Article Writing Tips for Highly Addictive Reading

Right from the get-go, it is necessary to dispel two great misperceptions about article writing: it is neither art nor science. What is it then?

In short, article writing is simply the service provision.

Readers are not interested in an author’s personal experiences; they also have no use for witty turns of phrase and snarky tone. What everyone looks for is value. Bring your readers the value, serve them, and they will continue being your readers. A failure to do so won’t go unnoticed.

An overwhelming majority of articles are not read to the end. Readers don’t stick around because they have nothing to gain from low-quality articles.

If you want your readers to finish the whole thing, finish this article first. Here, our professional essay writer compiled time-tested, ironclad tips for writing not simply interesting but really hooking content. Apply them, and people will keep reading.

How to Write Articles

1. Reward your readers right away

Readers want to satisfy their intellectual curiosity. And they want to do it ASAP. So, give them something right from the start. Reward them for opening your article and draw them in. The reward might come in the form of a short and informative sentence. It might also be an amusing image. Think of something; otherwise, people won’t bother to read.

2. Pace your reader

There are lots of readers who enjoy loooong sentences and even loooooooooonger paragraphs. All of them are secluded in ivory towers of academia. If, however, your target audience is not restricted to octogenarian scholars, don’t even bother writing long paragraphs. Nobody will read them.

Write short and sweet sentences. How about an occasional longwinded one? Well, there are no unbreakable rules about sentence length. If you manage to form a conga-line of suitable words that carry a reader up and down the hills of dependent clauses completely breathless until they find their footing again, then go ahead and do it!

Give them slim and tasty sentences; give them fat and nutritious sentences. Some will produce fun and excitement; others will require commitment.

Pace your reader.

If you create the right tempo, you will spin them “right round like a record, baby, right round, round, round.”

3. Kill your darlings. Let your darlings go

Yes, it is an ancient platitude, but it nonetheless true. I’m not sure if this advice was given by Moses, Stephen King, or Plato, but it works great.

OK, maybe this common piece of advice sounds too harsh. Instead of axing weak sentences and awkward phrases, let them go. Yeah, it is more Zen this way.

If you want nothing else but committed readership – get to the point. Scrap all sentences that fall short of perfection. Let go of everything that stands between your reader and your point.

It will hurt, but it is necessary.

Let me explain.

Would you read a cooking recipe with a paragraph-long explanation of the water boiling process? No. Would you read a recipe in which water is referred to as liquid, colorless and odorless thing containing oxygen and hydrogen atoms united by stable covalent bonds? Hell, no! Then don’t force your readers to plod through similarly tedious garbage.

Let your darlings go.

4. Provide readers with substance

Nobody needs fluff. Yet, there are more shallow articles than any sane person would dare to count.

Unlike bunnies, fluffy articles aren’t cute and squeezable. They are cumbersome and hideous. In an attempt to bulk up a slim article, hack writers add some padding. Such authors think the readers won’t notice. They will. And they won’t like it.

Don’t write articles for the sake of writing. Write them to deliver value.

Provide readers with substance and use adjectives sparingly. To ensure that your article is padding-free, edit it generously. Then, re-edit.

5. Tell a story

We are story-telling creatures. Keep this simple fact in mind when crafting your article.

A great way to lure readers into your article is to tell them a story. Start recounting a real-life experience, set a stage, and unfold a shocking plot.

In addition to being addictive, stories also work great for making examples. The best thing about stories is that you don’t have to paint a garish, three-pages long picture to illustrate your point. To be effective, they don’t have to be long. Short, simple, and, above all, human stories work best.

6. Show, then tell

This is kinda a bleed-over from the previous advice, but it deserves a tip of its own. Because it is important.

When illustrating your points, aim for vivid mental images. Your writing should be evocative and bright. Instead of treating readers to insipid American beer, give them a shot of hot Mexican tequila. You see?

In great articles nothing is described, everything is shown. To make your writing visual, use specific details. Also, when describing something, make use of all five senses. In addition to showing, throw in some smell, sound, taste, and touch.

Metaphors and similes can be excellent visual instruments in your writing toolbox. However, stay away from stale ones. You need to be unique. Come up with fresh ways to compare things. “Happy as a clam” is a sign of literary laziness. Go for happy as the Coyote munching on the Road Runner instead.

How to Write a Good Article

The most important thing about writing an interesting article is to have fun. When you have a great time crafting a piece, readers will enjoy reading it. Other steps in writing are less important. Don’t believe me? Try switching gears and reading this very article as if you were the one who wrote it. Would you be bored writing it? I don’t think so.

Forego every grammar rule and writing convention you know. But for God’s sake, DO NOT DENY YOURSELF FUN!

The takeaway? In the age of skimming, short, punchy, and fun articles get actually read.

Now, it’s your turn. Go and craft your own addictive article.

How to Write a Good Introduction for an Article: A Few Pro Tricks

It’s a proven fact that you have only 15 seconds to drive the attention of your readers. If the intro to an article doesn’t snag their attention right away, they’re likely to join that 55 % of visitors who spend fifteen seconds reading a post and then close the page to navigate to other resources. Knowing how to create a strong opening part that will immediately hook the readers will help you to overcome the appalling statistics.

How to Write an Article Introduction and What Its Role is?

Firstly, you shouldn’t repeat the mistake of those writers who think that an introduction is only a small insignificant part of a long article. You may do thorough research, fill your story with exciting and useful information, show your unique style of writing, but all this won’t matter if a reader doesn’t look further than the first couple sentences only because they were insipid and blah. The role of the opening part is to hook the readers and help them move to the article’s main body, which will keep them engaged all the way through.

In this guide, we offer you professional tips for writing an introduction that will make your article outstanding.

How to Start an Introduction: The Importance of the First Sentence

A strong introduction begins with a perfect first sentence. The highest likelihood of your readers leaving the page is within the first couple of seconds after they open it. Considering this, the purpose of the first sentence is simple: entice the visitors, and make them read the next sentence. Besides, the opening phrase sets the tone to the whole article and outlines its main idea. The readers tend to keep scrolling the page to the very bottom if they are intrigued from the very start.

What Makes a Good Introduction Perfect?

What is an introduction other than an eyecatcher? Now, take a moment to go back to the opening of this very article and read it once again. You were stricken with a surprising fact from the very first line. Being intrigued, you moved to the second sentence, which contained another piece of interesting data. To find out more, you kept reading up to this point, and will move on till the end, won’t you?

An introduction makes your material stand out from hundreds of similar ones. Further in the article, you’ll learn about the most effective types of intros, but it may also be a good idea to look for some examples of introductions online. They may inspire you and help to come up with your own ideas.

How to Introduce an Article: Professional Tips

Don’t know what to start with? Here are several do’s and don’ts that will help you create a great introduction.

• Keep the introduction short. Although there are no official rules or instructions, for most types of blog posts and other features, 3-4 intro sentences are a reasonable amount.
• Do not waste words. Your aim is to write as little as possible. Avoid using filler phrases and words. Developing a skill of crisp and clean writing will benefit you in the long run, but it is especially important to apply it to the introductory paragraph, to draw the attention of readers.
• Try eliminating the first sentence. Very often the first one-three sentences you write work as a sort of warmup writing exercise. Try cutting them, to see if the introduction becomes stronger.
• Do not oversell. Don’t let the intro write a check which the whole post can’t cash. Whatever is promised in the introductory paragraph should be delivered in the article itself.
• Try writing the rest of the article before you work on its introduction. In many cases writing the whole piece will make it clear which type of intro should work best. If you are experiencing a writer’s block with the first paragraph (which is not a rare case), don’t waste your time. Just leave a placeholder, and get back to the opening part after the whole piece is completed.

Best Introduction Techniques for You to Follow

There exist many good ways of writing an effective introduction to an article. Remember though that they aren’t universal: each type of intro will work only in a particular situation, depending on the topic of an article, its general tone, and the target audience.

1. Ask your readers a question. A compelling question helps to speak out to your audience. People will keep reading to find out the answer.
2. Tell an engaging story. Scientists claim that a reader’s brain activates when they try to imagine the same physical and mental activity that a story character is experiencing. Usually, people read the articles that begin with a story until the very end.
3. Start with a joke. A funny phrase may break the ice, and entice the visitors into reading.
4. Use shocking statistics. People enjoy learning new information. Surprise them with a credible fact, and you have them engaged.
5. Use readers’ imagination. Asking your audience to imagine something works as a powerful hook.

When the introductory part is finally ready, take time to re-read it and make editions if necessary. Remember that these few first sentences can attract more readers to your page and make it popular.

How to Write a Summary of an Article

An article summary is a short piece condensing a scholarly text to its main points. This kind of college writing is informed by the critical reading of the text, which is why it is often used to demonstrate a student’s understanding of the assigned materials. A summary can be as short as a single paragraph or as lengthy as an entire paper. So, how do you summarize an article? Keep reading this guide to find out.

What is the First Step in Creating a Summary?

The process of writing a brief article account can be boiled down to only three essential steps:

1. Start by identifying the key topic or idea of the article;
2. Single out important arguments;
3. Write the summary.

The rest of the paper provides detailed explanations for each of these steps.

Topic Identification for Article Summary

Regardless of its length or subject, the aim of any article is to convey a certain idea through the use of rhetorical instruments and logic. In summary writing, your goal is to identify this idea and present it using your own words. To this end, it might be necessary to read the text several times. When reading the article for the first time, try to get a general notion of what its author is trying to convey. Once you’ve caught the gist of the piece, note your initial impression and put it to writing. As a time-strapped student, you might want to avoid reading the article for the second or third time; however, do not neglect this step. Otherwise, you might miss an important point the author tries to make in their piece.

Here's how to identify the main idea or topic of an article:

1. Pick clues from the title.
2. Identify the publication as a way to understand the intended audience.
3. Check the date of publication.
4. Identify the article’s type (expository, argumentative, scholarly, etc.).
5. Notice the tone of the text.
6. Take note of repetitions (arguments, data, notions, etc.).

How to Identify Key Arguments

The identification of key arguments calls for the second reading of the article. Read the piece closely while noting both main and supportive arguments the author puts forth. Here are basic tips to make the process easier:

1. Print the article or use a word processor to make annotations as you read it.
2. Underline topic sentences in each paragraph.
3. Rewrite the topic sentences in your own words.
4. Read the sentences out loud.
5. Use transition words to tie all topic sentences together.
6. Leave out unimportant details.

Put simply, you should boil the article down to its essentials. Let any unimportant detail fall away, and what you are left with is the main idea and key arguments supporting it.

Write a Balanced Summary

A great summary always starts with the identification of the author’s name and the article’s title. The proper ways to open your summary look as follows:

• In Waking Up, Sam Harris explains…
• Sam Harris, in Waking Up, argues…
• According to Sam Harris in Waking Up…
• As Sam Harris vividly illustrates in Waking Up…
• Sam Harris claims in his irreverent article Waking Up that…

Then, combine the article’s thesis with its title and author in the opening of your summary. For example:

In Waking Up, Sam Harris argues that the search for a deeper meaning in life can and should be divorced from the irrational dogma of religion.

Whenever possible, try to summarize the article’s main idea in your first sentence. The rest of your summary should revolve around the explanation of the supporting arguments. It is important to restate those arguments using your own words. Otherwise, you will have to deal with the accusations of plagiarism.

What Does a Summary Include?

To properly summarize an article, think about the process as the creation of a reverse outline. This approach is especially effective in crafting an abstract, which is an article summary commonly found in APA format. The reverse outline you create is an article template. By having a good template, you won’t miss a single component key to your summary. To write the outline, read the article and summarize its main questions and theses. Also, carefully read the findings section of the article and condense them to several brief sentences. Furthermore, make a note of subheadings and topic sentences. Thus, you will have a better understanding of how the article’s parts relate to each other.

Consider the following outline for an article summary:

1. 1. Introduction
      • The main idea of the article
      • The research question or the problem
   2. Article’s thesis
   3. Key points
      • Identify key points and how they relate to the thesis
      • Provide several examples of the author’s use of evidence to support the thesis
   4. Conclusion
      • Discuss whether or not the key points help to support the thesis
      • Discuss whether or not the author is successful in showing the significance of their article

Writing a Summary of an Article

The main challenge in writing the summary is to decide what information should be included. Given that the summaries are usually two to three paragraphs long, you should concentrate on the most important details of the article. There is no space for explaining every piece of argument the author presents in the article. Just find a few examples you like the most and include them in your summary.

It is also worth repeating that the summary must be written in your own words. Scholars tend to write using complex terminology and long-winded sentences. If you absolutely need to bring a complex idea into your summary and do not know how to paraphrase it, use a direct quotation. However, do not be overzealous when quoting the author. After all, you aim to summarize their ideas, not to present them as they are.

In case you decide to introduce the author’s idea with a direct quotation, you can do it using their full name:

According to Sam Harris,…

As Sam Harris implies in his article…

However, when you refer to the author after the first mentioning, you no longer have to use their full name:

Harris criticizes…

If you want to underscore that the author is an authoritative source, you can use their title (Dr., Professor, Mr., Mrs., etc.).

In Maps of Meaning, Jordan Peterson, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, states that…

Example of a Summary of an Article

Use the following example of a short article summary to produce your own piece:

Haraldsson and Wangnerud’s (2018) study explored the influence of media sexism on women’s desire to seek a career in politics. While the authors cited several scholars who have explored the relationship between sexism in media and a share of female candidates in national parliaments, they stated that the previous studies focused solely on unidirectional correlations. In contrast, Haraldsson and Wangnerud (2018) explored whether there was a bidirectional association between the above-mentioned variables. The longitudinal study was conducted over a period of two years in 25 countries with varying electoral systems, gender quotas, and levels of women’s rights. The authors hypothesized that sexist depictions of women in media reduce their ambition to stand as political candidates. The study’s findings showed that “the higher the level of media sexism, the lower the share of women candidates (Haraldsson & Wangnerud, 2018, p. 14). The authors also argued against under-or misrepresentation of women in media and called for the increase of the share of women politicians across the globe.

How to Cite an Article in APA Format

If you are taking a class of psychology or other behavioral or social science, at some point, you’ll be asked to write a paper or an essay in APA format. But what does it mean? APA format is the official style of the American Psychological Association. It is commonly used to quote newspaper and magazine articles in text of student papers. APA style may seem to be rather confusing as compared to other formatting methods, such as MLA or Chicago style. However, this format is very important in psychology and other related sciences as its consistency gives readers a clear understanding of what to expect in a paper, and where to look for this information.

While APA’s guidelines apply to many aspects of formatting (such as headings, spelling, spacing, abbreviations, use of graphics, etc.), the requirements of this style to citing might seem to be especially tricky and daunting. In every APA style paper, you are expected to cite at least five journal or newspaper articles.

Notations included in an APA paper are called in-text citations. According to APA standards, you should identify where each citation was found. To do so, in the text of your research paper you need to provide the name of the author who you quote, followed by the publication date of the work (its year, months and date). If you put the name and the date in parenthesis, separated by commas, it is a parenthetical citation. You can as well put the author of the quote in the narrative of a sentence and state the date of publication in a parenthesis; this is called a narrative citation.

In this guide, we provide examples of a few most common forms of citing.

How to Cite an Online Newspaper Article in APA?

Today, citing Internet periodicals becomes more popular than citing those in print. Here’s how you write an in-text citation from a website newspaper in your APA paper.

Format: Lastname, F.M. (Year, Month Date). Article title. Newspaper title. Retrieved from URL

Example: Robertson, G.R. (2016, August 14). The symptoms and risks of teen depression. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/

Tip: Provide the URL of a site’s homepage when the web version of the cited article can be found by on-site search. This way you’ll avoid giving a nonworking URL.

How to Cite an Online Journal Article APA Style?

The form of citing an online journal is similar to that of an online newspaper.

Format: Last, F. M. (Year Published). Title of article: Subtitle if any. Name of Journal, Volume Number (Issue Number if given). Retrieved from URL

Example: Broady, J.N. (2012). New chapter of the world literature. The Literature Guide, 5(48).  Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/

How to Cite an Article with Multiple Authors APA Style?

When you’re citing just one author, provide their last name, put a comma, and give the initial of the first and middle name (if it’s presented).

Example: Lastname, A.B.

Tetcher, K.

When citing two authors, write their names in the same format as with one author. Put “and” between their names for narrative citation and ampersand “&” for parenthetical citation.

Example: Newman, J.C. and Lesly, T.H.

(Newman, J.C. and Lesly, T.H.)

When citing more than two authors, write the names as in the same format above. Separate each with commas.

Example: Baxter, D., Smith, C.B., Klein, R.N., Lewis, S. and/& Kelly, K.M. (1990).

Tip: Write the word “and” or put “&” before the name of the last author.

How to Cite an Article with No Author in APA?

If an article you cite has no author, start with the title of this article, put the date of its publication, source, and URL (for online resources).

Example: Sources of creativity in everyday life. (2018, July 24). Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from https://www.chicagotribune.com/

Now You Know How to Cite an Article Using APA Format Correctly!

As you can see, there are many nuances to keep in mind when writing your paper in APA format. It may seem rather difficult and quite confusing at first sight. Yet, once you pass through this challenge several times, you will most definitely be able to act in a non-cognitive mode. If you still keep having hard times when citing in APA format, be sure to have our guide at hand in order not to miss out anything. Alternatively, you can hire our professional essay writer for editing, proofreading, and formatting help.