This post is to answer someone who asked me about the “do’s and dont’s of Article Writing”. Thank you for the idea…here it is. I hope you will learn something to boost your career in freelance writing.
In general, there are two things to remember when writing any article; they must be original and of high quality. This post will elaborate so please read on…
1. Copied work and plagiarism.
To be frank, we are not that trained to make our work original way back in our thesis, essays and term papers. It’s like we are tempted to copy some sentences and add it to our project so it can become 5 pages or we are “confident” that our teacher may not know. Well, as a teacher; we always know. The words and ideas are too perfect and not that coherent with the rest.
In freelance writing, clients are very anxious that you will give them copied work. In the end, its their names who will be jeopardized and “flagged” by Google. But there are times that we have the same wordings to other works even though we really made it. The easiest is to check your work with the online tool, Article Checker or Copyscape if you have it before submitting to your client. Make the necessary changes to make it 100% original.
2. Spend time researching for your topics.
Some might consider “researching” for your topic a waste of time especially if you are writing a very short web content article. But researching by getting some key points and facts can save you time when writing. You must have some piece of paper and jot down all the necessary facts that are important for your article. This can save you time once you are writing your article. You will not be “lost of words” and your ideas are there already; you just have to combine them all.
3. Never rush your articles.
I have experienced being so loaded with many assignments because I got addicted to getting projects ( I will discuss this in another post; kindly remind me..lol) that I don’t have time to write them all in the best that I could. If you rush your articles, it will turn out so mediocre and you lose your client.
4. Make your article “readable”.
Online article writing gives opportunity to those people who are not ” walking dictionaries” to publish their works. Majority of people who use and read contents in the internet are just like us so keep your words simple. I read in one article that your work should not prompt our readers to look for a dictionary. Unless you are writing some specific articles like insurances, medicals and the likes where you need to add some jargon.
5. Grammar and Spelling.
Review your basic grammar in case you forgot. Do not rely on the spelling and grammar check of your computer since it can outlook some errors. Manually edit and check your work. Read and read your article before submitting it to your client.
6. Avoid “Fillers”.
A client asked you to write a 600-word article about “losing weight” and you are completely lost with words; you are still with 400 words. Some writers would make their sentences to long and repeating some ideas over and over again just to reach the number of words. Now, this is not good especially for readers, this will no longer interesting to read. Your work should be concise and direct to the point.
7. Make headings
To make your article readable, make at least one heading. For example your writing an article about “Losing Weight”; your article should look like this
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
Foods to Eat and Avoid
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
Exercises to Start with
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
Above, you made two headings which are ” Foods to Eat and Avoid” and “Exercises to Start With”. Having headings will only make your article organized but it can be easier for you to meet the number of words required. So it is easy to make a 600- word article if you do this; just allocate the number of words to each part.
There you have it, some of the things to keep in mind when writing any article. If you have other ideas, feel free to comment…
Earn and Write!