Greatest Web Developer Tool Since Sliced Bread
Ok, that’s a really mixed metaphor. I’ll ask you to let it slide today.
I stumbled across something called Firebug. It is a plug-in for Firefox and it does all of these things to help web developers. For the most part, I don’t use too many of them because I haven’t had the time to figure out most of what it does, but it does do one thing so perfectly, that I must share.
I’m a freelance writer. But, I also do many other things for our clients. We do so much, in fact, that I’m looking into to re-branding as business consultants. (The catch is how to do that without losing those who love us because we are freelance writers…) One of the things we do is websites – building them, fixing them, designing them, and so on.
Often, we use templates, or we are called upon to work with something that is already in place. Either way, understanding the code is paramount to getting things done. One area that this can be difficult is in the CSS. With inheritance and so on, it can be difficult to find the right spot to make changes. Even worse, it can be difficult to know what those changes might end up looking like.
Firebug is Great
Enter Firebug. Firebug allows you to right click on any thing in any webpage (yours or otherwise) and do something called Inspect Element. When you do, you get this:
Click on that picture to make it bigger and you’ll notice that in the webpage displayed above the Firebug panel I’m looking a some text gone awry. Specifically, it is too big and blocky. I have right clicked it (you don’t have to highlight, I did that to make it easier to see) and chosen Inspect Element.
I can see that this text is wrapped in <h2> tags. So far, no big deal, but in the other panel, we have GOLD, Baby!
(Yes, I am aware that using the h2 tag here is not optimal, but that is for a later day.)
As you can see, the element that is giving me the wrong text is not the main <h2> tag, but rather the .post h2 tag. Now, I won’t spend a bunch of time editing the wrong thing, or searching back through DIV tags to try and figure out which h2 tag I need manually. I’m already sold. But, wait, there is more!
The Firebug panel also tells me exactly which line in the style.css file this tag is at so I can jump into notepad++ and scroll with reckless abandon until I get to line 264 and make my quick easy edit.
Wait! There is still more. If I click where it says “font-size” and change the value in the Firebug panel, it will preview it for me instantly on the webpage panel. So if I want to see what 1.5em will look like instead of 2.5em, I just change it in Firebug to get a preview. No actual code was changed, no files were saved, and I don’t have to remember what I did in order to back it out! I can play with the numbers all day until I get what I want and then edit line 264 just once!
How great is that?
Experience in AP Style or AP Style Required
Why, do so many job postings or Requests For Proposal demand an ability to use AP Style? Most often, it is short hand for, “You have to be able to write better than the average non-professional writer.”
I once heard someone say that photography and writing are the two professions that everyone thinks they can do. From the outside both of them look very simple. After all, all you have to do to get the same picture as Ansel Adams is stand in the same place with the same kind of camera at the same time of day in similar weather. Of course, that isn’t the point. No one cares if you can copy Ansel Adams. What makes him a great photographer is being able to see a great photograph where one hasn’t been seen before.
Writing is similar. Everyone can write. That isn’t the point. Describing what a murder scene looks like doesn’t make you Stephen King, and telling people why you think Microsoft sucks doesn’t make you a professional technology writer. A professional writer can hide their writing style. More specifically, they can write in the style that is requested. This skill is not common and therefore hard to quantify. Often, it falls into the, “I know it when I see it,” realm. So, when a client is paying good money for professional writing, they default to saying “AP Style” and hope it scares off the average non-professional. I’m not sure that it works, but I suppose it is better than nothing.
Learn AP Style
There are a lot of things in writing that can’t be taught, or that only come with experience, but the AP Style is not one of them. There is a book. Buy it, and flip through it a little. Don’t bother trying to read it cover to cover. It is a reference not a how-to book. Keep it on your desk next to where you write. As you go about your daily writings, don’t skip over those things you don’t quite know, and don’t guess. If you don’t know whether something should or should not be capitalized, look it up. When you don’t know if that phrase requires a hyphen, or is considered slang, look it up.
In the mean time, that doesn’t mean you can’t make yourself a better AP Style writer by doing some up front homework.
Here is your AP Stylebook Study Guide:
- Legislative Titles (how to reference politicians properly)
- Abbreviations and Acronyms (when you to use and not use)
- Time (AM, PM, AD, BC, and so on)
- Punctuation (a whole chapter, pay particular attention to comma)
- Organizations (look up ones you write about regularly)
- Race and Gender (which words to use in these touchy subjects)
- Titles (formal, royalty, judges, job titles, and more)
Then, when you come across someone who wants AP Style, tell them that you can do that. If you can write well and are willing to look up a few things, you aren’t lying.
What is AP Style
Spend even a modest amount of time around the world of professional writing, and you will come across the term AP Style. However, many people aren’t aware of what AP Style actually is.
What people usually forget is that The Associated Press is a real organization. It has buildings and employees and computers and sells products to produce a profit. The AP’s main product is news feeds or wire stories which are reprinted in newspapers all over the country. Take a look at your local paper and you’ll notice the author of each story is usually listed. For local stories or coverage that was actually researched and written by the newspaper’s staff you will see a name and maybe a location. The stories that say either AP or Associated Press were not actually written by anyone at the newspaper. They were bought by the newspaper from AP.
AP Style In Professional Writing
AP Style is actually a specific kind of writing. It is writing for news stories. However, many people, both freelancers and clients use the phrase AP Style as a way to describe a more formal writing style. AP Style is like what you read in the newspaper. For example, this article is not written in AP Style. All of the “you” makes this article informal.
But, AP Style is so much more than just formalization. There is an entire book called “The Associated Press Stylebook” that contains all manner of writing rules regarding terminology, phrasing, and punctuation.
Many otherwise knowledgeable professionals ask for AP Style to be used in writing for publication on non-news websites. Ironically, AP Style requires the use of spelling and punctuation that is opposite of what most websites want both for SEO purposes, and for what their readers want. For example, AP Style requires the use of a space between web and site for the term web site. However, most websites and blogs use the word website without a space. The same thing goes for email which AP requires to be written as e-mail (also for e-commerce, e-book, and e-business).
However, the AP Stylebook is a great resource for the professional writer. There are a million issues that come in writing everyday that may have never been considered before. For example, should part time be hyphenated? AP has a rule for that. It is hyphenated when used as a modifier as in part-time job. It is not hyphenated otherwise as in the waiter is part time.
Basically, the AP Stylebook is a reference for any writer who comes across those little nuances that just don’t seem to have solid answers grounded in even advanced grammatical knowledge. Everyone knows what NASA is, so do you have to spell it out the first time you use it? You probably know that it is President George Bush, but what about other politicians? How do you reference the Speaker of the House? What about other congressmen? When should it be capitalized? Should you say congresswoman? If so, is there such a thing as congresswomen if you are speaking about multiple female members of Congress? And, by the way, when should Congress be capitalized?
There are a million examples like this. The point is, that these aren’t the kinds of things you learned in English classes even if you went to graduate school. In fact, for every other person in the world except a professional writer, these are the kinds of things that no one cares about.
Want to know more about AP Style?
Top 10 Super Easy Ways to Get Your Blog Into Google
Ok, there is a lot of writing out there on how to get your website into Google’s index. If you’ve got a blog, it is actually really, really, easy, and really, really, free. So, before you pony up some dough, or bother reading too much detail, here are the Top 10 Super Easy Ways to Get Your Blog Into Google.
- Submit your blog to a link directory. Seriously. Any link directory will do. Google’s bot follows links from sites it already knows about. Chances are, any link directory not built by a thirteen year old is already in Google. Google will follow the link form there back to your blog. Submit your blog to several so you don’t have to wait as long.
- Submit your blog articles to Technorati, Buzznet and 43 Rockets. Don’t know anything about Technorati? Buzznet? 43 Rockets? Who cares? You aren’t trying to get on the front page, you are trying to get in Google. Google crawls these sites all the time. If you are using Wordpress, the default ping will send out to these guys and you will show up at least for a little while IF you tag your articles. Get Windows Live Writer and click “Insert Tags”. Put your keywords in for all three. You’ll be indexed in no time.
- Write comments on other blogs. When Google indexes there it will follow your comment back home. There is a catch here. Many blogs will “nofollow” their links. That means Google’s bot won’t follow the link back to your site. You need a blog that doesn’t do this. How to tell? The hard way is to do a “View Source” and find a comment that has already been written if you see: “rel=nofollow” in the HTML code that links to the commenter’s site, then no dice. The easier way? Download the SEOQuake plug-in. Set it to show nofollows with a line through them. Then, you can tell at a glance if the blog is worth a comment. Also, there is no point in being the 432nd commenter. Google isn’t that persistent. Be in the top 10 or wait for a new post. Hey! Comment here!
- No luck with the comment thing? Then try a pingback to a big blog. Check the comment section of a big blog and look for pingbacks. Then, write an article that includes a link to a recent post on that blog. Your pingback will show up to. Again, check the nofollow thing first.
- Write an article and submit it with Article Marketer. Article Marketer takes your articles and then sends them out to thousands of sites that buy articles to stick on their sites instead of writing them on their own. The key here is to write something pretty universal and basic. That increases the chance of it being picked up in one or two places. You get an “about” section in the article which will include a link to your blog and Google will follow it home.
- Ask a question. Go to any big forum. Try the Wordpress forum if you can’t come up with any ideas. Ask a question. Put a link in your question back to your website. Something like, “How do I format this page so it looks like…” Try not to make it too dumb so you don’t get flamed. Google will follow that link too.
- Say thank you. Find a big forum with lots of posts that let’s you create a profile for yourself. Create a profile with your website listed in the profile (make sure to use the right kind of tags if it isn’t straight HTML). Then post, “Thanks” after every useful post you read. Maybe 5 or 6 a day (don’t do more or you might set off some flags). Sooner or later Google’s going to find that profile off of the “active” or “recent” list and guess who’s coming for dinner?
- Submit a site map. Submitting your site to Google won’t get you anywhere. I bet the queue is over a million long. Instead, use a plug-in to generate a sitemap and submit it to Google with each post.
- Claim your blog. Go to Google’s Webmaster tools and register your blog. You’ll have to verify it. Either verification method requires Google to come out to your site. It technically isn’t the indexing bot that does this, but I’ve known plenty of sites to magically show up soon after being claimed in this way. I can’t prove it, but I also think it makes the Google bot more likely to check out a few pages.
- HAVE SOMETHING TO INDEX!!!!! I can’t tell you how many people have asked me how to get their 3 page (one home page, one contact page, and one map page) indexed. There has to be something on your site for the Googlebot to sink its teeth into. Post, post, post. No junk posts. Google is getting better by the day at sniffing out worthless stuff, so don’t write it. But, you have plenty to write about. Can’t think of anything? Write about who you are, then write about why you are writing a blog, then write complaining about not getting indexed, then write about finding this Top 10 List about getting indexed, and so on.
The good news, is that once you are in the index, you are pretty much in to stay. How often Google comes by, and how high you rank, are different stories. But, you can’t worry about that until you are indexed, so use these Top 10 Tips.
Here is your bonus 11 Tip. If you already have an indexed blog, use it to get your new blog indexed. Write a quick post on your main page about how you are writing a new site. Wait for your site to be re-indexed, and chances are that the Googlebot will find it’s way out to your new site. Once it is in, you can delete the post if you want to.
Moonlighting as a Freelance Writer
The worst advice I’ve ever gotten came in written form. I can’t remember where exactly I read it, but I remember exactly what it said. It said that if you want to be a writer then you need to be a writer. Successful writers don’t moonlight as writers, they write and they moonlight on something else to bring in money if necessary.
I’m pretty sure as I remember it from the context, the author of those words was essentially saying that if you weren’t going to dedicate your primary job focus on writing, then you were wasting your time. I sort of believed it and went on accordingly, waiting for my time to come when I could switch what I do to the freelance side and the writing to the “main” side.
That chance came and I did switch. In fact, I just quit the other side. I don’t moonlight anywhere. I am a professional freelance writer, and I make all of my income in that way. Don’t get me a wrong, we have other income sources and another way to get health insurance (which is probably the biggest key to going freelance).
What I know now, is that those words of wisdom were actually words of stupidity. It is a lie that you cannot or should not moonlight as a writer. It is completely false that your writing, your craft, or your freelancing career will suffer in any way if you moonlight as a freelance writer. In fact, only good things can come from comporting yourself in a professional manner as a freelance writer.
Professional Freelance Writer Skills
For starters, you will develop your writing skills. You may think you are a good writer now, and you may be right, but trust me when I tell you that when you write all day every day professionally that you will come across dozens of nuances and subtleties that you have never considered. If the freelance project calls for a newsletter with a “conversational tone” but the target audience is high-ranking municipal court judges is it acceptable to use the word “you” in the writing? Before you answer, keep in mind that whenever you are addressing judges in their professional role as judges (which you are, because they are getting the newsletter because they are judges not because they wear black in the summer) you are supposed to address them as “judge” or “your honor” depending on the jurisdiction and level of court. Now what do you think?
As a professional freelance writer, you develop a wide variety of skills that don’t come up for most people who are just “really good writers.” For example, how to handle sex based pronouns: he, she, him, hers, and so on. There is the “fake plural” format where the writer converts sentences to read with they or theirs to avoid the issue. There is the “switch hitter” format where the writer bounces back and forth between masculine and feminine pronouns to avoid any gender bias. Then there is the “forced pronoun elimination” format which I am using in this paragraph by referring to “the writer” without ever using a pronoun. There are others, and many times, the person whom the writer is submitting the article to has no idea which one they want (they probably haven’t even thought about it!) – Did you notice the false plural there?
There are thousands of other skills a professional freelance writer needs that have nothing to do with writing. There is marketing, sales, taxes, corporate structure, copyright, publishing, web development and design, not to mention setting up computers, fax machines, and printers. Every one of these skills can be developed on a part-time basis, and when you do go full time, you will be much better off for it. (By the way, there is another professional skill right there in the previous sentence. Do you know when to hyphenate part time and when not to?)
How to Get Started Moonlighting as a Freelance Writer
The first step to moonlighting as a professional freelance writer is to forget about “moonlighting.” There is no such thing. Many professional writers do not work what would be considered full time. That isn’t important. What is important is that you are a professional freelance writer. That is important. As a professional you will return calls and emails in a timely manner, you will keep track of your billing, and you will act professionally on the phone and in person. As a freelancer you do not have an employer other than yourself. This is not a detraction, it is a blessing, it allows you to specialize in clients that you work best with. And, last but not least, you are a writer, that means you write things. Remember all three and you can’t go wrong.
So, where to find your freelance writing jobs. Start small. Look for opportunities to write for established blogs. They don’t have to be big or flashy, just a step up from where the same blog would be if you started it today. You don’t even have to get paid. Right now, you want a credit of some form (a link back to your business page is good) so that you can point to a website that you do not own and say “That is my work, and it is good enough to be published by someone else.” Check Craigslist (don’t restrict yourself to your city) and forums. Read blogs that you respect and could write for if given the chance, then look for the chance. If the blogger posts about being busy, offer to help. If you see a job ad, jump on it.
A lot of people will tell you to offer your services to non-profits to build up clips. This advice only works if you find a struggling, “we’ll take anybody” non-profit. These don’t always make the best clips. The Ronald McDonald House already has fifty top-notch professional level guys who do their writing, so bring it down a notch and you can make this work for you. Think local. The Omaha Humane Society is much more likely to need some help with their writing than the national level organization.
Google. That’s right, Google. They don’t need you, but they can help you search for someone who does. Start by including your city name when you search. Too many results? Use your actual city name, that is, the specific suburb or town that is “near Ann Arbor”. Smaller towns attract less spammers and webpage builders who just try and lure people to ad based pages, so get specific.
There are also a ton of “auction” sites out there. I’d steer clear of those unless you really need the money. Getting paid can be tough, and there is a lot of low-balling and plenty of clients who don’t care about quality they just want it done cheap. That grad student in India is going to eat your lunch on pricing that deal.
Get Started Now
The important thing is to get started now. By moonlighting as a freelance writer, you can build up experience and connections that will make the transition to full time easier. More importantly, you’ll be building up writing samples all over the place. Nothing screams amateur more than someone who can only produce writings from one or two locations. The more your writing is out there, the more likely someone is to give you a chance. So, don’t wait to be switch your moonlighting. Go now!
Writing Great Essays – Conclusion
In Writing Great Essays – Introduction, we looked at how to start off your essay. In Writing Great Essays – Middle, we looked at the construction of the essay body. Now, it is time for the conclusion.
Like the introduction, the conclusion is not a place to introduce new evidence. Your case should already be laid out by now in the body of your essay. Your quotes and examples coupled with the surrounding sentences should have led your reader down the proverbial primrose path to the only logical conclusion which is the one you proposed in your thesis statement. Now, it is time to bring it home.
If you’ve ever watched an event that determines the winner via judges scores or voting, you may have noticed that contestants who go last seem to have a bit of an advantage sometimes. This is because we tend to remember what we have most recently seen or read. Much in the same way, your reader may have begun to fade on some of your earlier points. The conclusion is your chance to refresh these points, and connected them to your other points.
Start your conclusion by walking back through your essay map in the tone of, “This is what I said I would show you, and I did.” Our essay map was:
When the king arrives, she plants the seed of greatness in her husband’s head, then when the king names his heir, she plants the seed of murder, and following the murder, she plants the seeds of both their doom.
Our conclusion might start something like this:
Upon the king’s arrival at the castle, Lady Macbeth stoked Macbeth’s desires by reminding him of what the witches said. Later, when the king named his own son as heir, Lady Macbeth added fuel to the fire by…
Once we’ve restated our case, it is time to finish up our closing arguments. In movies, closing arguments often ask the juror to put themselves in the defendant’s or victim’s shoes. This is actually a terrible tactic in real life. Sympathy is one thing, but the last thing you want a juror doing is thinking for themselves. You want them to think what you tell them to think. The same thing is true for essays. You don’t want your reader thinking about how he would have stood up to Lady Macbeth, or how she would have encouraged her husband too, so maybe Lady Macbeth isn’t the problem. Instead, go for the throat by telling your reader what they think. This is the real world application of the old, “When I want your opinion I’ll give it to you,” line.
Lady Macbeth’s own selfish desire for power and prestige caused her to lead her own husband down a path of ruin. When things went badly, she fell apart, partly out of guilt at the king’s death, but even more out of her inability to cope with the knowledge that the tragic events were a result of her own greed.
Don’t thank the reader or say that you hoped they enjoyed reading your essay. Just leave your powerful closing statement on the table and walk away. Remember, whenever you do something cool, it is even cooler to walk away like it wasn’t cool to you. After all, you write top-notch essays all the time. No need to thank someone for reading the best paper in the bunch!
Technorati Claim
Finally getting around to claiming my blog on Technorati.
Writing Great Essays - Middle
Ok, we talked about writing the basic five part essay, and the intro paragraph in Writing Great Essays Introduction. Now, it is time to write the middle paragraphs.
In an essay, the middle paragraphs are the meat. This is where you get to show how much you understand the material. All the flash, all the dazzle, and all the great things you want to put in your essay go in these three paragraphs. The introduction and the conclusion are basically rote, so this is where you get your creativity on if you are going to do it. So, go through your note or outline and highlight all the really great things you have come up with that show how clever, insightful, or creative you are. Keep referring to your list, because you have to cross everyone of these off before you get to your conclusion or you don’t get to put them in your essay. Ready?
Writing Great Essay Paragraphs
If you are thinking that the first step is to decide what to write these three paragraphs about, you’re wrong. You’ve already decided. Look at your introductory paragraph again. The bottom sentence is your essay map. Those three comma separated items are the topics of your three middle paragraphs. If you don’t want to write about those three things, then you need to change your introduction first. When you are done, you can come back here. Assuming you are ready and willing to write about your three essay map topics, it is time to write your topic sentences.
Topic Sentence
The topic sentence isn’t really all that special. It works like a movie trailer for your paragraph. It says, “Here is what this paragraph is about.” That is it. To refresh your memory, here is the example we worked on in part one.
- Lady Macbeth’s manipulation of her husband’s emotions is the cause of both their tragedy. When the king arrives, she plants the seed of greatness in her husband’s head, then when the king names his heir, she plants the seed of murder, and following the murder, she plants the seeds of both their doom.
The purple part is our thesis statement (what we are proving) and the orange is our essay map (what we will be saying to prove our thesis).
So, in our case, the first paragraph is about Lady MacBeth planting the seeds of greatness in her husband’s head when the king arrives. The topic sentence should basically write itself:
When the king arrives, Lady MacBeth sets her plan to place her husband upon the throne by planting the seeds of greatness into MacBeth’s head.
Simple, huh?
Now, for the next paragraph you will write about how Lady MacBeth plants those seeds in Macbeth’s head. Strong essays depend upon examples. Strong examples depend upon quotes. A direct quote from the text is the most powerful weapon at your disposal for writing a solid essay.
A+ Tip
In order to make your essay its most powerful, you should introduce the quote, and then afterwards, highlight the quotes applicability to your essay. Here is where smarter students actually can go wrong and write weaker essays. As an intelligent person studying MacBeth, you don’t need someone to draw you a picture. But, that is exactly what a good essay does! Remember, the essay should demonstrate the same level of knowledge that a multiple choice question test would. So, to get a good essay, answer the multiple choice question:
Select all of the answers which show Lady MacBeth planting the seeds of greatness in her husband’s head before the king announces his heir.
The reason we want to stick with before the king announces the heir is because our next paragraph will be about what happens after.
Now, pick your favorite Lady MacBeth line in between when MacBeth comes home from the witches and the King announces his heir. The sentence before the quote will be something like, “Lady MacBeth plants the first seed of greatness in MacBeth’s head when…” Then, type in your quote. Then, connect the dots, “Lady MacBeth’s deliberate attempt to influence her husband’s thinking…”
Pick your next favorite quote, and do the same thing.
If you don’t have a direct quote that works, then use the scene. Just make sure that the reader knows exactly which scene you are talking about. Generalizations are the cornerstone of a weak essay. So, when Lady MacBeth and MacBeth are speaking in their bedchamber on the night the king arrives is good, when Lady MacBeth is whispering to MacBeth is not good (it happens several times.) Even worse is when Lady MacBeth is trying to convince MacBeth to become the king because that could be anything. (Did you even read the book? Don’t you know that this happens tons of times?) Don’t be the person at a hat convention saying “He’s the guy in the hat.”
Now, all you have to do is fill the paragraph in. Make sure that your writing flows smoothly from one example to the next. This will require one or two sentences to make the transition. These sentences are a good place to get those highlighted ideas into your essay!
Then, repeat the process for the next two paragraphs.
Up Next…Writing Great Essays Conclusion…
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