Try making one or more of these New Year’s resolutions to improve your own writing:

1. I will proofread diligently everything that I write, including emails, personal blog entries, and, of course, submissions to publications.

2. I will read at least one book that someone else has suggested that I read, even though I may not be immediately interested in the topic.

3. I will seek to identify excellent writing and apply the elements of excellent writing to my own articles, stories, or commissions.

4. I will volunteer my writing skills to a charity organization, political campaign, or to a cause in which I believe.

5. I will help someone else with his or her writing.

6. I will keep a diary or journal and make entries daily or weekly.

7. If someone criticizes my writing, I will attempt to take the criticism without offense and use the opportunity to objectively examine my writing.

8. I will take risks with my writing.

9. I will spend one fewer hour per day/week watching television, and apply that time to improving my writing skills.

10. Though I write for other people, I will find more time to write for myself, whether it means writing for fun or starting that novel.

11. I will take a class, contact an old friend, reconcile with the past, get to know someone new, try new foods, go dancing/skydiving/hiking/skinnydipping, adopt a pet, take a trip, or do something else that will enlighten/inspire/expand my knowledge/bring me peace.

Many authors at Constant Content ask how they should go about reporting earnings come tax time. Because Constant Content uses PayPal, authors can easily use the “history” feature with their PayPal account to identify payments made to them over the course of the year. Use this amount to report your freelance earnings from Constant Content. (Note: Constant Content does not report authors’ income to the IRS. This is the responsibility of each individual author, just like sellers on eBay are responsible for reporting the income they make from online auctions.)

Authors on Constant Content go about organizing their Constant Content freelance income and IRS payments in different ways, and some of the more experienced ones can offer advice in the forums (if you ask them nicely after checking to see if your question has already been answered elsewhere). However, if you’re really concerned about making the right payment amount, it’s best to take your information to a tax professional who can explain to you what you owe according to your employment status, freelance income, and relevant deductions.

In the end, hiring a professional may cost you less than filing by yourself through electronic tax programs (these can be expensive, confusing, and can induce hyperventilation). Plus, if you suffer from discalculia, anxiety, starving artist syndrome, audit-phobia, or some other disorder, you’ll be better off having someone walk you through the process, explain the steps taken, and suggest potential deductions you can make as a writer.

When using references to back up statements or facts in an article, avoid using Wikipedia as a source. Why is citing Wikipedia a bad idea?

• Wikipedia is not always accurate.
• Wikipedia’s pages change as contributors edit them.
• Wikipedia is not an authoritative source.
• Most people will find Wikipedia in a search before they find an article written about a topic. Therefore, repeating information that Wikipedia provides (without expanding upon it), may not be useful to a customer who wants articles to rank highly in search.
• Citing Wikipedia indicates an author may not have gone very far to get his/her information. Using the internet for research is fine, but digging deeper and gathering unique information from a variety of sources makes articles more useful, informative, and unique.

Wikipedia is good if you need to brush up your background knowledge of a certain subject. It can give you ideas and may even provide links to reliable source material. However, given the amount of information elsewhere on the internet, in journals and magazines, and in books, there is every reason to expand research beyond the Wikipedia entry for your topic.

Using examples to back up statements of fact can add value to your writing. Making a statement without using examples can make your writing muddy, as well as create more work for the reader. Examples make statements clearer, give readers more information, and decrease the chances that the fact or idea to be wrongly applied to real-life situations.

Examples are most successful when integrated into the text:

Warm paint colors, like red or pink, can have a stimulating effect on a room’s inhabitants.

When going to a formal dinner, it is important to wear your best suit, tie, and shoes. (Rather than: When going to a formal dinner, it is important to wear your best clothing.)

Examples can also be added in parenthetical phrases, using Latin abbreviations:

When you go camping, always make sure to pack first-aid supplies (e. g. [exempli gratia or "for example"] bandages, antiseptic cream, pain medication).

Workers in the United states (i.e. [id est or "that is"] legal and illegal workers) are concerned about healthcare for their families. Note: “I. e.” is not interchangeable with “e. g.” “I. e.” clarifies or expands upon an idea.

Examples can also be illustrated by describing hypothetical situations, relating real-life situations, or giving the reader possibilities to imagine within the context of the article.

The first piece of writing of the day is often like the first pancake – undercooked and pale in comparison to the ones that follow. This piece of writing, like the first pancake, often gets thrown away. I know my first blog post, forum comment, or email in the morning isn’t always my best work, and I often have to go back and rewrite the first piece of the day. A good writing warm-up never hurt anyone.

Warming up helps you get into your writing groove. It wakes up your creative brain cells, gets the blood flowing to your fingertips, and focuses your awareness on the task at hand. A few good ways to warm up before setting down to more serious writing include:

• Writing an email to that friend who already knows you’re a great writer – you don’t have to prove anything to this person, so you’re free to make mistakes
• Writing down the ideas you had while you were hitting the snooze button, taking a shower, or walking the dog
• Working on a short piece of fiction that still needs a lot of fundamental work (extremely early drafts)
• Recording an event in a journal
• Chatting with an eloquent buddy online

Warming up before you start writing can seem like a waste of time, but it isn’t. You’ll have to do a lot less backspacing, proofreading, and revision when you do sit down to really write.

Many writers neglect to set off foreign words within their documents in the appropriate manner. It is necessary to set off foreign words with italics when the word is not used in everyday conversation or may not be immediately known to the audience–even when you are explaining what the word means.

Examples

Incorrect: The German word zeitgeist means the spirit of the times.

Correct: The German word zeitgeist means “the spirit of the times.”

Incorrect: The word lexicon comes from the Greek word lexikon.

Correct: The word “lexicon” comes from the Greek word lexikon.

Incorrect: Peter Carl Faberge’s workshops produced many exquisite objects d’art.

Correct: Peter Carl Faberge’s workshops produced many exquisite objects d’art.

(This final example is arguable. Some foreign words that were previously rarely used have become so common to the English language that their meanings are widely known and may not need to be set off from the text.)

As you can see, the word being described, or the description of the word, is set off by quotations to signify that it is not a regular part of the sentence. Please follow this convention in your own writing.

“If, then” statements require commas to separate the two clauses that result.

If I use correct punctuation, then I will include commas where necessary.

If Hillary Clinton wins the election in 2008, then she will become the first female president.

Even when the statement drops the word then, a comma must be used.

If Santa Clause was real, he would bring me a new bike.

If I had the money, I would go to Krakow for vacation.

When they introduce a sentence, transitional statements should be set off by commas.

Transitional statements include:

• However
• Moreover
• Therefore
• Furthermore
• Consequently
• As a result
• For instance
• For example
• In other words
• On the other hand

These examples only touch upon the diversity of transitional statements used in the English language. These statements are often used to introduce sentences to transition into a related idea.

Examples:

I do not like your mother’s cooking. Consequently, I do not want any of her mashed potatoes.

She’s always making excuses. Moreover, she’s lazy!

Commercials never depict men buying refrigerators. On the other hand, commercials never depict women buying electric shavers.

Notice that there is a comma after every transitional statement used. This convention should be consistently practiced in your own writing.

Many writers a Constant Content eliminate the comma required by a compound sentence. A compound sentence is a sentence that can be broken into two distinct sentences. The pattern may be a variation of subject-verb-object, subject-verb-object.

Incorrect:

The dog barked and he growled at me.

Correct:

The dog barked, and he growled at me.

This sentence can be broken into two sentences: The dog barked. He growled at me.

However, a comma should not be used in a sentence that consists of a subject-verb-object followed by a clause that would, if it were separated from the sentence, become a sentence fragment.

Incorrect:

The cat was scared, and shaking uncontrollably.

Correct:

The cat was scared and shaking uncontrollably.

Complete sentence: The cat was scared. Fragment: Shaking uncontrollably.

The explanation here is decidedly simplistic and is better explained in more depth elsewhere. There are many, many comma resources on the web. Some of these are resources featured on the websites of well-respected institutions of higher education. Any Google search will bring up more results than you need. Please review these so that you writing may be punctuated professionally and without error.

One reason that the editors at Constant Content felt the need to introduce a Premium Articles category is customers’ need of authors who have their own voice. Some people also call this “style,” but this word is often applied to nuances in writing incorrectly, so we’ll stick with the word “voice.”

Many of the authors at Constant Content are stuck in a formulaic rut. They begin an article with a broad statement that everyone knows to be true, then they drill down to the point of their article, and then they tick off the relevant issues within their topic. This is fine for everyday web writing. In a way, it’s how it should be (though I could gently suggest that everyone work on interesting “hooks”). Eliminating personality means that the article will be accessible to the broadest audience and the widest range of websites. Many customers come here seeking articles just like that.

However, there comes a time when personal voice needs to come out. There are customers who are seeking content that expresses a strong voice. This doesn’t mean that they want writers to create content in the first person point-of-view–this means that they want writers to make their writing interesting reading, no matter what topic their writing about, from home improvement to philosophy.

If I’m a typical web surfer, and I am seeking information on kitchen cabinets, the way the article is written is not my first concern. I don’t want to weed through delicate descriptions–I want the meat and potatoes about kitchen cabinets. What are my options? How much will it cost me? How do I find someone who can install kitchen cabinets?

However, if I am the devoted reader of an online or print publication, I enjoy reading that publication for reading’s sake–and hope to get information out of it as a part of the unspoken deal while enjoying how the information is being presented to me. Alternatively, if I land on the page of a luxury lifestyle web magazine or open up the pages of a print publication that caters to a more sophisticated audience (because if I’m reading it, I must be sophisticated, right?), then I expect that that publication will offer me content that fits the bill of what I expect, and that the writers will speak to my highly developed intelligence and good taste, not only through content, but how they describe or explain the information.

There are customers out there looking for the latter type of article. But Constant Content has a dearth of articles with unique personality. We have plenty of articles that begin with “There is a variety of materials to choose from when you’re looking to update your kitchen cabinets.” We have fewer articles that take a different approach, that step up the expectations, that take the reader on a kitchen cabinet journey through styles and materials and kitchen cabinet history in a way that makes a boring subject boring no longer. It’s easy to list the types of materials kitchen cabinets can be made from–plywood, oak, mahogany, brushed steel. It’s more difficult to accurately describe these materials in a unique way that will compare them and contrast them, identify their origins, list their faults or advantages, or tell a reader flat-out why they should or should not choose to work with a type of material using appropriate adjectives and clever turns of phrase.

Next time you sit down to write an article, think about injecting a little bit of personality into the piece. Make sure that you keep “accuracy of expression” in mind when you do so; the experiment will fail if what you say ends up sounding awkward, illogical, or cliched. Think about writing a piece that is interesting for various reasons–not just because it contains information, but because the writing is interesting as well.