Credibility: Dictionary meaning - the quality of being believable or worthy of trust
As I mentioned briefly in the previous lesson:
YOU ARE NOW AN EXPERT!
In this day and age of 'infobesity' you need to position yourself as an expert in your chosen niche, whether it be dog beds, linen bedding or bedtime snacks for kids with dental problems! I'm not going to cover niches, as there are dozens of excellent tutorials on the subject already.
So what defines an 'expert'? Well, for one thing, you don't need to be old!!!
But what you do need, is to have about 2% more knowledge about your chosen field (niche) than the guy who comes to you for advice. That's right -
You only need to know just a little bit more than the other guy!
Believe me - I had a young friend who came to me for maths tutoring. She was studying Year 12 Algebra - a subject I largely ignored at school :-) Was I an expert? Not by any means, but by dint of studying madly each night, I managed to stay one lesson ahead of her for a whole semester! She had no idea that her 'expert maths tutor' was just as clueless as she!
Is this 'dodgy'? No way! She passed her exams with flying colours, I learnt a new skill and gained a friend for life. It will be the same for you. Stay ahead of your readers with quality, CREDIBLE information and you'll have friends (and customers) for life!
So what's this got to do with writing correct English?
Everything!
If you are now an expert - don't you think your visitors/readers/customers expect a certain level of English competence? I do. If I was to look up, say dog beds and found a website full of spelling, grammar and punctuation errors, I'd be inclined to wonder if the person really knew what they were talking about.
So you need to create CREDIBILITY. And one way to do that, is to write intelligently, intelligibly and correctly.
Right now, choose one passage from your website, sit down and see if you can spot any errors...
P.S. There is a deliberate mistake on page 9. Find it and PM me - don't write it in the comments section. Any other errors - please let me know in the comments.
And then: "...are made of finest yak felt...", shouldn't that be: "...are made of THE finest yak felt..."? WIthout the capitalisation, of course?
At point 2, a space between 'to' and 'join' is missing.
I think I have my commas reasonably under control, even though I'm handicapped by my native language (Dutch) using a slightly different set of rules for their usage. But when the Oxford comma comes into play I get hopelessly lost. The colons and semicolons tend to drive me bonkers at times. If I can just remember what you wrote about them here, I might improve!
Reply
In the yak felt case, either would be correct. (One of the madnesses of English) I can say 'made of the finest yak felt' or 'made of finest yak felt'. The article is not compulsory here.
I'll check the spacing - it is so annoying when that happens!
You're great! I think I'll employ you as my personal editor!
Cheers
Ellie
But I thank you and will fix it pronto!
Yes - the hyphen between non and native is correct. I was going to add the correct use of hyphens but wondered if it was too long already. They are also a rather tricky subject and one that I see misused, unused and abused quite often.
You don't need to use 'alright' - it's just 'right' as in
Is that right? (or correct)
You've done amazingly well for a non-native speaker.
Thank you
Ellie
I've really enjoyed this - just shows how easy it is to let mistakes slip past - and I was trying really hard, too!
Thanks heaps
Ellie
(I cover the subject of slang and colloquial English in the next segment!)
I really like this training, because I need it.
Since my mother tongue is not the English language, it is hard to get some content well written.
Do you have maybe an idea how I can improve the quality of my content with a tool or something?
I use the free plug-in of Grammarly.com right now, but it's expensive to buy it.
Thanks,
Grtz,
Bert
I haven't used Grammarly myself, because being fairly proficient in English, I tend to trust my own judgement, or if I'm a bit puzzled, I simply type my specific problem into Google and check whatever website pops up. Some are better than others.
There are some 'spin-writing' tools available, but it is not recommended as google tends to pick up 'spun' content fairly quickly.
You can use Fivver and Elance to have your articles/content written, but what I found was that most of the people who offer to do writing are not native English speakers and the ones who are, charge a fair bit.
There are various translation tools available, but I am not altogether sure that they are very accurate. Some translations tend to come out pretty weird!
All I can really honestly recommend is that you get a good English writer to check your work for you. I have done so for a few people here, but it is time-consuming and I have to charge something or I would spend a lot of time and never get my own work done! You can send me a PM if you want to talk to me further about this option.
It's a good idea to ask for editing feedback here - specifically request that people check on your spelling, grammar etc.
I'd be glad to know if anyone knows of a good tool, but I really think it's just a case of learning, practising, checking, editing and asking for help to check your work.
I'm sorry not to be more helpful
Thank you for coming by. I appreciate it!
Cheers
Ellie
Cheers
Ellie
