When writing for an audience, there are few more embarrassing things to discover after submitting your work than a mistake, or worse yet, mistakes in your submission. Not only are they embarrassing, but your mistakes could cost you future work with the publisher or diminish your credibility in the eyes of your readers. To avoid such mishaps there are aspects of your writing that you should review before you submit your work. Here are a few of the more common mishaps that might occur in your writing.

1. Proofing

Not proofreading your writing might be one of the greatest mistakes you can make. Even great writers must often read and reread their work to ensure that it is fit to be seen by others. Proofing your work is even more important if you know that the only editor reviewing and revising the work will be you. To ensure that you catch a majority of your errors, consider reading your work aloud to hear how it sounds as you speak the words. You may be surprised by how many additional mistakes you catch with this method, even if you’ve already proofread your work several times.

2. Improper Word Use

When you proofread your work, there is a multitude of issues for which you should be on the lookout. One of the more major and most common of these mistakes is improper word use. Mistakes like using ‘your’ instead of ‘you’re’, ‘there’ instead of ‘their’ or ‘they’re’ and ‘it’s’ instead of ‘its’ are some of the likely culprits you might find lying in wait for you along the way.

3. Word Choice

If you aren’t sure of a word’s meaning, look the word up before you use it in a sentence. Using eloquent words just because they sound good could leave you looking pretentious, uneducated, and your readers left scratching their heads as to what you were really trying to say. Sometimes simpler is better.

4. Tense Change

Didn’t it sound weird when I am saying that I will not changed tense in a sentence? Moving back and forth between tenses can stick out like a sore thumb. We aren’t conjugating Latin verbs here. Chose a tense and stick with it.

5. Online Writing

One of the best ways to become frustrated with online writing is by using an internet site’s application in which to write your work. There is nothing wrong with writing your material in an application with which you are comfortable and then copying and pasting your work into the site’s submission area. Just ask someone who has spent an hour or so writing an article only to have it swallowed by the internet and not having a saved copy to refer to. As a side note to this tip however, be sure to check for glitches in the formatting of your work that may have been altered or affected by the move before you submit it.

6. Copy and Paste

When working online, you might find it beneficial to copy and paste the directions for your writing directly onto your work page. By having the instructions for your assignment available to you upon whatever software you are using to write, you can quickly and efficiently refer to the publisher’s or client’s guidelines. This reference tool can keep you on track and on topic. Just make sure you don’t forget and accidentally submit these instructions along with your work.

7. Long Sentences

In this day and age, people just aren’t up for long sentences like they used to be. Most readers want quick and easy information packed into short powerful sentences, and would prefer not to be lost in a sentence that just keeps going on and on for the sake of taking up space, and those same readers would likely be appreciative of sentences that are kept to a minimum of a line or two rather than three or four lines like this one is turning out to be.

8. Fragments

Sentence fragments can throw. Your readers for a loop. See! While short, compact sentences can often be a writer’s best friend, it helps to ensure that those sentences are complete and make sense. Otherwise, you may be leaving your work choppy and nonsensical.

9. Broad or Overly General Statements

Saying that Harry Potter is the best movie ever, might be true in your opinion, but that doesn’t mean it’s true for everyone. Saying stocks are a great investment, may be true to some extent, but are all stocks really a great investment? It is important to keep the opinions and statements you place in your writing, qualified and backed up with supporting evidence.

10. Slang and Abbreviations

In this age of quick texts and fast information, it’s often easy to forget that not everyone understands what LOL or BTW means. Those who aren’t familiar with such terms might think you are referring to the new NBA, MLB, or NFL, which in many areas of the world aren’t commonly known abbreviations either. My point here is that in a world globally connected through the internet, it’s important to remember that what is commonplace to you, might not be common knowledge to those reading your work.

This is a guest post written by Tom Walker, a writer and designer from the UK who works for a printer supplies company specialising in Epson Stylus cartridges, toner and paper. You can read more of his writing about print media and design on their blog.

(Photo: bookgrl)

10 Most Common Writing Mistakes is a post from Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall.

Here’s a fitting photo, since we are in the midst of our first snow day of the year where I live in Ontario, Canada. Ever feel like you’re stuck with a writing assignment? If you’re getting paid to write for a client and you haven’t a clue what to write about, you’re not alone.  As a writer, I have had to write on topics I’ve never heard of, on subjects I’ve grown really weary of, and had times when the muse just seems like he’s on vacation (yes, my muse is male sometimes). But… your clients deserve your best in each and every article you write for them so you MUST find a way to reach deep down and figure out what to write. I have many tricks up my sleeve for dealing with the dreaded writer’s block. Three of the ways I tackle it include: taking a break, researching, and outlining.

Take a Break

Take a break and do something else. Not for too long, mind you. I try not to use this as a procrastination tool. Instead, I think of it as giving my brain a chance to recharge.  Sometimes the break involves beating my high score on a Typing Speed (currently @ 92 wpm, thank you very much) and sometimes it involves taking a walk, washing the dishes, or soaking in hot bubbles. After a bit of time, I come back, prepared to get to work and I try to do it with a positive attitude. If you’re less than excited about the task ahead, try to look forward to the feeling after that task is done and that can propel you toward getting there.

Research

Stuck? Start doing some research. Look up the topic. Check more than one search engine. Check it out in Google News so you can see if anything that’s current relates to it. And, research other articles. Ezinearticles has thousands of articles about just about everything. If I’m writing for an article marketing client, chances are that the topic exists on there already. Read my articles about going beyond Wikipedia for research 1 and 2. Sometimes the start of researching can be tough but once you break through the barrier, you can get inspired to come up with an idea on what to write. Sometimes, if it’s a keyword article I’ll search on the keyword and figure out who my customer’s competition is. Then I challenge myself to blow them away in terms of SEO, information value, and hooking readers.

Outlining Articles

Outlining the article takes away a lot of the work when you’re struggling. It is like creating a template and then filling in the blanks. Figure out what you want to talk about and suddenly, you’re almost done. If you have a 500 word article, you could polish that off in five paragraphs. Come up with 3 ideas or points to cover in that article. The intro talks about what you’re going to talk about, then subheadings break down the article ideas, and then the conclusion is your fifth paragraph that summarises. At about 100 words a paragraph, you’re done.  If you look at this blog post, you’ll see that I sort of followed that outline here.  It’s no fun being stuck but a bit of effort, change of scenery, and tricks of the trade can help you get un-stuck and will hopefully produce something you can be proud of.

What do you do when you’re stuck on a writing job?

EDIT:

I just visited Twitter to plug this post and found a recent tweet that suggests a potentially helpful way to break through with a boring writing assignment:

Stuck on a Freelance Writing Assignment? Don’t Know What to Write About? is a post from Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall.

Rewriting – love it or hate it, it’s part of the job of many web content writers. A typical situation is that a client asks you to write a series of articles for a particular purpose, such as to publish them on a website. At the same time, the client asks you to rewrite those same articles so that they can be used for article marketing to drive traffic to the site.

Today, I’m answering a freelance writing question that one of the writers on my writing team didn’t quite get around to asking. The situation was that I had written some articles for a client based on original research. The client needed rewrites which I didn’t have time to do, so I asked a writer to do them. When they came back, some of the articles were so different that they were practically new articles, and that wasn’t what the client was looking for. I realised then that it can be difficult for writers to know what clients want when they ask for rewrites.

Here are some of the types of rewrites I’ve been asked to do in the past:

1. Rewrites where the titles and subheads are based on the same keywords, but are different, and where the first and last paragraph and one of the middle paragraphs is different.
2. Rewrites where each individual sentence must be rewritten so it means the same thing but says it in different words, but using the same keywords.
3. Rewrites where you put the same information in the same order as the original.
4. Rewrites where you put the same information in a different order from the original.
5. Rewrites where you have to change sentences AND substitute keywords.

It’s no wonder that people get confused. As usual, the thing to do before you start is to clarify the brief, so that you can deliver what the client wants first time. Rewrites rarely pay well and if you have to make revisions, then you generally end up out of pocket. And watch out for No 5. I did this once, and went back to the client and argued for a rate increase, because I was effectively writing brand new articles.

Although I wouldn’t want to spend all day doing rewrites, doing simple rewrites (such as No 3) can be a great way to boost your income if you have done the original research and are a fast writer. It’s not creative, but it can help to pay the bills.

There’s one final point about rewrites. Some clients think nothing of asking writers to rewrite other people’s content for their sites. All I’m going to say is that using several sources is research; stealing from a single source is plagiarism. Nuff said!

Technorati Tags: writing,get paid to write,freelance writing,help me write

What Exactly Is A Rewrite? is a post from Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall.

Men with Pens is one of my favorite new blogs. It’s the successor to the Web Content Copywriting blog which I mentioned last year. Run by James Chartrand and Harry McCLeod, this is a writing blog with a difference. These guys really know how to write unique blog posts. It’s refreshing to read new perspectives on the issues we all face as freelancers and that’s why it’s one of the first blogs I read every day. Since moving to its new home, Men with Pens has kept up the quality that attracted me to the old blog, but the blog design is way, way better. It looks great, you can find lots of great posts from the home page, and the navigation is clear. The blog offers ‘web business tips for writers, freelancers and online entrepreneurs’ including:

• Will Content Kill the Web?

‘PLR content drives down the market value of web content. Why buy pricier work when nearly-free (and sometimes free) is right there for the taking?’

• Handling Your Perfectionism

‘One of the biggest problems perfectionists have is setting realistic goals. I never realized I set the bar too high for myself. Halfway through whatever I was working on achieving, when nothing went according to my vision, I would give up in frustration.’

• What a Camera Can Teach You About Customer Service

Sorry, you’ll just have to read this one. No excerpt would do it justice.

There is so much good stuff in there it’s hard to give you a flavour of it. The blog focuses on blogging, business, design and writing, and currently has a great series on fiction writing. Just to round out the list, here are some posts with great titles that made me stop and look:

• Bloggers That Fake It
• Don’t Be Efficient if You Want a Successful Business
• Knitters Never Comment!

Over the past year, posts from this blog, and its predecessor, have turned up regularly in my links roundups, which shows how consistently readable it is. If you haven’t done so, check it out.

Technorati Tags: writing,blogging,reviews

Men With Pens Review is a post from Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall.

Why aren’t you writing yet? A lot of people dream of starting a freelance writing career, but never get around to doing it. One of the reasons is that they fall in love with the dream of writing, but find the reality hard to achieve. So what’s the first thing you should do if you want to be a writer? The answer is simple – it’s to write.

I don’t mean to sound like a know-it-all, but I can tell you from my own experience that the more I write, the better I get at writing. One of my former students, SB, a mature student of around 50 looking for a new career, said that telling him to write was the best advice I’d given him in two years of teaching him journalism.

There’s a lot you can learn from journalism courses about techniques and approaches, but that’s only a complement to your own writing skill – and the only way to develop that is to write.

Getting Started

So, how do you get started? First of all, don’t worry when you start about whether your writing is any good or not. The important thing is to have an idea and follow through by getting something down on paper. You may throw it away, but psychologically you will have taken a big step.

Find a publication that you want to write for and study it (I’ll talk more about that in another post). This will help you to identify important elements about the content and style. Then try to write something again.

Finding A Critical Friend

One thing many beginning writers need is a critical friend. That means someone who can critique your work in a constructive way, but who has your best interests at heart. When I started out, my editor was critical, though not my friend. Other people have given work the thumbs up because they are friends, but have not been critical. The trick is to find someone who will strike the balance between being encouraging and helping you to improve.

This was what I did for SB and for all my students. I was thrilled when he got his first paid writing commission, and within six months or so, he didn’t need my help as often. You can do that too. Your critical friend might be a member of your local writing group or a forum. Ideally, this person should have a bit more experience, so that you can ask specific questions about the writing process and particular skills. Don’t worry if you can’t find such a person, you can always ask me – and I’ll be happy to answer.

On The Path To Success

You can become a successful writer. My student, SB, who had not written or published a piece of journalism when I met him, was writing and publishing in several magazines in his chosen niche within a year, and also did some PR work in a government department. So while you’re waiting for the next instalment, start writing and you’ll have taken the first step in achieving freelance writing success.

Technorati Tags: freelance writing,writing,get paid to write,help me write

Freelance Writing Questions: Starting Out In Freelance Writing is a post from Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall.

I’ve just completed a travel piece about a place I’ve never visited. It may seem a strange thing to do, but this was the commission that my writing client gave me. Usually a travel piece is full of local color, but how do you add that if you’ve never set eyes on the place?

Researching The Venue

Thanks to internet research, anything is possible. Wikipedia may be much maligned, but it’s a good starting point for an overview of many cities and countries. Don’t get me wrong, this does not replace researching your topic on other sites, but it does give a guide to the other information that might be out there. It often has good information on the weather, climate and geology, too.

City Information

Many cities and towns have websites, especially in the US. These sites are great places to find out about history, attractions and major events. There are usually links to offsite pages for the attractions, where you can get more information, and if you’re looking for a comprehensive listing of festivals and exhibitions, then you can’t do much better than Eventguide.com. To round it out, check out TripAdvisor or the Lonely Planet site for guides to most places.

Nightlife Reviews

That takes care of most of the daytime entertainment, but if you’re profiling an area, then you’ll need to know about places to eat and nightlife. Again, TripAdvisor can help you, but Yahoo, AOL and others also provide listings of restaurants with type of cuisine and brief reviews. If you are lucky, you’ll also find a user review that tells you what it’s like to be there. There are also similar sites which list bars and clubs. You can find out if there’s a DJ or live music, which night ladies are free and much more.

Putting It Together

Let me give you an example of how you can put this all together to create a decent travel piece. I recently had to write a piece on Jacksonville, Florida. Although I have been to many other parts of Florida, I have never been there. However, I used my knowledge of the climate to set the scene, evoking hot summer days and balmy tropical nights.

Using Your Experience

I checked into the history of the town, including the earliest settlers, and found out a bit about its evolution over the years. After a bit of info on the climate, I was ready to move on to the attractions. You can actually use your own experience to write realistically about places you have never seen.

For example, if you have ever been to a zoo with lots of exotic animals, or gone down a water slide, or ridden a big roller coaster, you can talk about the feelings people will experience while doing those things in another city.

Similarly, if you like searching for antiques, or attending events with live stage shows, it only takes a little imagination to evoke those for your readers. When it comes to rating meals and nights out, I blend my own experience of similar venues with the reviews I find on TripAdvisor and similar sites.

So that’s how you can write a decent travel piece about a place that you’ve never seen. It’s true that it won’t have quite the same feel as if you had been there, but if you’re a competent writer, you can still make the article come to life. Have you ever had to write about somewhere you’ve never seen? What techniques helped you?

Technorati Tags: web content writing,freelance writing,writing,get paid to write

How To Write A Travel Piece And Stay At Home is a post from Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall.

Write Really Great Keyword Articles is today’s post from Dana Prince’s Writer’s Blog. I read this blog every day and it’s one of my favourites. This post will tell you why.

When you get an assignment that involves ten of the same keyword or twenty or more,it can feel like a bottomless pit at the start. How on earth can I write 10 keyword articles about a common word such as Google with a 1.5% keyword density?

Dana doesn’t just ask the question, she provides the answer and it’s easy to implement. If you’ve ever flagged when writing keyword articles, Write Really Great Keyword Articleswill help you.

Great Keyword Articles is a post from Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall.

Well, it’s nearly time for another edition of Writing Lab News. I started this free newsletter last year and it’s quickly become one of the high points of my month. I’ve also had lots of great feedback on it. If you want to see what’s been in it, take a look at the ever expanding list of articles. Back issues are available online and you can subscribe by using the handy form in the sidebar. I’ve got some great articles coming up this month, including a humorous piece on the realities of freelance writing life.

September Newsletter On The Way is a post from Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall.

Here’s my latest on Garden and Hearth.

Three Quick Ways To Create Freelance Writing Clips

As a new freelance writer, it is often difficult to provide freelance writing clips when applying for writing jobs. Writing clients want to see examples of your work before they hire you, but if you are new to the writing business, you may not have any published work. Here are three quick ways to create freelance writing clips to show prospective clients.

Three Quick Ways To Create Freelance Writing Clips is a post from Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall.

Most freelance writers have a writing style that feels comfortable to them. When I’m writing my own stuff, I write like a Brit. That means flowing, run on sentences and a style that’s slightly wordier than the AP style. I write for a lot of British clients and that style works well for them. However, I also write for American clients and then I have to change my style. When writing for them, I have to keep sentences short and snappy – and keep it simple (that’s what an editor told me once). No phrases and clauses, either.

As a freelance writer, you have to be ready to alter your style when the job demands it. This is not only about grammatical style, but also about matching the writing to the subject matter. Academic writing is different from feature writing is different from web content writing and so on.

What I’ve found, though, is that you have to pay attention. I did two jobs for the same client. One of them was virtually perfect, lulling me into a false sense of security. The other one had a few extra clauses, which I am now ruthlessly excising.

There are three ways that you can adapt your writing to any circumstance:

First, know what your writing style is. If you can identify the things that make you you, then you can cut some of those out to make your writing more suitable for others.

Second, identify the style that the client likes. Sometimes they tell you exactly what they want, or give you examples of writing they like. Study these examples and mimic them, letting a small bit of your style creep in – just enough to make it different, but not enough to scare the client.

Third, pretend you are someone else. If you are a ghostwriter, then you are probably already doing this every day. As ghostwriters, our job is to write in our clients’ voice, whatever our own personal style.

I’d love to hear from you about your take on writing style.

Adapting Your Writing Style is a post from Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall.