Monthly Archive for May, 2009

It’s vs. Its - and what about its’? Grammar tip of the day

Published
by
Talia
on May 21, 2009
in Grammar Tips and Tips
. 5 Comments

Grammar tip of the dayToday’s grammar tip was requested/recommended by Ruchira Roy on the ArticlesBase fan page on Facebook.

Last week I briefly touched on contractions as they related to the “you’re” versus “your” saga. The same tip applies here.

If you can replace the apostrophe with an “i” then the correct use is “it’s.” It’s is a contraction - the apostrophe represents the “i” that was dropped.

“It’s all good” = It is all good = It’s is the correct form.

The apostrophe can also represent the word “has.”

It’s been a long time = It has been a long time = it’s is the correct form.

Its, on the other hand, is a possessive pronoun that means “belonging to” of “of it.” It shows that something belongs to “it” ot “it” has a special quality. To test this version of the word, try replacing the word “its” with “her.” If the sentence still makes sense, then this is the correct spelling.

Its color is dark purple = her color is dark purple = its is the correct form.

The word its’ doesn’t actually exist. Don’t ever use it. Ever.

ArticlesBase News and Updates

Published
by
Talia
on May 19, 2009
in News
. 2 Comments

We’ve been going through exciting times here at ArticlesBase. We opened an ArticlesBase fan page on Facebook, started using Twitter more, and we held our first April Fool’s Day contest. 10 lucky winners received our special edition ArticlesBase April Fool’s Day edition travel mug!

Most importantly, we officially have over 100,000 authors who have written more than 800,000 articles over the past 3 years spanning over 330 categories!

Here at ArticlesBase we are working on many updates to the site that will help you make the most of the experience. You may already notice a new toolbar at the bottom of each page on ArticlesBase. This toolbar allows readers and authors alike to more easily share the articles with their friends, connect with the ArticlesBase Facebook community through Facebook Connect, and view the latest tweets by ArticlesBase. Read our blog post about the new toolbar for more details.

We hope this toolbar will both help you be more connected with your fellow authors and readers, as well as provide even more promotion for your articles.

If you’ve been keeping up with the ArticlesBase blog (and especially if you haven’t!), you have noticed that we have begun posting short tips to help you make the most of your articles. By popular demand, we have also begun to post grammar tips to help those of you who aren’t always sure about the difference between your and you’re, or affect and effect.

If you have any grammar issues that you would like answered or think someone needs to know, let us know in the comments or contact us about them. We have also begun posting guest posts on the blog, so if you’d like to share your knowledge about article marketing with your fellow authors, contact us at blog at articlesbase.com.

Keep an eye out for more exciting updates to the ArticlesBase site and community. Be sure to follow us on Twitter and join our ArticlesBase fan page on Facebook for updates, and subscribe to the ArticlesBase blog. If at anytime you have any suggestions, please let us know, be it through Twitter, Facebook, or email.

Good job, everyone, and keep on writing!
Talia Klein
Community Product Manager

P.S Upload a picture to your author’s bio! Articles that have anauthor picture on it are more likely to be clicked on!

Introducing the new toolbar!

Published
by
Talia
on May 18, 2009
in Features and News
. 7 Comments

Most of you have probably noticed that last Thursday we implemented a new feature to the site: The Wibiya toolbar. The toolbar is another step we have taken to help you and your readers make the most of your articles by integrating community and social networking features.

Wibiya Toolbar on ArticlesBase

One of the great features of the toolbar is the Share button. Each article page already has 2 share buttons (beneath the article title and beneath the article) that allows your readers to share your articles through Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, email, Delicious, and more.

Share items

Now sharing is made even easier by placing a button at a prominent spot on your screen. We have already seen an increase in shared articles just from the past few days!

Next to the share button, you will see the new ArticlesBase Facebook community – you can join through Facebook Connect. Meet other ArticlesBase members, and receive updates from us – we promise to keep them to a minimum. You can also update your Facebook status directly from the toolbar without even leaving the page!

Facebook Connect

On the right side of the toolbar you can see our Twitter stream, and if you aren’t already following us, go ahead and follow us. We update often and we’re always available to answer any support requests. We’d love to hear your suggestions and let us know what you think about ArticlesBase.

Another feature of the toolbar is the ability to translate any page on the site into a variety of languages (that currently include French, Polish, Spanish, Italian, German, Chinese, Swedish, Dutch, Portuguese, and Hebrew).

This will help more readers who are not proficient in English notice your articles and read more. While there are translation tools online, having a built in tool makes it more efficient, meaning your international readers are more likely to read your articles.

If at any point you’d like to minimize the toolbar, click on the arrow on the right side of the toolbar.

Minimize toolbar

Click them again to make the toolbar reappear.

Mazimize toolbar

What do you think of the new toolbar? What social features would you like to see added? Let us know in the comments!

Tip of the Day: Saving your articles before you post them

Published
by
Talia
on May 14, 2009
in Tips and Writing
. 1 Comment

Tip of the DayOne of the common support requests we receive relates to lost articles. While we do our best to make sure our system works as efficiently as possible, there are bound to be slip ups - your session logs out, your computer restarts, or you accidentally navigated away from the page.

I’d like to suggest that you write your articles in a text editor, save them, and only then post them to ArticlesBase. If you have a lot of formatting in your article, go ahead and copy the HTML into a text editor before you save your article, just in case.

Let me reiterate: Always save a local copy of your article on your hard drive.

The first few times that you save your articles, it will be a bit of a bother, but soon enough it will become an involuntary action like CTRL-S.

If you go back and edit your article at any point, copy and paste the edited version and save it, too. It’s 30 seconds of work that can save you hours of frustration.

Affect vs. Effect - Grammar Tip

Published
by
Talia
on May 10, 2009
in Grammar Tips, Marketing and Writing
. 5 Comments

Last week I posted a tip about the difference between you’re and your. I was so excited about the response to the post! People commented on the blog post, on our Facebook fan page, and our Twitter account (some were DMs so you won’t be able to see them), and many made requests and suggestions.

Today’s suggestion comes from one of the commentors on our post- Markk.

The difference between “affect” and “effect” is hard on native English speakers, not just those who do not speak English as a mother tongue.

The easiest way to differentiate between the two, in my opinion, is to remember that affect is generally a verb, and effect is a noun. In other words, the way you affect someone could have an effect on them.

An effect is generally a result:

“Setting low speed limits were supposed to change driving behavior, but it had the opposite effect - more people are breaking the law by driving faster than the speed limit.”

To affect is to make a difference to or create change in something:

“Using margarine instead of butter will affect the final flavor of the cake - it won’t taste the same.”

In other words, when you affect something, you product an effect on it.

Are there any grammar questions you’d like answered? Or tips you think your fellow writers would find helpful? Let us know in the comments!

Join us on Facebook and Twitter today!

You’re vs. your - Grammar Tip

Published
by
Talia
on May 6, 2009
in Grammar Tips, Tips and Writing
. 9 Comments

AB Grammar LogoLike I previously mentioned, I am a bit of grammar freak when it comes to professional writing. As such, I’d like to begin giving you short tips that will help you avoid grammar mistakes that may not show up on a regular spell check.

Today’s tip is one of my all-time pet peeves - the difference between your and you’re.

Your is possessive - it shows ownership. Your towel. Your hat. Your mistake.

You’re is a contraction - it means you are. You’re nice. You’re talented. You’re insane.

As a general rule with contractions, if I’m personally not sure if a contraction is necessary (i.e. you’re instead of your), I break up the word. Since the apostrophe stands for one or more missing letters, I check if the word is actually two words:

“Your my sunshine” = You are my sunshine = You’re is the correct form.

When I write in 140 characters or less, I tend, out of necessity, to shorten words (U instead of you) or use symbols (& instead of and), however Twitter (and Facebook statuses and other social media) do not require the same level of professionalism that your articles require.

I will be tagging grammar tips with a “grammar tips” tag so you can sift through our various tips whenever you’d like. Keep in mind that this was number one, so it may take a while to accumulate many tips. :-)