Happy New Year

A very Happy New Year to all the readers and friends of The Write Corner. We reproduce here an all time favorite by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Ring Out, Wild Bells

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

How did English evolve?

Apologies

I’d like to apologize to my readers for not being around for some time. I’ll soon be back with more posts on a more regular basis. In the meantime, do read and comment on the previous posts.

Happy reading!

Quotes on Punctuation

*  The writer who neglects punctuation, or mispunctuates, is liable to be misunderstood. … For the want of merely a comma, it often occurs that an axiom appears a paradox, or that a sarcasm is converted into a sermonoid.  ~ Edgar Allen Poe

*  Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.  ~  F. Scott Fitzgerald

*  No iron can pierce the heart with such force as a period put just at the right place.  ~ Isaac Babel

*  You practically do not use semicolons at all. This is a symptom of mental defectiveness, probably induced by camp life.  ~  George Bernard Shaw

*  Sometimes you get a glimpse of a semicolon coming, a few lines farther on, and it is like climbing a steep path through woods and seeing a wooden bench just at a bend in the road ahead, a place where you can expect to sit for a moment, catching your breath.  ~  Lewis Thomas

*  In the family of punctuation, where the full stop is daddy and the comma is mummy and the semicolon quietly practices the piano with crossed hands, the exclamation mark is the big attention-deficit brother who gets over-excited and breaks things and laughs too loudly.  ~  Lynne Truss

*  A period is a stop sign. A semicolon is a rolling stop sign; a comma is merely an amber light.  ~  Andrew Offutt

*  Used sparingly, the semicolon emphasizes your crucial contrasts; used recklessly, it merely clutters your page.  ~  Sheridan Baker

*  If the semicolon is one of the neglected children in the family of punctuation marks these days, told to stay in its room and entertain itself, because mummy and daddy are busy, the apostrophe is the abused victim.  ~  John Humphrys

*  From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.  ~  Winston Churchill

Writing Effective Resumes

Writing a resume can intimidate anyone. How should I start? What should I write? What points should I include? What format should I use? These are just a few of the questions that can bother anyone. But if you keep a few things in mind, you’ll see that it’s not really that daunting a task.

Employers receive hundreds of resumes, so the main thing to keep in mind is to try and make your resume stand out and grab the employer’s attention at first glance. To be able to do this, it should be visually pleasing as well as well written. There are no set rules to writing a good resume, nor are two resumes ever alike. They cannot be, because each resume is structured around a particular job. The only thing all resumes should be is that they should all be as effective as possible, because remember – a resume is supposed to be a selling tool. The more effectively it is written the better your chances of being selected. For a resume to be really effective, tailor it around the particular job that you are applying for, and address the employer’s requirements. So the more you know about the job and the employer, the better you can tailor your resume for that position.

A good resume should include all of the following:

• Heading – includes your name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address.
• Objective – tells the employer the sort of work you’re hoping to do. The rest should be structured around this objective.
• Education – tells employers what you’ve learned.
• Experience – this should be built around the employer’s requirements.
• Skills and accomplishments – this includes special skills and accomplishments like fluency in a foreign language, proficiency in specific computer programs, leadership experience, a listing of honors and awards, activities that relate to the job, etc.

The contents given above should be written clearly keeping the following points in mind:

• Keep it free of grammatical and spelling errors.
• Use bullets and short sentences.
• Use action words to make the resume stand out.
• Highlight your strengths, especially those that the employer is looking for
• Be positive and leave off negative and irrelevant information.
• Be professional in tone, otherwise you won’t be taken seriously.

There are two basic types of resumes – chronological and functional.

The chronological format highlights your job titles, places of employment, and dates of tenure by presenting them as headings under which your achievements are listed. This format is used when you are staying in the same field, your work history shows growth, your current position is one you are proud of, and there are no gaps in your work history.

The functional format presents your experience under skill headings, so you can list your accomplishments by impact rather than by chronology. In this format, your work history is listed very concisely in a section separate from your achievements. This format is used when you change careers, you need to emphasize skills or experiences, your most recent position is not impressive, or your job titles don’t accurately reflect the level of responsibility you had.

Sometimes the two formats are combined to give what is called a ‘combination’ format.

Which format to use depends on your particular situation.

To get a better idea of what good and effective resumes look like, you may refer to these Sample Resumes.