How often do you think about the font you use?

I’ve been thinking about them a lot lately–mostly because I think they’re fun–but like all good things, they can be used well, or they can be used very, very badly.

Fonts, or typefaces, are the actual shapes of the letters you see on your screen, and there are multitudes, thousands of them, to choose from.

The trick is choosing wisely.

I’m not going to go into great detail here, but I wanted to point out two things you should keep in mind.

The Most Important Feature of a Font is Readability. 

As many fun, cool, creative, nifty, artistic fonts as there are out there, they’re no use to anyone at all if you can’t read them. You might be able to get away with a particularly artistic font for something like a logo or a blog header, but for the text on your web page?

Don’t make your readers have to work to read you. Whether it’s a website, a pdf, or an article in Word you are submitting to an editor for publication, think about whether that font is easy to read. Are the letters clear? Are the “e”s easy to pick out? Does the lowercase “a” look too much like a lowercase “s” or an “o”? Would you want to read pages of text in this font? Or would it make your eyes tired? Think about the difference between, say, Times New Roman and that blocky, Old English calligraphy. Comic Sans versus Arial or Helvetica. Some are just more friendly to the eyes than others … and as a writer, you cannot take that for granted.

And, of course, a font that you can’t read rather defeats the purpose, wouldn’t you agree?

Serif vs Sans Serif

Do you know the difference between Serif and Sans Serif? The way it was explained to me in a college lecture was that serifs dated back to ancient Rome, when stone carvers would chisel words into marble, finishing off each line with a little twist of the chisel, to make it look complete. So, any font (like Times Roman, Copperplate, Rockwell, Courier) that has that little extra touch or tweak to each line of the letter, is a Serif font.

Sans Serif, on the other hand, means “without serif”. (I don’t know much French, but I do know “sans”.) For Sans Serif fonts, a line is just a line, no extras, no furbelows. Fonts like Arial, Helvetica, Tahoma, Franklin Gothic, Myriad … all of these are simple, clean, basic.

The real difference–from a writing/design point of view–is that in a small font, serifs can make words harder to read, by using up too much white space and making the reader work harder. If you’re designing a form to be filled in, you can squeeze in more in a small space with Sans Serif. On the other hand, serif fonts are usually considered easier for large chunks of reading. If you pick up the nearest book, the odds are very high that it’s printed in a serif font. The theory is that the serifs help your eyes move from letter to letter, word to word.

Additionally, Sans Serif fonts are usually considered more “modern” because they have a cleaner look, no muss, no fuss. Serif fonts are more traditional. So, again, if you’re writing a hip, trendy blog, you might want to avoid using a font like Bookman. (Although, of course, using fonts on the internet opens up a whole other can of worms, because the only fonts you can be sure of using are ones that are on the readers’ computers … almost everyone has Times New Roman, but a font like Adobe Caslon Pro may only be on a handful. But, um, that’s another story.)

What it all boils down to is … take a minute to consider what fonts you use, and how you are using them. Because you don’t want to alienate your readers by choosing something hard on the eyes … not if you want them to continue being your readers!

Did you know that yesterday was National Punctuation Day?

Um, yeah. Neither did I. With all the writing blogs I read, you’d think that I would have heard of this from somebody other than one of my knit-blog friends, huh?

Well, let’s recap:

• Aside from That
• Comma, Comma, Comma Chameleon
• Colonoscopy
• Exclamation
• Hyphenation
• Period
• Question
• Semi-Colon
• May I Quote You?

Simple question today:

When somebody does something nice for you, do you say, “Thank you?”

It seems such a simple thing, but it is so often forgotten or ignored by those people who feel entitled to anything their little hearts desire, and therefore see no need to thank anyone else for going out of their way to help. Because, of course, they deserved the help in the first place.

If your mother didn’t teach you this simple rule, please allow me. Be gracious. Be appreciative. Be responsive. The world is not here to do you favors, and you make your own luck. And, by all means, when a fellow human does something for you, acknowledge it. It might just be a waiter at a restaurant putting down a glass of water on a hot day. It might be someone driving 50 miles just to deliver something you bought on Craigslist. It could be the person on the other side of the cash register. (That one works both ways.)

It could also be a bunch of people who pitch in with good advice, just because you asked and they want to be helpful.

It’s one of the basic tenets of good manners, this saying “thank you” thing. Right up there with saying “please.” If nothing else, think of it as a good karma–what goes around comes around, and you’ve got to give to receive, and if you receive, you’ve got to give thanks.

So, thanks to all of you, and may you pay it forward!

When I was in college, and in the habit of studying and learning new things every day, I could sometimes–don’t ask me how–shift mental gears so that I was thinking at a higher pitch than usual. I couldn’t keep it up for long, but if I concentrated hard enough, I’d absorb more material or get better ideas before my brain sputtered back down to its normal thinking level.

I’ve been writing this writing blog for almost a year now. (Wow, that went by fast.) I’ve made a bunch of friends, found a lot of blogs that I wouldn’t otherwise have found, and have generally been having a great time. But … without getting into excruciating detail, our family finances are in dire straits and I need to do something about it.

It’s starting to sound like I’m going to tell you I’m closing down the blog, doesn’t it? But it’s not! In fact, quite the contrary–I need to shift up to a whole, new level.

What I really want–no, need–to do is figure out a way to get some paying writing gigs. Ways to get freelance jobs. Ways to use this otherwise pleasant little writing blog as a springboard for more serious writing (i.e. writing that pays me money).

So … let me ask you folks:

What do you think is the one, most important thing I need to do to make this happen?

There are lots of truly wonderful freelance writing blogs floating about the ether. In fact, I probably spend more time reading them than I really should–time I could be using to, you know, write. The tricky part of reading those blogs, though, is that while they’ve got great information, not to mention helpful things like categories, it’s still hard to find the posts that tell a beginner where to start.

I could (and do) spend hours reading tips about how to bill your customers, or how to find time for a vacation, or the importance of e-mail as a business tool. I’ve got a small pile of books about Freelancing next to my computer, to augment my library on general writing books. I’ve subscribed to online courses for writing for the web. Really, I’ve read so many helpful tips and instructions, I’m drowning under a sea of “Do this first” tips.

But what I really need is for somebody to look at this blog and tell me, “Okay, good. The first thing you need to do now is ____.”

So, this is your chance. How often do I ask you to tell ME what to do? Usually these posts are all about me telling you things like “Don’t mix up your pronouns and verb tenses.” Now’s your chance to give ME helpful tips.

What if you don’t have any helpful tips? Maybe you’re in the same boat I am? Or you’re here because you’re still struggling with when to use “Further” and when to use “Farther?” Well, you can help too. How about some words of encouragement? Affirmations that you believe I’ll figure it all out and write well enough to be able to make this work?

So–here’s the big question of the day.

What do I need to do to (quickly) launch a freelance writing career?

(And yes, I know, split infinitive in that sentence, but that’s a rule for old fogeys, anyway. Just like the rule about starting sentences with “and.” I do KNOW the rules, you know.)

Spread the word! I’ll take whatever (reasonable) advice I can get!

And, if you can direct me to some actual work, that would be even better (grin).

You know what a Pronoun is, right?

Right–a noun that has lost its amateur status.

But seriously, folks…

A pronoun is a word used to replace a noun. According to Michael Strumpf and Auriel Douglas,

All ears crave variety. A varied array of words and sentences is candy for our brains. Repetition and overuse are chopped livers and spoons full of castor oil. … The discriminating listener cringes at hearing one noun used twice in the same sentence or even twice in consecutive sentences.

The pronoun has no identity in and of itself. Instead, it takes meaning from the context in which it is found. The meaning usually comes from the word for which the pronoun stands, called its antecedent. … Since pronouns take the place of nouns, the can fill any role that nouns might fill.

Pretty much says it all, right? So I’ll just be going … What? You want more infomation? Happy to! We’ve talked about “person” as regards verbs. We’ve even discussed the Objective case. So today, we’ll talk about pronouns’ gender.

It is only in the third person that gender really comes up. You can say, “Hey you, over there, in the high heels,” and presumably be talking to a person of the feminine persuasion, but the pronoun itself is entirely neutral. Similiarly, when you say, “I buttoned my shirt,” it might matter to you whether you are male or female (if only because it affects the side of the shirt the buttons are on), but it has no bearing on the actual sentence whatsoever.

But when using the third-person pronouns … well, then gender does matter.

• He and His refer to a man.

• She and Hers refer to a woman.

• It, They, and Them are neutral.

This opens up another can of worms, though. You know the one I’m talking about, right?

What do you do when you need to refer to a singular third person pronoun, but you don’t know the gender? 

•  If anyone finds the letter in this bottle, ____ should contact the police.
• I saw a cat being chased by a squirrel and ____ looked so embarrassed!
• When teaching your dog to sit, make sure that ____ is paying attention.

Yeah. It gets kind of awkward.

You can sometimes work around this by using “It.” Chances are you don’t know the embarassed cat’s gender, so you could say “It looked” with perfect justification. The tricky part, though, is that animals aren’t likely to be offended by being referred to as an “it.” People are a little more sensitive. You wouldn’t refer to your mother as an “it,” would you? Of course not. But you can’t assume that all permission slips going home from school are going to be signed by a mother. “Make sure she signs your permission slip” is not going to be an acceptible directive for a teacher in today’s politically-sensitive age.

You can use the “He or She” thing, where you use both options with an “or” or a slash in between. “If anyone finds this letter, he or she should contact the police.” For a single statement, this works fine, but gets unwieldy when writing anything more than 1 or 2 sentences.

Some people just use “They” or “Their”–figuring that going gender-neutral is more important than matching a singular verb. “When teaching your dog to sit, make sure that they are paying attention.”

Or, you can just use “He.” This was the default pronoun for centuries. Unless the writer was specifically speaking about something that women did (”When experiencing labor contractions, she should….”), it was more or less assumed that it would either be a man, or that women–being the “lesser” sex–would just quietly accept second place. This worked fine for centuries, before Women’s Lib.

See? I told you this wasn’t for amateurs.

What do YOU do for this tricky, tangled web of a grammatical issue??

Did you ever really think about the fact that “Journalist” has two completely separate meanings?

American Heritage Dictionary
1. One whose occupation is journalism.
2. One who keeps a journal.

I find this fascinating. Naturally, this is a dichotomy that I’ve been more or less aware of. I knew the job of those reporters on television was “journalist” and I knew that Samual Pepys was a journalist, in that he kept a meticulous daily diary.

But, for some reason, the fact that it’s the same, exact word never really clicked, and now that it has, I’m intrigued.

There’s a lot of similiarity, really. Both kinds of journalists review the day and report important events or notable happenings. They might indulge in comparisons, or random thoughts that tickle the back of their brains. They might jot down specific facts about the day, like in a scientist’s journal, or that of a dieter trying to track calories. They might describe movies they’ve seen, or books they’ve read–or comment on politics and world events.

The main difference, of course, is whether these ponderings are meant for public or private consumption. A person writing down their feelings on the death of a parent as a means of venting their grief usually does not want that read by anyone else. Whereas a writer describing the carnage of a car bomb is definitely writing–no, shouting–for the world to hear.

This used to be so clear-cut. If it was in a notebook, or leather-bound volume sitting on your desk, you were probably one of the “private” journalists, writing just for yourself; if it was being published in a newspaper, or produced on television, you were the “public” kind. There might be some overlap–a professional journalist might certainly also keep a diary of his or her own. Or a person who has been keeping a private journal about their struggles with alcoholism may decide to publish it as a way of spreading moral support for others facing the same problem. Still, as a rule, the difference between the two was pretty clear.

Isn’t it interesting, then, that we now have the Internet, which has blurred lines in countless ways–including this one. Now, we have “Citizen Journalists”–people like me and you who experience events and write about them on our blogs or websites. Sometimes they’re trivial blogs (in the sense that the government doesn’t really care what about the funny thing your cat did last week). Sometimes, they’re being written by real writers who just want to write about their opinions, but still as private citizens. Except this time, instead of keeping it in a book on their desks, they want to share it with the world. Let everybody know what my cat did last week! Let everybody know how I really feel about the government!  Let everybody know how wonderfully relaxing knitting and spinning can be! (Sorry, I had to put that one in there.)

And this, then, opens all sorts of fuzzy, gray areas between the private journalist and the public one … because, suddenly, you’ve got a private citizen publically reporting on actions that normally the official Press would be reporting. Or you’ve got a professional journalist expressing an opinion in a private blog that blows up in his face because people suddenly think he meant it “officially.” Then, too, where does the Freedom of the Press rule fall in all this–does it protect the person who blogged about seeing a crime committed? Does it protect them if they’re sued for defamation? Can it? Should it?

You know, I love the internet, and I love the crazy, connected world we have these days. Instant news, rather than waiting months to get one letter sharing news about a loved one. There’s a new baby in the family? Here! Pictures online within the hour. Your car was totalled in a crash? Show the photos right away on your blog and get instant commiseration. I also love that we can have citizen journalists who can tell us things like what it was really like in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina three years ago. We are insatiable for news, these days, and the more (reliable) sources the better.

But, do you suppose that this is a good thing? Bad? A blend?

I’d really love to hear your opinion on this. The concept of “citizen journalist” is one that I just find fascinating … where DO you draw the line these days? And should you even draw it in the first place?

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Ooh–and two interesting bits of news. (Or, well, lucky-break kinds of news, anyway.)1. There was a contest for Blogging Community-Building Tips over at Business & Blogging, and guess who won a $15 gift card to Amazon? Clearly, the winners were chosen by random selection, because while I tried, I wouldn’t say my tip was the best. In fact, I highly recommend you go check out the suggestions, because there are some excellent bits of advice in there. But, in the meantime, I get to go book shopping!2. It was obviously a good week for me, because Liz at the Successful Blog also had a contest–submit a photo-with-caption to describe that “Brand-New Blogger Feeling” and mine was one of the 50 winners picked, netting me a free copy of her e-book. I can’t wait to see the slideshow she makes of all the winners–it’s going to be great.

Here’s the grammatical equivalent of a trick question:

“How are you?”

The instinctive answer–here in the U.S., at least–is to say, “I’m good.”

Except, of course, that “good” is an adjective, not an adverb, and this inspires lots of debate.

Because when you say “I am good,” the word “good” is an adjective modifying the word “I” so that you’re more or less saying that you are good as opposed to naughty, rather, like Eliza Doolittle affirming, “I’m a good girl, I am.” This can be correct, just like you can say, “I am tall,” or “I am late.”

The problem arises because scores of English teachers insist that what you should be saying is “I am well,” because you are describing how you ARE, so that an adverb is the correct semantic choice, not an adjective, which puts “good” out of the running.

But, really, how can you say for sure, when somebody tells you “I’m good,” that they are defining their actual state (in which case an adjective would work), or their sense of well-being?

And then, if you look “Good” up in the dictionary, there are a whole slew of meanings for it as an adjective, and as noun … but there’s also an informal definition as an adverb, meaning “well.” This more or less implies that, at least when speaking, it is now acceptible to say, “I’m good!”

Or, is it?

What do you think? Can of worms?

I’ve had Writing Reviews on my mind a lot lately (for some strange reason), and I thought I’d share some of the points I think that a good review must have.

1. Bare Facts. No matter what you’re reviewing–books, movies, technology, restaurants–you need to provide the facts. For books, include the title, author, publisher, copyright date. For movies, include the title, producer and/or director, lead actors, studio, genre, and rating. For technology, include the manufacturer, designer, operating system (if it matters), basic compatibility issues. For restaurants, include the name, the owner, the address, the type of food they make. None of these items takes any real thought on your part, but they’re vital for the people reading your review. What good does it do to hear about a fantastic movie if you don’t know its name? Or a software program that would just exactly meet your needs, but the reviewer didn’t bother to tell you if it was for a Mac or PC.
2. First Impressions. You may not be able to judge a book by its cover, but that doesn’t mean its impression doesn’t matter. When you pick up the book, does it look classy? Exciting? Trashy? Does that new cellphone fit nicely in your hand and bring a twinkle to your eye, or is it an ugly box, no matter how functional? Does the restaurant look clean? Crowded? Appealing? It never hurts to let your reader know your first thoughts … you’re going to get into details later, but chances are that if you were impressed by the initial presentation, they will be, too. Or–more important–if you were initially turned off by something that ended up being completely rewarding, they need to know that, so they won’t give up at their first impression.
3. Details, Details, and Even More Details. Yes, this is the meat of the review, and is a must. How many recipes are in the book? How many gory scenes that your 10-year old shouldn’t watch were in the horror movie? Did the new gadget crash your computer? How many tables did the restaurant have?  Is the camera the only thing in the box, or does it come with a rechargeable battery, a memory card, and a case, too? Is the pretty pattern on the cover the only decent knitting pattern in the entire book? Did the movie’s director bounce all over the place while piecing together the story? People make decisions at least partially based on information–so be sure to give it to them.
4. But Not Too Many Details. It’s tempting to say that you can’t have too many details, but, well, you can. You don’t want to get bogged down. There’s no need to list every recipe in the cookbook–but you want to give your readers a good idea of what they’re getting. Give them a taste, but not a whole serving. Like a good chef, you want to leave them satisfied but wanting more.
5. Photos. Depending on where your review is going, this might not be an option. A 100-word capsule in a magazine might not have room for a photo, but if you can, provide pictures. Illustrations from the book. Stills from the movie. Pictures of the MP3 player in right out of the box–along with a side view, a picture of the powered-on screen, and one with a coin or a paperclip for scale. Because not everybody is going to read every word in your review, BUT almost everyone will at least glance at the pictures. And if your pictures are good enough, they might decide to read after all. And, besides, you can describe a restaurant as “crowded,” but a picture can really clarify if you mean snug or crammed-like-sardines.
6. Stay Impartial. Above all, be FAIR. Even if you hated the restaurant, there had to be something good about the experience, right? Maybe the bread was delicious, or the waiter was funny. Or the lighting made reading the menus easy, and we didn’t trip when we came through the easily-opening door, and the chairs were sturdy and didn’t collapse under our weight. Or, if you loved the movie and thought it was the best thing since Citizen Kane, you might still want to point out that the actor playing the lead’s third-cousin’s brother-in-law couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag, or that the lighting in the scene where the murder took place was a trifle too moody to make out what was happening.
   It’s easy to see both sides when you feel more or less neutral about what you’re reviewing–some things were good, some things were bad, and you’re happy to share both for the enlightenment of your readers. But when you are completely on the love or hate side of the spectrum … well, you still need to find something on the contrary end. Because, remember, not everybody has the same sterling taste that you have, and while you may think that book was the best thing between two covers–even better than your spouse–you may be sure that there will be other people who hated it with every fiber of their being. So, try to be impartial–if only to cut down on the “You idiot, how could you be so stupid?” emails later on.
7. But Give Your Personal Opinion. Still … people are presumably reading your review because they respect your opinion. If you stay completely impartial, you start sounding like an evenly balanced Pro/Con list, and where’s the fun in that? There’s absolutely nothing wrong (in my opinion) in closing your review with a personal summation. “This is one book I’ll keep on my shelves.” “I’m going back to see the movie, and taking my nephew with me.” “All in all, I’m delighted I bought this widget for my camera.”
8. Remember the Purpose of the Review. My feeling is that a review’s main purpose is to give the consumer advice on whether or not the product or service you are reviewing is worth their time and money. This is not the same thing as telling them what to do, but rather giving them the tools they need to make an informed decision. I could rave about an Italian restaurant, but if you hate Italian food, you still won’t be interested … until, perhaps, I mention the killer chocolate lava dessert, or that one of your favorite bands performs there regularly on weekends, so that suddenly, you ARE interested in an Italian restaurant. As long as you preface your personal opinion as being your opinion … well, it’s your review. It can’t help but be a little personal.
9. Rating … or Not? Finally–this one is your choice. Do you give a rating? Four Stars? A-Plus? Thumbs-Up? Five Swizzle Sticks? Or not? Personally, I prefer not to because, again, my readers’ mileage may vary, and I don’t want to assume they’re in the same car I am–I could hate it, they could love it, but if I gave something a triple-thumbs-down, they might skip the review altogether and miss out on what they would have thought was the best horror movie ever–just because I can’t stand horror films. Rating systems act as handy shortcuts–”That movie got four stars!”–but in my opinion, they counteract the impartiality thing, and the “everybody’s taste is different” rule, so I prefer not to use them. (Of course, I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feeling by giving the result of decades of their hard work an F-minus … their work should count for something, right?)

Think of your review as a movie-trailer–you need to give enough information that they know (or think they know) what to expect, but not giving too much away. Although you have to play fair (unlike the movie trailer people)–don’t put all the best lines in your review, and don’t give away too much information.

But, ultimately, you’re letting people know about something they might not have known about and sharing your presumably informed opinions about it … and leaving the rest of the decision up to them.

What do you think? Did I miss anything? What do YOU think makes a good review?

“Mom, can I have a cookie?”
“May I.”
“Oh, right. Mom, may I have a cookie?

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

How about this one?

“It’s been really nice meeting you. So, er, can I call you later?”
“I don’t know, can you?”

There’s nothing quite like using grammar usage to put someone in their place, huh? (You know, once you’ve gotten past the somewhat small-minded, school-yardish intention.)

The distinction is really quite simple.

“Can” is used to describe ability. Is it physically possible for you to eat one more cookie? Are you able to dial a telephone?

“May” implies permission. If I take another cookie, will you yell at me? Will you hang up on me if I venture to call you?

What do you think? Does that cover everything? Or is there more nuance involved?

And, Happy Labor Day for those of you in the U.S.–it’s so very nice NOT to have to go to the office today! Especially considering that our weather here in NJ is just gorgeous today. Though our prayers are with the folks on the Gulf Coast, facing Hurricane Gustav.