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How To Write Articles - Check For Errors

Written by: Andrew Rondeau

Article Overview: Learning how to write articles can be quite a process and that first article coming hot off the press could get you all enthusiastic. Before rushing to enter your first work to a Pullitzer nomination panel, remember to check and recheck for errors.

How To Write Articles - Check For Errors

Learning how to write articles can be quite a process and that first article coming hot off the press could get you all enthusiastic. Before rushing to enter your first work to a Pullitzer nomination panel, remember to check and recheck for errors. The best way to check for errors in your articles is to get somebody else to proof read them for you. Of course this is not always possible. There might not be anybody suitable available to do this for you.

If you are the only one to take on the quality assurance mantle that doesn't mean that you shouldn't take on the job yourself. You might not see all mistakes as it is often easy to read the same mistake several times without seeing it. But you will pick up most of them.

Besides checking for the obvious errors such as spelling mistakes which you should find easily with the help of your word processing spell check, there are other elements you need to check for.

Read the article and see whether the language flows easily. Have you used different words or do you see instances where you might have used one word too often. You might wish to use a Thesaurus to find different words that mean the same.

Besides spelling and grammar do also check for inconsistencies in your argument. Are you jumping from one point to the next or are you following a discussion through in a logical manner.

A more basic point to check for is whether the actual content makes sense. Are you contradicting yourself, does the discussion flow in a logical way, are your points easy to understand and do they contribute to the value of the article?

Sometimes it is easy to lose your way. This happens especially often if you have been interrupted while writing and find yourself on a different thought path. You might need to split the article into two different ones and in some cases you might even need to start again.

Starting again can be very disheartening. However, it can be that your article is beyond repair and you might find yourself spending a lot more time on repairing it than if you had just trashed it and started from the beginning again.

It's a little like trying to make a white sauce. If there are too many lumps you might want to just throw the sauce out and start again. Sometimes writing an article is a little like making white sauce!

Do remember though that when you are looking for perfection and it seems to be passing you by that writing articles is a learning process. It is rare that a writer is published on his first attempt, whether as a short article writer or as a novelist.

It will take a fair amount of practice for you to start feeling a little happier about your article writing efforts. Do not give up. As with all new things, it will become much easier with time and you will wonder eventually why you ever thought that learning how to write articles would be such a difficult thing to do.

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Article Tags: elements, grammar, hot off the press, inconsistencies, instances, job, logical manner, mantle, mistake, nomination, proof, quality assurance, several times, spell check, spelling mistakes, thesaurus, word processing



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