Entries Tagged 'Writing' ↓

Ah, my reflections on things going around me. That is sometimes the way I feel when I see things going on around me. It sometimes fills me with hope, sometimes it fills me with dread. I look at the past and look at the future. I look at the good decisions I have made and the bad decisions I have made in the past. It all engulfs me sometimes, but sometimes I break free.

I know the future is bright and things are moving forward at a breakneck pace and that the future is something we are never quite sure or even uncertain about. We can only do our best and hope and pray for the best. That is the powerful power of all of this and that is what brings me happiness and contentment.

So often I write a post here that I base off of information I read on another blog or an online newspaper, or sometimes even an offline newspaper or book. I hardly can take credit for the ideas myself, but at the same time I may not be quoting the source. How can I let people know that I got some of my information from another source without a cheezy line that says I got it here with a link on the word here?

It’s important to cite your sources when you are writing online because it does give you some credibility since readers can see where you got your information and see if that information source is a quality information source. The more credibility that your article has, the more it can be trusted as a good information source. Now, how can we cite our articles?

I have been doing some academic writing lately and they have three or four different styles. Their information for citing web sites is particularly difficult and hardly seems like an option for bloggers interested in putting together a quick and easy blog post. Anyway, I have come up a style that is a bit easier. I call it GLM Web Style. Here is the structure:

Article Title(hyperlinked to URL); Author (Date Published); Website Name; Date Accessed.

And here is an example of it:

Las Vegas proves immune to jittery U.S. economy, but not casinos elsewhere; Gary Rivlin (12/26/2007); International Herald Tribune; 12/26/2007.

It goes right at the bottom of every article where you use an external source. If you make a quote, you should ensure that the quote has some identification with the website name so users can tell where the quote came from. That’s up to you. You may use footnote or you could follow this example:

Gambling revenues on the Strip are up this year - way up in recent weeks. Despite higher energy prices, a volatile stock market, a slumping housing market and fears the economy may be heading into a recession, some of the city’s largest casinos are on pace for a record-setting year. In October alone, gambling revenues on the Las Vegas Strip were up 19.8 percent over the comparable month last year. –Internatonal Herald Tribune

For offline sources, a simple style like this would suffice:
Title of Article or Book; Author (Date Published, if known); Name of Publication.

Your writing will benefit when you begin citing your sources for articles. Likewise, so will your credibility increase.

I know I talk about this a lot, but I can’t help it. I really enjoy writing. Since I started to write professionally, I have really seen some great benefits. My wife notices how happy I am. I finally have a creative outlet for many of my feelings and desires. I like to write for the art of it.
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When you do as much writing and webwork as I do, it is tough to sometimes stay as motivated as I would like to be. Luckily, I came up with 5 ways to stay motivated during my work at home day. They are easy to implement and maybe they can help you stay motivated as well.
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I hate worrying about font issues or even formatting issues when I send documents to friends or family. I also prefer writing in the ODT format but unfortunately that leads to compatibility issues. When I am using Ubuntu Linux it’s not a problem to export to pdf format. Many of the programs have it as a standard option but not so in Windows.

It’s easy to open pdf files using Adobe Reader or Foxit Reader no matter what computer you are using, but creating PDF files in Windows used to mean buying Adobe Acrobat. Not anymore, I’ve been using PDF creator for the last year. PDF creator is free and it is open source. It is so easy to use it and make pdf file as easy as printing a file.

PDF creator installs itself as a virtual printer. From any Windows program, just select print and when the list of printers appears, just choose PDF creator and it pull up a screen to specialized the PDF, just hit enter and it will make the pdf for you. It’s cool because whatever your program is showing that is what you get. It’s a great tool that you need to be using.