Lifehacker has the best tips... even for writing.

I went through the link Professor Reisner passed on to us from www.lifehacker.com.

I have to say, these tips will come in handy whether I end up in the writing field or not. As a college student, writing has had a way of becoming part of my life. And not just writing down notes, or answers to questions... But writing for everything from essays to presentations, to absence e-mails to letters to my advisors, etcetera.

Here, I'll take you through the highlights of the article; the tips I learned and want to pass on.

When we sit in front of computers with access to the web, we have the world at our fingertips. I have come to accept that this is the reason why I get so easily sidetracked when writing an article for class, or when writing an essay for ethics, or when thinking up things to write in this blog. Well, lifehacker.com has found a way for my A.D.D to focus itself: behold- distraction-free writing tools!

What these are, are simple to use basic writing software that block out all the little cyber gadgets that software like Microsoft Word offer that make it hard to focus on just writing. If you're interested in these, google Ommwriter Dana II, which not only offers a clear space for free writing, but offers catchy sounds as you type and peaceful ambient and piano music you can switch through to make your writing experience smoother; the only catch is that it's just for Mac. There's also Writemonkey, which offers a simple black screen with green letters to write out your ideas on, no extra noise included. And finally, look through CreaWriter if you're a PC, and you'll find the equivalent of OmmWriter Dana II, smooth sounds included.

Another tip that I feel will definitely help me get over my extended periods of writer's block is long-hand writing. For some reason, and as lifehacker.com puts it, writing by hand helps by staying out of your thought process. When I'm typing, I notice that I do a lot of pausing and thinking, then typing, then pausing to think again, but when I write long-hand, I write as I think, no pauses in-between. I suppose it's because writing by hand takes a bit longer than typing so my thoughts can catch up as my hand writes, as opposed to typing faster than my thoughts can process ideas.

Another hint from this great article: Learn from other good writers! I particularly like this hint because honestly, I don't know who is a good writer half of the time, and this article points out some who are, therefore giving me ideas on who to read from. In this list are included Stephen King and Conan O'Brien. I tried finding O'Brien's blog, but no luck there. Any hints as to what he's written that is good, drop me a message! I only found his book "...In the Year 2000."

So, I'll leave you the link if you didn't get around to it. I highly suggest reading through it.

Click here for the article.

until next time!

Backgrounding can be exciting!

So far, we've spent quite some time learning how to background people, and gotten a glimpse at backgrounding corporations.

I think that it's amazing how far the internet has taken us in making this process a bit faster and a bit more organized.

Last Wednesday in class, I was amazed at how Professor Reisner described the origin of an excel spreadsheet, which was quite literally a spreadsheet of paper. I think that ever since computers were put together to (originally) organize data, our field had a shot at becoming more objective and at being able to have access to documents that back up our stories with more precision.

I wonder how many errors were made that may have had serious implications before the use of computers to compile large sections of information dealing with numbers, percentages and statistics.

Although technology and computers make this process a bit easier for us, I do have to say that it's a double-edge sword because we seem to start off, at least I know I feel this way, as a bit more lazy. Like, the idea of having to go to a court house really doesn't sound exciting to me. It's like an idea of , "well I guess I'll have to do that if I really can't get access to the information I need any other possible way through the web."

I think that if and when I start reporting, when I come to need documents from places like the courthouse, or places where I physically have to go, or literally call the person in charge and wager out a deal to get what I need, I'll think back on this class and remember what the teacher taught us: That even though a lot of information that we may need is accessible through the web, we won't have access to ALL of it and we need to be ready to search in the places that aren't in the web.

Just with the couple of weeks that we've spent in public records I feel that I've learned more about journalism and reporting than I have in my three semesters at FIU so far.

I have to say however, that I'm wondering how arithmetics will come into play next week.