In the age of the internet, article writers who can generate good content in a short time period are in increasingly high demand. However, writing articles or blogging under tight deadlines should not come at the expense of good writing.
- Define your purpose - Have a clear idea of what you want to achieve through the article and what you wish to convey through it. This will help you come up with a proper structure and layout for the article.
- Don’t be afraid to embrace simplicity - You don’t have to use fancy vocabulary to write well. One time, I was editing an article written by someone where she used the term “conglomerated” in a completely inaccurate setting.
So big words don’t necessarily mean good writing. Your goal should be to convey your idea and thoughts in the simplest of ways. Remember the quote by da Vinci “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” - Avoid run-on sentences - To make sure your writing is easy to read, break up long sentences into 2–3 shorter ones. This also makes it easier for you to express your ideas with minimal mistakes because run-on sentences can get confusing even while writing.
- Support statements with data - If you’re adding some claims and statements to your article, make sure you support them with accurate data. This gives substance and depth to your writing because you’ll be proving that you’re not just making up stuff as you go.
For example, you’re claiming that people process visual content better than text content. Make sure you mention (and preferably a link to the original study supporting this claim. - Think of writing as a conversation - When you’re writing an article, consider yourself talking to the reader directly. Framing your writing in a conversational tone helps you express your idea better without getting lost along the way.
- Create an outline/structure - Another important tip is to come up with an outline or structure for the article once you’ve defined your goal. You can start with an introduction, where you should be writing a brief introduction about the body of the article.
Next, outline what you want to highlight in the body. For example, you can lay out a plan to write the details of your experience within the first subhead of the article. The next subhead could contain how you felt due to the experience, followed by a subhead that talks about what you learned.
The purpose of an outline is to make sure that your article doesn’t go haywire. Most writings seem unprofessional because there’s no actual structure and the writer first talks about a certain topic and jumps to another topic and then gets back to the first topic after a few paragraphs.
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