Facebook is planning on changing the ‘Become a Fan’ button to a ‘Like’ button. Facebook is alerting advertisers to the imminent change by explaining that the ‘Like’ link offers “a simple, consistent way for people to connect with the things they are interested in … in fact, people click “Like” almost two times more than they click ‘Become a Fan’ everyday.”

This means that the change could make it easier for brand advertisers to gather fans quickly. But it also means that Facebook users may not completely understand what they are opting for, by clicking the button. Becoming a fan means receiving updates from the brand in your News Feed.

To read the complete story, click here.

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised.

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised.

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised.

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised.

Hilarious Typos abound! Just look around carefully, and you’ll notice that the world around is replete with comical mistakes that never should’ve seen the light of day. Unfortunately, they did.

While we do our best, we haven’t yet managed to figure out how to enforce correctness across the planet. So here’s the next best thing; we’ve collected some “outstanding” specimens for your enjoyment, each one an editor’s nightmare!

Read on. Have fun. (We didn’t!)

I guess we should leave this one alone…

Have a Nice Day!

Granted. A blog is not a thesis on English literature. Blogging is a sort of conversation, and we do make a few slip-ups when we’re chatting. But forget to cross your t’s and dot your i’s one too many times, and you run the risk of being discarded by enraged readers into the trash can of blogdom. Check out any popular blog, and you’ll be hard pressed to find language errors, no matter how urgently they’ve been churned out. Good bloggers know that correctness gives credibility.

So be natural… be conversational. Start and end with your sentences with prepositions. Use ellipses instead of em-dash. But be careful so that you do not commit any major language faux pas. We come across a few quite often, and have listed them below. We’ve also provided a short explanation of why they’re not OK, and what should be used instead. Here you go:

1. Your vs. you’re
This definitely is the ‘numero uno’ mistake that grabs eyeballs. A very common mistake which can spell doom for your content, it can be corrected if you give it a second thought before you write. While “your” is a pronoun as in your drink or your pen, “you’re” is an abbreviation of ‘you are’ like, you are destroying this line by using wrong grammar.

2. It’s vs. Its
This is another common mistake that can make the writer look very silly. This like the one above is also easily avoidable with a little bit of concentration. Here “It’s” is an abbreviation of “it is” or “it has” such as it is a big day.  “Its” is a possessive pronoun, such as “this blog began its journey last march.” An easy way is to say your sentence aloud. First say “it is”, if it doesn’t sound good then it has to be “its”.

3. There vs. Their
If you are up really late at night, and been writing for a while, this one can happen then. Often this mistake happens as a pure typo, but you have to make sure that it’s corrected during proofreading. “There” is used in many ways, like as a reference to a place (“let’s go there”) or as a pronoun (“there is no hope”). “Their”, on the other hand, is a plural possessive pronoun, as in “their bags” or “their opinions.”

4. Affect vs. Effect
“Affect” is a verb meaning ‘to have an influence on’, which is used thus – “your ability to come early will affect the project positively. Now “Effect” is a noun, as in “when I left the stove on, the effect was that the house was filled with smoke.”  When you affect a situation, you have an effect on it.

Remember to brush up on the basics, so that your credibility is never questioned in the blogosphere. Your expertise will shine through only when it’s not hidden behind the clutter of language debris.

Editing is like Gravity. It may be quite a drag, and eventually give you hanging bags under your eyes… but it is necessary nevertheless. Unless you’re cast in the same mould like the legendary Isaac Asimov, you’d fare much better with some quick editing, shaping your words for an easier and more pleasurable read. Here are some common errors that you need you look out for:

1. Extra long sentences

Do a quick check for sentences that run on for more than three lines or have more than three commas. Strictly avoid them. Try rewriting into two or three short sentences. It will have a better flow and will be easier for your readers to follow.

2. Multiple paragraphs starting with the same word

A situation where two or more paragraphs start with the same word can be quite annoying. This can be especially annoying when it’s a name or pronoun that is being repeated.

3. Descriptive dialogue tags

Dialogue tags should also be short and simple, like ending with ‘he said’ or ‘she said’. It is advisable not to include character or settings descriptions as a part of the dialogue tag.

4.  ALL CAPS

Wish we could write the word ‘never’ in caps to elucidate how caps should never be a part of your article. Most people tend to use caps to provide visual emphasis, but we would say – choose italics instead. Using the bold option is also helpful at times.

A final polish is essential to make your writing look good. So just be on the lookout for these common mistakes and your writing will pass with flying colors!

P.S: No tips for the Gravity part yet. But you can try pitching a tent on the moon…