eXtension offers equestrians online information & learning from top universities – free!
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Buying horse blankets? January
Buying horse blankets? January & February Sales Time! Online resources for horse owners – part 2
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Buying horse blankets? January is the best time! Mid-Atlantic resources for horse owners – part 1
Buying horse blankets? January is the best time! Mid-Atlantic resources for horse owners – part 1
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Little Mommy – Reviewed & Found WANTING
What publisher is still living in the 1950’s, still sending out messages to young girls that limit them to a life of keeping house and raising babies? Little Golden Book!
This children’s publisher with a reputation for some of the finest, classic stories to its name, has seen fit to republish its book entitled Little Mommy. Read to me by my 10-year-old granddaughter, at first I was stunned by this book; now I am angered by it. The story it tells my granddaughter and all little girls is the same story I was told more than 4o years ago – limiting, insulting our intelligence and our abilities and just plain, dare I say it, patronizing.
The book was first published in 1967, 42 years ago, when I was a very young mother. But I have changed, women’s roles and opportunities have changed and the world has changed. Somehow this book manages to ignore the history-making changes of the 70’s as well as the courage and efforts of the women’s rights activists who rocked the very foundations of this country.
Even when it was first published, the book was a bit of an insult, telling a story that reflected the simplistic “Leave It To Beaver” attitude – men going to work, women staying home and raising children. The fact that this book was published during a sea change that was occurring in our society – a change that would forever free ALL women from ANY stereotype, makes it even more puzzling.
Everything changed because pioneering women like Bella Abzug and Gloria Steinem, joined by women in all walks of life, led the way for women’s rights in this country. Women and launched and eventually won the battle for equal rights for women(the ERA) and equal funding in sports (Title IX).
I have no objection to women following whatever path suits them including staying home and raising children. I do object to reading a book that is obviously so dated and so passe. So how could such a respected children’s publisher perpetuate the myth of a woman’s role in society, a myth that was out of date 42 years ago? I have no answer but would love to hear from someone who does.
Filed under Book Reviews
Facing The End
Funny but I never thought I would be retired. Note the use of the word “be.” I am being retired from my current position effective 12/31/2009. It is a mutually agreed upon retirement but it is odd to be in this position.
I am currently presiding over my own professional death. And I have mixed feelings about it ranging from downright giddiness to stark terror. Writing has always helped me with uncomfortable situations before. I am hoping it will help me again.
Retiring will open up more time for writing. And I will actually be able to have a life instead of make a living….but will I be who I think I am when I am not driving into an office 54 miles away from my home? What will happen to all the skills I developed over all the years I worked? TBD, I guess.
Just 18 more working days.
More to come…
Filed under Copywriting, Freelance Writing
Resources for horse owners and lovers
Resources for horse owners and lovers
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Freelance Wanted, Sort of…
This is a story about a freelance job that looked good but, by the end of the process, smelled bad.
Like many freelancers, I troll Craigs List a lot, looking for opportunities. Most of the time, I am looking for writing jobs but every once in a while, an ad of a different color attracts my attention like the ad for transcriptionists.
The company, Focus Forward, is willing to pay $10 for every 15 minutes of transcribed tape. Since I transcribe my own interviews all the time and am pretty fast at transcription, I thought I could make a few fast dollars doing something interesting and easy. I applied. It wasn’t all that easy.
First of all, you have to download transcription software. Then you have to download the “rules” for transcription, transcribe a test tape and send it in for “inspection.” I was fine with the software download. I was fine with doing the test. I ran into trouble with the “rules.” They have a LOT of rules that are not logically ordered and contradictory. But I decided to play the game.
Here’s a company that states, right in the rules, that you have to transcribe the audio tape, verbatim. Last time I looked, that meant word for word. In those same rules, however, they have a whole list of words and verbalized pauses that they don’t want transcribed. Problem #1.
They also carefully call out that you have to transcribe everything including the conversation at the end…but don’t mention the conversation at the beginning. So transcribe everything but not really. Transcribe the conversation at the end…but no mention of the beginning. Problem #2
And Focus Forward gives you ways to cover words that are either not clearly stated on the tape or not at all familiar to you. You are told to use [PH] to indicate you are spelling the word phonetically if you can’t hear or don’t recognize it. I used this device for a drug name I had never heard of but that was called out as incorrect in the transcript. Problem #3.
I got a snarky email informing me I didn’t make the cut. Failure to type the intro conversation about the weather and vacation was fatal. I also use [PH], capitalized celiac and spelled Super Fresh as one word.
Freelancers everywhere probably have similar stories of making an honest effort to meet all the requirements of a prospective client only to be washed out NOT for lack of skill or lack of trying but for being utterly unable to jump through hoops that are tangled up like spaghetti. If, when that happens to you, remember…it really isn’t your problem.
BTW Focus Forward is STILL looking for transcribers. I wonder why?
Filed under Business writing, Freelance Writing, Medical Writing
News Versus Articles – What’s the difference?
The first difference between a news story and an article is simple — a news story MUST be balanced. All angles and parties have to be represented. That means doing your homework, getting the background and contacting interested parties. It is more work but only telling one side of a story ensures prejudicing the content and perhaps, the reader, to one interest group’s point of view.
Another difference is this is one place where what the author thinks about any element in the story is just not relevant, at all. The story should be told by the people involved with the writer only providing bridges where necessary. For example, here is an excerpt from a story on an internal dispute within a union. I have removed the names and titles of the people quoted because this story has not been published yet but notice how the quotes are used.
“The leadership sees fit to railroad this through the membership by limiting information, restricting the vote by having it a “must be present” vote… in the most remote location in the state, in the middle of the week in the middle of the day. What a sham. There are 20,000 of us shift working … and they really expects us ‘to be present’ to vote at the most important vote in the history of our union? I don’t think so.”
“That is a totally inaccurate statement and it’s unreasonable,” says XXXX, President of the Board of Directors of the union. “We have been talking about this for quite some time.”
Do all your interviews. Transcribe your notes. Let the interviewees tell the story and follow this old journalism rule — include who, what, when, where and why. It’s a simple rule but a good one. The trick is to pack as much of that information into the beginning of the story as possible then flesh these elements out and let the people you interview tell their story in their words.
If you have done your job well, neither side will be able to claim victory.
Filed under Freelance Writing
Write On Target 