 |
By avoiding these common mistakes, you will greatly improve your article. The Internet has an overabundance of disregarded content that was written in the same rambling way that the author normally speaks in. Many of these articles would never have been neglected by the general public had the author simply looked for these common mistakes prior to publishing.
Number One: Poor Title
The title, or headline, must grab the reader's attention and reel him or her into the story. It should not be extremely long. The title can be fun and does not necessarily need to be a verbatim description of the article. Sometimes a title is best written last. Keep in mind that we are talking about titles for articles and not books. This is an important distinction because longer titles and sub titles that might be appropriate for books will not work for articles.
Bad Title: Website Promotion Ideas: 8 Simple But Effective Tips To Get People To Visit Your Web Site Again And Again
Why? This long and clumsy title does not work for an article. The title has unneeded words and does not take the intended audience into consideration. The theme was correct and the title could be salvaged by properly rewriting it.
Better Title: 4 Major Mistakes to Avoid when Writing an Article
Why? This title is short, informs the reader what the article is about, and is worded to walk the reader into the article. It is properly targeted for the intended audience.
Number Two: Poor Opening
The opening paragraph, especially the introductory line, must be strong and present the topic. The title should flow nicely into the opening paragraph. If the title is "Saving Money at the General Store" and the article leads with "I really don't understand why more stores don't supply coupons"-it is time to rewrite. In this example, the reader will become confused quickly. It is important to maintain a logical flow.
Additionally, never write the following:
- In this article, I will show? (Just show it)
- This article will cover? (Articles do not need a table of contents or an outline)
- By the end of this article? (Don't talk to your readers like they are in grade school-unless the audience really is in grade school)
Number Three: Poor Flow
Poor flow destroys writing in general. Many writers would benefit from creating an outline and rearranging their writing based on it. Writing that does not follow logical flow is completely doomed. Many article authors seem to simply write in the same order as thoughts occur in and then call the job complete. Meanwhile, the writing is a complete mess and a potentially great article remains nothing more than amateur fodder.
This mistake can be avoided by printing out the work, reading it over, and labeling the main theme for each sentence. In the "poor opening" example, the introductory sentence belonged later on in the article-perhaps the conclusion. Reading the article draft aloud is a professional technique for discovering sentence structure errors.
Number Four: Poor Conclusion
It is poor form to label your conclusion as such in an article. There is no need to type the word "Conclusion" or state "In conclusion". A conclusion should not be a summary of what was already written. It must include fresh writing, illustrate the main point of the article, and bring the article to a logical closing. Moreover, it can't leave the reader with the sense of incompletion. An ideal conclusion will drive the point home and give the reader the satisfaction of having read the article. The closing of the article must be communicated well or the reader will come away unsatisfied-even if the article was great up until that point.
Writing great articles takes practice and adhering to some basic principles. To eliminate poorly written articles, share them with your friends and family. Write down their questions and comments as they read your article. With newfound information in hand, proceed to rewrite your work. Never be afraid to delete and rearrange-every writer must do this. In the end, your readers will thank you by continuing to read your improved work.
©2005 Jason Andrew Martin LLC Jason A. Martin has been conducting business on the Internet for 11 years. He is a freelance writer on many topics and is currently working on obtaining a degree in Journalism and Law.
His official web site, which contains articles you can use for your web site, can be viewed at: Jason A. Martin
MORE RESOURCES:
Writing-Articles - Google News
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Why a Good-Quality Photo Should Accompany Your Articles
I'm betting that that 3 out of 4 of you who are reading this don't have a good-quality photo that you could give the media if a reporter called you today.I check the EzineArticles.
1111 What Opportunities Are Waiting For You?
There are many ancient writings, which dive into the importance of numbers. The Number 1 is significant in Chinese culture, Western Culture, Indian Cultures, Egyptian Writings.
Writers Block - Find an Article Topic in Minutes Anytime Anywhere with These 7 Tips Guaranteed!
One question I get asked all the time is how to you get Ideas for your Articles? How can you churn out 5 Articles in a Day? Use these 7 Tips and You too will be able to Churn out Article Topics in Minutes Anytime Anywhere Guaranteed!As you go through your daily routine Article Ideas present themselves all the time you just need to pay more attention to what you do and How You Do It.As an Example Today I was looking over my Web Site Counter to see which keywords Web Surfers were using to Find my Web Page.
Do Free Articles Work?
Take a look around the Web and you'll find thousands upon thousand of articles, every one of them appearing on any number of websites. These are known as 'free re-print articles'.
Checklist for Writing Articles That Get Read
When writing articles for publication, it is important that you bear certain matters in mind. If you want to write a good article that stands a good chance of publication you need to take the following into consideration before, when you are in the process and after completion:Have you formed a full idea on what you want to write about? Which subject? Which topic?Do you know where or how to find facts or material for your article?Have you collected sufficient raw facts/data for your article?Have you considered the article's audience / market? Will it interest or captivate your readers?Does your article have a main idea and secondary ideas?Have you written enough to give readers quality and credible information?Does the article offer any new, refreshing and useful advice or ideas?Are paragraphs short, well arranged and flow smoothly from each other? Are sentences short and well constructed? Is punctuation all right and there are no grammatical mistakes?Is your article descriptive? Is it sensational, thought provoking, emotive or inspiring? Does it evoke happy memories, sadness or inspire readers to action?Have you revised the article to flush out irrelevant ideas, strengthen your points and checked it for any errors?Does your article content infringe any law? Copyright? Libel?Has the article undergone rewriting through several drafts to polish it?Does the article make sense?About The AuthorAbdallah Khamis Abdallah is a freelance copywriter and ghost writer.
10 Steps to a Magazine Query
Introduction There are two ways to submit to magazine editors.One is to send the finished article without it being requested.
How to Create High-Quality Backlinks the Search Engines Will Love
One great benefit of article marketing is the generation of high-quality backlinks.Simply put, a backlink is a link to your website from another website.
The Real Reason You Should Be Marketing With Articles
Article marketing has become very popular of late, especially with the explosion of a couple major article sites and publishing of some serious tools and resources that will better help marketers to use article marketing in their repertoire. For myself, I use article marketing exclusively to drive traffic to my website and to generate business.
How To Write and Publish A Successful Ezine Article
The ezine article is of major importance to the world of Internet marketing. It is a great way of list owners to provide great content for free to there subscribers and an excellent my for internet marketers to get there name out there and get some exposure for there websites, free.
The Difference Between Article Marketing and Traditional Article Writing
Lately, there seems to be some confusion between Article Marketing and regular article writing. People wonder why I would write articles when I'm not getting paid for them.
Four Tips For Getting More Mileage From Your Articles
It has become common knowledge that the smartest and most effective free method of advertising your business and services is to write and submit articles to the over 400,000 e-zines currently on the 'net. There are even several e-books written on the topic, including mine, that will help you take advantage of this effective technique.
How to Write Articles that Sell
In order to sell your article must do three things:1. Give value2.
The Raw Truth About Persuasion and Copywriting!
I get asked all the time, "Lorrie, how can I make my copy more persuasive?" Well frankly it helps if you can speak your prospect's language. But writing persuasively is more involved than just saying the right words.
An Article about Articles
Everyone that publishes a newsletter or ezine knows that the "list" is the most important thing, if you want to be successful with any online venture. To build that list we are told to submit ads to other ezines, join as many ezines as is humanly possible to read in a 24 hour day without food or sleep.
Writing Articles For Permanent Traffic
Writing articles is possibly the best way to generated free traffic to your site. A short article, submitted to a few places, creates permanent streams of traffic.
Understanding That Online Writing is Business Writing Will Make You a Fortune
Never before in the history of the business of writing have opportunities opened up and presented themselves on such a large scale and in such huge quantities for writers to easily win so much regular business and revenue.If you know anything about writers of old you will know that they mostly starved, some to death.
How to Measure the Value of Your Article Marketing Campaign
It's not enough to scatter your articles across the internet - you've got to measure what you're doing so you can be sure that you're getting value from your effort.Here are some of my preliminary thoughts on what's measurable in regards to article marketing, (and what you measure should depend on your predefined article marketing goals, but you knew that already):Number of new of links to your site This is a big one of course, and just about the easiest to measure with a simple "link:" search in the major engines.
How to Use Autoresponders With Your Articles
Now that you see that articles are the number one way to promote your business, think again about how people can get them even more efficiently.Knowing that your targeted potential customers go to Web site in their field, you'll want your articles posted ready to show that you are the savvy expert in your topic.
The 2 Headed Dragon: Let Others Publish Your Material and Keep Your Site Unique
Is Putting your Articles in the Public Domain really
a Two Headed Dragon. A very popular and economical way
to get exposure is to write articles that you allow other
who are searching for content to publish on there web pages
The Question is does allowing others to publish your
Articles make your web page less unique since it contains
the Same Article.
Using Anchor Text Optimization In Your Article Viral Marketing Campaign
What is Anchor Text Optimization?Anchor text optimization consists of the visible hyperlinked text on a webpage (e.g.
|
