Formatting of articles
By anil02
@anil02 (24688)
India
October 20, 2012 11:18am CST
Every site have their norms to approved articles. I am writing for a site which is accepting published articles. But this site reject my three articles for bad formatting. Though these are published on other sites. Write here some tips to improve formatting of articles.
5 responses
@matersfish (6306)
• United States
21 Oct 12
This is why I got away from writing articles for people for personal or site use. I used to make some good money by writing blog posts and such for people. Now I stick to promotional, keyword-driven articles that drive traffic for people's sites.
In my mind, a proper web article doesn't need much. It needs: A title, an introduction, a body (subheading optional), and a conclusion. That's it.
[i]This is my Article Name
Intro, intro, intro, intro.
Maybe a Subheading Here
Body, body, body, body, body, body, body.
Conclusion, conclusion.[/i]
That's a general, safe format. Within the body, however, you could stand to add a few more subheadings, numbered lists, bullets, images, video, etc, depending on what the article is about. But the way I see it, sites relying on other people's content to earn money should be more than happy with anything that's written and constructed at a mediocre level.
No site pays enough to take the time to write superior quality. In all honesty, if you're going to waste so much time perfecting an article, you should try to contact some magazines to see if they want it.
1 person likes this
@capirani (2840)
• United States
22 Oct 12
Matersfish, you said "In my mind, a proper web article doesn't need much. It needs: A title, an introduction, a body (subheading optional), and a conclusion. That's it."
However, that's not it. Good writing needs good spelling, good grammar, and many other things that are required for publishable text. We learn it all in school when we are taught how to write reports, etc. If you or anyone else is trying to write for these sites that have guidelines and pay nice fees for the writing, and your grammar is poor quality, you use text talk instead of proper words, etc. your writing will be rejected. It doesn't matter if you have a good idea at hand if the way you present that idea stinks. There are rules to good writing. Follow them, and if you have the talent needed to be a good writer, your work will be accepted. But always remember, even the best authors get rejected sometimes. Sometimes the material is just not what the publisher is looking for at the time. If you are good at all those requirements and have talent, keep trying. If you need to learn some things first, do that...if you really are serious about writing.
@abhi_bangal (5518)
• Ahmednagar, India
22 Oct 12
@sirnose,
I will not really agree with what you are saying. I guess, you need to re-look at the various sites online that pay their writers their due credit. I myself have written articles that needed reasonable time to write, to check for plagiarism and other punctuation errors/marks. The site was indeed paying handsomely for the efforts. So, what I mean to say is, as Capirani said, if one invests the time and resources correctly, there are sites that will pay you 100% for your efforts. It looks like you haven't stumbled upon such sites yet, or maybe you are expecting too high.
@sirnose (2436)
• United States
21 Oct 12
Hi anil02, sorry to hear that you are having a hard time getting your articles approved. What you fail to mention is what writing site you are having the problem with. Someone might be able to tell you why your articles are being rejected and how to correct the problem. So, let us know what writing site it is.
@shynepapin101 (1879)
• United Arab Emirates
22 Oct 12
You are right, Sirnose. If she had mentioned the exact site, she might have gotten a direct help. Though, the discussion topic is general, it would help to outline writing style and techniqies employed by different writers, while others will learn.
@abhi_bangal (5518)
• Ahmednagar, India
22 Oct 12
That should not be really difficult for you. The easiest thing is to read and see how other articles on the same site are formatted. Did you see the format of the other published articles? Do it if you haven't. It will give you an idea of where you are erring. Are you using heading and sub-headings? Just study minutely and everything should be fine.
Good luck!
@grkelly (1206)
• Malta
20 Oct 12
Some prefer bullet points in lists so as to make an article more readable, although personally I do not like articles written in that way.
If it is a how-to article you should divide the article in numbered steps, outlined by headlines.
Make sure to divide the article in seperate paragraphs, including an intro and conclusion.
@subhojit10 (7375)
• India
20 Oct 12
Thanks a ton for posting this discussion. Well i can understand that u must be tensed as your articles are not getting approved by the sites. i think u should better go through the guidelines and rules and regulations of that site and then should start working on the articles and try to figure out where the flaws are exactly in the article.
What say?
