• Footnotes, Endnotes, Bibliography. Xulon Press

    Footnotes, Endnotes, Bibliography: What Does it all Mean?

    - By 

    If you ask me, the most painstaking part of writing anything is the documentation of sources. It’s such tedious work, but do we even know why we do it? “Ethics, copyright laws and courtesy to readers require authors to identify sources of direct quotations or paraphrases and of any facts or opinions not generally known or easily checked,” says the Chicago Manual of Style (pg. 655). Now, we know why we provide sources for the quoted material in our books, but there are still two questions left to be answered: which system should be used and what’s the difference between…

  • Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

    The Cookie Recipe That Bonds My Family Together

    - By 

    Every now and again, I run across character traits that leave me wondering if I’m the black sheep of my family. Usually, it’s an action I’ve never seen anyone else do and I wonder, is it me? For instance, I love chocolate chip cookie dough, but I hate the chocolate chips in the dough. Something about the crunchiness turns me off and when the chips aren’t cooked the chocolate messes with the flavor of the dough. I took to standing over a garbage can as I ate the dough, so I could easily spit the chips into the trash; much…

  • Xulon Press celebrates National Poetry Month

    Portrait of Poet: Xulon Press Presents Heather Mavis Owen

    - By 

    Poetry is a feat not many can achieve. Only a true wordsmith is able to string together multiple lines of rhyming ends that read like a rhythmic melody in the reader’s ear. Writing poetry takes due diligence and patience because one must wait for the perfect words to come to mind, which is why, for centuries, poetry has been one of the most respected styles of writing. Our editorial team couldn’t let National Poetry Month pass without highlighting Heather Mavis Owen’s poem, Black Mountain Choir of Wales, in which the poet uses the Aberfan Disaster of 1966 as her inspiration for…

  • Xulon Press Ask the Editor

    Ask the Editor: Comma Conundrums Part I…When to Use a Semicolon

    - By 

    Let me take you back to an 8th grade English class. The teacher is saying something about commas, semicolons and conjunctions. You’re pretty much lost, spacing out a bit or writing a note to your crush three seats back. Why is it so hard to remember punctuation rules? It’s probably because technical terms are not the best way to have a long-lasting impact on pre-teens. Semicolons separate things, usually two main clauses that are closely related to each other, but could stand on their own as individual sentences. Many writers use them to add variety to the text after a…