Notes

Writing articles really well in 9 steps: Formulate ready for print!


It may never happen in your professional life that you have to write an article or book contribution. But maybe you will be confronted with the task of writing a longer article for the staff magazine, for a trade journal or for an anthology. Or for a blog, of course. And then?

Step 1: Clarify the basic questions
Whether it's books, trade journals, magazines or blogs - in your everyday professional life, it can always happen that you need to publish an article on a certain topic somewhere. Here are a few more tips.

Before you start thinking about content, you should be clear about some essential framework conditions, namely:

In which blog, journal, magazine or anthology will the article appear?
Who will be the "official" author? This does not necessarily have to be you as the author, because often the boss puts his name under it.
How long should the article be? This is often given in characters. For orientation: an average page of text has about 2000 characters (including spaces).
When should the article be published, by when must it be submitted to the editorial office and by when must it be approved in-house?
Who approves the article internally?
With whom in the company does the article have to be coordinated?
Does the press and public relations department have to be informed?
Is it necessary to obtain permission from customers, suppliers or partners?
Can illustrations, graphics, tables or photos be used?
Determine whether there are specific author and format instructions.
Clarify how extensive the author information (CV, position) should be.
Very important: Who are the readers? What do they know about the topic? What are they interested in?
Step 2: Formulate the headline
It is often recommended at (journalism) schools to formulate the headline only when you have finished writing the text. I disagree: If you think of a concise headline right at the beginning, you are forced to think about the goal of your article.

Of course, you can change the headline at any time. The goals can be of many different kinds. You can comment on something or promote or sell something. You can inform factually or motivate others. You can demonstrate your own competence or try to convince others.

Keep the following tips in mind when formulating the headline:
The headline is the most striking element of an article and should arouse the reader's curiosity as well as convey a pointed statement.
The headline should make the topic clear in a narrow sense.
As a rule, the headline should not have more than 30 characters.
The headline should consist of short words.
The headline should contain at least one verb.
Step 3: Develop your core messages
Nowadays, even normal employees who actually have nothing to do with communication have to write more and more often - for example, in the company's corporate blog. For example, in the Daimler blog:

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Why messages are important
As blog manager Uwe Knaus reports in an interview on Best of HR - Berufebilder.de®, employees talk about their work here. This conveys an authentic representation of the company. But how do you structure such a blog post and work out the core message as precisely as possible? Here are three important tips.

Try to summarise what you want to say in a few sentences.
Remember not to present the facts (only) from your point of view, but above all from the reader's point of view.
So don't write what you know, but report what is likely to be of most use to your readers.
Keep problems and solutions in mind
To put it metaphorically: you want to describe the appearance of a cake, but readers are usually only interested in the recipe. This means: (not only) state facts, but above all also address problems and your proposed solutions and methods.

How many core messages - one can also speak of bullet points - should you convey via your article? It has proven useful to have no more than five core messages.

Step 4: Formulate your core messages
The most difficult part for many people is writing the main body. After all, you don't have to start with the proverbial "blank sheet of paper" because you already have your core messages written out. By the way, these do not necessarily have to be arranged chronologically - it is much more important that they follow a comprehensible logic and are structured in an exciting way.

5 tips for good formulation
In view of the almost infinite variety of topics that can be written about, it is naturally difficult to give universally valid recommendations for this step. Nevertheless, here are some tips:

Explain what you have done or think about a particular topic.
Always give reasons for your statements.
Remember: Your contribution will be better the more concrete you write and the more illustrative examples you give.
However, do not get lost in details and prevent content from "drowning" in the flood of information.
Draw conclusions from your theses.
Graphics and examples
From my practical experience, I would like to give two more tips: Try to place a graphic element (illustration, table, list) on every page. However, bear in mind that illustrations that you have created in PowerPoint, for example, are not printed in colour in books or magazines and are also greatly reduced in size.

On the Internet, of course, you have more possibilities. And for both: be aware that articles, studies and books have a long "lifespan", but the examples mentioned in them often quickly become outdated. So choose your examples carefully.

Step 5: Formulate the introduction
You may have wondered why you should start immediately with the main body. The simple reason for this is that it is usually much easier to write the introduction if you know what comes after it.

With the introduction, you lead up to the topic, establish the "tone" (i.e. determine the tone in which you will formulate from now on) and make the reader feel comfortable. However, this only applies to longer articles . The rule of thumb is: the shorter the article, the sooner you should "get to the point".

Step 6: Formulate the conclusion
You are probably still familiar with this from your school days: An essay does not end abruptly, but has an ending, no matter how short it is. What are your options for ending an article? Draw a (short) conclusion and summarise your key messages.

Explain what consequences the reader should draw from your article.
Make a reference to the introduction.
Give tips and hints on how the reader can benefit from what you have said.
Ask your reader to take a specific action or make a comparison.
Ask the reader to fill out a questionnaire on the internet or request further information material.
Again, what has already been said applies: The shorter the article, the more concise the conclusion should be.

Step 7: Preface the actual text with a summary
You will be familiar with this from newspaper articles: There, the summary at the beginning of the text is called the "lead" and has the task of arousing the reader's curiosity and informing him or her about the most important contents.

It is similar with most professional articles and sometimes also with book contributions. Answer the six most important "W-questions" in two to three sentences, namely: "Who does What When Where How and Why?"

Step 8: Complete the author information
In most (trade) magazines, it is customary to provide some information about the author(s) at the end. Always include your full name with academic titles, employer and position.

Occasionally there is more space available - then you can mention important stages of the CV as well as previous publications.

Step 9: Correct your paper
Finally, check your text for accuracy of content, adherence to format requirements, correct citation of sources and literature used, spelling, punctuation and style.

Add the number of characters
Then add the number of characters - this can be done quite easily in Word and other word processing programmes with the function "Extras - Count words".

6 final tips
Finally, here are some additional tips that may help you when writing articles and book contributions:

Use technical terms as sparingly as possible, unless you are writing exclusively for specialists.
Do not use abbreviations. Exception: If you use longer terms frequently (such as "Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology"), write out the term first and then state the abbreviation (BMWi).
Avoid promotional language, i.e. no superlatives, exaggerations or embellishing descriptions.
In longer texts, use subheadings to structure your contribution visually.
If possible, refrain from highlighting (bold in the text, italics, right-justified or centred lines of text).
Do not send preliminary or unedited versions of texts to the editors - always send the final version.
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