1. Introduction

Open Source software (OSS) is an in-ternational phenomenon in terms of user adoption and development processes. Enterprise Information Integration (EII) is gaining significant credibility in the market as the most efficient approach to linking back-office data with line-of-business content. The Enterprise Integration using open source middleware provides an automated tool for Data Integration, Interoperability of data in a Distributed Environment. This Integration tool using open source middleware will realize reduced costs, Reduced Time, Sca-lability.

2. Open Source Application Servers & Mid-dleware

There is a wide variety of open source applications and middleware on the market, many of which support the Java Enterprise Edition framework. These include Apache Geronimo, Apache Struts, Apache Tomcat, Apache Web server, Easy Beans, JBoss, JFox, JOnAS, IBM WebSphere Community Edition (formerly Gluecode), Mono Project (supports .NET), OpenEJB, Resin, and Sun’s Glassfish.

2.1 JOnAS – a Java Application Server

JOnAS (Java Open Application Server) is an open source Java EE applica-tion server which has been released free of cost under the terms of the open source GNU General Public License. JOnAS is the most widely used open source J2EE 1.4 ap-plication server. Applications deployed on Java EE application servers are assemblies of components dealing with user presentation or business logic. Those two layers (presentation and logic) are composed of JSPs and Servlets for the first one and of different kinds of

Fig 2.1 JOnAS Architecture

3. Enterprise Integration using JOnAS

The key feature of enterprise integration is data integration that automates the inter organizational business transactions without requiring replacement or major changes to companies existing source systems, thus avoiding an expensive and time-consuming activity. This paper aims at developing an automated tool for integrating the data from different sources thereby providing integration among the data and interoperability of data in a distributed envi-ronment. The Enterprise integration provides the following advantages

• Integration of data

• Unified view of relevant information

• Cost Effective because of open source

• Distributed access because of middle-ware

• Reduced time consuming since integrated and unified view

• Transparency

• Scalability

Fig 3.1 JOnAS with Client and DBServer

The above figure 3.1 shows how a client can communicate with a database server through JOnAS via EJB (Enterprise Java Bean).

4. Framework

The paper Enterprise integration using open source middleware can have client side and server side. In client side, it can have number clients. Client can access with the information stored in Excel or Access. A client can insert or delete or update any information stored in the data source. Clients can be provided with Excel or Access database where they can do updations. After updating the information, client has to save the updations. Then the defined macro in that Excel or Access data sheet can call the batch file automatically which in turn calls the server program. The client program gets the input file (Excel or Access) and passes the file name as an argument to the server program. Client machine can have either Excel or Access or both.

The server program gets the file path from the client and activates the code for converting Excel to XML data or Access to XML data depends on the input file. After converting them to the XML data the server side program then stores the XML file in the server. The server then parses these XML files and extracts the information and stores the data in to the tables stored in SQL Server.

Fig. 4.1 Frame work of Enterprise integration using JOnAS

The Fig 4.1 clearly depicts the workflow of information integration and various components involved in this project. The steps involved in Enterprise information integration is as follows:

1. The latest access data is converted to xml whenever a new record is inserted /updated on a real time basis.

2. The latest excel data is converted to xml whenever a new record is inserted /updated on a real time basis.

3. Implement these two modules in Enterprise java bean with JOnAS as application server.

4. Extract the information from all XML files by parsing and store the data into tables residing in SQL Server.

5. Generate Reports by getting information from the tables using frames and JTable.

5. Setting up the Environment

The first and foremost step in implementing the system is setting up the environment. The overall tasks involved in setting up the system are as follows:

• Installing JOnAS

The steps involved in installing JOnAS require J2SE SDK 1.4, ANT 1.6 and JOnAS. Install everything and start the JOnAS.

• Connecting JOnAS with NetBeans

The next step after installing the JOnAS application server is to connect the installed JOnAS with the working environment. NetBeans is the working environment. Requirements for connecting JOnAS with NetBeans are NetBeans 5.5, JOnAS/Tomcat 4.7.x or 4.8.x and JOnbAS

• Connect SQL Server with JOnAS

To allow access to one or more relational databases JOnAS will create and use DataSource objects. Such a DataSource object must be configured according to the database that will be used for the persistence of a bean. By default JOnAS contains HSQL as a default data server. SQL Server can be connected to JOnAS by using a plug-in called jtds. Before connecting the SQL Server we must upload three jar files into JO-NAS_4_8_4libcommonsjonas directory which gives access to SQL Server for JOnAS. Login to JOnAS admin console. Select new data source as Database. Give required infor-mation like driver name, URL etc., Click finish.

6. Implementation

This paper uses session bean for im-plementing the first two modules and entity bean for implementing the third module. The session bean converts Excel or Access data file to XML data file and fetches the data from the XML file by parsing it and after parsing, the session bean automatically calls entity bean which stores the extracted data in to SQL Server.

• ExcelToXML (File Excelfile, String file-name) – converts any Excel file to XML data file by getting Excel file as inputs. The procedure involved in converting Excel to XML data file is as follows:

• AccessToXML (String table, String connec-tion) – converts any Access DB to XML data file by getting table name and connection for JDBC connection as inputs.

The procedure for converting Acsess_to_XML and Excel_To_XML is shown below.

Fig 6.1 Procedure for XML conversion

The next step after converting the Microsoft Access or Excel file data to XML data is parsing the obtained XML files. By parsing the XML files, we can extract the data from the XML file and store it in an array which can then be used for storing it to an SQL Server. To manipulate a XML document, we need an XML parser. The parser loads the document into memory and once the document is loaded, its data can be manipulated using the DOM

• xml_parse_For_Excel (String xmlFile) – Parse the XML file obtained from Excel that suits for storing the latest XML data to SQL Server.

• xml_parse_For_Access (String xmlFile) -Parse the XML file obtained from Access that

The procedure for parsing XML files is same for both XML files obtained from Access or Excel. The steps involved in parsing the XML files are as follows.

Fig 6.1 Procedure for XML Parsing

Building and Deploying the Application

Now the enterprise application is ready to be deployed to the application server. There’s no more configuration of deployment descriptors necessary. The IDE has already configured the deployment descriptors and prepared a new connection pool and data source for our enterprise application. Right Click the application on the left side window and Build the project. The output window shows errors if any. After correcting the errors deploy the project. Right-click the In-formation_Integration project and choose Run Project. The IDE does all of the following:

• Builds the enterprise application project and all of its subprojects (the Web module project and EJB module project).

• Starts the server if it is not already running.

• Undeploys the enterprise application if it is already deployed to the application server.

• Deploys the enterprise application to the application server.

fig 5.1 Information Integration deployed in JOnAS

Conclusion

Integration problems have been with the IT world since the advent of information systems. Today integration is required to directly support an organization’s goals and needs. Enterprise integration using open source middleware provides an automated tool for information integration and also allows interoperability of data in a distributed environment. Thus this paper Enterprise integration using open source

Middleware provides an automated tool for information integration and thereby effects reduced cost and time, interoperability, scalability, persistency through open source middleware named JOnAS.

Future work can focus on developing an automated tool for integrating any number of input files from any sources and make it suitable for distributed environment.

References:

[1] Mabanza, N.; Chadwick, J.; Rao, G.S.V.R.K., “Performance evaluation of Open Source Native XML databases – A Case Study” Advanced Communication Technology, 2006. ICACT 2006. The 8th International Conference Volume 3, Issue , 20-22 Feb. 2006 Page(s): 1861 – 1865

[2] Ian Gorton2, Justin Almquist, Kevin Dorow1, Peng Gong3, Dave Thurman1, “An Architecture for Dynamic Data Source Integration”, Proceedings of the 38th Ha-waii International Conference on System Sciences, IEEE Transaction, June 2005.

[3] Alain Boulze, Francois Letellier, Pascal Moussier,” The ObjectWeb initiative, An Ex-ample of an open development process to promote a set of open source middleware technologies and bring them to main stream” , ObjectWeb Consortium, 2006.

[4] ObjectWeb Consortium , “Red Hat Application Server: JOnAS Tutorial “, 1999-2004

[5] Giovanni Guardalben, Shaku Atre, “Integrating XML and Relational Database Technol-ogies: A Position Paper” .

[6] Richard Monson-Hoeffel, “The Ultimate Guide J2EE web Services “, Pearson Educa-tion, 2002

[7] Heather Williamson,” XML: The Complete Reference”, Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 2001

James Edward Keogh, James Keogh, “J2EE: The Complete Reference”, McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2002

[8] JOnAS: Java (TM) Open Application Server, http://jonas.objectweb.org/

[9] JOnAS Platform Documentation, http://jonas.objectweb.org/doc/jonas-doc-en-jonas4.2.3.pdf

[10] http://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_syntax.asp

[12] http://JOnAS.objectweb.org/current/doc/howto/install_JOnAS.html

[13] http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=42251

[14] http://objectweb.org/JOnAS/2006-12/msg00027.html

[15] http://java.sun.com/developer/onlineTraining/Beans/EJBTutorial/

No related posts.

By: daringtakers
A servlet is a Java technology based web component, managed by a container, that

generates dynamic content.

A servlet can be considered as a tiny Java program which processes user request and generates dynamic content.

There are many other alternatives like php, asp .net or CGI, for developing dynamic web sites. benefit of using servlets

over other technologies is servlets are developed in Java, so it comes with all benefits of Java language and it

is platform independent.

Following are the some advantages of using servlets.

(1) They are generally much faster than CGI scripts.

(2) They use a standard API that is supported by many web servers.

(3) They have all the advantages of the Java programming language, including

ease of development and platform independence.

(4) They can access the large set of APIs available for the Java platform.

What is a Servlet Container?

Servlet container is a runtime environment, which implements servlet API and manages life cycle of servlet components.

Container is responsible for instantiating, invoking, and destroying servlet components.

One example of container is Apache Tomcat which is an opensource container.

Servlet Life Cycle :

A servlet is managed through a well defined life cycle which defines how it is loaded,

instantiated and initialized, handles requests from clients, and how it is taken out of

service.

The servlet life cycle is consist of following phases.

(1) Instantiation

During this phase container creates a new instance of servlet. this is the first phase of servlet life cycle.

(2) Initialization

After the servlet object is instantiated, the container initializes the servlet before

it can handle requests from clients. during this phase container calls the init() method of servlet.

This is the second phase of servlet life cycle.

(3) Request Handling

Actual request processing and response generation occurs during this phase.

Container calls service() method of servlet component and passes ServletRequest and ServletResponse objects as parameter.

(4) Destroy

This is the last phase of servlet life cycle. during this phase container calls destroy() method of servlet component.

After this phase servlet is removed from service. this happens when server is shutting down, or server wants to free some memory.

All of this life cycle methods are defined in Servlet interface.

following methods are defined in Servlet interface

public void init(ServletConfig config)

public ServletConfig getServletConfig()

public void service(ServletRequest req,ServletResponse res)

public void destroy()

Current version of servlet specification is 2.5

New version of servlet specification is 3.0 which currently under development at java community process (JCP)

daringtakers

Author Bio

More articles and tutorials can be found here Java articles and tutorials

No related posts.

By: tom counts
About midPhase

Based in Chicago, IL, MidPhase has seen a steady stream of growth and prosperity in the web hosting world. Out of 40,000 web hosting companies, MidPhase is listed as the fifth fastest growing. The company is also reported to be debt free, privately held, and financially stable.

One of the company?s moral strong points is their heavy philanthropic tendencies. MidPhase gives large amounts of money to charities to benefit AIDS treatments, among others.

MidPhase Plans

MidPhase has their hosting packages broken into two basic plans: Mega-Phase and Pro-Phase.

The Mega-Phase plan, at $7.95 per month, provides 200 GB of disk storage, 3000 GB bandwidth, unlimited email accounts, a free domain name for life, and is e-commerce ready. Support is provided for PHP, MySQL, CGI-Bin, Perl, JSP, SSI, SSL, SSH, and a private .htaccess file. Additionally, MidPhase provides their customers with a free marketing toolkit featuring search engine submission, overture advertising credit, ad tracking software, and other excellent tools.

Additionally, the Pro-Phase plan, at $11.95 per month, has 250 GB of disk storage, unmetered bandwidth and the ability to host unlimited domains.

All plans feature a free setup, valued at $29.95, and, again, a free domain for life. No more annual fees to keep that domain name.

Reliability

MidPhase?s data center is located in Chicago, IL, known as the award winning Equinix IBX Center. Every server is connected directly to a line capable of up to 100 MBPS ? traffic levels have never exceeded 15 MBPS so there is no need to worry about losing bandwidth and having a slow website. The data center also has primary and secondary connections to Internet backbone providers such as Time Warner, Internap, and Bell South, among others. MidPhase guarantees a 99.98% server uptime and a 99.999% network uptime on all of their hosting.

Service and Support

Service and support is available 24 hours per day, seven days per week, and 365 days per year. A variety of contact options are provided, such as a trouble ticket system with an average wait time of seven minutes, live chat with an average wait of two minutes, or telephone support with an average wait time of 11 minutes.

Additionally, a user forum and frequently asked questions area are provided to assist even the newest of webmasters with the most commonly sought out questions and problems. Finally, animated Flash tutorials are provided for those who prefer to be shown visually how to set up their email, log in to their web site or many other procedures.

Conclusion

An award-winning hosting service, pricing that is very easy on the pocket book, and a money back guarantee offer a very nice and enticing entry to this hosting company. Top-notch hardware and excellent support nicely round out this company?s already impressive array of offerings and make MidPhase a sure-fire winner. There is no valid reason not to go with midPhase. The company offers a surplus of disk space, and more bandwidth than most other hosts. Their “SimpleSite Wizard” is great for the beginner webmaster and responses to e-mails are usually received in under 29 minutes. midPhase is great for webmasters who plan on continually growing their web site.

tom counts

Author Bio

Midphase Review

BlueHost Review

No related posts.

By: Greg Alan


The thing I love about eBooks is the low overhead. You don’t need a publisher or printing service or warehouse or agent or even a store to stock your book. It is the essence of free speech and American commerce! That’s not to say there aren’t ANY costs…there are. But you can overcome them in the sheer volume that the internet makes available to you.

For example:

Say you have an idea to publish a book about flowers. You love flowers and you’ve got some interesting background on your experience that you’d like to sell to others.

You get out your word processor and you complete about 30 pages of material. After you finish it, you compile it and begin to sell it on your website for $10.00.

Here are some average figures for the things you need to make everything happen:

1. You need a word processor or HTML program. Many people use Microsoft’s Office programs, which can cost upwards of $200.00…but I’m acting on the assumption that most of you already have a copy that came with your computer when you purchased it. Even if you don’t, there’s a FREE version of an open-sourced Office-like program available that does everything MS Office does, and then some. It even includes a PDF Export function so you can create PDF files. You can download the free program at OpenOffice.org.

2. You need a website. While there are lots of free options on websites, I suggest you get your own domain registered website for several reasons. Many payment processing services will not allow you to sell products on free websites. Average cost for a nicely featured domain registration and web hosting service varies…but remember, you get what you pay for most of the time. For the most features and best service, I’m estimating you’ll spend about $150 dollars a year…or about $13 dollars a month.

3. Hire a payment processor. Clickbank is a good one for re-sellers, but you’ll have to pay a one-time fee of $49.95 for establishing a seller account. In addition, check on the other service charges that the people you’re working with have…like return fees, charge back fees, and the like. Read and re-read the fine print on all prospective payment handlers. Find answers to all your questions. How much do they charge to handle each payment? How do they handle fraudulent purchases? Returns and complaints?

4. Other software. Get yourself a good eBook compiler to prepare your eBook. I paid about $69.95 for my copy of Ebook Maestro Pro…it’s easy to use, full functioned, and has a lot of templates and tutorials to make it even better. It offers you the option of having your books activated through registration keys on-line or any number of ways to protect your product from being copied or “stolen”…

5. Promotion and advertising. Just having a website isn’t enough in most cases, so you’ve got to get the word out. You can establish a Google Adwords account and pay anywhere from $5-50 dollars a day depending how well you know your keywords and much you’re willing to spend. Currently, I spend about $7 dollars a day promoting not only my products, but other affiliate websites. I earn about $75 dollars a day on click-throughs and purchases from those affiliate products, so my costs are neglible. But just getting started, you’ll find your costs significantly higher…especially if you’re only promoting your one website and your own product. Conservatively, we’ll estimate it at $150 dollars per year…which sounds like a lot, but considering you’ll spend that much on just 1 television commercial on 1 station in 1 town, it ain’t bad.

6. Copyrighting. This can be a bit confusing. While there are no costs to copyright a work, there is a fee for “registering” a copyright…and you really only have to do that if you allege copyright infringement should someone try to steal your book. To register a copyright costs $45 dollars with the US Library of Congress Copyright Office. I consider it an optional fee.

So here’s where we stand for that $10 dollar eBook you are selling…

$150 dollars for the website per year

$70 for the eBook compiler (one time charge)

$50 for the payment processing (one time fee)

$150 average year 1 Google Adwords cost

optional $45 dollar copyright registration.

$420 in guestimated total pre-sell costs.

Now if your website is perfect, you’ve got a great book, and you get a lot of traffic…you’ve hit the gold mine. You’ll only need to sell 42-copies of your book to break even. I know of some who sell that many in a day!

But we’re being conservative in our estimates, right?

Is 3-copies a day reasonable? That’s 1100 copies a year, $10,000 dollars or so

Okay…too much, how about 3-copies a week? That’s still 150 in a year, $1,500 dollars

And that’s just for a $10 dollar eBook…most good ones are priced at upwards of $30 dollars. No agents, no rejection letters by publishers, no book tours, no book signings, no printing costs, no book stores to solicit that’ll even carry your book, none of what ordinary authors have to go through just to get one book published a year.

You can sell your eBooks on your own website, you can sell them on eBay, or any number of places.

Start with a good idea targeted at a unserviced niche; write a good book; market it properly with a good website…and you can cash in on eBook marketing.

Greg Alan

Author Bio

Greg Alan is the owner of several websites and publishes ideas and reviews on his blog at E-Commerce Now.

Information related to the article:

Open Office – Free office suite program
Ebook Maestro Pro – Ebook compiler software

No related posts.

By: Thomas Haddelin
80% of Americans do not know how to maintain their computers. Don’t be one of them!

Not knowing how to clean and repair your personal computer can be a costly mistake. Don’t miss out on the savings of doing the work yourself.

Nothing stays clean, and having to take your computer somewhere for routine cleaning can cost a bundle. Knowing how to do it yourself can save you a ton.

Simple routine cleaning procedures can save you in the long run. Have you ever wanted to know how your computer actually works?

Don’t waste your time looking for a specific book to teach you how to do this as it’s not available. To really understand what needs to be cleaned or replaced on your personal computer you would have to read dozens of books to gain just the basics required to do it yourself.

Doing a quick search on Google for how to books and tutorials might lead you to a few that might help you, but most require you to buy them and don’t really provide all the information you need for cleaning and repairing your personal computer.

So to assist others in their search for knowledge I found a few places that might have some of this information available for free. Here’s just one of such places available online for finding out how to clean and repair your personal computer!

Alot of people even create “Blogs” to share information. Here’s a Blog specifically for personal computer cleaning and repair.

Last but not least, most advanced cleaning and repair should probably be left to experts. Software is available these days that does alot of cleaning and repairing your personal computer on it’s own.

Thomas Haddelin

Author Bio

Before you waste another penny on computer repairs, be sure you check out Thomas Haddelin’s excellent free ezine on cleaning your personal computer, and cheap PC cleaning programs

Click here for other unique how to clean and repair your personal computer articles.

No related posts.

By: Neelesh
COMPANY NAME: eBIZ.com Pvt. Ltd.

eBIZ.com PeBIZ.com Pvt. Ltd. was incorporated on 8th June 2001,with ROC of Delhi & Haryana (INDIA)

with the mission to promote Computer Literacy.

* e-Education is estimated to be 350 billion dollars industry

*e-Business is the most dramatic change ever to hit the retail market

*Yet, only 10% of Businesses Have Websites?

Why ?

*Too Expensive

*Too Complicated

WHY MANY PEOPLE CAN’T LEARN COMPUTER?

*Don’t have enough money

*Don’t have enough time to go to the institutes

*Don’t have enough understanding to grasp

classroom instructions

As eBIZ makes

the education easy

& within the reach

of the masses

eBIZ Combines the 4 Fastest Growing Trends:

*Internet

*Website

*e-Education

*Home Based Business

*Company’s Compensation Plan is the most attractive with highest payout in the MLM industry today

*Approx. 4,50,000 Associates have already joined in

*Company’s operational office is based at NOIDA, India eBIZ Educational and Web Package

consists of:

1. Personalized, self-replicating ebizel website

2. Compulsory computer courses:

. Computer Fundamental

. Introduction to Internet Surfing

. Windows 98

. Windows ME / XP

. Microsoft Word

. Microsoft Excel

. Microsoft Power Point

. Hardware

. Visual Basic

. C Language

. Microsoft Access

. C++ An Object Oriented Language

. SQL A Database Language

. FORTRAN A Computational Programming Language

. Microsoft Front Page

. HTML A Hypertext Markup Language

. Macromedia Flash

. Tally

. PageMaker

. Core Java

. DOS

. Java Server Page (JSP)

. JavaScript

3.Online testing and evaluation

4. Online language learning tutorial:

. Punjabi

5.Utility Section:

. Fire Fighting

. First Aid

6. To organize and store your contacts:

. eBIZ Address Book

7. 35 MB web space

8. eBIZ Web Builder

And many bonus features, like:

Free e-Mail account

Technical and customer support

To develop your business:

Online detailed genealogy

Post and view meetings

FAQ’s

Offline educational courses and software on CD (Only for Indian Associates)

Personalized domain name (With extra cost)

WE CAN SHOW YOU:-

how to make Money

on INTERNET

WOULD YOU BE INTERESTED ?

If Interested…

BECOME eBIZ Associate

(Without purchase of any products) (Free

Associate)

BECOME eBIZ Associate

(With purchase of eBIZ Educational and Web Package) (Paid Associate)

Please Note As a free Associate you learn courses available in Free eBIZ Educational Package and earn commission as per,Single leg compensation plans.

As a paid Associate you learn courses and utilise various services available in eBIZ Educational and Web Packageand earn from Binary as well as Single leg compensation plans.

I RECOMEND…YOU USE THE SECOND PACKAGE….IT PAYS A LOT MORE…

Buy eBIZ Educational and Web Package for Rs. 5500 + annual maintenance charge of Rs.1000 + 12% service tax + 3% Cess Charge on Service Tax to Govt. of India, or in US $172 (Package US $130 + annual maintenance charge of US $31 + handling charges US $11). For India make a DD/Pay order in the name of eBIZ.com Pvt. Ltd. payable at New Delhi and mail it to the following address:

eBIZ HOUSE,

D-210, Sector-10,

NOIDA ( U.P ) PIN- 201 301

“Winners Don’t Do Different Things. They Do Things Differently.” ….Shiv Khera.

Our SLOGAN : Each One Teach Two

FOR MORE DETAILS CONTACT ME AT 9886745201.

OR E-MAIL ME AT neeleshpatil@ebizel.com

Well….i live in INDIA,Karnataka,Bangalore-560046
my age is 16…

No related posts.

Graphics, focus boxes, paragraph order, structure, text layout, and flawless spelling and grammar are all necessary attributes of a great proposal. After spending years in proposal management, however, I have noticed that one important attribute, readability, often is overlooked. Since editors frequently refrain from making in-depth content edits, it is the technical writers’ task to make their sections more readable before their sections go to editors. The problem is that many people tasked with technical writing do not know what readability means, and how to make tangible changes to make their sections more readable. This article offers a tutorial on improving readability that proposal writers could start using immediately.

Before a proposal section ever makes it to an editor’s desk, it should be understandable at a 9th–10th grade level if it is non-technical, and at an 11th – 12th grade level if it is highly technical. Why readability? Try to think like your audience, the government evaluators. Each evaluator is responsible for reading and scoring multiple sections of proposals submitted by you and your competitors. Each set of proposal sections consists of dozens or hundreds of pages of boring technical content. Usually, on the Source Selection Evaluation Board (SSEB), only a few people are truly interested in the proposed solutions. These are the people who made this program a reality and who are responsible for its execution. The rest are often the “stuckees” who are doing their “jury duty” when it is their turn to serv

Not only are many evaluators apprehensive about serving on SSEB, but they also may not have the PhDs or technical degrees necessary to fully understand the topic of your proposal. Unlike those who have spent a lot of time in academia, they may not be in the habit of reading and understanding long research papers written by experts for other experts. As a result, their eyes glaze over the long, dense, and jargon-heavy technical sentences. They skip past the paragraphs that do not make immediate sense. Your score suffers and, in a close competition, you may lose.

To avoid this kind of scenario, you need to teach your technical writers and subject matter experts to get in the habit of improving readability before the final submission of their sections to editors. It is difficult, however, for authors to simplify and substantively edit their own work. It is a good thing, then, that this is the 21st century, and that there are easy-to-use tools right at your and your technical writers’ fingertips.

The first tool requires just a few settings changes in MS Word. When finished with a draft of a proposal section, you need to follow these seven simple steps:

1. Select Tools at the top of the screen

2. Select Options (inside Tools menu)

3. Click on the Spelling & Grammar tab

4. Check the two bottom boxes under the Grammar heading (Check grammar with spelling and Show readability statistics)

5. Select Grammar & Style under Writing style

6. Click the Settings button

7. Set the “Require” options (I select “always,” “inside,” and “1”); check all Grammar rules; scroll down and check all Style rules except for the use of first person; and select Ok.

After making these settings changes, you can select Tools and then Spelling and Grammar. Perform a scan of your finished draft and make the recommended changes as you see fit. Rerun the scan again to include the changes you made, and take a close look at the Readability Statistics box that appears after the Spelling and Grammar check has finished.

First, look at the Averages section of this box. If you are averaging more than 4 or 5 sentences per paragraph, you have a higher chance of an evaluator getting lost or stuck. You will want to cut down or break up your paragraphs. If you are averaging more than 20 words per sentence, it is likely that you are attempting to address too many ideas at one time. A scorer is apt to miss important information when it is clumped together like this, so keep your sentences short.

Next, look at the Readability section of the Readability Statistics box. Passive sentences are those in which the sentence’s verb is acting on its subject, rather than the subject acting on the verb. It is best to avoid passive sentences wherever possible. For example, “Section 1.3 outlines our management approach” is a much stronger sentence than “our management approach is outlined in Section 1.3.” Passive sentences are sometimes unavoidable, but your writing is much more vivid and concise when you limit passive voice to well below 20%.

When it comes to the Flesch Reading Ease statistic, you want to stay in the 40-50 range or higher. This statistic rates your document on a 121-point scale depending on the average syllable count of your words and the average number of words per sentence. If your score is under 20, make a real effort to eliminate four- and five-syllable words. Very few such words are essential.

The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level statistic is the aggregate measurement of your document’s readability. It translates the Flesch measurement into a U.S. grade level between 1 and 12 to give you a sense of the number of years of school experience that an average person would need to understand your writing. For instance, if your draft gets an 11.2, you can assume that an average 11th grade student could follow it, which also means that it will not put your evaluators to sleep. Remember, your goal should be for your section to measure somewhere between the 9th and the 12th grade levels. This ensures that you handle complex subject matter in a direct and evaluator-friendly way.

The MS Word Flesch-Kincaid scale has a glitch, however – it does not go higher than 12th grade. It is important to know that if your document scores a 12.0, this does not mean that it reads at a 12th grade level. Your actual score could be much higher than 12.0, so if you do get this score, there is a second tool that you should use to check your document’s readability.

The second tool is a free online utility that provides a more accurate and comprehensive reading. You can find it at http://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_test_and_improve.jsp. After you copy and paste the text that you want the tool to scan, it will give you an accurate Flesch-Kincaid score even if it is above 12.0, along with four other readability indexes. For example, one index, called the Gunning Fog, uses a method similar to the Flesch scale to calculate readability, but omits proper names and suffixes like –ed and -ing that could make words count as more complex than they really are. The tool also shows you “problem” sentences that you may need to rewrite in order to improve overall readability.

Using these tools on a regular basis will help you and your technical writers to develop good writing habits that result in greater proposal readability. Caring about readability translates into caring about your evaluators. Caring about your evaluators leads to winning. Incidentally, in case you’re curious, this article is at an 11th grade reading level, right where I wanted it.

Olessia Smotrova-Taylor is president of OST Global Solutions, Inc, a Washington, DC Metro Area company providing capture and proposal management support and training to companies seeking to win business. Go to her website at http://www.ostglobalsolutions.com.

No related posts.