A Guide To Online Blog Writing
The importance of blog writing
Blog writing has become extremely important for small businesses over recent years. As it provides small businesses with access to free marketing. By publishing useful, insightful articles or updates relevant to your industry you are able to disseminate these releases throughout the internet. This in turn provides useful information to potential customers, builds brand awareness, generates traffic and potentially improves search engine rankings for your website.
Create a plan
Before you begin the writing process it is helpful to first create a list of titles of different topics and ideas that you could write about in a calendar for the next month or two. This would give you a clear direction of where the content would be going in advance. Also having a clear plan as to what you are going to write about will make the process quicker and will also enable you to think about the topics before you begin writing.
Think about valuable resources to link to
Just as important as the writing is providing useful resources, if you are writing about a topic and need to refer to a third party site you should link to that site so that the user has the benefit of undertaking further research if needed. It will also add authority to your blog by making it seem credible and impartial.
Writing your blog articles
Two of the most important considerations when you begin writing will be to decide on your tone and style. This is important as the tone and style of your writing will set the background and context for your writing, it can be informal, technical or even conversational. Ultimately this will depend on what you would like the feel of your website and brand to be. Consistency in tone will help to provide consistency throughout your written content and make the reader feel familiar with your brand.
Setting aside time to write
A few days before you are going to start writing ensure that you have set aside time for when you will have no distractions and will be solely focussed on writing. You should aim to do a quick first draft, breaking down your content into subheadings and then once written down you should come back to refine the writing if necessary. Finally proofread your writing to ensure that you have no errors and then it is ready to publish and go live!
Our website content creation service
Express Proofreading specialises in original website content creation, our team of editors and writers have years of experience in writing content for new websites and maintaining and developing brands via the use of online blogging to promote brands. For further information as to our content creation services, please visit our content creation page.
Our website content proofreading service
We also offer website content proofreading services. We are able to ensure that your website content is not only free from spelling mistakes and grammatical errors but we also check syntax, sentence structure and are able to recommend improvements and suggestions that are relevant to your industry and target market. For further information on our website content proofreading services, please visit our business proofreading page.
How To Plan And Prepare Website Content
Writing website content
The online world is increasingly fundamental to the success of many businesses, having a strong online presence ensures that you are able to appeal to a wider global audience. This will often take the form of having a company website that is engaging, with regularly updated content. Moreover, unique and original content is also important in attracting new customers and developing your brand online. This will not only attract potential customers but it will also aid your brand development, and increase its online credibility and consequently result in higher rankings for your site.
Therefore it is important to break down the process of preparing content for your website step by step and to identify different types of content and their purpose.
Website content pages
This refers to content that is needed to highlight you who are, what you do and what you provide, as well as additional related material such as how to contact you, your terms and conditions and so on. As minimum to appear professional all websites should have the following pages and content addressing each area:
- Homepage – this will detail in brief your company, what you provide and your key goods and or services.
- About us page – this page will aim to expand on your company and provide detailed information as to your mission statement, your ethos, values, as well as who you are.
- Services or products page – this page will aim to expand on your products and or services and provide information relating to each of those products or services, including prices, delivery and how to place the order.
- Testimonials or FAQ page – these pages although not essential are nonetheless important in reassuring customers and providing answers to common questions that your customers will typically have. Ultimately these will also assist in increasing your sale conversion rates as customers gain confidence in your brand.
- Contact us page – this is an important page as it will reassure customers that they can get hold of you should they have any issues with their orders, and it will also enable customers to contact you with any queries in the event that they are unable to find the answers via your FAQ page.
Our website content creation service
Express Proofreading specialises in original website content creation, our team of editors and writers have years of experience in writing content for new websites and maintaining and developing brands via the use of online blogging to promote brands. For further information as to our content creation services, please visit our content creation page
Our website content proofreading service
We also offer website content proofreading services. We are able to ensure that your website content is not only free from spelling mistakes and grammatical errors but we also check syntax, sentence structure and are able to recommend improvements and suggestions that are relevant to your industry and target market. For further information as to our website content proofreading services, please visit our business proofreading page.
A Guide To Plural Possessive Nouns
Plural Possessive Nouns
A plural possessive noun is used to represent more than one thing or person and denotes ownership. There are numerous types of nouns, nouns can be defined as words that name people, places and things. However, there are different ways to categorise them, some types will fall into several categories. We will now take a look at different types of nouns and how they may be used.
Common noun: This includes everyday things such as ‘Cat’ ‘dog’
Proper noun: These type of nouns refer to a specific person, place or thing and they are always capitalized. Examples include: Eiffel Tower, Tower of London.
Countable noun: These type of nouns as the name suggests refer to things that can be counted, such as books, trees etc.
Uncountable noun: In contrast to countable nouns these are things that are neither singular nor plural. Examples include: water, luggage, coffee etc.
Collective noun: This refers to a collective or group of things or people. As a whole group is referred to as a unit collective nouns are used as a singular noun, if however there is more than one unit then you would use the plural. Examples include: jury, family, society etc.
Concrete noun: These refer to things that may be experienced through your senses. Examples include: song, salt, family etc.
Abstract noun: These refer to things that cannot be seen, felt or tasted and generally refer to things such as emotions, beliefs. Examples include: trust, sympathy, democracy etc.
Rules for Plural Possessive Nouns
The function of a noun within a sentence can be to refer to the subject or an object. They can modify by either being possessive or an appositive. They can also modify by acting like an adverb or an adjective. For example, in “I went home” the noun “home” modifies the verb “went”, so it is acting like an adverb, indicating “where.” A “storm drain” has the noun “storm” modifying the word “drain”, so it acts like an adjective.
To make a noun plural, which means that there is more than one of them, you would normally need to add an “s.” Certain nouns that end with an s, x, ch, or sh need an “es” added. Examples include:
witches, buses, kisses, boxes, bushes, or Joneses
There are special nouns that have irregular or mutated plurals. Some of these are:
- child – children
- woman – women
- person – people
- goose – geese
- mouse – mice
- deer – deer
Finally, certain words retain their Greek or Latin form when making a plural. Examples include:
- nucleus – nuclei
- syllabus – syllabi
- cactus – cacti
- thesis – theses
- fungus – fungi
- criterion – criteria
Most importantly, remember: A plural possessive noun is used to represent more than one and to show ownership.
Tips For Proofreading Your Thesis
Why proofread?
When you are writing your thesis ensuring that your text is free from any mistakes can be crucial in helping you to attain higher marks. Using the spell checker functionality can help, however it is far from perfect and can often omit certain basic errors. This is why proofreading your thesis thoroughly is so important as well as asking others to proofread it too if possible.
Below you will find useful tips and techniques to help your proofreading sessions be more efficient and effective.
1. Concentration and focus
When proofreading it is important to remember that your sole aim is to spot mistakes and not to simply read over your work. Being in the correct state of mind is extremely important, as if you are distracted you will be unlikely to spot every mistake. Switching mobile phones off, avoiding social networking or anything that could distract you will give you the best possible chance to spot each and every possible error.
2. Print a copy
Often reading on a screen can be different to reading on paper, so printing out a copy to proofread can help you catch errors you may have otherwise have missed. Also reading aloud will also help you to hear errors you may not have seen whilst reading.
3. Look out for Homonyms
Homonyms are essentially words that share the same spelling or pronunciation, however have a different meaning. Common examples of this are using ‘accept’ with ‘except’ or ‘complement’ with ‘compliment’ these are often used interchangeably and incorrectly.
4. Look out for Contractions and Apostrophes
These are common errors, therefore being aware of this will help you to spot them, many people often mix ‘their’ and ‘they’re’, ‘its’ and ‘it’s’, ‘your’ and ‘you’re’ and so on. Also with regards to the apostrophe remember it is never used to form plurals.
5. Also check the punctuation
Focusing on the words and phrases used is important, however do not neglect the punctuation. Pay close attention to capitalised words and whether places or names which should be capitalised have not been capitalised, also look out for missing or extra commas, the use of full stops and so on.
6. Reading your thesis backwards
During the writing process as you would have been reading and going over the work constantly, it is common to become blind to your own mistakes, as the brain starts to automatically “correct” wrong words inside sentences. A good technique to break this pattern is to read the text backwards, word by word.
8. Ask someone else to proofread your thesis
After proofreading your work thoroughly taking into account all of the above points, it would still be recommended that you ask someone else to have a look. You will be surprised at the mistakes that you may have missed. Also a second person proofreading will also be in a stronger position to evaluate whether the sentences make sense or not.
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How To Improve Your English As An International Student
Improving academic writing
Strong academic writing is fundamental in academia, if you are reading this article, you will no doubt already understand the importance of good writing in your academic studies. There are no shortcuts or easy ways to become an expert in academic writing. However, we have a number of tips that may help you as an international student to refine your academic writing skills to enable you to present your work to a higher standard.
Two of the most fundamental and basic elements to improving your academic writing are to read more and write more. As the more you read the more you will absorb different writing styles and the intricacies of different writing styles which will assist you in developing your own style. This will also then help you in your writing and the more you write, the more you will get better at expressing your thoughts and ideas.
This will of course take time so patience will be key, there are a few tips that will assist you along the way:
- Becoming a translator, this is not to say that you need to become a professional translator. However, simply translating your favourite books, stories or articles will draw your focus to the writing. Thus, translating between English and your native language will give you a greater insight into the words being used, how to use them correctly and their context.
- Analyse academic writing in your field in the form of academic research papers and journal articles throughout your studies. You will of course be doing this regularly, however, when reading them do not simply skim through them, try to pay close attention to the authors writing style and the words used and try to consider how you would phrase what you are reading.
- Find out what help is on offer at your institution, most institutions whether they are colleges or Universities will offer support in helping you to improve your writing. They may be in the form of workshops, writing classes or one-on-one meetings with your tutor to discuss your writing. These will be invaluable and you should definitely make the most of these and attend them.
Your tutors will not proofread your assignments, however their critique and feedback will be invaluable, ask them to look at whether there are common mistakes you make so that you can work on improving these. Also ask your tutors to comment on how well they are able to understand your points and if not why. These comments will enable you to go back and work and hopefully improve your academic writing as a result.
Improving your academic writing will take time and will not bring results overnight, the first steps are to become aware as to what good writing is, and then applying your findings to improve your own writing over time. With hard work, patience and diligence your writing will improve!
Academic Proofreading For International Students
If you are an international student and are looking to have your academic writing proofread, you can rest assured that our editors have the necessary experience and expertise to proofread your work to ensure that it reads grammatically correct, and flows well. We understand that writing in a second language can have its challenges. This is exacerbated when writing academic work. Therefore, with our academic proofreading service we are able to take a fresh look at your work and ensure that your grammar, syntax and style of work is in line with what is expected.
How To Write Reflectively?
Reflective writing
Sometimes when writing for academic purposes, you may be asked to write a reflection. In practices such as nursing, this is a vital path of both your student life and your working life to go towards a portfolio, however it is not exclusive to just nursing. The most effective way to write reflectively is to follow a reflective cycle. The one we will focus on is Gibbs’ (1988) reflective cycle.
The parts of the cycle are as follows:
- Description: what happened?
- Feelings: what were you thinking and feeling?
- Evaluation: what was good and bad about the experience?
- Analysis: what sense can you make of the situation?
- Conclusion: what else could you have done?
- Action plan: if the situation arose again what would you do?
There may be variations of the reflective cycle online. The cycle goes in a full circle, so once you have written about a topic within each heading, you can start the cycle again reflecting on another topic.
Description: what happened?
We will look at each heading separately. To start with will be ‘description’. In this part, start by writing a full account of what happened during the event upon which you are reflecting. You must be specific, only writing about relevant details in a concise manner. Ensure this section focuses only on describing the event in great detail, rather than writing analytically.
Feelings: what were you thinking and feeling?
Next we will look at ‘feelings’. During this part, think about how you reacted to the situation, how it made you feel at the time, and what you were thinking during the event. This part is also written in a descriptive manner, not analytical.
Evaluation: what was good and bad about the experience?
The next heading to look at is ‘evaluation’. In this section, focus on the positives and negatives of the event, as well as whether you think it went well or badly, plus mention how the experience ended and if it had reached a resolution. This part should not be written as an analysis, but as more of a judgement on the event.
Analysis: what sense can you make of the situation?
Now we will look at ‘analysis’. In this part, take the time to determine what it was that made the bad parts go wrong, and what impact you think this had on the experience overall. Now do this with the good parts, why you think they went well, and what impact you think this had on the experience as a whole? Think about what you could have done to avoid the negative consequences, or how you could have made a more positive impact. Now write this down in an analytical way, ensuring you are not just writing descriptively. Make sure you are questioning what happened and explain what the causes and consequences of the experience led to.
Conclusion: what else could you have done?
The next part to look at is ‘conclusion’. In this section, you can look at what you should or could have done differently, why it was that you didn’t do that in the first place, as well as anything you learnt from this experience. Write in good detail to sum up the things the experience taught you.
Action plan: if the situation arose again what would you do?
The final part to look at is ‘action plan’. In this section, write about what you could do to be better prepared if this experience were to occur again, and how you aim to do this. This part should not be analytical, but should state a plan of action for improvement.
References
Gibbs, G. (1988). Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Oxford: Further Education Unit, Oxford Polytechnic.
Linguistic Inflation In The English Language
What is linguistic inflation?
Linguistic inflation concerns a devaluation of the meaning of words over time. It is something that has increased in prevalence over recent years with the compounded effects of the 24 hour media, social media, instant messaging, and influences from the United States, where there is often much more enthusiasm within speech than is common in the UK. It can be easy to exaggerate and resort to hyperbole in order to appear more enthusiastic, confident and to be more persuasive about a topic. However, linguistic inflation is an over use of language. Below we will discuss some examples of how linguistic inflation could cause a negative impact on the standard of your writing.
Numerical examples
Using over-exaggerations in numerical percentage terms such as ‘I gave 110%’ and ‘I feel a million percent better’. The reason why these are considered linguistic inflation is because it is impossible for something to be more than ‘100%’, as the word percent simply means ‘parts per hundred’. The only time when talking about percentages over 100 would make sense is talking about actual monetary inflation. For example, if the price of a bar of chocolate increased from £1 to £3 it is a 200% increase, as £1 would equal 100%, so an increase of £2 (from one to three) would mean an overall price increase of 200%). Using exaggerations within any academic writing (such as in job applications or personal statements describing your qualities and skills) will generally not be taken too well. If you want to say that you will, for example, work your hardest, stating that you will give 100% will suffice, as this means that you will be working the absolute hardest that you can. This example of linguistic inflation has led to the devaluation of the meaning of the term ‘giving 100%’, as people now fear that “only” 100% will not be seen as good enough.
Overuse of descriptive words
Overuse of descriptive words, including ones that can hold a lot of enthusiasm within them (totally, incredibly, amazingly, etc.). Within academic writing, you are more likely to get a positive to response to the sentence ‘There was a beautiful waterfall behind the trees’ than the padded-out sentence ‘There was an amazingly, incredibly beautiful waterfall hiding secretly behind the luscious trees’. The reader may see this as you trying to use extra words to meet your word count, when they hold no value within the sentence and just make it harder to read and understand the meaning of. In modern times, linguistic inflation often comes in the use of words such as ‘awesome’, ‘epic’, ‘genius’, and others. These words will usually not provide any added bonus to what you are trying to say, so you are better off not using them.
Another example of an overused word that contributes to linguistic inflation is the word ‘like’, which lots of people now use in place of hesitations or words such as ‘umm’ whilst they think of what they are trying to say. Specifically in academic writing, it is not a good idea to use the word ‘like’, as the reader could conceive it as trying to add extra, unnecessary words.
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How To Prepare A Personal Statement
Preparing a personal statement
When applying for University or some colleges, you will be required to write a personal statement as part of your UCAS (University and Colleges Admissions Service) admission. This is a piece of writing specifically related to you and your individual motivations, and will be used by the institutions you are applying to in order to assist them in deciding whether or not to offer you a place.
It should be very specifically regarding you, your character and past achievements, and addressing why you think that you should be offered a place. Remember, not all courses require an interview, so this may be your only opportunity to prove why you should be offered a place.
The things to focus on when answering these questions:
- Why are you applying for this course?
- What is it that interests you about the course?
- Show that you understand what it takes to study this course and what it will entail.
- What qualifications, achievements (not just academic, these could include sports, hobbies, interests, etc.), skills and experience do you have that are relevant to the course?
- Why should they offer you a place on that particular course? (Try to show why they should offer you a place over someone else with the same qualifications and experience).
- Do your current/previous studies relate to the course in any way? (Explain why this will be beneficial).
- Have you been involved in anything that shows you have interest in the course’s field? (Eg. Work experience, jobs, placements or volunteering)
- What do you plan to do in the future and how will this course benefit your future plans?
Below are some further important things to focus on:
- Your personal statement can include up to 4000 characters of text, but this is subject to change. Check the criteria for the start date which you are applying for.
- A good idea is to look at the ‘Course Descriptions’ online (either on the UCAS website or individual University/college websites) to see what kind of things they look for in an applicant (the qualities, skills, experience, etc.)
- Remember that you will be using the same personal statement to apply for each institute, so make sure it is generic to the COURSE for which you are applying to, not the institutes themselves. If you have applied for a variety of courses, try to make your personal statement more generic, focusing on common themes (skills, qualities or experience that could be valued in all fields).
- Try to avoid using the word ‘I’, as it can become quite boring for the reader to see many personal statements at once and for them all to be stating ‘I did this…’, ‘I did that…’, ‘I am good at…’, etc. Try to make yours stand out from the crowd, as this will enable you to make more of an impression and may increase your chances of being offered a place.
- Ensure your writing is completed to a high standard of English, with the correct spelling, grammar and punctuation. It should also flow well, with each paragraph linking into the next.
- Do not exaggerate or lie – the institute may either find out the truth or call you out on it one day.
- Using relevant quotes can be a nice addition to your statement, but make sure it is not one that many other people will also use, also be sure to write it correctly with the correct referencing.
- It is a good idea to get your personal statement checked by several other people. Be prepared to write a few drafts until you are happy with it.
Personal Statement Review Service
At Express Proofreading, we understand the vital role a Personal Statement plays in the application process today. We’re committed to helping you write to the best of your ability whilst still retaining ownership of your work. As part of our University Personal Statement editing and review service we will not only proofread your Personal Statement to ensure that it has no grammatical errors but we will also recommend changes that may assist you in writing an engaging and compelling Personal Statement that stands out from the crowd.