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Yes, Freebies are Real!
If you tell someone that something is free, they immediately start looking for the catch. After all, the words of wisdom ?there is no such thing as a free lunch? have usually been proven true for people time and again throughout life, and so a healthy cynicism towards free stuff usually springs up with good reason. If you are one of these skeptical types, however, you may be missing out on some really great stuff. The truth is that you CAN get free things that are really and truly free, and yes, actually worth having. You just have to know where to look.
OK, here is where the caveat comes in. The definition of ?free? often depends on the definition of ?cost.? As any economist can tell you, cost really doesn?t only come down to how much money you have to hand over to get something. There are additional costs, like inconvenience and time spent doing something. And true, some freebies have these ?non monetary? kinds of costs associated with them. You have to balance all of the costs with the value of the free stuff you are getting and decide if it is worth it to you. The two biggest costs associated with freebies? Time and convenience are at the top of the list.
Time is a big factor in many free offers. Companies want a bit of your time in exchange for their free products. Indeed, some companies literally want hours of your time. Have you ever taken advantage of one of those ?free weekend vacation? offers in which you received free accommodation in a beach house or condo for a weekend in exchange for suffering through a long presentation and intense sales pitch? For some people, they can handle the presentation and have no qualms about refusing to buy anything and the free vacation more than makes up for it. Other people would rather pay any price to avoid having to listen to one of these spiels. So, while these weekends are freebies, for some people, they cost too much.
More often, a company wants your time in a less obvious way ? they want you to spend time filling out forms. These forms may simply be your name, address and email address, or they may be very lengthy, quizzing you about buying habits and the like. The reason the companies want you to do these forms is often for market research, and they are more than happy to give you a freebie in exchange for this. Many people find the time spent filling out these forms will worth it to get a great free product.
Convenience is the other cost involved with many freebies. Time and convenience go hand in hand in some cases ? after all, it may not be especially convenient to fill out form after form simply because it is time consuming, but convenience takes another hit from freebies in the form of spam email. Often, signing up for a freebie can land you on a spam email list, and for some people, getting tons of spam is so inconvenient that they would rather pay full price.
The truth about all of these costs of freebies is that the freebie is in the eye of the beholder. You have to decide what you are willing to put up with in order to get a free product. Once you know the limits to your freebie costs, than you can cash in on some really great products that don?t cost you a dime. When you spend five minutes filling out a form and get rewarded with a free DVD player that you have been wanting, you will realize that there are free things out there to be had.
The Definition of Writing Styles Depends on Who is Defining Them (writing styles) While researching this topic, you may have found many different answers to what are the different types of writing styles. No two answers were the same. They range anywhere from your personal way of writing that is your writing style to formal and informal. Many people feel the best answer to what writing styles are the those will be outlined below in this article. You can decide for yourself if this definition suits your. The term creative writing covers a range of writing areas. Poetry, fiction books, short stories, and screenplays are considered creative writings. Any writing in which is not strictly non-fiction would be classified as such. Journalism and news reporting are forms of Expository writing. The purpose is to focus on one topic and inform the reader by provided the facts. These writings can be seen in the forms of travel brochures, professional journal, business reports, and new paper articles. Descriptive writing is what gives you the mental pictures of what we have read. It uses a lot of adjective and adverbs to describe things. When descriptive writing is very good you can close your eyes and know exactly what the author is saying. The kind that makes you taste what the characters and see what they are seeing. Analytical Writing is a writing that focuses on a topic and then verifies the purpose of it. It is often taught school age children through out the years because it is something they will use in their life. Book reports, conference papers, thesis, essays, and dissertations are all academic writing. It is created using a third person point of view and deductive reasoning supported by facts. Its purpose is to show a clear understanding of a subject by presenting information. Technical Writing is used in owner manuals, how to guides, magazine articles, and design specs just to name a few. Its purpose is to take complicated technical information and turn it into something the intended audience can understand. Technical writing usually deals with electronics of all sorts, chemistry, robotics, and finance. Any kind of writing that has to do with business matters is considered business writing. It is concise and to the point. Your intended audience wants to know what happen and why, but with minimal detail in between. An active voice is necessary in business writing. It keeps people focused and shows that you are in control of situations. Correspondence is the writing of memos, letters, or emails between people. It is a message that is sent between two people or groups of people. To provide facts and statistic and having the ability to influence your readers with your words is persuasive writing. This is used for products ads, political campaigns, or any kind of promotion. It is not necessary to prove why something is else is wrong or bad you just need to prove why your promoting is better. Narrative writing is use to tell a story or list of events that have already happen, might have happened, or could happen in the future. These writings may include novels, poetry, short stories, or a number of other things. A lot of times many of these styles are meshed together in our writing. Business writing and technical writings are often one in the same as are academic writing and analytical writing. With the overlapping of the styles it hard to define one writing style from another, you can guess it is all a matter of the point of view you are looking at it from and your opinion. Yes, There Really is a Freebie Santa Claus If you are a cynic when it comes to offers of free stuff, you are not alone. Everyone has had notions like ?there is no such thing as a free lunch? and ?if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is? drilled into their heads, and for good reason ? these things often hold water. On the flip side, there ARE actually lots of places you can score some decent free stuff, if you know where to look and are willing to devote some time to hunting them down. The key to getting the best free stuff with the least amount of hassle is to stick with that healthy cynicism but to also dipping your toe in the freebie pool little by little. But why would anyone give stuff away for free? It is certainly an obvious question, but if you stop to consider it for a moment, you can see that companies actually have a lot of motivation to give away free stuff. After all, if they give you something for free, you are bound to have a little soft spot for their company, and when you are ready to part with some cash, their product may near the top of your list. Also, by giving away free things, companies can convince people to try new products. You might not want to try a new kind of shampoo if you have to pay for it, but you?d certainly be willing to give a free sample a try. You may end up loving it and switching to that shampoo for good, turning you into a paying customer. Another reason a company might give you free stuff is to complete market research. This is where getting free things can get a little complicated for some people because the products may not cost you money, but the offer may cost you a little time. A company might ask you to take a survey of your buying habits before they give you a free offer, or they may ask you to provide feedback on a regular basis as you try their product for free. Some people balk at the time commitment required here, but for other people, filling out some paperwork is a small price to pay for some free stuff. Of course, to convert you into a customer or to communicate with you about market research, a company will have to contact you, which is complicated area number two for freebie lovers. You will almost always be forced to hand over your email address in order to cash in on a free offer, and that is a recipe for opening your inbox up to a barrage of spam (many companies sell your email address to offset the costs of their free promotions, which means the number of people soliciting you can go through the roof very quickly). If you want to avoid this downside of freebie hunting, set up a special email address specifically for your freebie deals. That way all of your spam goes to this one address and your regular email you use with family and friends remains free and clear. One final note of caution about free stuff online: a lot of scammers have hit on the idea of using pretend freebie offers to solicit personal information about people or to convince people to send them money. Don?t send money, even for postage, to a company you don?t know and never, ever give out personal information online. No reputable company is going to ask for your social security number or bank account details for a freebie offer, so don?t hand them out to anyone. When in doubt, skip it and move to the next freebie. |