7 Tips for Writing an Article for the First Time

A question from Twitter asked us if we had any tips about writing articles, and we deliver! This week on the Writing Momentum podcast, Chris and Gena share 7 tips for writing an article for the first time.

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Episode 18 Transcription:

[00:00:13].920] - Gena
Hello, and welcome into the Writing Momentum podcast. We are so glad you are here, Chris. We are talking about something really fun today. And this is for new writers, right?

[00:00:25].180] - Chris
Yes. We're talking about articles and we're talking about this because many of you who have been enjoying this podcast have started sending in questions. And one of the questions that we have received this is from Secret Send. They send it in through Twitter. And she said, "Hi, I need some what are your top tips on writing an article for the first time?" She has an article on dyslexia that she wanted to write about for the education market. And she wants to know if we have any top tips. And you know what Secret Send we do? We happen to have seven of them, and we've compiled them here. And we want to share this with you today.

[00:01:03].070] - Gena
Yeah. Well, first of all, congratulations on your article. I think this sounds like a really interesting one and very much a needed one to talk about dyslexia. But first, we would recommend when you're writing your first article on a subject, we recommend that you look at other articles in that publication. If you are wanting to write for a specific publication, you want to look at the other articles in that publication. You want to see what kind of style are they using. You want to see what kind of point of view are they using. Are they writing in a second person point of view? Are they writing in third person? Are they writing first person? You also want to see what their word count is. You don't want to turn in an article that is 400 words when they're looking for something there that runs closer to 1200 words. So you want to be aware of what you're writing for. And also I would even go for looking at the tone of the article. See how is it written? Is it academic? Is there a lot of that kind of medical technical type jargon or is it really written for the a common layman?

[00:02:17].210] - Gena
Is all that technical jargon? Is it broken down? See how it's written. Do they use a lot of stories? Do they not do they use a lot of sources, like professional sources, or is it more anecdotal just really look at the style and the tone of the article as well as the word count as well as just the point of view as well.

[00:02:43].880] - Chris
Yeah. And sometimes they'll tell you exactly what they're looking for as far as things like word count. But they often won't tell you about things like style and tone. And so that's where you want to see what kinds of things they've been publishing, whether this is in a magazine or a blog and kind of match that sound so that it matches the way their publication works. The second thing we recommend is really starting off strong. So when I write an article for a publication, I like to go a little bit the extra mile. So the first thing I want to do is submit more than one title, because sometimes they have a hard time coming up with a good title that will make people, if it's online, make them want to click if it's offline, that will compel people to get into the article. And so I will recommend two or three titles, usually that have a different flavor to them and submit all three of them at the top of the article. And that's totally fine. They will like having the options. Then, in addition to the title, you want to make sure your lead of your article is strong, right?

[00:03:51].800] - Chris
Your lead is the first couple of sentences to the article. It's what gets you into the article. You want it to be very compelling. You might start off with a story or a quote or sometimes a question. I don't like to use questions all the time because they're very easily overused. But sometimes it warrants a question, but do something that gets people into the article. You don't want to turn them off right away. What makes it so they can't stop, reading have a strong lead.

[00:04:21].420] - Gena
And I think you also need to put yourself into the position when you're writing that lead, put yourself in the position of the reader and recognize that you only have a couple of seconds to grab someone's attention. If someone gets bored or that they are not going to stick with you very long, you need to rework that lead. And a lot of times people will recommend that you write your lead after you write the body of your article. Now I'll be honest, I don't do it like that. But what I will do is I'll start with my lead, because then a lot of times my article will kind of flow from there. But I will go back and I will rework it to make sure that I can get it as compelling as possible.

[00:05:04].190] - Chris
Absolutely.

[00:05:04].980] - Gena
And then when you're talking about sources, if you are talking about an article on dyslexia or you're talking about an article on something where you're trying to teach people something, or even if it's a business article, something like that, you want to have some really good sources. I personally love to use studies or statistics. I will look at government websites. I will look at educational type websites, like from schools where there have been maybe PhDs who have written articles or they have written papers on something. I'll also look at organizations that specialize in that field. So I will not go to someone's blog on it. But I may look at their blog if they have cited an expert source, but I really try to go to the experts. So if I'm talking about something on the heart, some kind of illness on the heart, I wouldn't have a problem at all with obviously using the American Heart Association. Clearly they know what they're talking about. I might do studies on heart, the studies that have been done on the heart. And I will even look at these studies, looking at them geographically. So I will try to use if I'm writing for an American audience, I will try to use an American study.

[00:06:35].050] - Gena
If I'm writing for a more international audience, I'll even go to Australia or the UK or something somewhere else. So that's always an option as well.

[00:06:45].540] - Chris
So a really good pro tip for this is what Gena just said is don't always use the original thing you find, but find out who they are citing. So if you find a blog or you go to Wikipedia, like don't cite Wikipedia, please don't cite Wikipedia instead Wikipedia has at the bottom of it all the sources they use for the Wikipedia article. So go to those sources. Go to the source. A lot of times if I'm looking for a statistic on something in particular, I'll go to Google and I'll type in like, for instance, dyslexia statistics. Right. You type that in, you'll come up with all kinds of hits. But then when you do, many of those are in blogs. So go to those, but then find out who they used as a source and go to that source and use that as your source. And that will go a long way because you will have really strong sources then and there won't be anything debatable about them. Well.

[00:07:41].680] - Gena
And I will also say that if you are looking for a quote from an expert, you can also go to those. You can look for the studies, look for those. But when I mentioned that you can go to those organizations like the American Heart Association or some organization on dyslexia, a lot of these will have a place that you can contact them and you need to give them enough time, especially if it's a large organization. But you might be able to get in touch with someone and even just an email interview where you send them two or three questions that you'd like them to answer with two or three sentences, will give you a good quote for your article as well.

[00:08:25].510] - Chris
Yeah. So the next point we have out of these seven, number four is tied to number two, which is about a strong introduction. You also want to have a very strong conclusion. And usually I will try to wrap up the conclusion with a couple of sentences that tie into the introduction. Right. The introduction kind of says, here's what we're going to deliver. And the conclusion says, here's what we delivered. So it has that tie. It makes the article feel more round, like you're delivering on what you promised. But then what I also like to do is always have a takeaway. What can people do with this knowledge that you just shared? So if you're talking about dyslexia and you shared some statistics, some good information about dyslexia, what can people practically do with it? Share that with them, and it will go a long way.

[00:09:16].970] - Gena
And then, of course, before you submit your article, you really want to make sure that someone else proofreads it or edits it. You want to let it sit overnight, come back to it, maybe read it yourself, give yourself some time to work through this process. Because really, I always say the magic happens in the editing. That is where your writing will really just come alive and really be strong and tight. You want to get rid of any extra words that aren't necessary. You want to make sure that you're not repeating words. We all have our favorite words, and if we're not careful, they'll show up three times in an article. We need to make sure we're not doing that, that we're using some different phrases. We want to make sure that we are tying it together. So, yeah, let it sit overnight, proofread it yourself, and then have someone else proofread it. And it's great if you have someone in your life who either is strong in their editing, in their English composition, ask one of your writer friends. You guys could maybe even trade things so that you're editing each other stuff so you don't necessarily this isn't something you have to pay for, but you really want another set of eyes on it.

[00:10:37].510] - Chris
But it doesn't hurt to pay for it.

[00:10:39].040] - Gena
It doesn't hurt to pay for it.

[00:10:40].090] - Chris
If you want to have someone proofread or edited, it doesn't hurt to pay for it. And usually it won't cost you that much for an article, you'll be paid far more than what it would cost to have someone proofread or edit. So it's always worth it for the second set of eyes. And while you're doing that, also watch your formatting. Right. A lot of times we see articles that people send to us to look at, and we're like, wow, they didn't use Times New Roman. They didn't use twelve point type. They didn't use one inch margins. These things are standard in the industry. So be sure you have that kind of consistency that a magazine can count on because they don't want to have to go in and reformat your article. They don't want to have to convert it to Word because everyone uses Word. Right? You want to make sure that you use the kinds of things that they're asking for, that you have that professionalism. So watch your formatting. And what's the final point?

[00:11:30].770] - Gena
This one is a big one, you guys. Here it is. Make your due date. If this is an article that you have been assigned by a blog or by a publication, make sure you make your due date. And everybody has things that come up sometimes that will make it where you're not able to do that. If you miss a due date, make sure you give your editor plenty of time in advance that you are not going to make that due date for whatever reason. And then when you say, I can't have it to you by Friday, but I'll have it to you Monday morning. By golly, you make that Monday morning. You don't become a writer that an editor has to worry about because they will find someone else that they don't have to worry about. They've got too much on their plate to spend that kind of energy thinking about, what do I do with this person? They may or may not make their due date. They may or may not turn this in. And I've got a hole in my publication that I got to fill now.

[00:12:27].900] - Chris
Yeah. Gina and I have both worked with a lot of editors as well as we have been editors working with freelancers and writers. And I'll tell you, making that due date, being a writer that someone can count on, it really sets you apart because you would not believe how many people are people that you find out, wow, I can't really count on them to make this. And you don't want to have that feeling when you're working with someone, you want to make sure you can count on your writers. So when you find someone who really delivers, like all you want to do is make sure that you don't lose them. You want to pay them more. You want to make sure that you always keep that writer happy because they are someone you can count on.

[00:13:05].840] - Gena
And then just as a bonus, we like to over deliver. If you can do yourself a favor and become this is one way to become really an asset. A valuable asset to an editor is to over deliver. And what we do by that, what we mean by that is one, we will do pull quotes. When you're looking at magazines, you're looking at blogs. A lot of times there will be a sentence or two that are bolded, that are pulled out and made larger. And the reason they do that is that when someone is skimming that page, their eye will come across that pull quote and it will be something of interest that will hopefully get them into the main article. So we like to do at least three pull quotes. Sometimes we'll do more. I've gone up to five probably before just to give the editor again. The editor then doesn't have to think, oh, I got to come up with pull quotes. The editor can scan them and say, I like this one and this one go with it. We will also do sidebars. So, for instance, if you're talking about this article on dyslexia, maybe you've got a sidebar of resources that people who are dealing with whatever issue within that topic that you're talking about.

[00:14:19].350] - Gena
Maybe there are some research resources that they can find more information out. Or maybe there's statistics that you could use that again, the editor or the person laying out that article can use to just give a little bit more information. Just make the whole piece a little bit fuller.

[00:14:40].950] - Chris
And they can also use these on social media. And so there are all kinds of uses for extra material. So never be concerned about providing too much extra material. I wouldn't go overboard on writing too much. Right. You want to write how many words they want, but it's okay to provide it in extra stuff like an extra sidebar or an extra pull quote or that sort of thing. And so here's your assignment this week. Write down these points that we just delivered. Next time you go to write an article, you can use this as a reference. So here they are again. First, you want to look at other articles in the publication so that you can match the style and word count. That's number one. Number two, start off strong with two to three titles and a strong lead. Use good sources. Don't use necessarily things like Wikipedia, but go to their sources and pull those out. Four, have a strong conclusion and a takeaway. I like to have them where they tie back in to the introduction. Number five, make sure someone else reads it or proofreads it and edits it. Number six, watch your formatting.

[00:15:47].150] - Chris
Make sure it's standard. And seven, make your due date and over deliver. You do those things, you will find that this article that you're writing for the first time won't be your last.

[00:16:00].110] - Gena
Thank you so much for tuning in today, and we hope this has been helpful for you. We hope that you'll rate this podcast and review it as well. We value your feedback. Please also subscribe so you don't miss an episode and then share it. If you've got some writing friends that you think could benefit from this, please share it with them. That is important to us that we are able to help as many writers as possible.

[00:16:26].650] - Chris
Yeah, and you can be a part of that. So thank you so much for listening to the Writing Momentum podcast. Until next week, we hope all your writing has Momentum.