Millions of people use Wikipedia every day to look up information, and chances are you’re one of them. Since this global resource went on line in 2001, it has grown to be the website everyone turns to first when they want answers to a question about a fact, figure, or statistic. In fact, it has become so common that it’s like breathing oxygen – it’s so much a part of our daily lives that we don’t even think about it any more. That’s why you might be surprised by these five facts about Wikipedia – which you can all find on Wikipedia itself, of course!

Surprising Fact #1: Wikipedia is even more multilingual than you thought.

There are more articles in English (almost 5 million) than in any other language, but when it comes to languages in which more than a million entries have been published, English-language articles make up less than a third of the total. Other top contributors are from authors who speak French, Spanish, Polish, Swedish, or Cebuano, one of the languages used in the Philippines.

And there are even more languages used on Wikipedia when you look at smaller total numbers of articles. Native speakers in Japan, Portugal, and China will all find at least 100,000 articles written in their language, and so will people who live in Norway, Lithuania, and the Basque country of northwest Spain and southwest France.

Surprising Fact #2: Earlier versions of Wikipedia articles are stored, not deleted.

Most people think that an online entry in Wikipedia can’t be trusted because anyone can go in and make changes and edits. While it is true that articles are open to editing, there are also thousands of dedicated editors who watch for people who are making destructive changes, which they call “vandalism.” The website also has automatic subroutines that watch for the same thing happening at the database level. If a page has been tampered with, the previous correct version can be restored.

Surprising Fact #3: Wikipedia is updated thousands of times per hour.

Somewhere in the world, someone is updating a Wikipedia article right now. Actually, there are likely a hundred people editing articles right this very second, and another hundred just started on a different set of article edits and additions. In many categories of information, such as politics and current events, Wikipedia is one of the most up-to-date resources you can find.

Surprising Fact #4: No matter where you start in Wikipedia, you’ll end up on the same page.

The next time you have a few minutes to spare, try this trick:

1. Go to any Wikipedia page, such as eReflect’s Wikipedia page.

2. Find the first internal Wikipedia link on the page (not one that is in parentheses or italics).

3. Click the link. Now look for the first internal link on that new page.

4. Repeat step 3.

More than 90 percent of the time, if you keep clicking on the first internal link of every article, you’ll eventually end up at the Wikipedia page titled “Philosophy.” Now that’s food for thought!

Surprising Fact #5: Wikipedia contains information on anything you can think of – and more.

If you’re interested in learning something new, but you don’t know where to start, you can always type in a random word or phrase in the “search” box at the top of any Wikipedia page. You could also click the “Random Article” link on the left sidebar menu. It’s a great way to get new ideas and inspiration for more reading and research, and you’ll see articles on topics you never even dreamed of, like these:

– the prehistoric South American mammal called Nesodon, which weighed over a ton

a) Big Time, the live album by Tom Waits released in 1988

b) the names of the global rulers and heads of government in 503 AD

c) 19th-century Cuban revolutionary Ignacio Agramonte

A word of warning: using Wikipedia’s “Random Article” link will lead you to entertaining articles and interesting facts, but it can be addictive. There’s always more to learn with just one more click . . .

Most people don’t really want to go back to work in the office after a nice relaxing vacation, and for many of them one of the main reasons is the huge backlog of e-mail messages waiting for them. With all of the e-mails coming in every day it’s necessary to make sure you don’t waste time on the ones that aren’t important, but that you do get the most out of the messages containing the information that you need. To save time and get through your inbox in the most efficient way, try these useful tips:

Start using keyword searches. Even if you’ve got 50 e-mails from the same department, they might not all be about the same thing. Do a quick keyword search using a term that you know is likely to be in the messages that you need to see – for example, the word project or meeting. If you’re working on something specific with a group, pick a term that relates to your current task, such as upgrade or rollout. The most timely messages should pop to the top of the list, and the messages about the upcoming birthday potluck will fall to the bottom.

Identify key collaborators. Many e-mail services allow you to set up different groups and assign people to those groups. If you can identify the people whose messages you almost always need to read right away, you can put them in one or two separate groups, and go to those messages first.

Stay away from the crowds. While there might be company-wide e-mails sent out that you do need to read, many people use the “send to all” feature much more often than they need to. You’ll probably be able to immediately see whether you’re one of a hundred others on an e-mail list, and just by looking at the number of people who received the message you’ll get an idea if you’ve been sent the message for no particular reason other than that you’re in someone’s e-mail address book.

Highlight the important information. If you can use your e-mail service to automatically assign a color flag to certain senders or keywords you’ll have an easy way to visually sort through your inbox before you go any further. You’ll be able to quickly spot the red-flagged or urgent messages and handle those first.

Let the system do the sorting. This might be something you need to work with a systems administrator on, but it’s likely that there is a way for you to set up folders and have the e-mail system automatically route messages into those folder, either by keyword topic or by sender. In addition, you can make sure that people who you need to communicate with by e-mail set up their systems to use the same method, and your folder will serve as the go-to spot for all of your e-mails, so that they don’t get lost among the hundreds of others you receive in your main mailbox.

The apostrophe has two main functions.

The first is to show omission of letters and the second is to show possession, which is what we’ll look at here.

Using the apostrophe to indicate possession

It’s easy when you write about the dog’s dinner; the man’s stunningly beautiful wife, Lavinia; Lavinia’s personal trainer, Lars, and so on.

It starts to get tricky (for Lavinia’s husband and for us) when we get to Lars. Is Lavinia Lars’ best client? Could it be that she is Lars’s ticket to that new Porsche he’s had his eye on for some time?

If he was plain old Bill there wouldn’t be a problem — she would be Bill’s best client and the ticket to Bill’s new Porsche.

We’ll assume (rightly, as it happens) that Lavinia is a Lady Who Lunches, and when she does lunch with her friends, they visit a women’s club. It’s not a womens’ club. When a word is made plural by changing some of its interior bits, you don’t make it doubly plural in the possessive.

When a word ends in ‘s’ and an additional syllable is pronounced in the possessive, add apostrophe S (even if you end up with 3 s’s). So you’d have the ladies going to their tennis class before lunch, and Lavinia being very chuffed when her coach, Mr Harris, told her she was the class’s best player. Although it’s difficult to know whether Mr Harris’s opinion is very reliable — he’s a push-over for a pretty face and a flash of a shapely thigh.

When writing about joint ownership, possession is shown only on the last noun, but where individual ownership exists, possession is shown on each noun.

Lavinia and her husband’s new yacht was the venue for a fancy-dress party.

Lavinia’s and Raoul’s sailor suits were a hit with their guests.

T’riffic Tip

The very best way to remember when to use the possessive apostrophe — in any circumstance — is to substitute the word ‘of’ …

The women’s club – the club of the women

Lavinia’s personal trainer – the personal trainer of Lavinia

Her husband’s new yacht – the yacht of her husband

This is also the way you test for those really tricky ones:

three months’ experience – the experience of three months

So, if you’re tempted to use an apostrophe but you can’t substitute “of” … then leave it out!

Banana’s only $2 kilo – the … of … bananas, kilos? … @#!

All these shop’s sell clothes – the … of … shops, clothes? … @#!

OK … you get the message. Don’t just whack in an apostrophe every time you end a word with S!

About the Author: Jennifer Stewart is a freelance writer whose site, http://www.write101.com has been helping people solve their writing problems since 1998. Visit now to read numerous articles on how to write well — for profit or pleasure — and sign up for your free Writing Tips: mailto: WritingTips [email protected]

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Social media has become a strategized corporate priority. Businesses of all sorts and sizes are jumping onto the social media marketing bandwagon, some because everyone else is doing it, others because they’ve truly realized the power social media has to offer.

For social media marketing to work, a solid plan has to be in place. Blindingly engaging in social media doesn’t lead anywhere. How are you going to quantify the success of your social media marketing if you don’t know what your milestones are?

Having a social media plan ensures you can engage with your company’s followers, create awareness and visibility around your brand, and hopefully turn more visitors and followers into loyal customers, thereby increasing sales.

Some questions you need to answer for your social media campaigns to be effective are basic. How do you write effective tweets? What’s the best time to post on Facebook? Do you really need to use Instagram too?

Once you’ve got these answers and a content marketing editorial calendar, you need to take into account the following questions:

Should you ever self-promote?

If you have a blog post you want to tweet about, you don’t just create promotional tweets. This is the number one mistake businesses make: using social media as marketers only, and not as end users.

To appeal to your Twitter followers you need to make them feel they’re on the same page as you are, sharing the same concerns and the same tastes. They need to feel you are sharing something because you care, not because your primary goal is to promote your blog and have more people read and comment on it.

That’s why you need to be careful when you repurpose content for social media. You don’t make it “pitchy,” you simply make it useful and shareable.

For instance, don’t say, “Hey! I just published my new post on how to increase productivity. Please share and comment if you like it!”

Try this instead: “Productivity is a state of mind you need to embrace. Are you guilty of these 3 sabotaging habits? Read more here.” A teaser tweet like this doesn’t promote, it educates; it doesn’t sell, it helps.

This is the difference between promotional content and educational content. Your social media marketing should mostly revolve around educational, informative content your users will find helpful and will be eager to engage with.

Do you A/B test your strategy?

What works for a multinational brand won’t work for your 5-employee company. The best way to see what works for you is to test various types of content. Experiment with copy, with audio and video, with infographics, with sweepstakes, and so forth.

See what engages your readers the most. What is making them share and comment, and what leaves them indifferent?

You cannot predict what will work, you need to A/B test it to find out – and then adapt your strategy according to the results.

Do you offer quality content, all the time?

You might waste a lot of money on a promising social media campaign only to realize it didn’t have the expected results. The most common culprit is poor content quality and lack of coherence and direction.

Don’t be present and active on every social network out there, because you’ll be spreading yourself too thin. Pick no more than 3 social networks to engage with, and make sure you give your full attention to your communities there.

Instead of wasting time and resources on being present on all social media, make it mission to offer high-quality, engaging content in just two or three channels. This way your followers will instantly realize you’re dedicated and will be coming back to engage with your brand.

Focusing on only a few social media outlets also has the added benefit of helping to ensure the quality of your content. The less you’re consumed with, the better the outcome.

Ultimately, for a social media marketing campaign to work, it’s all about undivided attention and valuable content that’s fresh. Good luck!

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You want more user engagement. But then, so does everyone else.

What makes a piece of online content shareable? What urges people to comment on and engage with a brand? Is it the images? The tone? What kind of influence do words really have?

One of the most talked-about topics on the subject of creating online content is headlines. There’s an ever-growing body of literature on how to craft the most brilliant, share-worthy headlines, the ones that will prompt your readers to engage with you.

A headline might seem like something you don’t need to waste too much time on, but the truth is that the headline is generally the only thing a reader will read. It’s the headline that makes them decide whether your 1,200-word post is worth their time.

However, even TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read) pieces do get shared and commented on, and this is entirely because of an effective headline.

When it comes to crafting your content, word choice for your headlines is the alpha and the omega. Here are a few tips to increase engagement with a few tweaks on how you craft your headlines.

Social Media Matters

There’s no single rule as to what kind of words work well in headlines. According to QuickSprout, words like contest and coupon don’t increase engagement on Facebook.

On the contrary, if you use words like submit, deal, and discount on Facebook you’re more likely to get a lot of shares, likes, and comments.

The important thing to take away here is to tailor your content for each platform and medium. Never use the same copywriting formula across different social media, because it will cost you time and lost earnings.

Not all social media sites are created equal; the demographics and types of consumers who use each can vary widely, and it’s your responsibility to know what resonates with whom, and where.

QuickSprout reports that for Facebook you’re more likely to boost user engagement with words such as these:

When

Tell us

Comment

Post

Would

Inspire

Win

Event

Blacklisted words: contest, promotion, sweepstakes, coupon

Twitter is a completely different realm with different user engagement trigger words. QuickSprout says these are the words to focus on in Twitter:

Help

Retweet

Social

Check out

How to

Please

LinkedIn is a professional social network that calls for a more formal discourse. Words that are more likely to boost engagement in this realm are:

Developed

Improved

Under Budget

Researched and Accomplished

Specific Words To Use In Your Headlines

There’s a lot to learn about the best words to use in your social media content. Be sure to also be aware of meaningless buzzwords you should avoid at all costs.

Knowing what works well with which social network is not enough. You also need words that work well across the board.

The words, you, what, how, and when are among the most popular words in headlines for articles whose content goes viral.

Things Get Personal

Among the most popular words that you will find in a viral headline are the words you (588 instances) and your (202).

This indicates that when headlines directly address the reader they have a better chance of getting shared, retweeted, commented on, and liked by people.

When it comes to headlines, what makes them irresistible? When they’re in the form of a question. Question headlines address the reader directly and this directness makes it hard for a reader to skip over or ignore it.

Take HappyPlace’s popular series of posts that follow the same structure each time:

5 Things You Should At Least Pretend To Know Today

This is a headline that targets people’s need for being “in the know.” To intensify this insecurity, the headline editor makes sure they reference the reader in the headline so that there’s no question who the headline is talking to. Can you resist clicking to read?

Takeaway

Use the words you, your, this, when, what, and how in your headlines whenever possible.

These words take an abstract concept and make it more specific. Using this makes a headline more immediate, specific, and personal. The words when and how can be used to create questions, and
question headlines attract engagement.

Lastly, don’t forget to tailor your headlines for each social network for maximum results.

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The Internet revolutionized reading in the 21st century, something everybody realizes now. The numbers alone speak volumes: 11 years ago about 22% of Americans chose the Internet to get their news, but in 2013, that number had risen to 39%. The statistics are revealing, and attest to the fact that e-books, news, entertainment, and communication are all taking place online.

Online, tech-based reading is on the rise

According to Kathryn Zickuhr, Internet researcher at the Pew Research Center, 55% of Americans own a smartphone and 24% an e-reader.

E-reading is a trend that continues to grow. In 2011, only 16% of the American participants in the Pew study read an ebook, but in 2012 that number rose to 23%. Print book reading dropped from 72% to 67% from 2011 to 2012. Again, there’s a strong but gradual tendency to read more ebooks than paper ones.

Rituals that are intimacy-based favor print book reading

While traditional reading rituals like reading with a child or with another person are still mostly likely to be done with print books, participants in the study who commuted regularly confirmed that ebooks are their preferred medium for reading when travelling. Not only does an e-reader have the advantage of letting you keep a wider selection of books available, it allows you to access new books easily and quickly.

The future of libraries

Libraries are not dying, and many people still visit them. In fact, 73% of the people surveyed visit a library with the express purpose of borrowing books.

What’s been noticeably absent from libraries is the time spent in them. People generally no longer browse shelves as frequently. They find the books in the library’s website, reserve them on line, and go pick them up, a time-saving approach that librarians say is on the rise.

As the purpose of libraries shifts, their cultural role is becoming even stronger. People regard libraries as community spaces for ongoing cultural expression and communication. Lectures, cultural events, and meetings are all part of the many activities taking place at libraries today, giving them a role in peoples’ lives beyond studying and reading books.

Reader expectations changing

Online content is changing the expectations of readers. The print book is not going to be replaced any time soon, but libraries are already feeling the need to adjust to a more tech-based environment.

In fact, the survey illustrated that people are keen to use tech services like pre-loaded ebooks, or classes on how to use e-readers. Most modern libraries have online catalogs that let people borrow library-owned e-books, and even the smallest library is striving to offer more automated and online services to the public.

As we move into a digital era of content dissemination, the need for libraries and other cultural institutions to keep up with technology will not decrease. Libraries that stubbornly refuse to offer online facilities like ebook borrowing, free access to databases, and digitized books will run the risk of being neglected and forgotten. Technology is changing the reading expectations of modern readers, and society – and its libraries – has to respond accordingly and promptly.

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People make mistakes – especially in spelling. We should make sure we are not going to announce it in public though.

Here are some of the hysterical spelling mistakes you will see roaming around the streets during protests. Get ready to LAUGH OUT LOUD!

Hungry For A Steak or A Mistake?

Talking About Competence

Let’s Make It Official Then

Oh No! Not in PUBLIC

Really Confused Here

The Lack Of Space

Vandalize, You Say?

Kindly Put The Letter G To Complete Washington

Arithmetic Is Really Hard

Pardon Me?

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This week I’m in New Zealand, checking out some of the language schools here. They are really quite good and the students certainly improve their English.

But do you really have to travel overseas to get really good at English?

Well, if you asked me 15 years ago I would have said “Yes!” To learn English well you need to hear it, listen to it, speak it and really live it. And to get a great accent, it all has to come from native speakers. 15 years ago we had no option. We had to travel overseas to get this experience.

But today everything has changed. We carry around in our pockets dictionaries that contain every word ever written, we have pronunciations for every phrase we can think of, we have videos of every movie or TV show ever created and we can video chat with people at the other side of the world virtually for free. If you add in all the great software and computer learning packages around, you really don’t have to leave home if you don’t want.

Of course it’s better to learn overseas if you can. But before you invest all that extra money on the big trip overseas, really get the most out of your time back home using all the technology you can. Set yourself weekly goals, and set aside 50 minute blocks where you’ll just do language work. Set time for reading, listening and speaking (via skype or social media.) Plus of course listen to your favorite songs and movies in English whenever you can.

I promise you, the more you learn now, the more you’ll get out of your big trip!

Author’s Bio: Richard Graham is the CEO of GenkiEnglish.com He is constantly learning new languages, speaks 3 of them fluently and has lectured on language learning throughout the world. You can find out more at: http://GenkiEnglish.com

Originally posted in Wordela Blog