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How to Multiply Your Freelance Writing Work
You can turn your $200 fee to write a press release into $2,000 to carry out an entire PR campaign simply by convincing clients to invest in campaigns, instead of individual assignments. Campaigns achieve better results and cost less in the...
SOME HELPFUL HINTS IN WRITING ARTICLES FOR THE WEB - TWENTY FIVE TIPS (PART TWO)
13. Use HUMOUR. People like to have a bit of fun with the occasional laugh, whilst being informed on a serious subject. At least I believe so! I try to write to share, inform and hopefully even "entertain a little". 14. Write from "your heart",...
Starting a Writing Career (or How I Sifted Through the Muck and Found My Way)
So, the decision is final. I am a writer.
Actually, I have always been a person who writes, but I have never applied the term to myself in a professional sense. Having pushed aside my financial fears and gained the requisite self-confidence, I...
Why Should I Bother With Optimised Online Copywriting?
It's no good having a creative, individual website with brilliant, informative copy if customers can't find you on the internet. On the other hand, it's also detrimental if you have a website that can be easily found (has a high ranking) but people...
Writing Tips For Novice Authors
If you are reading this article then you probably have asked yourself at some point in your life, "Do I have what it takes to become an author?"
I believe that successful authors, those who actually write and finish that novel, or book of...
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Dreading the Writing Assignment? Outlines to the Rescue
Writing technical articles is a challenge. There you sit, surrounded by reams of research, notes and interviews. Where do you start?
Remember 5th grade English? You start with an outline.
Outlining has fallen on hard times lately. Mind mapping and brainstorming are much more fashionable. These techniques are great when generating ideas, but once you’ve got your ideas germinating you’ve got to outline them. Without an outline, your article will:
- Be an unstructured mess.
- Take three times as long to write.
Don’t let this happen to you – outline. If it’s been a while since 5th grade – or if your “progressive” school didn’t stoop to teach you actual English skills – let me remind you why it’s important and how to do it.
- Outlining keeps you from writing an unstructured mess. Readers, especially American readers, prefer distinct sections in their media. For example, look at American screenplays. Movies invariably have three acts, and anything that doesn’t have them is considered an art film. Effective speeches often contain three parts, and readers like three points because the structure makes easier to retain information.
- Outlining shrinks your writing time by a third to a half. How do you whittle down that pile of research notes and interviews into an article or white paper? You guess it – outline it. By assigning sections to your notes before you start writing, you’ll categorize, simplify and clarify. Not bad before you’ve even written an introduction. For example, let’s say you’re writing an article about mirroring. You can divide such an article into several different sections depending on what your client wants
to get across. Here are some examples of different outlines:
- 1) Explanation of mirroring 2) Differences between local and remote mirroring, 3) Contrasting mirroring with other forms of replication, or
- 1) Define mirroring 2) List environments that require mirroring 3) Decision matrix for assigning different mirroring levels.
Once you’ve done your research it’s simple to assign pieces to different sections. Believe me, it’ll light a fire under your writing time.
Christine Taylor is president of Keyword Copywriting, which helps marketing and PR pros leverage their relationships with technology clients. E-mail her at chris@keywordcopy.com, call her at 760-249-6071, or check out Keyword’s Website at www.keywordcopy.com
Christine writes technical marketing communications for data storage, networking and pharmaceutical clients, including:
- EMC
- Commvault
- Quantum
- StoneFly Networks
- Sybase
- Maranti Networks
- ClariStor
- Fujitsu
- AES
- Obagi Medical Products
She specializes in trade journal articles, white papers, press kits and online content. She serves as a contributing editor to Computer Technology Review and acts as editor-in-chief for Storage Inc. and Storage Management Solutions.
Before moving into technical journalism and marketing she served 20 years in the IT trenches, including systems administration at Avery Dennison's Research and Development division.
chris@keywordcopy.com
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