Can you believe we have a fresh, brand new year? We can accomplish
lots of new tasks and make new dreams come true.

It is 1-1-11 – that is so awesome! What do you plan to achieve with this fresh start you are getting? I am determined to make regular and loyal updates to my blogs, here and for my ezine of almost eleven years,
Rim Digest at Rim Digest blog AND my newest that I had wanted for years: Healthy Living, which is the one for my Health & Wellness Products Superstore.

I wear many hats, only one of which is of a Virtual Assistant , specializing in proofreading , editing , transcriptions and social media assistance.

As a proofreader, I bring to the table one of my all-time pet peeves that was drummed into my head by all of my English teachers in both grade school and high school AND later in tech school where I got my degree in Computerized Medical Office Technology.

Some of my editing clients prefer I leave it “as is”, so I do, but the article in
Daily Writing Tips , which I am using with their permission, really sums it up for me!

A Person Is Not a “They.” Neither Is an Army.

So you want to be politically correct, you want to be inclusive, and you would never assume that every nurse and every teacher in the world is a “she.” Right?

Right.

But sometimes this worthy thought leads us to perform some very clumsy gymnastics. Consider this passage from a guide for a doctor’s front office staff:

Show the patient how to use their medicine.

Does this patient have three heads with three mouths through which to ingest medications? Or maybe the patient is using a medication produced by several Big Pharma companies?

We can see the impulse behind this absurdity: whoever wrote this document didn’t want to suggest that every patient in the practice was a “he.” Or a “she,” unless the doc’ was a gynecologist. But this good intention led to a moment of bad grammar: pronouns need to agree with their nouns.

We have several alternatives that honor our desire for inclusiveness without sliding into the ridiculousness. One obvious strategy is simply to make the noun plural:

Show patients how to use their medicine.

Another is to change the pronoun (his, her, its) to an article (the, a, an):

Show the patient how to use the medicine.

Or, if it works in the context, we can change the singular “medicine” to the plural:

Show the patient how to use medicines.

Each of these approaches allows the writer to make sense without offending anyone’s sensibilities.

Remember: in U.S. English, collective nouns are singular:

Zappit Electric just raised its rates. (Not “their rates”)
An army travels on its stomach. (Not “their stomach”)
The jury returned its verdict. (Not “their verdict”)

Not so in the Queen’s English: Brits see collective nouns as plural (e.g., “The jury returned their verdict”). But when you’re writing for a U.S. publisher, corporation, government agencie, and similar entities, take singular verbs and singular pronouns.

What do you think? Do you use *they* in this way and find that you are happy doing so?
If was editing YOUR work, would you feel I was maybe too nit-picky or would you appreciate the fact that I really CARE how your writings come across to those of us who ARE picky when we are reading?

I would love to hear your comments and opinions!

If your web pages, blog posts, reports, sales pages, books, etc. are not grammar and spelling error free, why not contact me and we can get them all into shape for this brand new year!

Spelling & Grammar Errors Are Costing You Business!

Remember, I am a Virtual Assistant who LOVES to do editing, proofreading
and transcription assignments along with research, blog posts, article submissions
and social media maintenance!

Why not Schedule a Project now?

As an avid reader and a professional proofreader / editor, the thing
that bothers me the most, even more than spelling errors,
is the wrong usage OF a word.

Here are the three I have to correct for clients the most often
and wish were corrected on other web sites, blogs and in books, etc.

The most common one I see is mixing up your and you’re.

As I tell my clients and others I converse with, YOUR is possessive; it belongs to YOU. YOU’RE is a contraction for YOU ARE.

If in doubt, don’t use a contraction – if you are meaning you’re but use your,
people might at least think you just forgot the “e”.

The next one is mixing up they’re and their and there.

If you are shortening up THEY ARE, use THEY’RE.

If you are talking about a place, it is THERE.

If you are talking about something that belongs to THEM, use THEIR.

Frankly, the one that bugs ME the most is using THEY for one person!

It is a very common error and I see it more than anything.
If you are writing about SOMEONE or SOMEBODY, use he or she or at least the general HE.
Do NOT ever use THEM when talking about someone or somebody.

In summation, if YOU’RE not sure about YOUR word usage, have a proofreader / editor check
for you. Spellcheck is great but does not catch these errors.

If several writers are putting THEIR heads together and THEY’RE all getting together at that desk over THERE, THEY will be brainstorming with each giving his or her opinion and input.

Again, if you are in doubt, run your gems of wisdom past a proofreader.

Jan Tallent is a Virtual Assistant who LOVES to do editing and proofreading .

Why not Schedule a Project now?

Summary:

Aside from being a fun hobby, what is the point of having a blog?

The answer is to draw readers. Whether you are performing services, selling advertising, a product, or just your own set of ideas, you want
as large a readership as possible with most blogs.

So if that is the case, it is important to know how to draw readers to your blog. There are
a number of ways to increase the readership of your blog. Here are four tips that will help you to increase your blog readership that are easy to do and will definitely pay off for you.

First of all, to increase readership you would want to increase the number of pages each reader is seeing. You don’t want to be judged only on your last post, but rather on the whole of your work. To that end, try highlighting related posts within your blog. At the end of an article, highlight posts that may be of interest to those who like the current post.

Most blog platforms are fitted with plug-ins that will help you with this, but if they are not, then go ahead and at least list the links to other pages manually.

Another similar idea is to highlight the related posts within the content of your post.
If you are talking about a subject you have discussed before, link off of one of the
keywords into the past post that is related. This will also help a past post to maintain
its freshness.

A second tip for increasing your blog readership is to think about doing a series.
A series is a great way to keep a reader coming back again and again.

In addition, if you are linking back, you can get readers looking at multiple posts
even after you are done with the series. Be careful when doing a series,
because you do not want to frustrate readers.

However, if you have a topic you genuinely think you should handle over a period of time, a series can really help your overall readership.

If you are curious as to whether or not a series is working for your blog, then check posts. See if readers are posting through the series to see if they are following you. If they are, then your series is a success and you are only helping your blog readership.

Another way to increase readership is considered a little more “controversial”.
You can try putting excerpts on the front page of your blog from certain posts.

Many people claim it is just a way to get more hits on your site. The truth is that extra hits are a little side benefit of it, but the real value is that it can make your site more engaging.

By adding excerpts to the front page you can manage the front and keep it fresh while also teasing those who get that far into reading more than just your most recent blog post.

This will encourage prospective readers to explore your blog site a little more than they may have normally. Again, you want to be judged by the whole of your work, or at least by a larger piece of your work than just one post and this will do that. If your writing is up to par, you will see a rise in your readership.

Finally, if you really want to build and increase readership, you have to have good quality content.

It should be useful, original, and interesting to your target audience as well as keeping them wanting more of the same. The more you raise the quality of your blog’s content, the more you will see your membership, readership, and page hits go up without even having to use any other “tricks.”

People know what they like and they like quality for the most part. Giving the readers what they are after is probably the best way possible to increase your blog readership.

Having a blog can not only be fun, but if you are doing it right it can also be profitable.

Either way, though, you want to maintain and increase a following, or readership.

There are as many tips out there to increase blog readership as there are blogs, but to really get things going, consider using these four tips. Follow them and you will see your readership grow.

Make sure to proofread your gems of knowledge before you publish. If you need someone to assist you with this part of your work, remember that this is what I do and love doing.

Remember, I am a Virtual Assistant who LOVES to do editing, proofreading
and transcription assignments along with research, blog posts, article submissions
and social media maintenance!

Why not Schedule a Project now?