Tips on Effective Article Writing for Beginners

Creating your own blog site is easy (if you're signing up for free on a host site), but thinking of contents that would catch everyone's attention is something. Writing an informative article requires skill. However, if you're that interested in blogging, there are references in the internet regarding article writing tips that would help you enhance your writing skills.

Basically, article writing tips would give you 10 advices on how to make your articles interesting and sound. Before typing your article, it would be best to do an outline first. Your outline must be divided into three parts: introduction, body, and conclusion. Under each part, there would be bullet points on the subtopics. This would help you organize the flow of your article. An outline will also help you avoid redundancy of points to discuss.

Afterwards, you need to give an overview of the topic. An overview includes background, history, and idea of the subject matter. The introduction is usually a short one. You should give all the details in the body.

Proceed now to the body. Follow the order of topics to discuss as what you have listed accordingly in your outline. You have to discuss each point of the subtopics. Remember, everything the readers need to know about the article is found in the body. You're supposed to pour it all here. There is one reminder, though: be straight to the point.

People enjoy reading blogs more than newspapers because of its friendly approach. Since you're writing a blog post, you have to make the readers be put to ease even with serious topics. Treat your blog posting as a conversation between you and your friend. Make it sound casual but essential. However, you have to watch out for incomplete sentences.

If you're going to make use of other sites as a reference, make sure that you state the source correctly. Article writing tips would also require you to be familiar with different styles of source citation. If you're used to the APA style when doing your thesis or research paper, you can use it here.

Be creative in doing your introduction and conclusion. Creativity cannot be taught, but some of the ways you can make your articles interesting is starting or ending it with a quotation from a certain source. Play with words. As for the conclusion, you only need to summarize what you have discussed earlier.

If You Want to Be a Freelancer, Do You Know What It Takes and How to Get Started?

If you aspire to be a freelancer, most likely you already know one or two freelance writers who are making a living in the freelance writing field. You've probably seen them at work and seen the articles that they've written. However, do you know the hard work and perseverance this freelancer has had to go through to get to where he or she is at in his or her freelance career?

A freelance writer didn't just wake up one morning and turn their writing ability into a pot of gold under the rainbow-blood, sweat and tears came into play towards guiding them to success. It's not enough to simply have the desire to work at home as a freelancer. You need to have more ingredients in order to create a recipe for success. Follow these steps and you'll be well on your way towards succeeding as a freelance writer.

One important characteristic you will need as a freelance writer is the ability to write fast, but produce high quality work. Clients want freelancers who can produce top of the line work in a short amount of time. Some of the companies, who are looking for freelance writers, need these freelancers to write copy for their clients. However, once the freelancer submits the copy, it needs to go through the editing process before it is then sent to the company's client for his or her final review. If the client doesn't accept the work, then it is sent back to the freelancer for revision.

Just imagine the length of time this could take if everyone involved lags along and doesn't move at top speed. However, if each player works with speed and precision, then the process will go along as needed. The majority of assignments for freelance writers pay a small rate, usually per word or per page. That is why freelancers usually have to write anywhere from 5000 - 15,000 words per day to actually make a living as a freelancer. Once you become more established as a freelancer, you will be able to accept higher paying freelance assignments.

Not only do freelancers need to have the ability to quickly write well-written content, they also need to have the desire to succeed at all costs. If it is your dream to be a freelance writer, then you need to dig deep inside your heart and promise yourself you will persevere and never give up. No one is going to be your biggest fan, except for you. If you don't promise yourself that you'll never give up-when the going gets tough, you'll quit. Promise yourself that you won't ever quit... you'll keep writing until you cross the threshold into success.

Success comes to those who prepare, plan and persevere. Are you that person?

Six Writing Traits for Success

Writing Traits - This article is based on an article in "Teaching That Makes Sense." Although the article was geared for teaching students, the tips that are included are great for bloggers and adult writers as well.

I am an avid blogger and write at least three posts a day. My style is rapid involves rapid communication of ideas. Because, I am such an analytical person, I find myself self censoring quite a bit. I find that rapid writing (what I call power blogging) allows me to get out my best ideas before my analytical mind shuts down the creative process.

However, there are challenges with this style because it puts me at risk of not communicating ideas succinctly or in a way where an audience will be able to easily identify what is being communicated. You may be a rapid writer or a methodical writer and there are pros and cons to each style.

The tips listed below will provide a general guideline of what you should look for in your writing and the writing of others.

Ideas that are interesting and important. Ideas are the heart of the piece - what the writer is writing about and the information he or she chooses to write about it.

Organization that is logical and effective. Organization refers to the order of ideas and the way the writer moves from one idea to the next.

Voice that is individual and appropriate. Voice is how the writing feels to someone when they read it. Is it formal or casual? Is it friendly and inviting or reserved and standoffish? Voice is the expression of the writer's personality through words.

Word Choice that is specific and memorable. Good writing uses just the right words to say just the right things.

Sentence Fluency that is smooth and expressive. Fluent sentences are easy to understand and fun to read with expression.

Conventions that are correct and communicative. Conventions are the ways we all agree to use punctuation, spelling, grammar, and other things that make writing consistent and easy to read.

Now like anything else, you can focus on these traits while you are planning your writing and in the review process. I would suggest reading through the traits before you start each writing session. Do not worry about committing it to memory.

You can even verbalize the traits and say something like - During this writing session, my writing will include the following traits. After a while, your subconscious mind will actually take over and start improving your writing to include these traits.

After your writing is done, when you can detach from the writing, go through and rank yourself based on each of the traits. The rankings do not need to be perfect but if you commit them to paper, you can see which areas may need more attention and which areas are improving over a period of time. This will allow for an objective evaluation of what you are writing.

Work on improving on the six writing traits that are listed and you will find that you are getting a much greater response to what you are committing to paper.

Breaking All of the Rules With Your Writing

This is about hanging out on the skinny branches with your writing and your writing efforts. Now, if you have spent anytime online you know that one of the best ways to get traffic is through search engine optimization.
The formula is pretty simple -
1. Create great content.
2. Create on page optimization.
3. Get links to your site.
4. Support people in commenting on your site.
However, this model is becoming less and less important as we move forward. The search engines are getting smarter and smarter and are picking up when people are gaming the system.
All that is going to matter in the future is 1 and 4, or at least that is where I am putting my money.
This article is not being typed by somebody that I paid and I have paid for a lot of articles in the past. You land on those articles and they are not only useless but they are also not real and are not created with care. This article comes from the heart.
The things that I share are things that matter to me and they are completely real and come from my perspective in the moment. Now, the truth of the matter is that I have no idea if this will work or if this will be worth reading.
Even if people read what I have to say, will it make a difference for them? I really do not know and am not sure. However, what I do believe is that natural expression always wins out in the end.
Now, the truth is that I will not read this article after it is written and I do not even know if the ideas in this article makes sense, but I am imagining the day where I can earn a fulltime living just sharing about the things that I care about.
You see, I can take other ideas and write on a keyword. However, I really do not enjoy doing and do not think that this will make a difference for me or for somebody else.
Who knows, this experiment could be a complete failure but if it is not a complete failure and is a success, then life as we know it will change.
All I do is pull out my laptop whenever I can and I start to rage on the keyboard. I get the sentences out as quickly as I can because there is always another one right behind that is great.
Could I slow down and think through what I am doing? I guess but I have spent too much time (or should I say) wasted too much time thinking.
I am not talking about the deep pondering that causes great results. I am talking about the thinking that takes in circles and back again. That stuff is not fun and really does not make a difference for people.
Break all of the rules with your writing. You may fail and you may not get what you want but you will know that you brought yourself to the game and that is what really matters in the end.
Please start to rage on your keyboard. We can play together.

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Writer's Block Is a Scourge - How to Get Rid of It

In the world of writing, nothing seems to get in the way of a good writer. Everything they write is just flowing through their fingertips at the speed of light, and pure genius is born in the form of words!

Well that is not always the case when it comes to the dreaded writers block. If you're a writer that might be all to familiar to you.

Here are some tips for writing, to avoid that awful experience known as "the writer's block."

1. Let the Words Flow

Writing in general, is a long process that takes a couple of hours or more just to generate ideas. Sometimes it's a good idea just to let the words flow, whether on paper or on a keyboard. The best way to do this is to get a pencil and paper, and write down whatever comes to mind.

2. Make an Outline

Starting off with a plan can be helpful. Making an outline is a good way get the main ideas of your paper, such as characters, plot twist, and a general idea of what the main theme of the paper is going be (this can be very helpful for science fiction writers).

3. Research Your Favorite Book

Inspiration can come at any time, even reading. Try taking notes of your favorite books and get a general idea of how it was constructed. For instance, if you're a science fiction writer, try reading your favorite Steven King novel to generate some ideas.

4. Local Library

What better place to go for books then the library. You can find books on the subject you are most passionate about. Books even on the subject of writing. The library also contains a wide verity of periodicals, and research material for any writer writing on subjects like history, science. For non-fiction writers, the library is a good place to start.

5. Take a Break

It's a good idea to just take a break from writing. Try another activity; take at least a 10 minutes to do something else or relax. If you have been working an hour take a break.

Remember writing takes time, concentration, and everything in between. Don't let writers block discourage you! If you have to, go outside and write about trees, write about how they look. Go with what you know, do a basic free-write. Like any profession, writing takes time and dedication.

Tips To Faster Writing

One thing to keep in mind when writing articles is that only about 10% of it is the actual content on your main points and the other 90% is filler words. So essentially in a 400 word article about 40 words are the main or essential points. The other 360 are filler words. Knowing the main points will put you at about having 90% of your article already written. The only work that generally needs to be done is to find and research your main and supporting points. Everything else will be to "fill in the gaps." Even with practice researching your topic you can be done in about 5 or 10 minutes.

How Do You Research a Topic

Well there are any some ways to finding a topic to write about but from my research the best way is to pull your topic and supporting points from multiple sites. You can do this by, heading to any search engine typing in an idea you want to write about, attempt to grab the first 3 or 4 results you get from your search and pull your main and supporting points from there. Once your finished, your about 90% percent finished with your research, the rest is just creating a template that you can use for future use, find 90% percent of filler words and your article is complete. The hardest part of this is getting started and disciplining yourself to write from a template as oppose to all from conscious thought. Mastering this will allow you to write an article in 5 minutes instead of spending hours trying to write your next "compelling" article.

Why People Struggle To Write

For most experienced and novice writers, we often hear the phrase "writers block." It's a state of mind in which we mentally block ourselves from writing because the information we want to put on paper is not there. The best way to get over writers block is to simply write. Write about anything that comes to mind even if it doesn't make sense. Why you ask? Because what will begin to happen is that you'll start to realize that as writers we can't completely depend on conscious thought alone to write. We have to use our intuition and then can we truly have the ability to write compelling articles in about half the time which will save us hours of frustration and it can produce work that we are proud of.

When to Edit, and When to Proofread

One of the biggest frustrations I hear from editors and book layout people is that authors don't understand what proofreading means.

As a simple definition, proofreading is reading an already finished and polished manuscript to look for any last errors that might have been missed when editing. If a manuscript is ready for proofreading, then the errors found should be fairly minor and probably not more than one per page, hopefully far less. Proofreading does not include editing or rewriting.

Many an editor has had an author approach him with a manuscript that is said to need proofreading but really needs editing. Editing is far more substantial than proofreading-it can involve rewriting sentences, deleting unnecessary content, writing in new content, moving around sentences, paragraphs, and even chapters, and also fixing grammatical and punctuation errors. Many editors will differentiate between copyediting, developmental editing, or other types of editing. A good editor hopefully will do all of them for you, but remember that not all editors are the same. You might find a great editor who can do a developmental edit to improve your book's content, to develop your characters or help to strengthen your plot, but he might not be so great at knowing comma rules, how to catch split infinitives, or at fixing subject-pronoun agreement issues.

Every book needs editing. If an author says a book needs proofreading, it most likely needs editing unless the author has already had someone else edit the book, and even then, only if that person is qualified as an editor.

Most editors will do a free sample edit of a few pages of a manuscript so the author can see what needs to be done in terms of editing-sentence structure, organization, grammar, and punctuation-and after the sample edit is done, the author will generally agree it is editing, not simply proofreading that needs to be done, if the editor knows what he's doing. It doesn't hurt to get a few editing samples before choosing an editor to make sure you find an editor who will give the book the full attention to detail that it needs.

After the editor finishes editing the manuscript and the author is happy with the edits, it's important to find a third party who is really good at proofreading to go through the manuscript to catch those few errors the author and editor did not catch; your editor might proofread for you, but a third set of eyes is never a bad idea. Just make sure the person is a qualified proofread-your wife or best friend are most likely not.

Once the proofreading is finished, the manuscript is done and ready for layout. Here is where "proofreading" again becomes a term that authors fail to understand and that can frustrate both the editor/proofreader and the layout person.

It's been said many times that no book is ever finished. We simply choose at some point to abandon it-which often means we believe it is ready for publication. No book that has ever been written has been perfect, and no book has ever suited everyone's tastes. You might produce a beautifully written, grammatically correct, perfectly punctuated book, but it could still have some rewriting done to make it better. The problem is, once the book is sent to the layout person, the author must restrain himself from rewriting. An author should be absolutely confident that the book is ready for publication when it is sent to the layout person. If it's not, then keep editing and proofreading. Just don't do it after the book is laid out.

Layout people do not read the books they lay out; they are not editors or proofreaders, and they will not fix your typos and other errors unless you find them and ask for them to be fixed.

The layout process includes converting the manuscript into a new program. Today, authors generally write books in Microsoft Word or some other word processing program, and editors will edit the book in the same program. But when the book goes to the layout person, the text is converted into a design file, such as InDesign, a program made specifically to design a book.

The layout person will send the proofs-the completed laid out book in pdf format (or occasionally paper)-to the author to approve. At this point, only proofreading should be done. The pdf is not the book but a copy of the book, and it cannot be edited directly. I know many editors and layout people who have been extremely frustrated with authors who decide at this point that they need to insert sentences and paragraphs, reword phrases, and flip around chapters. Once the author receives the proofs, whether as a pdf or in paper form, the author should only look for typos, and every change should be deemed absolutely necessary. Only the layout person, not the editor, can make any changes the author wants, although any changes should be run by the editor to make sure grammatical errors, of which the author might be unaware, will not be introduced into the text.

It can be very time-consuming for everyone involved if the author decides to make changes to the proofs beyond fixing a few typos; a paper printout of the laid out book must be marked up, or a separate document created in which are written down all the requested changes with page number and page placement for easy reference. The more corrections requested and more extensive they are, the more likelihood that further errors will be introduced into the book. Stylistic preferences do not count as corrections and should not be made at this point-only the correction of serious errors. In short, after the book is laid out is not the time to rewrite.

Many layout people, and especially the print-on-demand subsidy publishing houses, will charge authors for any changes they make to the book because so many authors have failed to understand that once a book is laid out, rewriting is not appropriate. Other layout people will allow a set number, such as twenty-five or fifty, corrections for free, and anything over that will be charged by the hour or by the individual correction. Some layout people will even request the author make the changes in the Word document if major rewriting is needed, and then the book will need to be laid out again, and the author will be charged accordingly since it may well be less time-consuming for the layout person to lay out the entire book again than individually have to insert a couple of hundred small changes-and again, don't forget that each correction made has the potential for introducing a new typo.

Authors, make your life easier and your layout person and editor's lives easier. Learn the difference between proofreading and editing and when one or the other is needed. When you sign off on that manuscript as finished and send it to the layout person, make sure it is as perfect as it's going to be to save everyone time, money, and frustration. Then the last stage of the book's production will go easily and the book can quickly be sent to the printer.