From the daily archives: Wednesday, February 10, 2010
1. Talk about something hot. One rule of thumb in writing news stories is to focus on something that is recent and newsworthy. So, instead of talking about what happened last month or last week, focus on what’s happening today. Your readers will surely appreciate it if you keep them posted on the issues that they need to know now.
2. Do your research. It’s very important that you deliver complete, in-depth information to your readers otherwise, they will not fully understand your stories. So, put in more than enough time when learning and fully understanding the stories that you would like to cover. Go to the scene where the event happened and talk to as many people as possible. Also, go to great lengths to get all sides of the story.
3. Stick with facts. I know, exaggerating or sensationalizing things can make your articles more enticing but this is not the best route to go if you want to become a respected journalist. If you want people to look up to you, make sure that you only deliver nothing but facts.
4. Keep it short. You need to make your articles relatively short for 2 major reasons; to help your editors save some space and to better serve your audience who are pressed for time. Write your news articles using as few words as possible. If you think that an information is not that important, then don’t bother including it on your content. Avoid using fillers at all cost and by all means, do not beat around the bush. It’s a just a major no-no in the field of journalism.
Author: Sean R Mize
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Cellphone news
Many individuals that are writing letters really don’t give much thought as to the layout of the page. Naturally, the attention goes to the content. It’s important though if you are in need of producing a formal letter that it is done properly and the best way to do this is by using a template.
One of the important things to remember about any type of letter writing is that it represents you to the recipient. This is particularly important if you have never met the receiver of the letter. If this is a formal letter you are sending then it is obvious that you want to present yourself as a responsible person. By being sure your presentation is the best it can, be utilizing a formal letter template will afford you that protection.
Another thing to consider is what is really classed as a formal letter? Most often anytime, you are sending a letter to an individual that you don’t know you could class it as formal. It’s just like a formal meeting of a person. This is usually the first time you meet someone.
You may believe that you have never written this type of letter in the past and probably will not need to do so in the future. In any event, if you have written a letter explaining something or requesting information then you can be assured this was a formal letter. Don’t confuse this type of letter with a legal letter.
A formal letter template helps to walk you through the layout of your letter without having to put much thought into it. It is somewhat like filling in the blanks of a form. Often when you are writing this type of letter your concern is about the contents. You can have the best contents in the world, but if they are not presented properly, they are not likely to have the impact that you are hoping to make.
If you can equate a formal letter to an important meeting, it will give you a clearer idea as to how important the presentation of your letter is. Let’s say you were going to a meeting to obtain financing for an important investment. It would be very important that you presented yourself properly. Most likely, you are going to wear the appropriate attire. This is your presentation. You want the lenders to see you as someone they should listen to. The same thing applies with your formal letter. You want the letter presented in such a way that the reader feels you are someone who should be listened to. With the use of the form letter template that is going to ensure that, your presentation is professional according to the need of the letter.
The final thing you must remember is that if the letter is important enough to send then the results are probably important. To help you get those results, whatever they may be, a form letter template is going to give you the advantage.
Author: Rebecca Kruger
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Latest trends in mobile phone
Freelance technical writing is definitely a gold mine in terms of excellent income, especially since the demand is sky high and there are very few writers to do the work. If you are looking for a suitable niche for you to focus on, then technical writing could be for you. There are many other freelance writing opportunities available today and you need to consider many aspects before specializing in freelance technical writing. You should scrutinize the myriad freelance writing opportunities to be sure you know your options. Even if you are a good writer, that doesn’t mean you’ll be good at technical writing. As a general guideline, you should get into freelance technical writing only if you completely understand what you can expect from your projects.
The first step is to analyze your writing style, personality traits and abilities in all honesty. If you are a creative person, you will have a very difficult time trying to write technical material. Technical writing is scientific, accurate and fact-based, with no space for opinions or flowery writing. If you take up freelance technical writing, be prepared to write lots of factual material. Technical writing projects are often in relation to user manuals, installation guides, policies and procedures, requirements documentation, reports, white papers, reference documents, contracts, business proposals etc.
While other freelance writing opportunities present lots of creative freedom, technical writing will always be technical. You will spend 70% of your time on research. Hunting for data in lengthy reports, interviewing people from the relevant technical communities and spending hours accessing databases in search of information are all part of a technical writer’s job. You might even have to do a lot of leg work, which will depend on the particular assignment. You have to be clear and 100% certain of your sources. Freelance technical writing can be very laborious, and if you are not willing to go the extra mile, you shouldn’t work on such projects.
Freelance technical writing is a field for those who love a mental challenge. Technical writers are found in industries such as IT, chemistry, healthcare, engineering, consumer electronics, finance, biotechnology, robotics and aerospace. If you’re a person blessed with both a tech-savvy character and a flair for writing, you should definitely specialize in freelance technical writing.
Author: Shanki De Silva
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: WordPress plugin expert
Online writing jobs provide more opportunities than ever for freelance writers to find paying work. While cold calling can still land a writer work, as anyone who has had to go through the process can attest to, the best conversions rate you could expect was 3-4%, and that was if you had a lot of experience.
That’s a lot of time for not a lot of return, and if you had no clips, forget it. You were also limited to a general area of work. With the Internet, the ability for writers to work from home while communicating a long distance became easier and easier, and thus the outsourcing of writing work took off.
If you’re looking to get started writing, look for online writing jobs to help give a quick boost to your career. There are many good websites where you can sell content, and several, such as Associated Content and Constant-Content, allow you to work on whatever types of articles you want and upload them to sell.
In addition to this, you can use your writing on Squidoo lenses to display your skills. By putting quality articles online, you can also get work from people searching for writers (and there are a lot of employers looking for consistent freelance writing talent). If you want to take your writing up to the next level, you can sign up for a membership to either Guru or Elance. You can bid for jobs on these sites, and get some pretty decent paying gigs.
Finding online writing jobs isn’t difficult. There are dozens of writing forums, online writing job websites, and other postings. It’s not hard to find online writing jobs as long as you do a little bit of research and are willing to do the work to back it up.
Outsourcing isn’t necessarily a bad thing, either. So many jobs are claimed by non native English speakers that I’ve actually found that it’s been pretty easy for me to nail a lot of work because even my query letter will stick out as sounding more natural.
Online writing jobs are great ways to start your freelance writing career. Just do a little research, make some lists, bookmark your favorite pages and good luck!
Author: Shane Dayton
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital Camera Information
Ah, fiction-there’s just so many things you can do with it. The story is only limited by the imagination of the writer. That’s why we have also seen many fictional hotels in various media, including novels, short stories, films, television shows, radio dramas, and even stage plays. These hotels can be totally made up, or inspired by real-world hotels that hold significance to the author or is just the perfect model for the story’s own hotel.
Television seems to offer us the bulk of fictional hotels. There are many TV shows that feature fictional hotels prominently in their narrative. One of the more recent examples is the Neptune Grand Hotel in the series Veronica Mars. The hotel was a recurring setting through the series’ few seasons, and many notable events in the story occurred in the hotel. Interesting fact-the Neptune Grand’s exterior belonged to the Hyatt Regency.
Additionally, Veronica Mars also featured a fictional motel-the Camelot Motel. There’s also the Hyperion Hotel in the series Angel, in which the protagonist vampire takes residence for a few seasons.
Some fictional hotels, given their fictional nature, can take on different forms as they move across different adaptations. Take the Overlook Hotel, for example. It is the fictional hotel in the Stephen King novel The Shining. King’s inspiration for the said hotel was The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. The same hotel was used for the TV adaptation made by ABC. Meanwhile, in the film adaptation of the novel, directed by Stanley Kubrick, the mountain resort Timberline Lodge took the form of the fictional Overlook Hotel.
John Irving’s novel, The New Hampshire Hotel, features the titular hotel as a central player in the plot. The protagonist family transformed an old and abandoned school into the hotel of the title, naming it The New Hampshire Hotel. Later in the story, the remaining members of the family move to Vienna, to a second New Hampshire Hotel.
The 1966 novel The Comedians, written by Graham Greene, takes place mainly in the fictional Hotel Trianon. The author based the Trianon on 19th century Gothic structure Hotel Oloffson, found in Port-au-Prince in Haiti, where he stayed frequently during the 1950s.
However, it isn’t only in the good old boob tube where fictional hotels can be found. Take stage plays, for example. The Lanford Wilson play titled The Hot l Baltimore shows us the dazed residents of a property that has just been condemned-and the people are suddenly staring eviction right in the face. The title takes its name from the aforementioned property-Hotel Baltimore-of which the neon sign has lost an ‘e’ after it burnt out.
There are many other examples, from the King’s Tower within which The Jamie Foxx Show was set to the Hotel California album and song released by The Eagles band in 1976. It is clear that hotels can also become icons in fiction, standing for a variety of themes and taking on various roles within a particular narrative.
Author: Stefan Schultz
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital Camera News
Can Quick Grammar Guide & Checker solve our grammar writing problems once and for all? English writing is one of the most important forms of communication today, it is necessary to maintain it correct and professional. Let’s take a look and see how recent technological improvements can help us on improving our writing skills.
Quick introduction
What is Quick Grammar Guide & Checker all about? Well, it is one of these innovative solutions that technology keeps bringing in order to make our life easier – in our case it is about fixing our English writing. By simulating the human mind, this technology analyzes your writing by comparing it to a dynamic large database that contains proper variations of your text. Sophisticated language processing solutions usually offer the following: editing and proofreading, checking on spelling and typos, and most importantly – analyzing our grammar writing.
Important benefits
We can easily find several important advantages while using this technology:
* Significantly enhancing the capabilities of our existing text editors.
* Improving our self confidence with our writing.
* Improving the image we want to project through our writing.
Extra research on this solution would probably bring up additional benefits that aren’t mentioned here, as this important webmarketing technique keeps changing, bringing us fresh solutions that help us on improving our English writing and editing skills.
Quick summary
If we summarize the main benefit provided by this powerful Quick Grammar Guide & Checker – it is helping us on identifying possible writing errors before we deliver or publish our writing assignments. Everyone agrees that it cannot completely eliminate our writing problems; however, it can significantly help us on improving our writing skills. Undoubtedly we can expect this exciting technology to further develop itself, for one simple reason: writing is one of the most important tools that help us achieving many of our goals.
Author: Gil Lavitov
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital Camera Times
The longevity and public recognition of a certain consumer item is jump started by an effective press release a written piece of information that will excite costumers with its revolutionary content and will invite them to try out the product. The biggest paid advertisers are the ones that can sustain the market interest, and almost all of them believe in the power of press releases maximized to its highest and most attractive potential.
The content of good press releases is always concise and adequately detailed if all necessary information is present to entice buyers, then there is a good chance that the product will be celebrated in the market. Never blurt out excessive promises or exaggerated claims as many people have already been disillusioned by products that do not deliver. Normally, if one endorses a product to the ultimate item, then there shouldnt be any negative reviews about it which is impossible since any man-made product cannot please everyone. Just keep everything clear, firm and realistic chances are, the written press release will be published and recognized immediately.
It is also important to note that style, structure layout matter too having good grammar and a conversational tone will help a lot in capturing the interest of potential buyers. If one employs a too uptight approach or has bad grammar, people will be naturally put off. In press releases, all details ranging from content to font style matter tremendously so never take the risk of mismanagement. That is the key to writing effective press releases.
Author: Sean R Mize
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Beading Necklace
Ive been in publishing since 1987, have been a freelancer since 1993 and ran an editorial staffing agency in New York City from 1996 through 2004.
Over the years, Ive noticed that successful freelancers, eg, those who make their living entirely from freelancing (writing, editing, copywriting, web design, etc.), have the following seven traits in common.
1. Write/design every day: Many freelancers are drawn to their particular career because they love it. They love to write, design, draw whatever it is, they would do it for free.
Once they decide to freelance full time, most work at it every day. They write articles, design sites, doodle illustrations, etc. In other words, they dont stop working on their craft just because there is no paying client.
Benefit to their career: These professionals always have a body of work to sell, show, update their portfolio with, etc. Beyond that, it keeps their skills fresh and allows them to work that much faster once they are being paid for a project.
As a personal example, when I first started to write articles to promote my business, it would take upwards of two hours to complete one. Now, I can knock one out in 30 minutes if I have to.
Side Note: I have run across more than a few freelancers who dont exactly love what they do. BUT, because they like the life of freelancing, they discipline themselves to do what it takes, eg, (work at it steadily) to make a living at it.
2. Dont wait for markets to come to them: Building on this first habit, when you are constantly churning out new material, you dont have to wait for clients to come to you, you can pitch to them.
If youve written a great article on the benefits of yoga, why wait for a national exercise magazine to take months to get back to you. Pitch your local newspaper journalist who covers health. Youll usually know within a week or two if they can use your story.
Your neighborhood paper cant use it? Pitch the neighboring countys newspaper, a popular e-zine dedicated to womens health, a new health website that needs fresh content, etc.
Successful freelancers are this proactive. When I was recruiting, I was constantly amazed at the type of assignments successful freelancers were able to ferret out for themselves.
When Id ask, How did you get that assignment, come up with that idea?, the comments ranged from, I couldnt sleep last night so I start doing some digging online because I just wrote this great article and wanted to get it published, to I was just doodling and came upon this great design; I knew it would make a great logo for this niche, so I put it on a t-shirt and pitched a few boutiques in my neighborhood
Successful freelancers are not only creative in their work, theyre creative in how they locate markets to sell their work.
3. Have more than one stream of income: By this, I do not mean that they have second jobs. Most successful freelancers do more than one thing.
For example, a writer may design a line of themed t-shirts with their witticisms on them. Illustrators, in addition to creating logos, may sell paintings or drawings. Web designers may also create online games.
I dont know how many more brain cells creative types use than the rest of the population, but editorial and creative professionals usually dibble and dabble in more than one sector and quite successfully I might add.
4. Have a niche: While this may seem to contradict the previous habit, it doesnt. Most successful freelancers do one thing and do it very well. Eg, they are a medical writer, a direct mail copywriter, a web designer.
This is because successful freelancers usually have a professional background in the discipline in which they freelance. Usually, they have built up a reputation and client list based on their expertise/experience.
Benefit to their career: This works well because once clients are comfortable with you on one level, you can approach them about doing other types of projects. In some cases, they will even approach you.
For example, if you are a web designer, you can approach a client about doing some logo design work. Most web designers are familiar with other tools of the trade like logo design software, that makes it easy for them to offer peripheral services to clients.
In the retail trade, this is known as upselling. BUT, you can only upsell if you have established a level of trust and professionalism in your base (niche) skill.
5. Have a website: Without fail, all successful freelancers have at least a basic website. They realize the need to present a professional image to clients and have invested in an online presence.
Every once in a while, I am still asked by those just starting out if they need a website. Invariably, I ask, Would you do business without a telephone? I think websites have progressed to this point.
Benefit to their career: Websites save freelancers time which is at a premium if you are a successful freelancer. You can direct potential clients there to see samples of your work, get pricing info, your professional credentials, your client list, etc. Many times, this is how clients will find you to begin with.
So, is having a website a must to succeed as a freelancer? In my opinion, absolutely. And, it doesnt have to be fancy and cost a fortune. Most web surfers are seeking information.
A basic site will serve your purposes just fine. Just make sure it is professional looking, is easy to navigate, is free from grammatical errors and has your contact info on every page (or a Contact Us button on every page).
6. Are savvy & consistent marketers: Revisiting habit three, successful freelancers are masters of marketing their services. They have to be.
When you are a freelancer, you have to remain hungry for the next assignment, the next gig. By being proactive and consistent marketers, successful freelancers dont wait for one project to be done before looking for the next one.
To this end, these professionals use many marketing tools (free and paid) to get the word out about their business, eg, search engine optimization, article marketing, press releases, e-book giveaways, speaking engagements, seminars, workshops, etc.
In other words, successful freelancers treat their careers like a start-up business which is what freelancing really is.
7. Put in much more than 40 hours/week: Face it, you may be able to go to the grocery store at 2pm when everyone else is stuck in an office, but you probably didnt log off until 2am, finishing up a project for a client who needed it at the last minute.
Freelancing is not a static career. Sometimes you will have weeks with nothing to do and then you will get slammed with three or four projects at once. Its some type of weird Murphys law at work.
Projects never come when you want or need them too. They invariable come at the most inopportune time (eg, when your kid is sick, when YOURE sick, two days before vacation, on a Friday afternoon and needed by Monday).
So, while you may be able to work in your jammies you may also not be able to go to the beach, hang out with your friends as much, take the afternoon off. Like anything in life, its a trade-off (a worthwhile one in my opinion).
Just know, while your time may be your own, it will be on an unconventional schedule.
Author: Yuwanda Black
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Canada duty rates
So who would like to be a great screenplay writer? More than likely, every single person that has even remotely fathomed the idea of writing a screenplay aspires to greatness. It is simply the common nature of the muse. Of course, wanting to be a screenplay writer and becoming a great screenplay writer are two different things. Screenplay writing can be quite difficult although this difficulty can be diffused through understanding a few simple scriptwriting tips that can aid in boosting a screenwriter’s potential. Not surprisingly, many of these scriptwriting tips derive from the process of reading screenplays.
Read as many good scripts as you can get your hands on. When a script has succeeded on aesthetic and commercial levels, it will provide a treasure trove of information on how to craft a solid narrative. Yes, being a prolific screenplay reader is often overlooked on the journey to becoming a good writer. As such, reading as many solid scripts as you can get your hands on are of paramount importance.
Read a few bad scripts while you are at it. No, reading a bad script is not a waste of time. Often, the flubs, flaws, and errors found in poor scripts can provide an insight into where the script went wrong and how to avoid such mistakes. Few scriptwriting tips mention that there is value in bad scripts. Yet, the truth of the matter is there is a tremendous amount of value in them. You just have to know where to look and this will become apparent as you comprehensive of screenplay devices
Looking over a shooting script while simultaneously watching the film it is based upon on DVD. This is an old trick many screenwriting professionals employ. By reading while watching along with the film allows you to see how the visual elements of the screenplay are translated onto the silver screen. To say this will open doors of perception as to how the movie is crafted from a screenplay would be an understatement. Consider this among the most helpful of scriptwriting tips.
Look at how screenwriting format is presented in the screenplay you are reading. Yes, screenplay format is standardized as any screenplay analysis will tell you. But, how does a particular master screenwriter weave his narrative into the confines of screenwriting format and make it work for him? When you can figure this out, you can apply such principles to your own writing and improve it immensely.
Try to get your hands on as many screenwriting coverage reports as possible. These are not always easy to procure but they are valuable. Such coverage reports give you an insight into how a script reader works and thinks which aids you in developing your own screenplay in a positive manner. Here is an important scriptwriting tip: when you know how readers think, you increase the odds of getting positive coverage from them.
Procure a few quality books on the subject of screenwriting and devour them. Some books are truly stunning and well worth looking into. Pick up a few of the good ones and see for yourself!
Author: Paul V. Warner
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: US Dollar credit card
About
The Writers' Corner is dedicated to providing the tips and resources required for developing a career as a professional writer.Stuff We Like