elainecurrie333@yahoo.co.uk.
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Elaine Currie
http://www.huntingvenus.com
Ezine Article Writing - Structure And Stretch
If you are a webmaster you will know that writing articles
for publication in ezines is an excellent way to get free
publicity for your website. One thing that holds many
would be writers back is that they don't think they will be
able to find enough to write even on a subject they know
well. Webmasters who have never written an article before
tend to feel their minds go blank at the suggestion of
writing for publication. One of the most common reasons
for not writing articles is that people do not think they
will be able to write enough about a topic. This worry is
usually overcome during the writing process but, even if
you run out of words too soon, there are a few useful
tricks you can use to increase your word count.
Most article directories will not accept an article
consisting of fewer than 500 words; the most suitable
length for an article is between 500 and 700 words. Let's
go for 500 words for our first attempt. That might sound a
lot but, if you look at the structure of most articles you
will see that they are broken down into three sections:
introductory paragraph, main content and closing paragraph.
In turn, the main content will be broken down into 3-5
paragraphs.
If you plan your article to have three paragraphs of main
content, you only need to find 100 words to write in each
paragraph and that is a far easier goal to think about than
finding 500 words. When you write the article, you
obviously won't have exactly 100 words in each paragraph
but this rule of thumb gives you something to aim for.
Decide in advance on the sub-topic of each of the main
content paragraphs, you can give them subheadings if
appropriate, otherwise just use the sub-topics to plan your
structure.
To get a feel for structure, let's look at an idea for an
article. Our subject can be planting spring bulbs and our
plan will look something like this:
Introduction - general information eg about types of bulbs
available for spring flowering, type, varieties available,
colors available, best time to plant, benefits of using
bulbs in preference to other forms of planting.
Para 1 - choosing the right bulbs for particular situations
eg shaded ground, containers, mixed planting, indoor
displays etc.
Para 2 - planting techniques eg choosing growing medium for
containers, choosing containers, depth to plant different
species, colour schemes
Para 3 - general care eg watering, when to cut down,
propagation, naturalising
Closing - brief summary of topics covered or something
along the lines of "if you follow this care guidance, your
bulbs will provide a colourful display year after year".
In this plan our closing paragraph is very brief but there
should be no problem in writing well over 100 words for the
first paragraph. In fact, if you are a bulb expert, you
could write several articles based on each of the
sub-topics.
If you feel you need to write an article on a particular
subject but really run out of things to say, there are a
couple of simple ways to bring your word count up to the
level required by the article directories. Make it a rule,
however, that you never use artificial padding to inflate
your word count. The trick is to add words that enhance
the value of your article, not just puff it up. These are
legitimate ways of boosting your word count:
1. Add a sub-title to the article and use sub headings (if
appropriate) for each paragraph.
2. If you use acronyms or initials, place the full term in
brackets after the abbreviation. eg if you are talking
about PPC, add "(this stands for Pay Per Click
advertising)" after the abbreviation to add seven extra
words.
3. Use quotations or statistics. Some articles can be
uplifted by the use of a famous quotation. Inserting the
quotation and author name adds several words but you can
expand this by adding a brief biographical note about the
author eg "the famous Russian metaphysical poet". If the
article is not suited to the insertion of quotations, you
might be able to add an interesting statistic. The
information together with details of its source will add
more words.
If you follow the steps set out above, you should find it
comparatively easy to write an article of sufficient length
for Ezine publication.
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You will find ideas about earning money and useful home
business resources at Elaine Currie's Work At Home
Directory http://www.huntingvenus.com
For more articles about online writing visit
http://www.elainecurrie.com/writingtips
