Strong writers use an outline when they construct and write an article. The outline helps keep them focused on the task at hand. Note down the summary on writing pad or a second open page. The outline will help you conduct research, take notes, write a draft, edit and revise for grammar and/or spelling mistakes and complete your article.
Every good writer has an outline they follow as they prepare an article. Apply this five point summary to assist you write your subsequent article:
1. Conduct subject research
2. Arranges content comments.
3. Write an initial draft
4. Edit and correct your outline
5. Turn in your finished copy
How to Conduct your Topic Research?
Select your topic. Place it into a search engine. Read the first 5-links that pertain to your topic. As you are reading write notes either on your computer or write on a piece of paper. Take quotes and write down the significant pieces of information and secondary facts too. Always write down your source using American Press or Canadian Press standards (easily found online).
For example: You may come across the “Top 5MP3 Players” and do research on those.
Prepare your Content Notes
Conduct your research in under 60-minutes this will keep you from engaging in too much information for your article. Go through the information you’ve collected and pull out the key ideas that you want to put down on paper. In our example Top 5 MP3 Players you could write about the technology, memory space, features and/or body construction.
Write your First Draft
Begin writing two or three main sentences to introduce your topic. Then write a summary of points you will make within the main body of the article. This will be your introduction. Next split up those summary points and make them into bold segments. These will be your secondary headers. Now you are set to write your article. Below each secondary header, you will jot down two to five sentences about your secondary headers subject. In our case a secondary header could be “MP3 Body Construction Materials”. Once you have formed these sentences, wrap up your article with another two or three sentences this will close your main topics concluding your article.
Edit and Revise your draft
Read through your text. Edit any sentences that sound out of place. Put in the appropriate quotes if you omitted them. Check for any grammar and/or spelling mistakes. Adjust sentence structures. Edit and/or omit words. Use a thesaurus to build vocabulary.
Turn in your Completed Copy
Read your article through a second time to double check for any missed grammatical and/or spelling mistakes. Save the copy that is finished. Now you are ready to post your article onto a blog, hand to a publisher or turn over to your teacher.