Chip on Your Shoulder

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Get Me Rewrite Chip Scanlan discusses a free NewsU course that, like some desktop widgets, can improve your writing. Listen | Download Drag to iTunes Read a text version of Chip's podcast. Enroll in the "Get Me Rewrite" course.

Combine the World Wide Web and a software gadget and the result is a widget: a mini-application designed to do one or two things really well.

Widgets for every purpose one could imagine are available for computers, Web sites, and even mobile phones. There are hundreds, if not thousands, out there, free (or nearly free) for the downloading and appealing to every niche from Sudoku to "The Baby Countdown Pregnancy Ticker."

Lately I've been thinking that there's another way to look at these byte-sized helpers.

Just substitute "writing" for Web, and widgets take on a new meaning, as programs tailored for writers.

Here are some of my favorites:

Countdown timer
Designed to remind people to deal with "single events, lunch breaks, weekends, paying your monthly bills or birthdays and holidays."

I've found it ideal to set the date and time of deadlines, whether for writing, teaching or consulting trips. One of my timers tells me I have just 8 days left to complete an interview for the "Best Newspaper Writing" anthology; another gives me 85 days before I teach time management at the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies.

Word counter
Sure, you can use the word count feature in Word, but this widget offers writers much more beyond word, character, paragraph and line counts. It also tallies:

• Instances of particular text in a case-sensitive or case-insensitive manner. Ideal for someone like me who often repeats the same word in a paragraph.
• All words or only words above a specified length. Consider this the digital version of a writing maxim attributed to Mark Twain: "Never use a 50-cent word when a 10-cent word will do."
  

Other widgets I rely on

Wikipedia search

Enables me to scan this user-generated encyclopedia, and more important, look for the primary sources the entry relies on.


Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Pronounces words as well as looks them up.



Note: The Countdown timer and Word counter I use are Mac-only, but Windows widgets are also available.