When it comes to writing, a little bit of knowledge can be dangerous. Even the nicest among us can turn into grammar snobs without much provocation. I know, because I used to be one.

My life as a snob began almost immediately after I started studying copy editing. Look at me, I have information others don’t! Examples of poor writing suddenly surrounded me. Tsk, tsk; those poor misguided writers. And I didn’t stop at the written word. Naturally, it was incumbent upon me to edit the poor grammar of actors in television commercials and movies, along with the occasional radio personality. Too bad these people weren’t actually in my home where they would have been able to take full advantage of my guidance and expertise.

But the problem with knowing everything is that you can’t know everything. After the initial flush of arrogance wore off and I started applying to myself the same high standards I applied to others, I was a little surprised. Hmm, I thought, maybe my writing sucks sometimes. Worse yet, maybe it sucks all the time. It was something to consider.

Over time, I concluded that it’s virtually impossible to have everything I write be perfect. Even if it were — and that’s a huge maybe — there are different writing style guides that dictate varying standards for editorial perfection. (The Chicago Manual of Style and the Associated Press Style Guide are two of the more important ones. Large companies also often have their own editorial style guides.) Each has its own take on what’s right. So, if they differ, how’s the average blogger supposed to know which take on any given issue is correct?

At least from the perspective of this former grammar snob, the answer to this dilemma is three-fold:

1.) Do the best you can to be informed about spelling, capitalization, etc.
There are a variety of good resources for learning about writing. So, to address suggestion number one, you have to find the resources that work for you. Even then, you’ll find differing advice among them. That’s the reason for suggestion number two.

2.) Be consistent, even if you’re wrong.
Consciously choose a style and stick with it. If you don’t know which style is right, pick one that’s comfortable and ride it for all it’s worth. For example, if you prefer writing headlines with an initial capital at the beginning and the rest of the words in lowercase or the even more unusual choice of using all lowercase, do so consistently and boldly. Be aware though, there will be plenty of people who think the style is wrong. If you do it consistently, however, it will look intentional and become your signature style.

A great example of this is a man I knew who refused to use capitals and periods in his e-mails. To me, his messages looked like they were generated by a monkey. He took great pains to enlighten me, however, that anyone who began sentences in capitals and ended them with periods was simply misguided and out of step. But you don’t have to be that bold. You can still choose your own style; just make it one that’s not quite so far out there. And if you’re still concerned, consider suggestion number three.

3.) Relax, because none of it is worth fretting over.
If you’re still plagued by doubts about your writing after you’ve committed to your own style, just relax. That old adage, “Don’t sweat the small stuff; and by the way, it’s all small stuff,” applies to writing, just as it does in life. In the final analysis, it’s much more important to express yourself than it is to express yourself perfectly.

The bottom line: When you write, do it with confidence — even if some of your choices might be perceived by others as wrong. There’s room to get away with just about anything, editorially speaking. Remember, what one person considers inappropriate could just be someone else’s brilliant but misunderstood style choice.

Carla Chadwick

Author of WordPlayBlog

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Filed under: Guest Blogging, Writing | 5 Comments »

I’m not the most self-confident person ever. I’m very strict at myself and I’m rarely happy with the things I do, no matter what they are: blogs, websites, posts… I have the permanent feeling that “there’s something missing here and that wouldn’t happen if I wasn’t so incompetent.”

Many people are concerned about the possibility of being bashed by others on the Internet. Some good blog posts have been written on this subject. They generally tell you that you must grow a thick skin if you want to survive to attacks, and that you shouldn’t engage into tit-for-tats. Both excellent pieces of advice, if you ask me.

But why don’t anyone teach us how to react to appraisals?

“Because it doesn’t need to be taught,” you might say. And I’d take your point: apparently, it’s very easy indeed. All you have to do is say “thank you!” and enjoy the compliments you’ve received.

However, it may not be that simple. How can you tell whether those compliments are well-deserved or not? What if people are just trying to be nice to you? What if you aren’t as good as they said? And what if you end up disappointing everyone?

Now I ask you (and myself): what if we do deserve to be praised?

When I got the first compliment on my blogging style I just couldn’t believe it, although it made me happy. As time went by, more compliments followed. They were all spontaneous and came from bloggers, writers and Internet marketers who weren’t my relatives nor my friends (not at the time they first contacted me, at least). Eventually I had to admit I wasn’t as incompetent as I used to believe. In reality, it seemed I was better than I thought.

It doesn’t mean that now I believe I am perfect. I’m ever open to (constructive) criticism and I really need all advice I can get. I’m still not happy with my own stuff. But I can rest assured that I’m not doomed to ostracism. Thanks to the positive feedback I’ve been getting, I have more reasons to keep on blogging.

Karen Zara

Filed under: Blogging, Writing | 5 Comments »

I love writing fiction. My characters and plots are an essential part of my life and I spend hours and hours everyday thinking about them. It wouldn’t be too exaggerated to say that I can’t live without telling stories.

Today is NaNoWriMo’s last day. To those who are unfamiliar with it, NaNoWriMo is a great event that takes place every year on November. During this month all participants are supposed to do their best in order to write a 50,000-word novel. As you must have guessed, I’m a huge NaNoWriMo enthusiast. However, my enthusiasm wasn’t enough to help me reach my goal. So far I haven’t even surpassed the 2,000 words mark. This means that I will not be listed in this year’s winners list. And I won’t lie to you: it was my fault, because I have totally neglected my novel.

Now you may be wondering why I have acted this way when writing fiction is so important to me.

The answer is really very simple: we all have certain priorities in life. I have decided that my priority is to find a way to quit my day job. To achieve this, I must find another source of income. Unfortunately, fiction won’t help me much. Although it is possible to earn a living writing short stories and novels, this is not for everyone. This may or may not be for me, but it would probably take me a long time to find it out, and I cannot wait for that long. By writing non-fiction I stand a much better chance to earn money. In fact, it has already happened. So, as you can see, results were concrete — and much faster — in this case. Unfortunately, fiction has never earned me a single penny.

Right now I’m not doing what I like best, but rather what I need to. And I don’t regret it. After all, when I’m finally able to quit my day job I’ll have more time for my writing activities. And those will include both the articles I write for money and the stories I write for love.

Karen Zara

Filed under: Writing | 2 Comments »

I remember the first time someone told me that the word Internet should be capitalized.

“Really?” I asked. I was shocked.

“Yeah, Web should be capitalized too. And on-line should be hyphenated.”

Weird, I thought.

Then, just as I was settling into using those forms, the rules about two of them began to change. Such is the wacky world of Web words.

It’s not really surprising that some Web terms would have stability issues. Most are relatively new and haven’t had a chance to settle into standard, agreed-upon forms. And words have a tendency to morph over time anyway, making the English language a bit unstable in some areas. Actually, unstable is probably an unfair characterization; flexible is probably a better way to put it. Language has to be flexible because it’s ultimately a user-determined art. Even initially reviled word forms can become accepted over the long haul if enough people use them.

But how are you supposed to know which word forms are au courant? I did some research and found that The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition (TCMS) — the editors bible — considers the explanations below to be the latest word on Web words:

* Commands, icons, file names, keys and other technology-related terms
When writing about features in software or blogs, or on Web sites or keyboards, match the capitalization of the feature you’re mentioning. For example, Enter is capitalized on keyboards, so it should be capitalized when used in a sentence: “Hit Enter to access the page.”

To further differentiate any of these terms, you may use italics, bold or a different font. If you’re writing about two term types in one post or document, you might want to use italics for one and bold for another: For example, use italics for commands and bold for file names. If using different styles doesn’t provide enough differentiation, use quotation marks, either instead of or in addition to other formatting. No matter which style(s) you choose, be consistent throughout.

* dot-com
This term should hyphenated, not written dot.com. (That would read dot dot com.) If used in a headline, capitalize both the D and the C: “Her Dot-Com Empire Made Her Millions Before She Decided to Chuck it All and Live on the International Space Station.”

* e-mail, e-business, e-commerce, e-solutions, etc.
The e words should be lowercase and hyphenated. If an e word falls at the beginning of the sentence, the E would be capitalized: “E-commerce provided a good living for him, but he preferred to dress like a homeless person anyway.”

Even though eBay is the appropriate capitalization for the name of the auction site, TCMS suggests capitalizing it at the beginning of a sentence: “EBay had a record year, due in part to someone paying five million dollars to buy his own kidney.” Personally, I’d rewrite that sentence to avoid the strange capitalization (and probably any mention of a kidney), but it wouldn’t be wrong if you left the capital E at the beginning of the sentence.

* Internet
If you’re referring to the worldwide collection of servers and Web sites, Internet should be capitalized. If you’re only referring to a network of computers, it should be lowercase.

* log in and its many variations
When you’re referring to logging into a site, the appropriate form is log on or log in (not logon or login). The same obviously applies to log off (not logoff). When you’re using the term as an adjective, however, it should be hyphenated: “She logged in on the Adopt-a-Clown log-in page.”

* online
This started as on-line, but has now morphed into online. It’s a perfect example of how language changes over time.

* pop-up
It’s appropriate to hyphenate the name for those annoying pages that get in your way while Web surfing.

* Web, web, Web site and website
For the time being, Web is still treated as a proper noun, therefore both Web and Web site are capitalized — if the usage is somewhat formal. If you’re writing a blog post, which in most cases would be considered informal, web and website are fine. If you’re writing informally and prefer to stick with Web and Web site (as I do), that’s okay too. There’s a transition going on, so there’s extra flexibility about these words.

* WWW
If a Web address appears at the beginning of a sentence, you have two choices: You can leave off the www (for example, mysite.com) or you can rewrite the sentence to move the URL elsewhere. You would never use www at the beginning of the sentence and capitalize the first W.

* Video game names
Following the same rule used for movie and book titles, video game titles should be italicized: “He sat in his chair and played Tomb Raider until his head fell off.”

Carla Chadwick

Filed under: Guest Blogging, Writing | 11 Comments »

The title might sound a bit strange, so let me expand upon it a little more.

Are you enjoying what you are doing with your time online? That’s aimed, of course at people like Monika and myself who spend a lot of time online in the pursuit of enlightenment, education, knowledge as well as honing our writing skills and for me in particular my CSS and website building skills. But above all our ultimate goal is to make money doing these things that we enjoy.

I personally treat what I’m doing as a business, because I’m a person who really cannot work for anyone else. I did that for many years in my younger days when I was less confident and more accepting of my circumstances as being pretty much my lot in life.

But around 14 years ago I changed all that and started working for me. I realized there was much more to life than working my backside off to make someone else rich while getting paid relative peanuts for my efforts.

Does that sound like you?

That’s why I gravitated to this wonderful medium in order to create my own little online empire of websites, lenses and blogs that all perform the function of generating an income from various sources. I still write the odd article that I sell online, as well as writing those controversial paid reviews on some of my blogs to make some extra cash. It’s all part of one grand scheme – to make me financially secure in the years to come.

But I came to another conclusion about making money online that isn’t all that much fun – well, not for me anyway.

It’s in the definition of whether we’re actually working for ourselves or working for a boss. You know, like a… a job! Yeewww, wash my mouth out with soap!

I know it’s hard to believe, but when you think you’re working for yourself, you’re actually working for someone else and bending to their rules. I got that wake-up call when I started looking for some paying writing gigs.

Most on offer involved writing content for someone else’s site but the pay was the same old peanuts for a lot of hours work and to hammer the final nail into the coffin there was a damned deadline for which the content had to be presented. Just like a job. In fact not like a job – exactly that, a job!

Exactly what I never want to have to do again.

So I stopped right there and clicked the close tab and never went back. I value my writing skills highly and my ability to bang out an easy six thousand words in an afternoon is not for the exploitation of some website owner who needs a load of content so his site will make him rich and me with a paltry wage and nothing to show for it once the content has been handed over.

When I think about it in those terms, it make me even more determined to succeed for myself, not for someone else. That content could and should be sitting on my websites and making me rich! Do you see where I’m going with this?

I believe you have to make a sacrifice in the early days by writing an awful lot to build up your own portfolio of articles, website content and blog content to raise the profile and popularity of your own online empire in preparation for a future that those then heavily populated sites will bring you in a steady and sustainable income for the coming years.

A legacy, so to speak of a ton of work that was generated by one person for one person – you!

I don’t mean to knock the stuffing out of anyone who is busily beavering away at an online job to make ends meet – it has to be done sometimes! If you are cool with that, then that’s fine for you.

For me though, it would never sit well with my personal feelings about the whole idea of creating my own wealth. The very thought of giving all my hard work away to someone else for far less than its worth in the present let alone what it will be worth in the future, gives me a severe dose of the screaming abdabs.

No way Jose… it’s not for me!

Terry Didcott
Author and Originator of Blogging Web 2.0

Filed under: Writing | 3 Comments »

In Karen’s last post here at Blogging Web 2.0, she mentioned some of the problems many bloggers and would be online entrepreneurs have in getting things done or taking on new ideas even when they are practically fail-proof and are given away for free.

The one point that inspired me to write this was that of self discipline.

Self discipline is a tough one to master especially if you’ve lived your life not having to hone that particular skill. That’s because it won’t come naturally and if anything your own mindset will reject it as an unnatural way of behaving.

Very tough.

So I thought I’d take a line from my own perspective. I’m one of those who stubbornly rejects the idea of stuffy rules and rigidity in all things. The very thought of placing myself in the situation where I would have to completely re-think my whole character and personality traits in order to conform to someone else’s idea of how I should plan and execute my time is totally foreign to me.

Naturally I would totally reject it.

To even try to change my mode of thinking to embrace self discipline would cause me so much stress and confusion that it would have a completely negative effect on my workload. It would certainly reduce my ability to do what I do now but even more importantly would hamper and even restrict my creative abilities. That would be so counter-productive as to render me useless!

So what would be the point?

I’m not saying that it wouldn’t work for others, simply that it would not work for me. The old saying “One man’s meat is another man’s poison” springs to mind here and adapts perfectly to a situation where one person’s mode of working may seem completely haphazard and undisciplined to another person to whom a more rigid and disciplined approach works very well.

Horses for courses!

Terry Didcott
Author and Co-Owner of Blogging Web 2.0

Filed under: Writing | 1 Comment »

So many things involve writing these days and as bloggers I think it is one of the things we have to become better at all the time. If our grammar isn’t good, or our writing comes across skewered, then we might struggle to bring our message across. When I look back at when I started, I kind of feel embarrassed about how I write in those days. But only kind off as I know that with practice we do get better in anything we pursue.

The same applies to writing. The more we write, the better we get and like riding a bicycle, we never forget it. But just like the bicycle starts to rust when left in the shed for too long, so will our writing skills.

I will try to share with you, what I have done to help my writing to get better over the last 6 month. Maybe it will help somebody to pick up a helpful nudge in the right direction and this will make the post worthwhile.

• Probably the biggest force in getting better is to write every day. Whether it is blog posts, articles, letters, email or website content of some kind, it helps to write daily.
• Reading; reading is responsible for giving me a good and intuitive understanding of the English language and how sentences are structured. See, I never had tutoring in English grammar except the few language lessons I took as a teenager and I have read to this day thousands (this isn’t a misprint by the way) of books in English to help me. I was always called a book worm when I was a kid and once I learned English I simply switched to reading English books.
• Conversations help to improve our writing too. By talking with others we learn new words and meanings which we can use to inject into our writing.
• Not being afraid to learn more. I always strive to learn more things. I believe that life is an adventure that needs to be soaked up and experienced to the last minute and by learning new things, I can use the new found knowledge to write about.
• Studying grammar; I know, this is a dry subject and not one I would feel inclined to do ever. But it does seem to help some people to write better.
• Keeping an open mind.
• Some people choose to write a diary about their life experience which also furthers our ability to become better at the craft. Blogging is a great example of this.

Despite all this, my journey as a writer is an ongoing one. I can always become better at what I do and I think one of the most important aspects of being good at anything is to stay humble.

Take care

Monika Mundell

Creator and Author of Blogging Web 2.0

Filed under: Writing | No Comments »