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Monthly Archives: July 2012

Impact or affect?

30 Jul

Here is a pair of words that are often used in reports and academic work; they do have a subtle difference which it’s worth noting and remembering.

To affect something is to have any effect on it, to make a difference (remember the difference between affect and effect).

To have an impact (on) something means to have a strong effect on it (of course, an impact also occurs when something comes forcibly into contact with something else – in a collision or wedged and crushing like an impacted wisdom tooth).

So everything that has an impact on something has an effect on it, affects it, but not everything that affects something else has a strong enough effect to be an impact.

We also have the tricky issue of the phrasal verb impact on – “low interest rates have impacted on saving”. People tend not to like new phrasal verbs, and this one is seen as business jargon. If you’re tempted to use “have impacted on”, try “have had an impact on” instead: you know you’re safe with that one

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.

 
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Posted by on July 30, 2012 in Errors, Language use, Troublesome pairs, Writing

 

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Past or passed?

30 Jul

This one was suggested to me by my friend and fellow freelancer, Lyndsey Michaels, and is, indeed, an important one.

Of course, these two are linked, and formed from the verb to pass. And they are easy to confuse and HARD to explain! But that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be used correctly …

Passed is a verb and is the past tense of pass. It expresses the idea that something has gone by something else, or that anything that passes anything else has done so in the past tense. “She had passed the elephant house and was on her way to the penguins”; “Many years had passed, and he was an old man with only his memories of pandas to sustain him”.

If you can use the word “pass” in the present tense, the future tense, or use it in the form passing, etc., i.e. if you’re using it as a verb, a “doing” word, when you’re using one of the past tenses, or a conditional, you can use passed:

I will pass my driving test one day – when I have passed my driving test I will get a car – if I had passed my driving test, I would have been so happy –  I have passed my driving test.

I am passing the jeering pub-goers with pride: after all, I’m running and they’re not – I passed the jeering pub-goers with pride – I will have passed the pub-goers in five minutes, and then I can relax.

Time will pass and all will be better – Time passed and all was better

Contrast this with past:

Past can be a noun meaning the time that has come before – “my divorce is in the past now, and I’m moving on!”. It can be an adjective – “Past prime ministers gathered for the Royal Wedding” meaning gone by in time and no longer existing. It is also a preposition meaning on the other side of “You can see him over there, past the crazy golf but in front of the candyfloss seller”. And it can be an adverb with a meaning of “so as to go by or so as to pass – “The ball went past the goalkeeper and the Mexican team scored”.

If something has passed something else, it has gone past it. It hasn’t past the other thing, and it hasn’t gone passed it.

So past doesn’t change when it’s used in the future, present past in a conditional sense, etc.: it works as a noun, an adjective, an adverb or a preposition and as an adjective, adverb or preposition will be found alongside a verb, rather than BEING a verb.

I went past the pub – I am going past the pub – I have gone past the pub – I will go past the pub – time will go past – the driving test was in the past – the driving test was in the past – the ball will go past the goalkeeper – the ball went past the goalkeeper – the ball was going past the goalkeeper.

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.

 
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Posted by on July 30, 2012 in Errors, Language use, Troublesome pairs, Writing

 

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My short cuts: format painter

25 Jul

Today I’m going to introduce you to a lovely quick short cut that can save what can only be described as a lot of faffing around: format painter.

We use format painter to pick up the formatting of some text, copy it, and paste it into some other text, to make the formatting match. I’ll give you a simple example.

How do I copy the formatting of one bit of text into another?

Here we have some text in the format we want, and some text not in that format, which we want to change.

Now the trick is to use a little button you may not have even noticed before. It’s on the Home tab (in Word 2007 and Word 2010; in Word 2003 it’s in the Format menu) in the cut, copy, paste area. Handily, it has its name next to it:

Now, it’s important to get this next bit in the right order! Highlight the text which is formatted in a way you want to copy, in this case the first line of text, and, once it’s highlighted, press the Format Painter button:

It doesn’t matter how much of the original text you pick up, as long as it has the right formatting. Now you will notice that the cursor has changed into a little paintbrush. Annoyingly, this doesn’t show up on a screen print, so you will have to take my word for it. “Paint” with the paintbrush across all of the text you want to change, keeping your left mouse button down, and it will highlight it (but nothing will change … yet):

Now let go of the mouse button and hey presto …

Note: the formatting will change to exactly what you picked up from the original text. So if you have a word in bold in the middle of your text, it will change to whatever the original had.

This is quite a simplistic example, but here’s where it comes in handy:

Say you’re editing a document with a lot of different text styles, header styles, etc. Maybe there’s a table with a variety of fonts. Rather than clicking on the text that you want your text to look like, noting the font, size, etc. then highlighting your text and changing all those features manually, simply highlight, format painter, and paint away!

Please note, these hints work with versions of Microsoft Word currently in use – Word 2003, Word 2007 and Word 2010, all for PC. Mac compatible versions of Word should have similar options. Always save a copy of your document before manipulating it. I bear no responsibility for any pickles you might get yourself into!

This is part of my series on how to avoid time-consuming “short cuts” and use Word in the right way to maximise your time and improve the look of your documents. Find all the short cuts here …

 
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Posted by on July 25, 2012 in New skills, Short cuts, Word

 

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Elude allude or illude? Elusive, allusive or illusive?

24 Jul

Are they escaping or are you referring to them? That’s an odd sentence, but it’s what you need to consider when you’re choosing between these two words. They are used in different ways, too, which helps!

To elude means to escape from or evade, usually in some kind of skilful or cunning way (this can be concrete or abstract – “The moth eluded me and flew out of the window”; “The meaning of his ideas eluded me”). Note that elude has one l and something eludes something else.

To allude to something means to hint at it indirectly, or mention it in passing: “When discussing Betty he alluded to her plastic surgery but it was not the main part of the conversation”. “‘Ah, the majesty of your figure,’ said Adrian. ‘Are you alluding to my boob job?’ shrieked Betty”. Note that it has a double l and someone alludes to something else. Also note that this is sometimes used mistakenly in place of refer. You can’t say “He alluded to the actress by her name”, as to allude is to be indirect. Here you would use “He referred to the actress by her name”. Save allude for a use such as, “He alluded to the actress, mentioning an infamous role she played earlier in her career but not naming her”.

And to illude (has anyone ever used this?) means to trick or delude. But it’s hard to see when either of those words wouldn’t do, and it saves you remembering this one. I am just including it for the sake of completeness, to be honest. It is important when it comes to the word formed from it, illusive, though …

A bonus section today …

If something (language, on the whole) is allusive, it means it uses suggestion (yes, alluding to something) rather than mentioning something explicitly. “The poet uses allusive language to describe the pile of droppings without mentioning what it actually is”.

If something is elusive, it is difficult to achieve, find, catch, etc. It aims to elude the person who is trying to catch it. “The moth proved elusive, as I chased it around the bathroom, and it escaped through the window”.

If something is illusive, it is illusory and deceptive – it’s main purpose is to illude. “His wealth was illusive – all fur coats on top, all cheapo clothes underneath” (wealth can be elusive, of course, too, if you can never manage to achieve it, but the meaning is different).

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.

 
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Posted by on July 24, 2012 in Errors, Language use, Troublesome pairs, Writing

 

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A proper author – Victoria Eveleigh and her story

18 Jul

Victoria Everleigh I am delighted to publish this guest post by author, Victoria Eveleigh. I “met” Victoria via Twitter, through a discussion I was having about pony books with a bookseller (who I’m going to feature on the Saturday Small Business Chats soon). Victoria has an interesting story to tell, as she has become a somewhat unlikely author, and has now moved from self-publishing to being published!

You can read all about Victoria’s farm, horses and books on her website. Let’s hear her story …

How I became a Proper Author by Victoria Eveleigh

Nobody was more surprised than me (with the possible exception of my old English teacher) when I became an author.

I grew up in London, but spent as many holidays as possible on my grandmother’s farm on Exmoor. From an early age, my ambition was to marry a farmer and live on Exmoor. Remarkably, I’ve managed both: Chris and I have been farming for over twenty-five years now.

At 240 acres, our farm is fairly small, so we’ve had several other enterprises: a self-catering holiday cottage, horse-drawn tours over Exmoor with Shire horses, Land Rover tours of the farm, organic farming, cream teas, renewable energy and publishing.

Starting to write

The Foot and Mouth crisis of 2001 was partially responsible for my first book. We never got Foot and Mouth on our farm, but it came far too close for comfort. For nearly half a year we closed the self-catering cottage and horse-drawn tour businesses, and our children stayed at home for the whole of the spring term. It was a nerve-wracking year, and our cash flow became a trickle, but in some ways it was a holiday from all our usual commitments. For the first time since we were married, we had time to spare. Chris took up drawing and painting, while I sat down and wrote the book that had been forming in my head for several years: the story of a girl and an Exmoor pony growing up on an Exmoor hill farm together.

Full of optimism, I purchased a copy of The Writers’ And Artists’ Yearbook and started writing to agents. After several months, I’d received polite rejections from some and no communication from others. I felt utterly disheartened, and would have given up completely if a friend hadn’t suggested publishing the story myself. She’d published her own books in the past, and said all I needed to do was register myself as a publisher (I registered as Tortoise Publishing), get someone to design the layout of the book (I asked a good friend who’s a graphic designer), get a printer to print it (our local printer who printed our holiday cottage leaflets obliged) and some people to buy it (um…).

Learning from self-publishing

It was shocking how much space 6,000 books took up when they were delivered to our house by the printers. Too late, I realised I knew nothing about selling and, being typically British, I didn’t feel comfortable promoting myself. However, the prospect of never being able to use the sitting room again spurred me on. I loaded some books and leaflets in the back of the car and went for a drive around the Exmoor area. There weren’t many bookshops but there were gift shops, tourist attractions and tack shops, so I had more outlets than I’d realised. In fact, my best customers turned out to be places which normally didn’t stock books because there was no competition. (I’ve found that the easiest way to get depressed is to go into a large bookshop and see how many different books there are, all vying for attention!)

Probably because of Chris’ illustrations, the first book sold so well that I had to do another print run, and I was encouraged to write a sequel. Now I had stacks of boxes and a bit of money, so we converted Chris’ work shed into a farm office where I could store both the books and the ever-increasing quantity of farm records. At last I had a warm purpose-built room where I could write and deal with the paperwork for the farm and publishing businesses.

We made the Exmoor pony story into a trilogy, wrote and illustrated a colouring book about the farming year for the Exmoor Horn Sheep Breeders’ Society and then published a story set on the island of Lundy.
The amount of effort it took to promote, sell, distribute and account for the books meant I had an ever-decreasing amount of time for writing. Furthermore, while I was trying to build up my publishing business several things happened to the book industry: the economy slowed down, then went into recession; fuel and postage prices went up, squeezing margins because books are typically delivered for free; paper and printing costs increased, and large bookshops and online stores started a price war. Simultaneously, the whole book industry was going electronic, and I couldn’t really get my head around it all.

Never give up …

I’d more or less decided to quit while I was ahead when I received an email from Louise Weir, who runs a website called Lovereading4kids. She’d read my Lundy book and wanted to make it a book of the month on her website and, to cut a long story short, through her I was taken on by Orion Children’s Books just over a year ago.

Since then my life has changed quite a bit. I have to treat writing like a proper job now, and it’s a scary, serious business with deadlines to meet, schools to visit and talks to give. However, I wouldn’t turn back the clock for anything. I love writing and I’m so glad I’ve been given this fantastic opportunity to turn it from a hobby into a whole new career. I’ve re-written my existing stories (which have been published as Katy’s Wild Foal, Katy’s Champion Pony, Katy’s Pony Surprise and A Stallion Called Midnight) and I’m writing a new trilogy for publication in 2013. It will have horses and the countryside at its heart, but it will have a boy as the main character for a change. Chris is still doing the illustrations for my books – so I’m now a proper author and he’s a proper illustrator!

I wish Victoria all the best with her new trilogy, and I’m looking forward to reading the Katy books soon. I should mention that Victoria’s publisher will be sending me a copy of “A Stallion Called Midnight” to review, but I wanted to share her story to encourage my readers who are writers: never give up!

 
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Posted by on July 18, 2012 in Guest posts, New skills, Reading, Writing

 

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Sally Evans-Darby

14 Jul

Welcome to Saturday Business chat. It’s time for another new chat today, and we’re meeting Sally Evans-Darby from Write Sense Media, a very new business, which has only been going for a few months. Sally’s had some very nice things to say about this interview series: when asked if it’s OK to contact her in a year for a catch up, she said, “Absolutely – and thanks so much for this one! Great way to encourage people to reflect on their own businesses, but more importantly, to build up an information database of lots of different people’s experiences. It’s always so useful to read about others’ experiences in something you are thinking of trying out” – which is great for me to hear.

I do meet people who read all of these interviews and find them useful – if you’re one of them, do post to let me know! In the meantime, let’s find out what Sally has learned so far …

What’s your business called? When did you set it up?

Write Sense Media – launched in February 2012. The name was a suggestion from my other half and it just stuck. Write Sense Media offers proofreading, editing and writing services.

What made you decide to set up your own business?

I’ve worked both in-house and freelance as a proofreader and writer, but mostly in-house (read: full-time, 9-5 day job with ‘living for the weekend’ mentality and everything else that lifestyle comes with!). I had thought about being purely freelance before but just didn’t think I would be able to sustain it as a living. Then came a brainwave in the early part of this year where I realised that working freelance was exactly what I needed to be doing. Looking at my life and my career as a whole, I just couldn’t see myself always working in an office for an employer. There would have to come a time where I did the work I love (i.e. editing, proofing, writing) but for myself and with my own values/strategy rather than the views of my employer. So I thought, why not now? Life is short; I decided to just go for it.

What made you decide to go into this particular business area?

I’ve always been into words, whether that’s word-play, crosswords, finding out new words, learning about language. Plus, I’ve always been a mean speller! In primary school I remember the class being asked to look at what the difference was between an old map listing a village as ‘Bishop’s Lydeard’ and a new one as ‘Bishops Lydeard’. I was the only one who noticed the missing apostrophe in the new version. I guess you could say I’ve always had a knack for looking at words, the way they’re presented, and picking them apart.

I love words. As a lot of logophiles will say, I’m terrible with numbers – figures don’t make sense to my brain, but letters do.

I should mention too that I hadn’t realised until this year that there was a genuine career path budding editors/proofreaders can take. The internet is a wonderful resource in this respect. Browsing other proofreaders’ websites, including yours, Liz, made me realise there was a whole world out there of people who read, edit and write for a living – and I wanted to be part of it.

Had you run your own business before?

No – the idea of ‘running my own business’ has always been something I’m slightly sceptical about. I don’t see myself as the particularly entrepreneurial type and I worried about practical things like sustaining this in the long-term. But making the leap and deciding to have my own business was completely the right thing for me. I just had to realise that.

How did you do it? Did you launch full-time, start off with a part-time or full-time job to keep you going … ?

I still had a full-time job when I started up Write Sense Media, because I knew it was going to take time to build things up: create and add content to a website, start a blog, start networking, start making contacts with clients. I see my business as a huge round object that started off stationary, and which took a lot of effort and work to get rolling. Once it was rolling, however, its own momentum keeps it rolling. It’s just that initial struggle into being that every business must go through that means you have to keep a job at first, unless you’ve had the foresight to build up a nest egg beforehand.

What do you wish someone had told you before you started?

That it would take some time but I just had to hang in there and things would work out.

What would you go back and tell your newly entrepreneurial self?

To devote every spare hour I could to Write Sense Media. That I was on the right track and I just had to keep going.

What do you wish you’d done differently?

I wish I’d been able to devote more time to it and of course it would have been a luxury to not have to work full time at the same time.

What are you glad you did?

I’m glad I made my website one of my top priorities, and that I went to my brother, Scott Darby (http://scottdarby.com/), for his invaluable help with this. I’m not the most technical person, so him helping me with this was essential! I’m proud of the result and feel it represents me and my business well, so I’m glad I took the time to make this happen.

What’s your top business tip?

Be yourself. Don’t try to be someone you’re not – whether you’re using your ‘voice’ on the internet, phone, in person, always just be yourself. People respond to people who are human. Also never act desperate, even if you are!

How has it gone since you started? Have you grown, diversified or stayed the same?

So far, in the short time since I started Write Sense Media, my overall ‘vision’ has pretty much stayed the same. I expect things to change though in the future and am open to change. I’m ready to roll with the punches, and keep my business current and alive.

Where do you see yourself and your business in a year’s time?

I truly hope to see my business flourishing and for me to feel much more in control of my life! I hope to have a diverse client base and to have built up lots of long-lasting relationships. I hope to have been to a few SfEP (Society for Editors and Proofreaders) events and to have met other people working in the same field.

I do like “never act desperate, even if you are!” and I’m glad to have been something of an inspiration. It can indeed be frustrating starting up part time and not having all the time you want to devote to your new business, but it’s also a safer way to do it for those of us who are maybe not the traditional type of entrepreneur. Good luck, Sally, and I’ll look forward to seeing how you’re getting on in a year’s time!

Read Sally’s 2013 interview.

Oh, and for anyone who is curious about why I feature people you could see as competitors in this series; I’d rather see them as colleagues! And it’s worth remembering that much of the interest I get in my own blogs and website is generated by so-called competitors, something I talked about a few weeks ago.

You can find Sally’s website at www.writesensemedia.co.uk and, of course, email her.

If you’ve enjoyed this interview, please see more freelancer chat, the index to all the interviewees, and information on how you can have your business featured.

 
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Posted by on July 14, 2012 in Business, New skills, Small Business Chat

 

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What to do if my comment boxes are running right to left

11 Jul

A friend of mine had this issue this week, and then I did, too. Both of us were working on documents that originated from Arabic-speaking countries, and this is where I usually see this problem. It’s hard to describe, but completely obvious if you’ve ever experienced it: you’re using Track Changes to mark changes in a document, you go to write a comment in a comment balloon / box, and the text runs from right to left instead of left to right. Sometimes even the word order is reversed. It looks something like this:

The cursor is at the wrong end of the line of text, it’s all justified to the right, it shows oddly as you type, and editing it is a nightmare. So how do we change the orientation of the comment text?

Changing the orientation of comment text in Word 2007

What we want to do is change the comment box text from wanting to run right to left to making it want to run left to right. And the easiest way I’ve found to do this is to add a secret little button to your Quick Access Toolbar, then use that to sort out your text. Go to my article on how to add buttons to the Quick Access Toolbar if you need a refresher (or note that you click the down arrow on the QAT at the top of your screen then choose More Commands).

When you get to the part on the Customize Screen menu where you choose the button to add, type L to get near the right place and/or scroll down until you come to Left-to-Right Text Direction and add that to the Quick Access Toolbar.

Now you will have a button on your QAT which looks like a paragraph mark with an arrow next to it. If you hover the mouse cursor over it, it will announce to you that it’s the Left-To-Right Text Direction button. Make sure your typing cursor is in the comment balloon and press this button …

And now your text in your comment balloon should be the right way round (for you):

Please note: you will have to do this for each comment box you create. But it’s only a matter of pressing one additional button, and it WORKS reliably, where fiddling around with the Styles really won’t always work (I know: I’ve been there).

Changing the orientation of comment text in Word 2010

Now, this works just the same in Word 2010, apart from the fact that the button has a different name and a different appearance! Of course!

So when you have reminded yourself how to add buttons to the Quick Access Toolbar if you need a refresher (or note that you click the down arrow on the QAT at the top of your screen then choose More Commands), you will need to start by typing an L and/or scrolling down, but this time you’re looking for Ltr Run.

And when you want to change the orientation of your text in your comment balloon from right-to-left to left-to-right, you’ll need to click on the little green blob (although, again, it will admit that it is the Ltr Run button if hovered over):

Again, please note: you will have to do this for each comment balloon you create. But it’s only a matter of pressing one additional button, and does WORK reliably, where fiddling around with the Styles really won’t always work (I know: I’ve been there in Word 2010, too).

And if you’re using a Mac? Well, apparently you can’t do it, and will need to send it to a friend with a PC. But if you know better, do let me know!

… and if that doesn’t work …

It’s always worth trying copying and pasting your text into a new document. And if that doesn’t work, here are two more methods to try.

Changing the balloons one by one using Style Inspector

Put your cursor in the offending balloon. In the Home tab, go to Styles and click the down arrow in the bottom corner. Then, instead of Manage Styles, click the second button along, Style Inspector:

8 alternative

This will make a little dialogue box come up. Click on the top A button (marked with an arrow) and the Paragraph Formatting box should change to Normal.

9 alternative

Close the box and OK everything else until you’re back with your document, and your comment box should be the right way around! You will need to apply this per comment balloon, but it’s less drastic than this one …

Delete the styles

We also found this more drastic way. Thanks to Mr. Libro for finding this workaround.

Go to the Home tab, click the Styles down arrow and select Manage Styles (the third button):

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Put the list of styles into alphabetical order by clicking the dropdown arrow and choosing Alphabetical:

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Find your three Comment styles and delete them IN THIS ORDER: Comment Reference, Comment Subject, Comment Text (otherwise Word is liable to crash):

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Press Delete then confirm that you’re sure:

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You can just go back to the list each time. Watch out – your place in the list may well jump around and you may have to scroll up or down to find your style.

Delete Comment Text as the last one (you will see that the others grey out) …

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And then press OK until you’re back at your document. All of your comment boxes will now be the correct way around.

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Want even more detail on how to customise your comment boxes? Read my article on customsing comment boxes!

Related posts: What to do if my comment boxes go tiny in Word.

Changing the language in your comment balloons

Please note, these hints work with versions of Microsoft Word currently in use – Word 2003, Word 2007 and Word 2010, all for PC. Mac compatible versions of Word should have similar options. Always save a copy of your document before manipulating it. I bear no responsibility for any pickles you might get yourself into!

This is part of my series on how to avoid time-consuming “short cuts” and use Word in the right way to maximise your time and improve the look of your documents. Find all the short cuts here …

 
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Posted by on July 11, 2012 in Copyediting, New skills, Short cuts, Word, Writing

 

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Goodbye, Word Magazine

09 Jul

Suitably funereal transcription kit

My last copy of The Word (as it was originally) just dropped through the letterbox. This is genuinely a very sad moment. I have read every issue of this magazine since it started to be published. I have had a subscription for years, renewing it in chunks of two years, secure in the knowledge that I would continue to enjoy it. It wasn’t one of those mags where, as soon as you subscribe, it goes all odd on you.

It seemed to be pitched right at me and my demographic. I’m not quite old enough for Mojo, and I always felt Q was too male. Word gathered writers I’d been reading for years, and talked about bands I’d loved for years. They also had a decent books and films section. There were always interesting long pieces of biography, history, technical stuff as well as straight band stuff. You could trust the reviews.

But print based media has run into all sorts of problems. Print based everything, actually: look at the state of the book publishing industry. Word diversified with an iPad app and brilliant podcasts, but it wasn’t enough. What a shame.

Latterly, I’ve had the privilege of working for two excellent writers who regularly had pieces published in Word: Rob Fitzpatrick and Jude Rogers. I have transcribed many interviews for both of them, and so there was an added joy of coming across articles for which I’d transcribed the interviews, and seeing what the writer had done with the material. As a writer myself, and aware that much of the material I transcribe I will never see again, this added a marvellous dimension to my reading of the magazine; added to the joy. Thank you, Jude, for taking me on off the back of a Tweet, and Rob for taking the recommendation (and both for recommending me on to other people). They have been great clients and I know they have plenty of other irons in the fire, but I hope they and all the other employees and freelancers associated with the magazine find something to fill that Word-shaped hole in their lives.

I know it will be difficult for me to do so. The balance of two running mags and a music mag coming through the letterbox every month is now irreparably altered.

Word Magazine, I will miss you.

 
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Posted by on July 9, 2012 in Transcription, Word

 

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Desert or dessert?

06 Jul

This common error was suggested to me by a friend who was looking at some flyers she’d made and suddenly panicked: which one should it be? And I was actually quite surprised that I hadn’t tackled it yet.

So, the big question, which can end up with sand in your ice cream or endlessly trekking with your camel over empty wastes of Angel Delight … dessert or desert?

A dessert is a pudding; the sweet course. Think of it as an extra … with that extra s. So, the dessert trolley, what would you like for your dessert, etc.?

A desert is that sandy expanse (well, you can get rocky and stony deserts but let’s not get into all the stuff I learned in Geography O and A level). Think of it being deserted, if that helps.

And here’s a fun extra (when I described this bit as “fun” to the friend who asked me about this, she started to doubt my sanity, but, hey: this is my life now). You know when you say somebody has “got his just deserts“? That’s deserts, because he has got what he deserved. Not desserts, as it’s not the pudding on top of the menu of life.

“Jack ate all the desserts, but he got his just deserts, as he could never look at a bowl of ice cream in the same way again.”

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.

 
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Posted by on July 6, 2012 in Errors, Language use, Troublesome pairs, Writing

 

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On Mutual Support

04 Jul

Recently, I was invited to present at a training morning on small business and social media. I’m always happy to help other small businesses and community organisations learn about the things I’ve picked up over the years, and, while presenting my case study as a business person who has used social media to get an audience and clients, I emphasised the idea of mutual support.

I talked mainly about retweeting on Twitter and also about the way I feature other small businesses in my “Small Business / Freelance Chat” posts on my blog. I also talked about how some editing colleagues (who I do NOT see as competitors) kindly shared some of my blog posts on various forums to which they belong, which helped a couple of my posts go “viral” (500 hits in a couple of days is a big deal to me).

So I just wanted to take a moment to mention some of the kind instances of support I’ve had from other people in the editing / small business community (and, of course, encourage you to look at their resources too).

Louise Harnby kindly featured my Word help posts as her Link of the Week recently. This and her weekly round-up which included it again have collected me over 40 hits on my own website/blog so far. Add to that a couple of entries on her weekly round-up post for others of my posts, and she’s sent over 50 visitors my way in the past month. Thanks, Louise!

The University of Kent Careers Service found my post on starting a career in proofreading and linked to it on their Careers in Publishing web page. I’ve had a few hits a day from that since that happened.

Editor colleague, Kathy O’Moore Klopf, who is a constant support and fount of information, often (make that usually) shares my links to posts made in Facebook and Twitter. She also shares them with other communities she’s in, via forums and other discussion areas. Of course, I do the same for her! She is one of the people who helped me to those 500 pageviews.

An editors’ forum called The Editor’s POV mentioned my Stress post in one of their weekly round-up articles, and quite a few people popped over to have a look.

And last week, Nicky Getgood from TalkAboutLocal featured me in an article about people who use Twitter, Facebook and other free tools for marketing, information sharing and awareness raising.

All of these different posts in different places give me …

  • A new audience who may not have come across me yet
  • The chance to help more people, as well as to market myself to them – both are truly equally important to me
  • Link-backs, i.e. my URL on their page – Google likes these as they confirm that the site being linked to is valid and useful – so it helps me in their search results

And all this is on top of the retweeting and Facebook sharing – I’ve explained elsewhere why that is important to small businesses.

So, thank you to everyone who’s talked about me on their websites, here is some mutual support back, and if you have a Twitter account, a Facebook account, a website or blog, do share other people’s resources – it’s really worthwhile and can make a friendly small business person very happy!

 
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Posted by on July 4, 2012 in Business, Ethics

 

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