Education Policy

New Beginnings Through Writing

I am asked quite frequently, “what is so good about being an author”. My answer is really simple; I have acquired a lot of knowledge from the many years of discovering the reason why things happen and now I wish to share this with others.
I did not have a formal education since I went to a stage school in London. Most of the time we trained in the different aspects of stage and television work. The mornings were for classical education, as in English, History, Maths and Geography and such like. This had to be studied as it was a requirement of the land at the time. The afternoons were dedicated to the arts, therefore at times I am quite astounded that I now produce manuscripts that are turned into saleable books.
I have all my life been blessed with a vivid imagination and it is due to this blessing that I now find myself sitting at a computer bringing forth stories that are both fictional and ‘factional’ that are produced to help the reader enjoy their life far more perhaps they did before they stumbled upon my writings. I never thought that I would write books. It truly ‘just happened’ one day that I started to write a book. This was seven years ago and it is only now, today, that I can actually dedicate a certain amount of my daily life to the computer and to the words that flow from my mind.
There are many things that can go slightly array with writing a book or books. Maybe the subject is too bizarre or perhaps too complicated filled with recorded information or applications that are hard to source. Believing that you have ‘what it takes’ to be a published author is another stumbling block, and that is what most would be authors have a problem with, beginning. Perseverance is essential and I would advise all who read this article to believe that they can and just go for it.
It is imperative to focus on your manuscript, to accept that it is a creation and is worthy of birth, this is such a help to the mind that is troubled by not being accepted. It really does not matter if your creation is accepted or not, it matters that you believe that you can create a story, a journey of words that will entice the reader to want more of what is written.
When you have brought your words to life and it is available for the public, whether by your own design (self publishing), or through known publishers, you then must make it available to the world through numerous different avenues.
We are lucky these days for there is the instant connecting tool of the internet and all the different applications available to the many users of the webpage.
I use a website and then the open friendship sites that connect us all together. We have to make use of the modern technology as we do the old fashioned route of telling everyone that our work is available. I direct all that I meet to my website. Let the world know that you have ‘given birth’ to a new creation, so that they also can rejoice in what you have brought forth from the depths of your being, that which I call the inner fountain of knowledge.

Quality Education

Pub Quizzes – Writing Your General Knowledge Questions

Many pub quizzes fails because of the way in which the questions are written and the topics that are chosen. Some quizzes fail because they focus far too much on one particular topic, others because the questions are not challenging enough. Of course you don’t want to have to have a PhD in the topics to even be close to being able to answer the questions so get a good balance.

Below is a quick guide on what the quiz master should be looking for on quality questions and answers.

Most pub quizzes have a spread out age groups from different walks of life so be sure to accommodate the majority when setting your questions and answers.

Topics and Subjects. Most quizzes have general knowledge, handout and specialist topics rounds in them. General knowledge should be a wide variety of topics that covers general every day things and events. Picking the questions from different eras and topics in an even split is the best way. Look for History, Geography, Music, TV and Films and Science as a good grounding but also try to get some local themed questions as well. Questions of a particular subject should be kept set similar always taking into account where possible a difference of age group and interests. You should try and avoid the same people answering and enable the rest of team member to answer questions.

Difficulty of Questions. This is very important but generally the easiest way is make several questions that are easy, quite difficult and more tasking questions that way you get a nice selections within the quiz. When compiling the actual pub quiz split these up evenly in to general knowledge rounds. If doing a specialist topic then split the mix of question difficulty levels within the round.

Quality question and answers – Making questions enjoyable isn’t that difficult but you need to follow some simple rules.

Pub quiz teams should be able to discuss, argue and throw answers out to each other, they can be challenging but not impossible to guess. Make sure that when compiling questions you look at ways to make them chance of guessing when possible.

The question has to hold their interest if it doesn’t then the team members will more than likely not have a clue about the answer. If the team gets the answer wrong they will want to be able to go away with something new. Something they can quiz their friends with the next day or so.

Keep the questions in the public domain with seldom going into the realms of obscure. The more bizarre the questions the more likely you are to put quiz goers off coming again. Not to say you can’t have a couple spread about the quiz.

Hopefully this quick guide will help you compiling questions and answers for your pub quiz.