Archive for the 'Tips' Category

Accept vs. Except - Grammar Tip of the Day

Grammar tip of the dayAccept and Except sounds almost exactly the same, especially if you are not a native English speaker, however they have two completely different meanings.

To accept is to take in, say yes, or to willingly approve:

My sister accepted the present I gave her.

The gas station does not accept personal checks.

I was accepted into the college of my choice.

He proposed to his girlfriend and she accepted.

The website didn’t accept my password.

Except is not often used as a verb, and is almost always used as a conjunction or preposition that means but not, or unless (as a condition):

They let everyone into the party, except anyone who wasn’t invited.

I’ll take all of the flowers, except for the ones with dead leaves.

I will come with you to the store except if he comes.

To except (as a verb) is very rarely used, but it means to reject or exclude:

Cost per person is $50, but children are excepted and eat for free.

The confusion between the two words is almost solely due to the fact that they are similar in sound and spelling. Their meanings are very different, however, so my personal tip for you is to remind yourself that “ex” means former or without, so except would mean “without.” Also, if you mean to use a verb, it will almost always be accept.

What other grammar tips would you like to read about? Let us know in the comments!

Tip of the Day: Check your links before submitting your article

Tip of the DayAs you have probably noticed, many of you have had articles rejected over tiny details, such as broken links.

You’re probably thinking, “but correcting a broken link is so easy!” You’re right. But while correcting a broken link is easy for us to do, each broken links adds up for us.

Thousands of articles are submitted to ArticlesBase every day, and as you know, it takes a while to get approved (usually within 48 hours). The percentage of articles submitted with broken links, bolded texts, or other tiny mistakes is high enough that correcting each article manually would result in a larger delay in having your articles published.

Before you submit your article, quickly look at your code and make sure the links are correct. While you’re at it, make sure you didn’t accidentally bold the entire article, and break your article into short paragraphs.

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

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.

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

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.

You’re vs. your - Grammar Tip

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. :-)

Spelling matters - and so does your grammar

Tip of the DayI love spelling and good grammar - I even belong to groups on Facebook advocating good grammar - but even I “sin” when I’m online, mostly on IM, and don’t capitalize my “I” and the beginning of sentences.

It is important, however, to differentiate between formal and informal communications. While poor grammar and spelling isn’t so important on IM and (non-professional) social networking sites, when you publish written materials online for the purpose of reaching prospective readers, clients, and customers, spelling and grammar are crucial.

Many of you do not speak English as a mother tongue, and many of us who do just aren’t good at spelling - either you are, or you aren’t, and it has nothing to do with your level of education. Read over your article once you have written it - even out loud. You may discover typos and grammar mistakes. Make sure you use spell check. You don’t even need to use Word for that - Firefox, for example, comes with a built-in spell checker (I use it on a daily basis). Even if you don’t think your grammar is a little on the weak side, let someone read your article. You’ll not only get feedback about the article itself, but another pair of eyes that can correct any mistakes you may have made. This is a good rule of thumb, even if you are an English teacher.

Reviewing your article’s spelling and grammar may mean it will take you a few more minutes until publish the article, or even another day if you ask someone to proofread our article for you, however your article reflects you and your level of professionalism, and if you strive to reach potential customers, you want to put your best foot forward, and professional knowledge is only the beginning.

Don’t use shorthand, read up on apostrophe use, brush up on your punctuation, and subscribe to the ArticlesBase blog, because beginning next week I will begin to give you short grammar tips for popular mistakes.

Tip of the Day: Submit many articles

Tip of the DayOK, so it sounds pretty obvious, but bare with me. Clearly, having more articles online makes you look like more of an expert. However, by increasing the number of articles you have submitted, you are no only giving yourself credibility, but giving more people a chance of finding your work.

If you look at your statistics per article (more on utilizing your statistics on another post), you will see that each article received traffic from certain keywords.

It’s a very simple formula:

More articles = more keywords = greater chance to appear in search results = more clicks on your articles

Many of you out there have more articles sitting on your hard drive - go ahead and post them on ArticlesBase and increase you momentum.

Tip of the Day: Build up your vocabulary by reading more

Tip of the DayYour words are your work, at least as far are your articles are concerned. Whether you’re a teacher, doctor, lawyer, or contractor, you will (hopefully) never stop learning your trade - new teaching methods, new surgical procedures, new precedents, or new building methods. So why neglect your writing?

ArticlesBase authors write for a variety of reasons: For some it’s their livelihood, for others it’s to promote their business. Whatever your motivation, all writers should read constantly. Read books, newspapers, poems - whatever you enjoy.

Reading not only increases your vocabulary, but it expands your knowledge. Knowledge indeed equals power, but it also equals ideas, and ideas equal articles, and sometimes new areas of experties (which will equal more viewers).

I personally love using a thesaurus when I write. The thing about a thesaurus, however, is that as great as it is, you need to know the words to utilize them correctly, otherwise you run the risk of word misuse, which may appear unprofessional.

So pick up a book by your favorite author or a trade magazine that interests you, and get to reading.

What other methods do you use to increase your vocbulary or improve your writing? Let us know in the comments.

Tip of the Day - KISS (Keep it simple and short)

OK, so I slightly rewrote the phrase, but the point is the same.Tip of the Day

In these days of information overload, for better or worse, time is a very precious commodity. When people search for information, they are usually looking for a quick fix - the information they want quickly.

Short articles (under 250 words) lose credibility - but long articles lose readers. We suggest you write articles around 500 words long. It should be enough to show your expertise and get your point across, but not too long where you’ll lose readers.

If your topic requires more than 500 words, how about splitting it up into a series? This will both keep it short, and get your reader coming back for more.

Subscribe by RSS to your favorite authors and categories

Did you know you can subscribe to your favorite authors and article categories?

If you click on any category or subcategory, you will see a little orange RSS icon by the category title. Click on the button and choose your favorite RSS reader.

RSS icon

You can do the same with your favorite authors - and your readers can do the same with you!

You can add an RSS feed of your favorite topics and/or authors to your website, and drive more traffic to your own articles as well.

So go out and let your readers know they are able to subscribe to your articles and make sure your fans come back for more.