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move to the next paragraph.

If you're frequently flagged for Formatting, break your long, single paragraph article into several smaller paragraphs and leave a blank line (white space) between them.

Another problem: hitting the Enter key at the end of each line of text. You should never use the Enter key except after paragraphs and to enter a blank lines. The text will wrap very nicely without your help and your article will look infinitely better. These aren't manual typewriters we're using.

SPELLING AND VOCABULARY: Please use the spell checker; it's there for a reason, and it's very easy. After you've pasted your article into the text box in Helium and have proof read it, just click on the Spell Check button. Scroll through your article, from top to bottom, and when you see a huge red word, right click on it to see a list of alternate spellings or words. Click the correct word to change it in your document.

If you don't know what a word means, use your favorite online or printed dictionary to look it up. I know it's a pain, but a little extra effort is better than looking foolish to readers who will be rating your article.

Learn the difference between words like "it's" and "its." It's is a contraction that means "it is." When you type "it's," try substituting "it is" and see if it still makes sense. For example, if you say that it's now 10:00, it makes perfect sense to say that it is now 10:00. However, if you're talking about a car you saw and tell me that it's tail lights are purple, then substitute the non-contracted form, it makes absolutely no sense at all: "I saw this hot new car and the greatest thing is that it is tail lights are purple!" Its, without the apostrophe, connotes possession and means, in this case, that the tail lights belong to or are a part of the car.

Learn the difference between there, their, and they're. Look online and you'll find a lot of resources on the most frequently mistaken words and homonyms - words that sound exactly alike, but have different spelling and meanings, like two, too, and to.

PUNCTUATION: If your article is one long, unformatted paragraph with missing or wrongly placed punctuation, it causes your readers to stop thinking about what you're saying while they try to figure out where one thought ends and the next one begins. For all intents and purposes, you've lost them. Every sentence should begin with a capital letter and end with a period followed by a single space. Try reading your article out loud to yourself. When

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