Drafting Tricks: Start your draft with an email.

Drafting in email is a trick I often use. It's easier for me to stay on task and focus my writing when I know I have a particular audience. The upshot? I often start and revise a draft in email, and then I move it over to a word processor for final polish and formatting.

For more on how to use email as a drafting tool, check here:

http://www.lifeclever.com/unstuck-your-writing-with-an-email/

FYI: Working with Groups

Here are three links to reading on how to work well with groups, especially online:

http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/processes/group/list7.cfm

http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Management/art0.html?http://www.ee.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Management/art0.html

http://www.kolabora.com/news/2005/01/29/virtual_teamwork_best_practices_focus.htm

My favorite line from these articles is this:

"Communication is the responsibility of both the speaker and the listener. The speaker must actively seek to express the ideas in a clear and concise manner - the listener must actively seek to understand what has been said and to ask for clarification if unsure. Finally, both parties must be sure that the ideas have been correctly communicated perhaps by the listener summarizing what was said in a different way."

It comes from the second article.

Google Docs Help

Here's a good place to find help learning how to use google docs:

http://documents.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=15114

Resource Post: Using Firefox and Zotero to Keep Research Notes

As you research, you keep notes. You can keep your notes on three by five cards, in a bound notebook, or in an electronic format, like Google Documents. Electronic formats have the advantage of being able to be sorted by tags or searched by keywords, allowing you to more quickly moved from gathering information to outlining your research.

Readers of research need to know from where your ideas come. Doing respected research means making your means available to your readers, so it can be reproduced, or they can tell where you went wrong. Either way, research without documentation if much like an opinions without supporting evidence, everyone has an opinion, so--while it isn't worthless without support--its value is greatly reduced.

Downloading the free and open source browser Firefox and adding the research extension, Zotero, can help you with the task of keeping research notes. Zotero allows you to capture web pages, paper articles and books published online, or to capture part of them. Each time you capture such an entry, Zotero allows you to capture bibliographic information along with what you have captured. It will even help you prepare bibliographies, and export them to OpenOffice or to Word.

Here's a link to Firefox: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/


Here's a link to Zotero: http://www.zotero.org/

Take the Time to Vote

You know that feeling you get when you hear the Star Spangled Banner play? I know it's corny. I still get that feeling. The librarian who was supposed to open our precinct over-slept, so there was a long line to vote, but I didn't see anyone head back to their cars. For the first time in a while, I was reminded of the time and comfort everyday Americans are willing to give up to make sure the work of the Republic gets done, and I got that feeling.

I got there at 6:00 AM, thinking few others would be there so early. I was wrong. Already the line wrapped around the Ginter Park Library. Those joining the line knew it would be a long wait. We could see the beginning of the line where the end crossed the beginning. Some had been there since 5:00, standing in a cold, slow rain. The only hubbub I heard was the shout of joy in the doors opened.

Too often, I underestimate Americans. I shouldn't. Each time there's been a crisis, I've seen the nation pull together. Each time I think Americans don't care passionately about liberty and aren't willing to do the work necessary to keep the great experiment going, I have been proven wrong. This morning was an example. As folks would come out, more than one walked the long line telling us it was worth the wait. It was.


Steve

Grammar, Usage, Punctuation, and Spelling

Resource of the day:

http://www.refdesk.com/factgram.html