Writing...by dabawenya

A blog is the reflection of an author’s interests. In creating a blog about jobs that I want to use as a marketing tool for Twitter, Relax Into Getting a Job, I began studying the freelance field. Many people who never knew they could write and enjoy it have been created via blogging and the avenue of self-publishing. I am one of those people. But after four years + of writing for my own blogs, I want to branch out and write for others.

I have acquired 600 blogs in my Google Reader and have learned to quickly scan the blog for the topics being written about (never end a sentence with a preposition–former English teacher in the house).

Using Alltop–which is where I always start with a topic search–under the category of work, I found 68 separate resources–blogs and sites–for freelance jobs. 68 resources!! One of the sites, writing bids, has 34 separate categories for freelance writing jobs.

Writing bids has these categories to search for jobs with quick link searches for each: article writing, content writing, copywriting, website writing, blog writing, book writing, ghostwriting, health writing, grant writing, tech writing, PR writing, editing, proofwriting, translation, research, re-writing, and resume writing. What a feast for writers!

About freelance writing has 69 freelance writing jobs for May 6, 2009. The jobs have been divided between jobs that pay a decent amount and jobs that are low paying ($10/article or $5 per blog post or less).

Current freelance writing jobs:

http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/05/13/alternative-income-streams/

http://www.ifreelance.com/project/detail.aspx?projectid=38294

http://www.aboutfreelancewriting.com/2009/05/freelance-writing-jobs-wednesday-may-13-2009/

About freelance writing:

http://www.aboutfreelancewriting.com/2009/05/were-so-lucky/

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=77&aid=163406

Finance and Investing

A variety of web-based investment analysis tools and financial statistics can only be found in the deep web.

1. Bankrate.com — A directory of interest rates for different types of loans, mortgages, and savings accounts.
2. InvestIQ — A database of market data from different world regions.
3. BigCharts — A searchable database of quotes and performance charts for different stocks and mutual funds.
4. SmartMoney.com Tools — A portal of different stock analysis tools.
5. EDGAR Online — A database of EDGAR SEC filings searchable by ticker or company name.

General Research

These are good places to start researching for background knowledge on any topic. The subscription-based databases will help intensify any research by scouring numerous scholarly journals.

1. GPO’s Catalog of US Government Publications — A searchable database of federal publications, with links to those available online.
2. Smithsonian Institution Libraries — A collection of 20 libraries from the world’s largest museum complex.
3. The National Archives — A list of all of the National Archives’ research tools and databases.
4. Encyclopædia Britannica — The authoritative encyclopedia searchable with full text online.
5. Topix.net — A news search engine.
6. Internet Public Library — The Internet’s public library. Fully searchable.
7. San Francisco Public Library – A list of all of the databases offered to SFPL library card holders. Not a California resident? This is just one example of many such local public libraries that offer similar services.
8. LexisNexis $ — The world’s largest collection of public records, unpublished opinions, forms, legal, news, and business information. Over 35,000 individual sources are searchable with full-text available online.
9. Forrester Research $ — An independent technology and market research company, publishing in-depth research reports on a variety of subjects.
10. Factiva $ — A searchable collection of over 10,000 individual sources.

Government Data

The United States government publishes data on a variety of subjects, some of which is derived from census data or CIA findings.

1. Copyright Records (LOCIS) — A database of copyright records, searchable by documents, serials, and multimedia (including books, music, films, sound recordings, maps, software, photos, and art).
2. American FactFinder — A repository of aggregate census bureau data searchable by city, county, or ZIP code.
3. FedStats — A gateway to statistics from over 100 US federal agencies.
4. United States Patent and Trademark Office — A database of patent full-text and full-page images.
5. Geospatial One Stop — A searchable database of geographic data, displayable on maps.
6. United States Government Printing Office (GPO) — A search engine for mutliple government databases, including US budgets, campaign reform hearings, code of federal regulations, congressional bills, unified agendas, and more
7. POW/MIA Databases and Documents — A database of POWs and MIAs information.
8. ZIP+4 Lookup — A database of US ZIP codes and ZIP+4 codes, searchable by city or address.

Resources for choosing online learning, choosing degrees, choosing schools, college basics,military assistance degrees, financial aid information, online class assignments, as well as several featured online colleges. One of the great resources on this amazing resources is an article entitled: “Hacking Knowledge: 77 Ways to Learn Faster, Deeper, and Better.”

This article has these 77 tips:

Health: Shake a leg–Food for thought-at breakfast–Eat a light lunch–Cognitive enhancers (ginkgo biboba)–Reduce stress and depression.

Balance: Sleep on it–Take a break–Take a hike–Change your focus.

Perspective and Focus: Change your focus, part 2–Do walking meditation–Focus and immerse yourself–Turn out the lights–Take a bath or shower.

Recall Techniques: Listen to music–Speedread–Use acronyms and other mnemonic devices.

Visual Aids: Every picture tells a story–Brainmap it–Learn symbolism and semiotics–Use information design–Use visual learning techniques–Map your task flow.

Verbal and Auditory Techniques: Stimulate ideas–Brainstorm–Learn by osmosis–Cognitive enhancers (binaural beats)–Laugh.

Kinesthetic Techniques: Write, don’t type–Carry a quality notebook at all times–Keep a journal–Organize–Use post-it notes.

Self-motivation Techniques: Give yourself credit–Motivate yourself–Set a goal–Think positive–Organize, part 2–Every skill is learned–Prepare yourself for learning–Prepare yourself, part 2–Constrain yourself.

Supplemental Techniques: Read as much as you can–Cross-pollinate your interests–Learn another language–Learn how to learn—Learn what you know and what you don’t–Multitask through background processes–Think holistically–Use the right type of repetition–Apply the Quantum Learning (QL) model–Get necessary tools–Get necessary tools, part 2–Learn critical thinking–Learn complex problem solving.

For Teachers, Tutors, and Parents: Be engaging–Use information pyramids–Use video games–Role play–Apply the 80/20 rules–Tell stories–Go beyond the public school curriculum–Use applied learning.

For Students and Self-Studiers: Be engaged–Teach yourself–Collaborate–Do unto others: teach something–Write about it–Learn by experience–Quiz yourself–Learn the right things first–Plan your learning.

Parting Advice: Persist–Defy the experts–Challenge yourself–Party before an exam–Don’t worry:learn happy.

The Open Directory Project is an amazing resource. According to Wikipedia: “The Open Directory Project (ODP), also known as dmoz (from directory.mozilla.org, its original domain name), is a multilingual open content directory of World Wide Web links owned by Netscape that is constructed and maintained by a community of volunteer editors.

Under society, the link for Religion and Spirituality contains 36 religion categories including atheism.

• Advaita Vedanta (220)
• African (166)
• Agnosticism (45)
• Atheism (223)
• Baha’ism (274)
• Buddhism (3,276)
• Cao Dai (13)
• Christianity (78,358)
• Confucianism@ (48)
• Deism (60)
• Esoteric and Occult (2,636)
• Ethical Culture (26)
• Falun Dafa (27)
• Fourth Way (123)
• Gnosticism (136)
• Hinduism (1,403)
• Humanism (112)
• Islam (1,852)
• Jainism (37)
• Judaism (2,473)
• Modern Movements (77)
• Native American (55)
• New Age (1,704)
• New Thought (116)
• Pagan (2,259)
• Pantheism (48)
• Scientology (634)
• Shamanism (126)
• Shintoism (17)
• Sikhism (186)
• Spiritualism (330)
• Taoism (418)
• Unitarianism and Universalism (1,168)
• Universal Life Church (21)
• Zoroastrianism (45)

The two building blocks he talks about are the anecdote and the moment of reflection. I think of the anecdote–which makes dull events interesting–as the “hook” for getting attention. The anecdote shows the sequence of the story and has a momentum of its own. Kind of like deliberately leaving an elevator with on listeners wondering how the anecdote ended. The second block–”the moment of reflection”–completes the tale by telling you why you are listening to this story.

Copyblogger consistently provides great tips/ideas about writing and marketing. Sonia Simone writes “13 Emotion-Based Headlines That Work” and includes the following examples:

1. When’s the Last Time a Cute Girl Checked You Out?
   Emotional benefit: feeling attractive and sexy
2. Learn How to Stand Up to Your Boss (and Force Him to See What You’re Really Worth)
   Emotional benefit: feeling assertive and confident
3. Your Grandkids Will Be Struggling to Keep Up with You
   Emotional benefit: feeling vital and energetic
4. You’ve Worked Hard All Week–Now Indulge Yourself
   Emotional benefit: feeling pampered, justified entitlement
5. A Limited Number of Spaces Are Still Available for Founders’ Circle Membership
   Emotional benefit: sense of belonging, exclusivity
6. Are You Working Harder than Ever, but Still Worried About Downsizing and Layoffs?
   Emotional benefit: feeling in control of one’s own destiny
7. The 20-Minute Read that Will Make You a Financial Genius
   Emotional benefit: feeling wealthy and powerful (also feeling smart)
8. They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Keyboard–But Then I Began to Blog!
   Emotional benefit: feeling proud, sense of accomplishment (also being gigantic dork)
9. How to Take Command of Any Meeting
   Emotional benefit: feeling respected
10. The SecureWidget Alert System Keeps Tireless Watch Over Your Family
    Emotional benefit: feeling safe
11. Is Your Child Emotionally Intelligent? Take This Test and Find Out
    Emotional benefit: feeling like a good parent
12. Reconnect With Your Friends and Family on this Incredible Three-Day Retreat
    Emotional benefit: feeling of loving connection
13. How to Survive (and Yes, Even Thrive) in a Recession
    Emotional benefit: feeling financially secure (note that this is subtly different from feeling wealthy and powerful)

From OEDB:

Got a research paper or thesis to write? Want to research using the Internet? Good luck. There’s a lot of junk out there — outdated pages, broken links, and inaccurate information. Using Google or the Wikipedia may lead you to some results, but you can rarely be sure of pinpoint accuracy. And what’s more, you’ll only be searching a fraction of all of the resources available to you.

Google, the largest search database on the planet, currently has around eight billion web pages indexed. That’s a lot of information. But it’s nothing compared to what else is out there. Google can only index the visible web, or searchable web. But the invisible web, or deep web, is estimated to be 500 times bigger than the searchable web. The invisible web comprises databases and results of specialty search engines that the popular search engines simply are not able to index.

Do you think your local or university librarian uses Google? Sure, but certainly not exclusively. In order to start researching like a librarian, you’ll need to explore more authoritative resources, many of which are invisible. Note: Although some of the following resources are visible and indexed, they have all been included here because of their authoritative nature.

$ = Available only by subscription.

Topics Covered in this Article

Deep Web Search Engines | Art | Books Online | Business | Consumer | Economic and Job Data | Finance and Investing | General Research | Government Data | International | Law and Politics | Library of Congress | Medical and Health | Science | Transportation

Deep Web Search Engines

To get started, try using a search engine that specializes in scouring the invisible web for results. None of these can search the entire invisible web, but they make some inroads that Google has not as of yet.

1. Clusty — A metasearch engine that combines the results of several top search engines.
2. Librarians’ Internet Index — A search engine listing sites deemed trustworthy by actual human librarians, not just a Googlebot.
3. Internet Archive — A database of tens of thousands of movies, live music, audio, texts, and home of the Wayback Machine that allows you to find old versions of web pages, over 55 billion.

Art

Hundreds of other museums all over the world have their own databases. This is just a list of the databases for a few of the most popular. Within these databases are descriptions of the work, its location, and an image of the work.

1. Musée du Louvre — One of the oldest and most famous art galleries in the world. Contains Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Alexandros de Antioch’s Venus de Milo.
2. Guggenheim Museum — A collection of over 160 classical and new artists, searchable by artist name, title, date, movement, medium, concept, and museum.
3. Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery — A searchable database of more than 80,000 portrait records.
4. The National Gallery of Art — A searchable catalog of all of the museum’s 110,000 objects, with images of more than 6,000 available online.

Books Online

There are tens of thousands of classic books with full text available online for free. Some authors whose books are available in full text online include Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Fyodor Dostoevsky.

1. The Online Books Page — A searchable database of more than 25,000 English works with full text available for free online.
2. Bibliomania — A searchable database of free online literature from more than 2,000 classic texts.
3. The National Academies Press — A searchable directory of 3,000 free books online and 900 for-sale PDFs.
4. ebrary — A searchable database of more than 20,000 full-text books.

Business

The most accurate quantitative business knowledge often comes from specialty search engines and business directories/databases.

1. Explorit Now! — A portal allowing searchable access to numerous business journals and databases.
2. Agency ComPile — A searchable database of advertising and other marketing agencies.
3. GPO Access Economic Indicators — A portal to economic indicators from January 1998 to present.
4. Hoover’s — A searchable database of businesses.
5. ThomasNet — An industrial product search directory.
6. SBA Loan Data — A database of loan program approval activity from the Small Business Administration.

Consumer

For consumers, authoritative product reviews and pricing information often times are hidden in the deep web or among subscription-based reports.

1. Melissa Data — A directory of complete demographic data, sortable by ZIP code.
2. Kelley Blue Book — A guide to pricing new and used vehicles.
3. Edmunds — Another guide to pricing new and used vehicles.
4. Consumer Reports $ — A guide to consumer product reviews, including cars, appliances, electronics, computers, personal finance, travel, and more.

Economic and Job Data

A wealth of information regarding microeconomic and macroeconomic data is available from government sources and other organizations

1. Bureau of Labor Statistics — A directory of job-based and consumer economic data from the US Department of Labor.
2. Salary Wizard Calculator — A tool that shows national average salaries adjusted by location for different jobs.
3. Penn World Tables — A database of purchasing power parity and national income data for 179 countries for the years 1950-2000.
4. America’s Job Bank — A searchable database of jobs and resumes.
5. USAJOBS — A searchable database of federal government jobs.
6. Regional Economic Conditions (RECON) — A database of economic data available by state, county, and MSA.