This guide starts to come into picture after you have completed keyword researching and known the topic you want to write. Click here to read the guide on What to Write?, prepared by us.
These guidelines are recommended for authors who have just started to write their very first articles. For those who are experienced in writing, these guidelines may not be necessary. However, we encourage you to suggest improvement for these guidelines so that they could better serve the authors.
Writing Guidelines
1. Goal – What is your goal? What are you trying to achieve?
Why these questions matter? Because if you don’t care about what you are writing, no one will.
2. Reframe – put your reader into it (or put yourself in reader’s shoe)
Why does it matter to them? Why should they care?
What advice or help can you provide?
With the above two steps, you are ready to write the content in a way that your reader would want to read. Remember, you are writing for the readers, not for yourself.
3. Research on data, or existing examples
If your topic is fresh (no one or only few has written about it), then research on the original sources (scientific articles) and write it.
If you topic has been covered by many other sources (eg Mayoclinic, Wiki, Colgate…), then you should write better than them, or compile the information, or abandon this topic.
The source does not always need to be “scientific”, it can be a form of experience (your personal opinion). People likes stories more than facts, generally.
Be sure to search on ToothAid School article section to see if similar topic has been written by our authors.
4. Outline and organize
Cooking a dish needs recipe. Writing a content needs outline.
There are few types of articles base on the content styles:
i. How-to-guide (eg. How to choose the best toothpaste)
ii. Comparison (eg. Electric toothbrush vs manual toothbrush, pros and cons)
iii. List (eg. Types of toothbrush bristle, common reasons for toothache)
iv. Personal stories (eg. A visit to dentist for implant)
v. Interviews (eg. An evening chat with renowned peadiadontist)
After knowing your content style, create outline. It should contain:
i. Takeaways: list everything the reader would learn after reading.
ii. Sections: organize your takeaways into sections (with each headings)
iii. Talking points: list down the talking points for each section.
It is good to write few related topics in your article. Organize your topics and subtopics in hierarchical order. Please refer to the Article formatting in Instructions for Authors.
5. Write to one person
Write in a way that you are giving this piece of information to a person.
Use “you”, instead of “people” or “they”.
Connect your reader, perhaps by relaying a scenario or telling a very short story.
6. Produce the Ugly First Draft
Write badly. Write as if no one will ever read it. Forget about the grammar, spellings, punctuation. Don’t edit and reframe your sentence at this point. Leave the editing to later.
Just get the words in your mind to flow out.
7. Walk away
Most interesting part of writing: stay away from your Ugly First Draft.
Talk a walk, buy a cloth, watch a drama, cook a dish. Give yourself a break for how long you think is comfortable (not more than few days otherwise you lose the momentum).
8. Rewrite
Shape the mess of Ugly First Draft into something that a reader wants to read.
In your head, swap places with your reader as you do so.
The only people your contents needs to please are your readers. Ask yourself:
i. What will they learn?
ii. What question they might have?
iii. Am I making them work too hard to understand what I am trying to say?
The recommended amount of words is between 600 to 1500 words.
9. Give a good title
An article title should express the reader’s query clearly. This title will appear as the highlighted biggest text in a search result. It is good to keep the number of words in the title under 11 words.
Sometimes, a “power word” would add attractiveness and this was shown to increase “click” of an article. (click here to see the list of power word).
10. Have someone to comment
11. Final look
Assess the readability. Is it reader friendly?