Writing The Article

Now that you have all the building blocks in place, you have to start to write your article. Remember writing an article is like building a wall, if you leave gaping holes in your wall, it will be weak at its best and will fall at the slightest probe. If you have the ideas, you need to have an insight in your subject and facts that support it. You need to write on the assumption that the reader does not know anything about the subject and that your article will enlighten him/her.

When you decide to write an article, it is of foremost importance that your purpose of writing the article should be clear. Without this clarity of purpose, you will not be able to decide on the type it has to fall into to make the article serve its purpose. It helps to briefly put down in a few sentences the points you want to convey before embarking on actual writing.

Once you have identified the category your article falls into, you now need to start with a list of ideas and concepts that you may want to base your article upon. Then you have to start collecting reading/ reference material relevant to your topic. An article has to have depth and information. It has to reflect your own expertise and for your research on the subject that you are writing about.

Then you need to identify your target audience -weather is it for young students, a particular group of professionals, parents, children, housewives, students etc. Your target audience will have a lot of bearing on the type and terminology you will use in your writing.

The next question to ask is: What publication will use this article? The possibilities are end-less: adult, women, men, children, teenagers, or youth. Are they in a specialized occupation such as doctors, engineers or school-teachers? Are they a certain age, school children, students appearing for their board exams, students appearing for competitive exams etc.? The important thing is to be sure to target a specific audience–not simply children or adults in general.

Then you need to decide on the length of the article. Namely, how long or concise it is going to be. In most cases, the institution or publication requesting for your article will specify the length of the article, namely, not to exceed so many words.

It is very important that you stay focused while writing your article. It is very easy to go off in a tangent while writing an article of a descriptive nature. Such that in the end it may seem like you have been rambling, and have failed to get the point across.

Your article has to help the reader understand the rationale behind your work and the reason why you are writing the article. So that it helps the readers understand and appreciate your point of view.

Most publications and newspapers have guidelines on how to write an article that is specific to their target audience. So before you send them your article you need to send them a letter requesting their guidelines and permission. This is termed as the query letter. A query is a single-page letter which sells your story idea. It has a four paragraph formula. The first paragraph is a creative beginning for your article. You don’t write the entire article–only the first paragraph which holds the reader’s interest. The purpose of this first paragraph is simply to capture the editor’s attention. It must be interesting so that it can get the attention of the editor in the first glance.

The second paragraph includes the main points of how you will approach the article. The third paragraph gives information on your personal research and expertise for this topic and your writing credits. It basically answers the question, why should you of all the writers get this assignment? Highlight your own area of expertise in this paragraph.

The final paragraph says how soon you could write the article and says you are enclosing a self-addressed, stamped envelope and looking forward to their reply.