Powerful Words
Words are powerful. A single sentence can never fully express the thoughts, feelings and memories you have locked inside your head, or the needs that drive you forward towards your goals. But with language, we can start to broadcast your emotions and desires to others through books, newspapers and blogs. With just a few simple words, you may find yourself pouring out more of yourself than you knew possible.
This is why I believe that words are so powerful: they have the potential to change lives for better or worse in ways that can't be measured but only felt...
While words are potentially a powerful tool for change, for a lot of people, they just don't work that way. We have found that a few simple words can help many people to understand the issues that are holding them back in life.
And if you are someone who finds it difficult to get your point across, you might find these tools of writing helpful:
· The Keyword Tool : With this tool (you'll need to download Firefox), you can click on the word or phrase you want and it will highlight it in blue and return the most common synonyms and related terms. Click again and it will return the most common opposite words, plus some variants and related terms.
· Wordle : This online tool will create a word cloud that shows your top words in the most prominent and largest font!
· Thesaurus : Here you'll find thesaurus.com, which helps you to find alternative terms for words, as well as synonyms and antonyms. Additionally, you can save your searches and add favorite books to follow authors or search topics.
· Dictionary: You will also want to check Merriam Webster's dictionary for more information about any word that interests you at Dictionary.com . This is a tool where you can search by pronunciation and listen to what an unknown word sounds like. There are also extended definitions, usage notes, sample sentences and more.
· Helping Other Writers: New to writing? Here you'll find help for helping other writers at the Purdue Online Writing Lab. This is a great place to learn about sentence structure, grammar and punctuation, as well as tips for avoiding plagiarism. You can also find information on how to cite sources in MLA and APA style.
· Avoiding Plagiarism: If you have trouble remembering how to properly cite sources or would like some examples of properly cited works for your research papers or creative works, check out the Courseworks site from MIT. This is a site where you can explore how to properly cite sources in MLA, Chicago and APA style.
· Grammarly: If you have difficulty proofreading your own work or worry that your writing isn't quite up to snuff, then check out Grammarly! This tool will quickly help you edit mistakes in grammar, punctuation and spelling. You can also get ideas for word choice and phrasing by pointing it to other papers or blog posts.
All of these tools can be a huge help to create a better quality of writing. If you know someone who would benefit from these tools, please feel free to share them! (Here is the Complete List of Articles by Title: Powerful Words)
Norman Crampton is the author of Novel and Metafiction, an out-of-print novel; he also has several short stories in print. He was an English teacher at Crown College from 1986-1991. His publications have appeared in "A Short Story for Every Day," "The Prestige," "Realms of Fantasy" and other anthologies. He also co-wrote three short plays with his friend, Frank Janssens.
Norman is a member of the Westfield Writers Group on Facebook and the North American Science Fiction Society. He is also the webmaster for The Logic of Fiction blog . Please join him on Facebook . You can also email him at roman@crampton.net.
You can find him on Twitter @NormanCrampton
Publishing with Norman Crampton – http://normancrampton.blogspot.com/p/publishing-with-norman-crampton.html
Writing for Norman Crampton – http://normancrampton.blogspot.com/p/writing-for-norman-crampton.html
The complete list of articles by title – http://normancrampton.blogspot.com/p/posts_about_norman_crampton_that.html
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Words of Wisdom: The Power of the Written Word [BOOK REVIEW]
Dell Publishing, April 2016, 176 pages paperback price $19.99 from Amazon; Other online retailers $11 .95 . This collaborative effort is a collection of essays by various writers and includes several authors from within the social media community. The collection is a mix of traditional essays, such as the "The Power of Words – 10 Essays about the Use and Abuse of Language" by Susan Clements, together with more contemporary-style writing discussing the use of social media in modern society.
I have been purchasing books from Dell Publishing for some time now and have been very happy with the variety of titles they have in print. Their products have ranged from fiction, nonfiction and educational materials to entertainment for adults, children and teens. I consider most of their publishing endeavors to be higher quality than those you will find at Barnes & Noble or Amazon. I like what they do because they publish a wide variety of topics that cover many facets in life.
The collection of essays in The Power of Words was sent to me as a free review copy, but I was not asked to write a positive review. In fact, I had not planned on doing so until I got to the last essay in the book.
The reviewer or editor of this book is Joel Ervin, who is also credited as an author on one of the essays. While some people may take the approach that most authors are "self-serving" and tend to trash competitors, I have always felt that writers should present a more balanced viewpoint about their work and try to be objective in their critique, rather than simply slating someone else's work and providing only one-sided opinions.
Conclusion:
While I found the majority of the essays in this collection to be enjoyable, interesting and well written, I felt that the final essay – "The Writer's Common Rule of Thumb: What Self-Publishing Authors Need to Know by Philip L. Spitzer" - was an immediate turn off. In this essay, Spitzer had several negative opinions about traditional publishers and says: "Self-published books are inherently inferior to traditionally published books because self-publishing is a flawed process." He then goes on to say that if you consider a traditional publisher, you are NOT A REAL AUTHOR!
Talk about subjective bias! This is the same type of attitude that plagues political discourse in our country today.