8 Essential Steps To Writing Great Articles
You might love to write or perhaps you write because it’s a part of your job. Conversational writing has exploded in importance since the advent of blogs and the love that search engines show toward original content. Not everyone is a natural storyteller, but anyone can learn to write great articles. Follow these 8 steps and you will be well on your way to writing articles that people enjoy reading and learning from.
1. Focus on your Objectives. Every article should have a clear objective before you begin. Do you want to discuss the advantages of a product or service? Do you want to motivate your audience to take action? The objective will tell you which direction the article will move in, and will give you something to measure your success against. Objectives should be simple and direct. In this article, the objective is to give a sequential list of activities that will help you, the reader, write better articles. An objective does not need to be any more complex. The more complex you make your objective, the harder it is to achieve.
2. Know your Audience. Are you writing for junior high school students, or for pharmaceutical sales professionals? Is your audience primarily located in the USA or are they located in other countries? Your audience will determine the kind of language you use and the reading level you will target. The spelling of common words can be different, and some references, such as the grade level of students, is unique to different locations. It is best to choose words that are the least confusing when writing to a mixed audience. If you write at a slightly lower reading level than your intended audience, readers will thank you for your clarity and simplicity.
3. Determine your Message. What is the one idea you want your reader to walk away with? A message, like your objective, should be simple and direct. If your objective is to discuss how Duracell batteries are better than other batteries, your message might be “Duracell batteries are a better value because they consistently outlast similarly priced batteries by 25% or more.” With this message in the reader’s mind, they’re more likely to choose Duracell batteries when making a purchase decision, as long as they are priced the same as their competitors.
4. Choose your Delivery Style. You can be humorous, entertaining, factual, informative, persuasive, analytical, passionate, sarcastic, or a combination of styles. Your delivery style should suit the objective, audience, and message. By personalizing an article with style, it helps the readers connect with the writer. A distinctive delivery style may even become a writer’s brand and readers will expect every article from that author to have the same style. This is great for developing a following, but can also polarize readers into groups who love and groups who hate the writer’s style.
5. Prepare your Material. Assuming you are not writing a story based on personal experience or a fictional account, you will need to research your subject. Checking facts, finding expert accounts, gaining new insights is what attracts many writers to the process of writing articles. It is rewarding to discover information that most people don’t realize and then pass it along in the context of your article. The better you prepare your material, the more you will have to work with when it’s time to put pen to paper, or finger to keyboard.
6. Organize your Ideas. For many writers who are first starting out, organizing an article can be the most difficult challenge, but it doesn’t have to be. There are various ways of doing this, from making a simple list to creating mind-maps where ideas are organized around a central themes and sub-themes. In the end, you will finalize with a sequence of items that tell the story of your article, starting with the major themes or commonly held beliefs, and ending with the message you want to leave as the strongest impression on your reader’s mind.
7. Write your Article. Now that you’ve laid the groundwork, it will be easy to write your article. You know what you want to say, whom you want to say it to, how you want to say it, and where you want to end. You only need to guide your reader through the thought process that you have laid out for them, using the delivery style that you have chosen, or that your readers expect from you.
8. Edit and Publish. You should never publish an article immediately after writing it. Even seasoned writers will make mistakes and overlook them during a review. Ideally, you have someone who can read your article for you and catch any errors. More often than not, this is a luxury that writers cannot afford. In this case, it’s best to put down the article and do something else for an hour or more, then return to read as if you’re reading it for the first time. If you find mistakes, correct them and walk away again. Repeat this process until you can make two complete reat-throughs without any revisions. You will be surprised how many times you will catch simple errors.
Anyone can write memorable articles that people enjoy reading and learn from. Following these 8 steps, you can do it too!
Tim Piazza is the lead architect of social media and interactive marketing at Keller Crescent Advertising, Indiana’s largest independently owned advertising agency. You can read Tim’s blog at http://www.bzzmatters.com, follow Tim on Twitter @TimPiazza and learn more about Keller Crescent Advertising at http://www.kellercrescentadvertising.com
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