A Rack of Start-up Labels

Between the hash marks below is a set of labels to add to new posts on individual blogs:

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books, brainstorms, drafts, essay prep., essays, fiction, free-writing, graphics, links, media, movies, non-fiction, outlines, quickposts, reviews, revisions, typing, websites

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(Source: The Writing Studio Blog, Start-up Labels, 2012.04.22; ...
[used with author's permission])

Some of the labels are required. For example, on book reviews, you will need to use at least three labels during 1st semester, including: "books, ...," PLUS, "fiction, …," OR "non-fiction, …" AND "reviews, …"  (all comma-separated values without quotation marks or ellipsis). You are welcome to use other suitable labels for book reviews as well, such as genre labels like "adventure, ..., " "history, ...," or "romance, ...," as long as they suit the content of your [book review] posts . 

For instructions on using the other labels, please see the Labels and Link Lists page.

Now, to jump-start your own label collections, please:

1. Add a labels gadget to the sidebar of your blog, then
2. Copy and paste the labels between hashmarks in the list above into a new draft post on your own blog;
3. Entitle the new draft post, "My Start-up Labels" (in title case without quotation marks);
4. Copy and paste the same labels into the Labels field on your draft start-up labels post; and
5. Publish your start-up labels post on your blog....

Once you've published your start-up labels post, with those labels in the label field as well as [in] the body of the post, the labels will show up in your Labels gadget. Later, when you label new posts or re-label previous posts, you will be able to quickly choose appropriate labels for required and other posts, rather than typing them all in [by hand].

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Paragraph (¶) Breaks and Word Counts for Blog Posts

This snapshot shows how to separate paragraphs (¶¶), and where to put word counts in blog posts for course work.

For paragraph divisions, please enter two (2) line returns:

• The first return ends the paragraph you're composing;
• The second return creates a blank line between that paragraph and the next one for ease of reading.

Please note that there is no need for any indentation at the beginning of paragraphs. So do not enter spaces or tabs there. Also, if you compose your posts in a word-processing program that indents paragraphs automatically, please remove those indentations before you copy and paste your compositions into blog posts.

To put your word counts on the right margins of your posts, where they'll be easy to spot and add up, please: 

1. Type them in square brackets on new lines at the ends of your posts; then
2. Open the Alignment menu in the tool bar in Compose view, and 
3. Click on the icon for flush right alignment: 

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A Few Command (⌘) Combo's for Macs

In this post, I'd like to point out a few Mac keyboard commands that may speed up your browsing and editing. To use them, hold down the command (⌘) key and press the second key once.

Browsing: Stop and refresh:

⌘ + "." (a period–without quotation marks) = stop loading

⌘ + R = Refresh or Reload

Those two commands may be useful if:

• a webpage you're opening doesn't open as quickly as it should, or 
• a document or webpage you're viewing may have changed recently.

Editing: Select, copy and paste:

⌘ + A = select All

⌘ + C = Copy selection

⌘ + V = paste here

In general, you can use the similar commands on other operating systems that have a control (ctrl) key instead of a command (⌘) key.

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Text Correction in Google Docs

The five-minute video that I've embedded below shows how to use text correction tools in Google Docs. As I mentioned in a previous post, auto-correction functions can help you tidy up texts that you've typed quickly, as you do for typing homework assignments (Using Correction Tools after Typing Trials, March 7, 2013).

Instead of a typed text, for this demonstration, I've started correcting a short passage generated from a graphic by Google's optical character reading (OCR) technology. Yet, as the screenshot below the video indicates, the correction tools don't work perfectly.

Even after five minutes treatment with Google correction tools, a number of errors remained, some still marked by Google (dotted red underscores), but without suitable suggestions for auto-correction. There were others not spotted by Google at all. The latter I highlighted by hand either during the demonstration (yellow backgrounds) or afterwards (blue backgrounds). Those still needed hands-on checking and correction.

To make a long story short, after complete correction, and prettied up a bit for a block quotation, it looks like this:

... A fault line runs through the disciplines concerning culture. On one side are disciplines like history or cultural anthropology, rooted in a historicist logic of seeking local regularities within a bounded milieu. On the other are disciplines like economics, driven by a functionalist logic of seeking transhistorical generalizations. Organizational behavior involves both of these logics.... Yet, the emic and etic perspectives each provide only half of the story. ... / ... [A] richer account of culture can result when an integrative explanatory framework arises. 

(Morris, Leung, Ames, & Lickel, 1999, p. 790)

In retrospect, there seem to have been a number of OCR-generated errors in the passage, for example the two "cx" strings remaining in the second to last line of the first paragraph (one stand alone, and the other in the middle of an underscored word). I had corrected another instance of "cx" to "a" while making the video. If I had used the "Select all matching text" option the first time, I might have been able to correct all three at once.

The string "ol" appears to be another such OCR error, a misreading the word "of", as do the "lo" string, a misreading the word "to", and OCR-generated periods instead of commas (¶1, lines 2 and 7; and ¶2, line 1). For that particular typeface and layout (serif, with full-justification, in the original), Google seemed to have had trouble with commas, and with the letters a, f, and t.

Once you begin to recognize recurring errors, in your typing as well as in optical character read texts, it is possible to use the Find and replace function (Edit menu) to correct numerous errors at once.

For instance, the search shown above would:

• Seek " ol " – with single spaces before and after the letters, to find only stand-alone instances of "ol" – not words like alcohol, oligarchy, or polyphenol; and 
• Replace " ol " with " of " – similarly spaced.

If there are any hits on those search term[s], the buttons across the bottom of the dialog box will become active, and have dark lettered labels.

That fine-tuned search might be a safe bet for the Replace all function (circled in orange, but still grayed out, above). However, if you're not absolutely certain that your search and replacement terms are exact, it will be better to review and replace search strings one at a time using the Next, or Previous, and Replace buttons.

Reference

Morris, Michael W.; Leung, Kwok; Ames, Daniel; & Lickel, Brian. (1999). Views from inside and outside: Integrating emic and etic insights about culture and justice judgement. The Academy of Management Review, 24(4), 781-796. Retrieved November 15, 2012, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/259354

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