Writing better content

Globalization has opened the doors to the writing world.  It has brought numerous opportunities to explore the possibilities of getting recognized all over the world. To break out of the mundane Indian English standards neither British nor American, the common people in India write their Indian English mixed with their vernacular tone.  Most of the sentence structure lack elegance and turn awkward constructions. “Are you not a native speaker?” is the embarrassing question asked to Indian writers who fail to adhere to international standards.

 

How will you write?

 

Think about those days when you have to wait to get a reply from the editorial board of a reputed magazine or a weekly.  A simple rejection letter apologizing for not selecting your poem or story or an article would have left you broken hearted for weeks.   Only people who were lucky to have someone who could guide them to write what matched the readership of the day succeeded in their attempts.   Three decades before, people did not take writing as their career for it did not pay well and it took years to become a successful writer.

 

Writing has become an acclaimed career now.   The ever growing communication technology has opened a wide online platform where you can submit whatever you write and enjoy the readership from the nook and corner of the world.   There are so many web portals that encourage submission of your writings and provide you the much needed support with their feedback.   In addition to these professional web portals, there are many free portals that share the online spare for your publishing dreams. 

 

Let me share a simple trick that can help you write better and get more readers.   Though schools and colleges help you to read and write, there is no special focus that will help the young to refine their way of writing and evolve into better writers. 

 

 

Writing process

 

You must understand thoroughly the different steps in the writing process.   Prewriting, Drafting, Revising, Editing and Publishing.   You must know the importance of each stage and the amount of time that you can spare for each stage.   Prewriting involves brainstorming for ideas; drafting allows you to write whatever you wish to write; revising helps you to check the flow of ideas, transition of ideas and how ideas are well connected; editing helps you to check the format, sentence structure, grammar and punctuation; publishing helps you to share your writing with your readers.

 

Types of Writing

 

The four different types of writing are:  Narrative, Descriptive, Expository and Persuasive. 

 

Narrative means a writing that tells a story.

Descriptive means a writing that gives information or facts about something or someone.

Expository means a writing that explains something.

Persuasive means a writing that can make someone to do or believe something by giving reasons.

 

 

Reading Strategies

 

Take the initiative to learn about the different reading strategies that authors would include in their content.  

These reading strategies help not only the authors but also the readers to decide on the category their writing

belong and what could be expected from their writings.

 

The most important ten reading strategies you must know.

1. Author’s purpose
2. Main idea
3. Fact and opinion
4.  Inference
5.  Drawing conclusions
6.  Sequencing
7.  Prediction
8. Context clues
9. Summarize
10. Compare and contrast

Content repurposing

 

Content repurposing is reformatting any existing information or content and using it for a different purpose. Content repurposing can be a boon for people who use internet as a marketing tool. It can help information publishers and internet marketers a great deal. Content repurposing can increase sales of products. The websites of manufacturers and suppliers may have information about their products as a brochure or a review.

 

The brochure may contain details that will list out the technical and mechanical information about the product. A reader may not know the importance about a specific component in a particular product. For example, a mobile phone with a built-in digital camera.

 

There may be many kinds of mobile phones in the market with a built-in camera. The website can give information about the mobile phone and the camera as specifications and features. If a reader reads the repurposed content about the product, it will help to purchase the best. Content repurposing takes the technical content in a simple way to the customers. Internet has become a powerful marketing tool.

 

Content repurposing first started with the preparation of notes and guides for curriculum books. Now it has expanded to every available topic in the world. I remember when I was doing my Bachelors degree in Education, we were asked to prepare scrap books and presentations on OHP sheets for teaching grammar and other topics of interest.

 

Computers brought the change at every level. Instructional designing has helped to simplify even the toughest content. E-learning and e-publishing has taught the way to chunk the information into bits and pieces and reach the user with much ease. Content repurposing is getting expanded into all levels of specialization. Every day new ways are being discovered to reach the needed population.

 

Is it not surprising to note that whatever we write and submit here are also repurposed content? We also rewrite content that are read or not read and help the readers to know more about things that they are not familiar with.

Online editing and hard copy editing

 

For the past five years, I am doing online editing of the prepared content material. I can understand there is a shift in the level of understanding between the two. I can feel the shift that really affects the way the brain functions while doing the editing the content. Right from my early childhood, I am used to read material from printed books or papers. The brain is tuned in a way that my eyes could catch the grammatical mistake or a spelling error without any strain.

 

After shifting to online editing, doing the editing using the track changes, my brain now finds it comfortable to scroll through pages of documents and fix the errors pertaining to grammar or spelling. Now I find the hard copy editing more stressful than the online editing. Instead of turning pages, I can just skim or scan through the documents within minimum time. When I started to be a copy-editor, I was first asked to read the hard copy and fix the errors. It took time for me to get adjusted to this type of editing.

 

Once the training period was over, I was asked to do the online editing. The whole idea behind this exercise was to get prepared to do the editing either in hard copy or in online. Once into production, it became difficult to spare time to relax and get tuned to the online editing.

 

The pressure to meet targets demanded to learn things fast. Now for more than a year, I am into online editing, editing content for web based publishing. Recently, when I was asked to do the editing on a hard copy, I found it difficult. Every day I come across fresh graduates and post graduates who find it difficult to fix the errors on a hard copy. The same person who struggles to do well in a hard copy editing can do well in an online editing.

 

The organization may not find time or source to afford computers for the aspirants to take an online test. So this becomes a challenge for the people who want to move into editing by taking up the evaluation test. It is really amazing to note this shift and every one must get trained to win this challenge.

 

The reason is every one around the world prefers online as it is cost effective when compared to print. Yet, I could not forget what once Prof. Ananthan told me, it is great to feel the touch of papers while reading or editing than staring at the computer screen and reading through.

 

Reading a printed book for hours will never strain your eyes, but reading for hours an online document can strain your eyes, dry your tear glands or make your eyes feel tired and lethargic.

 

 

Writer's Block

 

Have you ever experienced 'writer's block'? I have read more about this and I have not experienced one until I was pushed into the dark void of writer's block. My right brain went inactive and my creative brain cells just refused to cooperate with me. If you are an author and even though you have dead lines to meet, you can relax for a while, take a break and get back to your writing. But, think about the sufferings of a content writer getting the writer's block in a corporate set up with impeding targets that literally attempt to clutch you at your throat and make you feel suffocated and struggle for life. That is what I experienced just two or three days back.

My nerves refused to understand my targets and they literally screamed at me. They asked me to shut up for a while and let them relax for a while. Yet, with the targets, who will have the time to relax and let the nerves cool for a while. Any one in this so called corporate sector does not want to do so. Targets are their priority. And all the other things are secondary.

I struggled even to think for a solution. Because my brain went on a strike and they got stuck inside writer's block. The simple work that sounded so simple to me became a mountainous task, and I found the task to be going uphill rolling the stone again and again.

I remembered Professor Ananthan discussing about Sisyphus who kept on rolling the stone again and again up the hill as a punishment.

Then how did I manage to come out of this block? I tried to talk and talk and talk. Walk and talk became the escape for my writer's block. Unmindful of every thing around me, I walked long distances. The walking toned up my muscles and pumped in more blood into the brain. I also talked with my friends again and again.

 

Even if tears flowed down my eyes while I am talking, I talked to them to get the relaxation. Finally walking and talking helped me to come out the content writer's block. Once I freed myself from the writer's block, things started to move as usual and in the normal way as a corporate sector expected me to do.

Burnout

How to manage burnout in an online writing job?

 

The recent incident at work place proved as an eye opener. A girl who had been working as a content writer for the past three months faced quality related problems and she was forced to give up the job. Initially she was doing a good job and writing better.

 

She was able to meet her targets with a quality output. But things changed suddenly and even she could not find out the reason for her fall back. Professional writing demands perfection in all aspects. If it is grammar, punctuation or writing related components, the content writer need to be alert all the time.

 

The content writers in India are constantly faced with the terror of meeting targets with the team leaders or managers at their back. There are easy ways to face these problems and handle the situation effectively.

 

Once they follow these ways, the content writers can meet the target and at the same time do a quality job. The web content when posted with mistakes is glaring to note. It can degrade the content of the website and also bring down the quality of the content posted at the website.

 

The web content writer must never forget this. It is a simple task to remember always. Whenever the content writer faces a problem, it must be thrashed out immediately. Doubts should be cleared immediately. There is no need waste the time in writing and being pointed out as mistakes by someone after an interval.

 

This interval is the hibernating time of troubles. Even a small mistake can pop up with a tremendous effect, which can shatter the content writer. One more thing to make a note here is the feed back session. Targets should be planned in a way with a buffer time for feed back. In an online writing job, feed back sessions are the golden hours that can help the content writers to get rid of blunders in their writing.

 

The content writers must raise it as an issue and stress the importance of feed back sessions that can help them to provide quality stuff. Confidence is the next important thing, content writers must have. Motivation among peers can also help them to develop quality documents.

 

The content writers must also cultivate it as a habit to revise the documents before they submit. The time spent on revising could save them from mistakes and negative feed back from the clients. At the end of the day, never forget to skim and scan through the created documents. Schedule your time to check for grammar, punctuation and content related errors.

 

Don't forget to check for consistency and also for the quality content. Beware of copy right violation and plagiarism also. Once you get into the practice of following these rules, you will never give low quality stuff.

 

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 29.12.2010

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