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I loves me some Wordle and making pretty word clouds.

When I first started blogging, I created one using words from my blog.

I even did one for my Twitter background with words from one of my blog posts.

So I decided to do another Wordle from my blog and see what words I tend to use the most.

Wordle is also good to use for chapters and/or paragraphs from your novel project to view and get rid of redundant words. Like in the case with my blog, it seems that I like the word “really.” Really? Ha.

Also seems that I like others words like “Writing,” “Book,” “love,” and “Kindle” because they are highly used as well.

Go check it out and see what Wordle reveals about your blog and what you tend to talk about the most.

Wordle is a fun web tool that allows people to make artistic text collages or  “word clouds” from any text.

Here’s more from the site: “Wordle is a toy for generating ‘word clouds’ from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.”

This GalleyCat contributor took eBookNewser’s “Free eBook of the Day” (Rudyard Kipling‘s The Jungle Book) and created a word cloud–the image is embedded above. Other literary projects on Wordle include the U.S. Constitution, John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and Stephenie Meyer’s Breaking Dawn.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Using Wordle in Schools

“The idea of creating Tag clouds is not new or unique but the Wordle application offers those in schools with a uniquely visual way to view and/or analyse some text. It is very simple to use and the results are created quickly. The style can be changed easily, if required, and easily saved….

We used this aspect in the library this week when we made a Wordle using a number of lists of banned books. The authors, the titles and types of books were entered into the text box. Overwhelmingly the word ‘novel’ stood out. A second Wordle on banned authors had William Shakespeare and George Orwell as the standouts. This could form part of a greater discussion about the reason for this and we intend to give the issues of banned books and censorship a wider focus at a later date, perhaps as part of Social Justice Week, run at our school each year.

We are also using Wordles as the basis for one of the competitions for Book Week. We created Wordles of synopses of various well known books (taking out any references too unique to the book) and printed out copies. One of the library staff members had fun playing with the colours and formats. We did one for ‘Bryan Strauchan: my story‘ and made it black and white. (Bryan Strauchan is a fictional character who plays for a football team that happens to have team colours of black and white.) Another book involving animals was done making the Wordle resemble tiger stripes. The Wordles look great laminated and I will also be putting up digital versions on the library website.” [Rhondda’s Reflections - Wandering around the Web]

I'm up far too early for a Saturday thanks to arguing neighbours and the sirens of police cars (oh and yes I'd love to know what's going on - damn double glazing muffles everything). Anyhow, due to the early hour, I have ascertained I have a legal right to procrastinate by trawling the internet, visiting blogs and not getting a single word completed on 'Matchsticks' or the story I am working on for the Permuted Press anthology: 'The World is Dead'.

Via Goodscares, the blog of C. Michael Cook, I found Wordle where you can create your own word art. Here's what I've been up to: You will need to click on them to see them in all their glory.

Wordle says on it's site:
"Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends. "

It's fun. I haven't tried it yet, but plan to asap.... Read the rest of this post

I saw a Wordle on Lisa Albert Rondinelli's blog and thought it was so cool! What's a Wordle, you ask? (Or maybe you don't ask. Maybe these are all over the blogosphere, and I'm the last person on Earth to have heard of them!) Well, it's a word cloud based on text that you paste in.

Here, for instance, is the Wordle for my 50 State Poems collection.

Isn't that nifty? You go to Wordle.net and paste in your manuscript, your favorite song, an article, whatever, and it generates the cloud. The Wordle is almost like a poem based on your text, to me. In fact, I can think of several cool poem activities based on it. For instance, what if you had to write a found poem from this Wordle, and you could only move from word to another word it touched?

I wrote this one thinking of the flooding going on in surrounding states right now, when the river that was a happy resident of a town suddenly becomes an attacker:
  
River storms American towns
Water flows north
Rain makes prairie waves

OK, I cheated a little on the last line because "makes" doesn't actually touch "prairie." But it's a game, right? Poetry is playing with words, and this is a fun way to do it.

It's also a cool way to capture some of the essence of your longer work in one image. Have fun!

Author: Lisa M. Chalifoux
Illustrator: Heather Castles
Published: 2008 Trafford Publishing
ISBN: 1425155472 Trafford.com Amazon.com

What could be more giggle-inducing than recognizing our own human foibles in a pair of sweet and spunky turtles? With its slapstick, smiles and airy, upbeat illustrations, this simple story helps us laugh at the silliness of squabbles and invites us to find a better way.

You can sneak a peek at the whole book on Heather Castles’ blog, here!

More turtles on JOMB:

• Nanabosho: How the Turtle Got Its Shell
• Tudley Didn’t Know