If you went to school and received at least some basic kind of education, you will know how to write. But it is not that type of writing that I am discussing about in this post.
Writing can be of various types, but when you intend to do it professionally you need to take care of certain facts and play by the rules of the game.
A professional writer is QUITE different than a regular blogger or author or a poet. While all of these professions focus on writing, a professional writer has a huge responsibility on his / her shoulders. They have to adapt themselves to the needs of the clients whom they cater to.
I am a professional writer engaged in freelance writing since the past 5+ years, during which I worked with a plethora of clients on multitude of projects in varied niches.
Here are a handful of tips from my personal experience that will make your article writing look flawless and add finesse to your work.
Title your Content Well
Your content is like a gift that your readers are excitedly waiting to open and read. But what fun is a gift without a great gift wrap?
I am sure every one of us knows how easy it is to transform a dull and boring gift into something quite cool and exciting by a simple act. Just wrap it and dress it up in a funky looking package, right?
I am not saying to fool your readers with a funky title to disguise boring content. A great title will help in fueling the interest of your readers and will make them want to click on it and read more.
Warm Up with Your Introduction
Writing an introduction for your article is a lot like a first date; you should not and will not ask for a kiss before getting comfortable with each other.
Your introduction is meant to do exactly that- get comfortable with your reader and let them get comfortable with you!
What goes into your introduction? It could be anything that is guaranteed to attract your reader’s attention and interest. Try playing around with different things like a shocking statement, a popular quote, a pertinent question and so on.
But remember whatever you do, DO NOT exceed beyond 200 words here.
Plan Your Article Body Systematically
The body of your article is the most important part for your message that you are trying to get across to your readers.
If you have managed to get your reader to stick with you even after they read your title and your introduction, then you should give yourself a pat on your back. Bravo, you sure did a good job until now.
But if you mess up with your article body, you will lose your reader very quickly. So, make sure that you plan your article body and divide it into many different sections with appropriate sub-titles.
Doing this achieves three things: first it makes it easy for your reader to digest the information, secondly it helps them to quickly skim through your article and still get the message and finally it is pleasing and comforting to their eyes.
Polish Your Grammar Please
This one tip itself is worth a million dollars, because no matter how well you package your article in a funky title, use a great introduction to snuggle up to your reader and hook them in with systematic subtitles and sectioned content, they will still see through your BLUFF if your article is ridden with grammar errors.
Please do yourself a favor and on your poor readers too and polish your language and grammar before attempting at professional writing.
Confirm Your Facts
Beware, this is a huge land mine that can blow up your both your hard work and your dreams of becoming a professional writer if not paid the attention due to it.
As a professional writer, you may be hired by clients to write articles on a variety of topics that you necessarily do not know much about.
But that does not mean that you should write only on one topic which you posses a qualification in. You are free to write on any subject matter, provided that you have got your facts 100% correct.
Confirm and re-confirm by using more than a few references when you mention technical, medical, scientific or any sort of facts.
Wrap Up Your Article Smoothly
Just like you made your reader comfortable at the beginning of your article, please make sure that your readers leave with a good feeling in their hearts.
Do not end your article abruptly without warning; it leaves the readers stranded and with a very bad impression of the writer.
Wrap up your article with a summary or synopsis that need not be more than a sentence or two in length.
Synopsis
The tips that I have discussed here, about how to write an article should be implemented each time you attempt at writing one.
As the popular saying goes, “Practice makes man (and woman) perfect”. So, keep practicing and you should be perfect in no time.
Good luck with your professional writing career!
About Dr. Kavita Shaikh
Martin says
May 27, 2013 at 8:46 amThe backbone of every post is the title. The better it is the more readers it may attract. No matter what you are writing about, the title has to be really catchy! That is the success.
Dr. Kavita Shaikh says
May 27, 2013 at 9:23 amYou’re right Martin. There is a lot of weight in the Title of any post. Thanks for commenting!
Wilfred Imbukwa says
May 27, 2013 at 10:28 amBeing a professional writer takes practice and years of perfection. When I was in high school, I got average language grades because our language teachers never taught us the secrets of being a professional writer. Even when I write articles at Ezine, they tend to reject them and they say its because of poor grammar. But with time my grammar has been improving. I believe that being a professional writer takes years of language perfection.
Dr. Kavita Shaikh says
May 27, 2013 at 7:30 pmThanks for reading and commenting Wilfred. Nice to know that your language skills are improving. Good luck with it!
Kimsea says
May 27, 2013 at 11:19 amThanks for sharing! I love the tips because writing is my serious problem. That is a good idea about writing introduce and plan body content. I learnt from this.
Dr. Kavita Shaikh says
May 27, 2013 at 7:31 pmHi Kimsea, I hope you can find some practical tips in this post to help your writing problem.
M Nirmal Anandh says
May 27, 2013 at 12:27 pmFor a professional blogger, the title should be descriptive. Title itself says about the post of article. Nice information.
Dr. Kavita Shaikh says
May 27, 2013 at 7:32 pmThanks for reading and for the nice words Nirmal. Please share the post if you liked it.
James McAllister says
May 28, 2013 at 6:53 amOf course, your title should give an idea of what the articles about, but the main purpose of the title in my opinion is to pull the readers in. I try to get as creative with my titles as possible for this purpose – and believe me, it isn’t always easy.
Dr. Kavita Shaikh says
May 28, 2013 at 1:52 pmJames, you are right about creative titles. It sometimes can take up a lot of your time.
Fahad Akhtar says
May 28, 2013 at 10:01 amHi Kavita, nice article, it is very informative and tips you told are very helpful too.
Dr. Kavita Shaikh says
May 29, 2013 at 5:26 amThank you for the nice words Fahad, hope you shared it with your friends on social media.
Joseph Adediji says
May 28, 2013 at 9:45 pmGreat Post Kavita,
Titles and Introduction is very important when writing any article.
We need to make these two as attractive as possible inorder to attract readers and achieve our overall goal.
Thanks for the share.
Dr. Kavita Shaikh says
May 29, 2013 at 5:29 amThanks for taking time to comment and for the appreciation Joseph. Glad that you liked the post.
rahul says
June 2, 2013 at 11:00 amHello Kavita,
Now this post is really inspiring i have opened up 2-3 blogs recently and was striving to get good content but after reading your post i can feel that i can write them on my own 🙂
Thanks
Dr. Kavita Shaikh says
June 2, 2013 at 11:20 amYes you can Rahul. Wishing you all the very best for it!
Aims says
June 2, 2013 at 1:23 pmThanks for sharing! I think one of the guarantees that every article needs is it should have an engaging title and exciting introduction to capture readers. A writer should also have a clear view of what he wants to convey in his article.
Des says
June 3, 2013 at 3:19 amIt is great to have the opportunity to read a good quality article with useful information on topics that plenty are interested on. The points that the data stated are all first hand on actual experiences even help more. Go on doing what you do as we enjoy reading your work.
Tushar says
July 8, 2013 at 6:30 pmAwesome tips! It helps to be prepared, and to have the right amount of information beforehand to be able to write faster and efficiently. But most of all, it takes experience to do it all.
Gautham says
July 8, 2013 at 6:32 pmIt is easy to say that you should start free style writing, but we know all writers can’t do it because in my opinion they can lose their temperament and can out of target.
Krishna says
July 8, 2013 at 6:34 pmGreat tips and very important points you have shared in-spite of it that i am not content writer these tips are also helpful and effective for me to be a good writer.
Rahul Pahal says
July 27, 2013 at 2:37 amAll mentioned factors are really important and must be kept in mind while writing a post. But I would focus a little extra on grammar and title. title is very very considerable thing for on-page seo. and if you have grammatical mistakes all over your post, readers are going to hate it badly.
Larry David says
August 2, 2013 at 5:05 amI just want another thing.. it would be good if Title should be small, less then 60 words. it an also attract visitors and Search engine attention.