It can be a matter of confusion that how should mathematical numbers be used correctly while writing  an article or any other piece of composition. Following rules offer help in this regard.

• According to most copy editors and English teachers, the numbers zero to nine inclusive should be "written out" – meaning instead of "1" and "2", one would write "one" and "two".

                   Example: "I have two apples." (Preferred)

                   Example: "I have 2 apples."

•         After "nine", one can head straight back into the 10, 11, 12, etc., although some write out the numbers until "twelve".

                   Example: "I have 28 grapes." (Preferred)

                   Example: "I have twenty-eight grapes."

•         Another common usage is to write out any number that can be expressed as one or two words, and use figures otherwise.

                   Examples:

                   "There are six million dogs." (Preferred)

                   "There are 6,000,000 dogs." (The reader might end up counting                          zeroes!!!!)

                   "That is one hundred (and) twenty-five oranges."

                   "That is 125 oranges." (Preferred)

•         Numbers at the beginning of a sentence should also be written out.

          "Two of my friends are waiting for me." (Preferred)

          "2 of my friends are waiting for me."

The above rules are not always used.

•         In literature, larger numbers might be spelled out.
•         On the other hand, digits might be more commonly used in technical or financial articles, where many figures are discussed.
•         In particular, the two different forms should not be used for figures that serve the same purpose.

                   Example, it is inelegant to write, "Between day twelve and day                           15 of the study, the population doubled."

Love at First Talk - A Story in Verse

Love at First Talk! 

There are people who believe in love at first sight. For them, love is an exciting dating period followed by a long-term marital relationship. Then there are people who believe in so-called mature love. They first marry and then love, but they rely on others for the choice of their spouses. However, the assurance of success of the relationships, in both the cases, is doubtful.

Apart from these, there is a class of people, who does not bother about logics of life. Such people rely solely on their intuition and follow it blindly. From the minute choice of selecting a candy to the life affecting decision of desiring a life mate, is made irrationally by them. They are often criticized by others, for being excessively careless and are also warned for the possibility of collapsing later in their lives. However, the probability of success and failure of others have been discussed as well!

The persona, in this story, belongs to the third category. She is a young girl, guided purely by her intuition sans any logic. She believes in the supremacy of God and does not challenge or interfere with His plans. She, although appears to be happy outwardly; within her, carries pains, sufferings and torments. Due to her introvert nature, never she is able to reveal her real self to any one.

Social obligations force her to bear pain in silence so that her mental turmoil is not traced by anyone. But, above all there is He, the ultimate decision taker, who decides for all of us. One fine day, He, in the execution of His divine plans, makes an unknown stranger from a distant land; call her, only to completely transform her life.

( To know more about LAFT or to buy it log onto the publication site. )

Call for Research Papers

Biographies and Autobiographies occupy an important place in Literature for various reasons. Authors used this genre to communicate their worldviews to people. Gandhi’s The Story of My Experiments with Truth is an excellent example. My Truth by Indira Gandhi is yet another example of communicating the message of an individual to a larger world. Jivansmriti (Reminiscences) of Rabindranath Tagore narrates his early years of life, while in Toward Freedom: the Autobiography of Jawaharlal Nehru Nehru writes to his “own countrymen and women.” Nirad C. Chaudhuri’s The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, published in 1951, stands apart as a great master-piece, combining personal life experiences with a strong motivated worldview (“the conditions in which an Indian grew to manhood in the early decades of this century” [20^th century].

Rationale and Justification for Writing Autobiography

These leaders have also debated on the need or otherwise for writing such works.

Jawaharlal Nehru writes in his Autobiography: “… this account is wholly one-sided and, inevitably, egotistical; many important happenings have been completely ignored and many important persons, who shaped events, have hardly been mentioned. In a real survey of past events this would have been inexcusable, but a personal account can claim this indulgence.”

Gandhi justified writing an autobiography with these words:

But a God-fearing friend had his doubts, which he shared with me on my day of silence. 'What has set you on this adventure? he asked. 'Writing an autobiography is a practice peculiar to the West. I know of nobody in the East having written one, except amongst those who have come under Western influence. And what will you write? Supposing you reject tomorrow the things you hold as principles today, or supposing you revise in the future your plans of today, is it not likely that the men who shape their conduct on the authority of your word, spoken or written, may be misled. Don't you think it would be better not to write anything like an autobiography, at any rate just yet?'

This argument had some effect on me. But it is not my purpose to attempt a real

autobiography. I simply want to tell the story of my numerous experiments with truth, and as my life consists of nothing but those experiments, it is true that the story will take the shape of an autobiography. But I shall not mind, if every page of it speaks only of my experiments. I believe, or at any rate flatter myself with the belief, that a connected account of all these experiments will not be without benefit to the reader.

Language Medium for Major Autobiographies and Biographies

Indira Gandhi’s work is a compilation of her writings in a manner that the book has an autobiographical format. Nehru wrote his Autobiography in English. Gandhi and Tagore wrote their autobiographies first in their mother tongues (Gujarati and Bengali respectively) and then they sort of translated or recreated their works in English. Nirad Chaudhuri wrote his celebrated work in English.

Biographies in Indian Writing in English

There are many biographies written by Indian authors. These biographies cover many personalities from every field: politics, science, sports, cinema, drama, religion, literature, etc. Indeed, biography writing is a very popular pursuit among Indian writers in English and other Indian languages. Sahitya Akademi has brought out a number of biographies of varied quality.

Controversial nature of Biographies and Autobiographies

Both biographies and autobiographies may raise controversies of various types: political, social, familial, regional, religious, etc.

A recent biography-like book on Muhammad Ali Jinnah by Jaswant Singh (Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence) raised a hue and cry among Jaswant Singh’s own party members.  Earlier in recent times, actor Om Puri’s biography Unusual Hero by his wife created strong and deep controversies. Such controversies arise out of revelations in public of private personal acts and thoughts that may involve others and thus hurt the feelings, careers and interests of people referred to. It looks like that the biographer or the autobiographer never asks the permission of others to narrate the incidents which involve these “friends”, etc.!

Autobiography and Biography versus Fiction Writing

Writing an autobiography or biography is quite different from writing a novel or short story or any type of material that aims at catering to the literary sensibility of its readers. Facts and related, relevant and appropriate interpretation of facts and events become the hall mark of autobiography and biography, in some sense.

Narration is usually straightforward following the course of events and implications presented in these works. Authors of fiction have greater freedom and employ many techniques of presentation in their narratives. Hidden and explicit metaphors, lack of any explicit didactic conversations, creating curiosity to look forward to the next event, conflict, confrontation, resolution, etc. play an important role here. Characterization and characters follow a different course in fiction than in autobiography or biography. Actually, most events narrated in biographies and even autobiographies are already public knowledge. On the other hand, fiction offers a progressive revelation of unknown events, etc.

However, autobiographies and biographies have their own aspects difficult to master. Even the authors of these works are burdened with the responsibility of ensuring that the readers are with them and are comfortable with the journey they choose to undertake with the authors.

The Goal of This Special Volume

The goal of this Special Volume is to make a survey of some of the major autobiographies and biographies written in English. It is assumed that work should try to bring put some hidden fact or incident of the life of the person.

How to go for it?

1. Choose an autobiography or biography.

2. Describe the content briefly.

3. Focus on the structure of the chosen autobiography or biography: introduction, chapterization, language and style, narrative techniques, idioms and metaphors, their justification for writing the autobiography or biography and how this justification is revealed in their works, clarity of language and thought, effect on readers, readability of the text, gaps in information, gaffes, etc. This is only suggestive of what you can do. You need to be creative and imaginative to work on your plan of research, description, analysis and interpretation, conclusion, etc.

4. You may also make a comparative or contrastive of two or more autobiographies or biographies available in English and in other languages.

Please write to the editors of this special volume for any clarification you need.

CALL FOR RESEARCH PAPERS ON

Revelation of Truths:

Critical Perspectives on Autobiographies and Biographies in English

Editors

Dr. Arvind Nawale,

(Head, Dept of English, Shivaji Mahavidhylaya, Udgir, Dist: Latur (M.S.)

Ankita Khanna,

(Lecturer in English, Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, Surat (Gujarat)

No Contribution/Subscription fees. Papers will be accepted and published free of cost and only on basis of quality and each contributor will get a free complimentary copy from publisher

Dear All,

We are glad to inform you that we are going to edit jointly a book of research papers on Autobiographies and Biographies in English tentatively titled as Revelation of Truths: Critical Perspectives on Autobiographies and Biographies in English. Authentic, scholarly and unpublished research papers are invited from scholars/faculty/researchers/writers/professors from all over the world for this volume.

Proposed Publisher:

The volume will be published with an ISBN (International Standard Book Number) by a renowned publisher from India.

Thematic Focus of the Volume:

The articles should be on any theme of confession, revelation of truth on any work of English Autobiographies and Biographies.

Editing requirements:

●      Paper size: A4, Font & size: Times New Roman 12, Spacing: Single line, Margin of 1 inch on all four sides.

●      Title of the paper: bold, title case (Capitalize each word), centered.

●      Text of the paper: justified. Font & size: Times New Roman 12.

●      References: Please follow MLA style (Only Author-Date or Number System) strictly. Don’t use Foot Notes. Instead use End Notes.

●      Titles of books: Italics.

●      Titles of articles from journals and books: “quoted”.

●      Articles should be submitted as MS Word 2003-2007attachments only.

●      The paper should not usually exceed 14 pages maximum, 5 pages minimum in single spacing.

●      Each paper must be accompanied by i)  A declaration that it is an original work and has not been published anywhere else or send for publication  ii) Abstract of paper about 100-200 words and iii) A short bio-note of the contributor(s) indicating name, institutional affiliation, brief career history, postal address, mobile number and e-mail, in a single attachment. Please don’t send more attachments. Give these things below your paper and send all these things in a separate single MS-Word attachment.

●      The papers submitted should evince serious academic work contributing new knowledge or innovative critical perspectives on the subject explored.

Mode of Submission:

Each contributor is advised to send full paper with brief bio-note, declaration and abstract as a single MS-Word email attachments to email addresses: ankita.khanna@ymail.com up to 15^th April 2012. The contributors are also supposed to submit one hard copy of (i) Full paper (ii) A declaration and (iii) Abstract and (iv) Brief bio-note typed in above mentioned format to the postal address given bellow. One hard copy is required for our record. Without hard copy, no paper will be considered for publication.

Selection Procedure:

All submissions will be sent for blind peer reviewing. Final selection will be made only if the papers are recommended for publication by the reviewers. The details of the selection of your paper will be informed to you telephonically or on your email. The editor has the right to make necessary editing of selected papers for the sake of conceptual clarity and formatting. Non-selected papers will not be sent back to the contributor in any form. So, all contributors are advised to keep a copy of their submission with them. Each contributor will get a free complimentary copy from publisher but in case of joint paper, only first writer will get free copy. Overseas contributors will get a soft copy (pdf) of their papers with details of ISBN specification.

Plagiarism Alert:

Contributors are advised to adhere to strict academic ethics with respect to acknowledgment of original ideas from others. The editors will not be responsible for any such lapse of the contributor. All submissions should be original and must be accompanied by a declaration that it is an original work and has not been published anywhere else. It will be your sole responsibility for such lapses, if any. Neither editor, nor publisher will be responsible for it.

 For more details email the editor at ankita.khanna@ymail.com

Freelancers: What to charge?

When someone hires you to do a special writing job, they give you the assignment and you do the job. Sounds pretty simple, right? Well, not really.

These are examples of complaints I've received over the years:

A local drycleaner thought he could write his own brochure, but he just "didn't have the time." He hired Melanie, a professional copywriter, to write it for him for a flat fee, and gave her a list of bullet points to include. After the job was complete, he decided he wanted to add a few more bullet points and remove some he'd provided previously...but he didn't understand why Melanie asked for more money.

The marketing manager of an old business downtown hired Jeff to ghostwrite a historical book about the company. The book would be offered to local bookstores and be used to generate publicity, of course, but the main purpose of the project was to provide a marketing freebie to potential clients. The marketing manager sent Jeff a very detailed outline of the project along with a list of interviewees. A few weeks later, after more executives at the firm got excited about the project, they all started getting ideas. Some items Jeff had already written were deleted and the list of interviewees suddenly got much longer. When Jeff asked for a contract amendment and more money, the marketing manager told him there were no more funds in the budget and that the original flat fee was the only money available for the project. He even threatened to sue Jeff if he refused to finish the book, saying there was nothing in the contract that allowed Jeff to quit the project.

Linda was hired to write a series of press releases by the co-owner of a company. After completing the third press release, the company's other owner decided he didn't like the way the series was progressing. He wanted the first three press releases changed. Linda asked for additional payment to make the changes because the scope of the project had changed so drastically. The company balked at her request, fired her, hired another writer to finish the series, and never paid Linda's invoices.

Scott was hired to ghostwrite a novel for an individual. He completed the work and sent the manuscript and his invoice to his client. The client phoned a few weeks later to say she now wanted the book written in first-person. When Scott requested more money, she told him he should have thought about this possibility before he agreed to the contracted price.

I receive emails almost daily from writers asking me what they should charge for special projects like these. My answer is always the same - charge them BY THE HOUR!

Most people who have an idea for a new project only have a very rough idea of what they want, and they almost always change their minds about some or all of the project along the way. Unfortunately, when this happens, especially when writing is involved, many people don't think the writer deserves any more money to incorporate the changes. Why? Perhaps they think "it won't take very long." Or, maybe they think you "just have to move a few sentences around." They don't want their budget disturbed and almost always want to blame the writer if something doesn't turn out as they'd hoped it would.

A sad fact of being in our industry, and probably the main reason why some people think writers don't deserve payment for their work, is because most people think that, just because they can type or hold a pen, they can write. Thus, they think writers' jobs are easy. One certainty about our industry is that books, brochures, websites, and even most articles are NEVER published as first written. The boss almost always wants some changes, often because they've changed their mind about the scope of the project.

The way to avoid getting into this mess in the first place is to:

1. Get the entire preliminary scope of the project in writing. Be sure to list as many details as possible. If the project description seems too broad, ask lots of questions and include the additional information they provide in your proposal and the contract itself. This will be your best weapon later when they don't want to pay you for additional work.
   
2. Estimate the total number of hours you believe will be required. Stress in bold that this is a rough estimate, based on the scope of work initially provided to you for this project.
   
3. Quote an hourly rate. If the client wants to see a round number, multiply the hourly rate by the projected number of hours. But, remember to stress that the figure is a rough estimate based on the information initially provided by the client and again state you'll be billing them by the hour.
   
4. Include a clause in your proposal and in the contract that any change requests may require additional time and will therefore increase the cost of the project.
   
5. Make your payment terms no longer than net 14 days.
   
6. Include a clause in the contract specifying that prepayment is required for delivery of the final installment of the project. Withhold delivery of the final 15% of the project until your final invoice is paid.
   
7. VERY IMPORTANT! Include a clause in the contract specifying that you own all copyrights to the work until all your invoices are paid.
   
8. Submit the project in increments (every 25 or 50 pages, or every other week, or every 20 hours of work). Send them an invoice each time you submit a piece of the project and stop work immediately if even one invoice is past due. Don't continue working until they've paid what is currently owed. (You'd be surprised how many writers keep working after their client stops paying their invoices!)
   
9. Never turn in the last part of the project without having your final payment in hand. (You'd be surprised how many writers never get that final check!)
   
10. If the information above doesn't appear on the contract, ask them to include it as an addendum to the contract and make sure you and the "boss" sign it. Don't start work until you have a signed copy of the contract in hand. (You'd be surprised how many companies never return signed contracts and then never pay the writers, saying the contract was never signed!)
    
11. When change requests come through, save all emails and letters and document all changes in detail. If the changes come via a phone call, make a list of the changes requested, send the list to the "boss" and request he sign the list and return it to you. (You'd be surprised how many clients ask for more work but then later, after their budget is blown, claim they never asked for more work!)

When two companies sign a contract, both firms usually know how to correctly handle the situation (get signed copies of the contract, include a copy of the proposal, addendums, penalty clauses, etc.). Unfortunately, when companies are dealing with freelancers, they often don't follow standard procedure and then use the freelancer's ignorance about business processes to screw them later. After reading hundreds of emails sent in by readers over the years, it's obvious, when a project goes awry, the company's attitude toward the freelancer is often, "Well, you should have known this could happen, and included it in your price!"

When the boss changes their mind about a project, it's not your fault! When those changes mean more time on the job for you, you deserve more money! Protect yourself in writing up front and remain firm and professional when they try to talk you out of charging extra for THEIR mistakes.

Angela Hoy is the co-owner of WritersWeekly.com and Booklocker. WritersWeekly.com is the free marketing emag for writers that features new paying markets and freelance job listings every Wednesday. Booklocker.com, is rated the top POD Publisher by attorney Mark Levine. Mark's book,The Fine Print, analyzes the contracts and services of 73 top POD and ebook publishers. Read morehere. Booklocker.com can publish your paperback or hardcover book in 4-6 weeks for only $217.

Leisure by W. H. Davies

A beautiful poem by W. H. Davies. Though written long back it reflects the current so-busy scenario. He must have foreseen the complex lifestyle of the generation to come. Mere reading of this poem takes you to the much desired tranquility and peace. Read and Enjoy---

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?

No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

Hyperpoetry: A Lesser Known Genre

The Hyperpoems open the door to multi-theme asynchronous moving poetry, as a new way of reading words which are constantly rearranging themselves. The scrolling lines start all together, but since the lines have different lengths, they get out of sync quickly. Since the motion is slow, you can read parts of different lines at will, moving over the range of the poem in a new and surprising mode. Try to read snatches of lines as your eye moves up and down while the words move right to left. Stay with the poem a while, reading and remembering phrases and how they fit together, for an entirely different poetic experience.

Poetry as the vibrant expression of a recombinant language and culture find a niche in hypertext. New meanings can be discovered, followed, created and recreated anew. Hyper poetry can be made up of images, text and flash animation, but above all, hyperlinks. The idea is that everything contributes to the poetic (if you use Landow’s definition, surprising and delightful) nature of the work, so your hyperlinks have to add some sort of meaning to what the reader (or more accurately, user) can see. Although one can see the benefit of studying this - there is a lot of academic writing about hypertext in narrative, what this means for literature and students and academia etc because it doesn’t really interest all, I am not keen to go down that path. Poetry has too long been relegated to the academy. As such, it alienates its audience and makes it difficult for poets to inject their work into the world. Poets deserve a place for their work to live and be seen. Much more importantly, though, the world deserves to see the work of new poets unfiltered—without having to look through the lens of gatekeepers. It is an effort to take poetry back. It is a shift in thinking. It is a public space where real people can interact with real poems. It is a revolution. 

Poems of Kamala Das (My Favourites-2)

This collection (and also the previous one) aims to provide the accessibility to poems of Kamala Das to the readers, scholars and others who are interested in the same.

The Suicide

Bereft of soul

My body shall be bare.

Bereft of body

My soul shall be bare.

Which would you rather have

O kind sea?

Which is the more dead

Of the two?

I throw the bodies out,

I cannot stand their smell.

Only the souls may enter

The vortex of sea.

Only the souls know how to sing

At the vortex of the sea.

Your body shall be dead,

Poor thing,

Dead as driftwood, drifting

And drifting to the shore.

Your body shall ride the tide,

Rider, slumped dead

On white war-house.

Charging.

Your body shall bruise white

Against the coral reefs,

Your body,

Your lonely body.

I tell you, sea,

I have enough courage to die,

But not enough.

Not enough to disobey him

Who said: Do not die

And hurt me that certain way.

How easy your duties are.

How simple.

Only roar a hungry roar,

Leao forward,

And retreat.

You swing and you swing,

O sea, you play a child’s game.

But,

I must pose.

I must pretend,

I must act the role

Of happy woman,

Happy wife.

I must keep the right distance

Between me and the low.

And I must keep the right distance

Between me and the high.

O sea, i am fed up

I want to be simple

I want to be loved

And

If love is not to be had,

I want to be dead, just dead

While I enter deeper,

With joy I discover

The sea’s hostile cold

Is after all skin-deep.

The sea’s inner chambers

Are all very warm.

There must be a sun slumbering

At the vortex of the sea.

O sea, i am happy swimming

Happy, happy, happy ...

The only movement i know well

Is certainly the swim.

It comes naturally to me.

I had a house a Malabar

And a pale-green pond.

I did all my growing there

In the bright summer months.

I swam about and floated,

And divided into the cold and green

I lay speckled green and gold

In all the hours of the sun,

Until

My grandmother cried,

Darling, you must stop this bathing now.

You are much too big to play

Naked in the pond.

Yes, the only movement i really know

Is swimming,

It comes naturally to me.

The white man who offers

To help me forget,

The white man who offers

Himself as a stiff drink,

Is for me,

To tell the truth,

Only water.

Only a pale-green pond

Glimmering in the sun.

In him I swim

All broken with longing.

In his robust blood i float

Drying off my tears.

Yet i never can forget

The only man who hurts.

The only one who seems to know

The only way to hurt.

Holding you is easy

Clutching at moving water,

I tell you, sea,

This is easy,

But to hold him for half a day

Was a difficult task.

It required drinks

To hold him down.

To make him love.

But, when he did not love,

Believe me,

All I could do was to sob like a fool.

O sea,

You generous cow,

You and I are big flops.

We are too sentimental

For our own

Good.

Lights are moving on the shore.

But I shall not return.

Sea, toss my body back

That he knew how to love.

Bereft of body

My soul shall be free.

Take in my naked soul

That he knew how to hurt.

Only the soul knows how to sing

At the vortex of the sea.

The Stone Age

Fond husband, ancient settler in the mind,

Old fat spider, weaving webs of bewilderment,

Be kind. You turn me into a bird of stone, a granite

Dove, you build round me a shabby drawing room,

And stroke my pitted face absent-mindedly while

You read. With loud talk you bruise my pre-morning sleep,

You stick a finger into my dreaming eye. And

Yet, on daydreams, strong men cast their shadows, they sink

Like white suns in the swell of my Dravidian blood,

Secretly flow the drains beneath sacred cities.

When you leave, i drive my blue battered car

Along the bluer sea. I run up the forty

Noisy steps to knock at another’s door.

Through peepholes, the neighbours watch,

They watch me come

And go like rain. Ask me, everybody, ask me

What he sees in me, ask me why he is called a lion,

A libertine, ask me the flavour of his

Mouth, ask me why his hand sways like a hooded snake,

Before it clasps my pubis. Ask me why like

A great tree, felled, he slumps against my breasts,

And sleeps. Ask me why life is short and love is

Shorter still, ask me what is bliss and what its price ...

A Losing Battle

How can my love hold him when the other

Flaunts a gaudy lust and is lioness

To his beast? Men are worthless, to trap them

Use the cheapest bait of all, but never

Love, which in a woman must mean tears

And a silence in the blood.