Military Editors » Language Reference

Verily, AP hath social media acknowlegeth

neal — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:52:42 +0000

Associated Press released its 2010 Stylebook today. Good news: AP acknowledges 21st-century usage. Bad news: We gotta learn the new rules.

Mashable reports:

The AP Stylebook has released its new social media guidelines, including the official change from “Web site” to “website” (a move first reported back in April) and 41 other definitions, use cases and rules that journalists should follow.

Among the more interesting changes –- at least from a grammar and style standpoint –- are separating out “smart phone” as two words, hyphenating “e-reader,” and allowing fan, friend and follow to be used both as nouns and verbs.

via Mashable: AP Stylebook Adds 42 New Guidelines for Social Media.

Read and learn

neal — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:29:26 +0000

One great reference:

Poewar.com: Solutions For Writers.

Tip of the hat to past colleague Gary St.Lawrence. Link found on his site.

Environmental cleanup made simple enough for journalists

neal — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:15:44 +0000

Environmental cleanup happens on practically every installation, but its tricky to write about, in part because the technology involved has its own language. “Media” ain’t what you think it is, and you’ll never hear the word “sparge” in polite company unless you’re talking to someone in cleanup. I’ve spent a good part of the last 10 years turning jargon to English*. My job would have been easier if I’d found the EPA Citizen’s Guides to Cleanup Methods early on.

The Citizen’s Guide series is a set of 21 fact sheets that describe, in general terms, cleanup methods used at Superfund and other sites. Each fact sheet is two pages long and answers five questions about the cleanup method: 1) What is it? 2) How does it work? 3) Is it safe? 4) How long will it take? and 5) Why use it? These guides are also available in Spanish.

Keep in mind, there is some useful and important work going on. Even if it seems far removed, by cleaning up the contamination of the past, these programs on your installations make certain the Army can continue to train Soldiers, and train them safely. Now that you can understand how they are doing it, I highly recommend finding out what they are doing.

See CLU-IN.ORG | Citizen’s Guides to Cleanup Methods.

*I am the editor of the Army’s quarterly Environmental Update.

LOL…Hwah??

neal — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:41:15 +0000

DTXTR.COM translates textspeak.

Browsable dictionary

neal — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:09:41 +0000

This seems useful: Definitions.net puts an a-to-z bar near the top of the page, and fun and useful definitions front-and-center. By comparison, my favorite online dictionary, Merriam-Webster, emphasizes its vast array of features, and dictionary.com still seems like it’s primarily a marketing site despite its redesign. Definitions.netseems the more logocentric of the three. Its sister site, Abbreviations.com, is a viable competitor to Acronymfinder – I use both.

Any other good entries in the online reference race?

Quintura

neal — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:34:50 +0000

Something new for search: Quintura uses a visual "cloud" of concepts to navigate through the Web. Take a look: Quintura.

One Better than Google News – For a Price

neal — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 11:00:58 +0000

(UPDATED)

Daily news junkies should check out PressDisplay.com – Newspapers From Around the World. This subscription site has an incredible animated front page (I’m assuming its Flash). PressDisplay makes search and a number of articles each day available for free; after that it directs you to a subscription page offering plans from $10 to $200 per month. But the promise is great: "instant access to 500 newspapers in 70 countries." So far, I’ve found you really can get a lot of free content before running into the subscription page, but it’ll ask you for money if you start going in-depth. Fair enough – all those features must cost something. It’s better looking and has far more search tools than Google News.

Follow the link for PressDisplay.com’s list of features.

Welcome to PressDisplay.com from NewspaperDirect – the world’s
largest online newspaper kiosk, where you can browse and read hundreds
of full content premium newspapers and magazines from around the globe.

PressDisplay.com is the most convenient, complete and cost-effective
way to read all your favorite publications on one site. With a
subscription to PressDisplay.com, users gain access to newspapers from
home and around the world on the day they are published, often before
they hit the news stands.

SmartNavigation† in PressDisplay.com provides
advanced digital features such as interactive tables of content, full
graphics and text views, foreign language translation capabilities,
cross-title searching, sharing of articles through email or blog
postings, bookmarks, advanced search and monitoring, article and page
printing, clickable URL’s, emails and phone numbers and text–to–voice
conversion.

Our PressReader application allows users to download, store, read and manage all of our newspaper and magazines issues.

Mobile PressDisplay.com optimizes all
PressDisplay.com publications for small screens. If you have a smart
mobile device or BlackBerry™ you can enjoy your favorite publications
on your mobile device while you are on the move.

PressDisplay.com gives readers a truly global perspective on the
world’s events, by delivering the widest selection of full content
newspapers to readers anywhere, anytime.

In order for you to maximize your enjoyment of this rich and
powerful site, we highly recommend that you take a few moments to watch
the PressDisplay demo

And then check out the PressDisplay Blog for product announcements, industry news and tips and tricks on how to use new features and services.

PressDisplay.com – the largest online newspaper kiosk in the world!

Beyond Google

neal — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:40:54 +0000

Here’s a wealth of research resources, courtesy the Online Education Database Web site. The editors listed 119 Web reference sites they consider authoritative, broken down by category. It’s worth looking at if you need to find the background on your subject quickly:

Here’s the whole Link: Research Beyond Google: 119 Authoritative, Invisible, and Comprehensive Resources | OEDb.

(Courtesy mediamonitoringnews.com)

ZoomInfo.com

neal — Tue, 29 May 2007 13:06:15 +0000

Just tried ZoomInfo.com, and added it to the list of search engines. If you want some facts behind a person, this search references Web articles and comes up with the most likely title/description of that person. Similar to a Googlism search, but more comprehensive and better organized. As usual, it pays to take a moment to go beyond the results page. My search on Eric Shinseki didn’t mention his tenure as the Army Chief of Staff, but the supporting article did. Another search, on one of my sources, identified her as a city councilman. In truth, she’d run a city councilman’s campaign. Still, a much better starting point than a raw name search in Google.

Update: I’ve changed the link slightly so it now goes directly to people search.

Trademark Checklist

neal — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:52:52 +0000

Link: Trademark Checklist.

Trademarks can be dicey. On one hand, manufacturers want you to mention their products, putting military editors in the position where there could be a perception of endorsement by the Department of Defense. Not a good idea.
On the other hand, companies don’t want their good names to become overused or misused. Xerox spent millions trying to keep its name from becoming a verb, and for many years, Writers Digest ran a half-page ad asking writers to include “tissue” whenever they refer to “Kleenex.”
To help writers find the generic term, or at least correct usage, the International Trademark Association put a directory of its members’ registered trade names online. The result is an incredibly handy free tool.

It’s good source of trivia, too. Didja know the steak sauce is “A.1.,” not “A-1″?
… um, OK, I guess that wasn’t all that exciting. Check out the site, though.