Trust and Evaluating Online Sources

I was pointed to a thorough (and thoroughly useful) link to Georgetown University’s page about evaluating information on the Internet. This is a useful resource for folks writing articles. It offers suggestions about how to decide whether a source is trustworthy and accurate, as well as reminding you to check for bias when researching.

This led me to do some evaluating of my own. I discovered the free Internet Detective tutorial. This addresses not only how to research online but includes search tips and a section about plagiarism, copyrights, and proper citation of sources. Again, it’s directed towards writing school papers, but the points are applicable to any research.

Then I wandered across Cornell University’s site for evaluating web sites. This one has links to the likes of UC Berkeley and Johns Hopkins as well as its own information. Yet again, something I’d never thought to look into proves to have some heavy-hitting support.

Part of the reason this information is so useful is that it gives you tools for evaluating your own writing. Consider your articles with some of these criteria in mind. Do you appear to be informed and unbiased? Can people verify your information and identity? Can they contact you or the people running the web site on which your article is posted?

Being a reliable source of information is a critical part of branding your identity as a writer. Being technically skilled and on time will only get you so far if the pieces you produce don’t contain usable information.

You Learn Something New Every Day - Phrasal Verbs

Having been a student of English and Latin my whole life, it's always fun to discover something new. For instance, I'd never heard of phrasal verbs until today. But in my perusal of ESL pages in search of excellent tips, I ran across this page at englishpage.com. Of course, I use them, but I never really considered that they were a grammatical construct with rules. Thus, this page is my food for thought today.

You may notice that I've started a blog roll in the ol' sidebar. I've been meaning to do so for a while, and I finally got a start on it. I intend to list only blogs that I visit on a regular basis and that relate to writing, promoting, or freelancing.

If you've visited before, you probably notice a lot of changes. Look for a few more. I am working on getting some sort of header image that says, “Legbamel can help you write better and earn money!” Shockingly enough, I've not found something that really says that to me. I downloaded GIMP for my freshly-wiped laptop today, so I'm excited to start playing with some of the ideas I've got. The focus on designing "brand me" has been taking time away from blogging and writing but it's all fodder. I intend to write some articles for Associated Content on being a beginner trying to develop branding for myself for free and from scratch.

Branding 's an important facet of getting people to remember you and to come back to you for more. Most articles I find on it refer to relatively expensive software or businesses to do it for you. My plan is to spend nothing but time on it and in 5 years to be ready to go full-time. I may not be setting the freelance or blogging world on fire, but I'm sticking to the plan. Actually, I've made about $150. Maybe once I get my image settled (and change my avatars in 27 different place) I can get back to writing and earning. Until then, at least I am compiling all of the resources here so that I can find them again!