How (not) to Write an Article

Author: Kristina Karabova
(Mladiinfo Editor)

This piece of writing is supposed to be one of the “How to…” guides that people, especially dummies or lazy bones, could use as the first steps to write their article and, possibly, have them published somewhere.

Based on my experience as an editor, after several emotional eruptions, I decided to write something really easy, yet comprehensive, so that next time after you sit in front of your word-editing applications (I guess nobody now uses traditional typewriters – the word that older generations are still familiar with and the younger ones probably have no clue about), you won’t make editors (that is, me) blow up. 😉

Writing

Let’s start with some very essential points that some of you may already know, but for some reason, some people tend to forget about them, so I feel the urge to repeat them.

1. Target group and the style

Think about the imaginary audience you want to pass your message on to. Do young people really want to know about the details you would confide with your professor honoris causa, PhD. squared? And the other way around, would the professor be curious about your last night adventures? I doubt it.

Therefore, my advice is to pick the right style and appropriate vocabulary for each group you might be writing for.

If you are writing for Mladiinfo, try to picture the crowd of people not willing to neither yawn over your dissertation theses nor be repelled by obscenity. Or try to picture me. 🙂

And remember, explicit vocabulary such as “f***” or “pi**ed off” shouldn’t appear anywhere, only if you find it absolutely necessary, but still, I would use them either with asterisks and/or definitely put them in quotes.

2. Topic and Content

What is your article about? What is it that you are writing about? Before you start writing, try to make an outline of your text. Follow the golden (and beaten) rules of writing: Introduction, Body and Conclusion. For example, paragraph 1 – Why I went to blabla; paragraph 2 – What I saw in blabla; paragraph 3 – Everybody should go to blabla, because blabla; paragraph 4 – I am glad that I was in blabla and definitely want to come back soon etc. Bla.

Stay off OFF TOPIC. Is everything you intend to write related to the topic? If not, leave it out.

3. Heading

Take your time to ponder about a good title for your article. Any journalist will tell you that a good headline is the half the work done. Naturally, it should contain info about the topic. Try to make it catchy and not too long. Not to go too far for examples, I’ll take some titles from Mladiinfo: Stereotypical Stereotype Breaker, My Most Magical Capitals in Europe or My Do’s and Dont’s for Macedonia.

4. Turn on your SPELLCHECK

Don’t have one? Install it. Using it, you avoid small mistakes, typos and misprints and you spare the editor a lion share of work (roar!:). If natives can use them, why not non-natives, especially when they are not too confident with the language they use for sharing their ideas.

5. An article, as obvious as it may sound, is not an e-mail.

Remember the nearly faded or scraped off graffiti on the wall in your neighbourhood: “I love you”? You surely do and here, as well as anywhere else, “I” comes, surprisingly, as the capital letter. Always. Note it: capital “I” everywhere there might be “you” (meaning “I”) in question.

Apostrophes. The little zany thing: ‘. You all learned it at schools.

You wouldn’t believe how much effort it saves for the one obliged to read the text after you and also, its important that the word keeps it’s meaning.

These flaws may be easily eliminated by installing the spellchecker. Therefore, install it. (A small hint: it usually comes as the part of the Microsoft or OpenOffice pack, if not, you just google and subsequently download the spellchecker compatible with your word-processing application.) Mac users: click and read here.

Emoticons. Keep in mind that modesty is after all a virtue. No need to use them after every sentence to stress it’s funny. Trust me, if its funny, it will speak for itself and again, go back to the mantra number 5: Article doesnt equal email.

6. Beware of double spacing – a nightmare of people in charge of layout.

One day, they will kill you. No joke. They will come at night and drink your blood: haaahaaa, the revenge of graphic designers. Btw, also to be fixed by the spellchecker.

Pictures

Writing an article is most certainly a very demanding task, but here is another tricky part: pictures. Don’t forget about some topical pictures, as they can enliven even a dull article. Pictures should be your own or you can take them from flickr, but to avoid dragging lawsuits with angry picture-makers make sure they are under Creative Commons license.

Sending

So, your sweat has transformed into an interesting well-structured and spellchecked article, you have selected colourful pictures and now you are entering the last stage: sending.

A point to make: editors do NOT want to see “mail-articles”; your text should arrive as an attachment in a suitable format (text: .doc, .txt, .rtf…), not in the body of your e-mail! The same applies to pictures (.jpg, .gif, .png…) – attach them in stead of putting them in the document.

Right. And now, following these steps you should be able to write and send an article. Not maybe the greatest one, because (unless you are a prodigy) such articles usually come out of either strenuous efforts or long and rich experience, but definitely an article that wont make editors (and me) want to throw axes.

P.S. There are several intentional mistakes in my article. Whoever finds them first gets a free spellchecker from me. 😉