Questions

I am interested in all of the 20th century, ****? especially poems and poets from the last half of the century and the present.

I like poems that are accessible ****? of genuine literary merit. Please do not include those massive textbooks, like the Norton Anthology. Also you do not need to include the Best American Poetry ***?ries; they are very interesting, ****? I have a complete collection of those already.
- bfrank

Speaking of writing, the ability to write well does NOT come naturally to most of us! As an affiliate and internet marketer, one of your main jobs is to write, no matter it is in the format of write a post, ads, newsletter or product reviews.

Writing can help you strengthen your communication with audiences, readers and generate the traffic to your business. However, to write well is a big task and challenge!

Following are some suggestions and tips that I use each time when I do my writing, hope you find it helpful.

1. Writing Purpose And Reasons

Before you start to write in any format, ask yourself these following questions:

-. Who are your targeted readers?

-. Where are they?

-. Why should they read your writings?

-. What special knowledge do you have that can help them?

-. How much do they already know?

-. What else do you need to find out?

It is important to get out answers toward to those above questions. You can set it as your benchmark. Based on that to build your credibility with your readers and gain respect from them; otherwise, you cannot help them.

2. Writing Methods Of Research

Regarding to the background material, except conduct research from internet; revisit some of your favorite manuals or textbooks to refresh the basics are another good method to use. To catch up with current trend, you also need to read recently published articles regards to your subject as well.

Come back to the web search method, when you using that, don’t forget to include the world “problems” along with the name or description of your subject, this way can get you into user forums where you can discuss what are the problems people are concerning nowadays.

However, if you are participate on the open forums, you have to remember be honest, never try to write or give people advices on the things or subjects you do not know. That would destroy your credibility.

3. Write From Personal Experience

It will be better if you can write down the problems that you have faced, and the solutions you have found when you do your writing; it can help you establishes your credibility.

You can gain real knowledge power through experience as well as authority. Therefore, respect the semantic link between author and authority is necessary.

For example, anyone can slap together a fair article on dog training. There are more than 40 million web sites out there dedicated to this one subject, all you have to do is to skim through a few of them and then pick some thoughts.

However, if you are unable to structure your article around real anecdotes concerning dogs you have trained, if you have never train a dog and no experience on that, your words will ring hollow.

4. Write What You Know

“Write what you know” is the best way to go, write on what you actually know and back it up with doing some fresh research.

For instance, if you have ever worked as a dishwasher, for sure you know there is some difference between washing dishes in a restaurant and washing dishes in a cafeteria.

In a cafeteria, the panic is always over flatware when people are pressing into line for a quick lunch and cannot find any clean forks.

In a restaurant, on the other hand, the endless mountains of pots and pans from preparing many individual meals simultaneously kill dishwashers, because not all the cooks are able to get their used cookware back to the scullery, which can cause recurring crises for dishwashers, that’s why they struggle with waves of encrusted pots.

Once you have this authentic background, you can write an article about laborsaving practices, or a short story about personality clashes behind those kitchen doors. I bet you - there are not many people know about it.

If you have babysitter experience, you can develop a great article about how to put children at ease before their parents leave and so forth.

So there is your call, do some research and write some stories of your own and test them.

Write from the strength of personal experience will lead you to what you need to write, and your experience can suggest you in terms of how to structure your writing for credibility.


- Ann Liu

Technical writing, sometimes called business writing, is writing for a specific purpose and with a specific goal. Usually its goal is to inform/instruct or persuade/argue. Technical writing can really be considered transactional writing because there are two people or groups involved in the communication. One party has a clear goal to inform or persuade the other party. This is real-world writing in every sense. You may not be aware of how much it already impacts your world through textbooks, instructions, web sites, and communications from many businesses and service organizations. There are professional technical communicators but only large organizations have them and even then they are not there to do your daily work for you and that is why it is so helpful for many to take at least an introductory technical writing class.

Why is technical communication important and what will you use it for? Actually, technical writing will be used by most college graduates as a regular part of their work. It is much more likely that you will use technical writing than either academic or creative writing unless you specifically enter those fields. A few examples of why you will likely need these skills include: getting a job - preparing a resume or curriculum vitae, cover letter, application, and portfolio; doing your job - preparing memos, letters, reports, instructions, case reports, reviews, assignments, descriptions, etc.; and keeping your job - communicating with management, co-workers, peers, patients/students/public.

What separates technical communication from other forms of writing, such as academic writing? Technical communication has a specific audience and is purposeful, usually intended to solve a problem for that audience. One area that really sets technical communication apart is that it is quite often collaborative. Technical communication is also focused on readability issues, not only the use of clear writing, but also page design and graphics. The excellence of technical writing is judged by clarity, accuracy, comprehensiveness, accessibility, conciseness, professional appearance, and correctness.

There are seven principles to guide technical writing: remember your purpose (to inform or persuade), remember your audience (their concerns, background, attitude toward your purpose), make your content specific to its purpose and audience, write clearly and precisely (active voice, appropriate language to audience), make good use of visuals (good page design and graphics), and be ethical (truthful, full disclosure, no plagiarizing).

Technical communication serves both explicit, or clear, and implicit, or implied, purposes. Explicit purposes include to provide information, to provide instructions, to persuade the reader to act upon the information, or to enact or prohibit something. Implicit purposes include establishing a relationship, creating trust, establishing credibility, and documenting actions. Most technical communications are based on a problem statement which gives your document a clearly stated objective for your benefit as well as your reader’s. The problem statement defines the problem, by doing more than simply stating your topic, it goes on to explain what about that topic is at issue. For example, if your topic is career guidance then your problem could be the fact that many adults need help identifying a career that suits their strengths and abilities and the solution that your document will present is to create a comprehensive clearing house that helps people identify career paths through military, vocational training, and higher education.


- Deanna Mascle

I am a middle school student. For my age, people say I write well. But my sentences are very short and I don’t describe things well. Are there any tips you have for me to improve? Any textbooks that will help me?
- Emily

I’m interested in taking a class on native american poetry but am not sure how much of an influence it’ll have on me

the textbooks are rather expensive and I don’t know what to expect
- xenon