Writing
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A Word With You
Millions of people now subscribe to this free daily column featuring "little
known facts about well-known words and phrases" and created
by Lawrence Paros, author of The Great American Cliche and The Erotic
Tongue, and Dave Middleton, Puget Sound, Washington, cartoonist and
illustrator. See the archive of over 400 past columns (wordwithyou.com).
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Acronym Finder
Provides a searchable database of more than 279,000 abbreviations,
initialisms and acronyms (AcronymFinder.com).
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AllMark Trademark
Attorney Thomas P. Philbrick and colleagues specialize solely in
trademark applications with this streamlined, reasonably priced
service that combines phone and e-mail consultation. Philbrick
was conscientious and thorough in his work, applying for several
trademarks on my behalf (allmarktrademark.com).
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All Words
This English dictionary also allows users to search for words in
French, Spanish, Italian, German and Dutch and includes an extensive
set of links to other word-related sites (allwords.com).
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Bartleby's Familiar Quotations
This "collection of passages, phrases, and proverbs" contains
over 11,000 searchable quotations, plus links to an encyclopedia,
a dictionary, and a thesaurus (bartleby.com/100).
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Britannica.com
The complete Encyclopedia Britannica is online and free. This site
also provides articles from magazines such as Newsweek, Discover,
and The Economist and their "best sites" guide to more
than 125,000 sites (britannica.com).
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Bull Fighter
Tired of jargon-laden writing? Get "Bull Fighter," a free
software program developed by Deloitte Consulting that searches documents
for jargon and unnecessarily complex language. Once installed, the
Bullfighter toolbar appears in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint documents,
and works much like the spell-check feature. The program doesn't
infect your computer with ads, spyware, or viruses (deloitte.com/dtt/section_node/0%2C2332%2Csid%25253D27375%2C00.html).
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Editors and Writers
Malinda McCain
My editor for many years is impeccable, thoughtful, reasonable, and
constant (www.sharewords.com/copyedit).
Also
see these well-done Web sites for referrals:
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Encyclopedia.com
Provides more than 14,000 articles from The Concise Columbia
Electronic Encyclopedia, Third Edition (encyclopedia.com).
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Entrepreneurial Connection
Suzanne Martin is the editor of EntrepreneurialConnection.com and
a respected freelance writer and editor (szmartin@hotmail.com).
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E-Book Creation
Probably the most popular medium for creating, sending and receiving
books, brochures, forms, postcards, and other documents electronically
is Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) format. Get a quick
primer on the power of this nimble tool (adobe.com/products/acrobat/adobepdf.html).
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The Elements of Style
by William Strunk, Jr., E. B. White, and Roger Angell. This is
the classic guide to writing with clarity and brevity. It is
simply
the best single book on grammar and word usage and belongs on the
bookshelf of every office or home library, right next to the dictionary.
As a reporter once wrote in the Greensboro Daily News, "No
book in shorter space, with fewer words, will help any writer more
than this persistent little volume." More than any other book,
this is the one English teachers and newspaper and book editors
suggest you should buy.
This is an enduring gift for every high
school or college graduate, manager, or writer. Keep a copy within
reach, near your computer.
(Buy
this book).
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The E-zine Queen
To learn how to create, distribute, and promote your e-zine, see
the teleclasses, seminars, e-zine, and books by Alexandria K. Brown,
(ezinequeen.com).
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Friends of Active Copyright Education
This nonprofit site is extraordinarily helpful for those who are
interested in protecting their moving or still images, words, or
music anywhere in the world (csusa.org/face/index.htm).
Also see their sister site for young people, teachers, and parents,
Copyright Kids (copyrightkids.org).
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Google
This remains my favorite search engine (www.google.com).
Also try the valuable Google Alert service (googlealert.com)
that lets you track anything on the Web that shows up in Google's
search. Simply enter keywords or phrases you want to track
on the site (after going through the simple, free Google Alert
registration process).
The site then runs daily Google searches
for you and e-mails you the results. The first e-mail includes
up to 50 results from Google,
many of which you've probably seen before. But after that, the
e-mails include only new results that have not appeared before.
That's the truly useful part. Google Alert isn't affiliated with
Google, though it does use Google's Web Services API (www.google.com/apis)
to perform the searches. The service was created by Gideon Greenspan,
a Ph.D. student at Israel's Technion and long-time Macintosh
developer.
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The Internet Public Library
This is the first public library by and for the Internet community,
operated by the University of Michigan School of Information,
where many professors and students have contributed many hours
of work on this trailblazing project (ipl.org).
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Knowledge-Download
This firm offers help in writing and producing e-books. Its main
product is an online software system and technical support for
building e-book-selling Web sites that does not require computer
programming or HTML skills to use (www.knowledge-download.com).
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Librarians' Index to the Internet
This noncommercial, searchable, annotated directory is organized
by subject, with more than 8,600 online resources. Librarians
select the sites for their usefulness to public-library patrons
(lii.org).
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Managing Web Projects For Dummies
by Janine Warner. This bilingual journalist, former Web designer,
speaker, and syndicated newspaper columnist also wrote Dreamweaver
For Dummies and has a gift for translating conversations between
the tech-savvy and the terminally techno-challenged, such as
me (JCWarner.com).
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Oneliners and Proverbs
See catchy one-liners in several languages (oneliners-and-proverbs.com).
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OneLook
This is an excellent search engine for word definitions and translations.
More than 4 million words in more than 800 online dictionaries
are indexed by the OneLook search engine (onelook.com).
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On-line Medical Dictionary
This site covers acronyms, jargon, medical institutions, eponyms
and other terms used in medicine or science (cancerweb.ncl.ac.uk/omd/about.html).
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On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
by Stephen King. Fascinating book on how to become an attention-grabbing
writer in any genre. Whether you're writing the next best-selling
mystery or a business memo, gain priceless insights for grabbing
the reader's attention from the master of gripping tales, Stephen
King. You get two books in one in this semi-autobiographical how-to
book as King pairs his personal stories of near-death accidents,
addictions, and piles of rejection letters with lessons on how
to pull people into a story or idea.
If you want to improve your
prose or that of your coworkers, children, or class, forget textbooks
or traditional how-to writing guides.
Get another King book you can't put down. Be entertained by his
nonstop descriptions of his often hairy life incidents that inspired
Carrie,
Misery, The Tommyknockers, and other King books to learn how he
transforms them into grist for good reading. He includes many writers'
tools,
including editing a story, character and plot development, learning
from other writers' styles, exercises, and a reading list. No matter
what kind of writer you are or yearn to be, personal or published,
on fiction, business, or other topic, you're guaranteed to find
the King-sized can't-put-down reading you'd expect.
This is the
kind of book even your nonreader, nonwriter (and non-Stephen King
fan) friends will also rave about (Buy
this book).
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Poynter Online
"
Everything you need to be a better journalist" is the motto
on this bountiful site that is also immensely helpful to any kind
of writer, designer, editor, publicist, teacher, researcher, cause
advocate, news junkie, or curious person (poynter.org).
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Questia
This site is billed as the world's largest online library (questia.com).
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Quicktionary II
This electronic "pen" lets you scan words in foreign-language
newspapers and books and gives you an instant translation. It is
one of several remarkable handheld "scan and attain" products
from WizCom Technologies. It also provides devices for the reading-disabled
market as well as for personal data collection for PCs and mobile
devices (wizcomtech.com).
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The Quotations Page
This site offers one of the better collections of quotations (www.quotationspage.com/search.php3).
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Reference Desk
This is a comprehensive site of free and for-fee helpful directories
(www.refdesk.com).
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Search Engines.com
A frequently-updated resource center of search engines and Web
directories (searchengines.com/netresources).
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The Self-Publishing Manual
by Dan Poynter, the first and best source of information about self-publishing
in any format, as you'll discover from the wealth of resources
on his Web site (ParaPublishing.com).
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The Shortest Distance Between You and a Published Book
by Susan Page. This is the single most comprehensive and fun-to-read
book on how to get published. Writing a book proposal can be
daunting, yet this successful author offers a step-by-step approach
that enables you to gain confidence and even enjoyment in the
process. From crafting a memorable title to finding a strong
agent, Page provides the complete formula for an attention-grabbing
proposal. What makes Page's book stand out from other books on
this topic is her capacity as a successful author to provide
the practical and emotional insights to keep you going. Page
is also the author of How One of You Can Bring the Two of
You Together, Eight Essential Traits of Couples Who
Thrive, and If
I'm So Wonderful, Why Am I Still Single?, now in 14 languages.
Page
recognizes when you might feel overwhelmed, not worthy, or otherwise
stuck and offers specific tips for sidestepping those traps. As one
fan wrote, she keeps "your hopes high and your expectations
realistic." Page includes tips on conducting your own book promotion
and planning not one but a companion series of books to continue
your momentum of success.
(Buy
this book).
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Stands 4
A source for acronyms and abbreviations (www.stands4.com).
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The Subscription Website Publishers Association
Get free tips on starting your own profitable membership Web site
or online newsletter from a group that provides helpful resources
on all aspects of Internet publishing (www.swepa.com).
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Thesaurus.com
Thesaurus.com is produced by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC, a leading
provider of language reference products and services on the Internet.
To use this thesaurus, type a word in the gold search box and click
the Look It Up button to see a list of synonyms and antonyms (thesaurus.reference.com).
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Tips Products International
Learn how to create print and e-books to establish new profit centers
and attract customers from the trailblazer with the best advice
on this topic, Paulette Ensign. Her valuable education products
started me on this path (www.tipsbooklets.com).
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VoyCabulary
You can make the words on any Web page into links so you can look
them up in a dictionary or other word-reference site by clicking
on the words. As you read a Web page with a word you want to
look up, run the page through VoyCabulary and then click on
the word (voycabulary.com).
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Webster's Rosetta
Search any word to get its background, origins, definitions, images,
crosswords, rhyming words, quotations, expressions, commercial
and literary usage, anagrams, Internet keyword frequencies, translation
and meanings in multiple languages... and more. (www.websters-online-dictionary.org).
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Wilton's Word and Phrase Origins
Includes a monthly newsletter, "A Way with Words," covering
etymology, slang, grammar, usage, and general topics regarding
words and language (wordorigins.org).
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Word.A.Day
By the time the Wall Street Journal, USA Today,
and National Public Radio gave him glowing coverage, Anu Garg had
already attracted
550,000 avid subscribers to this free daily vocabulary-builder
(wordsmith.org/awad).
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Wordsmyth
This evolving language reference source meshes the functions of
a dictionary and a thesaurus with flexible search capabilities
(wordsmyth.net).
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