Do you use research for your writing? If you do you may want to look into a wonderful online resource that I’ve been asked to review.
Questia is an online academic library with access to just about everything that you might need – Questia offers thousands of digital books (70,000) and over a million articles. Now you can complete your research without ever leaving home! (This could be really handy if you are in the habit of working late at night.)
The great thing about Questia is that you can search for words or phrases within the books and articles, or you can search for a specific title, author, or subject. Questia even offers special tools that allow you to “take your own notes” and “highlight” in the books.
You can also save the titles you find in a separate folder for each project that your work on or on your own “bookshelf” so that you can always pick up your research where you left off.
Questia also offers Over 5,000 FREE Books online that are in the public domain. This is a great place to go to reread your favorite classic book. I found several lesser works of Jane Austen, Mark Twain, and William Shakespeare in the free library. There are also articles and scholarly works.
The thrust of Questia is definitely scholarly works and not leisure reading. For example, when I searched on “Harry Potter,” the search returned a sampling of articles and literary discussions about Harry Potter, but not an actual Harry Potter novel for me to read. I found the same thing when I searched for many other recent best sellers.
All in all, this is a good tool for research. If you conduct research for your writing, this may be for you. I can definitely see writers, students, and academic professionals using this tool to save time and work more efficiently.
To access the full power of Questia’s library, you will need a subscription. However, Questia is currently offering a free subscription to a trial set of books in one of the following areas: Psychology, Ethics, Leadership, or Early American History. There’s also an offer of a free trial subscription to the entire library for interested bloggers – for more information about the trial offer contact ahanin (at) questia (dot) com.
If you do try Questia, leave me a comment and let me know how you like it. I know that I was very impressed with what I saw.
Last week I blogged on the reasons why you should buy books for kids. This week I’m sharing some of my favorite books, categorized by age. Whether you’re homeschooling, or just reading to your kids, you’re bound to find an old or new favorite on this list! (Many of the books are part of a series of excellent reads. Don’t miss the sequels …)
No matter what type of writing you are doing, it’s always important to write clearly in order to get your message across to the reader. This principle is especially true for web writing.
Here are five ways to make sure that your writing is clear and to the point:
Good Organization. I recommend using an outline, even for short pieces. It’s too easy to jump off onto a tangent without one. An outline also makes it easier for you to resume your work when you are interrupted. Your outline does not need to be complex. For example, my outline for this post was: introduction, a list of the five points, and a conclusion.
Active voice. Avoid using passive voice (which is basically writing that uses a lot of different constructions of the “be” verb). A whole document written passive voice is much harder to read than a document that uses active voice. For example, it is better to say: Sally threw the ball than to say: the ball was thrown by Sally.
Specific details. Use them whenever possible. I know that many writers like to be mysterious in their writing, but (unless you are writing a mystery novel) it’s much more effective to be direct. Some things to look for include use of the word this without an explanation what the “this” is. For example, it’s much more interesting to read about something that actually happened to a specific person than to read about things that might possibly happen.
Formatting. Good formatting can work to your advantage. Use headings, bulleted or numbered lists, and other formatting devices to break up large chunks of text. If you write for the web good formatting has the advantage of making your writing scannable. For example, if you have three or more items listed in your text, consider presenting them with a bulleted list rather than in the text.
Repetition. Many writers have been taught that repetition is bad, but appropriate use of repetition can be good and reinforce your point. It’s important to state each point in your document clearly and then build upon your statement. If your document is very long, you will also want to repeat your main points in the document’s conclusion.
Bonus tip: Check your writing carefully for spelling and grammar errors. A document that is full of errors can distract the reader from your true point.
Through use of good organization, active voice, specific details, good formatting, and appropriate repetition your writing can become more focused and easier to read.
With the holiday season right around the corner, I may be stating the obvious — but, a great way to get kids to read is to give them books as presents. This is something that we have done for our own kids, and it’s actually a legacy passed down from my parents who gave me books for presents as a child. (Books weren’t our only presents, but the holiday season always included a gift of a book, or two.)
While books might not seem exciting enough to be a gift to some people, I guess that I was enough of a bookworm to really look forward to getting books at the holidays. (Come to think of it, relatives still give me books as gifts and I still look forward to receiving them.)
I can remember being questioned by some acquaintances when we bought our then infant daughter some books.
“Why are you getting those?” They asked. “It will be years before she can read them.” (Little did they realize that we would read to her almost every night for several years.)
If presented the right way, I think books can be an exciting gift for most children. Here are some gift book suggestions, based on age.
For Babies and Toddlers. Look for sturdy board books or washable cloth books that can be wiped off or laundered.
For Older Toddlers and Preschoolers. Look for picture books. Many picture books now come as a boxed set with a plush animal. I see nothing wrong with that.
For Preschoolers and Early Elementary. Look for longer picture books, or easy readers that they can read themselves. My kids enjoyed receiving books that included a cassette tape recording of the story.
For Elementary Children. Look for classic children’s tales as well as books based on popular culture (such as movie or TV characters). This is a good time to introduce nonfiction books such as biographies and informative books about history or science. You can also get books that contain instructions for crafts or games.
For Junior High Children. There are many novels and book series geared towards young adults. There are also longer classics that can be read. Junior high kids may continue to enjoy biographies and other nonfiction books.
For High School Children. At this age, most children can read adult classic and popular books. (Be sure to check books carefully to see that the material is appropriate for the child.)
This is part one of a two part series. Next week I’ll list some specific suggestions under each age grouping.
Do you give books as gifts? Why, or why not? What were your favorites as a child?
Contents (c) Copyright 2007, Laura Spencer. All rights reserved
If you read WritingThoughts regularly, you know that I love to read and that I encourage others to read as well. That’s why I was excited when I was asked to review an exciting new service that helps you keep track of your favorite authors. This service sends you a free email alert whenever one of your favorite authors publishes a new book. The service is called ReleaseAlerts.com, and it’s incredibly easy to use.
I logged in to ReleaseAlerts.com and was able to type in the names of several of my favorite authors. The service listed all previously published works by that author, and even took me directly to an Amazon.com page where for each book listed. Since the service promises not to sell or distribute email addresses, I felt comfortable giving them my email information so that they could send me email alerts for newly published books.
One of my favorite authors, Beverly Lewis, has some volumes scheduled to come out in the next few months. Using ReleaseAlerts.com, I was able to see that her next book will be published on October 5, 2007, and after that she is scheduled to release several books in February of 2008. Since I know in advance that I want these books, I can put money aside in the budget for them now.
If you like music, ReleaseAlerts.com also works to track new albums from your favorite musicians. The service also keeps a list of both your favorite authors and musicians for you.
I can see a lot of uses for this service. Not only will it help me discover when my favorite artists publish new works, I can also see a gift planning application for it. I plan to find out the favorite authors and musicians of my family members and type those in to ReleaseAlerts.com. That way, when my husband’s favorite author publishes a new book, I have the option of buying it for him as a gift.
If you’re a reader, like I am, you may also want to use ReleaseAlerts.com to keep up to date with the works of your favorite authors. Check it out!
Doris runs a great blog that features interviews, product reviews, and general advice for all “home office women” (women who work from home).
If you work from home (and I know that many freelance writers do), then you’ll want to take a look at this resource. (Or, just stop by and say “hello.”)
Contents (c) Copyright 2007, Laura Spencer. All rights reserved
Over the years I’ve noticed that there are two styles of parenting that seem to go hand-in-hand with two styles of working.
I’ve noticed that some parents are competitive in the way that they parent, just as some workers are competitive in the way that they work. Other parents are cooperative in their parenting, just as some workers are cooperative in their work style.
Telling the difference between the two types of parents can be as simple as listening to what a parent says. A competitive parent often starts a conversation by telling about their child’s latest achievement. A cooperative parent asks about your child first and may not even get around to talking about their own.
Competitive parents are known for pushing their kids, hard. Cooperative parents are more laid back. The kids of competitive parents often seem to “sell” more candy bars for the PTA or have the latest stuff as soon as it hits the shelves. Cooperative parents are more likely to make the kids sell their own candy bars.
Of course, there are advantages and disadvantages to each style of parenting. Often, the pushing of competitive parenting does work and their kids do achieve great things. Also, most parents are a combination of competitiveness and cooperation. It’s possible to be very competitive about some things (grades, for example) and not so competitive about others.
For myself, I think that I lean towards the cooperative style of parenting as well as the cooperative style of working. In fact, my DH and I have often wondered if we are too lax. Maybe we should be pushing the kids harder? In the past, I’ve always been complimented in the workplace for my teamwork. As a WAHM, I currently work by myself, but I still lean towards community (blogging and forums) and group projects.
What about you? Are you competitive or cooperative as a parent? What are you as a worker?
Contents (c) Copyright 2007, Laura Spencer. All rights reserved
Lately, I seem to have anobsession hobby with of checking Technorati.
Even though I’ve been blogging for nearly nine months now, I’d never actually taken the time to look closely at the blogs in the Technorati popular list.
Now that I have looked, all I can say is that it’s a good thing that I waited. If I had seen those blogs when I first started blogging nine months ago I might have given up blogging on the spot.
Most of them look slick. They seem to have all hired professional graphic designers. They post multiple times a day. If you look at many of them closely, you’ll see that they are “owned” by networks or are collaborations.
In fact the top 100 are more like daily magazines than what I thought of as a blog when I first started blogging. There’s none of that “homespun” feel like you get here on WritingThoughts.
Another factor that distinguishes the popular blogs is subject matter. You can find blogs about politics, gadgets, gossip, marketing, and sports in the top 100. However, with the exception of Brian Clark’s Copyblogger blog (currently hovering at number 49 on the list) they are not about writing at all.
Okay, so there’s a few of them about blogging, notably Problogger at number 19. But none of them are specifically about writing for writers.
Why is that? Could it be that writers are a fairly small minority in the blogosphere? Perhaps we are all too busy working on our writing projects to read blogs, or at least to link to each other? Or maybe writing is such an intuitive thing that there is really very little need for blogs that support writers.
I wish that we could see more than 100 popular blogs. Could it be that all of the writing blogs are hovering in the second hundred most popular list, or is that just wishful thinking on my part?
What do you think? Could a writing blog ever become popular on Technorati, or is the subject too specialized?
If you want to go the extra mile, you can leave me a note in the comments describing what you think it would take for a writing blog to become generally popular.
(A special thanks to Brian Clark, for giving all of us writerly types hope.)
Contents (c) Copyright 2007, Laura Spencer. All rights reserved
