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Secret Article Writer
By admin | August 19, 2008
If you are new to blogging and you want to get readers, you need to consider article writing. This doesn’t mean that you have to be Jane Austin. I can safely say that all I share with her is the same first name and little of the talent.
It would seem to be the case that the optimum length for an article is around the 500-750 words mark. So how do you begin to write articles that follow that format? If you have a tendency to either overwrite so you end up with an unwieldy long monologue or underwrite so you struggle to get near the 500 mark, what can you do?
You may find the following tips help:
1 Write a quick summary of what you want to include. You may want to scribble a few bullet points on a piece of paper. Make a “skeleton argument”, and just jot down the bare bones.
2 Create the outline of what you want to say. If you want to get people to visit your blog,dont give too much away. This is something I have struggled with and its really time and practice that develops this skill. If you give too much away,there is no reason for people to go to your blog for the answer.
3 Write the meat of the article and then read it over and add the intro and conclusion. This can give you ideas for titles,and introductory paragraphs. Get the majority of the words in the main part of the article and write a brief introductory paragraph. You should aim to tempt your reader to take action in your last paragraph.
4 Write what you want to write, then CUT. Take out all the repeated ideas and any extraneous words. You may find that you have said the same thing in a different way. Cut it out. Get rid of all those unwieldy sentences and aim for clarity.
5 Count your words. You may find it easier to write into notepad and word wrap. I find if I have typed it in word, its difficult to fit it easily into the spaces allowed on ezine for example. If you copy and paste it into word you can at least do a word count.You then know whether you have to add some ideas or words or take some out.
6 If you have too many words,could you get two articles out of them? If your original idea was 10 handy hints make it two articles of 5 handy hints and perhaps 5 more handy hints.
7 Stuck for ideas? What about knocking a few of your blog posts around into one or more articles?
The possibilities are endless.
Until next time
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