Rob’s Megaphone

Brevity is an important goal in online writing. Longer posts can be intimidating. Many visitors will only scan long posts at best. The theory is that online readers have relatively short attention spans. Of course, there are exceptions, but in general I think it is good advice to think small. Keep it simple and clear. And when it [...]

The best way to get your visitors to return to your blog is to reward them with your writing.
 
All the available social networks and blog marketing tools will do little to increase return visits to your blogs unless you first polish your posts. Follow these suggestions to improve your posts, and readers will come back [...]

We all know they exist, but we don’t speak of them. They are used everyday, but we dare not say them aloud. Their very existence requires us to be silent. And we comply without question. Most of them have no reason to be. They serve no useful purpose, but we accept that they are part [...]

I had two hours with very little to do this morning because today I was a (insert dramatic music)  volunteer test proctor. My job was to ensure that standardized testing procedures were effectively carried out.  My slight smile was the only clue to my intense pleasure at being on the disseminating end of this test: you [...]

When considering your next newsworthy post or freelance article, it is important to consider the following news values: prominence, proximity, impact, conflict, timeliness, novelty/bizarre.
Prominence deals with the characters you include in your piece. If it is relevant, include the most well known people. Some folks shy away from picking up the phone and speaking to [...]

Many of us have experienced it: the urge to write, but nothing – no words, no ideas – bubble up like a shaken soda ready to burst forth. Writer’s block can be compared to a slump, or a rut, or the doldrums. It can be debilitating for a writer. When strickened with writer’s block, many of [...]

1.   Use youre spell chekker to avoid mispeling and to catch typograhpical errers.
2.   Don’t repeat yourself, or say again what you have said before.
3.   Don’t be redundant.
4.   Use the apostrophe in it’s proper place and omit it when its not needed.
5.   Don’t never use no double negatives.
6.   Poofread carefully to [...]

One should never generalize.

Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”

Comparisons are as bad as cliches.

Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.

It behooves you to avoid archaic expressions.

Avoid archaeic spellings too.

Understatement is always best.

Exaggeration is [...]

Usually I write after doing the appropriate research, so I can present the facts along with my interpretation and carefully considered opinion. This post is just different. I have no master plan. I don’t even know how I’m going to end. But I do have a message. And the message is that: Writing just makes me [...]

   Communicating online presents unique opportunities and obstacles. When people communicate face to face, they have the opportunity for immediate feedback. For example, if I said, “The movie, Leatherheads was good,” you could reply: “In what way was it good?” Because of the opportunity to clarify our meaning through follow-up questions, many of us have [...]