How to Grow as an Author for Textbroker: One Author’s Success Story
In this week's author blog, author Doreen shares her story of working to become a 4-star author and shares some tips to help you do the same. Doreen has been a Textbroker author since 2012 and has written hundreds of orders for happy clients. Read more about Doreen in her author spotlight at the end of the article!
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From 4-star Author to 2-star and Back Again
When I first signed up for Textbroker, I started with a 4-star rating, but I quickly lost it and dropped to a 2-star rating. I could make a nice turn of phrase, but I did not have good habits to ensure consistent quality. So, I began diligently working on developing good work processes and habits to try
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This was an epiphany for me. Ever since then, it has been far easier for me to simply say nothing negative. I used to really struggle with this standard requirement.
I have been a consistent 4-star author for a while. Although I had to take it more than once, I eventually passed the proofreading test. This is the first step towards becoming a 5-star author. I hope to eventually get there.
Humility is a virtue
I have a strong academic background and was seen as a strong writer in school. But it wasn’t the kind of writing that is worth money. I had to set my ego aside and accept that what I knew about writing was academic. It wasn’t relevant to the real-world goals of business writing and content marketing. What Kristopher had to say about swallowing your pride resonates with me.
Author Spotlight: Doreen Tell us a bit about yourself. (hobbies, interests, etc.)
I’m a blogger and avid health nut.
How did you hear about Textbroker?
Through an online acquaintance.
What is your favorite book or blog? Why?
Two of my favorite books are The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and The Peter Principle. I tend to like practical information you can apply to real-world problems. These both meet that criteria.
What piece of advice would you give to a new Textbroker author?
You need to be prepared to look things up on your own and figure out how stuff works independently.
In your opinion, how
In the article, Fernsten and Reda (2011) explore the relationship between writer self-identity and academic writing. They assert that self-awareness of writer identity can improve academic writing for disadvantaged student writers, those described as basic writers due to socio-cultural differences from the dominant culture, or from previous educational evaluation experiences (Fernsten and Reda 171). The rationale is that writing skills can improve through the practice and informal (non-graded) evaluation provided through self-reflective exercises regarding writer identity (Fernsten and Reda 171). The article introduces the subject matter by explaining
Covey, Stephen R, (1989), The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Restoring the Character. Ethic. Simon and Schuster,
From writing thoughtful poems to research papers, I have experienced composing a diverse portfolio of literary analysis and criticisms throughout the school year. I started out the year writing minimally. By the end of the year, I noticed I was able to express my ideas and thoughts in a more clear and concise way on paper. Ultimately, each composition allowed me to widen my horizons as a writer and see how I could improve as a writer.
“ There are your radish seeds everyone.” Said Mr. Susick. The whole class looked around at each other with a blank confused face. It was the first day of junior year in my English class. Mr. Susick started talking about how our first assignment would be to grow radishes. We were all thinking, how in the world does gardening relate to English class. I had heard about this project from previous juniors but none of them said what the real reason was. All Mr. Susick said was that you need to let the project teach itself and get into nature. He left us with one bit of information along with the requirements to start. The main goal of the assignment was to extract your own universal truths. For the first time in English class,
As one continues to work on a new skill, one is bound to get better and better. I can clearly see this through my writing. I have never been the best writer and I don’t necessarily hate that fact. I just always assumed that it was just one of those things I wasn’t good at. However, as I continually worked at it and learned more skills and techniques I could put into use, I began to be proud of my writing. I went from writing thought straight to paper to slowing down and analyzing what I was thinking and how it could best be represented on paper. We learned how to present an argument not only to the public but also to a resistant audience which was a challenge. We learned how to use Pathos, Logos and Ethos to provide different
Employers and educators realize the importance of good writing skills but many business employees have writing deficiencies, costing American businesses billions of dollars every year. According to a study conducted by the National Commission on Writing (NCW) in 2004, American businesses may spend close to $3.1 billion yearly on the remediation of employees’ writing deficiencies. Consequently, employers are dissatisfied with employees writing skills and even more disappointed in the skills of new college graduates.
Nearly all of us are familiar with the witty rhymes and colorful drawings of Dr. Seuss. Simply hearing the name will evoke thoughts of colorful fish, a small mustached man that lives in the woods, and of course the Cat in the Hat. However, before he started his career writing children’s books, Dr. Seuss was a successful political cartoonist for several major news outlets in the United States prior to the outbreak of World War Two. The cartoon discussed will be one released right after Great Britain's policy of appeasement is put into place. Dr. Seuss’ aim was to convince the American people that Great Britain’s plan would never work.
I did not have a firm writing philosophy before this semester, but I to some degree I understood the importance writing can have on a situation. Now I understand that writing has two outcomes: gaining support or losing support. When writing an essay it is best if the writing is as specific as possible. This way the audience is hopefully not left with a confused opinion about the topic. Since the beginning of the semester I have put a conscious effort to change my writing style. Instead of the box format that is learned in high school I try to use a more graceful approach while still being organized. Also, I evaluate the credibility of a source before I use the information to support my thesis and understand the roles of using ethos,
Poor writing skills have become a major problem in corporate America. Many of today's employers say that good writing skills are essential not only for existing employees but also for new hires (Simkin, Crews, & Groves, 2012). In a survey of 120 U.S. Corporations, nearly a third of all employees have poor writing skills. Who is to blame for the lack of writing skills of Americans today?
Success is something that most people hope for when they begin to work towards a goal. Often times, the same feeling of accomplishment can drive one to seek for more. In the case of Macbeth, what is once looked upon as a prize for hard work, now becomes an addictive drug. In Macbeth, William Shakespeare portrays to the audience that no matter how innocent a person may be, ambition can find a way to poison a person’s mind and make them do unimaginable, evil deeds.
Thanks to Comp, my therapist refused to keep seeing me (Just kidding... she stopped seeing me in 9th grade). While that statement is a logical fallacy because correlation does not imply causation, Comp has helped me improve as a writer and as a person. In the one hundred thirty-three days that I have been a Comp student, my writing has improved quite a bit since junior year. Not only have I learned to write faster and better, I have grown as a student, reader, writer, and thinker. Thanks to Comp, while I do not see my therapist anymore, Comp is essentially my therapy.
My English Literature major has helped me to achieve an outstanding level of appreciation, enjoyment, and knowledge of both American and British Literature. As a high school AP English student, I struggled through great works like Hamlet and To the Lighthouse. My teacher’s daily lectures (there was no such thing as class discussion) taught me merely to interpret the works as critics had in the past. I did not enjoy the reading or writing process. As a freshman at Loras, I was enrolled in the Critical Writing: Poetry class. For the first time since grade school, my writing ability was praised and the sharing of my ideas was encouraged by an enthusiastic and nurturing professor. Despite the difficulty of poetry, I enjoyed reading it.
One day after reading Hutchins’ How a Cockpit Remembers its Speed, I was on an airplane flying to Montreal for the weekend. I took special care to look for the raising and lowering of the slats and flaps that Hutchins described in his article – I’m happy to say I was able to give a rudimentary description to my girlfriend as to what was going on as we took off and landed! Hutchins argued that there are “many representations that are inside the cockpit system, yet outside the heads of the pilots” (pp 267). This first point I agree with; however, he goes on in the discussion to conclude that the cockpit systems “remembers its speeds” (pp 286). While Hutchins and I agree that the pilots are the focal point of the cockpit, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that cockpit remembers its speed. The cockpit is certainly a complex system, with many elements combining to create the phenomenon of an aircraft that can control its speed and maneuver the skies, but without the
In high school I was not the best at writing. I did not find this out until I was places in advanced English. I was used to writing papers that had to be simple. So when I started receiving C’s and D’s I told myself something had to change. I finally realized that I could not write as well as most of my classmates. So, what I ended up doing was making my papers more complex and making my sentences stronger. When I applied myself I became a stronger writer. As I took the diagnostic test I saw I was making a lot of mistakes. At the end I made a 70. From this I could see why I encountered the bad experiences in high school and in college.
Anais Nin, a Cuban author, once said, “We write to taste life twice, in the moment