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A Career with the FBI
Do you have what it takes to become an FBI special agent? Do you have a sincere desire to enforce federal laws and investigate crimes?
This job requires hard work and can often times be dangerous and stressful. You'll undoubtedly be in close...
Get Traffic & Sales Using Discussion Forums
Message boards, discussion forums and newsgroups can all produce very profitable results for you and your business. Most of us already participate in one or more of these and the more you participate the bigger the benefits to you and your...
Marketing Your Home Business For Big Profits
Marketing your home business for big profits takes some due diligence and the right resources.
In 1999 I started a home based business, and I submitted my website to every search engine that would take it from here to the North Pole.
I...
Organisation Tips For The Mobile Executive
Despite the fact that everyone sighs "How glamorous!", the life of the business traveller can actually be hell! Fighting international datelines, jetlag, airline food, hotel pillows filled with rocks, and the constant packing can turn an...
Use Books a Million to Make Your Millions
Do you have a great business idea? Are you looking for a way to
capitalize on that great business idea and make some extra
income doing so? If you are, then you have come to the right
place. I can't help you come up with a great idea,...
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Sharpen Your Writing With Structure
At some point, every serious writer is forced to sit down and conclude that there is something seriously wrong with their work. It wanders; it is pretty in some spots and horribly ugly in others. It doesn't always make sense, and is uneven in places. Even though every sentence is grammatically correct, there is something fundamentally broken about the piece. It lacks structure. Structure is what holds a good piece of writing together, the material reflection of the reader's psychological need for order. It is the quality that makes the best writing appear seamless, conjured whole from heaven itself. Structure is the logical mind's contribution to a creative process, and a primary difference between professional writing and amateur scribbling: a conscious decision and a learned skill. Being in many ways the very essence of writing, structure isn't mastered overnight. But here are a few rules of thumb that can help you improve the organizational readability of your work: Establish a logical order to your presentation. Ignore all the popular advice to "write like you talk"; that's a misguided appeal to conversational tone usage and a shortsighted encouragement for people who are terrified to put pen to page. In order to master structure, you must learn to write deliberately and with forethought. Plan what you're going to write and how you're going to write it: don't make it up as you go along, particularly when you are writing nonfiction of any kind. In nonfiction writing (which means anything that isn't fiction), the room for art is small. Don't set out to create art - build a sturdy framework, as a skilled attorney would build a legal argument. Make your supporting points early and establish the logical flow to consequences and conclusions. Don't loop back and make points at word 800 that you should have made at word five. Make your points quickly - write in 300-word chunks. That's the magic number: 300. Books are typically printed with about 300 words to a page; magazine articles will usually be structured into roughly 300-word segments. An effective press release, page of website copy or newsletter article won't run much above 300 words. Any longer and your reader will notice that something is off about your piece. Too much longer and your reader will get bored. For some reason, the human mind seems to be most comfortable reading at the 300-word length. That does not mean that everything you write must be short,
only that long pieces should be built out of short pieces put in order. If you can't make your point in 300 words or less, then you are trying to make more than one point. Simplify the whole piece: break the manuscript down into single-point segments no longer than 300 words in length, and then put your points into a logical order that builds towards your final conclusions. The final product will seem to flow with a gentle rhythm that your readers might notice, probably won't be able to identify, and so will most likely attribute it to your talents.Try it: you'll be amazed. Take the entire piece down to a single thought, expressed in a single sentence, and then rebuild it from the ground up. When in doubt, strip the piece down and rebuild it from its primary components. The greatest threat to structure is diffusion; rather than trying to communicate one thing well, you end up saying lots of things badly. Good structure requires that you have a very clear idea of what you are writing, how you are doing it and why. Do one thing, and do it very well. Set the piece aside and attempt to make your final point in a single sentence, losing as little important detail as possible. Do not use compound sentences; keep it simple and limit it to a single direct thought. If you can't do it, then you do not have a clear enough idea of what it is that you're trying to accomplish - reorganize the piece or split it into several separate ones. An English sentence has a natural internal structure all its own. Look at your one-sentence summary and use its structure to inform yourself on how the overall piece should be structured. Once you've reduced your writing to its bare essence, you can reconstruct it on a much more solid foundation. In the end, professional writing is all about understanding the psychological needs of the reader. If you are writing purely for your own pleasure, with no intention of ever letting anyone else read it (and what a boring life that would be), then it doesn't matter because you're not really writing: you're keeping a diary. But if instead you want your writing to be appreciated by readers, structure is one concept that you can't live without.
Robert Warren (www.rswarren.com) is a Florida-based freelance copywriter specializing in the unique marketing needs of independent professionals. writer@rswarren.com
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Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers ... |
Online shopping from the earth's biggest selection of books, magazines, music, DVDs, videos, electronics, computers, software, apparel & accessories, shoes, ... |
www.amazon.com |
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Amazon.com Books: New & used textbooks, biographies, children's ... |
Online shopping for millions of new & used books on thousands of topics at everyday low prices. |
www.amazon.com |
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Google Book Search |
Google digitizes many books from library collections. If an Old English edition, translation, or study is out of print or hard to locate, one can search for ... |
books.google.com |
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Books - The New York Times Book Review |
Reviews, features, author interviews and book excerpts from the national daily and the Sunday book review. Registration required. |
www.nytimes.com |
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The Online Books Page |
Features over 10000 online books free to the public. |
onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu |
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Barnes & Noble.com - Books, Used & Out of Print, Textbooks ... |
Barnes & Noble.com is the Web's premier destination for Books, DVD, Music, PC & Video Games, Children's titles, Toys & Games, Gift Cards, and more. |
www.barnesandnoble.com |
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The Online Books Page |
Listing over 25000 free books on the Web - Updated December 5, 2006 ... New on online books -- Google Library revs up, and other milestones -- Latest Book ... |
digital.library.upenn.edu |
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Amazon.co.uk: low prices in Electronics, Books, Music, DVDs & more |
UK branch of the online bookseller features large searchable selection of books. |
www.amazon.co.uk |
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AbeBooks: New & Used Books, Textbooks, Rare & Out of Print Books |
Abebooks - Over 80 million new, used, and rare books. |
www.abebooks.com |
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Guardian Unlimited Books |
Extensive site includes news and reviews, critics, authors, first chapters, Top 10s, bestsellers, talk board and games. Offers special sections by genre and ... |
books.guardian.co.uk |
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Books - Salon |
The literary section of Salon features book reviews, interviews, columnists and publishing news. |
dir.salon.com |
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Globe and Mail: Book News |
Presents book reviews and columnist along with best-seller lists and Book Briefs emailed newsletter. Canada. |
www.theglobeandmail.com |
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calendarlive.com - BOOKS & TALKS |
Reviews, features and event listings from the West Coast daily newspaper. |
www.calendarlive.com |
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Book - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
A book is also a literary work or a main division of such a work. ... Books, especially heavy ones, need the support of surrounding volumes to maintain ... |
en.wikipedia.org |
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Books - reviews and literary news from The Times and The Sunday Times |
Book reviews, literary news, literary competitions, weblogs, book quizzes and literature features from The Times and The Sunday Times. |
www.timesonline.co.uk |
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Book World - washingtonpost.com |
The Sunday book review of the national daily newspaper features criticism, columns and an online book club. |
www.washingtonpost.com |
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Internet Public Library: Books |
Books. Rather than continuing to maintain its own index of online texts, the IPL is now pleased to recommend a number of other worthwhile resources for this ... |
www.ipl.org |
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oreilly.com -- Welcome to O'Reilly Media, Inc. |
O'Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O'Reilly has been a ... |
www.oreilly.com |
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SF Gate: Entertainment: Books |
Chronicle reviewers pick the best books of the season for the readers on ... Jessica Mitford's children recall the woman they called Decca in a new book. ... |
www.sfgate.com |
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Life - Entertainment News - USATODAY.com |
The latest in entertainment news with movie, TV, book, music and theater reviews, travel tips and tools and original content from USATODAY.com - updated ... |
www.usatoday.com |
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