Don’t read this post if you want to be a lousy writer

Here are two blog posts with good writing pointers:

• 37 Signals: Buzzwords say all the wrong things— Matt Linderman lists four good reasons why writers should eschew buzzwords and keep their text simple.
• Copyblogger: Copywriting 101—Brian Clark’s article is geared towards writing for marketing, but isn’t everyone who writes trying to hawk something, be it a product, idea, or him or herself? This blog entry has 10 tips for writing great copy. Read it or the kitty gets it.

Freelancing, Word styles, Bill Clinton, and Russia: Articles worth reading

Here are some good reads on an assortment of topics:

• Freelancing tips from an illustrator. It’s obvious that Megan Jeffrey has 17 years of experience freelancing; there’s not a single suggestion with which I’d disagree (link via Lifehacker).
• Macworld: Save time with Word’s styles. One of the biggest ways to make publishing a document more efficient is to get everyone in an organization using Word’s styles. It makes an editor’s job easier, as he or she won’t have to waste time reformatting a document and instead can focus on improving the text.
• The New Yorker: “The Wanderer”—The ex-presidency of Bill Clinton. This article in the September 18, 2006 issue isn’t available online, but it’s worth picking up at the newsstand. David Remnick’s profile of President Clinton is fascinating and examines his work fighting HIV/AIDS.
• The Economist: Russian health and demography—A sickness of the soul. It’s hard to think of a country that put the first man in space as having problems usually reserved for developing nations in Africa and Asia, but that’s what former superpower Russia is facing.

The pros and cons of freelancing and what’s needed to transition from corporate life

Lifehacker, a productivity blog that I’ve linked to in other entries, had a good post the other day about working for yourself: Technophilia: From cubicle to couch.

For someone who’s just transitioning from working for a company to freelancing, the author has some good insight into preparing to work for yourself (hoard cash), the advantages of freelancing (flexibility), and the disadvantages (work is never done).

And while I’m pitching other blogs…

The Private Sector Development Blog is a collaborative site by members of the World Bank Group. The site features the opinions of subject matter experts about many development-related issues.

And kudos to the World Bank for hosting a site where some of its employees can voice their own opinions (and, I assume, post on work time). Blogs like this one are a great way to create a dialogue and get input from the diverse groups working in a particular field.

Too often business websites are static, never giving readers a reason to return. Not so with a blog.

Now, if only they’d add a hyphen to that compound modifier in the title…

But who edits copy editors?

I’ve recently encountered a few good blogs by professional newspaper copyeditors that have useful posts about style, punctuation, and word choice (even if they don’t use serial commas):

• A Capital Idea—A copy-editing blog covering grammar and newspapers like they’re going out of style
• Blogslot—The blog accompaniment to The Slot: A Spot for Copy Editors
• You Don’t Say: Language and Usage—A blog by John McIntyre, The Baltimore Sun‘s assistant managing editor for the copy desk

Copyeditors (at least these three) have interesting perspectives about language and current events (such as word choice and campaign slogans). Also, it’s interesting getting the perspective of editors whose work is directed predominantly by The Associated Press Stylebook, as opposed to The Chicago Manual of Style that I use most of the time.