subject: How To Submit Articles: 4 Editing Tips For Clear, Concise And Action-oriented Articles [print this page] There are three main stages in writing your articles: writing, editing and proofreading.
You know what the writing part is about, but what about the other two? Well, editing is when you take the article submission that you've written and you rearrange, add or remove sentences and paragraphs to make the article "flow" and have more clarity. The proofreading comes after that when you carefully read your article for grammar and spelling issues.
This article is covering the editing part. How can you do a better job with your article marketing efforts? Here are 4 editing tips for creating clear, concise, and action-oriented articles:
1 - Organize your article content into an order that makes sense.
This may sound obvious, but you'd be surprised how often writers leave out this step. You can think of your article in two ways:
Your article is an argument--you have a point that you're trying to prove. Just like a defense attorney or a prosecuting attorney will carefully construct his closing argument to convince the jury to rule in his (or his client's) behalf, so you have a point that you're trying to make with your audience, and the sequence in which you present the information impacts how well your reader receives it.
Your article is a teacher's lesson--you have a topic that you're trying to teach. When a teacher is preparing a lesson, she will carefully plot out the points that she wants to cover along with their order so that the information is as easy to understand as possible.
The information in your article will build on the information stated before it. Carefully organize your points in the article so that your reader has the easiest time possible understanding it.
2 - Read over your article for clarity.
Put yourself in your reader's shoes: Are there any confusing points? Is there anywhere you can state your point more clearly?
You know your topic, but keep in mind that your reader is coming at it with a clean slate. Is there any area that might be confusing to him or her?
3 - Screen for "passive voice" sentences.
English teachers will tell you that the strongest sentences are the ones where the subject of the sentence is doing the action-- that is "active voice".
The weakest sentences have a "passive voice". Passive sentences focus the action on the object of the sentence, rather than the subject.
For example, this is an active voice sentence:
"The girl jumped on her bed."
This is a passive voice sentence:
"The bed was jumped on by the girl."
4 - Write in the simplest way possible.
Your job as a writer of articles is not to prove that you know a lot or that you're really advanced in your field. Your main job is to TEACH. For this reason, make sure that the words that you use are familiar to your readers. Stay away from acronyms that some readers might not understand. Also steer clear of industry jargon that makes perfect sense to you and your colleagues, but that a beginner in your field might be confused by.
You also want to remove any sentences or phrases that you don't really need to include. State your points simply, and say them once.
When you're writing your articles, you'll have a much easier time if you think of your article as being written in stages: writing, editing, and finally proofreading. For your next article, use these four editing tips to create a clear and concise article that will be most useful to your readers.
