Site Features     Home Page   Articles    Submit Article   © 2008 Article Pro Directory All rights reserved		Writing General Business Internet Marketing Writing Add Category    Deductive and Inductive Paragraph Organization by Jane Sumerset Writing a paragraph is not merely sticking out words which forms into a sentence and a group of sentences that bind together to form a paragraph. In writing, paragraphs require a deeper meaning and a valuable structure to get a hold with your ideas about the topic. Normally, when we are going to write sentences or paragraphs, we also take good care of how we think and put it into words. We deal with our thoughts and how we express our feelings with regards of the issue and that is why certain paragraphs that contain deeper meaning are being organized effectively into your contents. Therefore, we need to consider on how we arrange our ideas first before we are going to check our paragraphs and how it will all appear in our writings. If you haven’t heard it yet, paragraphs have a distinct characteristic on how they will appear nicely in you the body of your writings. Ever gave any thought to paragraph organization? Most people don’t. Regardless, your paragraphs will need to feature an organization format, lest you end up with a string of words that barely make sense (with the help of a decent grammar correction software, of course). Although you need to organize your words properly in each sentences and paragraphs you have, it is also important that you will have to pay attention on managing your ideas in the right way to promote a better and effective flow of your concept in order to attract your reader’s interest with the subject. But it takes a deeper study on how to write your paragraphs correctly. Have you ever heard about deductive paragraphs and inductive paragraphs? If so, then these are the kinds or paragraphs that you need to learn more about in terms of writing. The most basic way of organizing sentences, of course, is to lay out a main topic and present its supporting evidence. Either start with a theme and fill in the details, or lay down the specifics to build up to a conclusion. Both deductive and inductive logical reasoning go this route. As the name implies, the former begins with a main argument followed by a set of supporting evidence, while the latter goes the other way around, providing the specifics before drawing a conclusion. Deductive Paragraphs. In this type of paragraph, you lead in with a topic sentence, with the following statements providing supporting evidence in its support. This structure can be used throughout an essay to great results. Inductive Paragraphs. This type of organization gets craftier, throwing down bits and pieces before coming to a conclusion. It creates the effect of an investigation, of sorts; one that leads the reader down the path of the resolution almost on their own. Which is better? It depends on the subject and the evidence you have, as well as the overall tone of the piece. Do note that some topics won’t lend themselves well to either of these two formats, so you’ll have to reach out and use something else. Most of the time, however, they’ll suffice. See how innovative Grammar Correction Software instantly can boost your writing skills and watch how NLP technology can help you to write perfect emails, letters, essays or reports. Visit: http://www.englishsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Start an Internet Business Writing Content For Others by Naz Daud There are lots of people out there in cyberspace right now, writing articles, blog posts and all manner of other things and making good money by doing so. So perhaps the answer to the question posed in the title should be whether you personally can make money doing this working from home, and not whether it is possible or not as clearly it is. So how should you get started in this particular internet business? The first thing to do is to have your own website because this helps you in two key ways. Firstly it enables you to get your name out there on the internet as a writer. This is essential if you want to ensure people can approach you for work in the future. Secondly you will be able to showcase your writing skills. Having a blog is enough for you to do this with, and you can grab a free blog from many different sites including Blogger. So there isn’t even any initial cost involved in doing thisd. It isn’t enough to use this method and expect the work to come flooding in straightaway. There are lots of places you can find writing work online, so you need to start looking for it in lots of different places. This should be a regular activity too, particularly when you are just starting out and you want to find a good few clients to get started with. If you only look a couple of times a week for a few minutes a time, you will miss most of the work that is available. You need to consciously work at getting those first few jobs under your belt. One important thing to bear in mind is that there is a wide range of prices paid for writing work online. Some jobs also pay in US dollars instead of British pounds, so you need to bear in mind the conversion rate also. The key thing to remember is that you won’t start off being able to get the best jobs out there. You need to have a track record and that means starting off with lower paid work and then moving up the ladder from there. The more jobs that you can get the quicker you will be able to establish your reputation as a writer. Look for work on classified websites such as Craigslist and on job bidding sites such as Elance. These represent just two of the many sites which offer freelance writing work, and the more you explore the internet the more of these sites you will discover. The key thing to remember is to persevere. You may not find many writing jobs to begin with, and if you do you may not be accepted to complete them. But keep on going and eventually if you are good enough you will be enjoying a second income, whilst keeping your overheads low by working from home as an internet content writer. And who knows, you may eventually make the transition to becoming a full time writer. Naz Daud - CityLocal http://www.citylocal.co.uk/ http://www.citylocal.co.uk/businessfranchise/articles/Internet-Home-Business-Writing-Content-99/ http://www.citylocal.co.uk/frontend/latestbusinesse FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How to Format a Short Story For Submission by Jane Sumerset Writing a short story can be a fun experience since you are going to play carefully with your ideas on how you are going to make the tale work. Most importantly, you need to bear in mind that writing a short story is more on entertaining your readers. Therefore, you’ve got to learn how to make it more interesting and it must be written effectively to make it more appealing. Even though you’ve got to write creatively, the result is that you will tend to write more and words just keep on flowing out of your mind. In the end, it will be hard for you to end up your story and make it shorter compared to the longer ones. Although it is fun to write continuously as it will save most of your time in thinking for the possible words and how the plot works when you are about to write a short story. But as you enjoy making the scene worth reading, cutting you text is going to be the hardest task for you to make since you need to decide carefully on which parts or words are you going to eliminate or revise. After you had written your first draft, read you text again and again so that you can determine the parts that you will cut or edit in the revision process. You need to focus your attention first and use your creativity in altering your story. You can’t just format the parts suddenly without thinking the effects. It will ruin your story if you don’t know how to make it a concise one. Also, as you edit your piece, you need to consider that the tone and quality of your story must be preserved before and after you had made a change. Submitting a short story for publication? The first thing you should do is check the submission requirements from the publisher themselves. To add to that, here are a few standard guidelines we recommend that you follow. Paper. Use white, unlined and standard-sized. Never print on both sides. Type. Print the manuscript using a common easy-to-read font, such as Times New Roman, Arial or Tahoma. Keep it between 10 to 12 points in size. Format. Keep a standard 1-inch margin on all sides of the paper and double-space your lines for clarity. Make sure new paragraphs add at least one additional line. Use page numbers throughout the manuscript. Cover Page. Always use a cover page with the following information: •name, mailing address, phone numbers and other contact details on the upper left hand corner •word count on the upper right hand corner •title (center) •byline (two lines below the title) Naturally, any material you submit to a publisher should be checked error-free, from basic spelling to grammar to factual items. Always use a proofreading software or employ the help of someone who can assist on this end. Usually, it’s difficult to discover your own mistakes until you’re at the point of sending it off. An extra eye (or a smart software) should be able to help you out. See how innovative Proofreading Software instantly can boost your writing skills and watch how NLP technology can help you to write perfect emails, letters, essays or reports. Visit: http://www.englishsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Evasive Writing And Straight Talk by Jane Sumerset What’s your personal style in writing? Are you the type of person who likes to write evasively or the one who wanted to write straightly and concisely? Either of these two, it is very important write according to your purpose. It is by showing how your message would appear gradually in your text. Whatever side you will prefer, different people uses these kind of writing within their text and the most common between these two is the evasive writing. And if you are going to write a personal content or if you are assigned to write one, I bet you are going to apply evasive writing in your text since I have seen a lot of people who do the same thing. It is because they find it easier to write indirectly and express their own ideas gradually to make their readers hook up with the topic. A lot of the writing you can find around is evasive and indirect. If you had notice it, then you might say that a lot of people are very comfortable in an evasive style of writing. As we read every articles or contents that are displayed in any reading materials or over the internet, it is pretty much obvious that evasive writing is a very common technique where writers applied it in their writings. You might ask yourself why the need to write indirectly if all people are looking for direct and specific information that they could get while reading any contents. Don’t they know that writing straight forwardly is the most effective style in writing in terms of acquiring a lot of readers towards your text? What’s the importance? That’s because the approach – coupled with good writing instruments – can prove seductive. When you insinuate rather than declare, you can mask it in any of a variety of ways. However, once you’ve been around such material for any extended period, you almost always end up being refreshed by the idea of straight talk. No dulling around the edges and no dressing – just the honest facts. As a writer, being well-versed in both is often a requirement. You can’t be brutally frank about every subject you write about. However, sticking to evasive writing as your default style can lead to some very bad habits, including a few that even the best writing software may find difficult to fix. When your goal is to write as clear as possible, a straight rundown of the facts and supporting arguments is almost always necessary. Evasive language can create an insincere tone that most readers will find disturbing. Unless you’re being intentionally cagey, it’s simply makes sense to stick with straight talk when you can. Does your job require you to write in a less-than-frank manner? Here’s a tip. While surrounding yourself with that kind of influence, do give yourself a daily dose of straight talk, whether from a no-nonsense opinion column or one of your old favorites. It will help balance out the propensity to mince words, allowing you be more conscious while doing it. See how innovative Writing Software instantly can boost your writing skills and watch how NLP technology can help you to write perfect emails, letters, essays or reports. Visit: http://www.englishsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS A Brief History of the Pen by Peter Lee Greenspan Humans have been writing and making marks as far back as the caveman. Initially man used his finger by dipping it in plant juices as a drawing and writing instrument. By 4000 BC, bone or bronze tools were used to scratch everyday events on to cave walls. As language and writing developed there was a need for new improved, more effective tools. It was the ancient Egyptians who were the first people to write on paper. In around 3000 BC the scribes from ancient Egypt used thick Calamus or Bamboo reed brushes to write on papyrus scrolls. The reed pen was used up until the Middle Ages, although the quill pen had begun to replace it as early as the 7th century. European monks were to first to realise that goose feather quills were much better than reeds. The hollow quill would hold the ink and the split end worked as a nib. There was real skill needed in trimming the quill and a talented scribe could create some very nice calligraphic effects. The downside to the quill was that it needed constant re-trimming, so it gave it a very short writing life. The quill was replaced by the metal dip pen in the early 19th century. The metal dip pen had a steel nib with various holes to hold the ink. The nib was attached to a wooden handle, and could be manufactured quite cheaply. In 1803 Bryan Donkin patented a steel pen point but did not commercially exploit his patent, so this left it open to exploitation and in 1830 steel makers in Birmingham, England, pioneered the mass production technique for cheap long wearing steel pen nibs. The dip pen had to be constantly dipped in ink, which meant it wasn’t long before people demanded a pen that contained a reservoir of ink, the fountain pen. There were many attempts at creating the fountain pen, most of which failed because the ink flow was very inconsistent. In the 1870’s Lewis Edson Waterman invented his ‘Three Fissue Feed’ system which used an intake of air to control the ink flow. This led to the widespread use of a reliable fountain pen and main the portable pen a reality. In 1894 Parker Pens invented the lucky curve feed system which drained the ink back into reservoir when not in use. These early fountain pens were called ‘eyedropper pens’ because you had to drip in a day’s supply of ink using the dropper provided. They were prone to leakage, so a new version was introduced by Waterman called the ‘Safety Pen’. The sac filler system soon followed which was much faster and cleaner to fill. In the 1930s the piston filler was introduced by Pelikan and proved immensely popular because it allowed greater ink capacity. All these developments form the basis of the modern day fountain pen. Now that fountain pens were reliable, people demanded that they were also a fashionable item. In the early days of pen manufacturing, they were made from hard rubber which was available in limited colours and mainly black. In 1924 Sheaffer used celluloid (made from plant fibres) for the first time which meant pens could be made in a large range of exciting colours. Perhaps the last greatest advance in fountain pen technology was by Waterman, who in 1936 invented the disposable cartridge pen. Then came the ballpoint pen, which was first patented in 1888. It wasn’t until Laszlo Biro’s new patent in 1943 though that the ballpoint pen went into commercial production. The ball pen uses a tiny ball that picks up oil based ink as the pen moves along the paper. The most recent developments were the felt tip pen in the 1960s by Yukio Horie from Japan and the rollerball pen in the early 1980s, operating like a ball pen but using liquid ink for smoother ink flow. Peter Lee Greenspan is an art and writing author working for Pullingers and their range of paint pens, brush pens, fine writing pens & more: http://www.pullingers.com/search.php?keywords=pens&sort_order=instock&execute FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How to Write Your Dissertation by Jason Bacot Most doctoral students are a bit anxious about writing their dissertation. Even if they are excellent students, a dissertation is a very large undertaking. How will they manage a 300 plus pages assignment? This is something many don\'t like to think about until this assignment comes due. The dissertation is a rite of passage for the doctoral student, separating the wheat from the chaff. Those that are successful receive their doctoral degrees. Those that cannot complete it realize they are unable to succeed at a doctoral degree and do something else. However, what some students don\'t realize is that it takes certain skills to write your dissertation. Let\'s talk about how to write one. Every dissertation begins with an idea, a thesis that you will prove or disprove. This thesis must first be approved by your advisor. Finding your thesis begins with some preliminary research. This can be done in the university library and also through the Internet. While you don\'t have to do all of your research to begin finding your thesis, you do want to have a good sense of how much research is available for your topic. You don\'t want to select a topic that doesn\'t have good supporting research. Create a schedule for working on your dissertation and stick to it. A dissertation is a very large undertaking for any doctoral student. Many doctoral students have other pressing obligations, from family, part-time jobs or graduate internships or even teaching obligations at their universities. Having a schedule for working on your dissertating is very useful. It means you\'ll get everything done on schedule. Getting a bit done every day or every other day is far better than trying to get a lot done in a single day. The typical paper is on a serious subject that needs to be delved into deeply. This is not light reading and needs your full attention and careful thought and deliberation. One of the secrets of a successful dissertation is to make yours unique. This is a time to express how you feel about a topic through research and writing. Take your topic of interest and add your own special spin on it. Don\'t be satisfied simply creating a large paper of facts on a topic when you can write a dissertation that is far better than this. Your committee is looking for you within your dissertation. They do want to see how you have learned and developed as a doctoral student through your studies. Practice good computer hygiene when writing your dissertation. It very well may save your sanity, and research during this time period. Many frazzled doctoral students can tell the tale of, \"And then the screen went totally black,\" or \"And then I lost all of my research,\" or \"And then my disc wouldn\'t save.\" Don\'t let this happen to you. Always save to a backup disc every night. Save your research to a different disc if you have to. Keep these discs in cool and dry places. Keep your computer\'s anti-virus and other software up to date during this period. Run regular virus scans on your computer. Try not to let anyone else use your computer if possible. Better to be safe than sorry. Jason Bacot - For all your dissertation projects and writing come and visit us at http://www.essaytown.com and we will be more than happy to help. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Are There Any Topics You Shouldn\'t Choose For an Essay by Jason Bacot Some students wonder about choosing the best topic for an essay. They wonder if there are any topics you shouldn\'t choose one. This is an interesting question to consider. In some cases, there may be topics you should consider avoiding. In others, it can show more thought and passion to select a unique topic. Every student understands that your essay topic is important. This is part of your grade. Teachers grade in different ways, but most will consider this between ten to thirty percent of your essay\'s overall grade. There are some \"hot button\" essay topics that should be handled carefully. Topics like religion, abortion rights and politics are all \"hot button\" topics. Now perhaps you were specifically assigned one of these topics in school. Then of course you must write about it. If you are given your choice to write about a current event and you purposefully select a \"hot button\" topic then you must do so carefully. The topics are considered so because most people get quite emotional about them. An essay works only when you are rational and state the facts. This means leaving your opinion outside of the paper. A \"hot button\" essay can still be an excellent topic and can impress your teacher as long as you can handle it with care. Only write about a topic if you can do so rationally and with respect to the other side of the issue. The best topics are those that interest you. When a student has a genuine curiosity in the subject, their research time seems to fly and their paper flows easily. But when they select an essay topic simply to get the assignment done this can be quite difficult. Now sometimes you have little choice. Sometimes the assignment choice is so narrow you must choose something that interests you little. Try to find something, anything about the research or writing that does interest you. We promise that this genuine interest will make a great difference in the quality of the essay you create and the grade that you will receive. Sometimes you have to write on a subject you don\'t enjoy or actually makes you uncomfortable. You may have to write about something disturbing from history like a war or the Holocaust. Or if you are squeamish you may have to write about a biology or medical topic. Remind yourself that this is only one assignment during the term and it will soon be over. Do your best to find something about the research and writing that is interesting. There may be a way to learn something through this essay that helps you overall with this class you are taking. This one essay may help introduce you to something about that period of history or science or other topics you may have had trouble understanding. Try to look at this as an opportunity for independent study and another way of advancing your career. Jason Bacot - To find out the best ways to get an essay, then you need to check us out here at http://www.essaytown.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Quick Ways to Find Topics For Your Thesis by Jason Bacot Let\'s face it, every student wants to complete assignments and do them well. But many students just don\'t have as much time as teachers think they do. It seems as if some teachers think they have unlimited time after school and weekend hours to dedicate to homework and class assignments. Many students work and have school activities and family obligations. There just isn\'t enough time in the day to get everything done. That\'s why you need quick ways to find topics for your thesis. Fortunately there are some great ways to find these terrific topics, without spending lots of time doing so. One of the worst things a student can do for a thesis assignment is to not read the directions. If you don\'t understand the assignment, you can miss what the teacher is telling you to do. This can mean you can come up with a great thesis idea that doesn\'t meet the teacher\'s requirements and this costs you a letter grade or worse, means you have to redo the assignment. So take the time to read the assignment instructions thoroughly. Taking this time can often save you a lot of time in the end. To come up with a quick topic for your thesis, take a look at your class notes. See what has been interesting in your class recently. This can often give you a great idea for your paper. The teacher will be pleased you select this topic as it shows you are paying attention in class. Best of all, choosing this assignment often means you have less research to do as you have class notes to start your research with. A class lesson can be the start of a great thesis idea and interestingly enough actually is something most students don\'t think about. Most of them try to come up with new ideas that haven\'t been discussed. Another great idea is to take the topic at hand and to relate it to current events. So take the topic of Hamlet and somehow relate it to a current event. How could this relate to a current event in the local or international news? Relating it to a local news story would be of interest to your teacher as they would be impressed you are following a local news story in the community. Choosing an international news story would also be impressive as they would see your thoughts on world events. Either choice is an excellent idea and a way to learn more about the current events of today. Something many students don\'t think of doing is asking the teacher for ideas. It may surprise you, but very often your teacher is happy to give you ideas for your thesis if you help with the thinking process. Share with them your ideas you have so far and ask for their input. Now, most teachers don\'t want to simply give you an idea without you learning how to create a thesis, they want you to learn how to create one on your own. However, if you are genuinely having difficulty doing so they are happy to help you with yours. The key is showing them your research and asking them for their thoughts and input on your progress. Jason Bacot - Are you kidding me? We can help you factor in all the correct points when writing a thesis statement at http://www.essaytown.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Tips on Smart Dissertation Writing by Jason Bacot Your dissertation is one of the most important papers you\'ll ever write. To obtain a doctorate at most universities you\'ll need to write a dissertation that passes the muster of a critical committee. While the doctorate candidate has likely written hundreds of other papers, the dissertation paper is a bit different. You must treat this paper with both great seriousness and respect. A dissertation can \"make or break\" you as a doctorate candidate. Your writing must be top-notch in order to please your committee and assure them that you should be awarded your degree. The doctorate degree is simply not given to everyone. Part of the allure of its exclusivity is for this very difficult experience of writing. However, there are some tips any doctoral student can keep in mind to write a stronger dissertation. A good working relationship with your advisor and committee is of utmost importance. In most universities, you\'ll have an advisor to report directly to and a committee to present the final dissertation to. The advisor you will need to meet with regularly to describe your progress on dissertation writing. During these meetings, be prepared to ask questions about your work and research. Now is the time to ask for input, before you are facing that committee that will make that so important decision. Working with your advisor ahead of time can also smooth the way for a very positive relationship with your committee. You\'ll feel more confident and comfortable with the faculty. Most committees are made up of faculty and other advisors related to the department. Find your dissertation topic as soon as possible. The more time you have to work on it, the better. The doctoral student that wastes time fluttering between several topics will have a far more challenging time than one who simply selects a topic of interest. Realize the dissertation needs to be representative of your work but that it is not the only body of work you will create during your professional life. Even if you don\'t create a dissertation on your favorite topic, there will be many opportunities during your professional life to work on topics that interest you. For now focus on finding a topic that you can support with research and feel confident that you can discuss it with the committee to obtain your doctoral degree. Many successful doctorate students are thinking about their dissertation topic as they enter graduate school. The earlier you think of this topic, the more advantages you\'ll have. Make your environment as conducive to writing as possible. Don\'t try to write your dissertation sitting in an uncomfortable chair with an old computer that won\'t save to discs or CDs. Now is the time to upgrade your materials so you can write your dissertation in as much comfort as possible. Even if you purchase furniture from a discount office supply store or thrift store, it will offer you great satisfaction. The student who suffers neck, back and shoulder strain through writing a 300-page paper is not working smarter, they are working harder than they really should have to. Some places will let you lease a computer and many universities provide laptops to students as they enter school. Create a list of your resources and the dates they need to be returned to the library. Many libraries now, let you renew materials online simply by visiting their website. When writing a doctorate you\'ll have quite a few materials out on loan from the library. It is also the smart doctoral student who hangs on to resource materials, so another student cannot borrow them for an indeterminate amount of time causing you trouble with your research. Use your list to renew your books and avoid troublesome fees. This can save you countless dollars and aggravation. Many universities will actually hold your degree until you pay your library fines, no matter how small they are. Jason Bacot - For all your dissertation projects and writing come and visit us at http://www.essaytown.com and we will be more than happy to help. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How to Brainstorm Ideas For College Term Papers by Jason Bacot Writing a college term paper is an important part of your studies. They are often assigned to assure that you understand the course thus far. They are also an excellent way to encourage independent thinking on the topic of the course. College term papers allow you to develop your thoughts about a particular subject and do some critical thinking. These are excellent skills to develop as a student. These skills can take you far beyond your college years and well into your professional life. Many students have trouble coming up with topics for their college term papers. \"What should I write about?\" You\'ll hear cries around the dorm when college term papers are assigned. You don\'t have to fret too much, there are some excellent ways to brainstorm topics. Fortunately, each of these brainstorming methods is available to each of us. Try one or all of these methods for success in finding your ideal college term papers\' topics. Trusting your first instinct can be extremely helpful when it comes to brainstorming for your papers\' topics. Often your very first idea is the best one. Listen to your gut as it tells you these ideas. Sit quietly in a relaxed fashion with a pen or pencil and paper. Write down all information as it comes to you. Don\"t try to edit the ideas. Saying, \"This one won\'t work\" or \"This one I already did\", will only frustrate you. Just write them down and edit them after your brainstorming session is over. A great way to brainstorm college term paper topics is to take a piece of paper and create a mind map. A mind map works well for visual people and is almost like doodling with words. Write the main topic of the term paper in the very center of the paper. So if the topic is \"Internet Safety,\" write this in the middle of your paper. Then start to surround that word with related topics like \"kids\" and \"SPAM\" and \"anti-virus software.\" Let each of these topics branch out into more sub-topics. You may be surprised at how quickly your mind map grows. As it grows, see if any of these topics appeal to you for a paper. Doing a little research on the topic can sometimes inspire a great idea for college term papers. Visit the school library and look up the topic of the college paper. See what other topics relate to it and go through the bookshelves or journal articles. Simply start reading. Do this at a time when you are able to spend at least twenty minutes in the library reading and deciding what interests you. You don\'t want to be rushed at all. As you read, notice what pops out at you from the research. This very well can lead you to your college term paper topic. Your own experiences can help to brainstorm an idea for college term papers. Look at the topic of the paper and see how it relates to your college major, favorite activities, hobbies and other interests. See how your view of the world relates to this term paper topic. Is there any slant you could take on this paper that would be interesting that could only be written by someone who plays in the college band or is a long distance runner or is having problems with their roommate? Any experience you are having, whether big or small could very well be the \"seed\" for an ideal brainstorm. College professors are often impressed when you can think creatively and relate a topic to your own life. Jason Bacot - If you want to improve your term paper to the fullest, but only expect the best, then come and check us out at http://www.essaytown.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Top Students\' Tips For Writing Essay Papers by Jason Bacot Ever wonder how top students write an essay paper? They somehow seem just a bit different from the rest of us. These top students, we wonder, do they have some sort of secret that they pass among themselves to write top-notch papers? Or do they possess inner knowledge that helps them create these excellent essays, winning them the best grades and great opportunities in school, college and beyond. We\'ve talked with some top students and they\'ve shared some of their best tips for writing essay papers. These tips are just for you. Take these tips to write your best essay paper ever. Right now, you may not be a straight-A student, but that doesn\'t mean you can\'t learn a lesson from one and become one yourself. Essays are a critical step in your student education and every teacher considers them an important part of your grade. Marcy: \"When I write an essay, I always try to keep in mind the focus of the assignment.\" Marcy brings up an excellent point. Some students become so jittery or anxious about getting a paper assignment that they actually forget one of the most important steps: reading the directions carefully. Just as Marcy takes the time to read through the directions carefully, do the same and keep the focus of the assignment on task. You\'ll see that your grade could possibly improve drastically just by following this one top student tip. John: \"I go to the library right after school or on my free period when I have an essay paper. I want to be the first to get the best research materials.\" Now John may sound a little funny, wanting to be the first one to get the best research materials, but he brings up an excellent point. Remember, as you are assigned a essay paper on this topic so is every student in your class. There are only so many books on this very topic in your school library. Being the first to the library means you\'ll get first pick from the materials and which can mean your research is stronger than other students. This often can mean a much stronger paper as your research statement is better supported. Something to think about if you\'d rather play basketball with friends with your free period. Sometimes spending that free period in the library on homework can be well worth it. Sean: \"If I have a question about the assignment, I ask the teacher right away.\" Sean raises an excellent point here. Sometimes when we receive an assignment in school we have a question about it. If you wait to ask that question you are wasting valuable time that could have been spent researching or writing the paper. Asking your question right from the start means you have all of your information ahead of time. It can save you from going off in the wrong direction and also keep you from making a big mistake with your essay paper. Lynn: \"I work a certain period of time every day on my paper until it is finished. I don\'t try to do it all at once.\" Lynn brings up an excellent point, organizing your work so you are doing it methodically and not trying to do everything in a single sitting. Trying to write and research your essay paper all at once can be very overwhelming. Doing one hour a day until you are finished means you\'ve gotten in some time on the assignment and you\'ll chip away at it until it is completed. Jason Bacot - To find out the best ways to get an essay, then you need to check us out here at http://www.essaytown.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Finding a Great Topic For a Research Paper by Jason Bacot The research paper is a common assignment students will face from middle school through college. If you find research papers challenging, now is the time to master them, as they will reappear in many forms throughout your student career. One of the most challenging aspects of the research paper is finding a great topic for them. Some students spend days wondering exactly what topic would be best for their paper. Other students ask fellow students what topics they have picked, hoping they can come up with a good topic this way. Either of these approaches is not ideal. Fortunately, you have more options to develop a great topic for a research paper. When thinking of a great topic for a your paper, begin by reading the teacher\'s assignment instructions. One of the biggest mistakes a student will make is in their eagerness or anxiety they can read the instructions quickly and miss some of the important parts. When you don\'t understand the instructions, the research paper is certainly more difficult to do. Sometimes a student can write a letter-perfect research paper that is simply wrong, as it does not follow the directions. Take the time to read the instructions given to you by your teacher in order to do the assignment. This can mean the difference between getting a top grade and nearly passing the assignment. Some of the best topics for research papers can come from the world around you. As you\'ve read the directions for the assignment, pay attention to what interests you about the assignment and what ideas come to your mind first. Often these are your best ideas showing themselves to you. If you are a varsity sports player, then your topic could somehow be related to sports or a famous figure in sports. Or to some controversy about the world of sports today like drug testing for sports. Your interest in these subjects will drive you to achieve and dig deeper into the subject. Having a great interest in the paper topic helps a great deal. A sense of curiosity about the subject helps you to keep reading, keep searching, keep learning as you find more and more information to create the best paper you can. Don\'t overlook a controversial topic, but do be aware that \"hot button\" topics should be handled with a cool head. Some topics like politics, abortion rights and religion are topics that many people can become quite emotional about. There is a saying that, \"politics make strange bedfellows,\" meaning you never quite know who is going to agree with you in your way of thinking, when it comes to these hot button topics. If you are writing about a hot button topic, remember that the research must support your ideas. You can write a research paper supporting the idea of prayer in schools but must find research that supports this idea. Keep your emotions and personal thoughts away from the page. Let your passions on the topic inspire you to find great research and to write a well organized paper. A research paper is not an opinion paper, offering your opinion. However, a \"hot button\" topic for this paper can be a good idea as many teachers understand you will have strong emotions about the subject and will be passionate about your research. Jason Bacot - Want to know more about the writing of a research paper or any other papers, then come and visit us at http://www.essaytown.com for an awesome experience. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How to Organize a Term Paper by Jason Bacot Writing term papers is very important for every student. In most student\'s educational career they will write dozens of papers. But many students have trouble with term papers. One of the biggest challenges is that they don\'t know how to organize one. Without proper organization, your term paper simply won\'t work. This flaw can be very costly to your school career. A poor term paper can give you a bad grade on the assignment and bring down your overall grade for the course. This experience can cause you trouble in school. Even worse, not understanding how to organize them will cause challenges for you next term or next year, as you still don\'t know how to do this important skill. Every student should and must know how to organize a term paper. Your very school career depends on it. For best term paper organization, you\'ll want to begin with well organized desk, locker and book bag. You may wonder, \"Why does this matter?\" However, it does, a great deal. The student with poor organization who is always misplacing things will have far more trouble with a term paper than the well-organized student who can find their belongings. Organizing your locker, desk and book bag may take you an hour or two, but this is time well spent. Just imagine how much higher your paper grades will be if you were to just do this. You\'ll have better chances for successful organization when you start a term paper assignment the minute it is assigned. The student who waits until the night before quite often is the one who doesn\'t get a good grade. Even though many students know this deep down, it just doesn\'t keep them from continuing with this bad habit. The best way to break this bad habit is to start your term paper assignment the very day it is assigned, as I said earlier. The worst thing that happens is you finish it early and have some free time. This is something that would appeal to many students. The idea of having a free afternoon or two to spend with friends doing their favorite sport, playing video games or involved in a popular hobby. Every term paper starts with a great idea. When your teacher assigns a paper they typically assign a topic and let you come up with the idea. We\'ll let you in on a secret to finding a great idea: give the idea an extra twist. So if the topic is Romeo and Juliet, think of how you can make this topic for a term paper just a bit different. Most students would focus on the main characters Romeo and Juliet and how they couldn\'t be together, the most popular part of the story. Take another interesting part of the story and look at something else that could be discussed. Romeo and Juliet\'s families were feuding. You could talk about how difficult it can be for children when their families are fighting and this affects them in many ways. Any teacher would be impressed to see that you selected a different topic than what the majority of the class did. Jason Bacot - If you want to improve your term paper to the fullest, but only expect the best, then come and check us out at http://www.essaytown.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Tips on Your Successful College Essay by Jason Bacot A college essay is a critical step in one\'s education. Any college student will readily agree that mastering the college essay is important to being a successful student. Yet many seem to struggle with this very important issue. Writing a college essay doesn\'t have to be difficult. The successful college student understands that a successful essay is, well researched and thoughtful. Many students have made the mistake of writing an essay the night before, hoping it will mass muster; it won\'t. The essay needs to be a step-by-step process of one\'s thoughts and beliefs on a topic. It explains exactly why you have decided upon this particular belief or thought. Strong research supports the essay, lending your argument to be well supported. Some students become anxious about their college essay and actually rush through reading the instructions. This means they wind up missing some of the steps or instructions the professor has given to writing the essay. Without proper instruction, your essay may actually be well written and well thought out, but completely incorrect for the assignment. This can lead you to lose a full letter grade for misunderstanding the assignment alone. Don\'t let this happen to you. Take the time to read thoroughly whatever assignment directions the professor has given you so you can understand them fully and prepare the best essay possible. Research is critical to your essay paper. An essay paper won\'t have strong legs to stand on without supportive research. For many college students, this research begins in the college library and also by searching on the Internet. The college library offers a wealth of information. From books, journals and databases to search for information on your essay topic. The Internet is also an excellent place to search for current events, blog posts and news items related to your essay topic. Be sure to find enough research material that offers a variety and supporting arguments. One of the top secrets to writing a strong essay paper is the knowledge to write a second draft. Very few writers are able to create the perfect essay within a single draft of their paper. Having the willingness to create a second draft allows you the ability to edit your work to craft sentences and paragraphs so they are fine-tuned. When you write your second draft the best suggestion we have is to allow a bit of time between the first draft and the second. This way you arrive at the second draft with a fresh set of eyes. You\'ll see things you might have missed otherwise had your paper been rushed. Having a well organized attitude about your essay is important. Starting your essay on time means you are not rushed or doing this assignment with a stressed feeling. With the most amount of time possible, just imagine the top quality essay you can produce. Create a checklist of everything you\'ll need from research, to an outline and time to write. Work your way through this list and when you reach the bottom you\'ll have an excellent college essay that is successful and offers you a top letter grade. Jason Bacot - No need to worry! To find out the best ways to get a college essay, you need to check us out here: http://www.essaytown.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS What Information Product Medium Should You Use? by Barbara Grassey Information products can range from a simple ebook to a full course with manual, DVDs and CDs. Don’t sweat creating your information product, even if it’s your first. The most important thing about information products is that they convey quality information to the person who buys your product. My first recommendation to my coaching students is to go with whatever medium you are most comfortable with. If you enjoy writing, then write an ebook, book or manual. Many people, even people who like to write are intimidated by the thought of writing a book. Take some pressure off yourself and start with an ebook or manual. You aren’t writing the Great American Novel; you are writing an information product. An information product should impart the information clearly, concisely and thoroughly. People will purchase it because they are looking for specific information, not an involved story line. If you are not at all comfortable with the idea of writing an information product, you can also record the information using an audio or video format. Many people nowadays either don’t like to read or don’t have the time to read. They would rather listen to a CD in their car or download the information and listen to it on their IPod. Other people learn best by watching a video. If you feel strange just talking into a microphone and recording it, you can have a friend help you out by interviewing you. Come up with ten to twenty questions about your topic (depending on how long you want your recording to be), arrange them in a logical progression and then have your friend ask you the questions. You may want to write down various points that you don’t want to miss for each answer. That way you’re not reading from a full script (and you won’t sound stiff which is the way most people sound when reading from a script) and you’ll make sure you have the most important information in your answers. If you can get a conversational tone going in your “interview” the audio will be that much easier for people to follow and learn from. You can also create a video, either of yourself demonstrating how to do something, an interview of you or you can create a Camtasia-style instructional video with a voice over. Camtasia is a software program that allows you to record your voice with whatever is on your screen or integrate video with PowerPoint and other media. I use Camtasia to record my PowerPoint presentations. I create a PowerPoint on my topic then talk through the presentation as if I were in front of a live audience. Camtasia records it and I can put it into a variety of formats (.avi, .mpv, etc.) for uploading to the internet or to burn on DVDs. (If you don’t have Camtasia, you can get a 30 day free trial of the software at camtasia.com.) Another way to record presentations is to use www.gotowebinar or www.dimdim.com . Both of these sites can be used to conduct webinars or just to record a PowerPoint presentation. In addition, DimDim.com has the capacity to record whatever is on your screen or even capture from your computer’s video camera. Of course, nothing says you can put out your information product in only one format. As a matter of fact, if you can offer a package with the information in several formats, all the better. Everybody learns in different ways. If people have the option to read, listen to AND watch the information, you are more likely to hit on the way they like to learn. Bottom line, go with the medium you are most comfortable in. However, don’t be afraid to put your product into different formats. If you write an info product, you may want to read it aloud and record it on CDs or into MP3 files. If you like doing videos, you can create a video and then pay to have the audio portion of the video transcribed so you can offer a written accompaniment to the video. Either way, you are increasing your odds of having the right product for your target market. Remember: It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be done. Barbara Grassey is a professional writer and speaker. She produces information products for many of the top national speakers as well as for herself. For a free DVD on how to Create Information Products Fast (and to get her Tip of the Week) go to http://www.InformationProductFastTrac FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS The Best Way To Express One’s Gratitude: A Thank You Letter by Mary Simmers Have you ever felt grateful towards someone you know? It could be your parents, friends or relatives perhaps? Thanking someone very close to your or even to a stranger that did something good to you is a wonderful thing that will happen if you extend your heartfelt gratitude to them. Saying “Thank You” is not that hard, but then, you have this feeling that there is something that bothers you most. Usually, you feel awkward in doing this because you are not used to thank someone. You’re shy to tell them. If not, then it might be that you are too busy of your current and daily work that you can’t even have some time of telling them so. If that happens, here is a tip for that matter. When you feel embarrassed about telling how you feel or if you are too busy, then writing them a letter of thanks can help you. A simple letter telling them how thankful you are is better than nothing at all. Imagine your mom or dad looking out for you or your loved one who is always there when you are happy or sad. It really means that much to them when you let them know how grateful you are for everything they have done. In fact, studies show that people who are being appreciated live longer and have healthy lives. It can also rise up their confidence, since they know that they are valuable to you. So if you cannot think of anything to give them in a special day, then this might be the perfect gift! The letter doesn’t need to be long. All that matters is that you express how thankful you are with everything that they have done for you inside that small paper. Also, make sure that you use quality paper for the letter. There are lots of colored papers that you can choose from to match the personality of the recipient of the letter. If you have a computer, you can use it to design a nice template and also to check for misspelled words thru grammar checkers. A thank you letter can indeed become the ultimate gift when you do it the right way. It can also be a great alternative if you are facing financial problems and you are trying to avoid spending. Of course, make sure that the letter comes from the heart, not because you feel you had to do so. It sound simple but it means a lot. Even if it is a small note or letter, still, your love ones will feel blessed and happy whenever they receive one. Thank them for the wonderful things that had happened in your life. Even if it is a small thing, it can still be appreciated. You should bear in mind that you are nothing and you can’t be yourself without these people who influence you the most. So be creative enough on how are you going to state your gratitude in a letter. Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Checkers Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How To Write An Informal Essay by Mary Simmers Writing an informal essay doesn’t mean you finally have the license to cuss all you want on paper. The main hallmark of this type of writing is the lack of a rigid style, with preferential use of a conversational tone. While the content of informal essays is intended to be drawn from your own beliefs and opinions, do note that you’ll need to support it with decent facts just the same. Informal essays are purposely written to get the interest of every readers mixed with delight. But then, you can’t just make one just exactly what comes up into your mind, it has to be informative also. You can’t just tell stories on your own without being supported by facts. However, it is a way to reveal your inner talent in writing as what your imagination and feelings would show. It’s basically your point of view to a particular event or situations might be a problem, news, comments, a thing or a person maybe. It is unique to other types of writing since it has an informal style, flexible content but then it must have a well-organized plan. Writing an informative essay as well with other types of writing is merely to get your readers mind active and they must comprehend to what your side is stating about. Although it is not a formal type one, there are still a lot of factors that needs to be considered and be followed by the writer. No Structure Does Not Mean No Plan The lack of a formal structure is often mistaken as meaning you can just write an informal essay from the seat of your pants. In truth, informal essays are just like other pieces of writing – they’re best done deliberately with an outline in place. As such, perform due diligence as usual – research your subject, outline your material and plan how to present your ideas. Similarly, perform thorough editing with the help of the best grammar checking software you can find. Presentation As it is informal, you can design your presentation of the material however you fancy. Would you like to do it in a narrative form, with the story interspersed with your opinions? Have you ever wondered how you would write in a ranting -albeit, well-argued – format? You can try it here. While planning the essay, always consider two factors: the particular information you will present and when you will present it. Naturally, you will need to present enough facts to cover your entire argument. Timing the revelation of those facts can be as creative as you want, provided that it makes sense relative to the whole piece. Format your essay well. You need also to check its quality as what it will appear to your readers mind. When you speak of quality, it should have something very important for them to learn out of your piece. Check also the overall content if it is properly arranged and all your grammars must be checked. Now, start writing and let it your ideas be shared to other people. Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Checkers Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Why Having Good Grammar Is Essential In Blogging by Mary Simmers I think this is self explanatory. But first, for those who are not into blogging; let me give you a brief introduction. Blogging is the most popular way of expressing one’s thoughts about a certain subject or just merely getting famous thru writing in the Internet. Nowadays, there are thousands of blogs published and millions of bloggers who are keen on writing fresh articles into their blogs by the minute. Of course you need good grammar when blogging; it will be extremely embarrassing when people read your blog and it is not understandable. You also have to realize why blogging is famous. To those who are into social networking, this increases their chances to get to know more people. For those who are into merchandising and advertisements, once their blog becomes famous, they get more visitors who will click on the ads and presto, instant money for them. Now, if your grammar is top-notch, then you will have a good chance with your blog getting famous because the content is understandable. But when your grammar skill is poor, then expect your blog to feel lonely. If you want to improve your grammar, you can start by practicing. Get all those words that you are having a problem with and check out their meanings. Once that is done, try creating sentences from those difficult words and then check them if they correct. If you have a computer, then much better as you can use grammar checkers to correct misspelled words and then follow how they are spelled correctly. It takes time but if you are willing to wait, then you will be rewarded greatly once you start making your very own blog. It always is an advantage if your grammar is top-notch. Having a well-written blog attracts a lot of readers. A lot of reader means a lot of traffic. There will be more and more people who will let others know how great your blog is, it is like spreading the news over the internet. By time, your blogs will be very famous. You should be aware that there are also a lot of bloggers online that creates a lot of blogs and as a result, millions and millions of blogs are available over the World Wide Web. Therefore, you should have the knowledge of formatting a blog correctly. Check grammars if there are any errors. You can learn online on what are the basic things that can be learned in writing. Also, check if there are misspellings and wrong punctuations. Be aware of what your blog will look like in order to get the interest of your readers. Be specific and detailed. Besides, you can now enhance yourself more with the basic rules that you’ve learned in writing and your spoken English will also improve. Since the English language is dominant over the internet. Be fully equipped in writing and recall what you have learned from your elementary and high school years at school. Now, go on and make your very own first post! Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Checkers Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How to Create Your Own “Dictionary “ by Mary Simmers I last talked in an article awhile ago about making your very own personalized “dictionary “. Now I am not talking about inventing new words, what I am talking about is having your very own word reference. It can be a notebook, a small pad of paper or even your computer, as long as it is something that you can use whenever you encounter a difficult word. When you are on to writing, you experience a lot of new words that might help to catch your reader’s attention. The least you would do is to gather those words that are very unfamiliar to you and record it in your own dictionary notebook. Get its synonyms so that you will easily identify those words the time you will use them to your future articles or when you hear those words again. Also, when you wanted to learn for yourself like studying a word or words everyday is fine. It’s a better thing to do this so that you can enhance yourself more and have it stored in your personalized dictionary. Another situation is when you are fun of reading a lot of books or magazines. For sure you will see several words that you don’t even know the meaning. When you do, you can write it down, check the dictionary or the computer and write down the meaning. So that the next time you see that same word, you now have reference in case you forgot the meaning. A small notebook is usually advisable as it is something that you can put inside your pocket and carry all around with you. Have it handy whenever you are reading a book or having an English language class. Take note of new words that you have learned that day and then take the time to research on how to use it in a sentence, its synonyms, antonyms and etc. This information will be very valuable once you start working on your very first article. Or if you don’t have anything to do and you have a lot of spare time, you can pass the time by working on your personalized dictionary. Your own dictionary is like a diary where you noted down all the words that you’ve researched and studied and by time it will serve as your reference whenever go and whatever you do. This will greatly help you to enhance yourself even more especially in communicating with other people, writing or public speaking. If you have a computer or laptop, spend some time researching about words and sentence construction and then note them down in your notebook. It is very easy since you can search engines like Google and others. You can also use it to improve your grammar skills by checking the grammar checker every time you finish making a sentence with the use of your personalized dictionary. A very smart and easy technique for English learning! So go ahead, find a spare notebook and start noting down those difficult words! Go make your very own personalized dictionary today! Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Checker Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Article Spinning 101: The Basics by Mary Simmers Article spinning is becoming a popular demand in the world of Internet Marketing nowadays. Never heard about it? Writing an article has three types. One is article writing where it is just a simple content writing like we always do at school. Second is article rewriting where you reverse the original article that you made but the main topic is there, the idea is also there and you can revise it per word or sentence, per paragraphs or the whole article itself. But it is still the same as the previous article. And the third one is article spinning, this is a kind of article where you use syntax and that particular article can be created with a lot of versions where in every site, it is different from the others. That is why it is very demanding over the internet. If you happen to have the talent for rewriting articles, then this might be your best chance to start a great career for yourselves and even make a few bucks! The world of article spinning can be complicated for beginners but never fear, as there are countless ways for you to learn the basics of this technique. This is just the learning process, so I would like to apologize in advance to those who hope to learn the process in a day. Article spinning is not a magician’s trick; you cannot learn it within a day only. You need to go through the very basics first before you can say that you are an accomplished article spinning expert! This will include familiarizing words or phrases with the same meaning or should we say are synonymous, be creative enough in writing and lastly, know how to check your article before you are going to submit it. For starters, you will need to have the necessary tools. First is the article or articles that you will be spinning, next is the article spinning program or website and then your English correction software. But then, before you start doing this, always remember to familiarize the article spinning program or site. You certainly don’t want to waste your time trying to figure out how the system works when it is your first day to work on an article. So save yourself from frustrations and check the tutorials first. It is also a good strategy to check the articles too. Check how many words it has, what the topic is all about and how many words you are spinning. If you are working on a client who wants you to spin articles, then you can ask him or her. However, remember the goal for article spinning, which is to keep the content fresh. So it is always a best technique to spin as much as you can. Once you are done spinning, check if there are mistakes in the article with the use of a grammar checker. You certainly don’t want to be corrected for your mistakes if you want to be an expert article spinner. Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See English Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How To Format Your Press Release by Mary Simmers Writing a press release is done by a third person must possess the quality of effective writing. If you wanted to promote or tell something to the media of a particular person, activities or events or anything that has an important value Need to write a press release, but then you don’t have time to source a contractor? What about writing your own? If you follow the proper format, use a good grammar checker and send it to the right people, you may not end up doing so bad. Following the proper format is crucial to press releases. Your recipients are likely to be very busy folks and a structure helps them skim through your text, knowing exactly where to find which information. Release Statement. A press release should come with a release statement at the top of the page, detailing the time of release. Write “For Release” or “For Immediate Release” with the exact time and date below it. Don’t forget to include the “Contact Details”. After that, add the contact details of the person (in this case, you) recipients will need to get in touch with, should they require more information. “Headline” is necessary. The headline is your title or the banner of your post. Put your headline in the center, bolded and one font size bigger two spaces below the contact details. Make sure it is catchy and imparts the gist of the release succinctly. Dateline. The dateline details the place of origin and the date of the release. This can be bolded for better legibility. Lead. The lead paragraph comes on the same line as the dateline. Like any good introduction, it should include all the most pertinent facts (who, what, where, when, why and how) that are relevant to the press release. This paragraph is the most important aspect as it contains the most significant information of the release. The “Body” which is the next paragraph/s of your release. The body of the press release builds on the “why” and the “how,” detailing the specifics that make it worthy of being news. This part adds emphasis to what you are aiming to tell to the public. It can also be used to list off numerous details (even mundane ones) as additional listing, although the focus should remain squarely on its “newsworthy” aspects. Boilerplate. The boilerplate provides details on the company behind the press release, usually listing general facts. Recall what you have learned from your elementary or high school years. This might be discussed in your English subjects and/or to your Journalism subjects. Having such knowledge in making a press release is of great advantage. Also, there are some basic reminders that you need to know more. Be informative enough with your release. After that, have it check several times. See if there are any errors in your post. Check the grammars and spellings also. This will catch the attention of your readers and might feel bored and reject your post if they see one. Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Checker Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How To Use Arguments In Your Essay by Mary Simmers Arguing your essay can be accomplished in different ways. Though it may sound complicated by to some, it will still work out if you know how to create one. You should know how to deal this kind of essay when you are planning to start writing. While many writing guides like to focus on presentation techniques that allow you to present contentions in an effective manner, they usually assume one thing incorrectly: that the best way to expostulate is by sound reasoning. In truth, not every reader can be won over by an air-tight logic (regardless of how well-written and impeccably error-free, thanks to a good grammar checker). For some personalities, focusing on that might even be the wrong way to go about it. Remember that not all individuals depend on logic to make their conclusions – some are best swayed using other means. With writing, the act of persuading your readers can be accomplished by three very different types of arguments: Logical reasoning. Logic depends on cold, hard, verifiable facts. Whatever your position, this implies using factual details to support it, from research statics to scientific findings to past events. Many beginning essay writers tend to focus on this alone, leaving their readers convinced, yet uncaring. Your readers will naturally think and open their ideas about the topic you have created. Emotional appeals. This is a type of reasoning that depends on hooking the reader emotionally to the cause. Whether that emotion is rage, anger, love, admiration or something else, the goal is to elicit a passion in your readers that drive them to support your position. Most of the time, readers can relate to this type of an argument essay. Since they will feel what you are going to imply in the article. Credibility appeals. A little trickier than the others, this one uses the credibility of the sources for a particular opinion. Oprah’s opinions can be used as argument for issues in the entertainment industry, for instance, as her credibility on that front (as one of the wealthiest personalities in the industry) is solid. However, use her words to argue scientific facts and you’ll probably be laughed out to a failing grade. Using All Three The best strategy in any essay is to use all three types of arguments, with a primary focus on that which your audience best responds to. Always weigh them together when constructing your piece – which combination could work best? It is up to you whether what type of essay arguments are you going to use as long as it catches the interest of your readers. Remember how you are going to penetrate into your reader’s mind and heart. Use a better strategy in creating arguments in your essays. Go on and start writing. See if what you can do best. Remember to have it proofread before you are going to submit you are going to submit your essay. In order for you to have an infinite imagination or idea about the topic you will write, you can read some reference materials or surf the internet. New ideas aids you to write a better argumentative essay. Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Checker Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS The Power of Using Parallel Construction by Mary Simmers Remember that old rule about always writing items on a list using the same forms of the word or phrase? It’s called parallel construction and it’s not just grammatically sound – it’s an immensely powerful writing instrument. When you are up to writing, basically, you need to know correct grammar and correct language usage. As a writer, you should also study what is a parallel construction in writing your content. You might hear of the term way back in your elementary and high school years. If not, you must be absent with this course or worse, you haven’t paid any attention with it. Maybe, but I guess it is normal for a student to be like that. Anyway, parallelism construction is a very useful technique in writing where is maintains the balance of similar words in your sentence. It is also applied to similar or related phrases or clauses. Through this technique, it helps you formulate a new writing style which your readers will fully understand it because it will create a sense of readability. Whenever there are few structural situations in your content, this method enables you to use only one so that the subject of each verb will no longer have to restate those sentences again. Need an example to refresh on the topic? Take this list, for instance: “drinking, drugs and gambling” Is the list clear? Of course it is. Anyone can read that and know what every item in the list is about. Even better, they can glean some of the context based directly from it. However, one of the words is off. If you guessed “drugs,” you’re right. The three other words use a verb to describe it, while “drugs” is a noun. As an alternative, we recommend writing this out as: “drinking, using and gambling” While “using” may not be as straightforward as “drugs,” most people will likely understand what it means too. How? Same way that people understand that “drinking” means getting drunk, instead of quenching your thirst: it’s all in the context. Since you used parallel construction in the second example, the sequence also sounds much better. In fact, if you use them in a speech, the second one will likely make a good sound bite, while the first is bound to be passed over. Since parallelism is usually in a series format which combines some related elements in a sentence, you should also use the correct syntax in order for you to create a good one. You need to put in mind that when you series related words or phrases in a sentence, it should appear clear and a bit more concise. Parallel construction allows you to create text with stronger effect because it allows the material to flow smoothly. That’s because text that doesn’t include parallels usually cause the reader to stop momentarily to process what was written. It breaks the flow and dampens what could have been a powerful statement. Many grammar checkers include grammatical parallelism during their document. Make sure to note it and fix any errors found to allow you to fashion the most effective writing possible. Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Checker Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Employing Sound Logic In Your Writing by Mary Simmers There are many aspects to a successful argument. Good writers know there are different ways to convince a reader, from emotional appeals to value judgments. At the end of the day, though, solid logic rules the roost. Your arguments will have to make sense and fall squarely into place in order to be effective. Why is logic so important? As a formal system of analysis that helps demonstrate and conclude arguments, it’s the one exact instrument you can use to convince your readers. To be able to effectively use logic in your writing, you’ll need to demonstrate the sequence by which you reach your conclusion. Syllogism is the simplest and most popular of these sequences, consisting of a straightforward assertion. Its reasoning is now generally regarded as a limited special case of the forms of reasoning that can be represented within the propositional and predicate calculus. Note the syllogistic example below: Dogs are animals. German Shepherds are dogs. Therefore, all German Shepherds are animals. With an argument that sound and simplistic, there’s no way for the reader to deny your conclusion without having to effectively lie to themselves. Because of this, syllogistic arguments are the single most effective instrument to employ when you’re writing to persuade. There are other ways to assert logic, of course, including enthymemes, induction and deduction. Enthymeme in its modern expression, is an informally stated syllogism (a three-part deductive argument) with an unstated assumption that must be true for the premises to lead to the conclusion. Its part of the argument is missing because it is assumed. In a broader usage, the term \"enthymeme\" is sometimes used to describe an incomplete argument of forms other than the syllogism. In deductive logic the conclusion cannot be false if the premises are true. The aim of logic is to make explicit the rules by which inferences may be drawn, rather than to study the actual reasoning processes that people use, which may or may not conform to those rules. In the case of deductive logic, if we ask why we need to obey the rules, the most general form of answer is that if we do not contradict ourselves There is no equally simple answer in the case of inductive logic, which is in general a less robust subject, but the aim will be to find reasoning such that anyone failing to conform to it will have improbable beliefs. Inductive logic studies the way in which premises may support a conclusion without entailing it also known as inductive reasoning , is a type of reasoning that involves moving from a set of specific facts to a general conclusion. It can also be seen as a form of theory-building, in which specific facts are used to create a theory that explains relationships between the facts and allows prediction of future knowledge. The premises of an inductive logical argument indicate some degree of support (inductive probability) for the conclusion but do not entail it; i.e. they do not ensure its truth. Induction is used to ascribe properties or relations to types based on an observation instance (i.e., on a number of observations or experiences); or to formulate laws based on limited observations of recurring phenomenal patterns. Everyone can raise a counter against every other argument you put forward, but an accurate expostulation using sound logic is difficult to trump. Do note that this discussion of sound logic assumes that the readers will actually finish your text. If it’s poorly-written and riddled with errors, they are more likely to dismiss it before even getting to your arguments. Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Checker Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How to Use Reverse Outlining to Analyze Material by Mary Simmers Every writer dwells on an outline in order for them to plan their work well. In this kind of process, if you happen to be a writer, you need to list down the things on how your article will appear. You should plan out on what are the topics that need to be discussed, what is its importance to the readers and how it shows relationship towards some other parts of your content. Outlines help you streamline your writing process, making the actual composition of text considerably easier. If you’ve been using outlining as a pre-writing activity, you probably experienced its benefits first hand. An outline can also be use to take down notes when you are on the process of revising your content. Like, listing what are the things that must be added, change or delete. This can help you formulate a better content rather than doing a work without any plans to accomplish. In addition, it can give you an overall view of what your topic is all about and how it will flow with the rest of the parts of your content. Just as outlining makes the presentation of ideas, events and actions in your writing easier, so does its reverse process able to do the same for distilling existing text into short statements. When you’re tasked with performing analysis of a work, for instance, this technique of reverse outlining can be extremely effective for distilling each major section into easily digestible parts. Same with when you’re editing a piece of work with a grammar software and you’re trying to get a good feel of how the sequence of events flow. How does reverse outlining work? Just as it sounds. As you read through the text, you distill portions of it into a list of short, clear statements. You can do it by paragraph, by section or by each major part of the text – whichever works best for your purposes. If you like working with hard copies of text, you can label each paragraph with what you understand to be its main topic, along with a brief discussion of how it advances the overall material. You can use the left and right hand margins for this, developing your own notation and structure, as you see fit. Since I prefer doing everything on a computer, I usually do reverse outlining by labeling each paragraph and writing my outline of it on a separate sheet. Same as the paper version, I put down the main topic, along with its overall relevance to the material. You can use either of the above or develop your own technique. Either way, reverse outlining is an activity that’s guaranteed to help you in many ways. Just be sure to know how you are going to format your content. With your outline that is already created for your overall flow of your content, your only problem will now focus on structuring your sentence right. Notice also your grammars and spellings. Just be careful enough to note any errors. When you are able to finish your draft, read it all over again and always base your work with the outline you made from the start. I’m sure you can finish quality content after the hard works that you’ve experience. Now, start writing and enjoy what you always do. Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Before Editing, Read Your First Draft by Mary Simmers When you feel like writing, you express what your mind dictates or even what your heart feels. In order to create a good non-fictional content with good quality also, you have to be informative also. However, if it is a fictional content, don’t exaggerate too much. Furthermore, you should also consider how you are going to format your article. Basic knowledge about English language is highly needed. Especially, when you have to create an article and then proofread it down. Check each sentence if it has no spelling errors, wrong punctuation marks or if the grammar is a little bit incorrect. After writing your first draft, proofreading and editing your text is the logical next step. Before that, though, we recommend conducting an initial reading, while writing down your thoughts about the material. Doing this will give you a more complete view of the amount of editing the work needs before sitting down to get on the job. Reading your work lets you think of how will you change your draft and what are the things that needs to be improve and alter whenever you see something wrong in it. When doing the initial reading, always resist the urge to begin editing. Even using a grammar check software isn’t that great of an idea. Correcting errors is a waste of time, as the reading might make it clear that you need to remove entire paragraphs. Can you imagine all that wasted work? Instead of updating parts of the work, simply note them down. If you notice any particular weak points, write them down as well. Put down all of your thoughts about the material as you’re reading. This will serve as your basis for the eventual editing you’re going to perform. During this phase, it’s important to keep your mind on the big picture, instead of obsessing on the details. How does the piece progress? Is the central message clear? Could it benefit from more facts? Does it trail off unnecessarily? Is your vision properly represented in the material? Once you’ve gone through the piece and written down your thoughts, the next step is to organize your notes. Find which changes are necessary to the piece and which ones are mere cosmetic enhancements. You will likely go your own way at this point, making your decisions as you see fit. Besides, there are people who manage to write long contents like for example when they want to write a novel or a story which really uses a lot of words, may be thousands of it. But then, if they are going to edit it down literally, without reading what needs to be added or change, then they will found their selves deleting some parts of their content making it shorter than the usual length of it. Now you’re wasting a lot of words and you don’t want to be like one of them right? SO manage your plan well and formulate the right ideas you have to insert in the note after you began reading your draft. Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Check Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How to Write a Winning Pitch by Mary Simmers Have you been to writing recently? Are you the type of person who knows how to persuade people? Have you ever tried or planned to be a freelancer? Make sense? You might be confuse If you answered yes, then you can you use this thing to some sort of jobs you never knew it could make shape you a lot. However, you‘re not unto it but love to possess those qualities this might help you out. Ever wrote a pitch to try to get a job? If you’ve spent any amount of time answering ads for freelancing positions, you’ve probably sent a good number of job pitches to prospective employers. Email is a highly-preferred form of making pitches, nowadays, as it puts no pressure on the recipient to respond immediately. This gives them the benefit of being able to review proposals at their own pace, allowing them to scrutinize each one conveniently. Because of the level of attention they can give to every pitch made, it’s crucial that you write your proposals in a clear and professional manner. More than that, you’ll have to write it so that it successfully makes the sale. The simple truth: most people responding to freelancing jobs do it poorly. From copy-pasting canned replies to vague pitches that don’t even make a serious attempt at landing the job, everyone I’ve talked to who has advertised for freelancing work has seen similar problems. If you’re serious about landing a freelancing gig, then treat your pitch seriously. That means, demonstrating that you understand the project, then selling yourself as the best choice for it. How do you do it? oSummarize what you understand about the project to demonstrate your familiarity with it. oDetail your relevant skills and experience in bulleted form to ensure every item is easily read. oGive them a reason why you’re the best fit for the job. oMake sure your pitch looks professional – use fitting words and run it through a grammar software to correct writing mistakes. They will able to determine if you are capable of the job or not. First thing is that, they based it on how are you going to manage yourself in persuading them that you are counted as one of what they are looking for. They it may seem not so easy, but if you wanted to job, then give them your best shot writing a pitch is really important in that case no matter what. So you have to start creating your own piece of pitch. If you don’t know how to begin or if you are not that familiar about it, you have to practice by yourself following those simple tips that we tackles a while ago. As you keep on writing, you also keep on improving. As a matter of fact, you an even learn from what you have to do and thus, increasing your capacity in writing better English, correct grammar usage, spellings and any other aspects that you will need to consider in order to achieve a proper and organize pitch. Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Cause And Effect Essays: A Perfect Training Ground For Developing Writing Skills by Mary Simmers Writing an essay about the causes and effects of a particular something is now being discussed at school. A lot of students are being taught how to determine the cause and after that, they will also state the possible effects of the problems or any situations that will be discussed in the class. These prove how a student reacts and share his or her point of view with everyone. This way, they enhance themselves even more, from analyzing those situations to talking it in front of the public. How about in essay writing? Cause and effect is also applicable in writing. More and more students find it difficult to relate in writing in their own words but generally, based on facts. Now, they are unable to test themselves whether they are capable in writing essays or not. Aside from that, writing has a lot of basic rules to remember like for example the grammar usage, spellings and formats. Though this is only a simple thing where most people thought about, not all of these students are competent in doing this so. Detailing cause and effect is a basic writing instrument that you’ll find plenty of uses for, well beyond your essay-writing requirements in school. In fact, this form of essay offers one of the best training for composition skills that you will find valuable well into the future. More than mere classroom skills (which a grammar checker can easily help you with), these types of essays allow you to develop very specific abilities. Reasoning Skills Cause and effect essays are marked by a very precise logic. You start by describing a phenomenon (or event or trend), proving its existence by a sound presentation of proof. Then, you carefully wound the causes into the material, linking them via a clear and demonstrable path. Throughout all this, you need to learn to develop a convincing argument – an acquired talent you’ll be able to use in many facets of life. Professional Tone Tone is crucial in a cause and effect piece. Sound too forward and you’ll look like you’re overcompensating. Make your arguments too weak and no one will ever buy your main thesis. You’ll have to strike a balance, concocting your material in a tone that is confident and reasonable, never losing your cool. In other words, you’ll have to sound very professional. Strictly Factual As cause and effect is dictated by a strict logic, you’ll need to make clever use of facts. You can’t dilly-dally your way around sound reasoning – you’ll be easily exposed halfway through. Your choice of facts and the quality of your sources will be continually put in question. This is as good a training for future writing work in almost any field as you can get. Though, this is just a simple part of our English course at school, not all are being able to cope up with it. It’s a fact that almost all students are not interested by the subject, so why get a concentration about cause and effect essay writing? Truth is, we might hate what our lessons are being discussed but in if we talk about the real world, what your teacher had been discussing in your elementary or secondary years, it can be use greatly when you grow up especially when you are on your business or work field. Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Checkers Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Short Story Writing: A Hobby For Bored People by Mary Simmers For those who are bored, life has no meaning. Everything is dull and gray. These people just like staying in one corner of the house or in the office, nothing else to do. What’s the reason behind of being so bored? Do you feel like life is so empty? Do you really think that you will always be like this until the rest of your time? This is not a very healthy life strategy as boredom often leads to depression. Once a person is depressed, his or her mental health can deteriorate, causing some social problems or worse, suicidal tendencies. If you happen to be a bored person, then you might want to find a hobby instead of doing nothing all day. There are different hobbies for different types of people. You can choose among what you are most interested in. If you wanted, choose a hobby where you an express what you feel. However, there is one that might fit for everyone. And that hobby is short story writing. Yes, this kind of hobby is simple yet very entertaining. You might find yourself so amazed and occupied when you indulge into writing. Writing a short story can be very pleasing and fun hobby. It is where you can create a world on your own. You are the creator yourself and it is up to you to what you wanted your story to flow. You can decide whether your story might be related adventures, love or anything. Besides, you have the freewill to what your story should appear. All you need is a notebook and a pen and also a healthy imagination. If you wanted, you’ve got to fresh up your mind first and think of any possibility to what your story might end up to. If you’re not that creative, then you can always base your short stories on people or events around you. It can be of the things that might have happened with your life, to someone’s lives or to anything you want to express in writing. It can be base on reality or your own creativity. Start writing down and you can even collect short stories that you have written. In this way, your life does not have to be too boring anymore. This is just a one way to treat you own self not too live a boring life. You can also use your personal computer, if you wish. I personally write down short stories in my PC and then save them in different folders. You can categorize your short stories as well in order not to confuse yourself. You can also use grammar checkers in order to check the spelling. All in all, writing short stories not only cures boredom, it can also enhance your grammar and writing skills as well. Also, you can prevent your mind from deteriorating. Instead, you might even acquire some more knowledge and be more interested in what you do. So go ahead and start writing short stories today! Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Checkers Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Writing Your Resume: What NOT To Include! by David LeAche I will always remember sitting in on a hiring interview and being invited to ask one question of the candidate. I was briefly shown the candidates resume, which rambled on about all sorts of personal issues including the fact that they didn\'t smoke and that they enjoyed using \"Facebook\". At the top of the opening page was a photograph of them next to a horse with a rosette in it\'s bridle. My sole question was obvious: who taught you to write a resume? Writing the perfect resume for yourself is difficult enough without including things that are going to alarm your potential employer. Considering that your resume will be scanned very quickly and will probably be one of many, there are five important things that should never be included, so that you get a chance at that all important first interview. Five items that head the \'Don\'t do this in your resume\' highlight reel... 1... I love to go horse riding and I am divorced, with a real interest in medieval thatching techniques. Incredibly interesting as that may be, resumes are not the place for anything personal (age, race, marital status etc) or anything to do with your hobbies and/or interests even if the job in question is for a medieval thatcher! Rule number one is not to get personal but present yourself as a professional, qualified to do the job being considered. Education, qualifications and employment history will point to your career objectives, not your personal life. 2...My life has been devoted to ergonometrical constructivism. Fantastic, whatever it is, but don\'t use technical jargon that\'s going to annoy the selection committee. What many applicants don\'t understand is that many companies hire a screening company to sort the initial batch of resumes and that this selection has little connection with the actual job. They don\'t know what your talking about and you are going to appear pompous at best, even though the career in question may include ergonometrically correct items being designed, for example. The recruiter may not be the actual personnel manager of the company hiring! It\'s always best not to use complex vocabulary in your resume and to use direct, action words that are relevant, unless you know for certain that a technologically savvy person is going to be reading it. 3...and you can see all about me on my Facebook page. How very modern and \'cool\' but how very \'Do Not Include At Any Cost\'. Don\'t include your personal websites, blog, facebook or twitter account because they almost always contain inappropriate material and also no-one is going to spend the time to look. Lay out the relevant information that constitutes your qualifications and do it in simple, direct terms that are easy to see at a glance. The only time a website link may be appropriate is if you are applying for a web development position or you have your resume set out, professionally, on line as well as on paper and it has extra materials such as reference letters for example. 4...and when I worked as a butchers boy I got $5 for the Saturday morning. (Actually I got 10 shillings but who cares...right!) Usually best not to include any references to salary, especially of previous jobs. The advertisement may ask for a desired salary in which case do your homework and see what is average for the position, but usually this information should not be presented until the first interview. Past salary isn\'t relevant, the new employer will be considering what you are going to cost him, today, and whether you will be a good investment for the firm. 5...I hav a PH.d in Engrish Litreture. Nice, shame we need someone who can speak, write and converse in English, correctly! Your Resume must be perfect. The English, the spelling, even the flow of thoughts must be nothing but perfect. Typing errors, or keyboarding errors if you like, are definitely out. First use spell-check on the computer than get someone or maybe two people who know, really know, to check your resume over. Get them to seriously pull it apart. You don\'t need to know how good it is, just what needs to be fixed! Your Resume is your foot in the door to a first interview. It could be the start of a life-long career. Put some time and effort into it. Avoid the pitfalls and if you have problems with English or this kind of writing, hire a professional, your career may depend on it! About the Author: Dave LeAche is author of http://www.resumewritingexplained.net compiled to help you with all your resume writing needs. Articles, videos and viewer questions updated daily. Visit http://www.resumewritingexplained.net to get your resume up to scratch. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How To Use Commas: A Quick And Handy Guide by Mary Simmers Too many intermediate writers (and some professionals I know), commas remain a tricky punctuation to use. As they affect both the way a piece is read and its overall effect, they are crucial to get right, lest risk dampening what could be particularly strong points of your material. Using a comma is sometimes very confusing upon when and where you will going to place it within a sentence or in a whole paragraph. Basically, commas are use to indicate natural pause, but if you place it by mistake, the whole though will be misunderstood. So you have to be very careful in doing it so. There are some things you need to keep in mind when using the punctuation - comma. If, like me, you occasionally need a refresher on the proper way to use commas (I sort of need one every couple of weeks), this handy guide (with examples built into each rule, by the way) should help you out. Needless to say, we implore you to use a grammar checking software to help on this end, as well. •A comma may not look necessary when separating two independent clauses with a coordinating conjunction (and, or, but, nor, yet, for, so), but they are absolutely necessary to correctly relay the idea. •You always add a comma when you put two independent clauses together, and •Seriously, when you employ an introductory word or phrase to start a main clause, use a comma right after it. •When you insert a word or phrase in the middle of the sentence that isn’t essential, such as this phrase here, add a comma before and after it (I sincerely hope you got that; if you didn’t, read again). •My old grammar teacher used to say, “Write a comma before and after a quoted statement,” when you use it as part of a sentence. •When showing items in a series, whether they be nouns, adjectives or adverbs, always use a comma to separate them. •An afterthought (along with a contrast statement) requires a comma right before it, as unfamiliar as you may be with doing that. •Use a comma to set off a noun in direct address. •You can also use a comma when you are setting off interrupting words and appositives. Although a comma is a very common thing to use in a sentence or even in the whole content, the proper way to use it is quite ignored by some of us. You might even not notice it. But now, with all the rules that you should always remember, you can now start to write contents and be aware of using a comma. There more rules to follow when you use a comma and you can check it over the internet to have some further reference about it. After writing what you intend to write, maybe a speech, letter, articles, story etc., make sure to read it all over and check if there are any errors or mistakes that you have committed while writing. Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Checking Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How To Make A Letter Of Apology by Mary Simmers There may be a time in your life when you and your loved one had a misunderstanding with each other. You both argued endlessly and may have ended saying hurtful things that both of you don’t really mean. Those words that can hurt you both are cause by the strong feeling that you both are having. It can be due to anger, disappointment or any mechanical defense. Or maybe you could have a fight with your friend or maybe your parents. In these cases, it is always difficult to apologize to them after cooling yourself down because you find it very awkward to do so or maybe you are too embarrassed to admit you were wrong. During these times, when you do not know how to express your deepest apologies, then a letter might be the answer to your problems. With the help of a letter, it will be a start to say what you really want to say despite the fact that you are not facing each other personally and talk things over. In that case, a letter can be a symbol of sweetness and sincerity. The one who will read will felt happy and touched if you do it so. Now, how to start writing a letter? There are some thing you should keep in mind. Making a letter of apology is very easy. It does not need to be fancy. You can create a simple letter of apology that can convey your heartfelt regret to your loved one. First thing you can do is take a blank sheet of paper and try writing down a letter of apology as practice. You can write it first in a scratch paper so that you can have erasures whenever you wanted to change or add up something. Try not to make it too long or too short. Express your apologies with the best of your abilities and make sure the words are clear and concise. If you have your own computer, you can use it to try and check for any grammatical errors on your letter. Try using grammar checkers to make sure. If you have already made your final draft, you can now start writing the letter of apology. Write it in your desired piece of paper, where you can send it to them, after you had checked it all over. Make sure you use a clean paper for writing. This should now be very easy for you since all you need to do is simply write down everything that you had made in the practice. After writing, place the letter inside a nice envelope. Now, if you want to make your loved one feel how sorry you really were, one tip is to place the letter in a table, surrounded with flowers or balloons. Now isn’t that sweet? They will surely notice it and read the letter you wrote for them. Then, you will be back to normal once again after making up with each other. Happy Writing! Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Checkers Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS What Is The Difference Between Rewriting And Spinning? by Mary Simmers Time and again, I have been asked this question. Since I have been into rewriting and spinning articles, I feel I must do something to clear up the smoke of confusion. Most people think that rewriting is the same as spinning. No, they are not. Rewriting is different from spinning an article. Rewriting is completely changing the content of the article. You have the entire article before you and you can go ahead and change some of the content or all of it but the thought should still be there. You have complete control of the article, what you can change or not. However, spinning is different. When you “ spin “ an article, you may rewrite some of the words, but it usually comes with a code or a format. You need to follow this “ format “ in order for the “ spinning “ to work. Let me show you an example: I have a cat Let’s say you need to spin this article. This is what spinning is: I have [a cat=a furry cat] Now, remember the “ format “ that I talked about? Do you know where it is? It’s the [ = ]. In order for the spinning to work, the word or sentence that you wish to spin (in this example, “a cat “) and the rewritten sentence or word ( “ a furry cat” ), should be encased in the format. Now, if you have this published in the Internet, it will show the original sentence, which is “I have a cat“ but in the other sites, the word “ I have a furry cat “ will appear as well. Amazing, right? Can you see the difference with that particular sentence? You are making content with different versions. Those versions will be encased with the format that I am talking about. That is the power of spinning articles. You can interchange the content of your article. The more you spin, the more “ versions “ of articles is published in the Internet. Most website owners employ the services of web content writers for spinning. Rewriting is also a good method but if you wish to have more results in internet marketing, then spinning an article might work for you. However, spinning an article is not that easy as you can see. If you want to spin all he words in a sentence, spin different sentences or paragraphs, then it will look a lot more complicated. The only thing that you should bear in mind is that, spinning articles works with the use of those formats or also known as spinning syntax. The sign [, must be paired with the sign ]. Words that are enclosed inside those syntax are separated with the use of =. So be careful in pairing up those signs ‘cause it will make you content miserable if you don’t know how to organize it well. But if you have mastered how to spin an article, then you are creating a lot of versions out of that original one. There are many spinning and grammar checkers that you can use in order to make the work easier. In any case, this should solve the mystery and the confusion once and for all. Happy writing! Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Checkers Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Ads Get Read Article Directory Authors Wanted by Albert Matthews There are quite a few article directory sites out there, but not all of them do things the right way. For anyone who submits articles, you know what that means. Of all the available options, there are only a handful of article directories that you would and should choose to use. Now, there is another new one entering the game, and it is looking to provide authors with an even easier interface to get the job done. One of the primary problems with many article directory sites is that article submissions take too long and they are difficult to execute. This can turn authors away in droves. With the Ads-Get-Read Article Directory, this isn\'t a concern. Ultimately, looking after authors is the thing that all article directory sites should be looking to do. After all, these are the people who power the sites. They provide the top notch content and without that content, there will be no one coming back to the site. But what does it mean to really create a site where authors are put in the forefront? One of the things that article directories have to focus on is ease of submission. If authors have to spend too much time sorting through the difficult things that aren\'t related to writing, then they will look elsewhere for a site. Rightly so, too, because there is no use in wasting your time. Ads-Get-Read Article Directory is different, though. They have designed a really easy to use interface for people to take advantage of when they want to submit their articles. At the site, it takes only a couple of minutes to sign up for an account and add your entries right there. It is a live script format that makes writing the blogs and putting them on the site incredibly easy. For authors who want to have more time to focus on their work, this is the optimal solution. They can write articles right there on the site, and have them submitted quickly and without incident. As a writer, you have lots of different choices for where you are going to submit your articles. You are undoubtedly going to be looking for certain things in a submission site. Some authors want to know that they are taken care of from a technology standpoint and others want to know that tons of people are going to be reading their stuff. That is another thing that Ads-Get-Read Article Directory can provide to authors. When articles are submitted, you don\'t have to wonder how many folks are going to stumble upon it. The directory takes great care to make sure that submitted articles are exposed to as many people as possible. Ultimately, working with a solid, easy to use article directory is your best bet as an author. You will be happy with the live script and you will save time as opposed to working with run of the mill article submission sites. Albert F A Matthews http://www.ads-get-read.co.uk - http://www.wedigg. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS The Art Of Writing A Love Letter by Mary Simmers You may think this is a thing of the past and therefore it is not applicable in our present days and of course of the future,but writing a love letter for that special girl to whom you render your own feelings is something that anyone can appreciate. You might not even think of it but most girls would be grateful to receive such romantic letter where you put all your efforts and feeling on it. This is a timeless tradition of expressing your deepest feelings for someone you hold dear and the thought of someone writing them a love letter can indeed make them happy. Even though this kind of a letter is non like a business type or any professional letter writings, still you need to remember some guidelines in doing it so. The only challenge is how to skillfully express your feelings into that paper without having too much difficulty. Writing a love letter can become a challenge when you are too distracted thinking of the words that can match your own feelings. In order for you to write a good love letter, you need to first calm yourself down during writing. You don\'t need to rush everything out or panic about how will you start and what might possibly happened. Those sleepless nights thinking of what to say and write can become bothersome so relax and take a deep breath. Think of simple words that you can use to convey your hidden feelings and then write it down in a scratch first. The reason for this is that you can minimize erasures in the love letter. Nothing discourages a woman with a badly shaped letter. Next, you need to sound very sincere in your letter. This is to make the reader feel the passion and love that you are trying to convey. Of course, you need to check the content first and make sure that you have not misspelled any words or phrases. If you want, you can use your computer and use grammar checkers just to be double sure. You can also use certain programs in the computer to make your love letter more attractive. Use fine or colored paper to make it more creative. Also, write politely on what are you going to tell here. Avoid being rude, just be yourself. If you have managed to finish writing the content of the love letter, you can then think of ways on how to give the letter to your loved one. If you want to give it to her on her birthday, then you can have the letter inserted inside the birthday gift. One great idea is having a stuffed toy, say a teddy bear with a heart-shaped design in the middle and then place the letter there. The one you love will surely be surprised once she sees this. There are many ways on how to write a love letter but these are the basics. Good luck in writing! Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How To Paraphrase Artfully by Mary Simmers First things first – why the need to paraphrase? Anytime you use someone else’s information and presentation, you’re plagiarizing. It if you are copying one’s information, you will be penalized by the authority since there have been an act that will put someone into prison by doing it so. The only way out of that is to rewrite it in a manner that conveys the same message, while being structured in an altogether original manner. Reverse it in your own way but the main topic must still be there. You just have to change a little bit to avoid pirating. When you do any form of writing that you claim ownership for, such as essays for school and articles for magazines, you’ll undoubtedly need to refer to some other people’s work. While you can quote small pieces bits from their writing, doing the same for large chunks of text is basically just copying the entire thing. Why not post the entire source material then and get it over with? That’s when you need to paraphrase. Paraphrasing Ain’t Easy Paraphrasing can be easy when you have plenty of information to draw from. Then you will be able to put up thing together and write down what comes in to your mind such as your ideas, feelings and write-ups. A write-up on a product that has been featured by multiple media outlets, for instance, can be incredibly easy to paraphrase from an existing piece, using the other coverage as additional sources. Once you are restricted to a single brief and succinct source, however, with just the minimal of information, that’s when things become difficult, even with the help of the best grammar checker in the world. Paraphrasing Techniques Use Adjunct Sources. Use possible sources of information that may only be slightly related to change the way the meat of the content is delivered. Add up something that can make your presentation deliver its main topic. Restructuring. For multiple pieces of information, you can probably get away with paraphrasing by restructuring their presentation. If the original listed them in itemized order, you can try filling it out in full paragraphs, with explanations, for instance. Use your creativity to revise that particular presentation well. Clarification. If you’re writing for a very targeted audience, such as doctors or engineers, you can paraphrase with the special intent of appealing to them. That means writing it with technical terms and applications that will make sense to the particular market you’re composing for. Make your own style with this kind of a technique. Besides, you are the moderator of your work and you might as well need some help whenever you run out of ideas to write up on. Being able to follow these simple techniques can help you create an original write-up. The, you will be excluded from those who always steal and copy the information of own by other people. It might sound hard by some but when you start doing it, you will see the effects which sharpens you skills in paraphrasing write-ups. Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Checker Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How To Use Count And Non-Count Nouns by Mary Simmers Still having a hard time knowing when to add “s” to form the plural of a noun? Unsure about what type of article to use when referring to a subject? It is very astonishing to know that there are a lot of people who don’t have any idea on when to use the plural form of the noun and that which agrees with its corresponding verb. There are also times that you haven’t notice that you are using the wrong syntax in writing a sentence and that’s why it will lead you to a whole lot of mess especially when you are unto writing or when you’re dealing with other business-type people. A statement is nothing without the correct verb agreement of the subject and of the predicate. If you happen to be one, you might as well recall with what you have learn during your elementary and secondary years. If the above details problems that you need a grammar software to help you through, then you need to learn about count and non-count nouns. Basically, this property of nouns refer to whether they can be counted or not. Nouns can be either plural or singular. Generally, these nouns do have a singular form and by adding “s” you can now its plural form. However, there are also nouns that remains in its singular form and can’t be added with “s” to form it into plural. This kind of nouns are called non-count nouns. Definition Time Count nouns are things that can be divided into smaller distinct units. Non-count nouns, on the other hand, refer to things that are regarded as a whole and cannot be broken up in parts. A table, for instance, is a count noun (you can saw it off). Furniture (which refers to a collective whole), on the other hand, is a non-count noun. A book is a count noun; knowledge is a non-count noun. Rainstorm is a count noun while weather is a non-count noun. And so on. Applications Count nouns are words that can be pluralized by adding “s” at the end. Non-count, on the other hand, cannot have a plural form. Do note that some words in the English language are both count and non-count, depending on use, and can be pluralized with an “s”. Examples of these two-timing words include “light,” “sound,” and “problem.” As for articles, non-count nouns can only be combined with the articles “the,” “this,” and “that.” Singular count nouns, on the other hand, can be used with “a,” “an,” “the,” “this” and “that,” while plural non-count can only be employed with “the,” “these” and “those.” Aside from that, you can turn a noun-count noun with the help of adjectives and prepositions. This will form an adjective prepositional phrase. Take this for example; she donated ten bottles of milk for the babies. Milk is a non-count noun. You can see how the adjective “ten” and “bottles” are place before the preposition “of” to make the noun “milk” into the plural form. Don’t get confuse on when and how to use these kinds of nouns. Getting the appropriate knowledge about this stuff is quite useful for some other matters you didn’t expect. Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Checker Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Preparing And Using Interviews In Your Writing by Mary Simmers Interviews are among the best research sources for your writing, allowing you access to information that may not otherwise be available elsewhere. Through the process of interviewing a person or group of people, certainly you ask questions that are related to your topic in writing. Generally, these would include the most common questions starting from what, when, where, how and why. Other types of questions are use for further details and explanations that you would like to have from your interviewee. More than listing mere sentences on a page that have been ran through by a grammar checker, they help infuse the material with actual, flesh-and-blood personality. There are numerous reasons why you may want to considering using interviews for a piece of writing. These include: * privileged information that only your subject may possess * to derive anecdotes you can use for a piece * to see the facts from a particular individual’s point of view * add a human touch to the piece * to confirm something through asking question Doing The Interview Before going in for an interview, make sure you’re adequately prepared. Because you are the one who conduct an interview, make sure that are well-dressed. Don’t be late when the schedule is being set and be ready with the materials you will use for the interview. The more you know about the subject before conducting it, the more you’ll usually learn. After all, the meat of interviews usually happen from follow-up questions, not from the packaged list of things you normally arrive with. Usually, when you are being bothered by the lack of confidence that you feel, don’t let it show off. Face it in order for you to get the necessary information that you needed. When you start an interview, start off light, asking basic questions that should not offer any issue for your subject to answer. This is particularly important when you intend to ask challenging questions later on, as it establishes an early rapport that can help make the interviewee more palatable to your tougher inquiries. General question are quite good at the start. Later on, you will adapt the feeling of being like that of a reporter and questions that you need to be answered will be provided by your interviewee. Post-Interview Once an interview is over, try to get a look at what you got immediately. Is it sufficient for the piece you are writing? Are there any areas you failed to cover? Does anything in the interview require further clarification? If you find a need a bit more information than what you were able to get, you can usually call up the subject to clarify these details, making sure to inform them of its particular relevance to what you are writing. At least, you are trying to confirm that what you had jotted down are the exact information that your subject had given unto you. If possible, you can bring along a recorder and a note for writing whenever you’re on for an interview. These will be your back ups during interviews. Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Tired Of Getting A Low Score In Your English Tests? by Mary Simmers The title was actually what was asked to me by one of my best English teachers. I was flunking my English language class in high school because it was indeed too boring. The fact that I had to stare at the blackboard, trying to absorb all those lessons made me uninterested in the language. I guess I’m not alone with that kind of feeling especially for other students like my age before. Besides, why do I have to learn English anyway? This is the first thing that comes into our mind when listening to English courses at school. Unfortunately, we all have to. In this modern world, English is the universal language for business and commerce, even with politics! English is used by a lot of people especially when you are up to dealing with your business or when you are at work. Professionals need to talk and write in English and that is one of the signs of formality. So whether you like it or not, you will have to do something to catch up with that failing grade of yours. Studying is always the first solution that one can come up when it comes to academic problems. However, the problem relies with how the student is studying. A student who is reading a book while facing the T.V will never understand what he or she reads. When you study, use a room without any televisions, radios or other objects that can distract you. As long as you are surrounded with the things that catch your attention, then you will never learn to what you are going to study. Once you started to study all by yourself, use the dictionary, the thesaurus and any available resources available to you. If you have a laptop or a PC, you can try using grammar checkers in order to correct yourselves if in case you want to improve your vocabulary. Read English books. Practice writing English sentences and then check it to see if you have improved. These things help you a lot in acquiring the knowledge you would like to have. Make it a habit to list down difficult words that you might have encountered while in the course of reading a book or answering your English homework. Study hard and be a dedicated student. If you are determine enough, you will surely learn with all the things that help you come through it. Of course, success in your grades in English and all other subjects is dependent on how much you really are passionate with your work. But in any case, determination and perseverance can sometimes be the key to make our studies successful. Keep on reading English books when in doubt; you will learn a lot from them indeed. Also, do not limit yourself with the dictionary. You can also use the thesaurus, which will help you in finding the right synonym for a certain word.s. do the things that you know it is right for your studies. Never stop learning, be eager enough to learn more and more. Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Writing And SEO: A Good Combination For Profit by Mary Simmers Today, Internet Marketing or otherwise known as Search Engine Optimization, is becoming a very profitable business. A lot of people are now learning the techniques of this profitable business and one of these techniques requires writing articles. Writing contents or articles is the key to success when you put up a business over the Internet. You might be surprised but those who can write good articles are very much in demand nowadays. Whether they are online or offline writers and even if you have the capacity to write, then it will be your great opportunity. If you happen to be one, then I suggest you start using your talents in order for you to rake in some cash. Now how do you make money just by writing articles? Website promotion is the answer. A website is nothing without its contents or any facts that will inform every online users over the Internet. With so many article submission sites nowadays, you can use the power of writing articles in order to promote a website. Therefore, you skills in writing is badly needed. Once a website is promoted, it gets higher rankings in Google and any other websites because of increasing web traffic. And because of this, the website becomes more famous and it gets more profit because of many web visitors. This is why most website owners hire writers and article rewriters so they can submit articles in article submission sites and have their websites promoted. Before you start writing articles for website promotion, you need to know how the whole deal works. Once you have written an article, do you just simply post and submit to any article directories and blogs that you can find? Of course not! First, you need to place a link in the article with the use of a keyword. The keyword can be a specific word that links the readers of the article to the website that you are promoting. For example, if you are promoting a website that sells houses, your article will be all about purchasing a house. The keyword can be “buy a house “and you can have that keyword hyperlinked with the URL of the website. Thus. the keyword is the door that links them to your website. So naturally, once someone reads your article and likes it or might even find interested with the topic, they will click on the keyword and are automatically sent to the website that you are promoting! This means business for most website owners and they will happily pay article writers for this type of promotion. However, make sure your articles are top-notch as most online surfers only read articles that are of good quality. They won\'t read it if they find it something boring. You might want to use English grammar software if you are in doubt with your grammar skills. In any case, this is one business where you can combine your passion for writing and earning money at the same time. Be sure to polish your writings first before it will be submitted to other article directories. Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Teach Yourself Good English – The Easy Way by Mary Simmers When you read the title of this article, it must have shocked you or maybe even felt insulted when you start reading the first few lines of this article. You might even think that teaching yourself good English is very hard that we could imagine but you can learn the same way around easily. Now I am not an expert in English myself and I don’t meant to preach others of how important this language is, but with the way most businesses are handled right now, it’s only a matter of time before we start reading the dictionary or visit the nearest computer for a crash course with English software. The most common method of communication in most places around the world is English so you must realize how important to learn good English, right? We all have been taught how to speak and write English back in our elementary and high school days, but it is unfortunate how a small fraction of today’s youth realize the importance of good communication and writing skills. Not all people are serious to learn about how to speak English, right pronunciation, spelling and proper grammar. Way back then, I guess most students ignore the course of learning such language and its components but as we face the reality and what the world has to offer for all of us, this kind of a course is really important and useful. In college, we already focus ourselves with our chosen profession and the language skills are set aside. Everyone should realize that learning how to speak and write good English is the foundation for having a very successful career. I should know that when applying for a job, one can show how professional he or she is with a good written resume. Or even in school, when your teacher asks you to write a written report, you get good grades if you have a well-made assignment. If you are interested in improving your own English skills, then don’t worry! It is not yet too late. What you can do is start by practicing your English writing skills. You can start by writing a few simple paragraphs in a notebook and then you can consult a dictionary to check if you have used the correct words and spelled them out without any mistakes. If you have a computer, you can type using the computer and then use grammar checkers to check for mistakes. You can study about correct sentence construction, spelling and verb agreements just by reading the dictionary or going to language websites. Read lots of English books and if you encounter difficult words, then check the dictionary for the meaning. You can do all these in order for you to have fun too! There are some PC games that are designed to enrich your vocabulary. You can try downloading them and then start playing with these games in order for you to improve your own grammar and vocabulary. As most people would say, learning good English should also be fun. Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How To Choose A Genre For Your Novel by Mary Simmers What is a genre? It means a specific type of a novel, movie or story. Here are some examples of different genres and that can be action, adventure, romance, science fiction, horror, etc. Each has their own specific details and genres happen to be the most important aspect in a story. Since it is the concept of the story about how it informs its readers regarding the current situation or the plot of the story. Without genres, stories and novels would have no life and the thrill of reading the entire story is lost. Your readers will find it boring and cannot understand what you are going to imply with your story or novel. This is one reason why you need to choose your choice of genre when you plan on writing your own novel. Select the right kind of genre that suits the plot of your story well. Choosing your own genre does not need to be that bothersome. If you are to write a novel, then choose which type of story you want to write. For example, are you into stories of adventure and action? Or you prefer to write romantic novels instead? It depends upon your choice on whatever you wanted to make your readers feel like being one of t he characters of the story. At least they are not bored by it. Remember to concentrate first in a specific type of genre that you have started writing in order for you to become an expert in that genre first before advancing to another and so that you are aware about the flow of your story or novel. It’s just like with sports; someone who is very good in basketball cannot learn the basics of soccer in one day. Therefore, you must focus first one genre before indulging with the other. For practice, try reading books that has the same genre that you are interested in. With this, you can note down important pointers that you can use once you are now starting to write your own novel. Next, try making a practice novel in a notebook. Try to check for grammatical errors. If you have a laptop or a computer, then try using the computer and save your rough draft. You can try using grammar checkers so you can check what errors you have committed and how to correct them. With enough practice, you can become a professional novel writer in the genre of your choice! So go ahead and take a pick. Choose your own genre and start practicing. Express the story you wanted to write with your own feelings and create what characters are going to portray with the story related to the type of genre that is best for your story or novel. You never know, you might become master writers in your own genre, just like what happened to famous writers like J.K Rowling, Michael Chricton and Stephen King. Master that kind of genre you are interested with and let your imagination run wild! Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How To Write Like A Pro – The Advanced Steps by Mary Simmers Ok, since I was able to tackle the most basic steps in the first article with the same name above, we will now proceed with the more advanced steps in writing like a professional. The next few things that we will discuss have something to with mental and physical preparation before you start writing. These things are very important in order for you to unleash your full potential as a pro writer. Without further ado, let’s begin learning the advanced steps: Mental Preparation – First of all, the mental preparation of a writer should not be taken for granted. Make sure you’ve had a well earned rest and have eaten before you start writing; nothing distracts a writer more than sleepiness or a hungry stomach. When you feel tired of writing and thinking of ideas, give yourself a break. If you need to finish the article as soon as possible, take a deep breath and relax just for about 20 to 30 minutes. If you feel comfortable writing in the wee hours of the night, then take a nap an hour before you start writing. A nap can energize your senses, enabling you to work more efficiently. Drink a warm glass of milk to soothe your nerves. Before writing, release all negative thoughts from your head. A person who has so many things to think about cannot write because of so many mental distractions. It is true; angry people tend to make horrible and heartbreaking stories due to the many feelings of anger hidden inside their minds. So the next time, try releasing any negative thoughts while and before writing an article. Physical Preparation – This is very important as well. Before you start writing, you need to check the room and the table that you will be working on. Make sure that it is comfortable and well—ventilated. The chair should be comfortable as well. Sit straight with your feet flat on the floor while writing. I know your mom or your bossy teachers have told you of this a thousand times, but believe me, they do help while you are writing. It enables proper circulation inside your body, making you more relaxed and more focused in writing. Most writers experience a pain in their wrist while they have been writing for many hours already. When you experience this pain as well, it is important that you stop for awhile and then stand up and stretch your arms. Remember that your health is also a priority and should never be secondary. It is better to relax your mind and your body once and for a while in order for you to freshen up your ideas with all the long hour work. Take this into your mind the next time you write a long article or story. Well, this is just one part of the Advance series. Watch out for the next one, where we will focus on the many techniques and tools, such as grammar checkers and spinning systems, you can use in writing like a professional. Happy writing! Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Book Reviews Are Easy (If You Know What You’re Doing) by Mary Simmers Book reviews are not that difficult to write. Although, there are a lot of people especially students, find it difficult to manage. However, it can be fun and interesting to accomplish one. In fact, your biggest challenge might be having to read the whole thing, especially if it is a particularly boring piece of work. The fact that your subject is tightly-constrained helps make the whole process easier, apart from being an entertaining way to exercise your writing ability. Fiction Vs Non-Fiction For fictional books, such as novels and narratives, make sure to take notes while you’re reading. Put particular focus on the storyline, jotting down major events that affect the main direction of the story. In other words, plan out on what are the plots of your story. You can put on some twists that can make your readers thrilled by the story. For non-fiction books, use the introduction and abstract (if available) to draw the main subject of the material. With that on your mind, take down notes on items that affect the main thesis, including quotes and paraphrases. Basically, this kind of a review is merely based on facts rather than someone’s point of view. These stuffs you put down, on their own, can be the basis for your entire book review. If you’d like to be more thorough, you can also read the piece once and re-read specifically for taking notes. So that you will be able to determine if there is something you want to add up on, omit or edit. Book Review Format Like most essays, your review will need to be run through a good grammar checker, apart from following a basic three-part format, consisting of an introduction, a body and a conclusion. Thus, it must be formatted correctly. For your introduction, always identify the material by author, title and publishing information. Specify what type of book it is so your readers can get a better perspective. Additionally, you can include pertinent background information which can help give the reader context about your opinions. Whatever your title is, you can have it discussed in the introduction. Expand your title in the introduction. The body of your review will cover your reactions to the material. How would you describe the overall experience of reading it? What do you think of the author’s various opinions and views? What issues does it raise and what possibilities can you glean from it? How does it compare to similar work? How is it relevant to our everyday lives? Moreover, explanations are being tackled here, whatever the topic is. Naturally, your reactions to the book should lead to a specific conclusion. Is it a worthwhile material? Would the reader be better off skipping it? Summarize your major points and state your final recommendation to close your book review. The ending part must leave something to your readers mind so that they will appreciate what you have created so far and what they have learn after reading your book review. Find out how to write perfect English letters, reports and emails by writing less. See Grammar Software in action! http://www.grammarsoftwar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Have You Considered Creative Writing? by Pam Pearson Creative writing! What does creative mean to you? Well, the definition of creative is: resulting from originality of thought, expression, etc. While there is insufficient room for creativity in a universe of blacklists and misrepresentation, writing mechanically is not the most powerful way to advise readers and conserve their excitement. Remember not to demoralize creativity with imagination: Creativity is usage of the facts that are written considering that imagination is the weaving and maneuvering the facts themselves. Use of exquisite creative techniques can arouse the writing and enhance its readability. Assiduously researching a feature topic should be of the greatest importance, and after becoming an professional on the story\'s topic, the first step to creating an exclusive story is finding a particular angle. Irrevocably, through showing as a substitute to telling, including distinct details, and being imaginative, the audience will not only be educated but also experience the topic. Show the reader don\'t just tell them. Just because it\'s existent for English teachers to have been pressing it for years, doesn\'t make it dishonest. Showing not only applies to a creative passage but can back up facts. In lieu of exclusively quoting a source, it can be convenient to characterize body language if, and only if, fundamentally for further explanation. When desirable, embrace the active voice over the passive voice, and select unique and expressive verbs over depressed, commonplace ones. Always use conscientious journalism procedure, and cut anything that fabricates. The more pressurized a news article is, the less opportunity for creativity, alongside from mandatory descriptions. But feature stories and less clamorous news leave more leeway for unique angles and creativity. Using a different angle and the preexistence creative tactics to write an article will more suitably involve and retain the excitement of modern-day readers steadily on the move. Just remember that creative writing is whatever the purpose is to distinct thoughts, excitability and emotions rather than to commonly transmit information. Creative writing is writing that represents the writer’s introspection and feelings in an imaginative, often special, and melodious way. There is a mediocre belief that because most of us are educated and smooth-spoken, there is no need to get an education if we want to become a extraordinary word slinger. That’s what individuals think until they try to write their first novel. They will soon learn that a novel has its own set of specifications, laws of development that have to be learned. Just because individuals read plenty of novels don\'t mean they can write one, any more than they can make a computer just because they work on them everyday. If you stump up and start chomping your pen and look fixedly at a blank sheet of paper, or glaring at a blank screen for hours, try to motivate your writing with a short exercise to expand your writing muscles. Don’t cease to think too much about it … just progress forward, without worrying about the individuality of the work you compose. Because all writers have to revise and edit their work! For more information please click the following link to our Creative Writing Review site: http://creative-writing-revie FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Essay: How to Write it Perfectly? by Neil Patrick “A good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in not out” -Virginia Woolf. The word essay has been derived from the French word “essayer” meaning “to try” or “to attempt”. An essay is thus, a literary initiative to describe and comprehend a situation, to the best ability of the author. Writing a meaningful and strong essay has been one of the most intriguing mysteries of the academic world. As the scope of an essay is immense, close to infinity, there can be in no proven or scientific parameter to gauge the intensity of an essay. An essay can be anything and everything which can perfectly explain and comment on a given subject. The reader of the essay can be termed as the final judge to determine, how good an essay is. The essay should be such that it can reflect the actual situation through a spectrum of thoughts, in a manner which can keep the interest and facts on the same boat. All the words and sentences written for the subject should be synchronized in a perfectly uniform structure, providing a platform to the reader to closely analyze the thoughts, and in some cases, should be able to drive home a point. Although there is no proven or tested formula to write a good essay, we can surely churn out few tips and tricks to write a successful essay. Some of these are: Comprehending the subject This is the one of the most important thing to remember while penning an essay. What is the subject matter? What should be the essay all about? These questions should have a ready answer with the author, who is about to write an essay. Without properly understanding and comprehending the subject, nobody can even write a sentence within an essay. Before starting with the essay, the subject matter should be carefully studied upon, and self-conclusions regarding the topic should be present in the mind. Once this is over, you can safely assume that half job has been completed. Targeting the audience: Hitting bull’s eye Before commencing the journey of writing a successful essay, one should always keep in mind the audience of the essay. Which type of audience will read the essay? What is the purpose of this essay? Any author should be well prepared to answer these questions. In case the essay is being written for the admission panel for some business school, the pointers and logic within the essay should be portrayed in a manner, which can best describe the candidate’s profile within the scope of the essay. Good essay means clear and concise thoughts This is by far the most relevant definition of an essay. A good essay is a structure of sentences which is easy to understand, a delight to comprehend, and compact in a way which is a joy to the reader. The thoughts and the views should be always showcased on a presentable manner. These qualities should be embedded in the essayist in order to create the perfect essay Creating the first draft: Initiate it! Initializing the first draft of the essay is as important as completing the whole task. It has observed numerous times that the first step towards essay becomes a huge task for the beginners. Once the task of creating an essay has been determined, the potential author should just initiate the process of writing, without any fear or comprehension. Once the first draft has been created, the base and the platform for the essay is ready, ready to be launched for the final version Neil Patrick is one of the senior staff writers at http://essayacademia.com, specialized in essay writing for master and Ph.D. students. He has been with the company for over five years. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Freelance Writer – Writing is Not the Most Valuable Skill of a Freelance Writer by Alan Cheng If you hire a freelance writer for a project, there are certain things you need to look for such as writing skills, testimonials and pricing. But none these are the most important skill which you should look for in a freelance writer. What you should look for is something much deeper than that. First of all, let\'s consider why you need to hire a freelance writer. You may have a project on a niche that you want to explore or a market which you are already an expert in. The ghost writer needs to write articles or a book on your topic which shows that you\'re an expert. What if the ghostwriter wrote with perfect English and in an entertaining voice? Would you be satisfied? If you\'re aiming to make an impact in your market by wanting to become an authority and you\'re concerned with every public material that has your name on it, then you would need much more than that. What you need is writing which has the basics of correct English grammar, a good voice and most importantly...valuable content which shows you are knowledgeable in your field. If you\'re in the video recording business and the writer wrote excellent articles/report on how to set up an online recording business, you would not be pleased if the topics written were basic and outdated. This is where the true value of a good freelance writer can help you. Writing professionally does not only mean proper grammar and checking of spelling mistakes. A lot of it involves research into your topic and explaining it in a clear, helpful and entertaining way. Professional ghostwriters will spend a lot of time, researching your topic before they begin writing. They want to make sure that the content produced is not fluff and is actually useful to your audience. This is how they build their reputation as a good writer. If the professional writer can find information which is true, up to date, can help your market and is not available as free content on the internet, then you have hired someone who has given real, true value to your business. So how do you make sure the writer will deliver what you want? The answer is communication. People have different needs for writers and different things please them. Some prefer the ghostwriter to cram in as much information as possible in an ebook, while some prefer valuable content which is professionally researched and can really help their customers. In your email to the writer, explain the object of your articles, report or ebook. Tell them the type of prospect you want to target and the type of information you want written. If there are good sources of information which can help the writer, attach it in the email. You should give as much information as possible to ensure that the end product meets your requirements. Follow this advice and focus on choosing a professional freelance writer to research and write for your business. You\'ll create quality products which will put you well ahead of your competition. Outsource to professionals for quality content at http://www.eliteghostwriters.com/infoproducts.html For more articles and video tips on promoting your business online visit http://www.eliteghostwriters.com/report.html – Alan Cheng, Elite Ghostwriters. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Novel Writing: Five Tips For Making it Easy by Julie Coan Novel writing is easy if you follow these few simple tips. I hear writers groan all the time about how difficult writing a novel is. I admit to being one of them until I figured out a couple of secrets. Just by changing a few of your writing habits, novel writing can change from difficult to easy. 1. Planning makes novel writing easy. The number one thing that you can do to make novel writing easy is to plan your novel before you start to write. Planning makes writing ten times easier. Writing a novel isn’t easy when you’re stuck. Most writers find writing difficult because they write part of their book and then they don’t know what to write next. Making a plan helps you organize your story and helps you write faster. The faster you write, the easier it will feel. 2. Developing good writing skills makes novel writing easy. You’ve hear the saying, “Practice makes perfect”. I also believe that “Practice makes the job easy”. It doesn’t matter if you’re a plumber or a writer, the job will get easier each time you do it. It’s so important to practice your writing every day. Try to improve each piece of writing by making each time you write, write better than the last time. 3. Choosing a dedicated writing place makes novel writing easy. Choose a place in your home to be your writing place. Keep your writing tools close: pens, pencils, word processor or computer, dictionary, thesaurus, and your writing plan for your current project. It will save the frustration of having to stop in the middle of your writing session to look for supplies. It also has a psychological effect, too. If you always write in the same place, when you sit there, your brain knows that it’s time to write and it slips into that mode more quickly. 4. Success makes novel writing easy. The first time that you sell some of your writing, you’ll feel like you’re on top of the world. People like your writing! Someone paid money for it! There’s nothing like that feeling to get you going on your next project. 5. Surrounding yourself with positive people and ideas makes novel writing easy. Nothing’s easy if the people you spend time with are continuously scoffing at your efforts. Feeling negative slows you down until you simply can’t envision success. With every negative thought, with every negative comment from someone around you, writing a novel gets more difficult. If you can recognize that people are negative, you have a couple of options. The first choice is that you can remove yourself from them. Simply don’t spend time with them. The second choice is to ask them to stop making negative comments about your writing. They may not be aware they’re doing it. The third thing is to take steps to lessen the impact of the person’s negativity. You can do this by avoiding the subject of your writing when you’re around them. You can also repeat a positive affirmation every time they say something negative. Surround yourself with positive people who will encourage you when you’re discouraged and share your joy when you make little successes. Join a writer’s group or join a writers’ forum online and talk with other writers. Fill your workspace with positive affirmations. Write the positive sayings on little cards and place them where you can see them. When you find yourself thinking negative thoughts, read the affirmations. If you follow these tips, writing a novel will be easier than you think and soon your novel will be finished and ready to be sent to the publisher. Julie Coan has been a writer and educator for more than twenty years. Her book, “Write Your Way to a Million Dollars” is a unique step by step system for planning your novel. If you’ve always wanted to write,publish,and sell your novel, you must have this book. http://www.MakeMoneyWritingBooks.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How to Write a Novel: 5 Reasons Why You Should Plan Before You Write by Julie Coan There are many writers that say that you don’t need to plan before you write a novel. They say that the novel will just grow as they write. They say that planning stifles their creativity. Most people who don’t plan their novel never finish it. Planning your novel provides a sense of security and allows your creativity to bloom in ways you never dreamed of. Here are the five main reasons you should plan before you write your novel. 1. Planning your novel helps you avoid writer’s block. Even if you start out with the most brilliant idea for your novel, it’s easy to get bogged down in the details once you start to write. Sometimes there may seem to be too many choices and sometimes there may not be enough. If you’ve planned ahead, you can refer to your plan to see what should happen next. No more writer’s block! 2. Planning can help you write a novel quickly. You want to finish your rough draft as quickly as possible. It’s important to get it finished so you can get that feeling of satisfaction of completing a long project. The sooner it’s finished, the sooner you can revise it and publish it and start your next project. 3. Planning before you write a novel can help avoid extensive rewrites. When you are writing without a plan, you may begin to write in a certain direction. Then you realize that’s not where you want the novel to go or you reach a dead end. Then you have to backtrack and write those scenes again or replace them with new ones. When you have a plan, your rewriting phase is more about fine-tuning. 4. When you plan before you write, you end up with a better novel. You’ll be able to weave in subtle connections between the characters because you can see how all the big pieces fit together. You’ll be able to weave the subplots together more seamlessly. There won’t be characters who have no place or subplots that leave the reader hanging because they were never resolved. 5. Planning before you write keeps you from getting discouraged and giving up. A huge number of people begin to a novel and never finish it. When your novel starts to get complicated and you’re feeling discouraged, you can look at your plan. Suddenly you realize that the ending is already in sight. You know that you have a great novel because you have a great plan. All it’s going to take is a little time and effort. Having a plan doesn’t mean that things can’t change once you begin to write. In fact, things will change once you begin to write. As your characters have conversations and interact with each other on the page, you may discover a new way for their relationship to develop or a better way to solve the character’s problem. That’s the nature of the creative process. Planning only provides a framework on which to build and that framework will help you write an amazing novel. Julie Coan has been a writer and educator for more than twenty years. Her book, “Write Your Way to a Million Dollars” is a unique step by step system for planning your novel. If you’ve always wanted to write,publish,and sell your novel, you must have this book. http://www.MakeMoneyWritingBooks.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS LSI: Latent Semantic Indexing and Article Writing by Peter Nisbet Latent Semantic Indexing, otherwise known as LISI, is an integral part of Google’s search engine algorithm that determines not only the listing position of your web page in the Google search engine results pages, but also whether or not it will be listed at all. Right off, let me first say that nobody can produce LSI-compliant content: there is no such thing, because LSI is a concept connected to the analysis of text strings in order to determine their true meaning. It is properly referred to as latent semantic analysis (LSA), although Google uses the term latent semantic indexing because it is being used to index your web pages. However, you can use the general sense of the concept in respect of the way you write the content of your web pages, and your use of contextual relevance to the search term being used by Google users seeking specific information. In explaining how this is done, therefore, I do so with apologies to the purists of LSA who correctly claim that a web page cannot be LSI-compliant or that LSI can be used to improve your on-page SEO. Let me explain the meaning of contextual relevance by giving you an example. It is a simple example, and perhaps contrived, but it does explain the concept, and also how you can apply it to improve the listing position of any web page you apply it to. We shall consider a Google user seeking information on ‘how to write’. How to write what? Check up any keyword analysis tool you wish to use, and you will find that the keyword ‘how to write’ is a very popular one, and it is very easy to use it as the main keyword in a web page on writing. In fact a keyword used by you on your website is no more than a means of you informing search engines of the topic of your web page, and is hopefully the same as the search term being used by the search engine user. However, the question is ‘how to write’ what? The visitor might be seeking information on how to write novels, articles for directories, web page content or even newspaper or magazine articles, and each of these require a different approach and objective when writing them. What the concept of LSI does is to look at the text in close proximity to the keyword and use that to determine its meaning. Thus, ‘newspaper’, ‘novel’. ‘web page’, ‘submission’ for example, can all be used in latent semantic indexing to index your page in the correct category, so that the pages presented in the SERPS give the search engine users the results relevant to their inquiry. The search engine’s true customer is the person using it for its intended purpose - to carry out a search. You are not Google’s customer, and neither are all those advertisers using Adwords, because without the person carrying out the search Google would not exist. Google’s use of LSI makes sure the company is providing its customers with as good as service as it can. My website offers different examples of contextual relevance, such as how the keyword ‘the history of locks’ can one of three different things that could not be distinguished by keyword-stuffing. The same is true of the term ‘German Shepherd’ another commonly used example. Are you seeking information on dogs or how Germans look after their sheep? Is an Alsatian a dog or a person? Google had initially been using the concept of semantic analysis (‘semantic’ refers to the meaning of words) in their Adsense program, where it was used to determine the type of adverts to place on users’ web pages according to the topic of the page. However, people began making thousands from Adsense by automatically generating pages of meaningless text into which any keyword could be inserted and make sense to the reader, thus: \"Information on KW can be found all over the internet, KW being the subject of many online searches. There is a large number of websites providing information on KW, and an equally large number of people using KW as their keyword in their Google search.\" That’s just a brief example, but you could use any keyword you can think of as ‘KW’, and entire web pages would be generated by software designed simply to enter a keyword of your choice in place of KW. Many of these sites received top listings because the algorithms were predominantly keyword orientated, and endless repetition of a keyword would almost guarantee a high listing. I did it myself: I would have a list of 5,000 keywords generating 5,000 single page-minisites from one template. You don’t need many clicks to add up the Adsense income from that many pages. Google stopped it all with LSI. They applied the concept of latent semantic indexing used in their Adsense program to their search engine algorithm, and overnight websites with no text related in context to the keyword were dropped. People’s income was decimated and their businesses destroyed - and probably rightly, although they hadn’t set the rules that had applied, just took advantage of them. Thus, to be listed for ‘article writing’, you would have to make it clear what type of articles and what type of writing you were referring to. With the shepherd, you would have to mention sheep or Alsatians or use some means of making it clear what the topic of your content was. That’s LSI in action, and while most people are still unsure what latent semantic indexing really means, and use the term wrongly, if you write your content naturally you should be just fine. For more detailed information on how to use the concept of LSI to improve your listing position on Google, check out Pete’s web page http://www.article-services.com/lsi.html where you will find details of exactly what can be done to get higher listings and more traffic by using latent semantic index FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How To Write A Classified Ad by Jason Kay It’s amazing to think that in this age of overwhelming technology, texting, and the internet that newspapers and classified ads haven’t become completely obsolete. There are lots of advanced ways to advertise these days, but if you’re looking to sell your sail boat or hire an assistant, you probably aren’t going to buy a banner ad on the web. Believe it or not, the classifieds are still a great way to advertise small things and transactions. But so many classified ads are so poorly written that they’re a waste of everyone’s time, money, and ad space. Writing a successful classified ad isn’t rocket science, but there’s more to it than meets the eye. If you’re looking to place an ad in the classifieds, it’s important to put a little thought and effort into what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it. Here are few tips on how to write a classified ad: Leave Your Contact Information Sounds like a no brainer, right? It’s amazing how many people place classified ads and don’t leave the reader anyway to get in touch with them. Whatever the means, be sure to give your interested readers a way to pursue your advertisement. Proofread The newspaper should tell you when your ad will run and for how long. Be sure to follow up and ensure that your ad is printed in the proper section and that it’s printed correctly. The simplest error can give your short and sweet classified ad a completely different meaning. If there are typos, follow up with the newspaper. Keep it Short but Detailed Classified ads aren’t free so there’s always the temptation to keep it short and to the point. It’s true that readers don’t have the attention span to read a small novella in the ad section, but you don’t want to leave out important information. Include information that is sure to pique the interest of your readers. Words like ‘rare’, ‘brand new’, etc. are usually winners. List a Price or Rate only if it’s a Steal If you’re selling a classic car well below value, list your asking price with pride. But if you’re looking for fair market value, wait until they call you to discuss price. Also, give your readers an idea of your position on the price: if it’s negotiable, say so, if it’s not, let them know. Create a Sense of Urgency If you’ve taken the time to place a classified ad, you’re probably ready to take action. You want to sell that item, fill that position, or whatever the purpose, with haste. Let your reader know that you’re ready to act and they will to. Phrases that encourage readers to act quickly will help you get more response. Use Keywords Over Generic Phrases Instead of titling your ad with phrases like ‘For Sale’ or ‘Position Available’, be specific. Paying for bold type and specific wording is worth it. Saying ‘2000 Cannondale Road Bike’ or ‘House Sitter Needed’ is more attractive to classifieds readers that generic phrasing. Let them know exactly what you need or what you’re selling. When writing a classified ad, it’s important to include as much information as you can in very few words. Tell your readers what you need or have for sale and what’s in it for them. The power of the classifieds to help everyday people exchange goods and services is still alive and well. Jason Kay recommends viewing a list of free classified sites at http://www.freeclassifiedsites.net in order to determine which ones are appropriate for your advertising needs. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Top Ways to Make Money Online by Writing Articles by Donaldson. Matt Hey are you into writing? Then why not using this passion of yours to make money online! Trust me, this is considered to one of the ideal ways to make money online. You can opt for this method without much effort on your part. Check out some of the top ways to make money online by writing articles: * Collect your previously written articles and weave them together for creating an e-book or report. In case of an e-book, you can split the contents of your e-book into different sections. * Try creating an array of e-mail messages from your previously written articles followed by loading them into an autoresponder. Ensure scheduling each message from time to time. Now, within each of the message, ensure promoting your product. By reminding your viewer constantly about your product in the follow-up messages. This increases your chances of making a sale and helps you earn money in the process. * Read aloud your previously written articles, followed by recording them into your recorder. Try playing this audio for your webinar or you may also sell it in the form of a product. * You may also create a video of your previously written articles by reading it in front of the camera or preparing a slide show. Next, you may use the video as a product as well as for up-selling an e-book or report. * The owners of different websites are in constant need of unique content for alluring a hoard of traffic. Hence, you can sign up with these websites a ghostwriter and earn money in the process. You can charge up to $300 for a well-structured article. * Writing newsletter is an ideal way to make short-term as well as long term money * AdSense are referred to as Google ads that are placed in the website content. When a person clicks on these ads, you receive a couple of cents. Now the more pages your blog or website has the more money you make. What’s more about amazing about this approach is that, it’s free as well as simple to set up and helps you in earning a passive income. * You can keep on adding new articles to your website to allure traffic. For example an SEO article often gains a first page ranking as compared to a non-SEO article. * You can submit your articles to different articles directory and these directory will pay you in the process. The amount of money you’ll make depends on the quality as well as the quantity of your articles. If your blog or website includes too may high ranked articles then you will possibly get proposals from advertisers for placing a link or an ad on your website. These advertisers will pay you for the traffic that their ad gets. On the other hand, you may also join hands with services which pays you for placing their ads on your website. In other words, it is considered to be an ideal way for earning a passive income! Ready to learn the ways to make money online? Visit http://www.zerofrictionmarketingshow.com today! FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Article Writing 101 - I PUNCH PUPPIES! No, I Don\'t...But I Love Being Controversial! by Ali Baraka Yeah, you should be controversial too! People ADORE controversy! They lie and say they don\'t like what was said, but they\'re as fired up and as emotional as they can get. This will amount to a spotlight on your online campaign, and this is what you want. It\'s like the car wreck scenario. They may be horrified by what they may see, but you know they can\'t look away! NOW, that said, let me clarify that there is a fine line between being controversial and just being offensive. Being offensive just to do it is gratuitous, especially if you\'re trying to earn the business of your readers. A desire to be offensive can also open the door for religious, racial, and gender yo-yo\'s to convey an anti-social agenda. This is not a good thing to communicate to a wide audience for obvious reasons. But, controversy in and of itself can put you ahead of the fray in terms of exposure. People are obsessed with their tribe and they will actively seek out others who share their opinions. There is an innate comfort in this. It is a fundamental aspect of our collective psychology. We also have a tendency to destroy that which threatens this kinship. This is what you actively impose on when you comment on controversial subjects. The irony is that the effort to destroy this element often actively serves to exhault and preserve it. This is just the dividend you\'re looking for, just ask Rush Limbaugh. This idea is more or less predicated on the product you\'re pushing. If, for instance, you\'re selling products that help babies, or that have to do with terminal illnesses or the like, then I think controversy should be avoided like Don Imus should avoid a Women\'s Basketball conference. Stick to ideas that are mildly contentious and especially absurd. Use your common sense and innate perception of popular culture to your advantage. Controverial writing or ad copy is a risk. It\'s not for the faint of heart, but for the most confident. If you increase your confidence quotient, you\'ll do well with this idea. Don\'t be overconfident, but don\'t be afraid either. You can expect the returns for this risk to plummet or to surge; don\'t be surprised by either. Hone your skill to increase the latter. The bottom line is that controversy is a good idea ONLY if it is approached with maturity and conscience. The foundation of virtue from which you draw should dictate the degree of conscience and social responsibility you bring to a potentially contentious campaign. Be mindful of this as you move forward. For the record, I haven\'t punched a puppy in my life, but it got your attention, didn\'t it? That\'s the idea. I\'m not a puppy puncher and I abhor those who might be, but I know what pulls at the strings of my fellow citizen, and the idea is absurd enough to be dismissed as the ridiculous claim that it is. However, I know that there are a handful of people who will react negatively to such a statement. I can accept that. But my main goal is to gain attention for my campaign in a way I deem to be rabble rousing but ultimately innocuous. Do you want more ways to get attention for your marketing campaign? I\'ll give you the best ways! Click the link below to check out a few short videos! Get Cutting Edge Advice From a Multi-Millionaire On How To ELECTRIFY Your Bank Account! I Fired My Boss Within 2 Months. Will U?? Click NOW For a Special Offer!! http://www.MaverickMoneyLegac FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS This is How You Make Money Writing Blogs by Tom Williamsenn Blog posts or content writing is now considered one of the most in demand jobs in the internet. The people involved in this business are generally home based writers who have their personal computers connected to the internet to make money writing blogs or articles. This kind of online job is highly suggested for individuals who prefer to stay at home and make money using their skills in writing. Most women, who stay at home taking care of their kids, often earn bigger income with just their talent in creating blogs and content writings. They have their targeted customers that will utilize their articles in their businesses. These bloggers sell their services in creating content articles for promoting their business. It was called advertisements that would affiliate their business entities with their articles. Their objective in writing blogs and articles is to cause traffic in their website. A massive traffic would mean an advantage in advertising and business will progress along the way. Regular web browsers are the targets for the writers who made a portal for the businesses entities whose purpose is to advertise their products. You can make money writing blogs and articles that will cater the means of advertising by the traffic in websites. An eye catching blog can catch a customer\'s attention and possibly purchase the products that the blog content has promoted. It is all about packaging your blog affiliated with the product that you sell. And this is where you earn your money in acquiring your customers to advertise their products or services in your blog posts. Your blog must be relevant and applicable to the customer\'s interests. This is why they surf the net in search for the answers to their questions and solutions to their problems. Let your creative ideas sell big time and at the same time increase the demands for your services. Businesses need good advertisements and if you are a good writer they will buy your articles and became your loyal clients. Good advertisements will generate great income, and these would also mean that you are a proficient content writer. Having a creative mind and unique ideas will take your career in some greater heights of your life. You can be the most sought after blog or content writer that in due time you will be flooded with requests for job orders. Sooner or later you will be hiring additional writers that will provide you contents or articles to suffice the needs of your clients. Through this you already earn by purchasing the blogs of other writers and this is what they call outsourcing business. It is most important to be equipped with extensive and appropriate content that will cater to your customer\'s need of information. Striking visualization of your blog can be enticing for the customer\'s to read on. Make money writing blogs or article contents with your genius in writing. If writing is your forte then this job is for you. But if you just want to make money without the passion in writing, you will just wear out yourself in indulging yourself in something that you are forced to do. Ready to learn more information on how to make money writing blogs, visit http://www.eBooksCreated.com today! FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Be the Next JK Rowling - Can I Make Money Writing a Book? by Tom Williamsen Can I make money writing a book? Sure enough, everybody is familiar with the infamous Harry Potter and his magical adventures with his wizard friends. The series by J.K. Rowling is definitely a hit not only to children but also to adults who love to read. Needless to say, her books have certainly brought not only fame but also a fortune to her in an instant. Therefore, you can indeed make money by writing a book. How? Read on and find out. In order to answer your question, \"Can I make money writing a book,\" you first need to know what to write about by finding out what your readers want to read. This is very important factor that tends to be ignored by many writers. You have a wide range of choices picking the genre you want to focus on. You can start with short stories then work it up to novels eventually. One good idea is to write about a \"hot\" topic. By hot topic, it means something that generates the interest or imagination of the public. It isn\'t necessary that your book is the great American novel but rather a book that is created to sell fast because your audience is interested in its content. The question now is how to find a present \"hot\" topic. You can freely utilize the services of the internet by conducting surveys to find out what\'s currently \"hot\" nowadays. You can also monitor to some talk shows on the radios if you have the time. Aside from political issues, you may come across topics like health and finance. Once you decide on a hot topic, you may start writing your book. It is a good idea to create an online blog and publish your work on it while you are in the process of writing it. Of course after finishing your novel, you need to have it published. There are some small and mid-scaled publishers who are open to new writers. The only problem is that they don not have enough money power like that of a major publisher. Although getting published with them can be of advantage too since they will surely give you the royalty fees you need to make a living. However, it will be the major publishers who will be the ones to bring you big sales. The difficult thing here is it is harder for them to notice you but it is not impossible. If you are lucky enough to come across a literary agent who can represent you, that would be a great help to you. A literary agent is someone who has read your book and believes that it is marketable enough to sell. They have the connections in the industry to get your book to editors who decide on what books go on to be published. Some people may ask, \"How many books do I have to sell in order to make money?\" Actually, the quantity of books you need to publish is the variable. Keep in mind a good rule of thumb for estimating your profits is a dollar is equal to one book meaning you have to sell 50,000 books within a year so that you can earn a solid living. If you are somebody who keeps on asking himself, \"Can I make money writing a book?\" Definitely you can. Just give your full determination and commitment and the rewards are yours to reap. Ready to learn more information on how you can make money writing a book, visit http://www.eBooksCreated.com today! FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Easiest Way to Make Money Writing - Try It! by Tom Williamsen Try bringing up the topic of writing and you will surely get a lot mixed reactions. But one thing is for sure; people will either hate it or love it. Sadly, there are still a lot of people who don\'t appreciate the talent required in the profession of writing. Some say writing bores them. Some say it does not pay well. If you happen to be one these people, please hold your horses. You just have to find the easiest way to make money writing. There isn\'t just one easiest way. There are actually a lot of ways to do it. The easiest way to make money writing is by making reviews about other companies\' products. You can adopt more than a few styles of writing articles. Aside from writing product reviews, you can also try composing general how-to articles about their products as well. Apparently, every sale you successfully make through your articles will earn you a commission from the company. This is called affiliate marketing. You leverage products that you do not own which can earn you money in return. However, some people claim that earning money by affiliate marketing is not easy as it seems. It is, indeed if you do not take it seriously. It just all depends on your determination online that will set you apart from those who never a penny even if they try for months. Of course whatever goal in life involves effort. Aside from affiliate marketing, you can also look into business writing. Small and large companies, community organizations and fans clubs more often than not have subscriber-based newsletters. Investing on software programs and paper to create these newsletters are cheap. You can produce a professional output right in the comforts of your own home. Do not think that you can only do that for others. You can also do it for yourself. You can write something about what interests you, print it up and give it out. It sounds like a lot of work. It definitely is but it is surely gratifying. However, creating a perfect, glossy and perfect-bound work is not really important. What is vital is what your newsletter contains. Next you can try proofreading and editing. Not all people who can write know how to edit. There are times when they take their grammar and spelling for granted. Small companies are usually on the look out for editors and proofreaders that can do the corrections for them. You can also write poems, quotes and funny notes to be placed on greeting cards. These companies are open to freelancers. Perhaps the easiest way to make money writing is to learn the craft. In case you already have the skill, hone it more. But first you have to view earning money from writing differently. Nothing beats having a regular column distributed on the daily papers or creating novels that gets published. But it is good to start small, take your time to learn the ropes for a successful money making career. Ready to learn more information on the easiest way to make money writing, visit http://www.eBooksCreated.com today! FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Make Money Online Writing Articles by Tom Williamsen Perhaps you have heard about people who make money online writing articles. It is not impossible and it can be done online or offline or even both. Believe it or not, you can support a family of six just by writing alone. It just requires determination and perseverance just like any other goal in life. You might not know where to start and you have just come to the right place. First, you need to remember that even if you do your writing business online, you really have to treat it like a real business. If you really plan to do this full time, what ever name should you call it than a real business, right? No matter how much you write, you will not earn if you do not take it seriously. Next you will have to prove to your clients that you are a serious and determined businessman and establish yourself as an expert in the field. There is indeed a lot of competition out there and you need to prove that you are not just one of those fly-by-night syndicates. Show them that you have what it takes to create excellent and worth-every-dollar articles. You can make a virtual portfolio or your works and make it available upon the request of your client. In case you are just an amateur when it comes to writing, take time to learn the ropes and how to go about with the occupation. You could make money online writing articles if you are able to compete in the market. Having the ability to compete on the market means that you are up to date on what is needed to accomplish the job well. In the course of your writing career, you will reach a point where you can feel that you have improved on your skill enough to demand a raise on your rate. Besides, selling your works for 2 dollars a page is cheap and it can bring down the market. You need to ask for the payment you deserve as well. This can also serve as a motivation on your part to get better and better on your skill. Writing articles for that matter is somewhat general. Another sure-fire hit is making product reviews that you can post on your blog. You can get commissions based on how many clicks or views your articles have had. Some also pay you based on how many successful sales you have made. This is called affiliate marketing. Nowadays, article making belongs to one of the top methods of making money online. Aside from being free from investment since you only need a computer, it can also allow you to get hold of your time, be with your family and stay in the comfort of your own home. Indeed, there are a lot of ways to use article writing to your advantage. Seriousness and determination is all you need to have. Please bear in mind that every opportunity you have is a chance to market yourself. Make money online writing articles and you can have a bright future ahead of you. Ready to learn more information on make money online writing articles, visit http://www.eBooksCreated.com today! FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Tips on How to Make Money Writing Ebooks by Tom Williamsen Who says that writers have to be penniless and homeless? Obviously whoever says such words are not aware of the many ways on how to make money writing ebooks and selling them online. Ebooks are the new technology in information dissemination. People tend to buy ebooks more these days because these are easily accessible and would not require you to load your bags with dozens of paperbacks to carry with you. They can be downloaded online and saved into your computer or other devices for easy storage and retrieval. That is why a lot of writers these days have shifted to writing ebooks. They know what the market needs and they are ready to provide the solutions for them. So if you want to start making money, look at these tips and let it help you achieve your income goals. Tip One: Conceptualize on how you want to present your ebook. Concept is such an important factor in the success of your ebook. Just think that if you\'re the reader, you would want to know at first glance what the book is about. If the concept is clear, people tend to see your main message clearly and they will be attracted with the overall appearance of the book. Write random ideas as you begin your conceptualization process. Then organize your thoughts and try to make an outline of your ideas. Know which topics you would like to focus on and who your target readers will be. All of these ideas will help you achieve a specific concept guaranteed to attract the attention of your target readers. Tip Two: Write in a creative manner. Your concept is just the first phase in writing an ebook that would make money writing and sell like hotcakes. When you have all the important details together, you can now begin writing it and laying it out creatively. Creativity means you are able to use words and phrases that are sure to catch attention. Creativity also means that you can increase the overall impact of your ebook by presenting this in a lay-out that is pleasing to the eyes. Remember that some people are more visual than others and it is important for your ebook to look really good. You can achieve this by writing interesting titles and subtitles. You can also use graphics and pictures in your ebook. Try to be creative on how you will layout the contents of your ebook. Veer away from the standard formatting of text and use different fonts that are readable but are also interesting to look at. Tip Three: Know how to market your ebook. Learning how to make money writing ebooks does not just stop in the writing process. You would also need to know how you would be able to market these ebooks. Selling them online may be a challenge because of the many competitors who would be offering the same ebooks as you. However, if you know that you have a pretty good concept and that you have a sure effective marketing strategy, then you are good to go. Ready to learn more information on make money writing, visit http://www.eBooksCreated.com today! FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Looking For a Part-Time Job? Make Extra Money Writing Online by Tom Williamsen It is true. Money makes the world go round. No matter how you put it, you need money to survive. Don\'t fret because you are not alone. It has always been an issue for a lot of us. Aside from your regular job that pays you a salary which really isn\'t enough for a living, you find yourself looking for a part-time job that can make up for your income insufficiency. Here are some ways to make extra money writing online. First, you can become an online article writer. Usually, content websites employ writers (whether full-time, part-time or home-based) to write for them. The topics can be taken from matters such as travel, politics, health, business, lifestyle, finance or even food. These are just to name a few. They usually pay their writers directly and compensate them depending on how many clicks or views their articles have generated. Some even do it per set like 6-10 dollars per set of five 500-word articles. Other even offer writing contests with money prizes. Another idea is to write about a common problem that people have and then offer them a solution. It quickly generates trust because you are helping them out with their dilemma. With this, they are more likely to buy the products you are recommending to them. Related to this, you can also write reviews about your products or perhaps other companies\' products and recommend it to your readers by posting it on your blog. Leveraging other companies\' products and posting them on your site or blog thereby earning you money is called affiliate marketing. You are paid here on a commission basis according to how many views or clicks or perhaps successful sales you have produced. Remember also that when you write about something, be as specific as you can. For example you decide on the topic of losing fat. You can of course talk about losing fat in general but wouldn\'t it be better to write about losing fat so you look good for your wedding photos? That is what I mean by being specific as you can. Not only that. You can also write about losing fat in time for summer to wear that bikini you\'ve been dreaming about. It would also be nice to write about losing fat for health reasons. The list goes on and on. It is also a good idea to write about a topic you are most interested in. Of course when you are interested, you know a lot about it for sure. That can save you time that will be usually allotted to research. Aside from writing articles, you can also choose to be an author or a novelist. If you are still an amateur, you can start by writing short stories then level up to novels eventually. This is an easy way to help you make extra money writing online. Writing can scare you especially those who don\'t love doing it. But then when you come to think of it, it can also become your ticket to earning a living, extra or not, whether you have a full-time job or just a plain housewife. Remember these tips and make extra money writing online. Ready to learn more information on how you can make money writing a book, visit http://www.eBooksCreated.com today! FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Valuable Tips For a Newbie Web Content Manager by Robert Corter Being a web content manager is a particularly unrecognized occupation. Although it may sound glamorous when you hear it for the first time, many virtual world denizens do not actually put great stock into it. After all, blog page owners and people handling personal websites have been managing the contents of their websites without the need for any fancy job titles or even a smidgen of recognition. All they want is for their sites to sell. In other words, they want their articles to reach as much audience as possible and thereby increase the traffic to their sites. If you are in such a position right now, and you want to improve your (or someone else\'s) site using simple tools, here are some tips you might want to consider. 1. Make your site speaks naturally. Make sure that the voice you use in your web contents is that of someone who is carrying around truckloads of credibility. Assuredly so, blatantly promoting a product, service or idea is certainly not the way to go. Try to present your articles like you are discussing a topic with a friend or a colleague who just happens to be very much interested in what you have to say. Naturally enough, you want to come across as someone knowledgeable and articulate. Therefore, as web content manager, it is important to check for grammatical errors and slips in spelling. At the same time, you should be aiming for soft sells or the practice of promoting your ideas subtly. Try to give out as much objective information of the topic at hand. You know that you are going overboard when your web contents sound exactly like an actor on an infomercial piece or worse, as a used car salesman desperate for a sale. 2. It is also your job to choose or change the titles of your site\'s pages as you see fit. Many people do not put a lot of effort into this, especially if they think that the article\'s title works well enough. But the thing is: the title of your page should be slightly different from the title of your article. The page title is the same one that appears in the web browser\'s title bar, and is one of the first things search engine bots look for when they rank listings in SERPs or search engine results page. Try to choose a web page title that succinctly (and we mean in 2 to 5 words only) expresses what the article is all about. 3. Once you have chosen your web page title, it is now time to decide on the page\'s URL alias or address. Again, this is an important yet overlooked task of a web content manager. Whatever text you include in the alias eventually becomes part of the URL address. Therefore, it is essential that the address contains a bit of information that links it to both your site and the very essence of the article. You can do this by including a portion of your website\'s name and certain keywords that can easily be associated with the article text. Incredibly, search engine bots also spider URL addresses. Want quality and unique web content manager for a low price? We have the highest quality and lowest rates online! Get 100% unique articles to bring in tons of traffic and boost your websites rankings at http://www.99centarticles.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How to Create an Ezine Like a Pro by Robert Corter So you are not a professional writer but you have that unquenchable thirst to write and be published using the internet as medium. The newspaper and magazine industry may have not taken notice of your gift but you surely have the tenacity to write continuously as if you don\'t have anything else to do but write. You have probably created a number of blog sites or even put up a personal website. So why don\'t you really take this seriously and earn money while doing it? How to create an ezine is not rocket science. If you have a flare for words and quite familiar with the internet and if you also have some friends who are well-versed with the technicalities involved in putting up and sending pages of electronic magazines and newsletters, then put this passion to the ultimate test. Create your own online magazine! So you are obviously driven but how do you actually start and where can you find information on how to create an ezine? First, plan what content you are planning to produce and what it entails to produce them. Do you write your own articles or do you hire writers as well? Do you have specific subjects in mind? You may have several articles already and it is good to have some stock before you start online publishing and sending these pages to your mailing list. Having a bunch of friends who can help you write articles will also give you more diverse content, perspective and more traffic. This leads us to the second essential factor to have a successful ezine which is to advertise. Since you are just starting this project, you need to build your network that will subscribe to your electronic magazine. Social networking is the first set of public that you will have for your content so make sure that you maximize your contacts there. Having other writers will also allow you to access their mailing lists. Next is to set-up and get ready for publishing. You may have to look at free ezine template format and purchase list management software that will allow you to handle the regular publishing of your pages with ease and efficiency. Some programs have auto responder and other sending options that will give your ezine a more professional look. When you have built your list and have tested sending your ezine, make sure that you include the details of your website where they can have full access of all the other content that may include products, services and click-on advertisements that will generate income. Your ezine may not include advertisements especially if you are using an all text format but putting the links and placing these URLs will still give you the same traffic. As long as you have good copy, it is enough for subscribers to keep reading and checking out your website too. You don\'t need a degree in writing or computer programming to know how to create an ezine. With all the tools and the information available online, it is so easy to master certain skills to help you launch this very promising career. Want tips on how to create an ezine? We have the highest quality and lowest rates online! Get 100% unique articles to bring in tons of traffic and boost your websites rankings at http://www.99centarticle FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Writing an Ezine For Money by Robert Corter Writing an ezine is challenging, but more than that, it gives you an opportunity to earn. Whenever one reads a magazine, it is just a normal reaction to appreciate all the colors and pictures one sees on every page. And as each page is being turned, a whole lot of ideas come up into our minds. Yes, it is indeed enjoying but more than that, it is informative and educational. This is the main purpose of ezine. It is an online magazine which brings us to the internet world. The graphics will always fascinate us, but more importantly the content will always be what we will be looking at and reading through. Writing an ezine then is a challenging job. It brings out the creativity in our selves. It is a passion. It is like an endearing love to share ones ideas and be more imaginative about the things around us. Here are a few tips on how to write an ezine: 1. Choose a Market where you can write an ezine. There are a number of ezine sites which you can visit and offer the services of writing an article. Go to that site which you feel you are comfortable with and that you can work with ease. In this way you will find writing as an easy task and have fun doing it since you are working within your comfort zone. Check and read the guidelines and the policies. This is important when writing because you are guided by given rules and you are expected to follow them. Expect some deadlines and be able to meet them. Also, check out the payment scheme to assure you of your income and being paid on time. Rewards such as income will always be a motivating factor. So check it out. 2. Subscribe to an ezine you are comfortable writing for. One can choose topics from family, music, education, government, finance, and whole lot more. But the main objective is it should be focused on the market segment that the product is aiming for. Get an ezine wherein the topics sound more interesting to you and that you are knowledgeable. It is important to work on something you can finish. 3. Focus on the Quality of your writing. Do not hurry. Review your articles. Do not forward your written work just for the sake of submitting one. Remember that the article you have written reflects who you are. Focus on quality not on quantity. There\'s no point submitting a hundred rejected articles compared to an excellent one. 4. Take time and effort to make the best presentable ezine article. Be the best of what you can be and that makes who you are. A good ezine will reflect who the writer is. So be diligent when working on the article. Widen your horizon and let go of your imagination. Writing ezine is fun. Enjoy it while earning. More importantly, writing ezine is an expression of your very self. It is an outpouring of what is inside you. Be the best of what you can. Give the best and it will be shown in your works, and in your writings. Need tips on writing ezine? We have the lowest rates, highest quality, and best article writing and submission services available online! Come check out why internet marketers rank us #1 - Go to http://www.99centarticle FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Make Money at Home Writing Online - Your Doorway to Riches by Leonardo Diaz Garces There are lots of ways and means to make money home writing online. If you are one of the jobseekers who find it very difficult to acquire a good paying job, then you must consider the home based writing business. You don\'t have to worry about spending a large amount for investment when you enter the world of internet article marketing. All it takes is for you to own a personal computer with an access to the internet. You could sell your written articles or contents through promoting your website as freelance writer. And you could even offer your services for business entities that seek content writers for their advertisements. An article writer or a blogger can establish his own website where he can publish his works online and entice readers to read them. Writing content articles may go in two ways. Either you write for the products or services, or you providing a space in your website for businesses who want to place an ad in it. Your write ups must correspond to the product or the services that you present to the readers. Interesting articles may cause the reader click on your blog and this may cause traffic that was good for the business. If you will be able to make your readers click on the website of the products that you have advertised, then possible purchases will take place. With your creativity and competence, a one happy customer will eventually increase in due time. And of course, big bucks of money will start pouring in. Make your site striking and eye catching to the web browsers; they are easily attracted to them. Sell other options in advertisements, link ads, banner ads and other unique logos that represent the business\' identity. Make money home writing online your first option in shifting your career. This kind of profession may take you somewhere that you will fulfill your dreams of becoming successful. This is suggested for mothers who spend time at home taking care of her family. They can handle their own time and become flexible at anytime they wanted to sit down in front of the computer. Article or content writing is feasible for an extra income, but other writers have claimed to reap an unexpected fortune just by using their creativity and skills in writing. You must be enthusiastic about pursuing this kind of business because it promises a potential growth for your career that pays off. But if you opt for this just to earn money fast and easy way without putting your heart into it, then you might as well consider another job. This job is not for those don\'t understand the essence of writing a good article. Don\'t be rotten tomatoes that mixes with good potatoes, a sloppy attitude of a writer always reflects on what he writes. Proficiency and integrity will preserve the good image of professional writers that pursues in this kind of field. So make money home writing online an appropriate job if you are inspired to make a good name and of course become rich while having fun in writing. Ready to learn more information on make money home writing online, visit http://www.eBooksCreated.com today! FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS \"How Much Money Can I Make Writing a Book?\" Let Us Answer Your Question by Leonardo Diaz Garces Becoming a writer is not everyone\'s cup of tea. Though we have our own story to tell, it\'s not an easy task to write your own book. But if you aspire to become a renowned writer, you somehow ask yourself, \"How much money can I make writing a book?\" Writing a book about you or about something interesting can be very rewarding if it is published and purchased by readers who took an interest in reading it. But if you are aiming for an enormous return of your investments in making a book, then you should be aware that only a few writers can make a fortune from it. But if you are too passionate in publishing your book or novel, then you must have the determination to excel in this kind of profession. It often takes a lifetime to finish a good book because of the revisions that often takes place. Then it will be published after you have concluded the last part. Only then you realized that you have spent years in completing it. \"How much money can I make writing a book\", you would often ask yourself before you start creating one. After you have completed your composition, then you could be thinking about the cost you will spend in publishing it and the distribution in the market. It is a reality that only a few writers can succeed in becoming famous in the literary world. And today, book readers have diminished in numbers due to the cyber dominance in the lifestyle of once a \"book enthusiast\". It is very easy to acquire knowledge in just a click away in the internet websites. It became the conventional routine for someone who wants to acquire for facts and data instead of going to the bookstore and flip through the pages to search for answers. Browsing through the pages of the internet website is more convenient and time saving than buying a book that costs more than spending on internet cafes. If you think that it is feasible to make money in making a book, then you should consider in shifting your attention to making articles for websites. You can make inquiries about this latest trend in writing blogs or article contents. A lot of writers have claimed to earn an enormous amount from this kind of venture. This is suggested for home based writers and could easily acquire clients that purchases content articles for their products or services. And pay outs are faster and negotiable, depending on your expertise and qualification. Generally, an article that consists of 400 to 500 words will cost for almost 10 dollars. But if you outsource it, you will pay your hired writers for 6 to 7 dollars and you can earn 3 dollars for yourself. If you make a study in starting this kind of business, then you will see that you can earn from it too without writing a single article. Now you can distinguish the disparity between selling books the traditional way against selling your blogs or articles through the cyber marketing. Put an end to your question on \"how much money can I make writing a book\" and establish your own website as a freelance writer. Ready to learn more information on how much money can I make writing a book, visit http://www.eBooksCreated.com today! FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Better Ways on How to Make Money Writing on Line by Leonardo Diaz Garces If you are jobless and seem to be running out of chances to get an employment, then why not try a home based business if you have a personal computer that\'s connected to the internet. There are basic guidelines on how to make money writing on line if you have the passion in writing then this one might be the right job for you. Article writing is now considered a booming online marketing strategy that paves the way for the skilled and professional writers. There is a huge possibility that you will succeed in this kind of venture, and might even forget getting an employment. You don\'t have to worry about leaving your home, running after time and meeting deadlines. You can browse the internet and search through the websites for information on how to make money writing on line. Take your skills to a more substantial level where you can elevate yourself from being jobless to the most successful article writer. All it takes is to be proficient and competent as skilled writer. Creating a good article can entice more customers to subscribe to your services and eventually generate additional clients. Businesses need a good advertisement for their products and services. And you will be paid according to the articles that you submitted. Article or content writing is purposely created to send your readers to the products that you sell in your articles. And every time your readers buy the products that you endorsed in your article writing, then you are making your clients pleased and contented with your services. Subsequently they will become your loyal clients that will patronize your services and endorse you to their business partners. Become the most sought after article writer online, and make loads of money with just the use of your talent in writing. Your ability in creating a persuasive article can be helpful to educate and feed information to the readers. There are other means of writing an article, it\'s not just selling the products but also serving other readers\' concerns. People who surfs the internet could have questions or problems that they needed to find answers and solutions. This is where you get yourself involved through sharing your experiences or using others\' stories as references. And some way you can post advertisements alongside your blogs. Unique presentation of these products will somehow entice your readers to click on to them and will create traffic which is good for the business. Making links are also advantageous to promote the products or services. If you decide to shift your career in this field of article writing, then you must have a good start by making research and studies on how to make money writing on line. Don\'t be too hasty in receiving job orders that you will not be able to finish them on time. This is not good for you and the clients that you are contracted to render your writing services. You will appear incompetent and selfish enough whose intention is just to make money without considering the quality of your service as article writer. Ready to learn more information on how to make money writing on line, visit http://www.eBooksCreated.com today! FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How to Create an Ebook - Your Step-by-Step Guide by Chris Carson The question on how to create an ebook has been asked by many people who seek to use this very practical and usable format in their every day endeavors. Basically, the ebook is a good way to help readers who seek to use their computers and other portable device as their primary option when getting important information from transcribed books. This is very easy to handle since most ebooks have lots of important and essential function that would help people to find the necessary information they require. One of which would be the search feature which allows the users to locate easily the different words and phrases that are involved in their research. Unlike traditional books, the ebooks would easily help people to find the items they want which would save them time and effort. In fact, the text can also be highlighted especially the important section that would require extra attention for the reader. This is very helpful in reminding the reader what to remember. Other features of the ebook are the translator and audio reader which is very helpful for people who seek to learn other languages. Basically, the audio format of the ebook can be attained by integrating the audio reader which actually reads the book and translates it through a speaker. This is ideal for people with visual impairment such as burred vision. This would save them the effort of straining their eyes during their reading sessions. The translator is another format that allows other languages to be viewed when it comes to the content of the ebook. This feature is used by international students who are in a foreign country and are not yet proficient in using the local language. The question on how to create an ebook is commonly an issue in students who want to maximize the format and use it to their advantage. This is the main reason why many sites sponsored by schools and universities have dedicated a support team that would guide students in the process. Basically, the software can be downloaded from anywhere in the internet without problems since there are no payment required and the installation is hassle free. Once the software is installed, formats such as Microsoft word and others can be recognized and collated into an ebook. This is fast and easy since the software would save the files under a new format which is the ebook. Chapters can be segregated depending on the need of the user or a particular individual in a specific profession. In fact, the person using the software can even rearrange the different portions of the book into a style that would suite his need. The issue of how to create an ebook can be easily tackled since the internet has full of many resources that would easily help people to deal with the discrepancies and disruptions which can be possible encountered. This has changed the way how people use books and other important information which can be used in their education and career. Ready to learn more information on how to create an ebook, visit http://www.eBooksCreated.com today! FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How Can I Create My Own Ebook For Free? by Chris Carson The question on how can I create my own ebook for free has been asked by millions of people especially students who seek to have a cheaper alternatives when it comes to using references and distributing their own ideas. Basically, ebook software creators can be found in most websites in the internet since it is a free ware. In fact, most universities and institutions who are in need of a very easy to handle format has been using the ebook as their primary option when it comes to their information dissemination processes. This is because many books and modules are distributed in printed form which is very impractical and would create additional costs. By establishing a soft copy that can easily be copied and distributed, people can transfer and give students the necessary information they need in their studies. This helps a lot of students and publishers alike. While students learn the things required of their curriculums, publishers can easily market their product information. The process of creating an ebook is very easy. The necessary text can be inserted and collated to create the ebook one would require. The interface in most ebook software is also user friendly since a step by step picture is included. It would take a couple of minutes for the person to complete the process of creating his own book. In line with this, many sites serve to compile their own ebook library which would allow the people to upload their own resources and give others to access it without any fees. This has helped tremendously a free and accessible form of information dissemination that is effective in helping students learn and find the means to deal with the different problems they could encounter with their academics. The question on how can I create my own ebook for free can also be tackled through many self help forums that deals with the technical aspects of computers and use of software. In fact, many people have offered their own easy to follow videos found in many video streaming sites that give users the option to watch and follow the steps taken by the instructors. This is a great help for first time users who are in need to find create their own ebooks to be used for their studies, academics and research. The software to create ebooks can be downloaded and installed in one\'s computer without problems. This is because the installation process involves the use of the latest tools and patches to minimize errors. Once installed, the software would be then ready to collate and collect the different text and information to be saved as an ebook. The question of how can I create my own ebook for free has been answered in the internet countless times and serves to guide people on how to handle the different items they require to be saved in the electronic book format. This is a good option for students looking to save money but maximize the use of their computers in their learning process. The ebook can also be freely distributed without problems and restrictions. Ready to learn more information on how to create ebook for free, visit http://www.eBooksCreated.com today! FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How to Create a Kindle Ebook - Find Out Today by Chris Carson The process of how to create a kindle ebook has been discussed in hundreds of forums and internet information sites since millions of people has been using the ebook as their primary option when it comes to information and knowledge. Many professors and teachers that have been teaching in prominent universities have been using this format when distributing their resources to students and other people. This is because the ebook is very easy to use and does not require software installations and other time consuming processes. In order to create the ebook, the necessary texts and information should be first collected and put together. The nice thing about the software that creates an ebook is that the interface is very easy to handle. First timers can create their ebooks without problems and disruptions. The people can easily cut and paste the contents and put it in a pattern that would suite their needs. Chapter segregation can be easily set in place that would allow people to easily partition the different portions of the ebook. In fact, they could even put in another chapter since the ebook maker has no restrictions. First time programmers had no problems using this kind of software since a step by step process is included in the interface. Once the ebook has been created, it can be saved in multi format which can be recognized by many software readers and computers without problems. Many universities have been distributing their teaching materials in the form of the ebook and can even be downloaded directly from the school website. The issue of how to create kindle ebook has been discussed by many software makers which led them to create user friendly software that can be installed in one\'s cell phone and other portable devices. This would allow any information that would substantial to be integrated in the ebook. In fact, a click of a button can allow the text and a body of words to be complied as a mini ebook. It would take about less than a minute to create this kind of format which is ideal for students who are always on the go but needs a recognizable format for their virtual resources. Many institutions have even gone as far as abandoning the use of traditional books and have switched to the use of electronic books. This gives the students the chance to use the internet as their primary option when collecting information and using it for research. The schooling communities in the country are now technologically proficient which makes it easier. The task of how to create kindle ebook is easy and can be managed by anyone who has access to the internet and a computer. In fact, books and other important resources for schooling have been abandoned since this virtual format is cheaper and can be copied by anyone. It can be distributed easily without problems and liabilities. Most people have been using this format for several years already and have decided to stay with it. Ready to learn more information on how to create kindle ebook, visit http://www.eBooksCreated.com today! FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Get a Free Ebook - How to Create Abundance in Your Life by Chris Carson The free ebook how to create abundance in your life is a good source of information regarding management and business operations. It is based on the most effective and highly proven techniques when it comes to dealing with the different factors involved in businesses. Many people are unaware that business success can only be achieved when a person uses the correct set of tools at the right time. Given this idea, many successful businessmen achieved the success they acquired by using the information and knowledge in the internet as the main tools for their trading. First of all, the business setting is based on changing factors that are modified on a regular basis. Hundreds of countries who trade commodities and their natural products are dependent on both the local and international economy. The ebook how to create abundance in your life teaches the people on how to use deal and use one\'s personal resources in gaining an advantage. The good thing about the book is that it can also be used to help people live their life in a more practical and appropriate way. The philosophies of business and trading can help people to have success in other fields such as academics, career and education. That is why many people have used the ebook to formulate a philosophical approach that would equip them on the different challenges one could encounter. Basically, the free ebook how to create abundance in your life has helped millions of people to find the necessary inspiration on the different endeavors they have gone into. One good example is the success found by students who used the book during their stay in their universities and schools. Many universities who have given a free ebook copy to their enrollees have experienced a better rating with regards to the performance and grades of their students. This goes to show that practical knowledge of things is very ideal when it comes to applying the different theories that are thought by professors and schools. The ideas contained in the book serves as a reminder to the countless things that one would tend to forget when enacting business and carrying ones self. It is important that the basic traits of consistency be integrated in everything so that success would be gained on a long term and steady means. These are some of the ideas found in the ebook how to create abundance in your life. The free ebook how to create abundance in your life should be used and applied by everyone on the different parts of their lives since it brings people a reminder that would help them achieve a better understanding and comprehension of any situation. This would certainly be useful whenever they find themselves lost on the proper direction they need to take. It would also give people a timeless source of all the different lessons in life. Millions of people have attested to the usefulness of this ebook which has given them the right motivation. Need a writer on free ebook on creating abundance at the lowest possible price? We can write top quality eBooks for your website for an extremely low price. Go to http://www.eBooksCreated.com to get started today! FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How to Create an Ebook From Public Domain Books by Chris Carson The method to create an ebook from public domain books is very easy and manageable if the person in charge of the task would follow a strict set of guidelines and use the most up to date programs. The good thing is that hundreds of software programs in the internet would easily permit the users from transcribing and transforming the necessary texts and information to an ebook. The most popular would be the use of free format converters that would help allow the text to be compressed and be saved in much manageable data formats. Public domain books are very hard to read since it is saved in a single file format that would be devoid of bookmarks and chapters. This would make it very hard to search items and words that concern the readers. It can be compared to a long one-paged paper. Contrary to it is the very functional e-book which is very handy for users who want to save the pages and chapters that they want to get back to. This is because the ebook has many functions that would include a highlighter, a page marker and even a notes section that would allow the readers to input their own data. In order to create an ebook from public domain books, one does not need extensive knowledge and skill. By following these simple steps, one could easily accomplish the task. First is that the necessary software should be acquired depending on the ebook that the user needs. There is a tool and a program that allows easy conversion of public domain books where in chapters and other sections of the book can be assigned and formatted. In fact, the user of the software can even assign the use of markers where in certain key words can be found at a click of a button. This is ideal for a person who wants to use the ebook as an everyday reference for their studies and research. In fact, the ebook can be a good alternative for people who want to save instead of buying very expensive books that are bulky. The good thing about the ebook is that it can be used in cell phones and other portable devices to allow easy access. Unlike traditional books, it can be saved in small thumb drives. This is one of the best means to use information for quick reference. The process to create an ebook from public domain books is very easy and manageable and can be used by anyone. The internet is full of resources which includes public domain books. By using the ebook format it can be easily accessed without problems. Many institutions and universities have been using this format to give their students free resources for their studies. Aside from students, a lot of businesses have greatly benefited in the use of ebooks as a means of delivering informative guidelines to their workers. It saves time and money for both the teacher and students. That is why many distributors of books and resources have been using this book format as a means to distribute their products. Want to create ebook public domain books for your niche for a low price? We are English speaking college graduates who KNOW what they are doing when it comes to writing eBooks. Go to http://www.eBooksCreated.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Article Writing 101 – 4 Power Tips. Bring a Rake. You’ll Need it for the Cash! by Ali Baraka Ever wonder how the best article writers are plying their trade? How do they come up with all the information and resources to draw ideas from? It sounds like a daunting effort, but with a little knowledge backing you up, you too can be an article writing pro! First of all, let me acknowledge the minority of people (those who should know better) who still say that writing articles is outdated. This is terribly wrong and you shouldn’t buy into it! People read these articles online because they contain great information about a great many subjects. In the information age, we should be glad to have such a resource to turn to. The fact is, people still do monstrously well financially when they apply their knowledge to online articles. For evidence, look to many of the expert authors who are writing regularly, daily in some cases. The ones who are doing this are doing exceptionally well by doing what they do. Follow their example if you want to get on board. Here are 4 more pointers to remember when you write your articles: 1. Know your product. There are many writers pushing their product who don’t have a clue what they’re selling, and it shows. Though they may not know it, incompetence is quite vivid to savvy readers and the results will manifest themselves through lack of sales. In turn, your thorough knowledge will be a strong draw for you to earn new business. 2. Know your audience. There is little more useful than to be in the mind of the people to whom you’re communicating. Understand what they want. Know their needs and hone in on what you can provide for them via your product or service. This is a tactic used by advertisers for years and as long as capitalism exists, it will continue to work. 3. Use keywords. This is something many article writers neglect. Ensure that your article is replete with pertinent words and phrases that may pop up on the search engines. Your article could end up front and center for the searcher seeking what you are offering. Be careful not to go overboard. Obnoxious overuse of keywords will turn your readers off. 4. Answer questions. This relates to knowing your customer. If you understand what they want or need, you should be mindful of any questions they may have for you. Do what you can to answer their questions about the industry or product you offer. If you do this effectively, it will translate to more sales because you’ve showed that the answers to their questions is clearly in your product or service. The work you put into your article writing skill is the result you get out of it. It doesn’t take a long time to master. You don’t have to be great, just effective in getting your point across. Continue to work on your communication skills and you will benefit handsomely. To get in on what the pro’s know about making money online, click the link below! Learn Step-By-Step From a Multi-Millionaire Guru This PROVEN Money Miracle! Click NOW For a Special Offer! http://www.MaverickMoneyLegac FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Article Writing 101 – 4 Miracles of Marketing That Catch Attention! by Ali Baraka Ever wonder how to start your online marketing campaign? Are ideas coming and coming for others, but for you…they’re just leaving? There is one fantastic jolt you can give your business, and it may not be what you thought. That idea is article marketing. Yes, it’s still the gold standard in the world of internet marketing. But are you ready to invest your time into this effective marketing strategy? You ought to be! Patience must be your strong point. Remember, it’s free. If you want lightening fast results, do a pay per click campaign, but expect to drop hundreds of dollars in the process. If that’s not an option for you, then stick with article writing in the mean time. You’ve got more than enough time to make enough money for your PPC campaign. Listen carefully because I’m going to give you a few pointers on how to write effective articles that will get you noticed. 1. Be unique. The only way you can really draw attention to yourself and your product is to set yourself apart from the pack. Learn actions words, action phrases and creative writing. The more unique and interesting your message is, the more potential buyers will be interested in your product. If you learn to do what your competitors are not willing to do, you’re miles ahead already. 2. Have great titles. Use as many bad puns and ridiculous clichés as possible! They get attention, and that’s the goal in writing articles. Again, it pays to do research on power words and phrases that draw the eyes. In the end, you’ll be happy you put a little bit of your time into word research. We as humans can’t help but be drawn to people who communicate well! 3. Do general research. Your knowledge will shine if you know what you’re talking about, and your audience will reward you with sales. On the flip side, if you don’t know what the heck you’re talking about, believe me, it will show, too! Don’t be a hack. Learn more about your product than even your competitors and you’ll be leaps and bounds ahead of them. 4. Instill emotion. This is a skill that, when mastered, will translate into big bucks! This will take plenty of creativity on your part. Be dedicated to learning this because creating business online is literally an emotional experience for people. Make them laugh, excite them, cause a stir, whatever you can do to get them emotionally invested in your idea, it will pay off! It doesn’t take a lot of effort to write an effective marketing article, but it pays to know what you’re doing. Keep an open eye toward spelling and grammar, too. You certainly don’t want to look like a putz trying to hock products. You’re not aiming for a Pulitzer prize here, but being an effective communicator can mean the difference between a highly successful business and being a knucklehead who likes to post words online! For more money making article tips and other internet goldmines, click the link below! FINALLY!! A Cutting Edge Internet Cash Cow That Actually WORKS! Learn Step-By-Step From a Multi-Millionaire Guru. You CAN\'T Miss This!! http://www.MaverickMoneyLegac FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How to Know if Your Book is a Bestseller by Irene N. Watson How do you know if you have a bestseller on your hands or not? What if you are the writer and you are completely confident that the book is unbeatable? You’ve had several professional book critics check out the manuscript prior to publishing. You’ve had numerous pre-publication book reviews done, critics dissected it and the best in the business critique it; thus, you went into publishing the book prepared, ready, and producing the upmost quality reaching perfection, but you are still not on the bestseller’s list. You are left stunned and unsure why. Believe it or not there is actually a checklist publicists and publishers review before pitching any book as a bestseller and it should be your guide before writing and publishing your next book. 1. Timing is everything. Timing of your book is crucial in relations to the topic of the book and if the topic is a popular subject at the moment or not. Is it a hot topic in the media? Are office employees talking about it at the water cooler? For instance, when Octomom appeared on the scene, then it would have been a perfect moment to release a book covering the tribulations of giving birth and raising multiple sets of kids at once. 2. Use a grabbing title. The title is crucial regarding how to pitch your book and whose interest shall it peak. Too many times writers have award-winning stories on their hands, but lose potential readers with the title. Thus, ensure the title is appropriate, gripping, interesting, and keeps the reader wanting to pick up the book and never put it down until they are completely done with it. 3. Create a cover to attract your audience. It is true that people do judge a book by its cover. Bookstores will tell you that customers pick up books, flip through them solely due to the cover grabbing their attention. Therefore, before creating a cover ask yourself if the graphics stand out amongst the other books on the shelf. Are the colors inviting to your target market? For instance, if you are writing a fiction book geared towards women, then normally the book cover has appealing colors to females attracting the target market. 4. Use the grapevine. The best type of advertising for your book is to start talking about it to any and every person you meet. If you are in line at the grocery store, shopping, at the gym, on facebook, make sure you tell people about your book. The only way people are going to know about what you are up to and have published is to tell people. In addition, you want the gossip chain to continuously flow regarding you having a book available. Hence, it starts with you and without you kick starting the process, then the word about your book will never connect with the grapevine halting publicity possibilities within reach. So remember before publishing your next book make sure these four tips are in place, and you shall have a bestseller on your hands. For more information on current bestsellers check us out at http://reviewthebook.com/. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Persuasive Writing Techniques: Pull-Quotes by Robert F. Abbott Have you noticed, when reading magazines or newsletters, that excerpts from the article have been copied from the main body and put into a special box? That\'s called a pull-quote, and it\'s a useful persuasive writing technique for anyone who writes -- and not just for magazine editors. For example, I use them in one client\'s newsletters to break up the text. This newsletter has no graphics, such as photos or clip art, so the pull-quote is a simple, expedient way of making the page more inviting and more reader-friendly. But, it’s more than a decorative addition in this case; it’s also a useful persuasive writing technique because it increases the odds readers will find the article less intimidating (not such a high wall of text). That makes readers more likely to start reading, and once started, keep reading. Let’s dig a little deeper here: Most documents are structured so that the key request comes at the end. In a sales letter, that’s where the offer is made. In a political brochure, that’s where they’ll ask for your vote. Generally, headlines should draw you into the first paragraph, the first paragraph should lead you into the second, and so on. And, at each stage, persuasive writing techniques make or bolster the argument. Theoretically, by the time you get to the end of document, all of a reader’s questions or objections have been answered, and he or she does what the writer requests. Getting back to my client’s newsletter, I put a pull-quote on the front page. It\'s usually 15 to 25 words, and placed in a 2 inch wide box, horizontally centered about a third of the way down the page. It also has horizontal lines (technically, they\'re called rules) above and below the text. And, text from the main body of the article, in two columns, flows around it. Another persuasive writing technique sees the pull-quote highlighting a key piece of information in the article, to tease readers into reading it. In this case, the pull-quote works like a headline, but in a more subtle way. Again, we’re looking for ways to get the reader started, and once started, to keep reading. Now, for most of your communication you likely won\'t use a page-layout program, which would allow you to create sophisticated pull-quotes like those in magazines and newsletters. But, you can highlight bits of text in various ways. For example, by using lines of equal signs above and below a piece of text you can... ==================== draw attention to the words between them. ==================== You can find more examples in text newsletters you receive by email. But remember, a little of this kind of formatting goes a long way, so don\'t overdo it. In summary, a pull quote is a helpful persuasive writing technique, one that allows you break up long stretches of plain text, or allows you to highlight certain quotations. The eye is automatically drawn to pull quotes, and the mind follows, increasing chances the reader will read the rest of the page. Robert F. Abbott is also the author of 3 Easy Ways to Power Up Your Writing, a quick and easy writing course that gives you a focused set of three persuasive writing techniques, at http://www.effective-communication.com/3easy FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS No Blind Aye in Team by B.L. Lindstrom Several years back my boss\' boss walked into my office and declared me to be an outlaw-rebel-maverick. I thanked her, which was clearly not what she wanted. But what did she expect from an unbranded individual who frequently strayed from the herd? As I recall this particular issue called for me to give up on the idea of a PC on every desktop and just accept a couple of shared resources that would be placed in a public area. I kid you not. The powers that were, wanted to put two \"personal\" computers in a room for 30+ people to share. The absurdity of such a request was lost on these executives who held that a terminal view of mainframe processing was all the computing power that was needed (Pun totally intended). In 1984, (no joke), I stood up and stated we should be giving everyone some processing power of their very own. We should use the mainframe network to share our individual accomplishments until such time as a faster more efficient method is developed. And everyone in the company should be given an email address. The level of executive outrage and defiance that reigned down upon me was matched only by the number of people who lost their jobs as this company struggled to keep up with their competition while using outdated, slow responding, ever more expensive central computing systems, locked away in an enormous squeaky clean expanse. While I did not lose my job over this, the wasted resources and missed opportunities embraced by those who just wanted to git along like little dogies drove me and every other outlaw-rebel-maverick that remained at this company, out. Years later I was approached by a group of trail bosses from this organization asking me to return to the fold, to rejoin the team, to help them blaze new trails and find greener pastures. I did not oblige them. As Gomer Pyle once warned, \"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.\" This wisdom was well heeded for shortly after that recruiting session, the company imploded. The point is, those of you who are (or were once) outlaw-rebel-mavericks should never give up your independent spirit in the name of team unity. If you disagree with the direction the team is taking you have an obligation to the larger organization to stand your ground until you are convinced that theirs is the better way or they are convinced that yours is or there can be found some alternate solution on which you can all agree. If the team proceeds without your consent and everything works out, it\'s okay to admit you were wrong but don\'t let that stop you from standing up the next time. If things go seriously wrong with their approach, don\'t say anything, just help fix it. If they proceed successfully down your path share the glory with the team. If your path leads to disaster, accept the defeat, find the root cause, fix the problem and adjust your thinking accordingly. You may have to work twice as hard to convince them of your next proposal\'s merit, but your integrity will be unquestioned. Those of you who are not outlaw-rebel-mavericks should learn from those who are. Don\'t be afraid to ask your questions. Challenge the prevailing opinion, regardless of its source. Be heard, not herd. Of course if you simply agree with the direction of the team, then you still need to contribute always mindful that, having no \"I\" in team is not an excuse for taking YOUR eye off of innovation and improvement. B.L. Lindstrom is a highly paid and sought after systems janitor and author in multiple media. His latest communications can always be found on his Blog Authorian Adventures in the Ether, http://www.SoIWroteThisBook.com. If you want to know more about his work you can visit http://www.BLLindstrom.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Opportuning by B.L. Lindstrom Years ago we were running laps at the end of practice. As we started our fifth lap, Coach walked out to center court dribbling the mystical orb, as he always did. He watched for the leaders to approach the end of lap five and then, without a moment\'s hesitation he would hurl the ball towards the basket behind him. The arc was so perfect in spite of the historical evidence we always believed, this time, he would make it. But the shot would always rim out or careen off the backboard, and our next five laps would begin. During those next five laps coach would tell us about things to watch out for in the next game, about our well played scrimmage or about a former player who just became a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher. As the leaders approached the end of lap ten he would joke about some of us looking too fresh and maybe needing another ten. Then, without a moment\'s hesitation he would, again, hurl the ball towards the basket behind him. And we would all stop running to watch because, this time, despite the incredible odds against it, we knew, the shot was going in. Coach would always holler \"Why are you guys stopping?\" To which came the obligatory unified response, \"Because you never miss the same shot twice!\" followed by the swish of the lesson learned. Much to my father\'s dismay, I stopped playing basketball after seventh grade, finding football more appealing to me than the sport that made my dad a legend. But I never forgot the wisdom of Coach Newsome and his unbelievable string of second-chance-basket-behind-him-midcourt shots. A few years later, I was playing in a championship football game. We had overcome two horrendous calls made by the clearly biased refs and a much more athletic team of adversaries. With less than two minutes to go, we were in the lead and they were 80 yards from a go ahead score with no timeouts. Forty years have not been able to wipe the memory of the next play from my psyche. They lined up in the formation I had seen so many times on film and the chalk board. I drew a bead on the halfback that would surely get the ball. But at the snap, I began to move in slow motion. I was perfectly positioned to intercept the lateral bound for my man. Yet, when it came, the ball seemed to pass right through me and end up in the hands of my opponent. I turned to tackle him, but my arms passed through him as though he were a ghost. I watched as each of my teammates tried to stop this illusion from reaching the goal line. But they were all as seemingly powerless as I. With 90 seconds to go, we drove back down field and my best friend inexplicably dropped a perfectly thrown ball in the end zone as time ran out. Our \"fans\" blamed him for the loss and he took it very hard. In the locker room after the game, I announced to the team that this loss was my fault not his. If I had just made that interception or that tackle, we wouldn\'t have needed another touchdown. One by one each of my teammates stepped forward and announced the mistakes that they had made throughout the contest. Soon we were all feeling as miserable as the one who made the last mistake. Coach Newsome had come in to console his good friends on the football staff. Somebody shouted, \"This ain\'t basketball coach. We don\'t get a second shot at this.\" Coach turned and said, \"Well, I\'m certainly proud that after three and half years of High School, Mr. Chomski knows that he hasn\'t been playing basketball.\" Some of us smiled. \"Boys, I\'m not going to stand here and tell you that losing a game like this shouldn\'t hurt. And I\'m certainly not going to tell you that this wasn\'t a once in a life time opportunity. It was. Now, I don\'t know why you weren\'t allowed to win here tonight. But I will tell you this. Just like the guys that are whooping it up over there in the other locker room. You\'re going to remember this game for the rest of your life. And because you\'ll remember what could have been if-you-had-just. When you\'re next once-in- lifetime-opportunity comes along, and believe me, you\'ll all see at a lot more of them, you will adjust and put yourself in a better position to emerge victorious. The important thing to remember is missing a shot does not make you a loser.\" B.L. Lindstrom is a highly paid and sought after systems janitor and author in multiple media. His latest communications can always be found on his Blog Authorian Adventures in the Ether, http://www.SoIWroteThisBook.com. If you want to know more about his work you can visit http://www.BLLindstro FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Book Review: Alive! By Eileen P. DeClemente by Simon Barrett This is a powerful book, and also a very sad one. I run a Computer Lab, we offer free classes, and we offer free internet access. It is based in a large homeless shelter, probably the largest shelter in North America, we offer beds to over 1,100 people every night. Who are these people? Well some recent surveys show that approximately 1/3 are addicts, booze, drugs, or gambling. Another 1/3 suffer from some kind of mental health issue, and the vast majority of all of the people involved have some kind of anti social tendencies. I was intrigued by Eileen DeClemente\'s book, it hit close to home. Yesterday, I had a client go into seizure in the lab, while it is not an everyday occurrence, it is not something that is rare. The first time I witnessed a seizure I was horrified. The brain short circuits, the victim literally freezes, crashes to the floor, and often twitches and convulses. It is not a pretty sight. In Alive! A Courageous Story Of Addiction, True Love, and Forgiveness Eileen DeClemente tells her life story of addiction and recovery. It is not a pretty story. Eileen started with booze at the tender age of 11, as an adult she added prescription drugs, and street drugs. At one point her daily intake was in the region of 90 pills, a bottle vodka, and a couple of cases of beer. The problem is, the more you do, the harder it is to get the high, and Eileen was the expert. The highs became less and less, in fact the highs went away, she needed to \"use\" just to maintain. Eventually Eileen, as every addict does, crashed hard. One last seizure, one last abuse of her position as mother and wife, and one last realization that she had taken the wrong path. Recovery is not easy, physical dependency creates physical and mental problems. We glibly refer to \'withdrawal symptoms,\' they are not just symptoms, they are facts, they are a bone crushing reality. It is estimated that 30% of people living in the US either are addicts, or know an addict. Alive! should be on every high schools reading curriculum, it reveals the story from the inside out. Eileen was one of the lucky ones, at age 34 she woke up, but years of addiction have taken their toll. She is now 55 and diagnosed with Alzheimer\'s, and she freely admits that it is likely a result of her addictions. This book is written from the heart, and includes letters from Eileen\'s two daughters and her pharmacist as well as facts about addiction and recovery – for addicts and their families. Topics include: growing up in a dysfunctional home; coping mechanisms; making better choices; relationships, friendship, significant others and family dynamics; parenting, healing, forgiving and loving unconditionally; seeking help and not being afraid. This is a book that I plan on recommending to my co-workers, and a book that I recommend everyone should read. You can get your own copy from Amazon, and you can also get more information from Eileen\'s web site. Simon Barrett is an adult educator in Calgary, Alberta. With the 11 months a year of winter, he reads a lot of books! He is also a contributing editor for http://www.bloggernews.net and maintains a personal blog at http://zzsimonb.blogspot.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS An Interview With Dan Ronco About Unholy Domain by Simon Barrett I really enjoyed Dan Ronco\'s latest book, Unholy Domain, it is set in the near future, and paints a bleak picture of what might happen in the aftermath of a computer virus that spreads through the Internet. More and more the net is becoming part of the worlds infrastructure. Email is no longer a luxury, it is a necessity. If you look at 20 bill boards advertising companies you will find that 19 of them will have a www address rather than a phone number. Our reliance and acceptance of the Internet is all consuming. But is our reliance on the net too much? I had the opportunity to ask Dan Ronco. Being an Internet kind of a guy, I Googled you. You seem to have a pretty interesting history. Maybe you can tell us a little about yourself? I was born into a tough neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey, I learned powerful lessons about family, friendship and violence. I survived, so I consider my childhood a success. My escape was fiction, and I spent many hours reading in the local library. Nurturing a passion for technology, I went on to gain a BS in Chemical Engineering from NJIT. Not enough challenge. Always fascinated by new technologies, I was awarded a full fellowship at Columbia University and gained a MS in Nuclear Engineering. Although I designed submarine nuclear reactors for three years, I discovered I enjoyed software development more than reactor design, so I changed career direction and achieved a second MS; this one in Computer Science from RPI. Fascinated by virtually all areas of software development, my expertise grew to include coding, design, project management, quality improvement and finally, general management. My niche was software consulting and my team assisted many large corporations and governmental organizations. Always looking for a bigger challenge, I built and managed several consulting practices. I’m especially proud of two accomplishments – assisting AT&T greatly improve the quality of the first commercial UNIX release and helping Microsoft to create a world class consulting organization. Positions held during my consulting years included Senior Principal with an international accounting/consulting firm, President, Software Technology Management Inc. and General Manager with Microsoft. That’s a pretty good bird’s eye view of my career before the writing fever hit. What was the defining moment that caused you to abandon an obviously lucrative career to become a writer? If you ask that question to most writers, they will tell you about their first short story written at age eleven. Or nine. How they always knew they would become writers. Not me. Although I loved reading fiction at the local library, the thought of writing novels never crossed my mind. I spent an entire career in the IT business and I loved it, but as the years went by the work turned stale. And when your career becomes boring, it’s time to do something else. Anyway, I was sitting in my office at Microsoft one night, frustrated by a couple of emerging problems: the increasing number of virus attacks on my client\'s systems and the ongoing litigation with the Department of Justice. The more I thought about these problems, the more frustrated I became. Suddenly the obvious solution hit me – get out of this business and write a novel. What if a great (fictional) software company lost an anti-trust lawsuit and was ripped apart by the DOJ? What if the leaders of this once-great company decided to have their revenge by building an intelligent, deadly software predator into their flagship software product? That\'s the premise of PeaceMaker, my first novel. I liked the concept behind Unholy Domain, it was very cleverly put together. Also in many ways it is timely. Much has been made of hackers attacking government sites, and there has been much grumbling about \'what if\' they went after a power generating station, particularly a nuclear one. Are we in danger? Yes, but not with current technologies. Something like PeaceMaker is inevitable – but not for at least another five to ten years. Remember, PeaceMaker is speculative fiction. No existing artificial intelligence (excluding niche applications such as playing chess) can plan and execute at a level approaching human capabilities. In my novel, PeaceMaker has the ability to shut down the host computer, change or destroy data, send warning messages to its master, destroy hardware and attack anyone interfering with its objectives. A software predator could be developed today to perform many of these acts, but not with such sophisticated, adaptive decision-making abilities; one with PeaceMaker-level intelligence is still quite a few years away. I set the novel in 2012 because that\'s probably the earliest point such a predator could emerge (based upon my thinking in 2003). The critical breakthroughs are speech recognition and very complex modeling; once that happens, we’re on the fast track to the software predator described in PeaceMaker. In Unholy Domain you portray the Government of the day as ineffectual. Brow beaten into regulating technology. It is an interesting idea. We only have to look at the fall out from 9/11 to see steps backward being taken. International relations are at an all time low. Suddenly everyone is suspect, even traditionally friendly border crossings by Canadians or Brits have become a battle of paper, fingerprints, and distrust. A battle that friendly countries feel that they have no option but to play tit for tat. The Brits won\'t let Martha Stewart in, so the US responds by not giving a visa to Boy George! I view it as childish. Is making the border harder to cross (as CNN’s resident idiot Lou Dobbs advocates) the answer? Although we should exercise reasonable control over our borders, that\'s not the major risk factor. It\'s fracken (love Battlestar Galactica) technology regulation that may do us in. Government, especially Congress, is way out of its league trying to regulate technology. Or just about anything else. That\'s not a brilliant conclusion of mine; very few Americans believe Congress — Republican or Democrat — can provide pragmatic, competent regulation. For example, think about what Congress has done to nuclear power. Thirty years ago nuclear power was an up and coming technology destined to provide the US with the lion\'s share of its energy. The Three Mile Island power station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania changed all that. In 1979 a cooling malfunction caused part of the core to melt in the # 2 reactor at Three Mile Island. Some radioactive gas was released, but not enough to cause any dose above background levels to local residents. Although there were no injuries or adverse health effects from the accident, poor communications in Congress and the media contributed to a sense of panic among the public, leading to a virtual ban on construction of nuclear plants lasting to this day. This despite an excellent safety record for power plants in the USA for thirty years. I am not minimizing the serious problems at Three Mile Island, but the construction of nuclear power plants should never have been halted. If we generated eighty percent of our energy through nuclear power, as France does, we would not have to depend upon unreliable kingdoms in the Middle East. And we wouldn\'t be filling our gas tanks with four-bucks-a-gallon (soon to go higher) gasoline. I\'ll let you in on a few other brilliant moves fostered by our government. We are the only nation with huge reserves of oil that doesn\'t allow drilling. And to complete the hat trick, we have not built a new oil refining plant in thirty years. As a result, we have to buy oil from countries that are hostile, such as Venezuela, or with uncertain friendship, such as Saudi Arabia. With a government like this, who needs enemies? The overregulation described in Unholy Domain isn\'t really much of a stretch, is it? As I understand it, Unholy Domain is the second book in a trilogy. I have not yet had a chance to read Peacemaker (hint hint) but do plan on tracking it down. When can we expect to see the final book? And can you tell us a little about it? It is clear that technological change will turn our society upside down within the next few decades. Humans will have to adapt rapidly to gain the advantages of evolving social and technological innovations. Indeed, we will have to adapt rapidly just to survive. I scoped out a trilogy of novels to expose three oncoming challenges; computer viruses enhanced with artificial intelligence (set in 2012), the oncoming clash between religion and technology concerning what it means to be human (2022), and the beginnings of the integration of human and artificial intelligence into a network entity (2032). Each novel is written as a thriller – packed with adventure, sex, greed and romance – as well as realistic science, technology, and government intervention. The three leading characters – Dianne Morgan, a female mega-billionaire obsessed with power; Ray Brown, her onetime lover and a brilliant software architect; and David Brown, Ray\'s genetically gifted son – are fascinating and all too human. PeaceMaker, my first novel, was released in August, 2004 and Unholy Domain, was released April 2, 2008 by Kunati Books. The final novel of the trilogy, tentatively entitled Tomorrow\'s Children, should be released in 2009. Although the novels are consistent in world building, character and plot development, each is a stand-alone story, so they may be read in any sequence. Genetic engineering and artificial intelligence continue to rapidly evolve in Tomorrow\'s Children, touching off a human uprising based in Africa against the Domain. Ray Brown leads the African tribes in their war against the increasingly human androids of Dianne Morgan\'s Domain. When David Brown evolves to the brink of integration with Sentinel, the most advanced AI developed by the Domain, Ray has one last chance to save his son and maintain humanity as a distinct species. Have we become a society too reliant on technology? I ponder this question often. I wander around downtown and everywhere I look I see security cams, George Orwell had it right in 1984, he just got the date wrong. What are your thoughts? Our modern technological society provides us with an incredibly high standard of living, but there is a price to pay. As a society, we have decided the trade-offs — reduced privacy, government intervention, complexity, etc — are acceptable. In general, I\'m okay with that. Not thrilled, but realistic. The breaking point is the combination of technology and single-minded fanaticism. Fanatics have always been dangerous, because they are ready to die to impose their beliefs on society. A century earlier, a small group of fanatics might be able to kill a few dozen people with dynamite or guns. Now, a terrorist with a weapon of mass destruction might kill hundreds of thousands. Technology empowers fanatics. To defend itself, society must employ technology. Maybe those security cams will help track down terrorists. There\'s no going back. People are not willing to give up the benefits of technology, nor should they. Regulation won\'t stop the spread of advanced, potentially dangerous sciences such as AI, nanotechnology and genetic engineering. Fanatics have access to technology, and they are planning to use it. First question: will we be able to stop the fanatics from using WMD? Second question: how far are we willing to go to defend ourselves? Tough issues. Since 911, there has not been another devastating attack, but maybe we\'ve been lucky. Or maybe Homeland Security is finally doing something right (choke). The balance between safety and oppression is difficult – go too far in either direction and we’re screwed. Bin Laden or Big Brother? Thanks For chatting with us Dan. Oh and you can bet I will be keeping my eyes peeled for the last book in this trilogy. Simon Barrett is an adult educator in Calgary, Alberta. With the 11 months a year of winter, he reads a lot of books! He is also a contributing editor for http://www.bloggernews.net and maintains a personal blog at http://zzsimonb.blogspot.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Writing Reviews Online Can Be Profitable by Larry McCullough Writing reviews for blogs and websites is a lucrative online business option if you enjoy writing. Everyday new films, books and products are launched. Most of us always wait for a review before actually trying out something new. There are many websites that are dedicated towards providing reviews and comparisons to people and prospective buyers. For example, www.mouthshut.com, www.about.com, etc provide comprehensive reviews of products starting from cameras to tour packages. In fact various websites that sell products or provide online auctions also require reviews for the products on sale. Although many such sites use the regular visitors and website members to contribute their reviews as personal experiences and are mostly non-paid services, there are websites that actively employ freelance writers to write reviews. While writing reviews seem to be an apparently easy task, it is important to understand that for reviews to be well-received by the audience and to have a loyal follower base for your reviews, your writing must be precise. It is not about thrashing a certain product or just eulogizing it – it is more about striking the right balance. Here are some tips that can help you in writing online reviews: ·First and foremost, remember that the media of communication that you are using is online. People mostly resort to online content when they are in a hurry and want to catch some information on go. This should dictate your content and your write-up. The key is to keep it succinct and to the point. In this jet age no one has time to read for pages. ·Secondly, remember to understand your target audience and modify your language accordingly. If you are writing a review for a high-end digital SLR camera, use the vocabulary that suits the target audience – professional and serious photographers and do not use words that you may use while writing a food review. ·Review is about critically evaluating a product. Very rarely would you come across a product that is perfect or completely useless. So your review should strike the right balance. Point out the positive qualities of the product and remember to highlight the negative points as well, if an. Give the prospective buyer a work-around the negative qualities – this is called value-addition. ·Finally, it is not absolutely necessary that you must try each product before writing a review on it. But what you must do is study the features of each product thoroughly and understand the various functionalities. You must be able to conceptualize how a particular feature of a product may help the buyer and write accordingly. However when it comes it films or food reviews, the suggestion would be to try it before writing a review. Generally readers can also differentiate between a genuine feature and a fake one. The best part about writing reviews is that if your writing is credible and your audience enjoys your features, you will soon earn a name for yourself which will help you immensely in furthering your business. Larry McCullough has been marketing and writing on the internet for over 10 years. Owner of various websites. http://6fig.com Blog: http://clubblogge FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Why Use a Freelance Copywriter? by Jonny Seeley Content is king The phrase ‘content is king’ originated on the web, reminding us that information is more valuable than visuals. But the principle holds true for every kind of communication. Although presentation and branding are important, what you way is ultimately more important than how you say it. A copywriter helps you establish exactly what you’re trying to say, and to whom. Then they find the words to express it as clearly as possible, in a way your audience will understand. So when people meet your marketing, they will immediately see why your product or service is important and relevant to them. Making this first, basic connection is far more important than trying to impress people with flashy design. A sound investment Content comes remarkably cheap, considering how crucial it is. Even if you’re just creating a basic leaflet, your design and print will cost far more than a freelance copywriter. Moreover, your copy can live on and on. For example, a concise summary of what your business does might work very well on your website’s home page, welcoming visitors and confirming that they’ve found what they were searching for. But it could also be used in leaflets, brochures, presentations, reports, directory listings and sales letters. In fact, it’s an indispensable part of your marketing, and will pay for itself many times over. Don’t do it yourself While you probably can’t print your own brochure or build your own website, you can certainly do your own copywriting. The tools of the trade are in your hands right now. We write all the time at work, then blog in our spare time. Couldn’t you just write it yourself and save the money? Of course you could. Many people do, and the results are all around us: dull websites, unread sales letters and confusing presentations. And those who get professional help with their copywriting are grateful, because it means they stand out from the crowd. As Red Adair said: ‘If you think hiring a professional is expensive, try hiring an amateur.’ Not sexy enough? Some of the reluctance to hire freelance copywriters may be to do with product perceptions. Designers can dazzle you with their visual invention. Web developers can grant you access to a password-protected secret garden where your new site is being carefully cultivated. Print reps can bring in boxes of your wonderful, shiny new brochure. But copywriters just email you a boring old Word document. You need to think carefully about the business value of what you’re buying. While it’s important to reach the appropriate quality standard, marketing should not be a creative love-in where you just indulge your own sensory whims. Every component of the marketing machine should perform as well as it can. The view from outside It is very easy to get too close to a communication project. The result is too much focus on in-house concerns, or a lack of essential background. There’s a danger of overestimating what the audience knows - or how much they care. A freelance copywriter can help by taking the part of the audience and ensuring the fundamentals are covered. By asking very basic questions, the copywriter can sometimes find new angles and approaches, or uncover key issues that need to be addressed. In fact, a willingness to look a bit stupid can be a real asset to a writer. As Zen master Shunryu Suzuki put it: ‘In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.’ Making ideas real Creative dialogue can help to firm up the details of a new product, service or business plan. Some clients value this ‘strategic conversation’ with a freelance writer more than the words themselves. In the early stages, writing down an idea is a crucial step towards making it real. But it’s essential to choose your words carefully if you want that idea to develop in the right direction. Working with a copywriter brings focus to that process. Since good writing is about achieving clarity and avoiding ambiguity, involving a copywriter often forces the client to resolve conflicts and choose between mutually exclusive options. This can help to get projects on the right track. Words are very powerful, shaping the way we think about ourselves and the world. On one level, the company description discussed above is just content to fill up your home page. But on another, it’s the essence of how you want your business to be perceived – by your people, your customers and the world at large. Since this goes to the very heart of your strategy as a business, it’s easy to see why freelance copywriters who can add value in this area are so appreciated by their clients. Visit http://www.abccopywriting.com for more information on freelance copywriter services. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How to Publish a Best Selling Book by Daniel Millions Having a book published is every writers dream. Whether it is a fiction book or a non-fiction or educational book that has been written; most people write a book in order to get it published. So, if you are a writer and you have just written \"The End\" on your novel or literature, how do you go about getting a book published? Well, there are a few different methods that you might want to try. The first is self publishing. Self publishing is the process of publishing a book without having an agent, and without using a publisher that will distribute your book into stores. If you choose to self publish a book, you need to find a printer that does specialize in printing books. You also have to be aware that when you self publish a book, you are responsible for promoting and selling the book. You can contact local book stores that are not branded to get your book into shops. You can also sell them on the Internet on your own website, or ask others to sell and promote for you. Some people believe that self publishing is an easy way to get your book in print it may be easy to get it into print, but it is extremely difficult for an unknown writer to sell their book and get it into stores when it is self published. Some writers are opting for self publishing rather than any other way, as they wish to get rid of the need for an agent or to find a publisher that will publish a book without an agent. The more traditional way of getting a book published is to find a literary agent first. This stops the writer having to come up with deals with publishers, finding stores to take the book and to eliminate the stress of printing and approving the book. This gives the writer much more time to do what they do best... write. To find an agent, a writer will normally have to send in a covering letter about themselves, a synopsis of the book they have written, which will detail the basic plot line of the book, and two or three chapters of the book usually the first three. Most agents won\'t accept email submissions from writers, particularly new ones, and they will require you to send it through the post in hard copy. The agents are your direct line to the giant publishers that command the literary world. They have inside contacts usually with the highest person at the publishers and they can discuss and negotiate a deal for you that would be much better if you were to contact the publisher direct. Of course, if you do find an agent to represent you, they will expect a fee for their work. After all, it is the agent that got you to where you are is it not? The fee can vary greatly depending on what agent you choose to go with. If after sending your work in the agents are really keen on representing you, you could try negotiating the price of their fee down. If they are keen to have you and spot real talent, they will not want you to go to another agent and take your success with you. Having a book published is a wonderful thing for any writer! Choose your agent wisely and keep going. http://www.book-template.com book template http://www.ebook-template.com ebook template FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Love is an Eleven Letter Word by Shelley G. Anderson Have you ever been so in love that the rest of the world seemed to be at a standstill? When the object of your affection is right in front of you or as far as a step across the street, nothing else matters. The sunlight glistens in such a way on your beloved that the sparkle from the reflection drenches your face and dazzles your vision, making you oblivious to everything around you. Looking out my window, I see the love of my life, sitting there just a few yards away, serenely waiting for me. I\'ll never forget the documentary film maker from London who, after an hour long interview with me, met you and was obviously enamored. He literally was speechless as he stared at you. When he tried to say something witty, I interrupted with, \"Beautiful, isn\'t she?\" I think he was genuinely embarrassed and not sure how to reply. Previously he had been so eloquent in his questions about my work as a celebrity personal assistant. Now he was dumbfounded. Love does that to people. Well, in his case it wasn\'t love, it was down right lust. Suddenly, I\'m in a trance, dreaming about the all the times we\'ve spent together, and all the heads we\'ve turned over the years. Remember that leisurely drive up the Southern California coast, Josh Groban\'s song Alla Luce del Sole blasting from the stereo? We stopped to watch the waves softly kiss the shore in Santa Barbara. The breeze was wafting through my hair, feeling like a gentle caress. A light rain began to fall, covering us both with tiny beads of water. Instead of running for cover, we remain, transfixed, as droplets continue to fall, unaware of our surroundings, drinking in the moment. What is it about love that can do this to a person? Songs have been sung, poems have been written, art has been created, and empires have fallen over the love of one. I don\'t profess to be a conqueror, composer, painter, or poet, but I do know that I\'m a lover. Today my beloved is waiting for me. Love is an eleven letter word: convertible. This sensuous Lexus SC430 silver convertible with satellite radio, custom alloy wheels, and -- sigh, seat warmers, is, truth be told, owned by my boss. But due to a series of events too complicated to explain here, this car has become my daily transportation for the last nine months. It\'s just one of the benefits of being a celebrity personal assistant. People often assume celebrity personal assistants get to enjoy many perks because they work for famous people. Yes, there\'s a plus side, but I want you to know that I don\'t think of driving the boss\'s car as a mere perk. It\'s so much more than that. It\'s a thrill. It\'s bliss. It\'s ecstasy. It\'s rapture. For want of a better word, it\'s kismet. Well, I need to go now. I have a date with my own (okay, it\'s really my owner\'s) true love. Shelley G. Anderson is the personal assistant to self-help author Louise L. Hay, and writes the column Dear Miss Know It All. She is the author of Dealing With Divas: A Survivor\'s Kit for the Celebrity Personal Assistant (or Anyone with a Pushy Boss). To learn more about her, visit http://www.dealingwithdivas.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Got Gift? Don\'t Worry You\'ll Get It by B.L. Lindstrom Imagine a twelve year old boy about to experience his coming of age ritual. He is told that among his peers in this ceremony, he and he alone must not neglect the gift he has for it was given him by prophetic utterance when the elders laid their hands upon him. \"What gift?\" he cries. But his desperate query is met only with the all knowing smiles of those around him. A redirect of \"No, seriously what is my gift?\" produces no further response. A final, \"How am I supposed to not neglect it, if I don\'t know what it is?\" yields nothing as the rite of passage begins. So goes my story from some 43 years ago. When the mystical command from First Timothy 4:14 was inscribed in my bible on the day of my confirmation into the Lutheran Church. Back then my attention span was, well, that of a twelve year old. Thoughts of food, music, TV, movies, sports, cars and, suddenly, even girls quickly supplanted this call to pursue my true calling. A few years later I was packing for college. I spied that bible on my sparsely populated book shelf. \"What was that verse again?\" I found the inscription and read the passage anew, still nothin\'. Pastor L, the minister who stuck me with the words, had left our church and our area. So I couldn\'t very well ask him about it now. Ah well, it would keep. I placed the book back on the shelf and left for school. I would have plenty of new books to study. Besides I had thoughts of food, music, girls, sports, studying, living on my own and, suddenly, young women to occupy my brain. Some thirty-five years later, I was unpacking our household as we moved into our new home and there in my hand was that bible. Oh ya, First Timothy and the gift again. This time I set out to find Pastor L. If I had been neglecting this gift for 40 years, I was going to be in big trouble with those prophetic elders. I had to find him. Google and People Finder generated a full name, a physical address and, more importantly, an email address. \"Dear Pastor L. NOW will you tell me what my gift is?\" A few days went by and the reply came. \"You probably want my dad I wasn\'t even born in 1966. He\'s in the process of moving. I will forward your information to him as soon as he gets settled.\" Thoughts of food, a new job, a new house, movies, sports and grand children quickly supplanted my desire to fulfill my destiny. About 18 months ago, at the age of 54, I determined that while the software industry had been very, very good to me it was time for me to think about a different career. As I entered my second adulthood, I identified five new career paths to investigate. My research and related activities lead me to write a 92,000 word novel about a utopian community built on the premise of, what else, not neglecting our gifts. Then, hand to God, the hand of God delivered two things to me on February 15th, 2008. The first was ten \"proof\" copies of my paperback book. The second, an email from Pastor L asking, among other things, when he was going to see my name associated with a book or a movie or a television show. B.L. Lindstrom is a highly paid and sought after systems janitor and author in multiple media. His latest communications can always be found on his Blog Authorian Adventures in the Ether, http://www.SoIWroteThisBook.com. If you want to know more about his work you can visit http://www.BLLindstrom.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Start Your Own Blog and Add Some Spice to Your Retirement by Charles Jacobs It’s so easy to start up and doesn’t cost a penny. Thousands are doing it…many of them retirees…and having the time of their lives. How about you? First, let’s lay to rest the principal myths that are holding you back: • I don’t have the technical skills or knowledge • It probably costs more than I can afford • I’m not a real news junkie • I don’t have the time to spend adding new items Hogwash! Anyone with a modicum of intelligence, a bit of curiosity and two or three hours a week can turn out a fine blog and have an enriching experience doing it. And it’s free. With easy-to-follow guides like Google’s www.blogger.com, you can have your blog up and running within an hour. What a great way to keep your mind active by writing after retirement and to develop contacts with others who share your interests. Write on Your Favorite Subject Blogs are circulated on almost any subject you can imagine. At the end of this article, you will find a listing of several blog directories that will show you the broad cross-section of topics discussed. It will also help you find and view other blogs that deal with the subject you’ve chosen. That way, you can get a better idea of how others are presenting information. Some blogs are simply personal ramblings and diaries. Others tackle serious issues from politics to hobbies. There are no restrictions. It’s up to you. Today there are in the area of 30 million active blogs worldwide. In addition to personalized diaries, they represent a key source of news, knowledge and opinion. They are stealing readership from newspapers and print magazines. They have become major selling tools for businesses and excellent sources of information for surfers. The blogosphere is magical. Despite the massive number of blogs in existence, you can attract large numbers of readers to your own. You have the opportunity of competing with your biggest and wealthiest competitors because with this great, no-cost innovation, the playing field has been leveled. Obviously, it requires a good deal of time and effort to make yours one of the leaders of the blogosphere. The top bloggers constantly research current events and trends and post daily. Some do it hourly to compete with other news media. But unless yours is a news or political blog, there is no need to post that frequently. You can reach out to literally millions of viewers on the World Wide Web with a schedule of one posting a week or better yet two or three. But you have to be willing to maintain that routine meticulously. For example, I post once a week to my blog www.retirement-writing.com/blog and include four posts covering news of the publishing industry plus an instructional column in writing and publishing. If I preferred, I could have reduced the number of articles I add at a single posting, but increase the number of times I post to three or four a week. I tell you this only to demonstrate the flexibility you have as a blogger. But whatever schedule you select, you must follow it exactly. Setting It Up As I pointed out earlier, launching a blog can be simple and cost free. Click onto www.blogger.com to find Google’s do-it-yourself guide. With just the few easy steps, you can create your own unique blog. If you’re unsure of your ability to do this or want your blog to have a more professional appearance, you can choose to hire a professional designer to set it up. Enter “Blog Designers” on your favorite search engine to find professionals to assist you. I have used Premiss Design (Philadelphia, PA) and My Computer Guy (Tampa, FL) for some of my work. They are very cooperative, highly skilled and their fees are modest. Ten Ideas to Help You Gain the Most from Your Blog Content Rules No matter what else you do to make your blog appealing, the key is the quality of your content. Keep it relevant or you’ll lose readers. As an expert in your field, you should have no problem finding ideas for articles. As an author you should have no difficulty presenting them in an interesting and easy-to-read manner. Provide the Information Readers Want The blog is an amazing place to find information because posts are archived. But it is up to you, the writer, to be sure the information you include has real meaning. Keep it informal The key is to relate personally to your readers, try and keep your copy relaxed and informal as you write. It should reflect you and the way you think and talk. No hard sell even though one of the principal reasons for maintaining your blog may be to sell books (or e-books, coaching, etc). The blog is not the place for heavy promotion. It is more a center for information, exchange of ideas and a link to your web site. Brand Yourself The blog is a great tool to establish your credibility and demonstrate your expertise on the topic you have chosen to discuss. Personalize Your Business The purpose of what I suggest in the above paragraphs is to personalize your business, to create an intimacy, to break down the barrier between the reader (potential buyer) and you (salesperson). The result should be a greater degree of confidence on the part of the reader for your integrity and knowledge. Offer Interactivity Make sure your blog offers your readers the chance to comment on your post. I also encourage readers to send in questions on any aspect of writing, publishing or promoting either through a post or by writing to one of my e-mail addresses charles@retirement-writing.com. We try and answer within 24 hours. Send Potential Buyers to Your Web Site Mentioning your products in places where they relate to the subject you are writing about is fine. But keep it soft sell, and refer your readers to your web site for the heavy push. You can promote on your blog, but do it with a light touch, not a hammer. As an example, when I moved a large box promoting my new book The Writer Within You from the main section of my blog, decreased the size and boldness appreciably and relegated the promo to a column on the side of the page, sales increased. That may conflict with many of advertising’s basic premises, but the blog is a unique place where readers are looking for opinion and information. Post Often Regardless of how difficult it may be to add content continuously to your blog, it is essential if you are to keep readers coming back. Major blogs update throughout the day. But this isn’t necessary if you aren’t aiming your blog at news junkies. Three times a week is a very comfortable schedule. I post a new blog weekly. Don’t Wander People reading your blog are specifically interested in the subject you cover. Don’t wander off to other issues. Stay on topic. However, whenever you can, hook your topic to some current happening to make it even more interesting to your reader. The hook may be the result of an event of major importance, it may be the weather, a holiday, whatever. But it must be relevant. Become Active Now that you are a member of the blogging community, participate actively. Make a list of blogs that relate to your topic, and periodically view them and post comments. (Find them by perusing the list of blog directories at the end of this article.) As you participate, you’ll find your own blog will gain more attention. Having your name on a comment in a highly successful blog with a wide audience will motivate a portion of that blog’s readers to see what you are all about. Follow these suggestions and when you become more skilled, you can install an RSS feed and even bookmark some of your posts with sites like Digg or Del.icio.us. To help you locate blogs that cover your subject, try these blog search engines. www.blogsearch.google.com, www.globeofblogs.com, www.blogcatalog.com Visit the web site of Charles Jacobs, author and book coach, for free articles and e-books http://www.retirement-writing.com. His latest book “The Writer Within You” received six awards as one of the Best Books of the Year. Learn more and buy it at http://www.retireandwrite.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Simple Ways For You to Make Big Money Online by Larry McCullough Trying to make money online can be a frustrating and humbling experience. All of the advertisements and rumors of making fast cash with minimal work, are well, a bunch of crap. Sure, a few people may have hit pay dirt not doing much but I don’t know any of them. Most of the people I know that are successful online, spend time researching their options, creating a plan and then working that plan. With that being said, there are various ways to earn online. I will discuss some of the best ways below. 1. Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate marketing is a fast way to start making money quickly. Because you don’t have to worry about creating or designing your own product, you can get started quickly. You are a given a link to a completed website and the only thing that you have to do is to promote it. While this used to be far easier a few years ago, it can still be very profitable. It will just take a little bit more work. Consider creating a simple website that provides information on the same topic as the affiliate product you are trying to sell. Be sure to collect email addresses, as you may be able to market other products to this same group. Market affiliate products using articles, social networking sites, forums and pay-per-click. 2. Selling Your Own Product: Selling your product is another great way to make money online. Depending on how you go about your product development, this could be a fast or slow process. One way to speed it up, if this is a concern, is to purchase PLR rights. Often times Private Label Rights come with a ready made website. For a few bucks, you have your very own e-book and website to sell it from. However, this method has its’ disadvantages, namely, other people will be selling the product and perhaps for cheaper. To combat this, consider, re-writing the sales letter and purchasing new graphics. Also add special and unique bonuses to make your offer appear more attractive. 3. Ebay: Many people are still making money on Ebay. Ebay has cracked down on digital products. However, you can still sell them, just put them on CD and send them out. You can also use the classified ad format listing to sell digital products. I use it and have had some success. If you want to sell physical products, find a good drop shipper or wholesaler. 4. Offering Services: If you have a marketable service, this is a good way to make money. Many people make money by writing articles, Press releases and site reviews for other webmasters. Other people offer coding and web design. 5. Blogging: Blogging can be a fun way to make a lot of money. The way to accomplish this is to first, monetize your blog. You can do this by selling affiliate products, your own products, selling advertising space or placing Adsense like ads on your blog. Also be sure to optimize your blog for the search engines just like you would a website. Next you need drive traffic to your blog and develop a following. Writing press releases, articles, joining forums and pay-per-click, are all ways to get traffic to your blog. Larry McCullough has been marketing and writing on the internet for over 10 years. Owner of various websites http://6fig.com http://clubblogge FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Writing The Next Academy Award Winner by Ray Subs Have you ever thought to yourself after seeing the latest Academy Award winning film that you could write something better than that? You probably could, today anyone has a chance at writing an award winning film, and it’s a game that’s strictly for studios anymore. Just look at Diablo Cody who wrote the Oscar winning film Juno, she was a stripper and blogger before getting her film made. Writing a movie script isn’t that hard once you have an idea that is sure to be a winner. There are a few basic steps to follow to get your idea onto paper and, lucky for us, there is now a lot of help available online to help you get your script critiqued and seen by Hollywood professionals. All plots consist of three simple things, a beginning, middle and end. The beginning is the expository part of the plot, it serves to introduce the major characters, to set the time and place of the film and define the problem which is the heart of any drama or love story. In a movie script there is usually one main hero, the man or woman who the story will revolve around. The hero serves to be the focal point of the film and the audience should find this character interesting and be able to sympathize with his problem, be it finding love or saving the world from ruthless invaders. The time and place where a movie takes place sets the mood and tempo of the film. A modern urban setting means that if it’s an action film, the pace will be fast and the technology will be modern. In a love story, the time and place of a film can be a long-ago romantic drama or an upbeat urban comedy. For scriptwriters, description can be left to a minimum because once the film goes into production; the descriptive elements will be fleshed out by the director and art director. The middle of the script is where the drama happens, this is where the problem faced by the hero climaxes and becomes seemingly insurmountable. A scriptwriter wants to take the characters he’s created and be cruel to them, make their dreams and goals seem impossible. The audience will have connected with the characters by them and this will serve to draw them into the story and pull for the hero to win. The end of the story is where the hero either wins or loses; usually wins because audiences like happy endings. This is where the hero proves himself to the world and saves the day and wins the love of the girl of his dreams. In this portion of the script, the writer must tie up all the loose ends to create a satisfactory ending which answers all the questions and solves all the problems that have been brought up in the plot. Once you have a rough draft plotted out that contains the three main story plot sections, it’s now a good time to have your work looked over by fresh eyes, this is where the internet can come in handy. There are websites that let you post your rough draft online, with all rights protected, to allow other writers, producers and agents look over your work and give you feedback based on their firsthand experience in film production. Once you have the feedback, it’s time to go back and fine tune your script. Remember that writing works in stages; nobody sits down and writes a full length film from start to finish. Get your original idea on paper, set up the basic plot, submit your work for critique, and go back and finish it. It takes a whole crew to film a picture and it takes more than one person to write the script. Ray Subs works with Make’n Movies as a public relations consultant. More information can be found at http://www.makenmovie FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Are You a Novice Author Befuddled by the Complexities of the Publishing World? by Charles Jacobs You struggled for months to hone your new book to a level of perfection that would please even the pickiest literary agent or publisher. But when you proudly offered your masterpiece to the market, you struck out. Some first time authors have broken the barrier and found a publisher, but you haven\'t been that fortunate, and you don\'t know why. Selecting the Best Method to Publish Your Book The publishing world is complex and may seem impenetrable to a start-up writer, but determining the best method to publish your book is not as daunting as it seems Unfortunately, publishing just ain\'t what it used to be. Not too long ago the industry was composed of editors and publishers devoted to the preservation of quality literature. People who would take risks to introduce new talents and new ideas. Sadly, those lofty principles have fallen victim to the new standard – the bottom line. Proud publishers, respected throughout the literary world, have lost their identity and their commitment as they have been swallowed up by huge publishing conglomerates. Today, major publishing houses seldom take risks. They place their money behind sure bets, books about or by show biz celebrities, political figures or other notables, often bypassing highly talented new writers. The Traditional Route Traditional publishing is a three-way partnership between author, literary agent and publisher. The number of layers involved makes this a slow and ponderous process that can take as long as two years before you see your book in print. In addition, many feel it is as difficult to finding an agent as it is finding a traditional publisher, perhaps harder. The national book tours, elegant publication parties and other promotional efforts that were once the hallmark of traditional publishing are now offered only to top level star-studded authors. All the rest of us are expected to finance our own promotional efforts out of meager royalties (usually 5% on net sales), adding strongly to the trend away from traditional publishing. Nonetheless, this is by far the most prestigious method of publishing your book. It makes challenges like obtaining reviews and gaining access to bookstores and book club rolls far easier. If you are willing to wait patiently for your book to come off the press and if prestige is important enough to you to sacrifice control of your book during production, then traditional publishing is the road you should follow. There Are Alternatives A growing number of dedicated smaller publishers have become alternatives to the majors, and are maintaining impressive standards. Just a year ago, the Book Industry Study Group, the prestigious monitor of industry trends, described these independent small publishers as \"sizable and growing with surging numbers.\" In addition, dramatic advances in printing technology over the last decade have spawned a brand new industry, Publishing on Demand (POD). These advances have also made possible cost effective printing for short press runs, and that has opened the door to easy, relatively inexpensive self-publishing. Beginning writers are no longer at the mercy of costly vanity presses that required them to accept large press runs of books that then remained unsold in moldy basements and garages. This fledgling POD industry has finally overcome the stigma that surrounded it in its earliest days when the rest of the publishing world demeaned it and reviewers refused to consider books it produced. With their books beginning to capture awards and reach best seller levels, they have gained substantial respect, and represent a very effective way for a newcomer to publish what you write. If you decide to go this route, study the fine print of your POD contract before signing. Be aware that POD houses promise you total control over your book throughout the publishing process. However, that is not completely true. In the vast majority of cases, the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) belongs to the POD house, not the author, and the entity that owns the ISBN controls all financial aspects of the book. Decisions on key factors like pricing and profit are made by the house, not by you. Making Life Easy Nonetheless, POD offers real benefits to the wannabe author who has never experienced the complexities of publishing a book. The house assumes all the responsibilities of production and basic distribution. In addition to the ISBN and bar codes, the house will obtain a copyright and catalog your book with the Library of Congress. It will produce an attractive cover for the book and format the interior text to equal the quality of books produced by traditional publishers. Once all of the nitty gritty of pre-publication is completed, the house will arrange for printing and list the book with a major distributor. However, don\'t rely on your POD publisher to promote your book. That\'s your job. Stay away from the alleged promotional programs offered for an additional price by POD publishers. They basically add up to nothing more than a release that is essentially ineffective distributed to the press. Self-Publishing More and more authors now choose to follow the self-publishing route. The advances in technology have made doing it yourself a great deal easier and faster than following the traditional route. Excellent books have been published to guide you through the experience. I strongly recommend Dan Poynter\'s classic Self-Publishing Manual and Patricia Fry\'s The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. While one can argue that the prestige of publication by one of the majors is inducement enough, a simple dollars and cents (perhaps better yet dollars and sense) analysis demonstrates how much more beneficial it is to collect all the profit from self-publishing than to receive a minuscule 5% royalty from a traditional house with little or no help on promotional expenses. Today\'s fledgling authors have these four options as they seek to publish their first book: major or independent traditional house, POD or self-publishing. Of course, there are pros and cons when you analyze each of them, so it is important that you understand the process and whether it is suitable for your needs. If prestige is what you seek and you are willing to sacrifice speed in production and minuscule returns, the traditional route is yours to take. If speed is a factor because your book is timely or if you are an unsure beginner, POD may be the answer. If pride of self accomplishment and/or higher profits intrigue you, then perhaps your best choice is self-publishing. Let author Charles Jacobs help you become a published writer. Click onto http://www.retirement-writing.com for free articles and info on his coaching programs. Charles’ latest book “The Writer Within You,” was chosen as a Best Books of the Year by five organizations. It will guide you through writing and publishing your work. Order a discounted copy at http://www.retireandwrite.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS The Thrill of Seeing Your Name in Print by Charles Jacobs Whether you’re a teenager eager to become an author or someone a bit older who chose to retire and write, there is little to compare to the thrill of seeing your byline in your favorite magazine or your name on the cover of a book. That may sound like the impossible, but it’s within the grasp of anyone who can speak the English language, spell adequately well and know at least basic grammar. Of course, you have to know what you’re talking about and compose informative copy. Call on Your Background Begin by thinking of your own experiences. Think of the possibilities they open up. Ideas for articles and books surround you, so it’s often wise to begin by writing on subjects you know and understand. Write about issues you deal with every day. For example: • You’re a housewife. You can easily become an expert on topics like home decorating, a cooking specialty, raising children, perhaps even caring for pets. Your article can be humorous or it can be a highly informative, serious piece. Whatever you choose, first spend some time reading several of the women’s magazines carefully. You’ll be amazed to find that much of the writing is really mediocre. That should give you confidence that you can probably do as well. • You’re now employed. Spend a little time reviewing the trade publications in your field. In many of those, you’ll find the writing is even worse than in the women’s magazines. That’s because editors of trade publications are hungry for new articles that offer worthwhile information to their readers. To these editors, your knowledge of the subject is far more important than your writing skills. • You’re retired and want to write. What a perfect time in your life to begin this new pastime (or career) of retirement writing. A time to reflect on your life and write a memoir. Perhaps you’d like to maintain some contact with your former career. Trade publications would love to hear from you. Better yet, now that you have the time, perhaps you’d like to tackle an entire book, if that has been your dream. However, I recommend starting with a few articles. They can always be expanded into books. Building Your Portfolio There’s no question you are at a disadvantage since you have no portfolio of your work to show an editor. But that doesn’t have to mean you’ve come up against an insurmountable barrier. Periodicals come in many different levels. Generally they are classified by the size of their circulation base, but there are a fair number of specialty magazines that offer a small, but very targeted, readership. And there are lots of community newspapers to help you begin building your portfolio. I strongly suggest starting at the bottom. Think of this as climbing the rungs of a ladder. Begin by offering articles to your community newspaper. After several have been accepted and published, step up to your local newspaper or small regional or town magazine. Clip and save everything you write and publish. Move up the ladder to larger regionals and even to state-wide publications before you tackle a national magazine. A great way to open the door at larger magazines is to write short pieces for the front of the magazine. Most have these, and are often looking for content. Some nationals maintain a regional section where acceptance is somewhat easier for a relative unknown. With that background, you should have little trouble eventually landing a major feature in one of the top publications. Taking the First Step Once you have confidence in your ability, don’t be afraid to take a major step upward. Plan your approach carefully, calling upon your experiences and your accomplishments, as I suggested above. You’ve raised four children, one with dyslexia. Bolstered by a little research, you are a specialist in the way to guide and encourage your child as he/she fights to overcome this disadvantage during school years. Furthermore, you’re a highly experienced parent, and can select a number of different subjects on the issue of child rearing to write about. On paper, chart out the advantages you offer an editor. Expand on each category with a short paragraphs of a few sentences. Sort through all of them, and decide which ones you feel are the most convincing. These are for your own use. Don’t send them to an editor. Head to the library or to your computer and start a search in your subject you’ve chosen. When you feel you have amassed enough information to write well on the subject, refine your thoughts to determine the approach you want to take to make what you write interesting and informative. This is called developing an “angle” or a “hook.” Moving On When all of this is organized and totally clear in your mind, you’re ready to write. In essence, you’ve planned out your entire article either in your head or on paper. I do suggest the latter, at least in your early attempts. That simplifies the writing, and keeps you on track. You know what you want to say, so let the words flow. Don’t stop and puzzle over the way you’ve express each thought. You can always return later and revise. For now, don’t interrupt the “roll” you are on. Since you are just beginning to write, I suggest completing the article before you consider contacting an editor. Later on, you will learn to query an editor with an idea before taking the time to write it completely. But for now, you are going to need the completed article to convince the editor that you can produce what the magazine needs. Where to Publish, Next you must decide where to send your queries and your manuscripts. There are lots of fine directories of magazines and newspapers that you can find in the reference room of your library. I recommend Writer’s Market for start-up authors. It offers a wealth of information that will help you choose the best periodical for your piece. The listings are filed under general categories. Review all of the magazines listed under the topic that best matches yours. Writer’s Market will tell you the right person to contact and how to approach that editor. You will learn which subjects interest the editor, the article length preferred, the pay scale, the waiting period between acceptance and publication and a great deal of other helpful information. If you continue to write, I recommend you buy your own personal copy of Writer’s Market. You may find that writing articles suits your schedule and your desires perfectly. It is an ideal way to expand your knowledge as you write on a wide variety of topics. Many authors whose names are household words have never crafted a book. But they have established great reputations. There’s no reason you can’t join their ranks. Let author Charles Jacobs help you become a published writer. Click onto http://www.retirement-writing.com for free articles plus info on his coaching programs. Charles’ latest book “The Writer Within You,” was chosen as a Best Books of the Year by six organizations. Covers everything you need to know to write and publish your work. Order a discounted copy at http://www.retireandwrit FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS The Interview – It’s Really a Piece of Cake by Charles Jacobs Your research is almost done. Just the dreaded interviews with two experts remain before you start writing your article or book. Like so many other writers, you quiver at the thought of interviewing. I’m not really sure why, but that fear of a one-on-one exchange intimidates almost all novice writers and many who are far more experienced. Even some of the folks who are part of my retire-write programs are intimidated despite the fact that they have conducted interviews time and again during their working years. There seems to be some mystery about talking with an alleged expert that causes so many writers to lose their confidence. Actually, the interview is no more than a discussion between two people, the kind you have every day at work, socializing at a cocktail party or just leaning over the fence and chatting with your neighbor. Think of your interview in terms of a social exchange, a relaxed give and take conversation. You’re seeking some information that the other party has, so it’s a matter of asking the right questions and placing them in a context that’s comfortable and easy for the person you are interviewing. Preparation Is Key As foolish as it sounds, far too many inexperienced authors stumble because they haven’t taken the time to analyze exactly what it is they are seeking from the expert. The success or failure of an interview really depends upon understanding that. The next step is to create a list of questions that address every aspect of the subject. The list has a double purpose. It is the tool to ferret out all of the information you need and to keep the interview on track. As you formulate your list, avoid questions that elicit a simple yes or no response. All of your questions should be “open.” They should require the expert to respond with broad answers. For example, if you ask, “Do you enjoy watching a baseball game?” the answer will be a simple yes or no. But if you ask, “What is it about watching a ballgame that fascinates you?” the answer may go on for several minutes. Contacting Your Expert When you invite an expert to be interviewed, you are complimenting him/her. You’re saying in essence “I think you are important and knowledgeable, and I want to learn from you.” What expert wouldn’t be flattered by that? Furthermore, you are offering your expert exposure. So don’t think of your request as a one-sided arrangement. Both you and your expert will benefit from it. The purpose of your first contact is to schedule a time to meet. Try and arrange for at least an hour together. I much prefer personal one-on-one sessions to interviewing by telephone. But of course, the expert may be located too far away to make that possible. Explain what it is that you are writing, and try to give a very brief but effective picture of your own qualifications to write this so your expert realizes he/she is dealing with a professional, not some unskilled amateur. If you haven’t been able to develop quality contacts from your research or your past experience, finding them is quite easy. Most colleges and universities maintain lists of experts who are available in a wide variety of topics. Contact the public relations department to help you set up interviews. Perhaps you want an expert who is more hands-on than an academician. Head to the local library’s reference room where you will find directories like the Encyclopedia of Associations. It lists 135,000 organizations dealing with many different topics. The organizations will be happy to direct you to experts in their field. The Yearbook of Experts produced by Broadcast Interview Source (www.expertclick.com) is another outstanding source. Face to Face Your goal in the opening moments of the interview is to set your expert at ease. The best way to do this is to learn as much as possible about the person. You might commend him/her for some unique achievement. At the very least, discuss some of the facts you have learned about your expert’s accomplishments and/or interests. Don’t hesitate to take out the list of questions you have prepared. Your guru will be pleased to see you have approached this interview carefully and will not waste his/her time. Ask whether he/she has any objection to taping the interview. Explain that it is a precaution to ensure you don’t misquote in any way. The recorder serves you in several ways. It is an unassailable record of what was said, should your expert ever complain about your article after publication. It also allows you to concentrate on what the interviewee is saying by eliminating the distraction of taking word-by-word notes. However, I urge you to back up the recorder with some general notes on the most important statements of the interview just in case you later discover a malfunction in the recorder. That does occasionally happen. While the original sequence of questions on your list undoubtedly makes a great deal of sense, it is almost inevitable that you will be forced to readjust during the interview as a result of the answers you receive and the probability that your expert will discuss issues you never considered. When all of your questions have been answered, ask your expert whether he/she wishes to add something that has not yet been covered. That might open up a related area or perhaps an angle that you have not considered. Be sure to jot down a reminder of any outstanding features of the expert’s appearance and dress. Take a few notes on the setting in which the interview is being conducted. Injecting these into your article will give the reader a greater sense of being present and a better picture of your expert. As you continue to interview for your writing, you will soon shed any reluctance and come to enjoy this chance to meet fascinating people and expand your knowledge. You’ll also discover that interviewing can be lots of fun. Let author Charles Jacobs help you become a published writer. Click onto http://www.retirement-writing.com for free articles plus info on his coaching programs. Charles’ latest book “The Writer Within You,” was chosen as a Best Books of the Year by five organizations. The complete guide to writing and publishing your work. Order a discounted copy at http://www.retireandwrite.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Headlines Can Make or Break Your Article by Larry McCullough A web based article, with a powerful written targeted headline, will not only improve your search engine ranking for your target keyword phrases but will also attract the right kind of visitor from the search engines. The headlines of your content page must have the ability to attract your visitors. The tips are as follows: Ask questions : Your written headline must be question oriented. In other words, your headline must be in the form of a question so that readers are forced to ask themselves something. You are making a statement which a person will not be able to forget immediately. The reason why I am saying this is because if your headline is in a question form, then it means that you are forcing readers to think. Write several examples of question based headlines for your target audience. For example: 1) Are you tired of your office routine work schedule? 2) Do you want to give more time for your family? The above two questions focus the problem, in front of the target audience. You generally make a headline, even more powerful when a problem is posed in front of the target audience rather than giving the solution. Bringing curiousness: You must add a curiosity factor to your headline. This will get the reader hooked into reading about your offer. Using numbers for explanation is also considered as a powerful medium for convincing a person. You can use numbers to imply more than one reason to read on. For example, you can apply the following sample headlines which are as follows: Want to know 3 simple ways to earn free home base income? Want to know the two free valuable gifts that you get on joining the home base income program? You can apply the above mentioned methods to write powerful, targeted headlines. You will then not only be able to improve your search engine ranking but will be able to attract the right kind of visitors from the search engines too. Offering a solution to the problem: Now, you can then offer a solution to the problem that you have just mentioned before. For example: You can earn home based income and make time for your family and for yourself too. You can visit my website which will teach you steps of earning home based income. The above two examples are for headlines which provide solutions to the present money making issue. Your headlines should be good enough to be able to identify the topic for the content. Also your main content must also be equally good. There are people who play more attention to the content of the written matter. There is never a website without content. Content refers to the text body of the website. A user will not visit your website unless the content in the website is relevant, technical, well articulated and well presented. Doing that always is not easy. You may have the best ideas and technical expertise, but to put that down in words that is easily understandable for the readers and the users may often become a challenge. However, when it comes to the headlines, they may not give more importance. You must never forget that headlines are also equally important. Larry McCullough has been marketing and writing on the internet for over 10 years. Owner of various websites. http://6fig.com http://clubblogger.com and others. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Book Review: Some Kind of Angel – a Sneetz and Muldoon Thriller by Melvin M. Harter by Simon Barrett It is that time of year where you want to stock up on some books to read while on your summer vacation. Some Kind Of Angel might be one to put on your list. Melvin Harter is a retired doctor and Some Kind Of Angel is his debut into the wild world of books. In this book we get acquainted with his main characters Sneetz and Muldoon, and I suspect that we are going to see more of this duo in future books. Gilbert \'Sneetz\' Schnetele is a retired heart surgeon, retired due to a DIY home improvement problem that involved a power saw lopping off a valuable digit. Unable to wield a scalpel he has become a legal/medical consultant evaluating \'on the job\' injuries. Albert Muldoon is an aging weather worn journalist who has seen it all. Young enough to have faced the wrath of McCarthyism, old enough to have survived and thrived. Thrived to the extent that now retired he officially just writes books, unofficially he is part of the President\'s inner circle. A series of multiple killing across the globe occur, there seems to be no connection, but all share some strange similarities, there are no signs of a struggle, the bodies are in perfect, almost mummified condition, and death seems to have been instantaneous. The mystery deepens and takes a much more sinister turn when the President receives what is tantamount to a ransom demand, pull out of Iraq, and everywhere else there is a US armed forces presence, or face mass murder close to home in Washington DC. With no idea what the weapon of mass destruction is, or how it has been delivered, they are in a quandary. Sneetz meanwhile has been retained to look at a death on the job case, a young janitor at a remote Air Force research lab is dead, yet there seems to be no reason for the death. It is by his poking around that he comes to the attention of the US government, and in particular Muldoon. Sneetz is brought into the very close knit family fighting the unknown terrorist group. What will they find? How will they defeat an unknown adversary? Well, you can find out by getting your own copy from Amazon, or by checking out Melvin Harter\'s web site. At 160 pages this is a very quick read, it certainly moves right along though, and there is action on every page. If I had a criticism, it likely would be the length, the plot line is rich, and I think the book could have been another 100 pages longer, in order to explore some of the subplots in greater detail. Book length is a really hard call to make, it is so dependent on the richness of the plot, but this book has that! Some authors on the other hand waffle on until you are ready to disembowel yourself with a plastic butter knife, Tom Clancy is probably the worst offender with his absolutely unreadable Executive Orders, it could have been written in 250 pages and been a fun read, instead he produced a 1000 pages of boring techno yawn. I am looking forward to more Melvin Harter, he has his feet wet now, and I think the future looks bright. As the Shania Twain song says \"Up, Up, Up.\" Simon Barrett is an adult educator in Calgary, Alberta. With the 11 months a year of winter, he reads a lot of books! He is also a contributing editor for http://www.bloggernews.net and maintains a personal blog at http://zzsimonb.blogspot.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Writing in Retirement is an Ideal Way to Share Life Experiences With Your Loved Ones by Charles Jacobs Long before your retiring, you dreamed of becoming a writer. You’re not alone. The Gallup Organization found that 81% of mature adults dream of writing a book. You’ve never attempted more than the basic writing required by your career—letters, perhaps a report, even a grant application. Now at last, as a retiree you have the time to fulfill your long-cherished dream, to begin retirement writing. But the task seems a bit overwhelming. You agonize over how best to start. Sharing the highlights of your life can be most rewarding for either a novice or an advanced writer. It’s a gift your loved ones and close friends will always welcome. Crafting a memoir is an ideal way to venture into the joys of retirement writing. Many wanna-be authors find that creating a memoir is a relatively easy way to begin their writing experience. It doesn’t demand the formality of a novel or play script. The subject matter, if handled with complete objectivity, can replace the need to develop a plot. And it is a comfortable way to reveal your opinions and deep-seated emotions. Integrity and Objectivity After the unpleasant disclosures in recent years of fabrications and distortions in some best-selling memoirs, it is essential that every effort be made to remain objective and completely honest as you recount family histories, describe other characters in your story and write about your own alleged accomplishments. Over time, the human mind tends to forget less pleasant details. You can distort the description of a person or a relationship when seen strictly from your own private point of view. Therefore, it is imperative that you as the memoirist reach out to anyone who has first hand knowledge of the period, event or persons you are writing about. You must also remember that the process of selecting people and events for your memoir is highly subjective. There is no real way to overcome this bias other than to make a concerted effort to strive for objectivity. Expert memoirist Lawrence P Gouldrup, PhD, writes, “As we experience life, we mentally distinguish between those events and personalities that are insignificant trivia and those that have been important and memorable to us….we constantly bring our own private experiences into focus by seeing events and people in certain patterns.” That doesn’t mean, however, that while striving for balance and accuracy, the memoirist shouldn’t add greater depth and meaning to an incident by personalizing its impact. Whether a situation elicited joy, sorrow, anger or raised the writer’s consciousness humanizes the story and invites the reader to empathize with him/her. Whenever it is possible to detail the reactions of others with accuracy, you will strengthen your story still further Getting Started While remembering and sorting out the relevant experiences of your life may seem like an insurmountable task at first, I have counseled a number of successful memoirists to spend one hour or so every day for a week sitting alone and quietly and reaching back for significant memories. Clear your mind completely of distractions, as you would if you were meditating. Reach back for special family events, dinners, holidays, vacations, etc. The recollection of a unique piece of clothing—a dress or suit you absolutely loved when six-years-old—can trigger wonderful memories of the special event at which you wore it. A favorite family food tradition, even the color of your house, perhaps the first day of school. There are so many diverse memories that combine to help you develop the overall theme and story line of your book. Shaping Your Story The next step before finalizing your outline and sitting down to write is determining your audience. Ask yourself these important questions. Will this be a book available only to close friends and family members? Or do you plan to market the book widely? Are you targeting a specific age group that is familiar with the time period in which you set your tale? Is your planned audience composed of members of one sex? A second major consideration is the viewpoint from which you are writing. Are you planning a family history in which you are just one of many cogs in the wheel? Or are you framing the story around your own experiences and making yourself the focal point of the piece? The viewpoint from which you write must be determined before a single word goes into the computer. All of these concerns must be factored into the way you plan your story well before you face your empty computer screen. If you have done your preparation properly and answered these basic questions, you will find that the actual writing of the memoir becomes the proverbial “piece of cake. Researching and preparing the memoir can be done rather easily because the subject matter is so familiar to you. You are writing about YOU, and once you master doing that with balance and objectivity and even a degree of detachment, you will find this exercise a fabulous launch pad for future success as an author. It is an ideal stepping stone to crafting either fiction or nonfiction in the future. Do you need a support system to help jump start your writing career? See what’s available free on http://www.retirement-writing.com. the web site of writing coach and author Charles Jacobs. His latest book “The Writer Within You” is a Best Books of 2007 honoree, a 5-star choice on Amazon, B&N and Borders and a selection of the Writer’s Digest Book Club. Find detailed info and order it at a substantial discount by clicking on http://www.retireandwrite.com Find free articles and eBooks on http://www.retirement-writing.com. the web site of writing coach and author Charles Jacobs. His latest book “The Writer Within You” is a Best Books of the Year honoree. Click on http://www.retireandwrite.com to order it at a substantial discount. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Book Review: Unholy Domain by Dan Ronco by Simon Barrett There are a plethora of sci-fi books that have explored what the Earth would be like after the apocalypse, and generally the apocalypse in question is a nuclear war, or some sort of plague. Unholy Domain takes this genre in a new and very thought provoking direction. One only has to spend a couple of minutes researching the history and growth of the Internet to realize how in the space of just a few years it was woven itself into the very fabric of our world. We have near instantaneous communication via email, we have access to enormous repositories of information, it has become a part of our day to day life. I could not live without it! Unfortunately there is a potential dark side to the technology. Increasingly it is also the backbone used by basic infrastructures, power generation, transportation, law enforcement, and a lot more. There have already been rumblings in the press about what might happen if hackers gained control of a power generating plant, or other basic service. In Unholy Domain Dan Ronco takes us to a world where a decade previously (2010) a virus had decimated the Internet. Because of the disruption to basic services over a million people died. What would the world look like under these circumstances? Dan Ronco takes us to a world that has become a fractured society, the technos and the religious zealots. In the aftermath of the disaster the government has regulated technology, stifling innovation, this has resulted in an economic situation rivaling the great depression. Without advancing technology the world has not just stagnated it has regressed to an earlier time. Technology has become an underground industry, a black market more lucrative than drugs. The technos are run by a shady organization known simply as The Domain. The opposing force are the fanatical Army of God, the paramilitary wing of The Church of Natural Humans. Their leader Adam Jordan is on the outside a charismatic speaker, but is also a man with a single minded hatred for technology and those who would use it. Our hero in Unholy Domain is David Brown, a young student who has the dubious honor of being the son of the man accused of unleashing the deadly virus. When David receives a message sent 10 years previously from his father he begins to have doubts about his fathers guilt and decides to investigate for himself. David is walking a tightrope, he has enemies in high places, neither The Domain, nor the Army of God are enamored by his presence, for different reasons, though one does become his unseen temporary protector with an ulterior motive in mind. This is a fast paced techno thriller which I can pretty much guarantee you will not want to put down, I know I didn\'t! Set close enough in the future (2020) that most of the \'props\' are believable, it paints a dark picture of one potential future scenario for mankind. This is a book that is worth searching out, I liked the style of writing a great deal. Each chapter begins with some quotes, some old and real, other from books yet to be written. A very cute touch. You don\'t have to be a hard core Sci-Fi fan for this one, just a lover of a great story. You can pick up your own copy of Unholy Domain from Amazon, he also has a web site with additional information. Simon Barrett is an adult educator in Calgary, Alberta. With the 11 months a year of winter, he reads a lot of books! He is also a contributing editor for http://www.bloggernews.net and maintains a personal blog at http://zzsimonb.blogspot.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Book Review: El Tigre by John H. Manhold by Simon Barrett There are two very different schools of thought about historical fiction. One school rationalizes that it is an easy genre to write, the plot already exists, all you have to do is put it in your own words. The second school says that this genre is very hard to work in, much of the story line is cast in stone, the author needs to weave his characters into the fabric of the historical facts. I am a member of the latter group, I believe that good historical fiction is very difficult to write. John H. Manhold has done a magnificent job with El Tigre, combining fast action into a very well researched and historically accurate canvas. El Tigre is set in the early and mid 1800\'s and chronicles the life of Johann Heinrich von Manfred, born of Prussian aristocracy at the age of 16 he finds himself without friends, family, or country following an unfortunate event at the prestigious military academy he was attending. We follow Johann on his odyssey of discovery. It takes almost no time before young Johann has his first adventure, assisting a band of Roma that are being blackmailed by an unscrupulous mayor. Then it is on to Spain where he is enlisted in the support of Don Carlos, The Royal Pretender To The throne. He may be young, but he has a natural instinct for the art of war, and rapidly proves his value. Alas his cause becomes a failing one, his patron is killed, and it looks like Don Carlos had a hand in it. Once more he resumes his nomadic quest. Europe seems to offer little in the way of sanctuary and Johann opts for the potential riches of the New World. Starting in Florida and Georgia, Johann first becomes a jailer of Indians, and soon learns the harsh reality of the culture clash between the settlers and the native bands. Unhappy to be part of this inhumanity he next moves to Texas, and once more finds himself embroiled in controversy, this time with the establishment of the Republic of Texas. Problems with Indians, problems with Mexico, Problems with Spain, and even problems with the United States all lead to frustration and bloodshed. Johan however has by now become a seasoned veteran of conflict, and quickly makes a name for himself not only for his fighting abilities, but also his selflessness, along the way earning the respect of all, and the nickname El Tigre (The Panther).It is not long before the tales of El Tigre spread across the land. His final journey is to California, where he discovers ranching, romance, and gold. Has he found he finally found his Shangri-La? While I am not a huge fan of books about the wild west, Manhold has written a captivating novel, and one that will keep you glued to the pages. What I particularly admire is his attention to historical detail. This book was clearly very well, and extensively researched. That combined with a story line that moves at a break neck pace this book should appeal to a very wide audience. Grab yourself a copy of El Tigre from Amazon or from John Manhold\'s web site, you will not be disappointed. (Originally published at Blogger News Network and reprinted with permission of the author, Simon Barrett). Simon Barrett is an adult educator in Calgary, Alberta. With the 11 months a year of winter, he reads a lot of books! He is also a contributing editor for http://www.bloggernews.net and maintains a personal blog at http://zzsimonb.blogspot.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Successful Term Paper Writing Tips and Strategies by Daniel Millions Most likely, every student writes some term papers while in school. These assignments can be interesting and at times can also be stressful or challenging. Learning to write a successful term paper is a useful school skill. Students will simply progress with their writing to write even more papers as their grade level increases. Following directions is important. Some students are so eager to begin the assignment that they do not stop to read the information given by their teacher about the assignment. Some term papers need to be hand written or double-spaced. Other term papers may require that a student use certain resources or even a certain minimum number of resources. By not following the directions, these students can put themselves in danger of not receiving a passing grade on this project. Using top-notch resources for a term paper is something many students should pay attention to. Some students will rush through an assignment and use resources that are quickly at-hand. Sometimes the best resources are ones that they need to locate at the library such as older magazine issues, journal issues or books on the topic. Many research sources can now be found on the Internet as well; however, some schools will not permit students to use this as their primary or only source. Allowing enough time for the assignment is critical as well. Some students are very well organized and begin an assignment the minute they receive it. While others wait until the night before an assignment is due to do it and they rush through it as quickly as they can. Rushing through an assignment often causes mistakes made through simple carelessness. It also does not allow the opportunity for one\'s best work. It can be frustrating that most students today are under the \"homework crunch\" with many assignments due at the same time. Learning to juggle assignments confidently is a skill every student must learn. Writing term papers is often a skill that students become better with as time develops. Learning stronger research skills can make any student become more confident about the term paper project that lies ahead. This is often the top challenge about term papers, which students will comment on. Any student can learn more about researching by visiting the school library and asking for some suggestions on how to researching. Even learning how to research a favorite subject will develop research skills as this student will assist their skills. Teachers use term papers often to gage how students understand the material in class. They also use term papers to measure students writing and research abilities. Term papers are a very popular way for teachers to test students skills. They easily demonstrate students skills in a variety of ways. With some practice, students can learn to become better at term papers. While they may not jump for joy at the sight of a term paper assignment, they will look at this as an opportunity to show that they understand the current class lessons. Term papers are a very useful class tool. http://www.essaytown.com - Term Paper Writing http://www.essaytown.com/subjects.html - Term Paper Topics FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS A Guide to Writing Successful Research Proposals by Daniel Millions Often PhD candidates find that they must write a research proposal. A research proposal is a very important step towards completing your degree and graduation. Successful research is the sign of a keen PhD candidate. One begins the research proposal project with a research hypothesis. This is most often a single sentence. You know you have a \"winning\" research proposal when you can put it into a single phrase or sentence. Your research hypothesis is one, which is an idea or thought that you believe in firmly. It is also one that you are passionate about researching. This is for good reason: the typical research proposal is hundreds of pages long. It makes good sense to select a research hypothesis that gets you excited and that you are intrigued to find the answer to. Many students spend a great deal of time discovering exactly the right research hypothesis. They may discard various research hypothesis statements as they go about this process. Finding the best statement that suits your research is critical, as this directs all of your research and your entire project. There are times you can even begin your research with one research hypothesis and wind up changing your research hypothesis as the research uncovers something else you would like to explore instead. Now that you have found your research hypothesis, you then need to conduct your research. Research is critical to your research proposal. It is important that you follow the appropriate methodology for your school or university. Follow the guidelines that you have been given by your advisor for this project. Different majors also require that you follow various formats for your research. Some majors demand that their students use the APA, American Psychology Association style and others request the Chicago Manual of Style. Using the wrong format for your research is a quick way to have your research proposal turned down, as you are not following the rules. After your research is completed, you will need to confirm that the idea you have come up with have not been explored before by another PhD candidate or student. This is also a critical part to your process. While some students think that a research proposal is simply about your idea, research and then writing -- it is so much more than this. It is also about researching your idea to see if others have thought of this idea before to understand if your idea is truly an original one. Following these steps as they are given by your school is critical to the success of your project. Different schools and universities may give additional instructions for the success of your research proposal. Things such as formatting your proposal or the way you cite your research are just as important as the actual research and your writing are to this project. Writing a research proposal is an exciting step for a PhD candidate. Most consider this a rite of passage. Writing your research proposal can be a bit exciting for some and even a little intimidating. Once this project is completed, you\'ll be Ph.D. http://www.essaytown.com - Term Paper Writing http://www.essaytown.com/subjects.html - Term Paper Topics FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How to Write a Product Review by Elizabeth Mcgee Writing a product review is by far the best way to endorse or promote a product or service. Whether it is your own product or one that you promote, writing a candid, personal review is what most often makes the sale and sets you apart from other, less ambitious marketers. Of course, it goes without saying that the best product review comes from someone who has personal experience with the product. Having used a product yourself makes your endorsement much more believable and your review will reflect that. Among other things a good product review will note how well the product delivers on its promises, how well it achieves its goals and if it’s really a good value. Here are a few additional tips that will help you write a product review that is not only persuasive but also gives the reader useful information: 1. This Is Not A Sales Pitch First of all, a product review should never be “salesy” or full of hype, instead, include honest to goodness feelings, benefits and considerations. 2. Use a friendly, relaxed writing style Write as if you\'re writing a letter to a friend. Keep it simple, light and in your own words. If you were talking to your neighbor or friend about a product you purchased, you wouldn\'t be making a sales pitch; instead you would be telling them just what you experienced. 3. Clearly and Accurately Describe the Product or Service This should be about what the product does and how it works. Include features and benefits but keep your focus on the benefits. You can include itemized features but for anyone promoting other people’s products, describing the features is better left for the product’s sales page. Your audience is better served by highlighting the benefits and how the product helped you personally. 4. Promote with Authority and Experience If you are experienced in your trade or business and are promoting a product related to your business, then remind your readers of who you are and how long you\'ve been in your position doing what you do. This gives credence to why your opinion matters and it will carry more weight. 5. Highlight the problems and Build up the solution If you’re promoting a product that resolves a problem, try describing the problem by building emotion around it by making the reader feel the discomfort of the problem. Once you’ve made your viewer feel the pain, so to speak, then begin to show them how the product can come to their rescue. For example, let\'s say you\'re promoting article submission software. Begin by describing in some detail the problems and obstacles you’ve encountered when submitting articles manually. Include points that your reader can really relate to like all the work involved, the additional time required and the hardships those problems presented. If you can, include a personal story that your reader can identify with. Once you’ve described the problem and built emotion with your reader, begin to introduce the product and how it has resolved those problems for you. This is very effective in getting your reader to feel the pain and then appreciate the solution. 6. Use Product Comparisons Product reviews work very well when comparing products or services. For example, you may have used two or three similar products but perhaps you found one product stood out among the rest. Writing a comparative review of these products by making a clear distinction on how they differ and noting the benefits works very well. If you can be clear on the differences and be specific as to why you liked one product over the other, you can often tip potential buyers into actually making a purchase. 7. Describe exactly who the product is for Clearly describe what type of person or business might use the product. If the product or service requires a particular knowledge or prerequisite before purchasing, be clear about that. Your viewers won’t be misled and they will appreciate your honesty. 8. Describe what you Don’t Like A good product review isn’t all perfect and wonderful. That’s not realistic, there’s always room for improvement. Of course the improvements should be minor and not impact the use or effectiveness of the product, however touching on small imperfections gives your review a more realistic approach. Again, your readers will appreciate your candid honesty. 9. In Conclusion Sum up your experiences and thoughts on the product. How has the product or service added to your bottom line? Did the product deliver on its goals and promises? Was it a good value for the money? If the product offers a free trial, free shipping or money back guarantee, include those items as well. 10. Offer a Final Incentive Once your product review is completed, it’s a nice touch to close with a discount or coupon offer. If you are promoting someone else’s product, check with the product creators and ask if they have any offers you can place in your review. This is often a nice incentive to help potential buyers make the purchase. In summary, your goal in delivering an effective product review is to give your reader as much honest, realistic information on how the product or service will help them by showing how valuable it’s been for you. Elizabeth is a seasoned internet marketer focused on helping anyone interested in building a home internet business by providing free marketing advice, marketing product reviews, free courses and motivation at http://www.homenotio FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Taking Blogging to a New Level by Larry McCullough Gone are the days when blogs used to be more of personal diaries – of random thoughts and ramblings. Today, we all know that blogging is a good source of income. How? Well it’s simple! Write relevant content, generate traffic for your blog and earn money through advertisements. Although it reads simple, is it really that simple? There are millions of blogs floating in this virtual world. What makes your blog so special that people would visit your blog again and again? It’s also not just about having loyal visitors, it’s also about generating new traffic. How do you do that? Here are some tips on blogging – how to keep it interesting, keep it growing and how to ensure a regular traffic and keep building on that. Choose a topic that is of relevance to you. Something that you understand and are confident about. You can generate dependable content for the topic and will be considered a knowledgeable source for the relevant topic. Such topics could be as simple as gardening, plumbing or even political discussions – anything that may interest you. Present your information in a lucid, easily understandable way. Your reader should find interest in what you are writing. Break the information into smaller chunks for easier comprehension. Try and avoid long sentences and flowery language. Keep your blog up-to-date. Keep a tab on the latest happenings in your field. Share your opinion and guide the reader. Provide relevant links and associate information portals in your blog entries. Visit other blogs and leave relevant comments. Your opinion should be interesting and helpful for the blog writer. This will generate not just the writer’s interest to visit your blog but also that of the readers of the blog. Just as you are advised to leave comments at the same time, ensure that you respond to the comments received in your blog entries as well. It is important that you build a social network. Have your blog registered with Search Engines – people should be able to find it through the most popular search engines. More the visibility, steadier is the flow of traffic to your blog. Remember to advertise your blog in different forums, forums that discuss same interests as your blog. Let your friend circle know – mail them regularly about the updates in your blog, encourage them to subscribe to your blog. If your content is good, people will be interested in your blog. Once you make your mark, you can start writing for others or jointly publish content with someone else. This has given visibility to many bloggers in the past. There are incidents where bloggers have been picked up by publishing houses, newspapers and magazines to write for them. The opportunities in the field of blogging are enormous – it is something that one enjoys doing and also earns something out of it. If you keep the above tips in mind, chances are you will start generating revenue from your blog very soon. Larry McCullough has been marketing and writing on the internet for over 10 years. Owner of various websites. http://6fig.com Blog: http://clubblogge FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS A Guide to Writing a Good Research Proposal by Daniel Millions If you are at University reading a degree or a PhD then at some point you will be expected to write a lengthy dissertation as a part of your studies. To achieve this it will be necessary to prepare a research proposal. A research proposal is a short document designed to provide a detailed outline of your project. Although it can appear daunting if you have not attempted a proposal previously, if you take the time to understand what is expected of you and then logically explain each step then you will be able to write an acceptable research proposal. This article will help to explain what is expected in the proposal and how you should attempt to structure it. The purpose of a research proposal is to help the tutor establish some key areas of your dissertation. Primarily, the paper needs to demonstrate that you have a purposeful research question and that you have a firm understanding of the literature that surrounds the question. You need to be aware of all the major debates related to the topic and provide a convincing need to ask the proposed questions. Most Universities will also need to be convinced that the research question can be suitably matched with a member of the academic staff that has the relevant knowledge. Finally, the paper must produce a reasonable plan of action for the duration of the proposed research and an estimated completion date. With all this in mind, you need to consider the following questions. Why is my research question relevant to the current debate and how will I develop my argument? To address this you should structure the proposal using the following headings. Title: This is obviously an important part of the process. You need to engage the reader with a short, relevant title that clearly demonstrates what the problem is and why this is important. Abstract: This should be a few short paragraphs that identifies the key questions above about the importance of your research question. Make sure that you are able to relate the specific question to the general discipline. Literature Review: After you have established the importance of the question, you need to provide a comprehensive understanding of the research that has been carried in the field to date. It is important that you fully demonstrate your knowledge of the topic as this will allow you to argue the need for your specific research. The Research Question: Having argued the need for further research, you should then write down the clear hypothesis of the study. Clearly define what the purpose of the research is and the goals that you intend to achieve. Methodology: This is a critical part of the research proposal. You need to identify how you plan to carry out the research and discuss any potential problems. The methods used will vary from project to project, but should demonstrate knowledge of the relevant techniques. You need to explain how you plan to record data and how that data will be analyzed. Ethics: Dependent on the subject, you may need to address any possible issues related to ethics. These may be simply ensuring that you have consent to use certain data for your project. Timeframe: You should provide a brief outline of the estimated time needed to complete each section of the research. Bibliography: Finally, you need to provide a brief bibliography of the reading that you have done at this stage of the project. This should not be a wish list, you must only include resources that you have genuinely used and reference them according to your university\'s guidelines. http://www.essaytown.com - research paper writing http://www.essaytown.com/proposal_research_proposals.html - research proposals FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How to Find Research Paper Writing Topics by Daniel Millions Just about every student discovers that they must write a research paper while they are in school. The research paper is a way for teaches to confirm that students are learning what they are supposed to while in their class. A research paper is also an excellent way to encourage students to take on independent research on a topic that interests them. As you write a research paper, consider how you can make your paper as original as it can possibly be. There are many common subjects that someone would write about when it comes to writing about Shakespeare\'s Romeo & Juliet. This popular tragic romance is one that many people know. To stand out from the crowd, think of how you could make your paper unique and special. Start this thinking from the very beginning as you select your thesis statement. Try to take a different way of thinking about the material. Look for unusual research sources. Your teacher will be impressed with your hard work and originality. The first step to writing a research paper is to create a thesis statement. Your thesis statement is simply something that your research paper will attempt to prove. Sometimes during the course of your research, you discover that your thesis statement will not be proven to be a positive statement. If this is the case, you can speak with your teacher and tell them what your research has uncovered and ask them if you can change your thesis statement. Many teachers are pleased that you are working hard to do the research for your research paper and they will be happy to have you change this statement. They will be interested to learn about your research and most likely will ask you some questions about how you performed your research. When writing a research paper an important step is doing your research. It is critical to pay attention to any guidelines your teacher has given about what type of resources you must use. If the teacher has said, \"please do not use the Internet\" then you must obey this. If the teacher has said \"no magazine articles\" then you must follow this instruction. By not paying attention to the instructions, you are putting your grade at risk, even if your research paper is excellent. Take the time to read the instructions carefully to be sure you following them to the letter. Once you have done your research, it is time to organize your research. There may be certain research you would like to begin your research paper with. Try to create some type of outline using the research you have collected. While you may have created an original outline for your paper, your outline after you have done your research may be a bit different. Organize your paper with the research well in mind. You want the structure of the paper to compliment the research and hard work you have done. You want to be able to show off the research skills you have learned in class and the information that you have found. Very often, how you have done the research is part of your grade. Learning how to write a research paper simply takes practice and skill. Once you have mastered research techniques you will feel more confident with how to write this type of paper. Research papers are an important part of any students learning process in school. http://www.essaytown.com - research paper http://www.essaytown.com/subjects.html - research paper topics FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS What\'s a Diva: Demon or Darling? by Shelley G. Anderson The Encarta Encyclopedia defines the word diva as a spoilt brat, attention-seeker, show-off or bragger. Derived from the Italian, the word diva used to mean \"goddess\" or \"exceptional female singer\" but over the years the word has become known in popular culture to describe a very difficult, hard to handle woman or man. Wikipedia calls a diva \"manipulative, highly strung, privileged and demanding. He or she does not believe the law and accepted rules of courtesy apply to him or her.\" Another designation I would add is prima donna. Just for fun, I decided to see what my computer search engine would come up with when I typed in the word diva. Not surprisingly, the first names to pop up in the MSN Search were Celine Dion, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Barbra Streisand, Mariah Carey, Maria Callas and Luciano Pavarotti! The people listed are all definitely known for being fussy and perhaps even fiendish. I\'ve worked in the entertainment business for a long time, both in front of the footlights and behind them, and encountered my share of divas, to be sure. However, even if you don\'t work in the theatre or the diva populated worlds of film, television, or opera, I\'m sure you have a diva or two you\'ve run across. Sitting at my hairdresser\'s one morning, the lady next to me found out that I was writing about divas, and remarked: \"I could use some advice about my teenage daughters. They\'re both divas and impossible to handle!\" People talk to me about their kids, mother-in-laws, ex-wives, and bosses. But are all divas demons? I think it\'s a mistake to lump all the divas of the world into one category. I agree that the great soprano Maria Callas was known to be a very demanding lady, but what a glorious voice she had! I personally knew the lovely opera diva Beverly Sills. Did you know that her nickname was Bubbles? Does that sound like a name for a fiendish diva? She was one of the kindest ladies I\'ve ever met. Divas get a bad rap because many strive for perfection. That\'s where the line between nice gal and conceited maniac get blurry. The following story about tenor Luciano Pavarotti is a perfect example: A number of years ago Luciano took a limousine to an opera house where he arrived to sing that night. He instructed the driver to return at a designated spot and time after his performance. The driver complied. Because the singer had to greet his fans after the opera was over, he didn\'t reach the limousine until late into the night. When Luciano finally arrived, walking in the crisp, icy evening air to the limousine, he immediately chastised the driver for not having the car warmed up. The driver was shocked at the prima donna\'s outrage, but the singer quickly explained: \"I expect to ride in a warmed up car as my voice is my career and without it I am nothing.\" What seemed like a tantrum, and indeed, it was a tantrum, was justified. I\'m not saying that those divas we love to read about in the magazines aren\'t sometimes over the top with their demands. Jennifer Lopez use to demand that her dressing room only be decorated in all white. That included the walls and any rugs, chairs, and flowers. Rock musicians ask that all brown M&Ms be removed from their candy dishes or they won\'t go on stage. The list goes on and on. But I do understand the demands on many divas to perform as close to perfection as possible. We the public have put celebrities on a pedestal, making it almost impossible for them not to eventually fall. No wonder they are picky and grumpy. You would be too if your every move was I say give the divas of our lives a break. At least until the next tantrum which we will then be psychoanalyzing on national television until the cows come home. I love the freedom of the press! Shelley G. Anderson is the personal assistant to self-help author Louise L. Hay, and writes the column Dear Miss Know It All. She is the author of Dealing With Divas: A Survivor\'s Kit for the Celebrity Personal Assistant (or Anyone with a Pushy Boss). To learn more about her, visit http://www.dealingwithdivas.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How I Entered the Book Market by Yuan-tsung Chen In this article, I would like to recall how I got my manuscript through to the publisher\'s desk. First, of course, I had to write a saleable book, a book that could attract a broad readership. Many of the historical events described in my book, RETURN TO THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: One Family, Three Revolutionaries, and the Birth of Modern China, have been recorded in numerous books and articles. Reading them helped me form the big picture, and through the family history my late husband, Jack, recounted to me, I found each of the Chens\' place in this big picture. My task was to let the readers see them as real people, real human beings, warts and all, whom the readers can identify with. This also applies to the supporting characters in this story, including historical figures such as Chiang Kaishek and Zhou Enlai. Some of them I knew, some of them I got to know through talks with my family and friends who had known them and some of them were described to me by Jack. Throughout the book, I present revealing anecdotes about these supporting characters, so they could spring to life and become three-dimensional. By blending biography with history in this way, I believed I could make the characters and places come alive, and dramatize the facts, so the book would read like an intriguing history fused with an extraordinary three-generation family saga. Second, it is important to work with a literary agent who sees something in what I intend to write. My agent, Regina Ryan, is based in New York, a fact I consider important. New York is the center of publishing world. She was the one to guide my manuscript to a publisher whom she thought most suitable for my book. It was not plain-sailing. My manuscript nearly got drowned in a storm when the first publisher who accepted it suddenly went out of business. I could not possibly salvage it since I knew next to nothing about the publishing world. It was Regina who finally negotiated my manuscript out of the first publisher and found a new, good home for it. At some stage I needed to work with an editor. Again Regina knew which editor might like my type of book and put me in touch with Michael Denneny. Michael started by helping me write the book proposal. A good book proposal is key to a publisher\'s door. During the process of writing the book proposal, I discovered Regina had found me an editor with whom, for the most part, I could see eye to eye. Michael helped me articulate my intention and coached me with understanding, imagination and skill. As soon as the manuscript reached its final destination, Regina advised me to buy a few how-to books about publicity. Publicity is essential to making the book sell, and I take it very seriously. I decide to do my best bit, although my publisher is really pushing for my book. Nowadays, internet campaign is king, and I use it to spread the information about the new book as far and as wide as I can. Yuan-tsung was born in China, and immigrated to USA in 1972. Her first book, THE DRAGON\'S VILLAGE, (was published by Pantheon, and) its Penguin paperback sells an average of 3,000 copies per year since 1981. Her latest book (nonfiction), RETURN TO THE MIDDLE KINGDOM, is now available through the Union Square Press of Sterling Publishing. Visit http://www.yuantsungchen.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Give Us This Day by B.L. Lindstrom About three or four years ago I worked a contract that required me to drive through a less than desirable part of town. One particular freeway underpass housed the man I would later come to know as Harley. I think Harley was about my age, maybe even a little younger. He certainly could not have survived these conditions if he were much older than 50. He had lost most of teeth. He couldn\'t seem to stand fully erect and when he walked to a car to accept a hand out his movement was restrained as though each step towards the charity caused him physical and emotional pain. In the 30 seconds or so that one must endure witnessing these daily dramatics, I would think about giving something to the guy. But it always seemed the light would change before this bedraggled weary figure could reach my vehicle. Sometimes I would wave and enunciate a \"Catch ya next time\" as I drove passed him. But mostly, it saddens me to say, I would just try to put the whole image behind me. Finally, after about two months, I got up the courage to actually try and interact with Harley. IF the stop light gods would just position me appropriately, I was going to hand him a twenty dollar bill. I approached the underpass and sure enough the light went from green to yellow to red placing me first in the line of potential donors. I rolled down the window and Harley came up to me, smiling a hideous but somehow engaging toothless grin. I extended the twenty but Harley pulled back. \"Oh no brother, that\'s too much\" he said. \"No, it\'s not. Please take it!\" I insisted. \"I can\'t my friend. I just don\'t need that much,\" he replied. \"What do you mean? Come on, I want to help,\" I retorted. Just then the light changed and Harley stepped back onto the curb out of reach. \"God Bless you brother! You better get going. Five\'s my limit,\" he said as he held up the five gnarled fingers of his right hand. Cars began to honk at me so I had to drive away. How could this guy turn down twenty bucks? I thought about stopping my car and walking back to talk to him, but there was really no place close enough or safe enough to pull over. Besides, it would have made me late for work. So I resolved that tomorrow, I would just give this guy four fives. Clearly, he was too addled to know it was the same as a twenty. The next day came and the lights were with me again. I held out the four fives to the approaching Harley, he pulled one of them from my hand and said, \"That will get me a meal and night in the shelter. God Bless you brother!\" \"Well, take them all so you can have 3 more nights in the shelter!\" I replied. Harley stopped smiling, took on a more professorial air and pronounced, \"I couldn\'t do that. If I die tomorrow then you will have wasted all that money. You just give the rest to somebody who needs it today.\" Over the next few weeks, I managed to get about a half dozen more fives into Harley\'s hand then he wasn\'t there anymore. I figured he had found a better spot to collect his daily allowance. When the homemade cross appeared at the intersection with the words, \"God Bless You Harley,\" I knew I was right. B.L. Lindstrom is a highly paid and sought after systems janitor and author in multiple media. His latest communications can always be found on his Blog Authorian Adventures in the Ether, http://www.SoIWroteThisBook.com. If you want to know more about his work you can visit http://www.BLLindstrom.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Some Article Marketing Tips 4U by David O Connell Article marketing has turned out to be the most promising tool in today’s online home based business. Marketing with quality article is crucial for online business success and helps to drive massive amount of traffic to a web site. A beneficial marketing strategy is to provide quality articles in a web site and submitting them to article directories. Having quality articles is one of the most significant powerful tools to attract large number of readers to a site. With the help of articles, a web site owner can drive much traffic to the web site, get high ranking in major search engines and thus, boost the site earnings. Article marketing is not merely writing articles and posting them on blogs or web sites. An article has to be effective, easy to read and understand, have attention-grabbing headline, interesting content and regular prospective readers. However, if a site owner posts articles just for the sake of posting content and the articles do not have any interesting points, the site is of no use. Tips for Article Marketing: Below discussed are effective article marketing tips that a web site needs to consider for long-term benefits and drive massive amount of traffic generation: Use Effective Keywords: While writing article, it is essential to use targeted keywords. Usually, readers look for something more specific and type those keywords in search engines, which are simple and sound familiar. Hence, articles need to have simple and familiar wordings or phrases to target customers. Write articles related to the web site. For instance, if a site is all about dogs and dog training, then include articles about pets, dogs and methods of training. However, do bit of research for beneficial keywords, before writing articles. Check Keyword Density: Keyword density is crucial for the search engines to accept the articles. After finalizing the keywords for an article, it is necessary to use them effectively. It is highly beneficial to have a keyword density between 10% and 15%. For instance, if the article is of 500 words, then keywords need to appear at least 10 to 15 times. Excessive amount of keywords look like spamming and fail to attract more number of readers. On the other hand, search engines ignore articles having little amount of keywords. Hence, use keywords efficiently, so that not only search engines recognize the articles but also, readers find them informative. Good quality Content: In article marketing, content plays a crucial role in driving massive traffic generation. Write good quality content articles and make them more interesting, so that readers after reading once, come back to that site time after time. Informative articles also help to gain the trust of readers and increase traffic, resulting in an increase in the sales and earnings. Overview: While submitting an article to the article directories, remember to include a web site link at its end. If the article is very informative and accurate, readers will certainly click on the web link and buy the promoted product. To sum up, article marketing is one of the most beneficial ways to attract the traffic flow, gain the confidence of customers and earn good amount of money. David O Connell: How to write high quality articles fast and turn them into high residual incomes http://www.articlewritingsecrets.net/ Auto Submit your articles to over 4,100 article directories and sites http://www.marketer.top5submitter FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Explode Your Profits With Small Reports by Elizabeth Mcgee Because the internet is the primary tool people use to find information, offering an information product and promoting it online is truly an ideal way to build wealth. So think about this, if you have precisely the information someone needs, they will buy it. Now, you may be thinking that writing reports takes time, research and energy and that\'s true, but we’re not talking about creating a 300 page book, this is about creating a small but comprehensive 10-20 page report, and the truth is ...it makes money like nothing else! The reason it works so well is because you are giving people information they are interested in. People are always in need of how to do things themselves, how to resolve problems, how to find more time, how to save more money or how to feel better. If you can resolve these issues and others like it, you are in business. Small reports can also be used as valuable marketing tools. They can be given away as a free add-on bonus, product promotions or as an incentive for a newsletter or ezine sign-up. If you\'re beginning to see the potential that small reports can give you with regard to profiting online, then keep reading for some essential tips on how you can get started. 1. Find a Topic Think about problems people encounter every day. How-to or do-it-yourself books are very popular. For example, things like how to sell your own home, how to get into the stock market safely, how to buy a computer, etc. Create a small report that addresses a problem and then provide a realistic solution on how to resolve it. Don\'t let your lack of experience or knowledge become a deterrent, you can always have your document written for you. Remember this is something you will do once and sell forever, the cost of having it written for you will pay for itself many times. 2. Get Ideas on What to Write Once you have a topic, you need to come up with ideas on what to write about. It helps to talk to others for ideas. This can be friends, relatives or business partners. Simply ask people what they would be most interested in knowing about regarding your specific topic. In addition to getting ideas from others include your own personal knowledge or personal experiences that might contribute to your information. For additional information pick up a book or two on the topic, collect ideas, visit topic related forums or set up an interview with an expert. 3. Get Organized You won\'t get far if you are not organized. Getting organized means outlining the focus of your report and what the message is that you want to deliver. Next, create and order the categories you will be covering. Determine what research you will be doing and conduct it in an orderly fashion. 4. Create an Outline Don\'t be so eager to begin writing that you don\'t organize your thoughts. Begin by jotting down ideas and then organize them into a logical flow. Don\'t think about writing perfectly at this point. Simply jot down ideas. As you begin to write your report you will easily be able to create a paragraph or two for each idea. 5. Have a Unique Approach Don\'t worry about competition; many writers are in very competitive markets. What sets them apart is their unique approach or their angle? For example, how can you present your information in your own unique way? Perhaps you offer cheaper or faster solutions or perhaps you offer more personalized service. Stress your benefits and give your audience a reason to buy from you. They need to feel that you are their best source for whatever it is they are looking for. 6. Provide Quality Information Create a report that delivers quality. Your report may have a cost value but it should also have a worth value and it should be worth more than it costs. More simply put, always deliver value first. Don\'t fill a report with information that can be found anywhere or is common knowledge. Deliver information that a reader can use. Personal tips, secrets or handy and unusual ways to do things are what benefits the reader. If you provide information that a reader can get anywhere or offer secrets that are not really secrets, your credibility will be tarnished and your refunds will be more than your sales. 7. Spread the Word Once you have created your report it\'s time to spread the word. Here are several great ways to promote your report. They are all fairly easy to implement and are designed to generate lots of traffic for your report. - Your Ezine If you publish an ezine, promote your report to your subscriber list on a periodic basis. - Forums Include a link to your report in your signature file on your favorite forums, and then every time you make a post it will include the link to your free report. - Your Website and/or Blog Display your free report on each page of your website or blog. You can also create a free report that you can use to encourage people to sign up for newsletter, ezine or opt-in list. If you have a blog, make occasional posts promoting your free report. - Your eBay Auctions Use a free report as an incentive to get visitors to bid on your eBay auctions. - Articles If you write articles, include a text link in your byline that directs your readers to your report. This is an excellent way to bring free traffic to your site and get your report in front of thousands of readers. - Your Email Signature File Whoever you send emails to, personal or business include a P.S. that contains a link to your report. - Your Social Networking pages Create profiles on your favorite social networking pages that include a link to your report. - Get Others to Help You Promote Create an affiliate program for your report and offer a percentage for each sale. This is a perfect way to encourage others to promote your report and increase sales tenfold. Don\'t underestimate the income and marketing potential of creating small reports. But the best part is, you do the work once and reap the benefits forever. For more tips on writing internet content, creating small reports and ebooks, visit http://www.homenotion.com/writers_corner FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Market Your Articles to Increase Sales by David O Connell Article marketing is successful on the World Wide Web through supply of information. With many new businesses plying on the Internet recently, competition has become stiff. It is indeed a challenge to market any business online, which is likely to generate a prospective audience to it. Article marketing has to be in such a way so it pulls readers attention to the writer\'s web site. It is essential to advertise articles capable of drawing target audience to that site for valuable information on particular topics. The prospective readers are ones you may persuade to enter a business. People engaged in article marketing need to submit their articles to different article sites. Write on a particular business and make sure that information is informative and updated. Avoid hype in writing. Benefits: Article marketing has in store enough benefits for business owners who use this marketing strategy. From increased visibility on the Internet, to better rankings on the search engine, article marketing aims at promoting products, services, and programs of online businesses having limited marketing budget. Its benefits are as below: 1. Helps to build goodwill: Some business owners believe that revealing too much information, reduces credibility of their goods and services. Thus, they restrict their product knowledge to themselves. Writers, who provide enough information to readers on a particular product or service, are likely to gain attention for such services in future. The writer has to build a rapport with the customers through the supplied content and hence, the content has to be a masterpiece. 2. Favorable SEO effect: SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization, intends to make a web site frequently accessible for search engines. This enables the site to be indexed, found and shown for users performing a key-word specific search. SEO involves many techniques such as on-page and off-page. Article marketing has emerged as an important SEO tool, since it allows the user to combine the usage of keywords and associated links for better rankings for the web site. An author submitting an article on any online directory may choose to include an author biography or a resource box. A writer may also add a link to the web site within the resource box. The added link is sure to attract readers to that site and generate traffic. The writer may also use HTML for formatting the links so the same appear as a part of keywords. 3. Assists in maintaining credibility: Article marketing offers both name and fame and boosts the credibility of the writer. A writer needs to make available quality and concise information on products and services to attract large number of buyers to the web site. If a web site is successful in gaining prospective visitors, credibility of that site is likely to improve as never before. Overview: Article marketing is perhaps the most ignored concept in Internet marketing. Entrepreneurs spend inexhaustible amount of money in advertisements and other expensive methods. However, article marketing helps to attract huge traffic and is very affordable because individuals do not have to shell huge sum on it. Simply writing the articles and posting them in different sites, starts boosting the sale of the products almost immediately. David O Connell: How to write high quality articles fast and turn them into high residual incomes http://www.articlewritingsecrets.net/ Auto Submit your articles to over 4,100 article directories and sites http://www.marketer.top5submitter FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Join the Article Submission Craze and Get Your Articles Out There! by Daryll Bennett Article submission sites are a great way to generate extra traffic to your website. By submitting your article to article submission sites you also increase the back links to your website. This is a great way to get more notice to your website by the search engines. Search engines crave new content and popular content. If your website has a bunch of articles that all link back to your website or products on your website you increase your exposure. By submitting your article to the article directory websites it allows others to copy your article and include it in their website for content. This gives you more back links to your website for sharing the content. By doing this your are helping to put your website marketing on auto pilot. Your article will get published on more and more sites creating a never ending stream of fresh back links. If you are looking to build quality traffic to your website you should seriously consider writing an article about your niche and linking it to your website. By sharing your knowledge about the topics in common with your website you will be rewarded with new traffic because you are establishing yourself as an expert in your area. Article submission is just one of the many things you should be doing to increase your websites popularity in the world of (SEO) search engine optimization. Quick tips on submitting articles: 1> Make sure you follow the sites rules when submitting an article. 2> Do not use all CAPITAL letters, it is like yelling at someone. 3> Do not use affiliate links in your article, this is a huge No No on most sites. 4> Don\'t copy other peoples articles and say that you wrote them. 5> Do not flood your articles with links, 2 or 3 links at most is generally acceptable, usually at the bottom of the article. 6> Proof read your articles and check for grammar and spelling. Grammar and spelling mistakes are a HUGE turn off to most people and make you look incompetent to them. 7> Make sure you are using search engine optimized terms to describe the product or service you are writing about. This will increase the chances your article has of being found. 8> Submit your article to as many sites as possible, you should try for 5-10 per week. 9> Double check your article before you submit it! 10> Double check your article before you submit it! This was intentionally repeated as once you submit your article and it gets indexed by the search engines it is difficult to get changed. Almost impossible if you are using and automatic submission service that submits your article to hundreds of sites. For ideas on how to write a good article that is search engine optimized see our website: http://www.article-knowledge-base.com/?q=submitting+articles&page=search. You can get started right now by submitting your article to our website here: http://www.article-knowledge-base.com/submit-articles.htm. Feel free to redistribute this article as much as you like, keeping the resource links intact. Your one-stop source for free articles. Do you need content to add to your web site? Or articles for use on your opt-in newsletters and e-zines? http://www.Article-Knowledge-Base.com has a huge collection of articles on various subjects. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Article Marketing: What\'s it All About? by David O Connell Article marketing is all about writing brief articles related to any industry and further submitting those articles to distribution forms and article sites. The writer may finally include a bio piece in the article, revealing personal and professional identity and a link to the web site. The bio piece will auto include itself if anyone uses the article on their web site. The writer needs to avoid revealing too many secrets or tips but has to make sure that the articles are helpful and informative. This increases the chance of prospective readers visiting the web site frequently for information on particular topics. The purpose of marketing articles is to draw new customers to a web site. Spam filters are no more a cause of worry since customers now directly come to the web site. Article marketing is an assured means for building confidence in the minds and hearts of the target audience. Importance: Hardly anyone doubts article marketing as a successful technique of online marketing. It aims at marketing a product for a business and building traffic for blogs or sites. It is a marketing strategy, which sends either a piece or a big group of articles on the Internet. The writer has to be good enough in expressing the opinions and expertise clearly, which may pass on and on around the Internet. Article marketing is easy for bloggers writing their own contents. When a writer updates a blog in their own writing on a regular basis, it is supposed that the person has a flair for writing. It is possible to write articles of 300-600 words on a daily basis. A lazy writer may even hire a ghostwriter who writes at a low cost and maintains the content quality throughout the article. Articles having the intention of marketing need not be of superior quality as in case of guest blogging. The articles have to provide information, which is to the point and does not appear as a sales copy. The motive is traffic building. Article marketing surely calls for hard work and strong determination. As such, chances are, most beginners either quit writing or get them on another fad in the process. Internet marketers are familiar with the idea that potential buyers act on good content. Hence, the content has to be information specific, attracting more readers to it. Article marketing depends largely on pulling crowd to a web site by putting across a message. It makes available the right information for the target audience without any hype. Honest Marketing: Article marketing is a white-hat method, which search engines notice. It reaches the target market. If newsletter and web site owners publish the articles, the articles get relevant links that take these back to the web site of the writer. The business works for many. It is affordable and possible for any business no matter how big or small it is. Share knowledge on the Internet with people at the other end and get established in writing. Make available informative content on the web and double the chances of generating prospective readers to it and expanding the business. All online business owners would be wise to, and do very well to take a closer look at Article Marketing and implement this marketing technique on a consistent basis. David O Connell: How to write high quality articles fast and turn them into high residual incomes http://www.articlewritingsecrets.net/ Auto Submit your articles to over 4,100 article directories and sites http://www.marketer.top5submitter FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Learn How to Write a Book Report by Daniel Millions Many students discover that they must write a book report while in school. While some inwardly groan at the task of writing a book report on Johnny Seagull, writing a book report is an opportunity to express your opinions and also to become a more effective writer. The smart student knows that book reports are very much a part of their education. Writing a great book report doesn\'t have to be difficult. The first step to writing a book report is to follow any instructions given by the teacher or instructor. Some teachers give a specific page length or word count. They may also give a list of questions that they would like addressed within the book report itself. The teacher always gives a \"due date\" for the book report and to ignore this would be to also not follow the instructions. Reading the book for the book report is also important. While this may seem like a very simple statement: it isn\'t. Some students have been known to skim a book and to thus miss important parts of the book. Take the time to read and absorb the book fully. An excellent idea is to first read the directions given by your teacher and then to read the book. Keep a piece of notebook paper next to you while you are reading, so you can take down notes as they come to you during reading. Be sure to mention the page numbers that correspond to what you feel is important. This simple tip will help you write a much more effective book report. Owning your own copy of the book is extremely helpful also. When you are reading a library or borrowed copy, you know that you cannot take notes in it. If you are reading your own copy of the book, you can highlight or take small notes within the margins of the book as your read. Being able to personalize your copy of this book is quite helpful for this book report project. While reading the book it is also useful to notice the role of each character in the story. What does each character represent? What do your feel the writer is trying to say about life or society with these characters? As you read, look for quotes that best represent this story and these characters. Mentioning these quotes in your book report can often make your book report stronger. A book report is also not complete without your opinion. What have you thought of the book? While answering the question, pay attention to the related questions that your teacher has asked you, as they may want you to focus on a certain aspect of the book. Everyone that reads a book has a different opinion. Your sharing of your opinion is what makes a book report unique and all its own work. Otherwise, your report would simply be a research project. Writing a book report is often a great learning experience for a student. Books can teach you about how society viewed people at that particular time. It can also teach you how people thought or do think today. Every book has a unique voice, just as you have your own voice to share your opinion. There is much you can learn by writing a book report. http://www.essaytown.com - Book Report http://www.essaytown.com/proposal_research_proposals.html - Research Proposal FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Writing and Submitting Articles by Ben Heart The importance of writing and submitting articles is the fact that you won’t get the word out about what you believe in strongly enough to put on paper, unless someone is there to read it. Writing your articles means that you have to submit it to search engines, article submission sites and article directories for it to be seen and noticed. Writers are always in demand and so are articles. Website owners love fresh content and so does the search engine. Magazines, newsletters, newspapers, websites, blogs, and journals all demand original content and articles are the method used to fill those pages with content. Without content, there would be no magazines, no newsletters, no newspapers, no websites, now blogs, no search engines and no journals. Content is king and is necessary. There is no doubt about that. Submitting articles is also key because an article sitting in a folder and on a computer has no value to anyone who cannot read it. So concentrating on getting the article out to the reader is vitally important to the article writing and submission process. Most of the time the content that fill these pages are well written, well researched and well thought out. These may be topics that people know about and write about and submit to the article directories for exposure. You can find potential in almost every topic or subject, so to write and submit articles on a subject you love would not be hard to do. The importance of writing and submitting articles is evident because most Internet Marketers are using it to sell their product or service. Internet Marketers are even employing the service of professional writers to write and submit articles for them. Through many article distribution services, Internet Marketers are taking a piece of the article marketing strategy to increase traffic to their websites and increase their profits. If we took the time to write and submit at least one article per week, we would be able to contribute our individual point of view to the world. That is probably the most important reason to write and submit articles. People love good information and articles are the way to contribute your expertise, knowledge and skill to people who are looking for such information. It’s up to the writer, and the importance each person puts on their own work will determine its potential to be published. You can write and submit an article to a website, or write an article to a magazine. Whichever you prefer, you can’t give up writing articles. Even when you don’t succeed at first, you can find a publication where you’re article will fit. You should think about the fact that if you don’t credit your own work with any importance, how do you expect anyone else to? It is important to hold yourself to your own high standards, write an article, submit the article, and see what happens. Before you know it you can contribute to the content you see online every day. Now that is important. Ben Heart is an Article Marketing specialists from ArticlesBase. ArticlesBase is a free articles directory, http://www.articlesbase.com answers all your article submission needs. Learn more about Article Marketing from The Entrepreneur\'s Guide to Article Marketing - http://www.articlesmarketing FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Tips For Writing Article to Promote Your Business by Thanakit K. Promoting any business through writing articles has become a really powerful and an effective tool, there are many website actually each of the successful websites are planning article writing to promote their business online. There are certain tips that should be kept in mind once you have decided to write an article to promote your business. These tips are: 1) Don’t advertise through them: the articles that you write to generate links and traffic should not be written in a way that they seem to give an impression of being advertisement. People search for articles not advertisements, make them interesting but not marketing or advertisements so that they give information and don’t simply market your product. 2) SEO writing is one way that can attract a lot of traffic on your website, this type of writing is simply identifying a keyword that is searched by lot of people and if it relates your theme, or the theme of your business then write an article by the optimum use of such keyword and make the best use of it. This will automatically place your site on a good rank in the search engines thus giving you more hits and generate a good traffic. 3) Readers should get interested in your articles more and more, they are mostly bothered about themselves so giving them the best information and best idea for what they are searching is very important so be sure to give them these required things and guarantee a good response. 4) Articles writing should also be done on a regular basis (Easy to read and Easy to understand). Make your article interesting (It’s very important), there are many ways to do it, you can tell a story, and even quotes from famous people that would enhance your article quality and you would be able to utilize the best of the space available. 5) Device a strong theme for your article and stick you it, readers would be more interested in your articles if you use a strong theme. A strong theme attracts attention and this would give you the desired traffic and good customer response too. 6) Set the tone of your article right and also be friendly with the reader it creates lot of customer attention and even awareness. The tone is what set the pulse of an article and would give you the best feed from people and customer response. 7) The best articles are the ones that provide the reader with the best possible advice and give him or her hints as to where he can go for help. 8) If you cannot give proper advice then stick to telling a story, at times it helps in improving the quality and customer response. 9) Whenever you give any advice try to keep it short and simple. Article writing is a methodical task and proper methods will lead you to success proper ways needs to be followed so that you get the best out of every possible article attract the customer and get good links and visitors for your site. http://www.100biz.net (Article Directory - Submit article or Find Free Content for website) http://www.elistz.net (http://Elistz.net - Free Classifieds, Post 100% Free Ads.) FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS How Thesis Writing Applies to Graduate School by Daniel Millions If you are in graduate school, you will need to write a thesis. A thesis project is an independent study on a topic of great interest. The most common thesis is a written thesis. Writing your thesis at times may seem like a daunting task. With some practical preparation techniques: you can confidently climb this \"paper mountain\". Before long, you\'ll have your graduate degree and those impressive letters of M.A., M.B.A. or M.S. behind your name. There is a popular old saying \"a stitch in time saves nine\" and many of us don\'t even think about what this means, even though we\'ve heard this repeatedly. This saying is quite true when it comes to writing your thesis. The first step to writing your thesis is to create a thesis statement. The ideal thesis statement is one that intrigues you and makes you want to research it further. It is also quite important that your thesis statement have enough research to support it: you can come up with a fascinating thesis statement that simply does not have enough research to write a strong thesis. Begin by finding the thesis statement and then delve into your preliminary research to understand if there will be enough facts to support what you believe. When doing preliminary research it is important to use every resource available to you. Try books, journal articles, magazines, newspapers and also the Internet. Depending on your thesis statement, you may discover unique sources available on the Internet that support your statement that you\'d like to include. Many thesis programs will accept online sources as long as they are credited appropriately. Cast a wide net when looking for other sources including books to try for out-of-print books you may be able to locate through an out-of-print bookseller. This preliminary research will assist you in deciding if this thesis is the one you wish to pursue. Your thesis adviser will either approve or disapprove of your preliminary research and your thesis statement. If you receive approval, then you are ready to enter into deeper research on your project. If you receive disapproval, then you must create a new thesis statement and begin once more with your thesis preliminary research. Keeping your thesis adviser \"in the loop\" about what you are doing is critical: without their approval, you cannot move forward. The entire goal is to be able to move forward to the next step. Assuming you have approval, further research will be done at this stage. Some that write a thesis find it most useful to actually begin writing their thesis and to research at the same time. Others feel that they need to do all of the research first. Do what you feel would be the most practical. Even if you feel you are completely done with all of the research, you may discover once you begin writing that you need another source or two. In writing your thesis, it is critical that you stick to the format that you have been given by your thesis advisor and/or committee. One of the most popular writing formats is the APA format. While learning a writing format is not difficult, if your thesis is not presented in the proper writing format it will not be accepted. Writing a one hundred to three hundred page thesis can feel simply overwhelming at times. The little details sometimes may escape you as you work on this large project. Finding a fellow student or friend to edit your thesis is quite valuable as they can insure that you have followed the format. If your thesis is handed in and does not follow format this can delay your graduating on time. Consider hiring someone to edit your thesis if no helping hands volunteer for this task. Writing your thesis is a task, which you should be quite proud of accomplishing. Not everyone can say that they have written a thesis. Writing a thesis is very much like taking on a \"paper marathon\" and often it is about simply covering the miles. This is not a task that can be done quickly; your thesis will take you months and perhaps even a year. http://www.essaytown.com - Book Reports http://www.essaytown.com/thesis_help_thesis.html - Thesis Writing FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Easy To Follow Essay Writing Tips by Daniel Millions Many styles of writing exist and there are plenty of ways to format an essay. For example, academic writing and informal writing are two different types of styles that both require careful attention. One difference between the two essays is that academic writing tends to put more emphasis on how the essay is physically structured, such as in the format and layout, as well as on how the words are organized. In contrast, informal writing, such as speeches for political events, are not scrutinized as much since the only thing that\'s really looked at is the content of the essay speech. Nevertheless, if you are just starting to write essays for college or you are putting one together for another reason, there are three basic parts to an essay that should go in every one. Each one will be broken down in detail, but first, one should start with an introduction. Second, the body of the paragraph should be laid out. Finally, the conclusion or recap of the essay should be written. The Introduction: Introductions are one of the most important parts to any essay that you\'re writing. Not only do essays briefly cover the topics that one will be writing about throughout the whole paper, but it is also meant to capture the thesis statement of the entire paper. The thesis, which is only one or two sentences and is the claim for your paper, essentially lays out your whole paper\'s format. In other words, one\'s thesis should be their guide, being sure that each paragraph connects somehow to their claim. The Body of an Essay: After the introduction has been written the body of the essay is written next. The body of one\'s essay is essentially the meat and potatoes or filling of the whole essay. Said another way, whoever is reading or listening to your essay actually wants to hear what you have to say in the body of your essay. While writing it, it\'s very important that each paragraph has something to do with your thesis, as mentioned above. In addition, each paragraph of the body should begin with a topic sentence, which can be thought of as a little mini-thesis that gets backed up by everything that is written in the paragraph you\'re working on. The body of an essay usually has three paragraphs, but can contain more if you have more items or proofs to back up your thesis. The Ending: Finally, the conclusion of the paragraph goes next and is the final step of writing an essay. In essence, the conclusion is perhaps one of the easier parts of writing an essay because all that has to be done is the summarization of the entire paper. After you have written your introduction and body of the essay you will want to provide a brief and concise summary of everything you have discussed and of all the major points, as well as connect it back to your original thesis statement. Since the items that many people remember about essays are the last, your conclusion should be powerful enough to reach out to any doubters of your audience. Everything laid out here is very important to tackle when writing as essay for high school, college, or even if you\'re giving a speech in your adult life. Each part of the essay, the introduction, body, and conclusion, are all important to an essay and nothing in them should be left out. If followed, the steps to take while writing an essay can be easy and rewarding in the end! http://www.essaytown.com - Essay http://www.essaytown.com/free_paper.html - Free Essays FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS A Dollar in Change For a Pound of Cure by B.L. Lindstrom I went to my local grocery store the other day. I needed some shaved deli meat for my famous \"Killer Roast Beef Sandwiches.\" The deli counter is right there when you walk in and the scene was a typical early evening gotta-get-somethin-for-dinner rush. I counted six people ahead of me but when I pulled my number I found myself the twelfth seeker of the hand sliced grail. A large woman jostled me out of her line-of-display-case site, whining something about not being able to see the Gorgonzola. As she maneuvered for the right viewing position I almost knocked over a free standing touch screen. What was this? Hiding there in plain sight was a brand new interface to the e-deli. A quick read of the electric pink sign taped to it revealed that I could scan my shopper\'s card, enter my deli order, and return in 15 minutes to pick it up. Further, the next time I came in I could just scan my card and it would remember my previous orders. I turned to see if anyone else was considering this too-good-to-be-true option, but the throng of 30-somethings waiting behind me seemed enthralled by Ms. Gorgonzola\'s demand for 4 slices of this and a quarter pound of that. I boldly scanned my card, ordered a pound and a half of prime and retrieved my receipt from the robot clerk. The magic paper indicated that I could return in just 12 minutes to obtain dinner\'s main ingredient. Hoping to inspire the herd to follow me to this nirvana, in a rather loud voice I exclaimed, \"Wow, is this cool!\" But no one dared move, Ms G. had moved on to Prosciutto. I moved toward the freshly baked rolls wondering if I had been duped, but perfectly content to sacrifice 12 minutes of my time to test this new-fangled idea. I walked through the aisles picking up chips and a bottle of the incredible Sweet Baby Ray\'s Honey Barbecue Sauce, elixir of the gods. I turned the corner toward the dairy section and there was Jim. I hadn\'t seen Jim since we both retired from Motorola five years earlier. I didn\'t even know he was still in Arizona. I shook his hand and wrote his new email address on the back of my deli receipt. We talked for awhile but he had to go. He was under strict orders to get milk and eggs and get home. I grabbed the dip for the chips and headed back to the e-deli almost colliding with the cart of the rotund Ms Gorgonzola. Then, miracle of miracles, there, just behind the e-deli stand, was a tray with my order in it. Attached to my package was a dollar off coupon, just for trying the new system. The faces of the deli traditionalists, already grim from their seemingly endless wait, appeared to turn angry as they realized the steam engine had clearly out delivered the pony express. I fully expected someone to shout, \"Git a rope\" as I carried my prized possession through the mob. Yet none of them made a move toward the electronic change agent standing ready, willing and able to improve their situation. B.L. Lindstrom is a highly paid and sought after systems janitor and author in multiple media. His latest communications can always be found on his Blog Authorian Adventures in the Ether, http://www.SoIWroteThisBook.com. If you want to know more about his work you can visit http://www.BLLindstrom.com. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS The Synopsis -- An Editors View by Laurie Sanders Imagine for a moment that you have just been hired as an acquisitions editor a small publishing company that publishes romance. Your task is to find a romantic suspense novel to fill a gaping hole in the publisher’s schedule. You are excited, thinking you have just landed your dream job. After all, you’ll get to read all day, something you love to do anyway, and you’ll get paid! You’re shown to your office and logged onto your computer system. You open your email and are pleased to find several submissions already waiting for you. Books you get to read and don’t have to pay for! Does it get any better than this? You open the first email submission and click on the single attachment to open the file. The file that opens has the author’s name address and phone number, but there is no letter and no synopsis. You think this is a bit odd, but figure that you were hired to read manuscripts so you settle into your chair and begin to read. The story opens strongly and you are drawn into the world of the heroine who is being chased down a dark alley. You’re on the edge of your seat, hanging on every word, wondering what will happen to the heroine. Will she escape the man who is chasing her? You turn pages, faster and faster, remembering that you’re supposed to be finding a romantic suspense novel. Now you are on page 60 and though the story has kept you on the edge of your seat and turning pages, there is no hero in sight and your heroine is still running for her life. You begin to wonder where the hero is, and when he’ll show up. You begin to wonder whether this book is a romantic suspense at all. Maybe it’s a straight suspense, there was no synopsis to tell you. You decide to read a few more pages to see if the hero turns up. A few more pages down the road there is still no hero in sight, and you decide that this manuscript really doesn’t work as a romantic suspense so you draft the rejection letter informing the author that the piece doesn’t work as a romantic suspense because it lacks a hero and a romantic element. You’re now on to submission number two. Your boss has stuck her head in the door twice to see how you’re doing and to inquire whether you’ve found any promising candidates to fill that looming spot in the schedule. You open submission number two and are pleased to find that this submission has a cover letter and a synopsis. The cover letter gushes that you’ll love the surprise ending the author has crafted for her heroine. You read through the synopsis and find that the hero and heroine meet early in the story, they have both a strong attraction and a strong conflict which keeps them at loggerheads through most of the story. You are just about to jump for joy thinking maybe you’ve found the piece to plug the hole in the publishing schedule when you read that the hero gets shot and the heroine goes off with the bad guy in the end. So much for loving the surprise ending! You open Word and craft your letter to the author telling her that though you loved the first part of the story as she’d described it, you weren’t blown away by the ending. You suggest that the heroine ending up with the hero at the end might be a better ending for the story and suggest that she resubmit if she decides to revise. Well, it hasn’t been a grand day. This acquisitions stuff is harder than it looks. Your boss is getting jumpy now. She’s stuck her head in the door twice and keeps casting meaningful looks at the publishing schedule thumb tacked to your cubicle wall. You know you have to find a piece, and find it fast. You open up submission #3, scan it quickly. It’s another submission that jumps straight into chapter one. You’d love to read it, but you wonder if it’ll be like the other one, start off great but not really work for you. You decide that you don’t really have time to read it right now. You need to find a romantic suspense to fill the spot in your schedule before your boss comes back. You close submission #3 and move on, looking for something that looks promising. You open submission #4 and scan it quickly, mentally checking off the aspects of the story that you think will work for your readers. The hero and heroine meet early in the story, they have a strong reason to be together and an even stronger one to want to be apart. You cheer mentally thinking that the conflict will certainly be strong. The villain is a strong character in his own right with a good reason to want the hero and heroine out of the picture. More cheering. The author has led you to a scene where the hero and heroine have just jumped off a cliff and are plunging into the icy river below. At this point the synopsis ends with the words, I hope you enjoy my novel. Far from enjoying the novel, you want to strangle this author. You now have no way of knowing whether the story ends happily ever after or whether the hero dies and the heroine goes off with the villain in a surprise ending. You really don’t have time to find out right now, so you push the manuscript aside, into the growing file of ones you’ll read when you have more time. Time passes, the day is growing more and more hectic and you are feeling despair wondering whether you will ever find the perfect romantic suspense manuscript to fill the spot in the publishing schedule. Finally, you open submission number #9. Silently blessing the author who has been kind enough to include a synopsis. You scan the synopsis looking for the elements that make a strong romantic suspense novel. The hero and heroine meet early on in the story. They are instantly both attracted and at odds with each other. The villain is strong and well motivated. As you read through the sub- mission you can see that the characters internal and external conflicts work together to propel the story. You can follow the path the characters take, you can see the situation getting worse and worse for them as both their relationship and their physical safety are put at risk. You begin to feel hopeful as you approach that portion of the synopsis where the hero and heroine are facing their final showdown with the villain. You breathe a sigh of relief when the villain is captured, noting that the author has so far hit every mark for a romantic suspense. You keep reading, fingers crossed, hoping that this author delivers the happily ever after ending required by the sub- genre. When the hero and heroine melt happily into each others arms you sigh, feeling that just maybe you’ve found the romantic suspense novel to fill the open spot in the publishing schedule. You will still have to read the novel to be sure the writing is up to par, but at least you know that the plot works. Laurie Sanders is Editor and CEO at Black Velvet Seductions. The company publishes romance, erotic romance, and romantic suspense. The company offers a free newsletter for authors of romance and gives away free books each Friday. Visit http://www.blackvelvetseductions.com to check it out. FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Important Need To Know College Essay Concepts by Daniel Millions When it comes to writing a college essay there are several components and issues that one definitely needs to know how to master. Whether you find yourself writing about the proper way to store plants so that they\'ll grow sufficiently or writing about why illegal drugs should be legalized, there are right and wrong ways to format and write a college essay. Opinion College Essay Papers: One time of college essay is an opinion-style format. These are the kind of college essays that require an individual to have an opinion on some issue and provide reasons to back up your opinion, however right or wrong they may be. These types of college essays usually have no right or wrong answer, but are usually graded on the completeness of the opinion throughout the paper, as well as how clearly the student conveyed his or her message. Persuasive Essay Papers: On the other hand, a completely different type of college paper is the persuasive or argumentative essay. These papers are meant to have a solid structure with the thesis statement at the beginning of the paper, and the whole rest of the college essay is meant to support and back up the thesis. The six main components of a persuasive college essay paper include the introduction, the thesis statement, the first, second, and third supporting paragraphs, and finally the conclusion of the paper. For these types of college papers the student will have to master writing a concise and to-the-point thesis statement, as well as forming supporting claims that have substance and proof. When being written, all college essays have three main parts: the introduction, body, as well as conclusion. The type of college essay that is being written will determine what types of information goes in each section, but the trick and success in writing a great college essay lies in providing the right type of information, but also in being concise and to the point. In other words, there is no room for \"fluff\" in a college paper, and a student should be careful to write with simple words that they and their audience can easily understand. Getting Help with College Essays: Virtually all college students need to take two basic writing courses no matter what college or university they attend. Usually these classes will teach each student how to form and write college essays, and these two courses basically lay foundations for all of the other types of academic writing that one will experience and be required to do throughout one\'s college career. If you find yourself in trouble, however, when beginning a college essay that you are not too sure about, there are a few places where one can definitely get help. First, colleges and universities are usually always equipped with tutor centers where students are able to get help writing college essays and papers. These tutor centers should be able to help students form their introductions and thesis statements in order to make them clearer, as well as help them with their essays in general if they need help. Other resources for getting help with college papers include brothers and sisters that may have gone through college before them, as well as private tutors that can usually be found throughout college campuses. All in all, writing a college essay is not all that difficult once one decides what he or she will actually write about. All it takes to write a college essay is organization and determination to be able to put words in writing and have success with a college essay. http://www.essaytown.com - College Essay http://www.essaytown.com/subjects.html - Term Paper Topics FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Writing a Proper College Term Paper by Daniel Millions Two of the most important parts of a college term paper are the thesis statement and the introduction. You will want to follow these helpful hints before jumping in and writing your paper. The most important part of your college term paper is the thesis statement. In essence, it is the justification for its existence. A good thesis statement should contain the following two elements: the basic argument and a blueprint for the organization of the details that will support your thesis. At the beginning of your brainstorming session, you will more than likely choose a topic for your essay; this is the particular subject that you plan to address regarding your assignment. When you formulate a thesis, you find a specific statement that you want to make about your topic. Rather than just making a statement that revolves around an opinion, your argument must be centered around textual evidence. You cannot simply restate what your source tells you. Your thought must be original that arises from some interesting point, vagary or contradiction within the material. When you write your statement, pinpoint what you are arguing and do not just make a broad generalization. Those who read your essay should know from your thesis exactly what specific arguments you have. You also want to take into consideration the length that you want your paper to be. Make sure you allow yourself plenty of room to fully develop your argument. Perhaps the most important point of all is to make your argument controversial. In your paper, if you want to prove something that is already a given, it will not only prove to be uninteresting and dull but entirely pointless. Your paper should inspire others to want to read it and perhaps come up with a totally different interpretation of the subject. The thesis of your college term paper should act like a blueprint. Not only should it state your argument but it should give an indication of the specific components. Don\'t think that your thesis has to be just one sentence. You can break it up into a complex thesis and avoid any run-on sentences. When you have decided upon your thesis, you must be able to couch it in such a way that it will be an effective entry into your paper. You can have an awfully good argument, but it will not do very much good if no one wants to read it. Therefore, your introduction should serve as not only a grabber but as a justification. Here are some basic guidelines when writing your introduction: 1. Do not summarize: It gets to be very dull when all you do is provide a synopsis of the texts that you are writing about. It may be easy to do this so don\'t fall into this trap. 2. Do not keep reiterating your thesis: In your college essay, your thesis should be in your introduction and should be the culmination of previous thoughts. You do not want to just keep restating your thesis to fill up space in your paragraphs. 3. Ask yourself questions: You want to know why your thesis is relevant. What is the relevancy to your thesis and the rest of your paper? 4. Be creative: Make your paper as interesting as possible so it will tantalize your subjects to want to read it. There you have it. You need to have a good, well rounded thesis as well as an attention grabbing introduction. With these on your side, you will have a great college term paper. http://www.essaytown.com - College Term Paper http://www.essaytown.com/free_paper.html - Free Term Paper FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS Free Reprint Articles That Will Interest Publishers - 4 Tips by Glenn Prialde Have you been writing and submitting your free reprint articles for quite sometime now? If so, how is your reprint rate doing? Is it doing well or is it a bit below 50%? Are webmasters approving your articles? Here are some tips on how to write effective free reprint articles that would guarantee great interest from ezine publishers and webmasters. 1. Choose a good keyword A good keyword is your \\\"key\\\" to getting high reprint rates for even just a single article. Try using this tool at http://www.wordtracker.com/ to find the best keywords. 2. Keyword density Keyword density is the number of \\\"keywords\\\" found in an article or content which is then divided by the total number of words. Try to keep your keyword density at 5% to 7% maximum especially if you choose common keywords for your article. Keyword density is important because this is one of the things search engines look into when they rank the search results. Do not try to make your article an article for search engines, make them full of quality, informative but still search engine optimized. 3. Shorter word count Publishers or webmasters often love articles that are less than 1000 words, but it totally depends on the topic and how informative is your article. Try not to go around the bush and result to making your article at 1800+ words. In other words, do not make it like a short story. A good article may only have at least 250 words, but could still capture the reader\\\'s attention and have the attributes mentioned in numbers 1 and 2 above. 4. Good content You wrote a 700-word article with good keywords and keyword density, but does it contain good content? Well, only you can answer that truthfully and if your answer is yes, then great! But for some few inviduals this isn\\\'t the fact, many are still writing articles that editors label as an \\\"indirect\\\" advert. If you really want a good reprint rate then make your article body 100% of quality information, tips, how-tos and tricks. Keep the 100% advert in your bylines and keep them short. Good luck and enjoy writing! Glenn Prialde invites you to submit your free reprint articles at http://www.isnar FILED IN WRITING | COMMENTS
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