Writing Articles in English

Okay, this time I’m going to do a posting in English so that my international visitors can understand my rantings and you local guys get to practice some rantings English.

An article consists of:

1.) the introductions
2.) point no. 1
3.) point no. 2
4.) point no. 3 … point no. 4 … or even 5 …
5.) the conclusion

Hence, to write an article, at least a good one, you must have those.

Say, for instance, I want to write about my personal home office. I can start like this:

A home office is a workstation that is set up in an employee’s home. Working from home is a growing trend amongst workers and business owners as the cost of office rentals and transportation have risen… etc etc.

That kind of intro is suitable for articles to be submitted to article directories or if you’re promoting a product or service. Since my blog is more laid back and I don’t want to bore you guys to death, I’ll probably begin like this:

As most of you folks probably know, I work from home. I have a small area of my house that I dedicate as a home office, where I do my blogging, website creation, product creation, traffic generation and all manners of stuffs related to internet marketing.

That’s more like it!

Next, I’ll brainstorm some points relating to a home office, my work and a wee bit on yours truly. Mind you, try not to make your sentences sound too academic or scientific or technical as your readers will fall asleep. What you want to do is to entice your readers to read more.

Let’s pretend I have no ideas whatsoever and the only words or points I can think of are:

1.) computers
2.) cashew nuts (kacang gajus in Malay)
3.) cash

I might decide to mash all those words together and put them in one sentence:

Whilst working on both my computers, I like to snack on cashew nuts and hope I’ll earn some cash at the same time.

Of course that’s a silly example but you can also take each point and do this:

Computers have gone a long way from being a machine to calculate mathematical formulas and record scientific results to a tool to generate cash. The worldwide appeal and user-friendliness of the Net have enabled virtually anyone in the world to set up their own online store or website. The internet is one massive global mall. You can sell anything on the internet, from t-shirts to tea bags, cashew nuts to computer casings.

That’s a paragraph. Remember that the points make up your article body. It’s what they call the ‘meat’ of an article.

You can also take each point and put it in its own paragraph. So the word ‘computer’ will have a paragraph written on it, ‘cashew nuts’ will have one paragraph and ‘cash’ another paragraph too. I won’t provide an example of the paragraphs here as it’ll make this blog posting too long.

There’s no secret to writing articles. You must make sure you have your points on your niche - research on the net, in the newspaper or in the library if you’re unsure on a particular topic. Then write your intro and tie up all the points together in your conclusion.

How to write a conclusion? Well, a well-written conclusion should summarize the points you’ve written. You should not introduce any more new points or ideas in your conclusion - a conclusion is just what it is - a SUMMARY. So sum up your points but don’t add new ones.

Here’s an example of a conclusion for this posting:

In conclusion, I’ve shown you the basic structure of an article which are the introductions, the various points or article body and finally the summary. Article writing is not a difficult task and can be fun if you know the basic steps. With practice, you might start earning cash from writing articles on your computer and before you know it, the process will be as easy as chewing on cashew nuts!

Galadriel.

ps - here are some photos of my workstation, just for fun:

My workstation - this is where I do most of my work if I’m not out of town. And yes, that’s one of those Ogawa Gamer’s chair.

My books on HTML, internet marketing, Google, etc PLUS my 3 secret weapons - my wireless mouse for MMORPG, the Astro remote for my viewing pleasure and the cashew nuts for strength and the ants in my CPU.

My personal assistants - they are the ones who REALLY write on this blog, create e-books and answer your emails. I just watch Astro day and night.

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