Plus, I’ve always had a challenge with transitions! Part of the challenge in transitioning for me is to get the ideas I have in my head, out of my head and into the physical world: to manifest the thoughts.

Just like writing! We’ve got to get those thoughts–that essay, article, blog, website, manuscript, thesis, research paper, memo, email, marketing piece, or whatever (!) that we’ve been creating inside our heads–out of our heads and onto paper … or onto something! For me, it’s into an electronic document via a keyboard. (I love to type! One thing I used to begrudge when I was young was having to sit at a typewriter and practice: asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj, over and over and over! Now, it’s one of the first things I recommend: learn how to type! You’ll be SOO glad you did!)

So get those thoughts down. Just get them down! Leave the order of your ideas and that it has to make sense until later.

Just get your thoughts down!

There are several ways to do this, but one simple method is to use a list or bullet format:

. Just write them down!
. Put them on something–paper, electronically
. Get your thawts out!
. Even if you cant spell or punctuate
. as long as u kno
. wat u r saying
. n u kan desyfer what yr thots were
. that’s all that matters at this stage!

It’s those first thoughts that are going to be the guts (the substance) of your essay, or your blog–or whatever your finished product is going to be–but you’ve got to get them down! Once you have your thoughts down, you can organize the ideas into logical order. Once you’ve captured what you want to say and you have them in the order you want, you can write complete sentences around those thoughts. Now you’ve got complete sentences, you can edit them!

Make sure you edit your work! Or, if it’s a brief piece, you can edit it as you go. Like me for this blog entry, for example. I’ve been back over it several times already and have edited it as I’ve gone along and I haven’t even finished it yet. I can edit as I go, but I, too, risk losing my train of thought. Even though I edit as I write, I NEVER send anything out without at least one last look (and maybe several last looks) at it. That’s the editor in me. In the end, I’ll have a well written piece. Many people comment one of my strengths is that I write well–but only after I’ve edited it a gazillion times! (A gazillion is so many you can’t even count–it’s a made-up word and has no real number equivalent.)

My point is, even those who write well don’t do it without editing it. You think your favorite author doesn’t edit their own work?!! Ha! And even then, they may ask their spouse or a friend to edit it again, or they may hire a professional editor before they send it to the publisher. And then the publisher assigns another editor to it!

There is a saying, Great books aren’t written, they’re re-written. Re-written books, then, are books that have been edited–many times! So for a great piece, you don’t have to re-write your document, but you should edit it!

So, to recap, have a COWE when you’re writing! (For the non-native speakers: there is an expression in the English language, “Don’t have a cow!” so I’m playing with that expression. Don’t ask me right now, however, what the expression means because I don’t have a clue! I promise I will find out and let you know because I love learning about languages. OK, English lesson over.) So, have a COWE! when writing:

1. Capture: Get your thoughts down–use few words and/or bullet points
2. Organize: Order them in a logical order/sequence
3. Write: Write full sentences around the bullet points/thoughts
4. Edit: Take the time to go over what you have written–twice if you can!

Good luck, and happy writing!

It’s an honor to serve you.

Fiona

www.BetterEdit.com

So about 2 hours ago, www.BetterEdit.com switched servers from one web hosting company (with lousy customer service) to a different web hosting company, www.HostMySite.com. We had another great experience! The nameserver switch went seamlessly, but I ran into a glitch with the email. And that’s a MAJOR glitch for an Internet-based business! No worries, though! I simply went to the HostMySite.com site, clicked on “Chat” and voila! Poof, disappearo! The problem was fixed in a single conversation with a rep from tech support!

My administrator, Angela Lewis (who lives in Australia), also had a great experience with them–and she’s on the other side of the world in a completely different time zone operating on a different day, and they were just as easily accessible and customer friendly! I can’t say enough great things about www.HostMySite.com. Thanks for making our Internet experience a great one!

Remember! Better Use BetterEdit for Better Communication!

If you know your academic writing and fancy some work editing student essays and theses, please visit our jobs page and apply:

http://www.betteredit.com/jobs.shtml

Yaro Starak
BetterEdit Manager

For more details see:

Job Opening – Toronto Canada – University Campus Representative

BetterEdit is recruiting one university campus representative for each of these two cities. The jobs take 2-4 hours per week placing posters around different university campuses.

For further details click these links:

• Job Opening: Vancouver Campus Rep
• Job Opening: Honolulu Campus Rep

Yaro Starak
BetterEdit Manager

It’s a nice and clean design that I had built for use on other blogs and I think it’s perfect for BetterEdit because the text is easy to read. Since a significant proportion of BetterEdit’s clientele are from non-English speaking backgrounds it’s important that this blog is clear and simple to navigate.

The design also features a new system backend which I am using to type this entry. This blog is now powered by the ever beautiful WordPress blog content management system, which is a breeze to use.

I hope to implement some systems here at the BetterEdit blog which will see more regular content produced focused on providing tools, resources and education for university students writing essays and theses. Our new admin officer Angela Vink will take over writing at this blog so you can look forward to hearing from her in the near future.

In the meantime I hope you enjoy the new blog design, I certainly am.

Regards,

Yaro Starak
BetterEdit Manager

I was wondering if you could recommend some books that I could refer to in order to improve my writing skills. I am not good at punctuating sentences, and am in need of desperate help.

I decided to email one of our most helpful editors, Alexa Grunner, to see if she could offer a recommendation to answer this question. As expected Alexa was quick to respond with the following advice –

I use the following book which is written for overseas students. It’s not perfect, but it has great advice regarding essay and paragraph structure.

Oshima, A. & A. Hogue. (1999). Writing Academic English. (3rd Edition.)
New York: Addison Wesley Longman.

Regarding punctuation, it has great charts and explanations on pp.245-254, which are easy to follow.

Yaro Starak
BetterEdit.com Manager

I was walking the downtown streets of Brisbane city today for the first time since getting back to Australia. I was heading down Adelaide St, passing the many bus shelters and I noticed the ads where moving. Yep they have installed sliding ads so each bus shelter rotates between two ads rather than just a static single ad. The movement tends to catch your eye too. Smart move advertising company but when did little Brisbane get so cosmo.

This one for all those Australian young entrepreneurs out there – Chris Khoo, one of the guys that manages YNOT in Brisbane (that’s Young Network Of enTrepreneurs) has moved the forums to their own domain at www.youngentrepreneur.com.au. Check it out for some good local Aussie business chat.

The Bnoopy Blog has been updated with an interesting article about The Long Tail Effect

I checked my email and about 60 emails came through during my Internet hiatus while flying the pacific ocean. I’ve trimmed the SPAM away but I’m not even starting to wade through the BetterEdit emails until I confer with Edward who looked after things while I was travelling. I’ll take back admin control and business life will continue from how I left it in Canada. You certainly have minimal boundaries managing an Internet business.

Now that I am back in Australia and with the University semester into the second month I have a lot of work ahead of me. It’s all very exciting stuff and I can’t wait to jump into it. Things have really picked up in the last few weeks as my efforts in Canada to spread the word about BetterEdit.com start to bring in results as the university semester come to an end in Toronto. I haven’t done the detailed statistics yet but I think my persistence poster advertising for a full semester has brought in at least 20 new clients and if at least 10 of them continue to use our service and tell friends then I can certainly call my trip a success business wise.

The business focus is on providing the best service we can which will promote healthy word of mouth. If you start with even just a small group of clients, for example say we have 10 regulars now in Toronto, and meet or exceed their expectations, by the same time next year we may have 30 new clients just from the original 10 spreading the goodwill. It’s not speedy growth but its healthy growth. I often tell myself this when I am struggling to negotiate for a job that is only worth say $25 to the business. It’s $25 today but potentially a lot more tomorrow and month after month if you can keep your quality at a high standard.

Added to that good news is that BetterEdit is making strong gains in Google placement and I’ve started to notice an increase in the amount of international clients that come through from search. Even better news is that BetterEdit is now positioned at 1st-3rd for all of our key search terms for Australian based searches using Google. We are in the lead position for university and academic editing services in Australia. Now we just need to make sure we stay there, continue to lead the market in proofreading and editing in Australia and continue to improve our overseas position.

Excuse me, I have to make two phone calls…

.
.
.

Okay, I’m back.

What I just did was use SkypeOut to call a new client in the USA. It cost me about 20 cents to have two phone conversations for a total of about 10 minutes. One of the calls was to a cell phone at an airport. I’m sitting in my lounge at home at 4am in the morning and my client is in an airport in the USA waiting to board a plane. How cool is that. Later this morning I’ll call my grandma in Toronto using my laptop to let her know that I made it back to Brisbane okay. She will be sitting down to Friday night dinner and I will be just about to head out on a Saturday morning.

What’s even more exciting is that Skype has two new services in BETA testing that I’m eager to start using. One is SkypeIn, which allows a Skype user to have a ‘normal’ phone number which is purchased on a subscription basis. What happens is that anyone can call this number using any normal phone or cellphone and it will go to your Skype account which you answer using your computer. The person will only be charged as if they were calling locally for that country. If they are not in that country then they are charged a long distance fee exactly like they were calling internationally over a landline. Because of this you may buy numbers for each country you want to have a local number in.

The other service is Skype Voicemail which is included for free with SkypeIn or you can subscribe to it separately. This acts like a standard voicemail service for your Skype phone. It records messages for any SKYPE calls you miss, including Skype to Skype, or if someone was to call you using SkypeIn and you missed the call.

For our business this is how I would use the services – I subscribe to have a local number in the USA, Canada and Australia, our main markets. I can then list our new ‘normal’ SkypeIn phone numbers for customer queries in each of those countries. Any person that calls gets routed direct to my Skype account which, since I am always on my laptop means I could answer it wherever I am. If I miss the call it goes to my Skype Voicemail which I check and then use SkypeOut to return the call to any phone in the world. This potentially can replace our entire business phone needs, allow us to improve client support and all at extremely cheap rates.

Right now these services are in BETA and only available in a few countries but I am very, very, excited about their potential. Combine this with wireless Internet access and it’s truly a global, mobile business world.

Yaro Starak
BetterEdit Manager