Chinese new year Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Chinese new year - Essay Example An analytical explanation of the Chinese New Year festivities establishes the validity of this statement. The Chinese New Year is lunar, commencing on the first day of the new year containing a new moon and concluding fourteen days later with the Latern festival. Years rotate in accordance with both a 12-year cycle of animal zodiacs and a 10-year cycle of heavenly stems, in addition to bi-annual rotating stems. The animal zodiacs are comprised of the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. The elements consist of Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water and the heavenly stems are ying and yang. This means that depending on the date, the new year assumed the name of an animal, a particular element and is categorized as ying or yang. Within the context of Chinese culture and religious belief, the nature of a year determines one's fortunes, depending on whether or not it is in harmony with one's birth year (Ki, 2005). As earlier noted, the Chinese new year unfolds over a fourteen day period, calculated by some as fifteen since preparations commence on the day before.

Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (1935) Essay Example for Free

Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (1935) Essay Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 film The 39 Steps, is today regarded as among the best of his career, and possibly his best film before he left Britain for Hollywood in 1939. Its history was somewhat tortuous and unconventional, reflecting Hitchcock’s own unconventional working style and eccentric personality, and it became an archetype of how Hitchcock worked with actors and screenwriting collaborators alike. Based on an adventure novel by British-born lawyer and government official John Buchan, the story of an innocent man wrongly accused of murder and embroiled in an espionage plot (which he ultimately foils) bore little resemblance to its source. As was Hitchcock’s practice, he selected a literary source and adapted it freely, adding elements of what he considered a good film – in particular, romantic, frequently sexual subplots and devices intended to keep both the audience and characters within the film off-balance. After completing The Man Who Knew Too Much, Hitchcock discovered his gift for making mystery thrillers and selected as his next project Buchan’s novel, which he had read in his youth along with the author’s other adventure tales. First, Hitchcock had to transform the book into a screenplay, though this involved not merely translating the story – which was really a male-oriented thriller without a heroine or any hint of romance – into a more complex and interesting vehicle, complete with the romantic interest that the era’s audiences expected. Using the novel only loosely, Hitchcock’s main method for creating screenplays was to act as a sort of informal story editor, collaborating with others who would contribute a wide range of ideas and keeping those he found suitable to the story. He also used Plotto, a compendium of interchangeable master plots, into which he freely inserted elements he liked. Film historian Patrick McGilligan comments, â€Å"Never mind that sometimes the inserts were implausible. ‘I’m not concerned with plausibility,’ Hitchcock liked to boast. . . . ‘Must a picture be logical, when life is not? ’† (McGilligan, 2003, p. 158) For this film, Hitchcock chose an informal group of collaborators whom he dubbed the â€Å"Cromwell Road Group;† Buchan was not among them, as Hitchcock preferred. Finding fidelity to literary sources confining, Hitchcock had previously adapted both novels and plays but resented authors’ intrusions into his work, particularly in the case of the latter. Says McGilligan, â€Å"Novelists never claimed the same control over film adaptations as playwrights – and Hitchcock was through with plays, for the time being. . . . Hitchcock had more power now, and he preferred the freedom of working with novels† (McGilligan, 2003, p. 170). His group included writers Alma and Charles Bennett, as well as humorist Ian Hay – the only collaborators credited for the screenplay, though only for â€Å"continuity† in Alma Bennett’s case (McGilligan, 2003, p. 172). From them he fielded ideas about how to flesh out the thin plot and develop its themes. In this early phase, Hitchcock began developing the film’s themes and motifs. Most importantly, he chose to sexualize what film historian Thomas Leitch calls â€Å"Buchan’s adventure yarn for grownup boys† (Leitch, 2002, p. 333) by adding two romantic subplots, neither of which appeared in the novel. The first involves Pamela (Madeleine Carroll), who at first tells the police about protagonist Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) but ultimately falls in love with him, after he convinces her of his innocence. The second concerns the loveless marriage between the Scottish farm couple who hide Hannay during his pursuit; this part, borrowed from a contemporary novel called The Shulamite (McGilligan, 2003, p. 171), offered a counterpoint between the love developing between Hannay and Pamela. Hitchcock often offered contrasts as part of his motifs; for example, in this film he contrasts brunette actress Lucie Mannheim’s mysterious spy character (whose stabbing death is wrongly blamed on Hannay) against blonde Madeleine Carroll, the film’s virtuous heroine. Here, these characters obviously symbolize darkness and light, evil and good. Another contrast he explores is the disparity between appearance and reality, which persists throughout the entire film. Hannay is pursued by the British police and must assume false identities throughout his travels, while also encountering members of the spy ring who pursue him while keeping their own identities secret. Another key Hitchcock motif involved the use of handcuffs, since Hannay and Pamela are handcuffed together for a portion of the film. Reappearing in subsequent films, the handcuffs are thought to have a strong sexual connotation. Film scholar Slavoj Zizek writes that the handcuffs motif is sexual but also used â€Å"to put the love couple to the test . . . [by] maturing [them] through a series of ordeals† (Zizek, 1992, p. 4). Indeed, Hannay and Pamela move from mistrust and betrayal to trust and eventually love. Also, he uses the â€Å"double chase† motif, in which the protagonist is pursued (often under the assumption of guilt) but also pursues the agent of his misfortune, who can also release him from his predicament. (This appeared in Buchan’s novel but also recurs in numerous Hitchcock films, such as Saboteur and North by Northwest. ) Hannay flees from the authorities but is also pursuing the spies responsible for the murder for which he is wrongly accused. Incorporated with this is what film historians dub â€Å"the MacGuffin,† an unseen or little-seen object that matters vastly more to the film’s characters than to the audience. This device serves primarily as a catalyst for the film’s action (in this case, a set of plans for fighter planes). To a lesser extent, Hitchcock shows a prescient warning about the dangers of fascism. The spy ring hails from an unnamed nation, but, given Hitchcock’s own liberal sentiments (and the more leftist leanings of co-producer Ivan Montagu), the film functions as a warning against Hitler. Scholar Ina Rae Hark cites the conclusion, where Mr. Memory’s audience rises to its feet and helps apprehend the spy who shoots the vaudeville performer. Hark claims that â€Å"only after the citizens’ liberation from the social codes of spectatorship that the . . . guardians of democracy can eliminate the external threat† (Boyd, 1995, p. 100). Even before shooting began in January 1935, Hitchcock faced issues with even getting the film made. When Gaumont-British studio chief Michael Balcon took an extended leave of absence to visit the United States, he left control to board member, C. M. Woolf, who had a clear personal and artistic antipathy toward Hitchcock. A financier and film distributor with decidedly conservative tastes (he favored light comedies and lowbrow adventures, which were safe and profitable), Woolf disdained anything â€Å"artistic† and tried to block the film’s production, trying to assign Hitchcock (who relished his creative freedom) to another, less adventurous project. However, co-producer Ivan Montagu managed to stall this until Balcon returned and overruled Woolf’s decision, allowing work on The 39 Steps to proceed and rescuing the film from oblivion (Chandler, 2005, pp.96-97). Another issue involved Hitchcock’s famously brusque treatment of actors, which he considered merely a method for preparing them to assume their roles. According to McGilligan, â€Å"Adopting an attitude toward his actors that the story took toward their characters: it was a Hitchcock strategy rarely expounded upon; perhaps it was subconscious, but it was effective. . . . The iron fist was always there, lurking in reserve† (McGilligan, 2003, p. 174). This film provides a fairly illustrative example of how Hitchcock achieved this. As his second choice for the female lead, Hitchcock hired Madeleine Carroll, whose looks and onscreen charm matched those of start Robert Donat, though he was initially uncertain about her acting ability, which he had previously considered lacking. On the first day of filming, Hitchcock handcuffed Donat and Carroll together, as was required in the script, but claimed to have misplaced the key, leaving his lead performers shacked together for an uncomfortable length of time. Donat apparently accepted it, though Carroll grew annoyed and eventually let down his cool, dignified exterior in order to convey her character’s discomfort and initial disdain for Hannay. Hitchcock began shooting the film in January 1935, making certain to hire the right personnel to realize his vision and, more importantly, follow his specifications (as past crew members had sometimes failed to do). In particular, he chose longtime acquaintance Bernard Knowles as cinematographer, because Knowles specialized in creating the kind of atmospheric lighting The 39 Steps would need as a mystery thriller, and because he would comply with Hitchcock’s precise instructions, as other cinematographers had failed to do in the past (McGilligan, 2003, p. 172). Due to a relatively slim budget of less than sixty thousand pounds, a figure that would pale in comparison to the large budgets he received in Hollywood, Hitchcock shot the film mainly at Gaumont’s Lime Grove studios in London, with two brief forays into Scotland to shot location scenes. He finished in less than four months, and the film was released in Britain in June 1935 and in the United States on 1 August (Leitch, 2002, p. 331). The film’s trailers left much to the imagination, not hinting at the story to come. The original focuses only on the initial performance of â€Å"Mr. Memory,† the vaudeville performer who, in the end, reveals that the Thirty-nine Steps are actually a spy ring (in the presence of numerous witnesses and the authorities), resulting in his on-stage murder; it shows nothing of the plot or subsequent action. A later one is shorter and more sensationalistic, showing Pamela’s betrayal of Hannay to the police, a bit of his chase, and Hannay asking Mr. Memory â€Å"What are the Thirty-nine Steps? † This one promises â€Å"MURDER! MYSTERY!! TREACHERY!!! ROMANCE!!!! † (Alfred Hitchcock’s Trailers) Hitchcock himself promoted the film by suggesting that filmgoers see it â€Å"at least three times, in order to pick out all the details and the intention behind them, and in order to get deeper into things† (Spoto, 1992, p. 46). The 39 Steps was instantly successful on both sides of the Atlantic and considered by some contemporary critics to be Hitchcock’s best work to date (McGilligan, 2002, p. 175). It certainly furthered Hollywood studios’ interest in the director; apparently, American studios had courted Hitchcock prior to the film’s release, but offers appeared in greater numbers after mid-1935. Gaumont-British director Michael Balcon fended off most of them, aiming to keep Hitchcock within his fold as long as possibly. However, lured by larger budgets and promises of the creative freedom he prized, Hitchcock left for the United States in 1939. Today, the film is still highly-regarded, though perhaps less so in light of Hitchcock’s Hollywood films, made between 1940 and 1976. Critics maintain that it is the best of his career’s British years. Film scholar Donald Spoto comments: â€Å"Some critics have dismissed the film as little more than a pleasant diversion . . . but a merely pleasant diversion does not continually generate fresh interest and disclose new richness after multiple viewings and the passage of decades. The 39 Steps . . . improves with age and familiarity† (Spoto, 1992, p. 42). The 39 Steps remains in various ways an example of how Alfred Hitchcock’s creative process. Beginning with a literary work as his inspiration, he transformed it significantly by working loosely with a group of collaborators who supplied ideas that helped him reshape the story into a film that reflected his own favorite themes and sensibilities. He inserted his own themes into the story, particularly the romantic/sexual subplots, and used his somewhat harsh style of shaping actors’ performances. Audiences’ and critics’ opinions of the film have remained high for the last seven decades, giving it even greater stature within the body of the master filmmaker’s work. REFERENCES Anonymous (2006).Alfred Hitchcock’s Trailers. Retrieved 16 May 2006 at http://www. sensesofcinema. com/contents/05/35/hitchcocks_trailers. html. Boyd. D. (1995). Perspectives on Alfred Hitchcock. New York: G. K. Hall. Chandler, C. (2005). It’s Only a Movie. New York: Simon and Schuster. Leitch, T. (2002). The Encyclopedia of Alfred Hitchcock. New York: Facts on File. McGilligan, P. (2003). Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light. New York: ReganBooks. Spoto, D. (1992). The Art of Alfred Hitchcock. New York: Anchor. Zizek, S. , ed. (1992). Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Lacan (But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock). London: Verso.

Avoiding the Unavoidable Essay -- Comparative, Poe, Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe are often thought to have different themes in their writing, but in reality, they have extremely similar themes. In Hawthorne's "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" and Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death," one theme is incredibly prominent. Death is unavoidable, and when one tries to escape death, one will always find it hiding around another corner. Death can be evaded by hiding behind a barrier or attempting to conquer it, but one will always fail and have a limited time before it catches up. Hiding behind a barrier, be it physical or emotional, has always been the first line of defense in evading death. In "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," Widow Wycherly, Colonel Killigrew, Mr. Medbourne, and Mr. Gascoigne hide from their old age and impending death by drinking the water from the Fountain of Youth: "Age, with its miserable train of cares and sorrows and diseases, was remembered only as the trouble of a dream, from which they had joyously awoke" (Hawthorne 9). The four comrades all took refuge in a corner of their minds, and saw each other in their own distorted reality. They bury themselves ever more deeper in this alternate dimension of youth. " 'We are younger- but we are still too old! Quick- give us more!' " (Hawthorne 7). Once presented with another defense against impending death, they do all they can to include it in their arsenal. In "The Masque of the Red Death", Prince Prospero shares the same feeling of invincibility. He locks himself and his comrades in his castellated abbey, in hopes that the Red Death will not reach them: "When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, a... ...ince Prospero take himself out, he condemned all those that were locked away with him: "And one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall" (Poe 7). All one-thousand of his subjects that he had kept with him in his abbey were subjected to the same punishment. While both the four friends and Prince Prospero had different initial outcomes after their first failed attempt to avoid death, they share a common final outcome. Whether one looks at the evidence presented about avoiding death by hiding behind barriers, or by attempting to conquer death, one can clearly see that evading death is impossible, and will always lead to failure. No matter how hard one tries, one cannot escape death. Before attempting to escape death, one should ponder about how gifted one is to receive one lifetime.

Go out for dinner

When people ask to go out and have coffee, it does not only mean to drink coffee. It has more meaning of to socialize, rather than to get rid off of the thirst they have. This can also be seen when people ask to have dinner. When people finish their work or classes, they feel relief and want to enjoy their free time. A lot of the times, people finish their work in the evening and they try to socialize by asking to have dinner.Although some people can not drink alcohol or do not Like to go to bar or pub, hen asking to have dinner can be used for anyone to socialize. To have dinner together, people have be hungry. Asking to have dinner can be a chance to not only have dinner together, but also spend time until they become hungry. For example, If people want to have dinner together but they are Just a little hungry, they can hangout; for example, go out to watch a movie until they feel hunger. Moreover, If they want to talk more after dinner, they can go drink.Then having dinner means n ot only to eat food together, but also to spend time from the evening to the night. However, when a person tries to ask other sex for dinner, â€Å"having dinner,† there comes up another meaning of the term. When a man asks a woman to go lunch, she should not be anxious about her appearance very much, but when he asks her to go out for dinner, she should. When a man and a woman have dinner have special meaning. It means eating delicious food with formal appearance and appropriate manner.That a man asks a woman to have dinner implies he thinks she is special and wants to make romantic mood among them. Men ask women to have dinner especially when men try to tell a declaration of love, celebrate their special day, or to propose to women. Then in a relationship between men and women, having dinner together means to arrange special time or day. As I stated in this paper, there are two main usage in term, â€Å"having dinner. † It is granted as socializing term widely and ma ny people have dinner with others to socialize.

Who Killed President John F. Kennedy

Despite the plethora of conspiracies surrounding the death of President Kennedy there is overwhelming evidence supporting the theory that a single gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, killed President Kennedy. History tends to repeat its self time and time again. In this scenario it is the assassination of a President: first President Lincoln; then Garfield, McKinley, and lastly the most controversial of them all, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The details surrounding his death have been studied and questioned for decades and will be for decades more to come.One of the most controversial details in the J. F. K assassination was; how many men gunned down the President on one of the most historical days in this Country’s history. Despite all of the controversy surrounding the death of the President, the clearest and most rational answer for who shot and killed the President is Lee Harvey Oswald. On the afternoon of November 22, 1963 fear struck the Nation when President Kennedy was sh ot and killed while riding in his motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas.Allegedly the shots that were fired came from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository and were shot by the infamous Lee Harvey Oswald. The first shot hit Kennedy in the back, and went through his throat. The same bullet then hit Governor Connelly in the back after shattering a rib and, hit him in the wrist and then in his thigh. The second shot was the fatal shot to the right side of Kennedy’s head which then went on to injure a bystander. Lastly the third and final shot hit the curb as the President’s limousine raced off to get away from the danger.During Oswald’s failed attempt to flea from authorities officer J. D. Tippit was shot to death shortly after the President was killed: Oswald denied both killings. Two days after the death of the President as millions of Americans watched Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, pushed his way through police officers and shot the alleged assassin. Ruby was convicted for the murder of Oswald. Yet three years later the conviction was over-ruled due in fact that the judge allowed in illegal testimony. Ruby died of cancer before the second trial could be held.Why was Kennedy assassinated, and by who? Neither of those questions will ever be answered yet Kennedy was greatly disliked in the Soviet Union during the Cold War and in Cuba greatly for the Cuban Missile Crisis on October 8, 1962-roughly a year before the Presidents tragic death. Either country could have hired Oswald to assassinate the President but likely if this was the case the Soviet Union would be more likely to have had a part in Kennedy’s assassination due in part to the fact that Oswald left the U. S. to gain citizenship with the Soviet Union but was turned down.On the other hand Cuba could have hired the â€Å"lone assassin† to assassinate the President over the Cuban missile crisis, when President Kennedy had Cuba dismantle th e missile system that the Soviet Union had placed there which was in fact pointed at the United States as well as having two missiles in Turkey, Thor and Jupiter. One of the biggest reasons there are so many conspiracies out there is because of the second bullet that was fired at the President, which was called the â€Å"magic bullet† it was said to have done numerous things.It apparently went through Kennedy’s upper back and out his neck, then took a sharp right turn to go through Connally’s back shattered a rib and came out his chest. After that, the bullet went through Connally’s wrist and then fell to lodge into Connally’s right upper thigh. Yet according to the Warren Report that was written by the Warren commission in September of 1964 the bullet never made any zigzag or funky turn. Connally was seated in a booster seat in front of the President which is not level with the President’s seat, it is three inches lower than Kennedy’ s seat.Also the booster seat is six inches farther towards the middle of the car. Lastly Governor Connally was not sitting straightforward in his seat. He is turned to his right, as seen in the Zapruder Film. Therefore the bullets path would make perfect sense a straight line through both men. In conclusion there is overwhelming evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin that took the life of one of our countries’ most profound leaders, President John F. Kennedy, and acted alone. The reasoning for Oswald’s actions may never be uncovered: was he hired to get a point across; for payback, or did he act alone? The answers to these questions have been washed away into the history textbooks of our children and their children to come. May no one ever truly know the meaning behind the assassination of President Kennedy or who really took the life of President, but as the most backed up and legitimate answer is Lee Harvey Oswald.

APA Referencing †Citing a Newspaper Article

APA Referencing – Citing a Newspaper Article APA Referencing – Citing a Newspaper Article If you’ve been at college for a while, you might already be pretty good when it comes to citing sources. Maybe you know all about referencing books and academic journals. But have you given much thought to newspaper articles? OK, you’re not likely to cite a National Enquirer article called â€Å"BILL CLINTON CONFESSION: I HUNTED ALIENS† in a serious paper about astrobiology. Seems completely legit to us. But discussing politics, culture or social trends can require referring to current events, which usually means citing a newspaper. In today’s blog post, we explain exactly how to do this using APA referencing. In-Text Citations APA conventions for citing a newspaper article are similar to those used for other sources, with the author’s name and year of publication given in parentheses. If directly quoting an article from a print edition of a newspaper (they’re still a thing, you know), you should give page numbers, too: The Guardian reported the plan to secede â€Å"with or without the approval of Madrid† (Jones, 2016, p. 12). If the author is named in the text, simply give the year of publication immediately afterwards and any relevant page numbers after the quoted text: According to Sam Jones (2016), Catalonia is â€Å"is preparing to defy Spain’s constitutional court† (p. 11). If no author is named for an article, APA suggests including a shortened version of the article title in citations instead: Anne Bancroft was reported to sometimes burp in public (â€Å"I’m A Slob,† 1964). Yes, that last one was a genuine story. Although only insofar as anything in the National Enquirer can ever really be called â€Å"a genuine story.† It seems more plausible than the alien thing, at least. Reference List: Print Articles When an article is cited from a print edition of a newspaper the information to include in your reference list is: Author name and initial(s). (Year, month and day published). Article title. Newspaper, page numbers. For the Guardian article cited above, this would appear as follows: Jones, S. (2016, July 27). Catalonia tells Spain it will push for secession with or without assent. The Guardian, pp. 11-13. If no author is named, the full title of the article is used in its place: I’m a slob: I burp and slurp in public. (1964, December 20). National Enquirer, pp. 1-3. We promise that’s the last time we’ll mention the National Enquirer. Reference List: Online Articles The only difference when referencing the online version of a newspaper article is that you need to give the URL rather than page numbers: Author name(s) and initial(s). (Year, month and day published). Article title. Newspaper. Retrieved from URL The online version of the Guardian article above would therefore appear as: Jones, S. (2016, July 27). Catalonia tells Spain it will push for secession with or without assent. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/27/catalonia-independence-spain-democratic-mandate

Ruining Your Writing by Cheap Blogging

Ruining Your Writing by Cheap Blogging Ruining Your Writing by Cheap Blogging Ruining Your Writing by Cheap Blogging By Michael Ali recently gave us five reasons why blogging improves your writing, and I dont disagree with any of them. What ruined my writing ability (temporarily, I hope) was not the chance to write regularly or to get instant feedback. So what ruined it? Did I get worse the more I practiced? Can that even happen? Sports coaches and music teachers will tell you that it can if you practice doing it wrong instead of doing it right. If you repeatedly practice bad habits, they will become ingrained habits. Email and instant messaging may have taught people how to type better, but I dont think its teaching them to write better. What ruined my writing ability was placing money and productivity higher than integrity and honor. I told myself, This assignment pays half of what I need to earn per hour; therefore, I will only spend half an hour on it. In retrospect, I realized that I was gaining income, but losing self-respect. I was quickly lowering my standards to meet my financial goals, but found that I couldnt raise them back again so easily. In essence, I was training myself to write sloppily. Disclaimer: Daily Writing Tips is a good example of a blog that attracts lovers of writing and pays them well. Ive done some of my best work here. Perhaps Ive done even better writing on my personal blog for which I receive no money at all. There is an economic aspect to writing professionally, of course, but I found that it also involves economics that are not monetary. The British economist E.F. Schumacher called this meta-economics. A job working with hazardous chemicals may earn you a higher salary, but may cost you in quality of life. Writing only for the money, even when my heart wasnt in it, paid most of the bills. But meeting a word count without meeting my personal standards, in effect, lowered my personal standards. I almost forgot what they were. I found out what had happened to me when I was offered a secure job in the marketing department at a local university. I took it and put my freelance writing career on hold. My freelance writing experience was one reason why I was hired. Yet when I began writing documentation for my new boss, he was unenthusiastic about using it. The problem wasnt my style or grammar or punctuation. He only told me, Ive found that when you really understand something, you can explain it clearly. Professional blogging, for low pay and not for love, hadnt taught me to explain things clearly. We expect bloggers to entertain us more than to inform us. When we expect them to inform us, we dont expect complete information. Theres nothing wrong with that. Ive found, however, that you advance by exceeding peoples expectations, not simply meeting them. And you wont advance as a writer when you dont meet your own expectations, especially when you tell yourself that you dont need to. To be fair, I was not a typical blogger. I was a professional blogger, trying to support my family and pay a mortgage in the US economy. When I complained mildly to one of my editors about my low pay scale, he wisely pointed out that my rate was typical for the industry. Even more wisely, he told me that most of my fellow writers were blogging because they loved their subject, not because they were depending on an extra few dollars to pay the mortgage. The danger Im warning against is not confined to the world of professional blogging. Everyone who writes for the money but doesnt get much of it is tempted to cut corners. Writing keyword-rich SEO copy is perhaps even more dangerous for aspiring writers. At least blogs have to appeal to human beings. That isnt a requirement for SEO copy. Every time you tell yourself, I can dash off this post; I dont need to devote any time or thought to it, you make it easier to do it the next time and the next time. Its quite easy to lose your critical ear and lower your standards if you deliberately do it over and over. Youre never writing only for others. Youre always writing for yourself too. Youre never dealing only with money. Youre also dealing with your ability and integrity. Your writing skills are like the assets of a bank account. You can add to your assets by doing your best work, all the time, and always raising the bar. You can lose assets as a writer when you dont. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Freelance Writing category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:10 Grammar Mistakes You Should Avoid15 Words for Household Rooms, and Their SynonymsSit vs. Set