Blogology 101

A lot of the bloggers I’ve seen so far are passionate about their ideas, but were I as vicious as those who have edited my work, I wouldn’t be reading any of them. I spent a year working for my community college newspaper, and there’s plenty that I’ve learned about the process of writing, through the paper, as well as through the experience I got as a freelancer

Stuart Brown recently posted ways to write good headlines. However, a good headline means nothing if your article is crappy. Remember: The average reader will only take 30 seconds to look at an article, whether online or print, and decide if they want to read further. Basically, they’ll read your first paragraph, and if they don’t like it, they won’t read further.

With that, here are a few tips I’ve learned about writing articles:

1. Summarize what happened in the first paragraph

I cannot stress this enough. When you write any type of journalistic article, you need to provide an explanation of what happened. It will not be enough to say the event in your headline. You need to summarize what happened!

EXAMPLE: Let’s assume Google has taken over the world in a hostile takeover. (They haven’t…yet) How would we write?

Bad: It seems that Google has gained a new control in life.

Good: Google gained complete control of Earth in a landslide hostile takeover yesterday.

Isn’t the good line more shocking? More “Oh my god, what the hell is going on here?” While the bad lead will simply leave the reader with “Uhh, ok, Google’s powerful, duh.” By summarizing the situation, you shock the reader into wanting to read more, to see how much it affected them.

2. The more important the information is, the higher up it goes.

Articles are not essays. The organization here is completely different. In Journalism, we have format known as the Inverted-Pyramid Style. According to the IPS, Information more important to your article should go higher up, and less important info should go toward the bottom.

Why would you want to do this? Simple: It keeps the reader invigorated. If the average reader only takes a few seconds in deciding whether to read an article or not, it’s not a good idea to keep all the good stuff until the end of the article, especially if your article is huge. Decide what information is most important, and what information is least important, and act accordingly.

3. Use active verbs

Active verbs allow the blogger to convey more passion into the article. Take these two examples from our potential Google Takeover article:

Passive: Sergey Brin had signed the papers which would let him be declared the ruler of the world

Active: Sergey Brin, after signing a treaty, declared himself dictator of the world.

Which of these would you prefer to read? Obviously, the second line, the one that conveys the Active verbs, is more appealing to the reader. Remember, you’re to keep the reader on your article, and you have to keep the suspense!

4. Use quotes wherever possible!

Nothing is more important in setting the mood of the article then getting direct quotes from the people in the article! It’s the idea that it comes straight from the horse’s blog that makes it so incredible. If you just paraphrase, it doesn’t really give any real sense of what’s going on. Here’s an example:

Bad: Sergey Brin stated that for his first act as dictator, all search engines except Google would be destroyed.

Good: “My first act as ruler is to hereby obliterate all who would dare challenge my sacred search engine!” Said Dictator Sergey Brin after attaining his crown.

Would Sergey say this if he was made Dictator of the World? Who knows. But doing this allows you to convey so much about the person being quoted. Intelligence, passion, style, whether the person is an elitist or humble, etc. Look at George W. Bush. His quotations will portray him as an honest, yet bumbling person who gets along well with anyone…at least, the quotes that don’t involve lowering his credibility will.

5. Have a good vocabulary to choose from.

A good selection of words is essential to ANY blogger! It’s that choice of words that separates amateurs from the professionals!
Stuart has a good idea on using keywords, and I do suggest starting with keywords in your articles, but also realize some words carry more weight then others.

Consider the difference between the following sentences:

A: Larry Page was made Sergey’s assistant ruler under the treaty

B: Larry Page was selected to attain the position of Second-in-Command after Sergey.

Both of the above sentences are in active tense, but B has a bit more oomph to it thanks to the vocabulary buildup. Feel free to tweak around your article to what best suits your style.

6. Get someone else to read your article before you publish it.

This is entirely optional, in my opinion. However, it doesn’t hurt to have a second set of eyes look at your article. See, most of us are so used to our style, we don’t think about how a sentence can be improved, or made clearer. This is where an editor comes in. They can look at your article and either rewrite it so that it makes better sense, or give you some pointers about revising the problems.

I’ve been on both ends of the spectrum, editing and being edited. As irritating as editors can get, though, I would rather they be there, because what they can do can help you improve your article, as well as your style.

So that’s pretty much it. Those are the tips we use in our papers, and they’ll work just as well for you, O citizen of the Blogosphere. Just remember these simple little tricks for when you’re the next big blogger, and you’ll keep them going on as long as you desire.

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