I’ve only been on Triond for less than 2 months now, yet I feel as though I’ve known all of you for a long time. The administrators are very kind and helpful, unlike those of other websites, who seldom answer your emails. And although it’s not a ton of money we’re earning by submitting our content to Triond, at least it’s something, and I’ll be grateful for that. I feel sad for all those bloggers out there who’ve spent years and years writing blogs yet earning next to nothing. If only sites like Triond existed years ago when the internet was in its infancy.

Not everything is joyous though. I remember those frustrating times, the times that still exist in fact, when I submit an article for approval and it gets rejected. And then I get upset because my article will now be up 24 hours less than it would have been. But then I collect my thoughts, try to calm down, and get to work on fixing the article. Believe me, I’m no speedy writer. It takes me upwards of an hour or two just to finish one piece of writing - even longer if I decide to include pictures. But I keep telling myself that perseverance will eventually pay off, and it often does.

You might not be happy with Triond’s rate of pay, or the fact that you may have to resubmit your articles more often than not, but there’s an old saying you should heed. “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” We should be glad that we’re getting any money at all from Triond. For all we know, the Triond administrators could at any point in the future stop paying us, keep all of the revenue they get from advertisers to themselves, and become what would essentially be a duplicate copy of Blogger or Twitter. But right now they’re kind enough to give us back some of the money they’re receiving from their sponsors. Granted, the administrators are keeping a certain amount of money to themselves, but that’s only natural. All businesses need to make some profit or they wouldn’t exist. Consider Triond’s expenses - they need to pay for a yearly domain, monthly server space and bandwidth, and of course they need to pay themselves for all the time and effort they’re putting into improving the Triond site and publishing other members’ content. After all, time is money. And then there’s the cost of advertising Triond on other websites to attract more members. Add up the $10 yearly domain with the $60 monthly server fee, the monthly advertising cost and the $10/hour minimum wage the administrators pay their employees to approve other members’ content, and you’ll soon see that running a business is harder and more expensive than you would think.

The payout of $1.00 per 1,000 views may not be much, but it’s better than nothing at all. Be happy that Triond is not as greedy as Google, Microsoft, or even eBay.

But all of that ranting aside, I’m just happy that at Triond, we are a close-knit community. I hope that each and every one of us will continue to make more friends as time progresses. I want to wish everyone at Triond, including Marla and the rest of the administration team, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Let 2009 be even more successful for all of us here at Triond. And even if you don’t read my articles, or you hate my guts because of my personal opinions that I post in my articles, I still wish that you and yours have a safe and happy holiday season!

Feel free to add me to your Triond Friends list, and I will add you to mine as well. And don’t forget to post a comment here wishing a Merry Christmas to everyone else too! Whether you’ve just recently signed up with Triond like I did, or you’ve been here for years, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

God bless America, God bless Triond, and God bless each and every one of us! See you again in 2009 everyone!

But now, one year later, I learned a lot. How Triond really works, what articles get lots of views and also, my english improved a bit. I would like to share some of the knowledge I gathered.

The first thing I learned, is that Triond has actually a very specific category of people reading articles. Apparently, they all like articles in the style of '10 strange X' or 'The 15 weirdest Y ever'. Articles with the title '10 websites for ABC' also get a lot of views. So far, I have written many articles in that style and of which I feel are capable of earning me some bucks, but only one of my articles has ever been a real hit. It was, and still is, titled 'Six websites for space and aircraft tracking'. One day, it was the second best article, and afterwards it was seventh for about a week, and then died. It's a very nice article, and has earned me 15,91$ ever since. Since I first started Triond, I have earned 42,23$, so that article earned one third of my total money. I was also very surprised when it started getting a lot of views, because I could see them add up when I just refreshed (in total it has over 10,000 views).

Another thing I learned is that once you've got one great article, you can easily remain at the top because people will also click your other articles, expecting something similar. That's why there are several people, around ten, who continuously have popular articles.

Still, I think Triond is a great and also unique site! It has been a fun year of making mistakes, learning, having people add me as a friend for no reason, people asking me how to write great articles and much, much more!
I love Triond and the way it works, and I'm trying to keep writing articles. I've got some great ideas, I just gotta be a little less lazy and maybe, if I'm very lucky, I'l have some more popular articles!

Roth stated that “the ideas of others, repeated uncritically, do not make a research paper”. Therefore, the author must think and write independently, but also credit the various sources that helped him or her put useful individual ideas into writing. This degree of responsibility and accountability must be developed by any student or author who wishes to create interesting and scholarly research papers.

A good research paper is just the tip of the iceberg. Before writing the actual paper, the author should spend a great deal of time gathering facts, ideas, examples, sources and other related information. If a topic is not provided, the author must also think about a mind provoking theme to talk about, and then narrow it to a specific field of interest. Many authors make the mistake of choosing a topic that is too broad. The result is that they get paralyzed with a flood of sources and ideas, or they simply can’t write anything at all. On the contrary, if the topic of your research paper has been narrowed down to an easily definable topic and a few key points, you are in a terrific position to use that as a starting point or springboard for your supporting ideas.

Forlini stated that “when you have gathered all your supporting material, you are ready to decide on the best method of organization”. Doing the research and gathering of ideas is just half the battle. For a research paper to be considered well written, its ideas must be arranged in a logical order and smooth transition. The real challenge to the writer comes at the actual writing stage. The ideas must be written in such a way that they achieve the writer’s purpose, whether it is to entertain, inform, or persuade the readers. To be able to achieve this, it would be helpful for the writer to develop an outline for the research paper. The purpose of the outline is to list the opening sentence, thesis statement, key points, and supporting sentences of the research paper in an orderly manner. This will ensure that the writer will not digress from the particular topic and will succeed in capturing the attention and winning the acclaim of the readers.