Proofreading grammar checking WordPress

A proofreading tool is very useful to get rid of things like passive sentences, bias, jargon and poor phrases.  Ms Word can do this task for you but so can WordPress (although it may slow down your system a little)

To enable proofreading and grammar checking open you dashboard by logging in. Go to ‘My Account’, ‘Edit Profile’. Here you will find many useful settings, including proofreading.

You can create a list of cultural exceptions relevant to your part of the world under ‘Phrases to ignore’.

Grammar checker in WordPress

Reading, research and reference

I believe that people should spend around 30 minutes a day reading and doing research.

Remaining up to date in your chosen areas is important if you are going to present yourself as an expert. Besides conventional resources other bloggers are a HUGE source of information. The question is, how do you find people who are blogging about the same topics you are?

The answer is Tag Surfer, a menu option under ‘Dashboard’ .

Tag surfer on your dashboard

WordPress suggests and allows you to add and delete tags (topics) that you are interested in.

Subscribe to your chosen tags (topics)

You add tags using the field and button provided at the top and you delete them by clicking on the grey cross next to the listed tag e.g. ‘leadership’.

WordPress then draws selected recent posts from other people’s blogs with the tags you are interested in and presents them to you; see example below which uses ‘leadership’ as a tag.

Post suggested by tag surfer

The first five lines above are mainly links.

The top one is the permalink to the actual post on the blog written by the user ‘petermsalmon’. You can click on the user to find out more about him. The Spam link is always provided allowing you to report the post as spam. The list of tags that follow are links to other posts on the tag topic. Note how the user links to the original post i.e. Peter Bregman. He then quotes a portion from it and finally adds his own views on the topic.

Reference sources for your blog

Reliable facts, background information, quotes and analogies are all part of writing a good website or blog.

Therefore you need to build up a library of reliable websites that you can use. Remember to bookmark them and use the ‘Organise Bookmarks’ menu option to group them into logical categories.

Here is a list of useful and reliable sites to get you started . . . .

Wikipedia. This online encyclopedia has 3 million articles in English and covers everything from events and facts to brands and opinions.

Dictionary. The Free Dictionary (thefreedictionary.com) has over 200 000 entries but beware of American spelling.

Business. BizCommunity (bizcommunity.com) is an excellent South African site for media, marketing and advertising news.

Scandals and scams. Noseweek (noseweek.co.za) like all other newspapers and magazines has an online, searchable version. Is very useful when it comes to property scams. If you would like to search their archives however you need to be a paying member.

Noseweek online

Slang dictionary. (urbandictionary.com) Urban dictionary attempts to define slang terms and has over 4 million definitions of phrases and words. Although a safe reliable site it has adult content!

Thinkexist (thinkexist.com) This website has all the quotes you need with searches by word, phrase or person.

Internet Movie Database. (imdb.com) This database of actors, movies and TV has all the information you need to make a movie reference or analogy.

Lyrics (lyrics.com) A searable database of lyrics by word, title and singer.

News – local and international. Well take your pic!!