Write an article based on this "Begin in a positive way. Keep your emotions out of it. Smile Watch the tone of your voice. Avoid negative language, blaming and personal attacks. Be specific. Encourage self-critique. Focus on the behavior, not the person. Make your feedback helpful. Don't say too much at once. Know when to stop critiquing. Follow up."
article: You can always find something positive to say when giving someone constructive criticism, even if it's just the effort the person showed. Start with a statement of sincere and honest appreciation (again, even “Thanks for trying x,y, and z…”) to make the person feel valued. Then move forward and offer constructive criticism. Whenever you ask someone to make changes, start out in a positive way. This will make the process and outcome positive,too. If you're giving feedback on a personal matter, you may feel emotional. If you appear angry and upset, your body language and tone of voice will cause the other person to become defensive and less likely to consider your criticism. Remain calm. You may feel anxious giving feedback and anticipating the other person's response. Maintain your poise by reiterating the main points and keeping your goal in mind. If tense emotions escalate, end the session. Return to it at a later time when you are calm and use warm body language. Let the other person know that you are empathetic. This will help the person feel more at ease, and let them know you've been there, too.  Maintain steady eye contact without staring down the other person. Keep your body open by not crossing your legs or arms. Tightly crossed limbs suggest that you are closed off or angry. Instead, being more open in the body suggests that there is room for discussion and dialogue between yourself and the recipient of your feedback. Keep your voice even and friendly. The tone of your voice can communicate as much and sometimes even more than the words you choose.  Avoid raising your voice or letting any edge sneak in. Use a tone of voice with the recipients of your feedback that you would be comfortable hearing if your situations were reversed. This will reduce the likelihood that the recipient of your critique will respond in a defensive or angry manner.  Avoid harsh, evaluative language, such as "you're wrong" and "your idea is stupid." Couch your criticism in "I" statements to speak from your own experience and also to show how the other person's actions are affecting you or your situation. For example, "I feel that this report could have been improved. I wanted to see a clearer discussion of major ideas so that we could have a better sense of where we need to go from here."  Avoid "you" statements that directly blame the individual receiving criticism. For example, instead of saying "Your report failed to effectively convey the main ideas," try saying "This report could have been more specific in terms of the main ideas." The more precise your feedback is, the more actionable it is for that person. Focus on objective points as opposed to your own opinion. Just telling the person you didn't like something isn't helpful. Instead, break your feedback down into key points and give specific examples of each point so that the person knows how to proceed. Here's an example: An employee just finished a report on new restaurants in your city. You've read it and your feedback is "Good effort but I didn't like it. Re-do." Whether or not someone "likes" or "dislikes" something is subjective and, without reference to specific criteria, it's difficult for the person to understand what to improve upon. Instead, identify the main problem areas in your criticism and give specific examples: "Good effort on tracking down these restaurants, but the descriptions of the restaurants should be more thorough. Please expand this report with information on what type of food each restaurant serves, their signature dishes, and where they are located." In some cases it might be more appropriate to let the person come up with his or her own solutions before giving your opinion on what should happen. Once you've stated your critique, ask the person how she thinks it should be handled. This can make the person feel more useful and competent. Think carefully before critiquing someone's personal appearance or character traits; it's almost guaranteed to cause hurt feelings. However, if you do feel the need to give feedback on a personal matter, try to separate the person from the situation. Comment on the issue and not the individual (e.g., say "the report is late" and not "you are late." Consider the following detailed examples:   Giving feedback on a person's style - Rather than say, "Your clothes are so boring and they make you look like an old person, which amounts to a personal attack, try critiquing the situation and not the person. For example, say "The clothes I've seen you wear seem related to older trends. While there's nothing wrong with that, those kinds of clothes can make one come across as older."   Giving feedback on a person's personality - Rather than say, "You're so negative and I find it really hard to deal with you," which is hurtful and not constructive, try turning this into a constructive criticism by letting the person know how their behavior affects you. For example, say "Sometimes I feel hurt by your negative comments, such as the comments on my new tattoo. I understand that not everyone likes tattoos but that comment about my tattoo made me feel upset and sad." You want to help the person make a positive change; this means that you need to address things that the person can do something about, rather than things which are outside of her control. Critiquing on the former makes your criticism constructive and will empower the person; critiquing on the latter will just make the person feel bad since she can't do anything about the situation, even if she wanted to. For example, let's say your friend just opened a new business and signed a 12-month lease in an area with moderate foot traffic. She then asks you for advice on how she can spread the word about her business and get more foot traffic. Telling her to "change the location of your store" isn't helpful because she can't do that thanks to the lease agreement. Constructive advice would be to suggest that she could consider changing her location in a year but that in the meantime she could offer special discounts for the "grand opening" or launch a social media campaign. You don't want to overwhelm the person with too much information. Even if your criticism is couched in positive terms, it will begin to sound like you have a laundry list of issues you want the person to address, and eventually the tone of the conversation will feel negative. Limit your critique to a discussion of a few actionable items. People can only take in and process so much feedback at one time. If you have more to address, bring it up in a different conversation. After you've given constructive criticism on a particular topic once or twice, you've probably said enough. Harping on the same issue over and over isn't going to be productive, and could lead to negative feelings on the part of the person you are critiquing. Pick up on cues that the person has had enough, and don't say more until you are asked for your opinion. Check in with the person after your consultation and assess the progress being made. Subsequent conversations about the issues you critiqued should focus on improvements the person has made. Discuss what concrete steps the person has taken toward the goals you laid out and praise any improvements she has made. Seizing on and praising the success of the person will encourage her to continue with her good work and make her feel valued and respected. Make sure the praise is specific. For example, don't just say "I really like how you did the report this time." Instead try something more precise, such as "Thanks for your hard work on this week's report. Great job at catching those typos in the recommendations section - if you hadn't caught those, that could have made the company look bad in the meeting this week."

Write an article based on this "Use the words in songs or quotes. Look for video footage. Make a podcast. Get a friend to quiz you."
article:
Think of a word that means the same as the word you’re trying to learn. Then think of a song or quote that includes the word you already know, and switch the words. Sing or say these to yourself over and over again until you get them into your head. An example might be:  “I’ve obtained you, babe” rather than “I’ve got you, babe” “What’s the big notion?” rather than “What’s the big idea?” Search for your word in the search engine function of online video sites. It can be really helpful to hear the word spoken, see the footage, and be able to link the word and the video. If you play the video enough times, you will start to hear the word in your head in the voice of the person on the video. This can help you differentiate it from all the other words you’re studying. Record yourself saying the words, then saying them in a sentence, or as part of a song or quote. Listen to your recording repeatedly. For many of us, listening to something over and over works even better than using flash cards. Using the list of vocabulary words you need to know, have a friend ask you what one means and then use it in a sentence. It’s a good way to force yourself to prove to someone else that you know the words, and saying it out loud can help in the memorization process.