ArticlesBase.com Blog

Accept and Except sounds almost exactly the same, especially if you are not a native English speaker, however they have two completely different meanings.

To accept is to take in, say yes, or to willingly approve:

My sister accepted the present I gave her.

The gas station does not accept personal checks.

I was accepted into the college of my choice.

He proposed to his girlfriend and she accepted.

The website didn’t accept my password.

Except is not often used as a verb, and is almost always used as a conjunction or preposition that means but not, or unless (as a condition):

They let everyone into the party, except anyone who wasn’t invited.

I’ll take all of the flowers, except for the ones with dead leaves.

I will come with you to the store except if he comes.

To except (as a verb) is very rarely used, but it means to reject or exclude:

Cost per person is $50, but children are excepted and eat for free.

The confusion between the two words is almost solely due to the fact that they are similar in sound and spelling. Their meanings are very different, however, so my personal tip for you is to remind yourself that “ex” means former or without, so except would mean “without.” Also, if you mean to use a verb, it will almost always be accept.

What other grammar tips would you like to read about? Let us know in the comments!

As you have probably noticed, many of you have had articles rejected over tiny details, such as broken links.

You’re probably thinking, “but correcting a broken link is so easy!” You’re right. But while correcting a broken link is easy for us to do, each broken links adds up for us.

Thousands of articles are submitted to ArticlesBase every day, and as you know, it takes a while to get approved (usually within 48 hours). The percentage of articles submitted with broken links, bolded texts, or other tiny mistakes is high enough that correcting each article manually would result in a larger delay in having your articles published.

Before you submit your article, quickly look at your code and make sure the links are correct. While you’re at it, make sure you didn’t accidentally bold the entire article, and break your article into short paragraphs.

Today’s grammar tip was requested/recommended by Ruchira Roy on the ArticlesBase fan page on Facebook.

Last week I briefly touched on contractions as they related to the “you’re” versus “your” saga. The same tip applies here.

If you can replace the apostrophe with an “i” then the correct use is “it’s.” It’s is a contraction – the apostrophe represents the “i” that was dropped.

“It’s all good” = It is all good = It’s is the correct form.

The apostrophe can also represent the word “has.”

It’s been a long time = It has been a long time = it’s is the correct form.

Its, on the other hand, is a possessive pronoun that means “belonging to” of “of it.” It shows that something belongs to “it” ot “it” has a special quality. To test this version of the word, try replacing the word “its” with “her.” If the sentence still makes sense, then this is the correct spelling.

Its color is dark purple = her color is dark purple = its is the correct form.

The word its’ doesn’t actually exist. Don’t ever use it. Ever.

We’ve been going through exciting times here at ArticlesBase. We opened an ArticlesBase fan page on Facebook, started using Twitter more, and we held our first April Fool’s Day contest. 10 lucky winners received our special edition ArticlesBase April Fool’s Day edition travel mug!

Most importantly, we officially have over 100,000 authors who have written more than 800,000 articles over the past 3 years spanning over 330 categories!

Here at ArticlesBase we are working on many updates to the site that will help you make the most of the experience. You may already notice a new toolbar at the bottom of each page on ArticlesBase. This toolbar allows readers and authors alike to more easily share the articles with their friends, connect with the ArticlesBase Facebook community through Facebook Connect, and view the latest tweets by ArticlesBase. Read our blog post about the new toolbar for more details.

We hope this toolbar will both help you be more connected with your fellow authors and readers, as well as provide even more promotion for your articles.

If you’ve been keeping up with the ArticlesBase blog (and especially if you haven’t!), you have noticed that we have begun posting short tips to help you make the most of your articles. By popular demand, we have also begun to post grammar tips to help those of you who aren’t always sure about the difference between your and you’re, or affect and effect.

If you have any grammar issues that you would like answered or think someone needs to know, let us know in the comments or contact us about them. We have also begun posting guest posts on the blog, so if you’d like to share your knowledge about article marketing with your fellow authors, contact us at blog at articlesbase.com.

Keep an eye out for more exciting updates to the ArticlesBase site and community. Be sure to follow us on Twitter and join our ArticlesBase fan page on Facebook for updates, and subscribe to the ArticlesBase blog. If at anytime you have any suggestions, please let us know, be it through Twitter, Facebook, or email.

P.S Upload a picture to your author’s bio! Articles that have anauthor picture on it are more likely to be clicked on!

Most of you have probably noticed that last Thursday we implemented a new feature to the site: The Wibiya toolbar. The toolbar is another step we have taken to help you and your readers make the most of your articles by integrating community and social networking features.

One of the great features of the toolbar is the Share button. Each article page already has 2 share buttons (beneath the article title and beneath the article) that allows your readers to share your articles through Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, email, Delicious, and more.

Now sharing is made even easier by placing a button at a prominent spot on your screen. We have already seen an increase in shared articles just from the past few days!

Next to the share button, you will see the new ArticlesBase Facebook community – you can join through Facebook Connect. Meet other ArticlesBase members, and receive updates from us – we promise to keep them to a minimum. You can also update your Facebook status directly from the toolbar without even leaving the page!

On the right side of the toolbar you can see our Twitter stream, and if you aren’t already following us, go ahead and follow us. We update often and we’re always available to answer any support requests. We’d love to hear your suggestions and let us know what you think about ArticlesBase.

Another feature of the toolbar is the ability to translate any page on the site into a variety of languages (that currently include French, Polish, Spanish, Italian, German, Chinese, Swedish, Dutch, Portuguese, and Hebrew).

This will help more readers who are not proficient in English notice your articles and read more. While there are translation tools online, having a built in tool makes it more efficient, meaning your international readers are more likely to read your articles.

If at any point you’d like to minimize the toolbar, click on the arrow on the right side of the toolbar.

Click them again to make the toolbar reappear.

What do you think of the new toolbar? What social features would you like to see added? Let us know in the comments!

One of the common support requests we receive relates to lost articles. While we do our best to make sure our system works as efficiently as possible, there are bound to be slip ups – your session logs out, your computer restarts, or you accidentally navigated away from the page.

I’d like to suggest that you write your articles in a text editor, save them, and only then post them to ArticlesBase. If you have a lot of formatting in your article, go ahead and copy the HTML into a text editor before you save your article, just in case.

Let me reiterate: Always save a local copy of your article on your hard drive.

The first few times that you save your articles, it will be a bit of a bother, but soon enough it will become an involuntary action like CTRL-S.

If you go back and edit your article at any point, copy and paste the edited version and save it, too. It’s 30 seconds of work that can save you hours of frustration.

Last week I posted a tip about the difference between you’re and your. I was so excited about the response to the post! People commented on the blog post, on our Facebook fan page, and our Twitter account (some were DMs so you won’t be able to see them), and many made requests and suggestions.

Today’s suggestion comes from one of the commentors on our post- Markk.

The difference between “affect” and “effect” is hard on native English speakers, not just those who do not speak English as a mother tongue.

The easiest way to differentiate between the two, in my opinion, is to remember that affect is generally a verb, and effect is a noun. In other words, the way you affect someone could have an effect on them.

An effect is generally a result:

“Setting low speed limits were supposed to change driving behavior, but it had the opposite effect – more people are breaking the law by driving faster than the speed limit.”

To affect is to make a difference to or create change in something:

“Using margarine instead of butter will affect the final flavor of the cake – it won’t taste the same.”

In other words, when you affect something, you product an effect on it.

Are there any grammar questions you’d like answered? Or tips you think your fellow writers would find helpful? Let us know in the comments!

Join us on Facebook and Twitter today!

Like I previously mentioned, I am a bit of grammar freak when it comes to professional writing. As such, I’d like to begin giving you short tips that will help you avoid grammar mistakes that may not show up on a regular spell check.

Today’s tip is one of my all-time pet peeves – the difference between your and you’re.

Your is possessive – it shows ownership. Your towel. Your hat. Your mistake.

You’re is a contraction – it means you are. You’re nice. You’re talented. You’re insane.

As a general rule with contractions, if I’m personally not sure if a contraction is necessary (i.e. you’re instead of your), I break up the word. Since the apostrophe stands for one or more missing letters, I check if the word is actually two words:

“Your my sunshine” = You are my sunshine = You’re is the correct form.

When I write in 140 characters or less, I tend, out of necessity, to shorten words (U instead of you) or use symbols (& instead of and), however Twitter (and Facebook statuses and other social media) do not require the same level of professionalism that your articles require.

I will be tagging grammar tips with a “grammar tips” tag so you can sift through our various tips whenever you’d like. Keep in mind that this was number one, so it may take a while to accumulate many tips.

I love spelling and good grammar – I even belong to groups on Facebook advocating good grammar – but even I “sin” when I’m online, mostly on IM, and don’t capitalize my “I” and the beginning of sentences.

It is important, however, to differentiate between formal and informal communications. While poor grammar and spelling isn’t so important on IM and (non-professional) social networking sites, when you publish written materials online for the purpose of reaching prospective readers, clients, and customers, spelling and grammar are crucial.

Many of you do not speak English as a mother tongue, and many of us who do just aren’t good at spelling – either you are, or you aren’t, and it has nothing to do with your level of education. Read over your article once you have written it – even out loud. You may discover typos and grammar mistakes. Make sure you use spell check. You don’t even need to use Word for that – Firefox, for example, comes with a built-in spell checker (I use it on a daily basis). Even if you don’t think your grammar is a little on the weak side, let someone read your article. You’ll not only get feedback about the article itself, but another pair of eyes that can correct any mistakes you may have made. This is a good rule of thumb, even if you are an English teacher.

Reviewing your article’s spelling and grammar may mean it will take you a few more minutes until publish the article, or even another day if you ask someone to proofread our article for you, however your article reflects you and your level of professionalism, and if you strive to reach potential customers, you want to put your best foot forward, and professional knowledge is only the beginning.

Don’t use shorthand, read up on apostrophe use, brush up on your punctuation, and subscribe to the ArticlesBase blog, because beginning next week I will begin to give you short grammar tips for popular mistakes.

Hi all,

Did you know ArticlesBase is on Twitter and Facebook? We’re recently opened a new fan page on Facebook. If you haven’t yet joined, do so now! Many exciting things are coming up on ArticlesBase over the next few months – make sure you don’t miss out on the fun.

And maybe – just maybe – you’ll find out before others about new contests and promotions, so join our fan page on Facebook and get to know some of your fellow authors.

Don’t forget we are also on Twitter – if you have any small issues, go ahead and send us a tweet and we’ll try to get back to you as quickly as possible.

Let us know what you like about ArticlesBase and what you’d like to see added to the site.

Join us on Facebook and Twitter today!

P.S. If you’d like to be a guest blogger on the ArticlesBase blog, contact us and let us know!