subject: Article Submission Too Short? 5 Ways To Make Your Article Longer [print this page] There may be times when you write a really great article that has just one problem with it--it's not long enough to satisfy the publisher's guidelines on word count.
Most quality publishers will have some upper and lower limitations on word count--they're just trying to be sure that the free reprint articles that you're submitting are going to be useful to their readers. It's to your benefit to find a way to extend the value you add in your articles so that the article is long enough.
If you think you've said absolutely everything that you can in your article submission, you'll benefit from these simple tricks for adding valuable content to your article.
1 - Expand upon one point in your article.
No matter how focused the topic of your article, there is at least one point that you can add more information to. Don't assume that your readers have read all of your other articles--chances are they haven't. The readers of this particular article can benefit from background information, explanations of technical terms, and deeper information on a point or two in your article.
2 - Work on your opening paragraph.
Many times you'll see an opening paragraph that is just one or two sentences long. That's fine, but if you've not met your word count requirement, you can stand to enhance your introduction to include the following:
*Tell the reader what the article will be about.
*Identify what type of reader would get the most use from your article. You can say, "This article is for beginners who aren't sure where to start," or "This article is for people who are experienced in this field but who want to refine their techniques on such and such."
*Identify the problem that a reader who would be interested in your article would have.
3 - Enhance your concluding paragraph.
The concluding paragraph is a great place to:
*Recap the main points of the article
*Encourage the reader to act on the information you've provided in the article
*Provide specific instructions for what to do next
*Ask a question designed to make the reader make a decision about the information he's received from the article (For example, "Which of these tips will you use to...?")
4 - Flesh out your article with some real life examples.
Most of your articles will be teaching people how to do things, and whenever you're teaching someone it always helps to also "show" them. In an article, you can "demonstrate" what you're trying to teach by giving an actual example.
5 - Include some word pictures in your article.
A word picture is sometimes called an "illustration" although we're not talking about the kind of illustrations that you can see. We're talking about pictures you paint with words. When you use an illustration, you start your sentence with "Just like..."
Here's an example:
Just like a boat can take a person from one island to another, so a link on the internet can take a person from one webpage to another.
You take a concept that the reader is already familiar with (riding in a boat), and you use that to teach a concept that the reader is trying to learn (what a link is).
If you've written an article that is a bit short, don't despair. It's not that hard to add meat to your article--just use one or two of the tips above. In the process you'll also be adding value and increasing the article's attractiveness to publishers, which works to your benefit.
