4 Major Mistakes to Avoid when Writing an Article

Written by Jason A. Martin


By avoiding these common mistakes, you will greatly improve your article. The Internet has an overabundance of disregarded content that was written inrepparttar same rambling way thatrepparttar 128516 author normally speaks in. Many of these articles would never have been neglected byrepparttar 128517 general public hadrepparttar 128518 author simply looked for these common mistakes prior to publishing.

Number One: Poor Title

The title, or headline, must grabrepparttar 128519 reader’s attention and reel him or her intorepparttar 128520 story. It should not be extremely long. The title can be fun and does not necessarily need to be a verbatim description ofrepparttar 128521 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 takerepparttar 128522 intended audience into consideration. The theme was correct andrepparttar 128523 title could be salvaged by properly rewriting it.

Better Title: 4 Major Mistakes to Avoid when Writing an Article

Why? This title is short, informsrepparttar 128524 reader whatrepparttar 128525 article is about, and is worded to walkrepparttar 128526 reader intorepparttar 128527 article. It is properly targeted forrepparttar 128528 intended audience.

Number Two: Poor Opening

The opening paragraph, especiallyrepparttar 128529 introductory line, must be strong and presentrepparttar 128530 topic. The title should flow nicely intorepparttar 128531 opening paragraph. Ifrepparttar 128532 title is “Saving Money atrepparttar 128533 General Store” andrepparttar 128534 article leads with “I really don’t understand why more stores don’t supply coupons”—it is time to rewrite. In this example,repparttar 128535 reader will become confused quickly. It is important to maintain a logical flow.

Additionally, never writerepparttar 128536 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)
  • Byrepparttar 128537 end of this article… (Don’t talk to your readers like they are in grade school—unlessrepparttar 128538 audience really is in grade school)
Number Three: Poor Flow

How Not to Review a Book

Written by Arthur Zulu


Dear Mr. Ilesanmi:

Dismayed. Disappointed. That was exactly how I felt after reading your review of Mr. Mike Uzor’s book, How to Buy and Sell Shares in Nigeria, published in Financial Standard of December 20, 2004. I should have said that I was dismayed, but not disappointed. Because that was my first time of reading your “review.” For I do not know if you used to write masterpieces. Perhaps, you wroterepparttar said “review” on your “bad” day.

In one of my published books, How to Write a Best-seller, I wrote thatrepparttar 128514 author that would write an error free manuscript has not been born. That includes myself.

Great writers like Miguel Cervantes who wrote Don Quixote and James Joycerepparttar 128515 author of Ulysses made mistakes. Bill Clinton’s book, My Life, is said to be short on editing. And Tom Clancy himself pays an editor $2.50 per word to proof read his works.

So, writers are susceptible to slips, errors. In that review, however, you not only betrayed a shocking ignorance ofrepparttar 128516 rules of English grammar but also an abysmal incompetence about how to review a book. The review reads part biographical and part lazy student’s book summary.

You don’t start a book review by devoting five long opening paragraphs in a twenty paragraph work to announcerepparttar 128517 degrees and honors garnered byrepparttar 128518 author. That is notrepparttar 128519 first thingrepparttar 128520 reader wants to know. In fact, that blaze of glory biography; that “I hail thee” guitar in hand introduction, passes you off as a paid praise singer, not a book reviewer. Not that I detest paying book reviewers to do reviews. But there must be “a method torepparttar 128521 madness” according torepparttar 128522 bard, William Shakespeare.

If your method is to first give your readers a long list ofrepparttar 128523 author’s degrees and awards, I think that you will be at a loss if you were to review literary greats like Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, and many others. Because they had no degrees.

One could see how you were desperately reaching your hand into your vocabulary bag to qualifyrepparttar 128524 out of this world author who “bagged his first degree”; was “founding business editor”; reported for “both local and foreign publications”; is “concretely grounded in management consulting”; has “become a renowned financial analyst / investment adviser”; is “a regular commentator on macro-economic policy matters”; and now “managing director / chief executive.” Thank heavens! I thought it wouldn’t end. Evenrepparttar 128525 Nobel Prize winners didn’t get that citation. Ask your brother, Professor Wole Soyinka.

A prose work should be lively, jazzy. But when I finished readingrepparttar 128526 excellent biography, and went intorepparttar 128527 “review,” I was confronted in every paragraph byrepparttar 128528 following sins of literature: repetition (the word sub-concept was mentioned seven times); redundancies ( “According to this author on how to become a shareholder, you can either become a shareholder . . .”); ineffective sentences (“On a how to beat inflation, this author didactically illuminates that with inflation rate rising and interest rate falling under heavy government pressure on banks as we have seen overrepparttar 128529 past few years, if you are earning less than inflation rate on your money, then you runrepparttar 128530 risk thatrepparttar 128531 real value of your savings is being washed off by rising consumer prices”); disjointed paragraphs ( one long sentence per paragraph asrepparttar 128532 one above); meaningless words (“didactically illuminates”); quoting a bad sentence (“For many people who are quite interested in share INVESTTING”); circumlocution (“ In addition to these 15 basic chapters, there is another section, a textual appendage of sort.”)

I was ashamed reading through those sentences. Inrepparttar 128533 name ofrepparttar 128534 muses, what do these mean? “The sub-concepts of what a share is”; “the sub-concepts of what you should know”; “this author nationally x-raysrepparttar 128535 sub-concepts ofrepparttar 128536 possibility of risk in share-making”; “this financial analyst examinesrepparttar 128537 sub-concepts ofrepparttar 128538 basic nature of unit trusts”; “the concepts of what to consider”; “the sub-concepts of starting to invest”; “the simplicity of conceptual presentation.” You actually have a romantic attachment for that word, sub-concept.

Then towardrepparttar 128539 end ofrepparttar 128540 “review,” you played smart by trying to correct a few grammatical errors inrepparttar 128541 book. Like telling us that presently (American) should have been currently or at present (British). That was good editing—straight fromrepparttar 128542 6th edition Oxford dictionary (page 919 box).

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