and using graphics from 1922 or earlier avoids copyright issues. Suggestions are other people’s ideas so he rarely uses them. Rather, he looks for something that sparks an interest in him. He wants the listener to say, “Oh!” in response to an episode. Otherwise, what’s the point of the episode?
Don’t ask Dr. Lienhard about his favorites. Favorites tie you down. You get locked in and lose variety. Variety is important in asking and answering questions. He clearly differentiates between invention and innovation. Innovation is making new, tinkering with ideas that are already there. Innovation is safe. Invention is scary. Invention is about entirely new ideas, ideas that weren’t already there. Dr. Lienhard is excited by invention.
Dr. Lienhard shared that he was, and may still be, dyslexic. He described barely being able to read or write and finishing clo