Tools For Writers

Here are some great tools for writers that I use on a regular basis, this page will be forever expanding, so please leave me any sites you may use in the comments or Tweet me.

Read-o-Meter:

Let your readers know how long your blog post will take to read. This tool lets you copy and paste text and generates a reading time based on an average of 200 words-per-minute. The image below shows the read time for my post about why YouTube has become so popular.

Avoid Cliches

They come off as lazy, and reek of unoriginal thinking. Many readers will be put off by cliches in blog posts, articles, or other professional writings, including emails. This tool will scan text for any cliches and you can remove them from your writing ASAP.

The Hemingway Online Editing Application

"Hemingway makes your writing bold and clear. It's like a spellchecker, but for style. It makes sure that your reader will focus on your message, not your prose". HemingwayApp.com checks for passive voice, formatting, adverb use, and much, much more.

TitleCase

Not sure which words in your title need to be capitalized? Enter text into TitleCase and this online app will correct any mistakes.

Headline Analyzer

The Headline Analyzer will produce a quick, easy-to-read report on headline choices for your next article, blog post, or essay. This program scored my headline for Who is The Most Important Female Character In Gaming History a 78 out of 100. As you can see, this app lets users customize headlines and subheadings for their writing.

How Long Will It Take Me To Write A Book?

Answer a few simple questions about your writing habits, and this free tool from New York Times bestselling author Jerry Jenkins will provide you with a breakdown of the time it should take to finish your book. This image is from sample answers I gave to the questions on this site.

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The Legal, Political, and Economic Marginalization of Maori in New Zealand

Estimated Read Time: 6 Minutes 12 Seconds Maori people living in New Zealand have found themselves in what Laguerre (1999), describes as ‘minoritized spaces’, dislocated from ‘white’, ‘normalized’, majority spaces. This article seeks to explain the legal, economic, political, social and cultural marginalization of the Maori people within New Zealand and how this has affected Maori society. The colonial paradigm for power and control will also be introduced to further understand how systematic marginalization has taken place in New Zealand. What Is Racial Marginalization? Cram, 2004, describes marginalization as; “totally removing the importance and power of someone…..the forcing of peoples out of the mainstream of political, economic or social life…to push to the sidelines or the periphery of a society or dominant group” (pp1-3). Cram then applies marginalization...

Why Has YouTube Become So Popular?

Estimated Read Time: 3 Minutes 44 Seconds YouTube has become a cultural phenomenon with millions of hours of videos watched and uploaded on a weekly basis. Many YouTube creators have made a career out of producing content for this massive website. This article will use sociological theories to explain the popularity of this video-sharing website. Encoding A YouTube Video For Different Audience Types Hall, claims that “using recognized codes and conventions and by drawing on audience expectations, the producer can position the audience and create a certain amount of agreement on what the code (YouTube video in this case) means” (Hall: 1980: 128). This entails that a producer of a YouTube video can “position” the YouTube videos are open to different interpretations depending on cultural background, preferred reading of the medium and the reader’s individual circumstances. An example of interpreting videos on YouTube would be if a YouTube user were to post a video of hims...

How Does A Story Make The News? Who Defines The News We See?

Estimated Read Time: 6 Minutes 24 Seconds The news is defined by Mitchell (2007) as any “new information or information on current events that can be presented by print media (Newspapers, magazines), broadcast media (Television, radio), Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience”. The news that consumers receive has gone through a process of news selection, essentially deeming what constitutes news and what does not. How Does A Story Become Newsworthy? Galtung and Ruge (1973) have provided ten key qualities that a story should have to become newsworthy . These ten criteria are: Timeliness ( frequency) of the story, for example, a story must be within the news cycle and the information is new or recently released Clarity or unambiguousness Proximity , or familiarity, of a story with regards to geographic and cultural proximity Significance or amplitude of the story, Consonance (meets expectations or predictions) Novel...

How Do Sources Influence Media Content?

Estimated Read Time: 3 Minutes 36 Seconds “The relationship between journalists and sources has been linked to a tug-of-war where each is trying to manage the other to his or her own advantage” (Tully, 2008: 23). In order to produce a news story, journalists must rely on a source for information and clarity of the story. Otherwise, the news story would become non-objective, unclear and opinionated, which is what journalists try to avoid. Journalists should select sources that will give the most appropriate information to them and therefore provide relevant information to frame a story around. Manning (2001), claims that “news media are usually regarded as a playing an important part in maintaining the flow of ideas and information upon which choices are made” (2001: 133). Manning also claims that “the less powerful are significantly disadvantaged to secure access to the media” (2001: 134). This causes problems due to the elite within society having the majority ...

Are Memories Of Old Wars Used As The Fodder For New Ones?

Estimated Read Time: 3 Minutes 36 Seconds Collective memory , before, during, and after wartime plays a large part in forming a narrative that plays an important role in society. The collective memory of an event is often expressed through the media, especially within the past 100 years. Habitually, this happens through the voices of bureaucratic institutions or figures. Fishman argues that these bureaucratic institutions are a “fountain of information” (1999 [1980]: 108) and journalists know that there will be vast information within these institutions. An example of bureaucratic institutions forming a narrative of war and collective memory was when journalists truthfully reported on the statements of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld regarding weapons that Iraq ‘had in their possession'. These statements made by the dominant social ideology (The United States Government) formed a pre-war (and post 1991 Gulf War) narrative that society could understand; Iraq has weapons and...

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