Friday, June 29, 2007

Grammar for All and Article Writing Tips

I can admit to being a total grammar geek. In an attempt to persuade you to become one as well, I offer the following gem. The page about conjunctions in the Guide to Writing and Grammar fascinated me for half an hour. It’s clearly written and offers great examples.

They also have a fantastic article on writing introductory paragraphs. While it is directed at students writing essays and papers, the advice applies perfectly to writing articles. I plan to spend a fair amount of time digging around their pages, so don’t be surprised if they pop up again.

I also came across englishclub.com, an ESL site that is about to turn 10 years old. They had information by the bucket-load, but I got a kick out of the term Uncountable Nouns.

I finally got my behind out of an article slump and submitted two to Helium yesterday. The benefit of doing so there is that I get them up instantly. The drawback is that I get paid squat for them. My highest-paying article to date there (of the now-77 published) has earned $1.49.

Then again, one of the articles I posted yesterday was for a Marketplace topic on buying 80’s music. The hook is that it may get picked (from the existing 3, although I don’t know what the time-line may be) to get published and I’ll get paid $16 for it. That would put me over $30 through Helium. I need the writing exercise to get back in payable shape after my maundering on here, so I’ll probably tuck a few more in there when I find topics that interest me.


2 comments:








Anonymous

said...

Great resource. I can be a grammar geek when the need arises, though I am prone to drive-by comma dropping. Congratulations on your 50th post.





Unknown

said...

Hey, thanks! I have been fighting the comma multiplication for ever. I try hard to keep them under control but sometimes they sneak in when I'm not looking. Usually I'll put on in when I pause in writing the sentence whether it belongs there or not. That's one of the many reasons I need to edit repeatedly.