Article Writing Tips

Thanks to MJ Logan for allowing me to use this.

Here’s some tips, I use these every day.

1 – Copy and paste the Marketplace Guidelines into your word processor.

2 – Go through the guidelines and single out specific requirements. For example, in recent marketplace titles for travel, the publisher wanted 10 subheadings. Start your article by making a section for each of those subheadings.

3 – If they give a URL to look at, copy-paste that into your word processor as well. Go visit the page. Look at examples of what is there. Read them because this is the style you want to use.

4 – Do a keyword specific search on the topic. Exclude any Wikipedia results. From your results, choose two or three informative pages and read them. Make *notes* in notepad as you go. By notes, I mean short brief notes, do not copy-paste anything. You can keep notepad on top of a web page as you read and make notes in it. If you are required to cite references, make notes on those as well. Copy any URLs you use into the notes, and later into the top section of your article in the WP.

5 – By now, you should have spent 10-30 minutes on research. It’s time to write. Look over your notes in notepad. Copy them into the top of your article in your word processor for easy reference, just under the guidelines.

6 – With it all fresh in your memory, start writing. Usually you want AP style. No first person, no jazzy words, no slang. Be rather generic in your writing. For good examples, go to the AP website (http://www.ap.org/) and read some news articles. This will give you an idea.
Set your word processor to formal writing and turn on the feature for writing and readability statistics. 8th grade is usually best. If your writing shows up as a grade level 12, you have to pare down your sentence length and complexity.

7 – Start by writing without checking your word count. After a while you get a feel for it. Make sure you use whitespace generously. 4-8 (max 12) sentence paragraphs. More sentences and you’re losing readers.

8 – When you get to the end, save it. Take a couple minutes without looking at it. I use this time to make an outline for the next assignment on my list. This clears your head a little.

9 – By now, if you type at a speed of 20 wpm, you’ve still spent less than an hour on a 400 word article. Open the article again and do a word count. If you’re over and I hope you are, it’s time to chop and be ruthless. Look for words you don’t need. Slang. Whole sentences are open to chopping if you don’t truly need them. If the word count is still over budget, chop more. Sometimes you need to rearrange sentences to get the count down. Do it. You do not want to be over or right on. Always 5 under for an assignment of 600 words or less. Ten under for more than that.

10 – Save and set it aside for a few hours or a day (usually a few hours on my schedule). Go back and re-read s l o w l y and carefully. Look for missing words. Fragments (happens if you chop a lot). Words the spell check missed because they are the wrong word, not spelled wrong (Their instead of There) stuff like that.

Save. Submit. (leave out the extra stuff like guidelines and notes you put at the top. Be sure to include citations at the bottom if required.)
Over time, you will develop a style and method that works for you. Things that help are fast, accurate typing, silence or noise (depends on you, I turn the music off when I write), choosing topics that you already know something about, using research you already did and wrote about (always rewrite, never copy, even your own work).
Give yourself deadlines and work to them. Make lists of what you are going to write. Slash items off when you finish and submit.