What you really need to make it as a freelancer

Having been a freelancer for nine years now, I knew I'd be disappointed with the insight offered by the clickbaity title
"Do You Have What It Takes to be a Moneymaking Freelance Writer?"

But because I really am a curious  person who checks things out rather than assuming they are what I believe them to be, I clicked it to find out for myself.

All the advice in that post focuses on  writing well and being disciplined about sticking to it, reading voraciously, and being curious. In other words, we have the old cliche of work hard to follow your dream, and you will attain it.

Utter nonsense! Real life doesn't work like a Disney movie.

The difference between those who really make money and those who don't is not the skills you develop but the connections you make... and a touch of serendipity.

Why skills alone don't cut it
 You can be a writer on par with Jane Austen, but if you don't get your abilities noticed by the right person at the right time, you could end up churning out blogs for just $5- $10 a piece on sites like Upwork. Just working hard won't advance you that far.

The content mill proposition 
 In fact, that myth is what content mills use to lure writers into complicated reward structures that assure them of only fractions of a cent per view payable at some unattainable threshold level. "Just keep generating content, and you'll increase your earnings," they say, dangling that carrot that will forever remain out of reach for the poor souls caught up in such systems.

Fame without fortune
A similar ploy is used by those sites that will offer you no compensation other than exposure, which, they say, will, ultimately lead you not just to fame but at least some fortune.Don't you believe it!

Those who get sucked into such system will be mired in the false reality of low rates, which are not a reflection of quality of work as much as they are of the resources or generosity of the publisher.

The only way forward as a freelancer 
You have to connect with people who either have the power to hire or who can recommend you to those who do. You also need to get on board when the publication is flush enough with funds to offer a decent rate rather than demanding you work fora pittance. That's where the next quality comes in.

Serendipity
The way I ended up writing on tech was due to serendipity. In 2010, when I was starting to see possibilities in freelancing, I discovered an ad for work on Internet Evolution (it no longer exists). It was offering writers $10 per comment (that not per blog but just per comment). It seemed easy enough, so I signed on and then signed on to comment on additional sites form the same publisher.

 After a short while I was invited to writer at the rate of $200 a blog. For someone who was still at the beginning of her writing career, it seemed to be pretty good rate, particularly as it had the buying power beyond what $200 buys today. In fact, some would still consider that a good rate because there are publishers out there that won't pay more than $100 or even $25 a blog. I know this because every once in a while I reach out to a publication or have it reach out to me and get offered those very low rates despite having hundreds of publications to my name now.

The point is that without having connected with the people who were then offering a rate that they considered fair rather than what they considered what was the least writers would settle for, I had an anchor amount that didn't put as far down as those plugging away for $25.

As it turned out, my timing was especially fortuitous because some time later the comment compensation dropped to $5, and newer sites tried to get writers to work for just $150 a piece. I only still got the $200 because I insisted on it.

Myths of merit 
Did I retain what was becoming a higher than average rate  it because I'm that much of a better writer? No, nor do I believe that writers who have positioned themselves to consistently earn $1 a word are necessarily better wordsmiths than I, though they likely are better negotiators and networkers.

That  merit is always rewarded and that better performers are always compensated better because they're worth is is a myth.  While it's good to read myth-like stories and  fairy tales to build you imagination as a writer, it's not good to believe that virtue, hard work,  or event talent is inevitably rewarded in real life.

Reality
 As in any business, for freelancers to prosper, they need to make those vital connections that will give them opportunities for work and income.

Define "good"

I don't mean that in an abstract way or with the kind of depths of thought about what we mean by "qulity" that drove the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance toward madness. I just mean it in the context of "good pay."  The question arises from this job posting:

We pay really well because we want really good content.
“Really good content” means well-constructed, well-reasoned arguments that are also extremely engaging.
Articles need to be a minimum of 500 words, though analysis pieces need to be a minimum of 1,000 words
We provide you with the headlines and an initial source
We’re looking for both weekday AND weekend writers. There’s a bonus for weekend writers.
We often promote writers to management positions

Ah, I think, they say they have high standards but compensate accordingly, so I was picturing a minimum of three figures and not just with a one or two at the beginning of the number. But my illusions about some shared view on what constitutes "good" pay was shattered an instant later as I read on:

What We’ll PayPay will start at $15/article during the test period. Afterward, we’ll bump it to $20/article for weekday news articles, and $30/article for weekday analysis articles. Weekend news articles are $25/article and weekend analysis pieces are $35/article. 

So, basically, they'll pay you what teen babysitters get per hour for an article that should take you several hours to write.  Certainly, any beginning writer -- and that's the only kind who likely would apply for this job -- would likely need more than hour to crank out an article of that length that is not merely recycled platitudes.

Related: http://writewaypro.blogspot.com/2017/05/on-working-almost-for-free.html
http://writewaypro.blogspot.com/2016/05/writing-for-free-is-not-deductible.html
http://writewaypro.blogspot.com/2016/05/an-idiots-guide-for-writers.html

On working almost for free

Someone I did some freelance work for a few years back contacted me to inquire about writing for his current company. The exchange on LinkedIn messaging went like this:

Hi Ariella, Not sure if you remember me from my ___ days but I am looking for a freelancer to help out with blog posts across two products here at ____. I don't remember what your pricing was but I do remember that you made my life a whole lot easier. Can you send me what you were asking?

 I assured him that I did remember him and asked what kind of articles he had in mind. His response:

• product focused
• and a bit of thought leadership
• Just so I can make sure, does $50 for an 800 word article work?

I wrote back:

I'm assuming you dropped a zero there.

Surprisingly enough, he said:

I did not. Our content director informed me that is what we normally pay for an 800 word article. Understood if that is way too cheap. 

That was far below my rate even when I first started freelancing (and he knows it's a tiny fraction of what was paid by his previous company, which is why I had assumed he dropped a zero).  But I am not one to throw away opportunities in a snit. I said my daughter may do it for that rate. After all, she is willing to work for free for college internships. So I'll let her take a crack at it. At least, it will be a learning experience and resume builder for her.

Related posts http://writewaypro.blogspot.com/2016/05/writing-for-free-is-not-deductible.html

 http://writewaypro.blogspot.com/2016/05/an-idiots-guide-for-writers.html
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/college-internships-real-story-ariella-brown-phd-1

An Idiot's guide for writers

I got this email today:

For more than twenty years, our Idiot’s Guides books have been teaching people how to do everything from balancing your checkbook to raising bees. But now, we are starting a whole new revolution online - and we want you to be a part of it!
Questions. We know you’ve got ‘em. Here’s the low-down, Q&A style.
What’s the short story?We wanted to create a global community online where anyone can come to teach what they know, or learn what they don’t.  Enter idiotsguides.com, our brand-spankin’ new site that is a global community where anyone can post a how-to article (called “Quick Guides”) on any subject they’d like!
What does this have to do with me?You’re awesome. We already know that by following your blog! We’d love for you to share your awesomeness with us by joining our community and contributing to idiotsguides.com!
Hm. Ok...what’s in it for me?  (It’s ok to ask, we know you want to!)Exposure (the good kind): Your contributions will be seen by the more than 1 million people who come to our site each month.
You can link back to your site on any Quick Guide that you write, boosting traffic to your site.
We share your work on all of our social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.).
You can earn loads of fun badges! Earn enough and you rise to the level of Guru, which can lead to a paid writing gig as one of our Idiot’s Guides book authors!

Right, so after working for free for some unspecified period of time to earn nothing but exposure and badges(REALLY? Who do you think we writers are, 8 year-olds?) you may finally move up to considered for a job that could pay you. In the interim, I suppose you're supposed to live on air or  bunk in your parents' house. Maybe they really do think they're getting children to write for badges and are waiting for them to grow up before actually expecting any real compensation for work.

 You know what I would be sure to include if I were writing an Idiot's Guide for writers? It would be not to fall for the exposure line from someone who claims to be offering you the gig because of the exposure you've already achieved on your own. I'd also go over the information I included in http://writewaypro.blogspot.com/2016/05/writing-for-free-is-not-deductible.html

Writing for free is not tax deductible

Recently I brought down my auto insurance premium significantly and wanted to find  a media outlet that was a good fit for the topic and that would pay me for writing about it. In the course of hunting around for sites of that sort and came across one that said it does want guest bloggers. But the pay is so low, it recommends you can consider the writing a donation. Here's the exact wording:

• Small fee of $20 per post.  If you normally charge more, ask your accountant if the rest of your fee is considered a donation. We'll be happy to send you our 501c3 letter.  Please also let us know if you would just like to donate the full amount, and not receive payment.

This is not just laughable but dangerous. In my eyes, the site lost all credibility if the editors actually believe what they're saying or are low enough to deliberately lure people into doing work for free or for far less than they deserve because they can gain a tax advantage.

I do volunteer work regularly. Sometimes it's writing, sometimes it's packing up food for people in the neighborhood, and sometimes it's covering phones as a dispatcher for a local roadside assistance service. It's voluntary work that I do to help, but it is not tax deductible. I looked this up once and discovered that in the views of the government, the only deductible expense associated with volunteer work would be out-of-pocket expenses -- not the value you place on your time. See https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p526.pdf That is explicitly stated as item #4 on "Contributions You Can't Deduct."

So if anyone tries to sell you on donating your time with the compensation of a tax deduction, be aware that the IRS will not allow it. It could possibly work for those who sell products -- say food for an event or possibly even physical books, but not for the articles you compose for a site.  

Related posts: http://writewaypro.blogspot.com/2016/02/save-me-from-resume-advice.html

The value of blogs for marketing: attraction, connection, and SEO

picture from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Blog_(1).jpg

A few years ago, everyone seemed to think video was the way to go to capture attention for effective marketing. Now, people seem to realize that many people -- like me -- would prefer to read information in text form at their own pace rather than sit through a video that can take several minutes to get to a point they are truly interested in. 

Unless you have time to kill or really need to hear information to absorb it, why would you want to sit through something for 10, 15, sometimes even 45 minutes or more to get information you can read in less than 5 minutes? If you don't want to lose the attention of the people who feel that way, you need to reach out to them with articles. Smart marketers know this. That's why some are now getting writers to turn the information they had put into videos into articles. 

There are good reasons for brands to sponsor blogs.

Lots of blog readers out there

Most people, as many as 8 out of 10, according to  Content Marketing Institute consider themselves blog readers. People are also very receptive to communication from businesses in the form of blogs because of the insight they gain either from information about their field or about how the business operates without feeling like they are bombarded by ads.

 Blogs generate leads, build brand recognition, and boost SEO

Companies that blog generate 67% more leads each month than companies that don’t, according to Social Media B2B.  In addition to the blog building the brand recognition among those who read and share the content, it boosts SEO. For one thing, fresh content is a plus for Google rankings, and blogs add new content much more regularly than website updates do.

Blogs increases indexed pages and raise search engine rankings

As Content Plus explained, websites can gain 434% indexed pages and 97% more indexed links from their blogs. That increase in the indexing count translates into higher search engine rankings, which can drive a lot more browsers to a brand’s website. Indexed pages and indexed links translate into higher rankings with the search engines, which also contribute to higher rankings for a website. The effect can be even further enhanced when social media and mobile communication send out links to new content on a company blog.

No one denies that content is king, though this indicates that the power of the crown remains linked to the written word.

Ignore this piece of advice

If you believe that the purpose of social media is to be all things to all people and don't want to change your mind, stop reading here. Click over to this Hootsuite blog for advice you'll want to follow. I follow a different path.

I have no issue with the first part of the blog. It advises people to Google themselves to see which one of their social media outlets returns high-ranking results. That insight could be helpful. In fact, I learned recently that I really should Google myself more often to get beyond the hits of the articles I've published. It was such a search that revealed my Twitter profile is what landed on a list of big data bloggers back in September. I only happened across the list months later.

Yes, it makes sense to keep abreast of what is your key identifier for those who happen across your posts. I post a lot on Twitter and quite a lot on Google+ because that's where I share links in all categories that interest me,  professionally, personally, and even politically.  I post less on LinkedIn because I limit myself more to professional interests, though I do sometimes throw in some links from the other two categories. For Facebook, my brand pages get less than my personal page. I post very little on Pinterest and never contribute to Instagram or YouTube.

I know all that without Googling results because I know my own habits already. Now if I were to follow the advice of the article linked to above, I would resolve to set up a YouTube and Instagram account and  spend a lot more time on Pinterest. But I have not intention to do so. That's because I'm playing to my own strengths and interests rather than trying to be all things to all people. 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/The_Childrens_Museum_of_Indianapolis_-_Goha_story_cloth.jpg

There really is no way to please everyone. That's the moral of the story of the father and son who set out to market with a donkey, one of Aesop's Fables. You can read a really short version of it here.  There are those who would favor the father, favor the son, or favor the donkey, and by trying to please them all, you lose sight of the real objective of the journey and devote all your time to juggling positions.

The thing about branding is that it works so long as it is focused. The focus is not just in the message but in the medium. If you're pushing fashion, it makes sense to get your message across in a visual medium. If you're pushing ideas, you may want some illustrations, but you likely have to also choose words that explain and clarify.  If that's the path you've chosen, stick with it. Veering off to tend to pictures diverts your time and attention, which can detract from your core identity. I'm not going to be everyone's cup of tea, and if I try to be, I'll just lose my own flavor. 

Yes, I know that video deliver great metrics.  know that pictures garner more shares and likes than text. I don't object to using pictures or even embedding videos, yet, my primary medium is the written word. It's the way I like to get my information and the way I like to present it. Other people do a better job at creating images, infographics, and videos, and so I will leave them to it and concentrate on what I do well. 

Half truths and whole lies

Nearly two years ago, I thought about "Where to begin?" in writing and the option of not beginning at the very beginning but in the middle of the action. The tactic can also be used in nonfiction, but in that case there is a moral imperative to not distort the actual sequence of events to direct sympathies in a particular direction. Emotions change depending on how an event is reported.

Here's a recent event from some local news: Trapped in his bathroom during a raging fire, a man and had to be rescued by firefighters and rushed to the hospital for smoke inhalation.

If that is what you read, you'd likely feel very sorry for the man who suffered in a fire.

That account is correct, though it is not what is highlighted in the news story headline.  As it turned out, the man who had to be rescued set the fire himself.  He caused property damage that left many tenants homeless and caused another man to need treatment for smoke inhalation. His motive for arson? He was angry about being evicted. Some people may think anger of that sort justifies destruction that harms other innocent people, but most people would lose all sympathy for an arsonist.
Half a truth is not only a whole lie but a way to misrepresent the arsonist as victim.

Cutting out the actual background to events completely changes our perceptions and distort who is in the right and who is in the wrong. That is well-illustrated in a story of reaping what you sow in "The Little Red Hen." If you jump to the end of the story without the beginning, the hen sounds selfish and mean. She tantalizes the other animals with the freshly baked loaf and then refuses to share with them. Clearly, then she's the bad guy.


But that's not the point of the story at all. It only makes sense if you read it from the beginning and see that at every step involved in baking the bread, she had asked the others to share in the work. They always refused. That's why she said they can't share in the results. If you're committed to a narrative that demonizes red hens, then you'll leave out the crucial steps along the way to the baked bread. while fiction does allow you to set your boundaries where you will, a news report needs to be more comprehensive about the beginning, middle, and end.

The writing test

I'm one of the scorers for the SAT essays. That factual accuracy is not required can get annoying, particularly when you get essays that say Einstein invented the lightbulb or that Shakespeare was a novelist. Then there are the literary analyses that give me the sensation of nails on a chalkboard because they do so miss the point.
 However, as the essays cannot be predicated on any prior knowledge of a subject, the rule is that the score cannot suffer for student ignorance. What the test is about is not making stuff up so much  Matthew J.X. Malady  asserts  in We Are Teaching High School Students to Write Terribly, but in being able to formulate a position with backup on the fly. 

Here's an extract:

 “In fact, trying to be true will hold you back.” So, for instance, in relaying personal experiences, students who take time attempting to recall an appropriately relatable circumstance from their lives are at a disadvantage, he says. “The best advice is, don’t try to spend time remembering an event,” Perelman adds, “Just make one up. And I’ve heard about students making up all sorts of events, including deaths of parents who really didn’t die.”

Now, you have to remember that students are only be scored for the effectiveness of their writing. The question of truth here is irrelevant. No one is supposed to win extra points out of sympathy for their situation here. The stuff of make believe is not just a component in creative writing but can work for expository writing when offering hypothetical examples for illustration. 

The real problem is not making stuff up and deviating from facts but canning essays. As the questions are fairly general, some SAT prep places advise students to jut plan an essay ahead of time and then just connect it to the question in the introductions. No matter what the prompt is, these students come in prepared to write about Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks, or The Great Gatsby, or the American Revolution.  In truth, they can get away with it a lot of the time, but every once in a while, there is a prompt that really doesn't fit the canned essay. On those occasions, no matter how well stated and developed the essay is unto itself, its score will suffer for not being on target.

Another assertion I find not to be true in my extensive scoring experience is this:

 Most students choose to write what is referred to as “the standard five-paragraph essay”: introductory and concluding paragraphs bookending three paragraphs of support in between. Each essay is later independently graded by two readers in a manner that harkens to the famous I Love Lucy scene wherein Lucy and Ethel attempt to wrap chocolate candies traveling on an unrelenting conveyer belt.

Scorers are specifically warned not to award or deduct points for students who opt for the 5 paragraph essay. As a point of fact, most essays I see, particularly the ones that score a 5 or 6 tend to incorporate fewer than 5 paragraphs, though the essays typically do cover both pages. Also the idea of two scorers is one that colleges also use when scoring writing assessment tests, as I remember from my days as an instructor. It's meant as a check on standards -- in case one scorer will tend to be too harsh or too lenient. They two reader system  is nothing like the chaotic image that Malady attempts to evoke with her television reference.  Is it possible that the writer here has fallen in the the fault he attributes to the SAT essay exam? He has opted for expressing what he feels will resonate with readers rather than for digging up the actual facts.

Now, I'm not saying that the SAT essay is a perfect way to assess student writing. Certainly, some students can do a much better job if only they were given more than 25 minutes. However, it is not the be-all-and-end-all of writing standards. Certainly, from what I see in high schools teachers continue to assert their own writing standards (and many of them still push the 5 paragraph essay) rather than train their students to write for the SAT exam.

Where to begin?

Usually, the answer is: "Begin at the beginning."  But where is that?

A while back, I started a discussion on LinkedIn about useless advice for writing. What topped my list was, "an essay has a beginning, a middle, and an end."  Writers may be told the same for novels, and it is really just as useless there because you don't necessarily start with what happened first in the story. In fact, classical works are famous for beginning in medias res. So, there is very good precedent for the beginning of a piece of writing not to lay out the framework to set the chronology.

The key thing is to begin in a way that draws the reader into wanting to continue reading the story, the essay, or the poem. And, yes, you should think of making it interesting even when your  reader is also your  teacher.

What doesn't work for openers? That question will get different answers. Today someone, no doubt thinking of Bulwer-Lytton  posted the warning not to open a novel with the weather. As some pointed out, though, there are novels that do it quite effectively. I would say that there are no set rules for opening novels, and that's a good thing. The perception that there are rules for opening essays, in my humble opinion, is what leads to very formulaic and boring openers, like the one I just read this morning. It started with "The Oxford dictionary defines... ." Now, that is the sort of thing I  expect students to rely on -- in high school. It's something they should get beyond in college. Certainly, it's not what I'd expect to find in a piece written by someone who gets paid for his work. It's true that you do sometimes want to use a formal definition to clarify how you use a particular term, but it's not exactly an attention-grabber.

Any thoughts on what you find does work well for openers?

Writer's homework

When I read articles by people who didn't bother to investigate the subject properly, I really wonder, why are they getting paid for this? I just read a Guardian piece on the advantages and drawbacks of  massive open online course AKA MOOCs.  Iit includes an assertion that the courses only can be given for subjects that involve multiple choice tests: 

Moocs are limited to subjects that can be assessed with multiple choice exams, marked automatically.Written any essays in your degree? Your professor's critique of them can't be replicated by a mooc – yet.

First of all, MOOCs like Coursera have come up with a way around that, as I explained in a blog posted last year:

Another innovative aspect to Coursera is the way it assesses student work in courses that are not limited to technology or mathematics.

As founder Ng observes, "Multiple choice doesn't really work for a poetry class." Also, with thousands enrolled in a single class, instructors would find it impossible to personalize responses to student work.

Coursera's solution to that problem is the introduction of "a system for peer grading, in which students will be trained to evaluate each other's work based on a grading rubric provided by the professor." This is not all that different from peer reviews encouraged in writers' groups, which some teachers employ in their own classroom, though the Coursera system is designed to ascertain that the students comprehend the instructor's standards before being allowed to grade another's work.

 Second of all, there are already some systems to automate grading for written work as I explained here:

For example, Pearson’s Write to Learn is designed to offer instant feedback and personalized direction on student writing. The software can be accessed at computers in the school or through an Internet connection remotely. Teachers using the software are happy to have much of the grunt work associated with guiding students through revision and editing lifted from their shoulders.  The automated critique also reduces personal confrontations. As one teacher featured in a Write to Learn case study says, there's no "evil professor" who delights in finding fault in student work.

Educational Testing Service's e-rater is another automated assessment tool. It can score 16,000 essays in 20 seconds, a breathtaking rate of productivity when compared to the one to two minutes per essay typically allotted to human scorers.

Students responded positively when the New Jersey Institute of Technology introduced e-raters. An assistant professor there, Andrew Klobucar, observes that whereas students see drafting and revising multiple times as "corrective, even punitive," when assigned by evil professors, they do not have the same negative view when doing it for an e-rater.

I do wish writers would do their own homework when offering an opinion on the current state of educational technology.

Is your face your calling card?

Many books include pictures of the author on the back cover or inside the jacket. That is one thing I never bother to check when considering whether or not I want to read a book.  I  still don't really think about the author's appearance as I read. And I don't really think about my own as I write. 

I use a quill for my signature picture here, as well as on my other blogs. It also serves as  my profile photo  on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. I feel it conveys what I am about more accurately -- in terms of my role as writer - than my photo would. Or maybe I'm just camera-shy.

On  the other hand, my actual photo does serve as my profile picture for the UBM boards on which I write. The policy there, as it is for many newspapers, is to require a photo for the writers. Those who comment only and don't blog can get away with using any picture they like for their profile photo or just use the default picture if they don't bother to upload one of their own. 

Once I had my picture posted in that way, I put it in for my LinkedIn profile, as well. It seemed more consistent to have the same picture represent me there. Also the more standard practice on LI is to use an actual photo than a representational picture.  I still can't see attaching a photo to a resume, though anyone who wishes to find my photo simply has to do an online search to find one in a fraction of a second.

While the net dooes tend to attach author faces to content,  I don't believe I am more drawn to articles that feature faces.I must be  in the minority, though, because I'm certain that those who demand faces find that they are effective at drawing more audience interest. 

. What do you think about  the face as calling card?

Snoopy and Ozick: find out what they have in common

That's one of the cartoons featured in http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2012/09/what-do-cynthia-ozick-and-snoopy-have.html

What to Ask Yourself About Your Content Marketing

My guest post for Level343.com explains what to expect from content marketing and the questions to go through to be sure it is as effective as possible. "Engagement is what we’re all after, particularly when we publish online and hope to get likes, pluses, comments, and shares. When planning what to include in a piece intended to serve as content marketing consider: who, how, what, which, where, when, and why."  Read more at 
 http://level343.com/article_archive/2012/08/30/key-questions-for-content-marketing/

Punctuation, pronouns, and pet peeves

 From This Embarrasses You and I*Grammar Gaffes Invade the Office in an Age of Informal Email, Texting and Twitter"
"People get passionate about grammar," says Mr. Appleman, author of a book on business writing. They sure do, which is why this Wall Street Journal piece has garnered around 600 comments in just a few days. People chime in with their views on the LinkedIn groups I shared it on, as well
. 

Some of us mess up by accident when typos creep in or due to ignorance of the rules of grammar. One of the things that makes me cringe is seeing constructions like "whomsoever wrote this." In a way it's worse than using "who" where "whom" is warranted because the latter is accepted by some as a less formal, conversational style. The person who inserts the m where it is not needed, on the other hand, is trying to appear well-educated enough to know of the word "whom" while showing ignorance of the fact that it is not to be used as a subject pronoun. 

But the most common irritant is the misuse of apostrophes -- sprinkled over the letter s when just he plural form is needed and not the possessive -- or left in "it's" when the writer clearly means the possessive form rather than the contraction of "it is." 

Technology and education blogs

I wrote about Coursera's innovation in the online education and the possibilities of automated readers for writing assessment

A couple of literary devices

A question of literary devices was raised by kid prepping for the English Regents. Looking for a comprehensive list, I found http://literary-devices.com. I like the contrasting terms: polysyndeton and asyndeton. The former is the term for adding in conjunction even where they usually would be absent, like "Tom and Dick and Harry," if you want to stress each one separately rather than presenting them as a collective unit. Asyndeton refers to dropping the conjunction for greater impact as in the expression, "Reduce, reuse, recycle." That could also account for the memorable quality of "We came, we saw, we conquered."  

Do you picture a robot as your audience?

Writing for Robot Readers: assessing automated assessment. My latest post for Internet Evolution at http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=1402&doc_id=243299&piddl_msgid=633439#msg_633439

Just me and my keyboard

Do you consider writing a solitary activity, one that exemplifies the writer as an artist figure who stands alone, outside society? Or do you see it as the product of more than your mind alone? These are some of the questions that arise in my post: http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2012/04/working-alone.html

Avoid Jargon

Today I shared I took note of a link I saw on Google+ for the language of the excerpts:

"The only sustainable competitive advantage is knowledge of and engagement with customers," wrote Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff. "Brand, manufacturing, distribution and IT are all table stakes. The only source of competitive advantage is the one that can survive technology-fueled disruption, an obsession with understanding, delighting, connecting with and serving customers. In this age, companies that thrive ... are those that tilt their budgets toward customer knowledge and relationships."

Terms like "technology-fueled disruption" sound like something you would see see in "Dilbert." In "Politics and the English Language,"Orwell made the point that jargon gets in the way of clarity and impedes communication. Sometimes that is the point -- to keep the information obscured so that people feel they need your insight. You can market your services to those who are ignorant of which "sustainable competitive advantage" will "survive technology-fueled disruption" by assuring them that you know because you know the terms.

Given that start to my day, I found this list of sales jargon terms to avoid from Inc. a most welcome breath of fresh air. I almost had to laugh because one of the terms mentioned, "low-hanging fruit" was used in an email I received today. I wasn't impressed when I read the email even before I read this article. That may just make these things a it more bearable -- making a game of finding the jargon in business communication, particularly from people who pretend to be experts on writing, as was the case for the email I mentioned.

Related interest: http://eloquentscience.com/2011/04/take-the-pledge-i-wont-use-map-room-jargon/, 

http://www.fizzle-pop.com/home/tag/coporate-jargon