Write Better Articles

Kent "The Nitpicker" Butler

There are countless thousands of articles posted on the Web on every subject on God’s green Earth. The vast majority have one thing in common: The authors could have done a better, more readable job with a little more effort.

The writers do their readers and themselves a disservice by not presenting their material in the best way they can. They may damage their own credibility, they may discourage their readers.

The works I refer to are “business” articles, as opposed to short stories, or other types of prose. They are hampered by grammatical and punctuation laziness – or ignorance. With all the information available on these subjects, there’s no reasonable excuse not to be better.

The Internet is awash in “gurus”, the vast majority of them self-appointed. I make no such claim. I am a practical writer and editor who believes the primary goal of this kind of writing is clear, concise communication. I won't insult you by writing this for a ten-year-old. I'll be direct, even blunt. On that basis, I offer some advice and tips:

1. Write about what you know. If you’re Joe or Jane, an office worker whose passion is gardening, don’t write about search engine optimization. Your goal is to publicize your new gardening website or ezine (or both). Write about gardening, and let someone else handle the SEO.

2. Write a “conversation”. By that, I mean write as though you were speaking to another person, one-to-one. You’re not writing for some literary journal, but for folks pretty much like yourself. “Talk” to a friend, and avoid expressions like “some of you”, which is impersonal and puts distance between you and your reader. Bad idea. Instead say “some people”, or something similar. Keep it conversational.

3. Facts count. If you’re not sure about something, find out before including it in your article. Otherwise, you’ll become known as unreliable, which can be fatal in business.

4. Grammar counts. Let me guess: you hated English class and just barely passed. Well, if achieving your goals is important to you, make the effort. Here’s a free site that can answer more grammar questions than you can likely ask: http://www.grammarnow.com .

5. Avoid empty words and ridiculous expressions. For example:

“At this point in time” should be replaced with either “then” or “now”, as appropriate.

“Needless to say” – If it’s actually needless, don’t say it. If it’s not, find another way to say what you really mean.

“Free gift” – Ridiculous, he said, bluntly. There is no other kind of gift. If it isn’t free, it isn't a gift.

“Very unique” – Ridiculous. Unique means “one of a kind” and cannot be modified. It is a yes or no situation. Like being pregnant.

6. Avoid being verbose. Leave that to bureaucrats and academics. If you can clearly say what you mean in five words, don’t use ten, or eight, or even seven.

7. Use short sentences. Short sentences are more powerful and easier to read. That doesn’t mean that you should never use a longer sentence, if necessary, to convey the information. But, make most of them short.

8. Use your spellchecker. It’s so easy, yet so often skipped. There’s no excuse for using a misspelled word.

9. Use a dictionary and thesaurus. I try to avoid using the same adjective or adverb twice in the same paragraph. That makes my thesaurus essential. Use your dictionary often if you’re not absolutely certain about a word. Remember: if you use the wrong word, but spell it correctly, the spellchecker will be happy, but you’ll be wrong.

10. Learn to use punctuation! Many people believe that using multiple exclamation points (!!!!!) makes their words more important or more exciting. It doesn't. It just makes them look silly and the people misinformed of proper punctuation. Would you use multiple periods (.......) to be sure your reader stops at the end of the sentence? (No, that’s an ellipsis and it’s three dots, never more...) For punctuation questions, get my free guide (in Adobe PDF) Punctuation Power

Good writing!

© 2004 Kent Butler All Rights Reserved

Kent Butler, "The Nitpicker", is an entrepreneur, writer, and editor, who publishes a free cat-lover’s digital magazine called Catnip Chronicles . He has a service that makes fully-personalized, custom-made crossword and word search puzzles at Personal-Puzzles, and he edits the weekly trade journal of iCop, the International Council of Online Professionals, of which he is a Founding Member.