i want to become freelance writer.but i want to learn writing styles like mla,apa and many other.Where can i learn those writing styles?
I couldn't have said it better. To the OP: You might want to refine your English first. Only then can you even think of being a real writer.
MLA and APA are mere citation styles. A simple Google search will reveal the answer. As for writing styles in general, the best way to learn how to write is... to read. I'm not a fan of self help books and the like, a mere analysis of some samples written by professionals can work wonders. Hope this helps. Best regards, George
I agree with the "self help" comment. Those that can't... write books about writing. Although I do know there is one book out there that is supposed to be like the ultimate writer's reference, but I can't think of the name of it. Your best option if you want to learn to write is to check out amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com, and check both what the author has to say on each book, as well as reviews from other customers. This has worked best for me when I needed to learn a new technology in my IT Career. I would think writing would be no different. Also if you read a lot, then you will start to pick up on writing styles naturally. However, you need to read the books that are similar to what you are wanting to write.
Before you can write in any style of English, you need to learn English syntax. The associated press has a style guide. I believe that's what you mean by APA. If you're going to write freelance copy as a business, you'll probably want to use several guides. I use the "Manual for Wreters & Editors" and "The Random House English Language Desk Reference" as well as the "Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual". You can probably find any of these available if you do a search at an online bookseller.
thank you for providing information. But which book i should buy?I am brilliant student.when i was in school i scored 70% marks in class tenth and 12 standard.i am capable of developing skills in myself.
Whether you are capable of developing skills or not, the fact of the matter remains that you need to work on your English skills if you plan to market your writing to an English-speaking market. It's quite obvious from your posts that English is not your native language. I do not mean to sound harsh, but your grammar and punctuation are far from perfect as you claimed. If you are really determined to succeed at learning various writing styles, please work on your use of the language first.
This is very true. It doesn't matter what knowledge you have of any subject, if the translation is not good, you will be looking at bad reviews of your work. I will give you a very good example. I went to tech school, to get a quickie IT degree. It started out with using american books. These were books that were from Microsoft Press, O'reilly Publishing, etc. which did not require translation. While that was going on, I started believing that a tech school was better than a real university. After about 6 months, they switched to these books from NIIT, which were more or less translated from India's language to English. I soon learned why tech schools were terrible, or at least the tech school I went to. The translations were very bad and would confuse students. This didn't affect me that much since I already knew most of what I was being taught. However, the people that didn't know, and actually needed to learn this stuff struggled a lot. The exams were always off, as well as the labs. This made it very difficult to learn, especially with a lot of translations having the context all wrong. My point is this... you need to speak English so fluently that it is like English was your first language. You need to speak English better than your own language. With that being said you need to be able to write it with the same ability. Being able to communicate in a different language is one thing... being able to write in that language is a completely different story.
Laxmi, try Elements of Style by Strunk and White. It will help you get started on improving your grammar, punctuation and crafting your sentences. You can grab it for free at the Gutenberg site. You can't have the latest edition there, but the old edition would do. I get most of the books that I like at that site, including the treatises of Albert Einstein If you couldn't find Elements of Style at Gutenberg, try Google. Add the word "free" to the title when you do your search.
right now i am attending english grammar classes to improve my english. But here in india people are not perfect in english because their national and regional languages are not english. There are 26 different languages in india.So i used to speak only my state regional language rather than english.suppose if i would speak english regularly then my english will develop automatically.and indians always follow british english because their english is correct and right.i tried elements of style at gutenburg but i did not get it.anyway here what book i should buy here kindly tell. http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?WRD=mla+style&z=y http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?WRD=apa+style&z=y
Speak for yourself... I personally know a lot of people from the subcontinent who'd give any native English speaker a run for his money. You're saying Indians suck at English (even if not verbatim), and maybe that applies to you and people you know but not to everyone else. I don't mean to sound patronizing but that's the way I see it. Cheers
Gotta love these cultural clashes. Anyway my piece of advice still stands. I learned English less from the classroom and more from actually reading books. I'd actually go a step further and recommend you to read some poetry. Think about it. You will learn more than grammar and punctuation, you will capture the soul and beauty of the language. And if you really want to make a career out of writing, the last part is considerably more important. Best regards, George
when we are born we are not perfect in anything but we have to make perfect ourselves one by one.which book i should buy? http://search.barnesandnoble.com/boo...=mla+style&z=y http://search.barnesandnoble.com/boo...=apa+style&z=y
Post the ISBN numbers. Those links don't work. Or post the titles of the books, but ISBN would be better.
what is meant by ISBN? I did not get any books related to mla and apa style at www.amazon.com .Then i went to http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ and searched the site by just typing mla style and apa style in the search column.It started displaying big list of books available.now please tell me which book should i buy?
i also found the books at amazon check it out and tell which one i should buy http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b...ks&field-keywords=apa+writing+style&x=12&y=17