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11 BBC Rules for News Writers

admin — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 21:49:46 +0000

How to write news

How to write news. Write news is very difficult. There are many traps. BBC rules for news writers help to write good news article.

1. Know what you want to say

This may seem a statement of the obvious, but items are often broadcast which are not exactly what the writer intended.

2. The key to good writing is simple thoughts simply expressed

Use short sentences and short words. Anything which is confused, complicated, poorly written or capable of being misunderstood risks losing the listener or viewer, and once you have done that, you might just as well not have come to work.

3. Subject-Verb-Object

In broadcasting, the basic sentence structure Subject-Verb-Object works every time. The audience grasps what you are saying straight away. Anything more flamboyant, such as a subordinate clause, is a potential barrier to understanding.

4. Decide what you want to say and get on with saying it

Aim to be simple (not simplistic), fluent and easy on the ear. Your first duty is to your audience, not to your own idea of arresting prose.

5. Do not describe news as good, bad, shocking or horrendous

Tell the story and let the listener decide.

6. Attention to the first sentence

Get a strong active verb in the beginning. Make an impact and keep audience listening.

7. Do not start a news report with a question

The people wants to be informed, not take part in a quiz.

8. Your news shouldn’t begin with “As expected”

If your information was predictable and you have nothing new to say, why should the listener or viewer pay attention?

9. Be positive

Make assertions wherever possible, and try to avoid negatives. It is more direct to say: “The plan failed” than “The plan was not successful”.

10. Use active voice

At its heart, news is about people doing things. Activity is interesting. Where you can, write sentences with subjects that are doing things, and not subjects that are simply receiving actions upon them.

11. Attribution first

You should make clear the source of information. Always say who before you say what they did or said.

8 Rules of negotiation a Job Offer

admin — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:48:33 +0000

How to Negotiate a Job Offer

The finding of job is the first step of earning money. The second is get the best salary offer.

1. Research

Search in the internet salary range. There are a lot of special websites.

2. Be persistent

Do not hesitate to ask about salary. Ask openly about salary range. If you think their offer much less than your expectation say it. In the most of cases the salary range can be negotiated.

3. Take realistic view of things

Know that you can’t get more than there is in the market. But if you have some additional skills your salary can increase with the lapse of time.

4. Don’t hurry

Don’t Take the first offer. Take your time. Compare different offers.

5. Negotiate

Make a counter offer. Say something like this: “I count on more than (*desired salary*). If you could offer (*a few less sum*) I would accept your offer right now.

6. Ask not only for money

Good job offers not only good salary, but the extras. Ask for extra vacation days, a six month salary review with an increase or other perks.

7. Be diplomatic

Be firm but polite during the negotiation. Be savvy, respectful and firm. And you will score additional points.

8. Choose

After negotiation take your time. Think. Compare. And choose.

13 Writing Rules You’ll Ever Need

admin — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 07:08:31 +0000

How to write

Do you want write something? But you don’t know how to write. You don’t know how to express yourself. You don’t know how to shape your thoughts in words. You are sure that it’s difficult. It isn’t. Just know these rules and follow them.. You are sure that it’s difficult. It isn’t. Just know these rules and follow them.

1. If you write every day, you get better at writing every day

2. If it’s boring to you, it’s boring to your reader

3. Get a writing routine, and stick with it

4. Poetry does NOT have to rhyme. Poetry does not NOT have to rhyme

5. Resist stereotypes, in real life and in your writing

6. Writers read. Writers read a lot. Writers read all the time

7. Make lists of your favorite words and books and places and things

8. There doesn’t always have to be a moral to the story

9. Always bring your notebook. Always bring a spare pen

10. Go for walks. Dance. Pull weeds. Do the dishes. Write about it

11. Don’t settle on just one style. Try something new!

12. Learn to tell both sides of the story

13. Stop reading this article. Write something!

7 Rules to Understand Design and Designers

admin — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 07:35:29 +0000

How to understand design and designers

1. Designers are meant to be loved, not to be understood

2. The purpose of design is to make the ordinary extraordinary

3. The best designers are the ones who find the good clients

4. Design must seduce, shape and more importantly, evoke an emotional response

5. Good design can be planned but great design just happens

6. Design the right things, design the things right

7. Imagination is more important than knowledge

5 Rules of Finding Job

admin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:41:19 +0000

How to find a job you’ll love.
There are many reasons to change your job. Or may be you seek for a first job. How do it fast? Follow simple rules to avoid common mistakes and increase your chances to find the job you’ll like.

1. Decide what do you want

Choose a career you’ll like. When you make a choice start to seek job offers. Today is easy enough with internet. Visit http://www.monster.com/ or any other site. Look for offers you like. Make a list of vacancies.

2. Create your brand

Any job offer wants find a good specialist and he wants to be sure that this person will be reliable. That’s why he wants know a lot about his potential worker. Help him. Make your brand. Show yourself. Create a profile in a Facebook, LinkedIn, JobFox, VisualCV etc. Write about yourself what you want the job offer reads. Show your best qualities. Mention your education and work experience. Write about interest and hobbies.

3. Target your resume and cover letter

Firstly write your resume according to common rules of writing resume. Then target your resume and cover letter. What does it means. Every offer has its own criteria. You can adjust your basic resume and cover letter underlining and highlighting information which answer criteria. You will more chances to get this job.

4. Find more information about job offer

Research the company before you go for the interview. Be prepared to the questions. You must impress on interviewer.

5. Be in the know

The science of getting job is always developing. The psychologists and professionals every day give us new advices, search and find new tips for job seeker and employees. For example, Joe Lavelle, business adviser, he writes books and posts in his blog. Find job is the first step. Then you will go up the career ladder. How to get promoted, how act as if it were impossible to fail, how to enjoy your work, how to be successful? Joe Lavelle answers these questions. He provides you with the strategies, tools and advices. Do not stop after getting job. Move on. Get promotion. Be successful.

9 Rules of Effective Online Shop

admin — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:35:56 +0000

How to make successful e-shop.

If you want to begin to earn money with your online shop, you should understand that design of your is 55% of your future sales. Design is not only colors and fonts, design is a whole system of presentation information. Follow common rules of online shop to push up sales.

1. Give all information about product

Client must know everything about product. Show him several photos of product from different angles. Write detailed information. Sizes, weight, all dimensions, all technical information etc.

2. Write your contact information in an easy-to-find place on every page of your site

When client is going to trust his credit card information to you he wants to be sure that you are honest seller. Put detailed contact information on every page of your online shop: e-mail, phone number, mailing address. The best places for it is header, the top of your sidebar and in footer.

3. Be brief and easy-to-use

When client decides to buy something he must make an order and check some boxes (shipping, way of payment etc) and fill some forms (name, address, etc). Try to make this process easy. Combine pages with forms and check boxes, use two-column layouts.

4. Navigation must be logical and simple

Verify all your categories and groups. Ask somebody to test it. Is it easy to find some product in your catalog? Correct all illogicality in navigation of your online shop.

5. Pay attention to search engine

When purchaser knows what he wants to buy he uses search. Bad search engine shows a lot of useless information. It is another obstacle for buyer. Make sure you use good and well-made search engine for online shop, which allows to sort results by “most popular”, “price”, “new items”, etc.

6. Include related products

Often customers of your online shop don’t know that they can buy not only chosen item but also something related to it. Give more choice to your customer include related products in product description page.

7. Use smart shopping cart

There are a variety of shopping cart’s design. The best is when customer adds item to shopping cart he stays at the same pages and he doesn’t need to return back each times.

8. Propose several payments services to client

Let customers pay with each major credit card and online payment systems (PayPal, etc). It can enlarge the circle of your clients.

9. Do not use clients accounts

When you ask customer to sign in you put an obstacle. You steal his time and try his patience. You can deter him. Instead of signing in propose to purchaser at the end of ordering process to save their account information to make easier future purchase. In the most of cases clients opt to save information. Because it’s handy.

7 Rules of Usability

admin — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:00:46 +0000

How to make your site user friendly

The key of making your pages visitor friendly is usability. The rules of usability are important for every kind of sites: blogs, online shops, portfolio sites etc. Create your pages with the rules of usability and your readers will come back to your site or blog.

1. Put labels above the field

The ideal position of labels is above fields. When user forms fields he goes from top to bottom. If labels are above fields visitor can put in information without changing the path of his eyes. It is easier for him.

2. Faces attract attention

Users subconsciously notice people and look at their eyes. It works in real. It works on web pages. Our attention is attracted by face. We look at face of person on the page.

But if person on page looks at something we will follow his or her look.

Put in this places header and text.

3. Design should be of high quality

Visitor judges website looking at his design. Design for user is an indicator of credibility. If you can’t create a good design where layout, typography, color and style are in harmony, let professional designer do this work.

4. All important information should be on the first screen (fold)

Most visitors do not scroll. Most is 75% users. Fold must contain title of site, main proposition (benefits for the visitor) and site navigation.

5. Respect expectations of your visitors

Design of your site can be unique and extraordinary. It depends on you. But people have habits. They expect to see common things at the same places (logo, headers etc). In any cases your site should be understandable. Use common patterns when you create your page. For example: the best color for link is blue.

6. Do not be afraid of white space

Empty space improves comprehension. White space between paragraphs, buttons, fields, pictures and other elements of your page makes easier grouping of elements, let them “breathe”. With a lot of empty space is easy to show hierarchy of elements on the page.

White space plays important role in nesting of text. It becomes more readable.

7. Users have immunity to advertising

If something looks like ad visitor won’t notice it. Be careful with your design. If it would look like ad user will miss it.

5 Rules of Effective Web Writing

admin — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 07:31:08 +0000

How to write good texts for blogs, social networks and micro-blogging services

Internet has its own rules of verbal contacts. It is insufficient to be a good writer. Texts for Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, your blog must satisfy the requirements of effective web writing. The text for print campaigns is not suitable. If you want to earn money with your blog learn these rules because the most important things in Internet is the copy.

1. Define your objective and do the plan of your text

It is common rule for any texts, but it is very important for web writing. You should have a clear picture of the result. When you have a plan your writing will be clear.

2. Define your audience

It is very important to know who will read your copy. Web writing is easy to target to different groups of people. Remember that the text should be different for Facebook, for Twitter and for your blog. Before writing a new copy or changing old one you must figure out who you are going to speak.

3. Write shortly

Big texts frighten off your potential readers. They haven’t time to read large text. Shorter texts attract more attention.

4. Your text should be scannable

Before reading visitor scans the text. He decides is your text worth for reading. Make your copy easy to scan:

Write short paragraphs;
use descriptive headers and sub-headers;
use bullets lists;
add images and diagrams;
highlight key points of the text.

5. Be creative and flexible

Different services have its own constraints of writing. Tweeter for example allows you use only 140 character, Facebook have limited formatting. To create effective copy and compress large information in small text you should work hard and use all your creativity.

10 Rules of Time Management

admin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:07:56 +0000

How To Find Time

Time is the most valuable resource today. Who knows manage his time rules the world. He earns more, he has time to relax, he find time for his private life. Learn rules of Time Management.

1. Be organized

Organize your files, information, documents. You should know where are all what you need to work because finding your own files is the biggest waste of time. Use tags, folders, libraries, everything that can help you organize your information. And keep your table clean.

2. Find workspace

If you work in an office you have your own workspace. But if you are freelancer you need to find your workspace. It can’t be a dinner table or coffee table. It must be work table where you can leave your documents to return later to work. You must create a work ambient.

3. Use time management tools

Date book, organizer, calendar, color post-it’s, computer applications— all this stuff can help you manage your time. When you see all tasks for today you can plan your worktime.

4. Define goals

Setting goals allow to set priority. You know what you must do the first. You can plan your day with this information.

5. Set Deadlines

Deadline is the best motivator. Set a deadline and complete your task in time.

6. Outsource

Use your time wisely. If you can ask for help do it. If you have possibilities to delegate some type of work to other people do it.

7. Know how to say “no”

Do not accept all the proposal. Learn to say “no”. Look at your time and think if you can accept one more proposal?

Saying “no” can you help and in everyday life. Sometimes your friends propose to get out. You need to relax. Ok. But find a balance between work and rest.

8. Find your work time and set regular working hours

Everyone is unique. Someone likes to work at evening, someone at night and there are people who work early in the morning. Find your best time and set these hours for work. Organize your time.

9. Don’t waste time

It is the hardest rule. There are many temptation around us. We want to check Twitter or facebook. We want to relax. To watch a new video on youtube. Etc. Try to not loose time. Concentrate on work. You’ll have time after. Concentrate on one task at time.

10. But do not forget about breaks

You need to rest from time to time, or you can burnout. Little breaks helps you to refresh your mind. Go for a walk. Breath fresh air. Recharge your batteries.

9 Rules of Business Writing

admin — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 07:33:21 +0000

How to write effectively

Nowadays business is 80% is communication with people (colleagues, clients, partners). Most often communication is in written form. There are different forms of business writings: e-mails, letters, presentation, proposals and other documents.

The skill of writing will be gained with the experience. There some rules to make getting experience easier.

1. Write less, say more

Today is a century of information. Everyday we read a lot of texts. We have no time to read big texts. Write short letters. Do not use long phrases. Make your text easy to read.

2. Do not use jargon and smiles

Business has etiquette: jargon and smiles are not allowed. Using jargon you complicate your message. Reader may not understand you.

3. Check your writing

Read your letter. Put it off for an hour (better for a day). And then reread it again. Mistakes and misprints are inadmissible.

4. Be attentive with the names, titles, and genders

Precise name and title of your addressee. Do not make a mistake. Some people feel hurt when writer spell their name wrong.

5. Make templates

In business many things repeat. The same letter to many clients, typical proposal for partners etc. Create templates to save your time. But make each letter unique.

6. Rule of 5W+H

Your message should be logical and clear. When you write something ask yourself 5 W question and one H: Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? If your writing answers all these questions it is clear message.

7. Don’t give many choices

It is best to not give any choice. If your set a time for reunion give a single time. Generally there are two options. You don’t limit the choice you help to choose. When someone has a lot of choices it leads to decision paralysis.

8. Arouse interest

The effectiveness of your letter is the aroused interest of your addressee. Write about benefits.

9. Write often

If you want write good business writings write more, as often as you can.