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Showing posts from 2008

6 Steps to Write A Post in Only 10 Minutes!

"The key to writing fast is knowing and perfecting a few." Alisa Brownan from projecthappilyeverafter says to be a newspaper reporter, write guest blogs and magazine articles, and she ghost and co-author books. She also claims to spend only 6-7 hours typing daily to write between 5,000 and 10,000 words a week! Article first appeared on problogger.net and if you like what Brownan advice, then follow her @ alisabow: Here the 6 step system, experienced Alisa Brownan uses to write her articles quite fast: Step 1: Know what you want to say before you sit down. As soon as you finish any blog, start thinking about your next one. Go over lines in your head. Step 2: Pick the basic format you will use to organize your blog. Most blogs fall into one of the following organizational templates: Q & A – Someone poses a question and then you answer it. Tips: You start with a couple paragraphs of explanation followed by a list of tips. Story: Once upon a time s

Funny List of the Most Misprounounced English Words

An interesting list of 51 mispronounced words it's been posted by DailyWritingTips. A the moment we write this post, comments number by 297, from people who have contributed to the list or have made appreciations on the topic. There is a word of caution, though: "I’m writing from an American perspective" says DailyWritingTips. At least one of these is, in our view, a lost cause: #21 the two pronunciations of forte. We’ve never heard any English-speaker use it to mean 'strong point' and pronounce it according to French rules — everyone we’ve ever heard pronounces it the Italian way. If you want to get really picky, the masculine form of the French adjective is 'fort' — if it should be pronounced in English according to French rules, then how come English has adopted its feminine form 'forte'? Reasons are lost in the mists of time — let’s just get on with it! 1. aegis - The ae in this word is pronounced /ee/. Say EE-JIS/, not /ay-jis/. In m

Gain Success By Doing Things that Other People Can’t or Won’t Do

Surely you've read a few or at least, one book about how to become rich  because it's human nature to look for pleasure and commodities. I have spent some time with professional coaches that helped me out on personal development and showed some necessary steps, everyone dreaming of being rich before they can accomplish and become such a dream. Now, many of course will be thinking that this is not a dream since many ( very few though) had worked hard and earned enough money to accumulate millions and millions. Some others will start arguing that this post doesn't even deserve the attention because it is not written by a rich man. We will accept your discrepancies with humility but let tell you what is saying one of the top 100 bloggers by Technorati and top influencers on the web according to the Wall Street Journal, Neil Patel. There is not such an incredible revelation but he goes right to the point of what is expected for a regular person, in order to perform in the d

Antioch University Probes Obama's Speaking Elitist Isn't for English Language Learners

Andy Borowitz is a comedian and writer whose work appears in the Huffingtonpost, The New Yorker and The New York Times, and at his award-winning humor site, borowitzreport.com. He wrote a very English teachers essay last week that let many speculating of the President-elect Barack Obama's style of speech. Teachers in the grant with Antioch University had chose areas of their practice, to research via inquiry projects that examined both quantitative and qualitative student data, and aligned with best practices in teaching English Language Learners.As consequence, Antioch University released a free curriculum for working with English Language Learners which included strategies to cope with the complete sentences stirs controversy that Borowitz speaks in the Huffingtonpost. The modeled strategies that TLC project proposed may: Be adapted for use in K-8 classrooms; Employ multiple teaching techniques for English learners, including those described in the CREDE standards (in Te

Bold Text -The Importance of Writing for Easier Readers' Scan

From our experience, we do know that writing web documents is a different process from writing for print, and if you simply move your print documents onto weblogs, you are not using the medium to its best advantage. Be aware then, If you are including textual information on your blog, you should rewrite or adapt your materials to the style of the genre.  Brad blogging is a good place to find online resources about how to write on your web site and he advises on many topics for those in the blog business. If you happen to visit Brad blogging, as you should do, you will feel immediately compelled to stay, browse, scan, and subscribe. Why? The presentation of his page is eye-catching, design, graphs, pictures, and the length of posts, so short that you won't spend more than a few seconds to get to the point. I encourage every blogger to write short posts, web readers are lazy and don't always appreciate to read long posts. So, you have to find ways of how to invite your reader

Freelancers: What Editors Really Want

This post was written to attend book writers but can be easily translated to the work many freelancers are trying to perform and it's based on the Chronicle of Higher Education writer, Lynn Worsham: - Familiarize yourself with the types of articles that a journal publishes and only submit work appropriate for that journal. - Pay close attention to the tone and style of work published in the journal and try to duplicate it in your own work. ... - Placing your work in the context of articles previously published in the journal is good scholarly practice and helps make your article a better "fit" for the journal. - Follow the journal's submission rules — exactly. - Develop a healthy attitude toward rejection. You know from the outset that competition is fierce, so maintain a positive attitude. Can you add something else to the list?

How 'The Times' Strives to Polish Its Contents

You all know how popular and read is The Times The following extract are part of When Spell-Check Can’t Help and adapted from After Deadline, a weekly newsroom critique overseen by Philip B. Corbett, the deputy news editor who is also in charge of The Times’s style manual. Since most writers and bloggers encounter similar troubles, Cogitate thinks these observations might interest all readers, too. The goal, however, is not to chastise, but to point out recurring problems and suggest solutions. "When we stumble over sound-alike words, readers accuse us of turning our editing chores over to a computer program (and not a very sophisticated one). [...] Here’s a reminder from The Times’s style book: reason (n). Both because and why are built into the meaning of reason. So avoid the reason is because and the reason why. Write The reason is that the mayor got more votes and She found out the reason the mayor won. Usually a phrase like reason why the decision was made can be short

Ed-Webinar Focused On English Language Learners

WestEd is a nonprofit research, development, and service agency and they're organizing a Webinar focused in English language learners. Agenda is scheduled to beging on October 8th and it's being shout out through SchoolMovingUP, which is a WestEd inicitive: The following are the webinar you will have the oportunity to attend: 1. English Learner Literacy Development through Formative Assessment of Oral Language by Alison Bailey and Margaret Heritage. 2. English Learners and the Language Arts by Pamela Spycher. 3. Doing What Works: Teaching Elementary-School English Learners by Nikola Filby. 4. What the Research Does—and Does Not—Say About Teaching English Language Learners by Claude Goldenberg. 5. Building Oral Language into Content Area Instruction (Research from CREATE) by Diane August. 6. Web Tour Taking Center Stage--Act II : Ensuring Success for Middle Grades English Learners by Carol Abbott and Jeanette Ganahl. 7. English Learners in Secondary Mathematics: Ri

Dealing With English Language Business Communication

All people are familiar with the universalizing of the English language. What not all people are familiar with, is the kind of English you should learn in order to communicate in the business world. English is English, some might be arguing, but we have American and Britain English and both are understandable and useful. However, is the American one that most travelers, businessman, and people is getting in touch with and learning it. Here we offer some useful phrases and idioms to talk about communication in the business field: get straight to the point = talk directly about something rather than going around the subject. "He got straight to the point in the meeting." beat around the bush = not talk directly about something. "Please don't beat around the bush." go round in circles = not get to the point or reach a conclusion. "We're going round in circles here. Perhaps we should go back to the beginning." kiss and tell = tell the newsp

Darmano: On the Conversation Architecture

David Armano writes for Business Week and discusses the problem marketers are confronted with today. He says "A consumer can be any number of things—sometimes all at once. And that fact is driving marketers, businesspeople, and brand managers nuts. So what do we do? I propose we become conversation architects." But what it means to be a "conversation architect"? Using social tools such as YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, Ning, or those still growing, we have to "market to each other", in other words, it's not enough to communicate but facilitate the flow of information in all ways. Armano has a blog where he wants to complete the "merits of conversation, transparency, authenticity, facilitation, participation", etc. He builds up the discourse on social networks and internal/external properties. These questions arose at the end. Want to chime in? Questions transcripted: 1. How will these initiatives relate to one another? 2. Will they be able

Make the Most of Your Personal Situations

Making the most of any given situation means going beyond feeling and acting rather an on principle writes Crystal Redhead-Gould. She is the owner Virtual Assistant owner and we really like the way of making business. If you're thinking of money, then go and visit Mb and you will mature your very own ideas. Now is a good time to give them [your ideas] some thought. (short post republished from fivestarexecutives.com   1. Did I do my very best in all the circumstances that I had an opportunity to?  2. Did I make my customers feel that they are special and give the quality of service I’d give if that was the only customer I had? Cause as a cogitate guy, the best testimonial is the one from a deeply satisfied customer or client.  3. Did I use my downtime to improve the quality of service I offer? 4. Am I satisfied with my work ethics?  5. Do I love what I do, because if you don’t, the answer to all the above will be "no." Have a great week-time is precious, spend i

Taking a Break from Spanish, No More!

While some are still visiting this blog in the hope they will find the secrets of how NOT to make money, We still lack time to dedicate it and write especially for those our dearest readers. In the meantime, please head over this blog to learn about a series of posts on the  info-product. Now back to our matters, we've received a visit to one of our blogs from a person who is dedicated to learning Spanish at all costs. The latest post is on badass materials on how to learn the Cervantes' language. Well, is hearing English bad for you mental state? Is it bad reading a book while you’re on holiday? Don’t you watch TV in your free time? Is it weird? NO! So why would it be weird doing all those things in Spanish? It’s just another language which I (and you) happen to not speak fluently (yet). Therefore I try to avoid people who say crap (yes, again, CRAP!) like that. For me that’s quite hard, as my own parents say the same things and I’m spending 3 weeks of my summer with them…

Translestosphere: New Blog of Resources for Translators

I was talking today via Gmail with a friend of us and he just gave us a tip on this note. The launching of this blog was made in Spanish but offers guides and tools on how to work with translations. In its sidebar you will find plenty of resources, both in English and Sapnish. Tradutósfera [es] was discovered because we were looking for experiences the translators have in Global Voices, and then we got to the interview of Spanish Lingua Editor, Juan Arellanos. Using Google, you might be able to read the whole interview about editor experiences with translations in Global Voices.

English Convesational Expressions

_My name is …. What should I call you? _Hi, I am …. _ Hi, …. I am pleased to meet you. _ I take my hat off to you. _It’s rare to meet someone as imaginative and eloquent as you. _ It’s good of you to notice that. _ Do you know what else? _ Ok. If you are, then you are. _ I often ask myself that same question. _ Would you like coffee? If you insist…. Obviously, I would. _ Are you ….? Of course, I am …. _ Did they teach you to talk that way in school or did you make that up all by yourself? _ It doesn’t make sense to dwell on it. _ Don’t begin to draw conclusions. _ I’ll be hanged if I do that. _ Do me a favor and stick to plain English. I don’t have a fancy education. _ Anyway, I’ll leave that for you to figure out. _ Goodness gracious! Really? _ However, I can’t be bothered with that. _ That’s a perfectly wonderful thing to say. _ What makes you think, I can answer that? _ So what else is new? _ I’ll bet you know all about him. Don’t you? _ Excuse me, I’ll be right back. That’s better.

Texting from your Cellphone, Translated

I do know there are other places where you can find this information, but I just wanted to share with you, something that I've received a few days ago from my cellphone service provider. Many people -younger than older, are using text messaging as the quickest and efficient way to communicate. Your son won't pick the phone to answer if he/she realized is a mom who's calling to say something, or to curfew him up. Yet this can be easily solved if they pick their cellphones just to discover mom again wants to know about her date, verbigracie . Her mom might send something like 'king or frog' and that will be enough to think what she's into. Daughter can answer back 'king' and nobody has to feel embarrassed or justify why mom has to be calling at this time! Here's the guide: Basic: YT? -Are you there? < bs > -Big smile 4E - Forever F2F - face-to-face GR8 -Great LMK -Let me know N2K - Need to know U@? -Where are you? Intermedi

Journalists Most Misspelled Words

Great list of more than 60 words no Johnny but journalists misspell according to the experiences of Roy Peter Clark : acknowledgment: (The American Heritage Dictionary also permits acknowledgement, but prefers to drop that extra "e," and so do I.) acquiesce: (The "sce" ending always gives me problems, as in reminisce.) aphrodisiac: (Named after Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love. Would that make an afrodisiac something that gives you a desire to listen to "Earth, Wind and Fire"?) appropriate: (Most words beginning with an "ap" are followed by another p; so if you've got to guess, go with app ...) camaraderie: (I don't understand how we get from "comrade" to this vowely abstraction, but I learned how to spell it by following a simple consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel pattern.) carcass: (I can now spell any word that ends with -ass.) Caribbean: (You'll have to look up exotic place names, except for Lake Titicaca, of

More to Come Very Soon!

If for any reason you've landed here, please excuse our lack of attention to this blog, we are working hard to make a re-launch and give better and useful information. Hope you come back ang bookmarks this dead blog!