Le Mot Juste Web Edit

Please pardon my absence for half of the month of June from Le Mot JusteWeb Edit. I have been busily writing my fingers off as a freelance writer for websites. Thank you again to Forbes Magazine for the ad on your site that led me to Get A Freelancer .com. 

I have been working with several service buyers who have asked for articles of varying lengths on topics ranging from antique radios to Paris tourism tips to real estate. I have learned to do a myriad of new things on these contract assignments, such as:

• Super fast research. I can pin down key information for a 500-word article in about 15-20 minutes.
• Rewriting. I can take just about anyone’s repetitive, passive voiced writing and make it into exciting copy now.
• Effective use of the thesaurus. I have identified transition words that I use a great deal, and a variety of synonyms for these so I don’t get redundant in my writing.
• Word count. I can do manual word count of an article in about 30 seconds now!
• And -  a completely new skill:  keyword insertion. This ensures the article will pop up if a person searches for that particular phrase on the Internet. Some articles need a keyword percentage of up to 5%.  If the writer is sloppy, the article can sound very repetitive. But not my articles. I am developing great skill at this type of work.

The most challenging trick is to work with people who live in different time zones. It is most helpful if they are west of you, because they have a later “deadline” time than you for work. If they are east of you, you must compensate for the time difference and insist the buyer set firm deadline times, to the actual hour, not just a day. I might still be asleep or have just gone to bed when they need work done. If not handled diplomatically, these situations can cause conflict, and lost contracts.  So far, I seem to be doing not too badly in the diplomacy department.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll put up a new GrammarWeb shortly.

THIS JUST IN: 

I have a real paying client!!! Yippee for me!! Pardon me while I celebrate vociferously for a moment.  Yee Hah!!!!     (smile with eyeglasses, in case you haven’t seen it before.)

I have signed up with an Internet service called Get A Freelancer:  www.getafreelancer.com. People and businesses on the web constantly need short articles written, rewritten, condensed, and proofread for their businesses and those of other people. 

How GetAFreelancer (GAF for short) works is that you register with the site as a “service provider,” which I certainly am. You choose only the kinds of services you can deliver. The vast majority on the GAF service list are computer software writing and related web design services  — so, NOT me. But they have two things I CAN do really well:  write and proofread. So I selected those two services. Then I sat back and watched my e-mail box fill up with listings about jobs I could bid on.  I also recommend getting a separate e-mail address like on yahoo.com or msn.com, or hotmail.com before you sign up for any service like this. It keeps your “business” and “personal” e-mail from getting cluttered up and tangled with each other.

The very first day I was on GAF, I put in a bid on six different jobs. That same day and the next day, I got follow-up on two of those jobs.  On the second day, I was CONFIRMED as the chosen bidder by one of the people who had posted a job!  Wow! Now that’s what I call QUICK.

I will actually be at about a three-stage remove from the client who uses what I write. I also have to sign up for a PayPal account and other kinds of techno-financial stuff to be able to get paid. No worries, I can handle all that. So by next Tuesday 19 May, I should have my very first paying work as an Internet freelance writer.

I would like to mention that I saw an ad for another freelance writing service on www.forbes.com, which linked me directly to GetAFreelancer. So, thank you to one of North America’s best business publications for helping me get some real paying work at last with my beloved computer, Internet service and my well-practised writing, editing and proofreading skills.

So, if you would like to work from home, and have ANY of the multitude of skills advertised in the GetAFreelancer list, sign up today. They pay only in US dollars or euros, so make sure you can accept payment electronically in one of those currencies.

The majority of GAF’s writing job ads also emphasize “Native English speakers and writers only” so make sure you fit that criteria too. GAF clients have access to a nifty software tool called Copyscape, that detects articles and material previously published online to prevent plagiarism, so cutting and pasting items from other sites is not possible.

I’ll keep you updated on my adventure as a GAF freelance internet writer. Of course, I will protect the privacy of my clients and job providers at all times.

Have a great weekend!

Carol Shetler
Owner and Managing Editor
Le Mot Juste Web Edit

UPDATE:  Sunday, May 24, 2009:  I have written my first ten articles for my service provider contact. I am part of a group of writers managed by this contact. I got very lucky:  this person is fabulous to work with. She works just as hard as her team, which I respect greatly. And we get Sundays off! Even better.

I have also successfully navigated the mysteries of PayPal, and now have a functioning account with this ubiquitous buy-and-sell transaction management company. I look forward to my first payment showing up in my bank account. Yippee! I’m a professional writer again!

Welcome to Le Mot Juste Web Edit!

Please visit our Home Page for more information. Click on the Pages button on the sidebar to view the menu.

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GrammarWeb 9  – Why Spelling in English is SO HARD!

Spelling in English is hard for one key reason  – it is estimated that up to 90% of English words did not start out as English. The table below gives the approximate origins of English words today that most linguists and etymologists agree on:

English                 10%
Latin and French    30% 
German                30%
Greek                   10%
Other languages    10%
Neologisms
(new words)          10%

So of course, today’s Grammar Web will test your “Word Origin” knowledge. See if you can correctly identify the language of origin of these ten words.

1.  psychology         a. Neologism      b. German              c. Greek

2.  kindergarten       a. German        b.  Other language    c. English

3.  shampoo           a.  English       b.  Other language - Hindi     c. French

4.  khaki                  a. German     b.  Greek       c. Other language - Persian

5.  right                   a. French      b.  English     c. German

6.  megabyte            a. English     b.  Greek       c. Neologism

7.  furniture              a. Other language   b. French    c.  German

8.  chalk                   a.  English      b. French        c. Greek

9.  through               a.  English     b.  German     c. Latin

10. reasonable          a.  Latin        b.  German     c. French

Here are the answers:  1.  c    2. a   3.  b    4.  c   5.  c    6. c   7. b   8. a  9.  b  10. c

How did you do?

9-10:  Wow! Very well done. You must really like studying other languages; maybe you speak more than one.

6-8    Very good!  Perhaps it was the “other languages” answers that caught you?

4-5    Not too bad, your first language is probably English and you have learned about some of these words before?

0-3   Oops! You got caught in the GrammarWeb. Probably you still find spelling in English quite a challenge.  Maybe learning more about word origins will help you.

Feel free to submit other words for a later Word Origins quiz for our readers to guess!

Welcome to Le Mot Juste Web Edit. Please click on the Pages button at right to view more newsletters and to try the GrammarWeb quizzes.

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Hi, everybody!

This newsletter is long overdue because I’ve been very busy supporting myself as an ESL tutor to two adults and three children, and as a math tutor for a Grade 7 student. The latter started out being quite challenging, because the topics this student was learning were either in the Grade 3-4 curriculum when I learned them, or not until Grade 9-10. But we have got a good handle on it all now. I will see this student later this afternoon.

And how does all this relate to editing, you may ask?  Well, it’s like this. Most ESL students whether adults or children, are usually very bad writers. It is imperative that the ESL tutor catches every single mistake, and explains the correct way to write / spell / punctuate / group ideas in paragraphs / delete irrelevant information, so the student can understand and remember. Practice drills on the student’s problems are a must.  The tutor must create these drills him- or herself specifically for the student. Generic materials must be adapted to be more useful.

All of this work is FANTASTIC practice in proofreading and copyediting for any editor. That’s one of the reasons why I do it!

This past weekend, I also had the opportunity to attend the Writers and Editors Network (WEN) monthly breakfast meeting in Toronto. I met lots of writers there and a few editors. The guest speaker, Paul Lima, was terrific. He has written a book called “How to Write a Non-Fiction Book in 60 Days”.  From the presentation notes he gave us and his remarks, I seem to be doing quite well on preparing my book for its good first draft. If you want to know more about it in its skeletal stages, visit www.personsfirst2008.com.

Your comments in English, whether positive or negative, and related to the topic, are welcome at Persons First 2008, but please — NO LINKS. Your message will be moderated as “spam” and will not show up.   That goes equally for comments posed to this site.

Drop over to the newest GrammarWeb #9 for a discussion and quiz on why spelling in English is SO HARD. 

Take it easy, have a great week, and I’ll see you again in May!

Carol Shetler
Owner and Managing Editor (this is what my new business cards say)
Le Mot Juste Web Edit

Welcome to Le Mot Juste Web Edit!

Please visit our Home Page for more information. Click on the Pages button on the sidebar to view the menu.

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GrammarWeb 8 - Fact Checking

Another important part of the editor’s job is fact-checking. In fact, Anderson Cooper, one of CNN’s lead anchorpeople, got his start in journalism as a fact-checker.

This GrammarWeb will challenge you to find out if these 10 statements are true or false. Be careful - part of the factoid may be true, but any part of it that is not correct renders the whole factoid false. With each answer, where applicable, I will provide the source of the incorrect information.

1. Lance Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon.

2. American fighter pilot Eddie Rickenbacker shot down the German ace, Baron von Richtofen, in World War 1.  

3. The country of Canada has 10 provinces and four territories.

4. Canada’s border with the United States passes through all five Great Lakes.

5. John Franklin Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963.

6. The country of Afghanistan shares a border with India.

7. There are volcanoes on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia that are taller than Mount Everest.

8. Our solar system now has eleven planets, thanks to the recent discovery of a planet closer to the sun than Mercury by astronomers.

9. Electric cars can run on both direct and alternating current.

10. Tiger Woods is now (February 2009) the proud father of two daughters.

Give these some thought before answering.

Ready or not: here are the answers:

1. False. Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon. Source:  Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking”, January 2009.

2. False. For many years, Canadian pilot Roy Brown was held to be the pilot who shot down the “Red Baron”. Forensic evidence released with military documents declassified in 1993 now point to an unknown Australian pilot flying with a small squadron as being the successful shooter.

3. False. Canada gained just one new territory, Nunavut, in 1999, so it has three territories as well as 10 provinces.

4. False. Canada’s border passes through only four of the Great Lakes. Lake Michigan is entirely inside the borders of the United States.

5. False. The American president assassinated on November 22, 1963 was John Fitzgerald Kennedy. He is so often referred to as JFK that people are starting to forget his middle name.

6. False. Pakistan is between Afghanistan and India. No area of Afghanistan has a shared border with India.

7. True. I was stunned to learn this on my first flight from Canada to Asia in 1996. Everest is over 8,900 metres tall, but two of those volcanoes measure over 9,100 metres in height.

8. False. The planet closer to its sun than Mercury was discovered in a different solar system than ours.

9. False. So far, electric cars run only on direct current from various types of batteries. These batteries can be recharged by connecting them to alternating current, but the car cannot run directly from the alternating current feed. (Just imagine how long the power cord would have to be!!)

10. False. Tiger Woods’ wife, Elin, gave birth to a son earlier this month.

How did you do?
10 - You escaped the GrammarWeb! Congratulations!
8-9 - Well done, just pay a little more attention to those facts. If you are at all unsure, check with a reliable source.
6-7 - Good work, but you should make a point of doing a quick fact-check of what you read in the media as well as what you write. Incorrect facts are getting past you more often than you think.
0-5 - Oops! You got caught in the GrammarWeb! Invest in a reputable hard-copy encyclopedia published at least five years ago, to check those history, geography and political facts regularly.

Taking the time to fact-check everything you write on the Internet or anywhere else will save you embarrassment and increase your credibility as a writer and/or editor.

WELCOME to Le Mot Juste Web Edit Services.  Let us help you put just the right words on your site.

Visit our Home Page for more information about Le Mot Juste Web Edit. Click on the Pages button at right for the site menu.

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GrammarWeb 7 - Neologisms

So what the heck is a neologism?  These are “new words” that have been introduced into English to name or describe new concepts and ideas. The Information Technology Age has brought a floodtide of these new words into English. The other primary source is street argot, also known as “slang”.  

Here are four examples, match them up with their meaning in modern English. You can get a bonus point for each if you can identify the source of the neologism.

1.  bling      2.  blog  and  blogroll     3.  bong        4. bungaloid

Meanings:  a. a small one storey house like dwellings of the 1950s

b. very flashy jewelry

c.  a large pipelike tube used for smoking marijuana and other drugs

d.  a written opinion piece on the Internet, a list of these linked to another writer’s work on the Net.

Here are the answers:  1. b    2.  d    3.  c   4. a

Here are the bonus marks:  Add one for each of these you knew or were able to figure out:

bling - originates from “blink” plus “ka-ching” (your eyes are dazzled and the items are often costly) 
blog -  originates from “weblog”, “log” being a diary of events kept by a ship’s captain during a voyage.
bong - originates from the name of the sound made when a large gong is struck by a mallet in many kinds of religious temples (anyone else got any ideas, send ‘em along) — maybe this is how your head feels when the drugs hit it…?! Having never smoked anything in this way, I can’t confirm or deny…
bungaloid - a bungalow type of house, built not exactly in traditional style. “bungalow” is the Hindi word for a small one-storey house. (Thanks to my pal Tate at his blog Strange Closets for creating this neologism. If he borrowed it from someone else, I’m sure he will tell me.)

Your Score:  

8 - Wow! You know your neologisms, and I bet you’ve even invented a few. You not only escaped the GrammarWeb, you tore it to shreds!
6-7 - Excellent! All these new words aren’t fazing you.
4-5 - Very well done.
0-3 - Oops, you got caught in the GrammarWeb.

Did you notice something else about the neologisms I chose for this quiz? They all feature the letters “b” and “g”. These seem to be two of the most favoured letters for creating neologisms right now. Mof these just sound like baby talk to me, though, and I go out of my way to avoid using them.

Please contribute your opinion, or suggest any other neologisms for a future quiz in a comment. No spamming please, I’m getting really quick with the ”delete” key and ”spam” tags for comments I feel don’t contribute anything to other readers of this site.

Have a great week! 

Greetings!  Happy Groundhog Day on Monday February 2. Did the groundhog in your area see his (or her) shadow?  All the ones in the northeast part of North America did – as if that told us anything we didn’t already know!

For those of you not familiar with the Groundhog superstition, if a groundhog sees his or her shadow on the ground on the 2nd day of February, this means the local area will have six more weeks of winter conditions. If no shadow, this means spring weather will arrive early.  Wiarton Willie, who is the groundhog weather-meister for Southern Ontario, is correct in his prediction about 40% of the time. So no need to despair, although he did see his shadow on Monday.

Just chugging along here quietly at Le Mot Juste Web Edit, after spending most of January digging out from megablankets of snow! My part of the world had 6 major storms in January, and two more are forecast for this first week of February.

The problem, of course, is that it has been so cold that the lovely little flakes in their gigatons are staying put, instead of doing the civilized thing and melting away.

In editing news, I am preparing my application to the Editors Association of Canada, www.editors.ca, to rejoin them as a freelance editor. Visit the site to get a good idea of what freelance and full-time professional editors do to ensure your words and images convey the message you want to send.

In other projects, I am now tutoring another student, this one in Grade 7 Math. If you think this is a cinchy job, try watching the delightful show “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?” and think how you would do on questions two levels higher in difficulty… not so easy. I headed to the nearest Scholars’ Choice and picked up a very good review book for Grade 7 Math. I have now completed the first 3 sections, and got about 90% of ‘em right on the first go. This book will help my student a lot. 

The secret to being a successful tutor is to overcome your students’ view that they “can’t get it”, by showing them what they already CAN do and understand. This gives them the confidence to try more difficult activities and problems.  As we all know, you can’t accomplish anything in life till you try it.

Take it easy, have a great week. I’ll put up another GrammarWeb soon!

While you’re waiting for it, please visit this site:

http://thegrammarvandal.wordpress.com

Hosted by Kate McCulley, the Grammar Vandal highlights — with photos, even! —  the written faux pas people make every day on things such as birthday cakes and billboards. She has a priceless blog about the first edition of Bill Cosby’s newest book… go see for yourself, I don’t want to be a spoiler!

I’d like to thank visitors to Le Mot Juste Web Edit who have left comments on GrammarWeb 1 and 6, as well as the highly popular GrammarWeb 3. I’ll be adding GrammarWeb 7 and 8 this month so watch for them here.

Please send me suggestions for other GrammarWeb quizzes in your comments. Let me know what it is you have concerns about in your writing, and I’ll address those topics here.

Have a great day, one and all — and find something to enjoy every day this week!

Carol Shetler
Owner and Chief Editor
Le Mot Juste Web Edit

Happy New Year to one and all!

December was so busy between various Christmas-related activities and volunteer committee meetings (Couchiching Institute on Public Affairs, Althea Theatre Productions) that I didn’t get the opportunity to produce a December newsletter. So I’ll just do it now to start the New Year instead.

I have signed up three more students for ESL tutoring, bringing my total to 4. Two of the newest are in the LINC program in Durham Region (Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada), and I am helping them with pronunciation and conversation outside of their LINC sessions.

They are finding that working with a private tutor like me greatly reduces the “embarrassment factor” that keeps them, like most ESL students, from speaking and participating in their larger class groups. As we all know, the only way to learn to speak better is to do it.

I also work regularly on a volunteer basis with writers on various Internet blogs and websites, to help them with their spelling and grammar.

One of the writers I had been contacting weekly has recently shown great improvement in his writing style and presentation. His articles for an entertainment blog have been typo-free for over two weeks! Good work!

Another writer for an interior design blog based in Chicago, with whom I now correspond almost daily, has decided to redo his site. I’ve seen the “sneak-peek” – it’s stunning!

In the New Year, I’ll be doing a wider range of work from home to achieve that financial state called “steady income”, so I can earn the funds to start work on two other major projects dear to my heart:  a non-fiction book I’ve been researching for over 4 years, and a novel, which has been in process for almost as long.

Have a great day and a joyful, safe, healthy and prosperous 2009.

Carol Shetler
Owner and Chief Editor
Le Mot Juste Web Edit

WELCOME to Le Mot Juste Web Edit Services
Let us help you put just the right words on your site.

Visit our Home Page for more information about Le Mot Juste Web Edit. Click on the Pages button at right for the site menu.

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GrammarWeb 6:  Find the Errors

Given the popularity of Grammar Web 3, I have decided to write another piece that will challenge your editing skills.  As in #3, there will be 10 errors of all kinds — do your best to find them all and propose the corrections.  Here we go!

“November 11 is celebrated as Rememberance Day in Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Belgium. IN the United States, it is called Veteran’s Day. On the eleventh hour of the elevnth day of the eleventh month, too minutes of silence are observed by veterans, family members who have lost loved ones in war; and by government represenatives of all these countries.

“Ceremonial wreaths are placed at cenotaphs in large cities and small towns all across Canada. Old soldiers from all the armed services stand or sit wearning their medals proudly, their berets or caps sporting a jaunty red poppy. Many more young soldiers are present at these services to, in there camouflage uniforms, accepting the flame of remembrance from soldiers who fought in wars before they — or even their parents — were borne.”

Okay — got ‘em all yet?

Here are the answers:

1. Spelling: “Rememberance” Day:  is really spelled “Remembrance”.

2. Incorrect capitalizing:   ”IN” should be “In”.

3. Incorrect apostrophe: “Veteran’s” should be “Veterans” as more than one veteran celebrates it.

4. Spelling:  second time I wrote “elevnth”, should be “eleventh”.

5. Incorrect homophone: “too” should be the number “two”.

6. Punctuation: the semicolon (;) after “war” should be a comma (,).

7. Spelling based on pronunciation: “represenatives” should be “representatives”. Few people say that first “t” clearly enough these days.

8. Spelling / typo: ”wearning” should be “wearing”. Many people make this error when typing the “ing” ending of commonly used words.

9. Incorrect homophone:  “there” should be the possessive adjective “their”.

10. Incorrect homophone:  “borne” (meaning “carried” or “endured”) should be “born”.

If your score was:

10 out of 10:  You escaped the Grammar Web! You should consider work as an editor.
8-9:  Very good, just get a little bit more focused on the meaning and what is really written, don’t assume it’s right — look closer.
6-7: Not bad. Keep practising and improving your attention to the details.
5 or fewer:  Uh-oh, you got stuck in the Grammar Web!

I can recommend a book called Dictionary of Problem Words and Expressions, by Harry Shaw, to help you overcome the problems with homophones and other words and phrases that get confused with each other. 

Published in 1975 by McGraw-Hill Inc., the ISBN is 007 056 489-2. 

If you look it up on Amazon.com or other sellers of out-of-print books, you can probably find a copy for 99 cents or some unbelievable price.  Frankly, I think it’s time for a new edition!