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Getting Paid to Work for Yourself: Writing Grants and Grants for Writers (grants for writers) Do you have a fantastic idea to improve the world? Are you frustrated because no one is addressing the issues that you know are important? Writing is a powerful tool that can bring change and improvement to the world. Grants are available from various sources in order to fund important work that is not being done in the corporate world. If you are inspired to make improvements and make life better, you may be an ideal candidate for grant writing. How Do Grants Work? Grants are sums of money awarded by the government or other entities to those who can use that money effectively. Candidates for grants are usually those who can serve their community with the money given to them. The way it works is that you start with an idea. Your idea could benefit your community in areas that range from tourism to health care. If you have the capabilities to implement your idea, you then decide how much money it would take to do so. At that point you begin to write. You must convince those with the grant money of why they should give it to you. The writing of the grant may be the most important step in the process of receiving that grant money. Writing a Grant Writing a grant is a very precise process. It involves explaining very clearly what your idea for improvement is as well as why it is a worthwhile pursuit. In the actual grant writing, you must be very clear in your explanations as well as persuasive in your arguments. You can find actual templates or set up guidelines online or in style handbooks. Those resources will help you ensure that you are following proper procedures in writing grants. Grants for writers are potential job opportunities. Since some brilliant minds do not necessarily have the appropriate writing talent, they may hire a writer to actually complete the grant proposal. Writers have more opportunities to enter into the grant writing process than just being the executer though. Is it Possible to Get Grants to Write? Grants for writers are definitely available. What would you write that would be worthy of a grant? There are many possibilities. You may be able to write a guidebook that fulfills a community need. A tourism guide would be of particular interest to the government. Keep in mind though, that only unfulfilled needs will merit grants. Grants for writers are not given to those who are writing redundantly on a topic or who are writing about an issue that no one cares about. You may be thinking that writing is free. Aside from the actual printing and publishing costs, there is no money required to produce text. Especially if you think of writing as opposed to creating a clean burning engine, the costs are not even comparable. The great thing is that even if you don’t need very much money to get the words on the page, there are grants available just to write you a paycheck. On top of any costs incurred through research and development of your ideas, you will also get paid should you be awarded grant money. There are two different meanings for the phrase, ‘grants for writers.’ A grant may need to be written by a qualified writer. The other possibility is that a writer could actually be awarded grant money for their contributions. Writing is a powerful tool. It can persuade and benefit people from where it sits on the page. For that reason, writers and grants are inseparable. If you have a great idea that needs funding, consider writing a grant. If you are not a writer yourself, be comforted by the fact that there is someone out there who can do the writing for you.

Technical Writing: What is it? (technical writing) Technical writing is one of the most difficult forms of writing. To be a technical writer you need to be able to convey a technical message in a concise and effective manner. Technical documents must be created using comprehensive and precise information in a brief and understandable style. You will need the ability to be able to correspond with technical experts and have the understanding of all technical terminology. You are the middleman between the designers, engineers, or scientists and the audience of the technical writings. You have to have the ability to under stand what they are saying and the turn it into something that can be understood by someone else. Simply put it is writing that designs, creates, and upkeeps any kind of technical data such as user manuals, how to guides, and online help just to name a few. To be able to achieve a career in technical writing you must be able to write complex data in a straightforward, easy to understand and articulate fashion. You must be able to word step by step instructions in a way that seems effortless to a consumer. While doing technical writing one of the most important aspects of your job will be creating for an intended audience. So not only must you understand and convey what you are writing, you must understand whom you are writing it for. In most cases, you are generally trying to explain complex technical information to the average person. But with the diversity in the world today and having such a vast potential audience you must understand the meaning of the words you use and what they could mean to someone else. Some technical writing projects may also include magazine and newspaper articles. These articles will probably be focused on new technologies and products. In some cases this may be in the form of an advertisement. Or it could just be an introduction to a new product saying hey this is what we have and this is what it a can do. Although a formal education is always a plus, if you have experience and successful past ventures in technical writing it isn’t always necessary. Knowledge into the multiple components needed for technical writing is required. They key components to what you must know is an in depth knowledge many software programs. These applications can include Visio, Quadralay Web Works Publisher, Microsoft Word, and HTML script writing. Proper formatting, style, and organization of writings are what make them easy to follow. Correct wording, clear sentences, and easy terminology make your technical writings easy the read and comprehend. If you are employed as a technical writer with a company, you will most likely be working with a team of other writers. You writings will be reviewed for content efficiency as well as any grammar and spelling errors. Depending on the structure of the team they may be working on the same project as you or they may be working on separate projects. Either way the team is assembled as a support group to help make your technical writing be as accurate, effective, and as simple as it can be. To succeed in technical writing these are the simple rules to follow. Keep it as simple as possible; no one wants to read four pages to find a simple one word answer. Understand the people you are talking to and what you are telling them. If you don’t understand, neither will they. Make sure you get your work proofread or read it aloud to make sure it makes sense. You know what you are trying to say, but your reader does not. You are the carrier for getting information from point A to Point B.

Web Hosting - Why Backups Are Essential One thing most web site owners have little time for is... anything! Anything other than focusing on their site content and the business or service it supports and the information it provides, that is. That means that administration often suffers, as it frequently must. There's only so much time in the day. But the one thing that you should never let slide are backups. They are like insurance. You rarely need it (you hope), but when you do you need it very badly. Performing regular backups - and testing them - doesn't have to be a nightmare. A little bit of forethought and effort and they can be automated to a high degree. And, they should be tested from time to time. Even when a backup appears to have gone without a hitch, the only way to know whether it's of any value is to attempt to restore the information. If it can't be restored, the backup is worthless. Even when the web hosting company provides the service, there is still some planning involved for the site owner. Hosting companies often rely on one or both of two methods. They backup everything (called a full backup), then backup anything which has changed since the last full backup (called an incremental backup). Of special interest are any configuration files that have been tailored. If you've modified the default installation of a software package, you want to be able to recapture or reproduce those changes without starting from scratch. Network configuration files, modifications to basic HTML files, CSS style sheets and others fall into the same category. If you have XML files, databases, spreadsheets or other files that carry product or subscriber information - about items purchased, for example, or people who signed up for a newsletter - those should get special attention, too. That's the lifeblood of your business or service. Lose them and you must start over. That can break your site permanently. It should go without saying that all HTML and related web site files that comprise visible pages should be backed up regularly. It isn't necessary to record every trivial change, but you can tailor backup software to exclude files or folders. Usually they're so small it isn't worth the trouble. But in some cases those small changes can add up in scenarios where there are many thousands of them. Here again, the backups are worthless if they can't be used. Even if the hosting company charges for doing so, it's worthwhile to test once or twice a year at least to ensure the data can be restored. That's especially true of database backups, which often involve special software and routines. Database files have a special structure and the information is related in certain ways that require backups be done differently. Developing a backup strategy can be straightforward. Start simply and review your plan from time to time, modifying it as your site changes and grows. But don't neglect the subject entirely. The day will come when a hard drive fails, or you get hacked or attacked by a virus, or you accidentally delete something important. When that day comes, the few minutes or hours you spent developing and executing a backup plan will have saved you days or weeks of effort.