Yes, I'm sure the answers could've been found by reading the book, but that's not the point. When you write an article, you can't just quote from a book or say "Jane Doe's book says...." I wish it was that easy. But editors, and readers, love quotes. Sometimes I feel like I'm "quote fishing". And I know not every writer's scrupulous about using quotes correctly and in context. I personally know someone in the insurance industry who was burned by an unscrupulous writer with an agenda. I hate people like that; they make every other writer's job even harder. But we can't do as Trudi suggested and provide the article for review before it's printed. That leads to more trouble than it's worth, it's unprofessional, and can be unethical. I'm not a well-known writer, but I know that prospective sources have Googled me to find out if I can be trusted to do quality work with their precious words and reputation. The questions themselves, since you're so curious, were nothing big. The article in question was about landscape trees, so I wanted to know things like "biggest mistakes you see", "trees you'd like to see used more often", etc. A landscaper, an arborist, and a nature activist gave me all I needed.

Ahhh, a hero at last ;-) Thank you Janie. I freely admit being a housewife who stumbled onto a miracle ;-) If I kept that information to myself it would have been a sin. I have, since then, bought a few books on syntax and grammer, though I am still bewildered by commas, semi colons, and the elusive--double dash--used to highlight specific points. Most of the books I've bought to assist me with WS are about human psychology (motivations), leadership, dealing with idiots (troll control) differentiated learning and html. Grammer, because of a far greater need for the others, still remains overshadowed and at the bottom of the list for writing skills. I'll never earn a GWA award, I probably won't ever get one of Eddie's adorable Green Thingies. And I also won't ever make much of a nickel off of WS because I WANT it kept Fair Use. WS is my intellectual property, I locked it up very early on with CRs, and I sought an AgNIC partnership to further protect that. Because of the partnership it MUST all remain as/and continually be created for Fair Use. Anyone, at any time, may copy and duplicate all WS information or photos for educational.nfp.critic use. I don't have to be contacted and I don't even have to be mentioned. From my personal/emotional point of view, Fair Use also eliminates a lot of justification angst that anyone of us would feel if we were to see our words and methods in another body of work, without, at least, a mention of our name(s) as source. This used to be very frustrating to me. VERY frustrating. After I accepted Fair Use as a concept of my heart, rather than a too-bad/too-sad reality, I was able to focus the direction towards educational provision ;-) and write more about the means than the visual results. I am currently writing (not sure you would/should call it that) interactive educational exercises, otherwise known as quizzes and puzzles, for the website. They teach with term/concept repetition as the learning tool. They work by user input. This, for me, is where accuracy is most important. As an example, Marrubium vulgare is horehound and not hoarhound--though both seem to be used interchangably. I verified with the NAL Thesaurus, which now has a server that cranks out search results as fast as google. (HOORAY!) Janie, I'm glad you're WSing, I'm glad for everyone who does. WS is like pulling a rabbit out of hat, except that it's not one rabbit. And we all KNOW what rabbits do. They make easy to strew about, mild to use, fertilizer raisinettes for our gardens ;-) Vive la Bunny.

SEE'S Chocolates.......ah, yes. Growing up in the northeast I'd never heard of them until my son married a California girl. Her family always sends her boxes of a variety of SEE'S Chocolates and they are good ! One of the treats I would enjoy also was when my son would give me a treasured small box of Vosages chocolates. They were so delicious and special I would cut them in half to make them last longer !! Funny sidebar....When he was first dating her we loved to shock her by diving into some horrid huge box of chocolates that clients would nicely leave for my son. Our family "tradition" for these less than wonderful chocolates was to take any and all we wanted and nip them, then put them back in the box. It was a riot of tasting and horrific behavior. I don't think she knew what to make of it then but NOW she understands and joins right in the craziness. ( okay, it's weird...but normal is just a setting on the washer !)

We each have different questions but in a nut shell we want to publish our family history. My goal is to break my brick walls and to get correct information "out there" for others researching our family. I've done a tree at ancestry which did produce "cousins". Unfortunately they are stuck at the same ancestor as I am. There must be someone who knows something we don't know. (Not to mention all the trees copied from each other with people who couldn't possibly be the same family.) I have put my tree on every site I've found so far and they give the ability to contact me. There is an Old published Bailey/McCauley family history book that married my gggrandfather to the wrong McCauley sister. I'd like to get the correct information circulated. The book was self published many many years ago and no longer available to be bought. (thank goodness) The nitty gritty question among us seems to be print on demand and/or ebook? Or both. How many pages? Include a pedigree report? -Mine run 30 pages- And which site to "sell" it? I don't care about making money. I want information from someone who can help me find my ancestors! I have a DNA match with one person who has settled on a Bailey name but I'd like to see something that shows he is our ancestor. We need more DNA matches and some kind of trail to Benjamin Bailey. We all know enough about the people we have found to write their stories and I've got a really good start on that. That's how I got the 800 page estimate! What documentation do I need to include and what can I take out? Take out all of it and if someone wants to know how/why I think/know that they can contact me for the documentation? The parts of the story that I have surmised and/or figured out from circumstantial evidence are identified as such.