Thoughts On Using Grammerly

I have a tendency to skim over my work, not see all of the typos/errors, call it good, and hit publish. I refer to myself as a writer, so this is not a good thing. I put a lot of writing up on the Internet, and I was having to go back and make a lot of corrections - often after friends had alerted me that something wasn't kosher. The Grammarly app came to my attention, so I thought I would give it a try. First I will give a synopsis about what Grammarly does, then I will highlight my experience with it.

From Wikipedia: " Grammarly is an online grammar checking, spell checking, and plagiarism detection platform developed by Grammarly, Inc. The software was first released in July 2009. Grammarly's proofreading resources check against more than 250 grammar rules." The version that I use is Grammarly For Chrome. Grammarly highlights both spelling and grammar errors as you are typing so that you can make corrections in a timely manner. It works for messages, documents, and social media posts, as well as e-mail. Grammarly features a contextual spelling checker, along with a grammar checker. The premium version of Grammarly checks for over 100 additional types of errors, makes vocabulary enhancement suggestions, detects plagiarism, gives citation suggestions, and gives suggestions for different writing styles (i.e. academic, technical, and creative).

Overall, I really like Grammarly. When I hit the publish button, I am not as concerned that I am unleashing a gazillion typo's, which is a very good feeling! There are a couple of issues that I find irritating though. For one thing, Grammarly and I hit head on over the use of commas! This happens so often that I have decided to just say the heck with it, and leave the commas where I want them to be! The second irritation that I have with Grammarly is that it will sometimes (not often) suggest another version of a word. So far, their suggestions have been totally out of context, so I choose to ignore them.

A little side benefit (even for the free version, which is what I have) is that I get a monthly report from Grammarly. This includes notes on productivity (number of words written), accuracy, vocabulary (unique words used), and top grammar mistakes (yes, commas always make this part of my report!). 

In time, I will be purchasing the paid for version of this app.

(c) April 2019 Bonnie Cehovet

Reproduction prohibited without written permission of the author.   

Google + & Search Engine Optimization

What exactly is search engine optimization (SEO)? And where does Google + come into this? We know that we want to be found on the Internet. If our readers can find us, and get to know us, they might even buy our books! Bottom line - SEO is a process that enables search engines to find us, index our website, and rank it on the search engine result pages. 

When we are setting up our sites, and site pages, we have to pay attention to things like page titles, subtitles, and keywords. One of the benchmarks that Google uses to rank a page is the number of links from other sites.  To do us any good, these links have to be quality links. Google + is a new player here ... and an important one.

Google collects user data from Google + the same as other sites, such as Facebook, collect from  their users. I think we are all fairly conversant with this concept ... although we don't always appreciate it. Google + gets information from user profiles, comments on posts, user sharing, and +1'ing. We may not like this, but it does give the Google search engine greater accuracy. Sites are ranked as to how they fit in with the information that Google + gathers.  

Google + can help us as authors to brand ourselves, including Google + authorship. (This is something that I did as soon as I found out about it/ You can find out more about Google + authorship here - Google + Authorship.)

Links that are in Google + profiles are added with something termed "do follow", which means that they are treated as web pages, which allows for increased visibility and page ranking. 

I may not understand SEO or Google + as well as I should, but I was there close to the beginning, an have been able to grow my understanding as Google + grew. This is something that we all need to pay attention to.

(c) 2000 - 2013 Bonnie Cehovet

Reproduction prohibited in all venues without the written permission of the author,  

Playing Nice

I love the fire and energy of the dragon! I grew up in Seattle, WA, where there is a large Chinese community. At all of the major parades, the community brings out a beautiful dragon. They run quickly along the parade route, moving the dragon up and down, and from side to side. It is absolutely fascinating to watch the runners move in and out as they relieve each other at their stations. This is done on the run, of course, so one person is timing themselves in as the one carrying the pole is timing their way out. Focus, attention ... and a huge amount of caring is going on here!

I think that we need to place this same focus and intent into all that we do. Many of us blog, Tweet, have pages on Face Book, personal and/or business sites, and are generally putting ourselves out there. We know at least a little bit about SEO, can upload photo's, and perhaps even play around with video's (at least at the Animoto level). Then we sit back and wait for life to happen.

People, we have to interact to make life happen! So we have a (usually expanding) RSS feed. We actually even read the posts. Good, yes? Good, to a point. Read the blogs, then (if you have something to say) comment on the blog. This is polite ... it shows respect. And ... if you comment on someone else's blog, they may even become inclined to comment on yours! Also ... look for the Google Plus One button, the Face Book "Like" button, and any share buttons that might be there. If the post is a good one, please help promote it. Put that energy out there, and someone will be there to do the same for you.

One last thought here. Please comment on the content ... that should be your focus. Commenting on blogs is not the place to promote your own work.

I have made a commitment to watching for all of the above on any blogs/sites that I visit. The Internet is a bold new territory, and we are being gifted with some awesome tools for navigation! May we each have the common sense to educate ourselves about these tools, and use them wisely.

(c) July 2011 Bonnie Cehovet

Soul Purpose

I just finished reading a very interesting article on identifying and living your soul purpose. Why do author’s need to know about this? Does it just give us ammo for a new storyline, or perhaps justification (i.e. a “reason”, or “purpose”) for becoming a writer? Writing is an extension of who we are – it allows us to express our beliefs, our way of being, in many different formats. We don’t need a reason, or justification of any kind, to do this.

Soul purpose goes to the core of who we are as individuals, it speaks to what we are here for in this lifetime – our very reason for being here. When we are aligned with our soul purpose, life has a very nice flow to it – things go smoothly, what we need comes to us in a timely fashion, with very little effort, and with no strings attached.

There are some easy “tells” that will let you know that you are not aligned well with your soul purpose:

1. You are not happy with your work/career – you no longer find it fulfilling.
2. Long-term relationships are falling away, and you don’t understand why. 3. You want to relocate, but are not sure where you want to go.
4. Your career life, personal life (or both) seem to have come to a standstill.
5. Your health is not what it once was, or what you would like it to be.

Yes’s to one or more of the above indicate to me that a little “time out’ is necessary. You cannot envision your big dream, much less achieve it, when your life is not functioning!

I don’t have a stock answer as to how we discover our soul purpose. From my own experience, I can say that, generally speaking, what I am fighting in my life is what I need to pay attention to. If I am drawn to something, t hat is whee my focus and intent need to go.

The Internet has many resources, as does your public library. Take the time to identify your soul purpose, and your life as an author will thank you!

© September 2010 Bonnie Cehovet