How to write a great article and win minds

Web 2.0, the existence of which is denied by some, has been brought to the Internet by many authors who began writing articles and notes on a wide variety of topics. Depending on the resource, the type, content, design and size of such articles differ, but they have one common component - the author's text, which, in fact, almost always, is the essence of the article. Such articles are mostly written not by professional journalists, but by ordinary users who, for various reasons, share their thoughts, ideas or information received.

In this article I would like to offer several options on how to create articles, how to submit them and how to maintain the life of your article.

Introduction or why write articles?

Indeed, why do certain authors write articles? The answer is not so simple, apart from the usual graphomania, craving for writing, there are many other reasons: participation in a community or a common cause, satisfaction of your vanity, boasting, research of questions and tasks, appeal to the masses of people, advertising ... why the author sits down and begins to peck on the keyboard.

But, in fact, all articles are written only to influence the minds of other people . This is the basic principle of this article and all other theses will only build on it.
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The idea for the article

So, you have an idea! It is urgent to share with people in order for them to be inspired by the Idea, and not to sit in the darkness of ignorance. Do not rush, let's analyze the process of capturing an audience in order. First, we need a plan to capture, as you understand, there is no war without a plan.

Secondly, the idea occurred to you, and if you do not have a couple of slaves, then you will have to write an article. Consider whether you are able to speak in such a way as to captivate a person? Does your grammar and spelling suffer? Depending on the answers to these questions, the writing of the article will vary. What will be discussed further.

Thirdly, although the Idea visited you suddenly, you should not rush to publish the article right away because of this. As I will show later, publication time can play a significant role in the life of an article.

Fourth, if you have already published an article, then be sure to have validol, time, and be ready to defend it here and now. Do not do fasting and immediately go to sleep in happy ignorance. Working with the reader after writing the article is as important as the article itself.

If you understand these theses, then it's time to write a plan.

Plan

A good plan is if not half the success, then a significant part. Already at the stage of writing the plan, it becomes clear that somewhere you did not take into account something, somewhere you missed or missed something. It is also possible that as long as you write a plan, the meaning of the article and the initial relevance. Ideas will disappear completely, and you will abandon the article completely.

I am not a journalist, I didn’t finish the journalism, so my recommendations are purely amateurish in nature and stem from observations and personal experience.
The plan is good in the following cases:

• there is an introduction and conclusion;
• the text is divided into parts;
• The idea is applied in a thin layer on all parts and does not arise somewhere in the middle or at the end;
• and most importantly: dilute these emotions, and not vice versa!

A plan is bad if:

• in the introduction the essence of the article and Ideas are disclosed;
• The report contains a significant portion of the material;
• The text of the description of the Idea fit in one section.

The main reason for writing a plan is the formulation, creation of the form of your Idea. Formless Idea is difficult to understand, and the desire to understand does not arise. On the contrary, the Idea with impeccable form attracts, so the plan is so important.

Writing

Of course, writing an article is the main part of the work. But you already have a plan, and therefore a form. It remains only to fill this form with the contents. And there are plenty of nuances.

Literacy

Pay close attention to spelling and punctuation. I build the project habradigest, and I have to carefully look through the mass of articles of a technical nature. So, I dare to assure you that the technical depth of the article does not affect the author's grammar and spelling. Sometimes, great articles are just filled with ridiculous or gross errors. These are not necessarily the mistakes of illiterate authors, often literacy has nothing to do with it, but the haste and laziness that prevented checking the article through a favorite editor, or at least your own qualifications.

Registration

The article is a mirror of your attitude towards the reader. How do you design it, so you treat the reader. For example, you can post a large text in one piece, saying “who needs it — figure it out”, or you can neatly break it into pieces, create headings, format the source code, sign pictures, make footnotes, links, lists, give sources of information, process pictures to text them smoothly flowed.

Yes, a lot of work. But why did you decide that it would be easy? Your idea deserves a good design, do not you? But how nice it is to read a neatly designed text, to feel the care of the author. Such beautiful posts collect the most positive feedback at an early stage and help to attract a significant part of the audience simply through simple design. For example, here is a link to your article Useful tickets . I think that without a graphic design, on which I spent a lot of effort, the article would have looked and read much worse. On the other hand, avoid excessive clearance. Remember the rule: your article will be printed, so you should not put a picture like a “cut line” into the “left” article.

Source value

Your idea in any case has a source of occurrence. If this is an idea for a startup, then the source is thoughts about the market or the situation on the Internet. If this is information about the news, the source may be some external resource. And here it becomes important how you submit the material. If the idea is completely yours, then writing the article is justified. But if an Idea is just information published somewhere, then think seven times about whether to create an article? Are you sure that the target audience of your article does not read the same resource? For example, let's take lenta.ru or ixbt.com or rss-channel of Google developers. What do you think could be the point in creating a text about the news from the tape, which most likely has already been read by 90% of the audience? Think about whether to write such cross-posts and whether the rules of the resource allow such articles.

If you are sure that the article has the right to life, then you should submit "someone else's" information in your own words. Try to present the article, and not make a "copy-paste". Even the well-known information can be fascinatingly presented in a good language and be interesting in combination with the author's comments. On the contrary, a simple “copy-paste” causes a feeling of rejection from the reader, who does not understand the motives of the author and on some resources such posts are simply forbidden.

Introduction

Often, when you publish an article on the Internet, it is divided into two parts: visible in the articles and the rest, which will appear after clicking on the link. Such introductory parts are the face of the whole article, if you want to lure the reader. And this part should be given a lot of attention. Firstly, as practice has shown, the mere presence of a picture in an introduction can increase the number of readers by two or more times. This is due to the fact that the reader's eye clings to the image and the more interesting it is, the more attention it will give to your article. For example, take my note Fear on Habré . I think she did not collect half of the reviews, if not for the successful picture in the introduction.

Such introductions should not be made too large or too small. Large text annoys the user who scrolls through the tape, small - indicates the insignificance of the article, which is not worth wasting time. Also, do not insert large pictures or those that may cause irritation. Best of all, if the entry will consist of two or three paragraphs.

Emotions

Your Idea, of course, causes a storm of emotions in you. That is why you want to write an article, you want to conquer the minds of other readers with your emotions. However, each reader instinctively opposes the seizure of his mind and the author will consider all kinds of emotional expressions as an attack on his mind. In this regard, I repeat the rule again: dilute the data with emotions, and not vice versa .

A bad article comes down to “how everything was cool at the last seminar,” a good one tells about “what was at the seminar and why I liked it”. Be afraid to express your emotions in the text and, especially, exclude emoticons from the article. The smiles in the article are a sign of its frivolity, the author’s lack of desire to write a solid text that could be quoted or printed. Think, what would you like to see in the quote of your text? Own emoticons? Hardly.

On the other hand, the author's text is obliged to influence the reader and infect him with an Idea. But to do it secretly and imperceptibly. The following tips will be useful for capturing minds: consider the reader smart, refer to it in the article, moderately shout or joke, give examples that confirm the correctness of your Idea, insert memories from the past. When the reader stumbles upon successful wits or real-life examples, he penetrates your mind and begins to empathize. From your material, the reader must necessarily understand why your Idea is an Idea with a capital letter. Remember one more rule: the article should enthrall the reader and guide him .

Information

The most important thing in the article is information. The more unique the information, the more relevant and valuable it is. Therefore, even an article with one line on the release of Firefox 4 may have a stir. But the value of such a post is doubtful and eventually disappears altogether. Another thing is a medium-sized post about innovations in Firefox 4 for a programmer and differences from the previous version. Such a post for a very long time will not lose its relevance.

Information needs to be checked for validity. An idea that is impossible or false by definition already carries the germ of an unsuccessful article. On the other hand, do not be afraid to create articles based on personal experience. From the author of the article, few are waiting for an academic text (although there are some, but about them below) or God's revelations.

Fear

Fear of the reaction of readers can stop you, such fear has stopped many authors, and we have not read a bunch of great articles. My opinion: The idea should live and its description should find its reader. Regardless.

Do not be afraid to make a mistake, do not be afraid to share your experience, do not be afraid to reinvent the wheel. Do not be afraid to move away from the templates or vice versa to follow them. Good article - activates the reaction of readers. Even the best article will always have opponents and critics. Show them Jesus Christ and they will say that he has dirty feet . But about it below.

Conclusion

In any article should be a conclusion. Many readers simply flip through the article and, if there is one two paragraphs in the conclusion that would tell the essence of the article, this may have led the reader to read the article more carefully. Or pay attention to something that could slip away while reading. In addition, conclusion is a good way to address the reader directly. Communication with the reader is important, this is how you can arrange it and bind it to yourself. Who knows, maybe the next article the reader will read only because under it will be your name.

Publication

Congratulations! You have written an article! But I want to upset you, you have so far done only a little more than half of the work.

Publication of the article - the whole art. And in this matter you need to have a lot of knowledge about the publication resource, it is necessary to analyze when peaks of visits occur on the resource, when the audience is in the most benign position, when the target audience comes to the resource.

In order for your article not to get lost in the stream of articles from other authors and found its reader, you need to focus on time zones. For example, when I have a home at 5 pm, in Moscow, only 3 pm Therefore, if I post an article at 9 am, then at 7 am in Moscow - the main audience, it will not be read immediately and the article will go down the tape below. This should not be allowed.

Consider the same weekend and holidays. On some resources on such days, the tide of readers, on the other hand, the outflow. If you put an article in the evening on Saturday, then on Monday, when readers come to work, they will not see your article, and, therefore, a lot of people will not read it.

Before publishing, you need to check whether someone has posted similar material a minute before you? There is nothing worse than two identical posts standing next to the tape articles. Negative attitude arises immediately to both authors. In the case when this happened, I would recommend that you hide or even delete the article.

It is very important to follow the rules of publication on the resource: specify the tags, arrange the entry correctly, indicate the correct blog, the type of topic, the source of the news or anything else that can be entered on the resource. Always study and follow the rules of the resource - this is the key to the success of newbie articles from an old-timer.

It is very important to name the article . Your Idea most likely does not have a title, but the article should have a title. And here it is important to take the title seriously. The name should not be long, it should be remembered, be recognizable. If the reader easily remembers the title of your article a week later, consider the work done well. Avoid exclamation marks in the title. Think of the title as an advertising slogan. This title advertises the article in the tape in the same way as the TV advertising slogan advertises the product.

Comments

Here you go. Three-quarters of the deed done, you posted an article. And if you did everything right, then you have no end from the readers. And along with the mass of readers come and commentators. Below I will try to give a personal classification to the commentators. Commentators and comments are very important. Good comments can greatly expand and complement your article. You can help correct errors, suggest the best way to solve the problem.

Usual

The most common type of reader and at the same time the rarest type of commentator. The usual commentator reacts to the article non-engagingly. He, in general, doesn’t care and he easily perceives your information and Idea, reacting in accordance with his ideas. Such commentators often write simple comments like: “Cool!”, “Bad”, “Thank you.” This is the most peace-loving type of commentators and communication with them does not cause trouble, even if they criticize your article.

Parasite

Here the word "parasite" is not a curse, but a sign. Such commentators are not able, for a number of reasons, to write their article, they are lazy or lacking in intelligence, there is no desire or a thousand more reasons. In any case, they do not write articles. Therefore, they with great pleasure parasitize on strangers' articles, scrupulously examining them for errors. Parasites will be happy to inform you that the article about drawing penguin icons does not reflect the fact that you will have to draw elephants differently. Parasites are not embarrassed by the fact that the article was not about elephants, but about the drawing process, they are interested in the fact that your icons are supposedly very similar to the other ten years ago, which he especially found for you.

You show them Jesus Christ, and they will say that he has dirty feet .

This type of commentator is one of the most annoying. From my own experience I will say that you should not communicate with them. They are not trolls, but not the type of commentators that should be paid attention to. You will not benefit from communication, and you can bring a lot of harm to your mood. Often, the parasites come across energetic and in the case of communication can not only harm you, but also poison the entire article with their vital activity.

Kind

Good commentators are the best that can be. They willingly support your article, share the idea, suggest options, correct your mistakes. They are polite, get in touch with you, and getting to know them can be long. Catch at these, encourage their comments, communicate with them. They are your wealth. Unfortunately, there are very few such commentators and each of them is worth its weight in gold. Measure your articles by how many good comments you attract. Better - more.

Trolls

Trolls are a bright phenomenon, often funny. Feed the troll does not make sense, but watching him is interesting.

Anti

Anti are commentators who are against. They are against windows and iis, they are against avp, against mail.ru, against iphone, against microsoft or apple. Anti-almost trolls, but they are not trolls. This is a very dangerous face. Anti write as usual commentators, their level of knowledge is noticeably higher, and they can bring much more destruction than simple trolls. Anti is a problem, they annoy with their stupid obstinacy, their unwillingness to recognize alternatives, they get into the discussion of ASP.NET programming issues with a description of what kind of shit it is. Having been offended 10 years ago, they had a BSOD on windows 95, now with each case they get into any post about a new version of windows, exposing what kind of shit it is.

Anti does not mind that their opinion is not interesting, especially in the context of the article under discussion. Anti-know that they are right and they carry the truth to the masses. In no case do not communicate with Anti and do not respond to their comments. According to my observations, the percentage of Anti is not large, about 1 person per 50 commentators. But with a great resonance of the article, they will definitely appear, so get ready.

Knowledgeable

This is a subspecies of the Anti group, but with a characteristic bias that distinguishes them sharply. The knowledgeable people know exactly what the author of the article thought, thinks and thinks; they are sure that they can speak on his behalf and on behalf of all people or everyone individually. These people do not cause anything but pity, one should communicate carefully, solely in order to refute their delusions, which can sometimes reach Cyclopean sizes.

Critics

The last large group of commentators. Critics are useful and you should pay close attention to them. These are practically Good commentators, except that critics' comments often carry negative shades of emotion. The critic is annoyed, obscene. It is worth appreciating his comments and not paying attention to emotions. Very often, unlike Anti, Critics have useful comments that will help you as well as comments from the Good.

Critics account for about half of all commentators, or slightly less. Given this, it should be understood that Critics are an important active part of the resource. The ability to manage and cope with critics is very important for successful articles.

Work with comments

Do not rush to immediately respond to comments. Perhaps the author of the comment is right. Check the details. Point out inaccuracies or, on the contrary, thank and make changes to the article. Remember: you are only interested in useful comments. Filter comments from Anti, Trolls and Parasites. Moderately respond to comments ordinary. Support the Good and communicate closely with the Critics.

The most important thing in working with comments is to tune in to criticism. There will always be criticism, but this does not mean that the price of your article has fallen. Consider each critical comment important and useful. Do not be annoyed. And most importantly: do not argue .

Dispute

Do not argue. This is a reinforced concrete rule that must be followed. You never prove anything on the Internet. Therefore, it is impossible to argue. What to do? Discuss, express opinions, but not convince. Has the commentator expressed doubt in the sense of your article? Forget it. This is Anti. Commentator criticized the approach? Pay attention, write the answer, write down the reasons for using the approach, thank you and do not use it to say that you will stay on your own, because you have decided so. Or, if the critic is right, change the text of the article. But do not argue. In a dispute, truth is born and dies there.

Conclusion

Well, here the article is written, published, work with comments carried out. If everything is good, then you already have several opponents, several supporters, several friends and many readers. Who knows, maybe your article is quoted somewhere in LiveJournal and it diverges between hands. Your idea conquers minds, which means you did everything right. What to do next? Write a new article.