Article Writing Techniques

What turns you on? Article writing methods and techniques are second nature to the person with passion and a cause. That doesn't mean, however, that anyone can just sit down at the keyboard and knock out an article that's ready to be published or posted on the internet. Here are a few basics:

• State your thesis in the heading and opening sentence.
• Stay on track. Focus on this topic throughout the entire article. Don't get sidetracked.
• Keep your sentences short and to the point.
• After delivering the lead sentence of a paragraph, follow up with information pertaining specifically to that lead sentence.
• Start a new paragraph for each new sub-topic.
• When giving your opinion, make sure you introduce your sentence with, "It is my opinion that…," or, "I believe that…," or, "I have concluded that…," or a similar phrase.
• If your article is straight reportage, be objective. Just the facts, ma'am!
• If your article is intended to be persuasive, every statement following the thesis should support your cause or reason for writing the article.
• Support all facts with carefully annotated footnotes. Basic to all techniques for writing articles are rules for accurate footnotes, and credits for quotes and other information that you have gathered from other sources.
• You can quote 250 words of someone else's copyrighted material without asking permission from the individual who owns the copyright.
• Keep the content spicy and interesting. The reader doesn't want to get bogged down with boring, technical facts. Place a "Selected Reading" list at the end.
• Use words that are easy to understand. Write clearly and simply.
• "Less is always more" when it comes to good writing. A common statement among publishers about book-length manuscripts is, "Anything can be said in 300 pages." The same is true for the length of articles: be short, snappy and to the point.

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