This is an excellent editing check-list. You have a lot of great advice and everything you listed would make any story stronger. I don't see anything about it that I would change.
Thanks for sharing it with us. I'm actually going to store this and refer back to it when I'm finished with rough drafts.
When I read number 10 was parentheses, I started to worry that I was going to be a 10 out of 10 on this!
Fortunately the others have not been a major issue for me. Whew!
I would definitely suggest this item to other authors on the site who are looking to improve. It's worth becoming aware of possible distractions to our readers.
Thanks for doing this and hope everything is going well for you. I noticed your pen name/handle. I don't like hospitals either.
I don't see many articles about this, and it was interesting to read.
I grew up in a strange situation. I was tested as "gifted" at a young age and my younger brother was diagnosed with severe autism/ADHD around the same time. My parents had to nagivate having children in two totally different circumstances.
The small town I grew up in had no pre-K program, so I was moved to kindergarten when I was 4. Then it turned out the class was so small they needed to move us to another classroom. I ended up in a room where half of it was 4 and 5 year olds and the other half was 7 and 8 year olds. Somewhere along the line they figured out I was retaining and understanding what was going on with the 2nd grade side of the classroom. I remember feeling really good hearing the word "gifted" a lot--It made me want to keep challenging myself, something that's stayed with me my whole life.
There's probably the only major disadvantage I would warn parents of gifted children about--don't let your child link grades with they're self-worth. Most likely their intelligence is what is going to bring them a lot of attention through life, but they need to know that they're loved and valuable for the children that they are. Let them know that it's okay to fail sometimes, and that it's just a part of learning.
For the most part, I would highly recommend any gifted program through school. I found them very fun and the association with other students around the same age and maturity level is helpful. My parents let me choose whether to skip grades or not--I didn't. It was hard enough being a few months younger and later watching all my friends get their driver's license before me, lol.
Great job on this! You definitely got me on a roll, lol.
I'm not sure why anyone would question your parenting skills because everything you listed is really great advice. I'm sure you've gone the best you can given your circumstances.
It sounds like your kids are in good shape and stable, and that they've handled the divorce well. It's good that you and your ex-husband are both still there for them. I've seen several situations in my life where parents try to pit children against the other ex-spouse, which is really sad.
Great job on this! I don't have any major suggestions. Take care,
Welcome to the site! The more time I've spent here, the better writer I've become. It takes awhile to get used to everything, but I really like it.
I've been on here since December of last year--I have kind of the same situation as you. I was looking for writing tools and just happened across the site.
If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me. Here's some gift points for you, too. You can use these to get reviews, reward people for their work, and even buy things at auctions on the site.
Tithing is an important part of being a Christian that I didn't understand growing up. (Basically I grew up hearing my parents complain that the church we barely attended kept "asking" for money.)
About six months after we got married, my husband and I made the decision that we would set aside 10% of our paychecks the moment we deposited/cashed them. It is amazing how God takes that 90% and makes it do a whole lot more than the 100% we had when we weren't giving! We haven't had a major money struggle ever since, and the blessings have continued to roll in the forms of higher incomes and good financial surprises.
There's also the aspect of the act of giving changing a person's heart--you become less selfish, and giving people are generally very successful as well. More money comes when God knows He can trust us with it. I think tithing is something God is using to teach us as well as funding for churches to help others.
This is a great concept. I took a look at your website (note: You have a typo in your link at the bottom of the page--story is sotry in it, but I found your page.) Your story with Jasper is cute.
I'm a camera operator/video editor, so I'm already trained in several professional programs. What you have though looks great for students and people wanting to start out. I wish I'd had something like that in high school and the first part of college.
Education is definitely changing with technology. I think it's a great thing for the most part. I like that students can have more creativity and actually enjoy learning.
I really like your article because it shows a great example of how one person or one family can make a difference in their community.
I think a lot of times people get overwelmed by the degree of need that is out there, but there are many other people who take action to the best of their ability. For Christians, we're following the example that Jesus set--He gave everywhere He went.
I've only rated this average because you're not finished yet--what you have so far is a good start.
I do have a suggetion with this portion:
"Teen depression affects 1 in 8 teens, which means that if you and seven friends were together, at least one of you is, or has been depressed."--I would drop the second portion of the sentence because technically a person could have a lot of happy friends or a lot of depressed ones. (The statisics are likely nationwide.)
There's several directions you can go from here--What is causing teen depression? What is being done to combat it? Is teenage depression decreasing or increasing from several years ago? Why?
I hope that's helpful. Good luck with your article!
One of the hardest things I've had to watch as someone in my early 20s is my dad going through as similar situation as you--now he works in the same field but in a job that pays less and is actually more dangerous to his health. It's sad.
I know a lot of companies can't really get a handle on how my generation thinks, but after witnessing what your genearation is going through it's a lot harder to motivate us. I don't think anyone wants to look forward to working a long time for a company just to get traded off for two people half your age who will work for half the money. Now not all companies are like that, but there's a lot of things now that are out of an individual employee's control.
My husband and I now run 4 small businesses that we grew from hobbies in addition to our jobs. I think for our generation the only way to fight what happened to you is to have a lot of back-up incomes until we can transition it to where we can retire.
I bet with your experience, you may be able to do something like that as well. Have you ever considered it?
This is an excellent observation about being an entrepreneur--too many people think that business mistakes are all negative. It causes them to give up too quickly instead of learning what they can change.
I think the main reason people react this way is it's how we're taught to think as children. I don't know any kid who enjoys getting a test back filled with red and a big "F" at the top. We learn to dread the disappointment of our parents, teachers, friends, etc.--over time we avoid making mistakes as much as possible to prevent having those negative feelings. It's a conditioned way of thinking if you study psychology.
Entrepreneurs have to break out of that mindset though--if not, the slightest disappointment will wreck their businesses. You don't have to be perfect to succeed in business--in fact, most wealthy people I know "failed" their way to success. As you said, it depends greatly on your attitude and how you react to setbacks. The people who learn and overcome win.
Two of the major things that impress me with this story series are its realism and how you approach it from different angles. It has a complexity to it that I've rarely (if not ever) seen before and it's very gripping to me from a reader's standpoint.
I'm a psychology major, so the CSI/profiler elements in this were really interesting as well.
I was looking over this, and I want to recommend a book that helped me a lot with tightening up my short stories. It's called On Writing by Sol Stein. He's a writer and long-time editor for a lot of famous writers.
Some of the things he talks about are eliminating unnecessary adverbs (they slow down your pacing) and fine-tuning dialogue. You have a good base and just need to tweak it a little.
I'll be happy to review this for you again when you've made changes. Just e-mail me and let me know, and that way I can raise the rating up.
You have a very real glimpse into the reality of the corporate world for a lot of people in this. I'm only 24, but I've quickly learned that as an individual there's not a lot of job security in the current enviornment. Companies have to stay competitive, and employees can unfortunately be as much of a liability as an asset.
I've learned how to adapt to this by having a lot of side businesses and using jobs as predictable income whenever possible. I actually like things that way--just the right balance of adventure and in some ways more stable because of there being more than one source of income involved.
I think my generation is going to have to do things differently if we're going to have financial freedom. Otherwise people are going to get caught off-guard by situations like these.
You have a lot of good information here for people to look out for as customers. I currently have a day job in the chargeback department for a credit card processing company, and we run into a lot of this stuff.
Another thing I would add is if a person owns an Internet business to really be careful also. Sometimes people get so excited over a big sale that they don't do proper checks on their customers or the credit cards. The end result is the store owner is out the merchandise and their money. It's a sad thing, especially when people have put everything they've had into their businesses.
I tell everyone now to check their credit bureau reports at least once a year and be as careful as possible with their information. A person shouldn't make it into a daily fear or anything like that, but a little caution can go a long way.
I do also want to note that there a good things about Internet business as well. A significant amount of our household income comes from 3 part-time Internet businesses--all of which we checked out really well before doing. There is opportunity out there, but it's never something-for-nothing. They take work just like any traditional business would.
You've done a very effective job with this--if I was in the market for a home theatre at this moment, I would be checking out the company in this article.
Everything is very clear, informative, and has the right amount of even playfulness to it with the suggestions of the Star Trek bridge and other designs.
Great job! I'm sure this did well in the magazine.
This has some wonderful business lessons in it. I really like your examples in your sales business and have had similar experiences of my own.
I think value and business intergrity are becoming more and more important to people, especially when it comes to the Internet. The lowest price doesn't always mean the best deal for customers.
You have a lot of great advice here. My only big suggestion is to go back over it and fix some minor formatting, such as needing a dash before the sentence, "Don’t leave mail lying around for strangers to pry into."
I've worked in the banking industry for about 2 years, and it is insane the amount of information people can get access to in databases used for locating people, credit checks, etc. I looked myself up, and one database had everywhere I'd lived since the age of 5!
Even people who don't think they do anything that could make them a victim should still check their credit reports (it's free once a year now). I'm careful with my information, but a company I applied for a job with had a security breach. Two laptop computers got stolen and the information wasn't security coded. So I've had to place a fraud alert on my bureau and hope for the best.
If a person hates getting pre-approved offers, there's also a way of stopping them by writing the three major bureaus you have listed. It also cuts down on the junk mail, which is nice.
Thanks for writing this. People need to know this is out there and can be a major problem if it's not caught.
Lol--this is great. (I'm putting this on public review, so I won't reveal the ending.) I thought it was really funny, though.
I do think perfectionism can really work against a person if it's overdone. It's not the same thing as putting excellence into something, where you factor in what's the most practical solution to a situation.
I heard something related to this that really made me think about what I'm doing in life:
Lifestyle can be defined as having both time and money. Most people either trade their time for money (job) or potential money for their time (taking a vacation day or at worst complete unemployment).
It is only when you find something that pays you over and over again for your effort (includes writing and selling books among other things), that you find a way to have your time and make money at the same time. That is an answer to building wealth over time.
Looks like you're off to a good start--just need to add more! I'd like to see some of your flower photographs that you mention in the introduction.
"Sunday in the Park" is very nice. The only thing I would have done differently was frame the little boy on the bicycle to where the wheels of the bike are not cut off at the bottom. My eyes went right to him when I opened the picture, and he makes a nice subject. As it is though, it's not a bad picture.
The overall story in this is great--John has a great story of overcoming the odds over and over again. I enjoyed reading it.
The only reason I didn't rate this a 5 is you have some very minor formating problems--I'm guessing you may have copied and pasted this from another program, but the sentences are cut short in some places. It's not a major thing but can be distracting to the story.
I also found a couple of places that need a small correction:
"John had a brokenneck and wasn't expected..."--just need a space between broken and neck.
"I would aslo have to add him as a hero.."--typo; also
You make a wonderful point about wealth in this--that the majority of truly rich people out there aren't trying to impress everyone as much as the people leveraged in debt up to their eyeballs.
It took me awhile to figure that out until I started meeting a few people making those high incomes like what you're talking about in this. I heard a statistic a few weeks ago that's pretty incredible--1 out of every 112 Americans is millionaire in terms of net worth.
I think two biggest lesson in that are 1)It's possible for people to change their circumstances and 2) that to be a millionaire you have to do what less than 1% of the population is willing to do--live on less than you make and do some different things to make income than everyone else does. It sounds fairly simple, but not a lot of people do it.
I really liked this. In business and in life, my husband and I have had to stepped out in faith several times. There are still struggles to overcome in the process, but God has definitely blessed us. (There's no way from a logical perspective that we should have gotten as far as we have on our own in three years--no matter how driven we are.)
I do want to suggest that you look at the format of your paragraphs toward the end. You have spacing between the earlier paragraphs that you just need to continue toward the end.
This was helpful, but I was expecting something a little more detailed and longer. I think you can expand on it--go into things like e-mail (ways of organzing it so you're not wasting time), phone calls, grouping similar tasks, etc. There's a lot of ways you can go with this.
This is a great idea, and the title and subtitle immediately caught my attention.
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