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Contents Introduction: On Writing Style and Diction Tools Sponsored Links Reference Books Technical Notes Privacy Policy Contact Introduction: On Writing If you want to become a better writer, you need to do the following, in order of priority: (1) write a lot, and (2) seek ideas and inspiration, and (3) get the technical details right. This web site is mostly about the third and least important of these points. It should not be a surprise that to improve your writing you should write a lot. Inspiration does have a role to play, particularly if it can get you to write more. Lastly, there are the rules of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Style & Diction This is an interactive section for checking a sample of writing. The Flesch reading ease score is based on a range of 0-100, with lower values for harder text and higher values for easier text; the other scores show the approximate (US) school grade of the text. Click the "Submit" button to look for possible problems in the text. Contact Related:  Academic Writing Sources & Support

Evaluation Tools and Instruments Most evaluations require the use of a data collection tool—a survey or other data collection instrument. Evaluators either need to adopt or adapt tools “off the shelf” or create new ones. Either method can pose challenges: Tools that have been developed for one evaluation may not prove suitable for another, at least not without careful modification. At the same time, creating new tools requires expertise in measurement and instrument design. How do you know if an off-the-shelf instrument is appropriate for your needs? Good question! What is the instrument measuring? We’ve gathered a collection of tools and instruments that can be used for evaluating outcomes of informal STEM education projects or that can serve as starting points for modification. Research and Evaluation Instruments on InformalScience.org: This section of InformalScience.org allows users to search a collection of evaluation reports, articles, and other resources that include evaluation instruments and tools.

Q10 Key features Full-screen. Focus on your work. Even if Mark Pilgrim doesn't like full-screen editors, some of us do. Live text statistics. Word, page and character counts are updated live as you type. Programmable page count formula. Specify what formula to use for page count calculation. Customizable look and paragraph format. Change the colors, line spacing, first line indent, paragraph spacing, font... Perfectly portable. A single self-contained executable file. Easy to use timer alarm. Perfect for timed writing sessions and word wars. Spell checker. You don't make mistakes. Notes. Any paragraph starting with ".." is considered a note. Target count. Displays completed percentage. Partial counts. Keep track of the extension of current chapter or see how much content you've produced in the current writing session. Autocorrections and quick text. Unlimited autocorrection entries to fix on the fly those persistent typing errors. Standard and clean text format. Encoding and line endings agnostic. Free.

Readability Test Contents Readability Tests Gunning Fog, Flesch Reading Ease, and Flesch-Kincaid are reading level algorithms that can be helpful in determining how readable your content is. Reading level algorithms only provide a rough guide, as they tend to reward short sentences made up of short words. [Back to the contents] Test the Readability of a Website Interpreting the Results This service analyses the readability of all rendered content. Philip Chalmers of Benefit from IT provided the following typical Fog Index scores, to help ascertain the readability of documents. Gunning-Fog Index The following is the algorithm to determine the Gunning-Fog index. Calculate the average number of words you use per sentence.Calculate the percentage of difficult words in the sample (words with three or more syllables).Add the totals together, and multiply the sum by 0.4.Algorithm: (average_words_sentence + number_words_three_syllables_plus) * 0.4 Flesch Reading Ease Flesch-Kincaid grade level Reading Level Algorithms

8 Readability Web Tools to Test Your Writing Quality Readability is the quality of writing that makes it easy (or difficult) to read and understand. Ever since the web started stringing together HTML pages, readability acquired a different sort of importance. You can click on a URL and reach a webpage that’s designed for a 10 year old. Information is useful only if we can make sense out of it. As Wikipedia says, readability of a particular text is measured using certain formulas. A tool that’s close by for readability analysis is in MS Word itself. The Wikipedia article on readability has another little tidbit of information – nearly all of today’s blockbuster writers write at the 7th-grade level, including John Grisham, Stephen King, J. Where does your writing measure up against this piece of fact? The Readability Test Tool There are three flexible options to carry out the tests ““ using an URL, by directly pasting the text, or by adding a referral link to the source page. Juicy Studio’s Readability Test Online-utility.org Readability.info

APA Style: Learning APA Style The Basics of APA Style: Tutorial Free | This free tutorial is designed for those who have no previous knowledge of APA Style. It shows users how to structure and format their work, recommends ways to reduce bias in language, identifies how to avoid charges of plagiarism, shows how to cite references in text, and provides selected reference examples. Basics of APA Style: In-Depth Online Course $80 ($60 for APA members) | Learn to apply the basic rules of APA Style in writing term papers, research reports, and journal articles. What’s New in the Sixth Edition: Tutorial Free | This 14-minute tutorial provides an overview of key changes in the sixth edition of the Publication Manual, beginning with three overarching goals that guided the revision and ending with a detailed chapter-by-chapter list of new and expanded content.

How to kick-start the writing habit Blogging can bring your business exposure, credibility, and whole lot more revenue – so it’s in your best interest to deliver a steady stream of powerful writing. But for a lot of us, that’s a tall order. If you’re finding your creative juices running a little dry, this list of quick and easy tips is sure to get them flowing again. Write nothing but headlines. Keep it rocking Herramientas para el análisis web: Omniture SiteCatalyst (Parte 2) En una entrada anterior , os hablamos de la herramienta de análisis web de Google, Google Analytics . Pero no sólo encontramos la herramienta de Google; hoy os hablamos de Omniture SiteCatalyst , la herramienta de Adobe Systems líder en medición web. Omniture Business Unit, creado por Adobe Systems, es un conjunto de programas que miden el marketing online y la analítica web que realizamos en nuestra tienda online. Entre todos estos programas, podemos destacar el SiteCatalyst, una de las herramientas que se engloban en el paquete, dedicada exclusivamente al análisis web de nuestro comercio electrónico , tanto en contenidos como en clientes. Utilidades Las herramientas principales que nos proporciona la aplicación SiteCatalyst son las siguientes: - Datos en tiempo real : La aplicación nos muestra una instantánea a tiempo real de los visitantes de nuestra web. Cómo funciona Ventajas Inconvenientes Omniture SiteCatalyst es la herramienta líder del mercado en análisis de webs.

Typofile Magazine - The best faces for the Screen First, he suggests considering sans serif faces for body text. "When printed, the serifs on typefaces are only a tiny percentage of the typeface's design. But on-screen, in order to display the serifs using the limited number of available pixels, they take up a much bigger proportion of the information than they do on a printed page. Serifs should be small things--but on screen they become big--no longer visual cues but noise--distracting chunks of interference." While some traditional serif faces don't translate well to the screen, others are excellent on-screen, and a serif's more familiar shape makes it more comfortable and familiar for most people. Bigelow also stresses that the hinting of individual fonts can be as important as the typeface design itself. "At small sizes on-screen, the look of the face can depend more on the hinting than the original design." TrueType, as a technology, has stronger hinting possibilities than Type1, but it all depends on the foundry.

Online Etymology Dictionary How to becoming a better writer by Stephen King If you want to learn how to write better where do you go? Well, you can take a creative writing course. Or read the books, biographies and studies of men and women hailed as literary geniuses throughout history. For today, I’ve chosen to take some advice from one the most popular fiction writers of the last few decades: Stephen King. Now, great sales figures aren’t always an indication of greatness in any field. But it probably means that the creator knows what s/he is doing and what works. , The Long Walk or The Running Man – are really good reads (and sometimes even greater films I’ve learned/been reminded about these seven tips by rereading King’s memoir/how-to-write book On Writing – highly recommended for many good insights into writing and a writer’s life – and by a whole bunch of his novels I’ve sacrificed sleep to keep on reading. 1. Don’t waste your reader’s time with too much back-story, long intros or longer anecdotes about your life. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. How do you find time to read more?

Crea imágenes ampliables con Zoomify Photoshop cuenta con un buen número de funciones de sobras conocidas por todos. Pero también con un buen número de perlas escondidas entre sus decenas de menús. Una de ellas es Zoomify, un comando que nos permite crear imágenes ampliables mediante zoom en páginas web. Su funcionamiento no podría ser más simple y los resultados son más que dignos. En las próximas líneas explicamos dónde se encuentra esta función y cómo sacarle el máximo provecho. Abrimos Photoshop y una imagen que queramos publicar en nuestra página web personal, por ejemplo. A continuación nos dirigimos a Archivo > Exportar > Zoomify. Inmediatamente después se nos abrirá la ventana emergente de la Exportación Zoomify. En primer lugar, podemos seleccionar entre distintas opciones el tipo de plantilla que queremos. También podemos seleccionar la carpeta en la que guardaremos todos los archivos generados, la calidad de las opciones de azulejo de la imagen y activar o desactivar la función de optimizar tablas.

SMOG Readability Calculator by G Harry McLaughlin By G. Harry McLaughlin My readability formula SMOG estimates the years of education needed to understand a piece of writing. SMOG is widely used, particularly for checking health messages. But ATOS for Text has been much better validated than any other readability formula. If you still want to use SMOG use click here for a free online tool which calculates it and three other readability measures. SMOG was published in 1969 BC [Before Computers] so I made calculating a text’s readability easy by offering an approximate formula — count the words of 3 or more syllables in 3 10-sentence samples, estimate the count’s square root, and add 3. The precise formula for SMOG yields an outstandingly high 0.985 correlation with the grades of readers who had 100% comprehension of test materials. You may have seen SMOG conversion tables compiled by one Harold C. A sketch of how SMOG came to be devised was published in a Plain Language at Work Newsletter. Copyright (c) 2008 G.

How to Structure An Essay: Avoiding Six Weaknesses In Papers - TIP Sheet - Butte College TIP SheetHOW TO STRUCTURE AN ESSAY: AVOIDING SIX MAJOR WEAKNESSES IN PAPERS Writing a paper is a lot like painting your house: the bulk of the work is in the preparation–scraping, sanding, cleaning, applying primer. If you fail in the prep work, the finished product will be less than excellent. It is a common mistake for students to want to start editing their papers before they have substantially revised them. Identifying six major weaknessesSix major weaknesses can doom your paper to mediocrity or worse: A too-broad thesis statementA poorly formulated thesisInadequate or unfocused topic sentencesWriting off-subjectFailing to anticipate objectionsAn inadequate conclusion The checklist below can help you discover whether your paper suffers from any of these errors. If any of these statements are not true, read ahead to find explanations and suggestions that may help. 1. In American schools, there are many kinds of acceptable dress codes and classroom behaviors. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

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