Over the years I have written many formal papers, including two theses and two dissertations. In doing so, I have been required to follow various writing guidelines, such as the Chicago Manual Style, the MLA (Modern Language Association) style, and now “Turabian.” Nicknamed after its author, Kate L. Turabian, the book’s real title is “A […]
Tag: writing
I’m not sure if this is a malady common to all writers or the fact that I’m a recovering perfectionist, but I am never completely satisfied with what I have written. Regardless of how clever my sentence constructions, profound my insights, or delightful my vocabulary selections, there is always that nagging inner voice whispering that […]
Procrastination is a serious problem for writers and when taken to excess, it can be fatal to the craft. Procrastination can manifest itself in many different ways, but the result is the same: writing is deferred. When it is time to write: These are all forms of procrastination. In your writing career, you have likely […]
I publish four periodicals: two magazines, an e-publication, and an e-newsletter. There is an established workflow to each, with every day requiring that some task be accomplished for at least one of them. Additionally, one of the magazines has an overlapping production schedule, meaning that sometimes I have to start the next issue before the […]
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My Netflix Reviewer Rank
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a huge fan of Netflix, the online movie rental site. In addition to making movie selections, I spend time rating movies so that Netflix can make recommendations of other flicks that I might enjoy; it generally works quite well. After watching one obscure selection online, Netflix asked me to write […]
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Seven, Eleven, and Zero
A few weeks ago, I lamented about the number of syllables in the letter W. I asked for he be given equal treatment to the alphabet’s other 25 one-syllable letters. Today, I have the same concern for seven. You see, of the single digit numbers, all but seven enjoy one-syllable conciseness. (In case you are […]
Recently I pondered the correct spelling for W. Not finding an official answer, I went with “double-u.” Upon further contemplation, I realized having similar doubts about the spelling of many letters. Therefore, I advance this list, which I ultimately found in Google’s scan of the book “The Institutes of English Grammar” by Goold Brown. (I’ve […]
After yesterday’s column mentioning press releases that were poorly targeted, I made a list of the headlines sent my way recently. None of them have anything to do with what my magazines cover. Even though the summer months are light for news submissions, I still received quite a few. For some of them I am […]
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Hope for the Flowers
By Trina Paulus (Reviewed by Peter DeHaan.) In addition to all my varied writing functions (writing articles, websites, and blogs, publishing two magazines, and way too much editing) I also write an occasional movie review and book review—just for fun. Here’s one of my recent efforts: Hope for the Flowers is a delightful allegory encapsulating messages […]
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“R” You Ready?
After another post, considering how words are used—and misused—my thoughts turned to how words are pronounced—and mispronounced. I, for one, have a “flexible” pronunciation style. For any word possessing more than two syllables, I am seemingly able to enunciate it in at least two different ways—sometimes within the same sentence. Amazingly, I have not had […]