How to Write an Article Like a Pro

Writing an Article Professionally in Three Stages - Writing an article, scientific or non-scientific, should go through three stages: prewriting stage, writing stage, and revision stage. All professional writers know these stages and they agree that the first draft of an article is a "rough draft" and needs to be refined. This article is about to teach you how to write a good article like those professional writers. If you want to write an article as a professional writer in your blog, make sure that you put the sections of your article in the appropriate HTML tags for SEO.

Prewriting stage

A professional writer would never write an article without a plan. If you want to produce a professional article, you need to plan your article before you start pouring your ideas onto the paper. Without a plan, you will end up either in an endless writing activity or stuck at a certain point in your article and have nowhere to go.

In the prewriting stage, you need to be sure about the following ideas:

1. You are sure about the topic of your article. This covers the primary and main ideas that you want to elaborate on in your article and also the topics that should be excluded from your article although they have relevance to some degree with your article.
2. You are sure about the starting and ending point of your article. An article has its length somewhere between 1500-7000 words. In a certain case (e.g. writing test) you may be required to write an article within an exact word limit (e.g. 500 words). To keep your topic focused, you must be able to start and end your article without losing the core topic.
3. You are sure about the organization of the ideas in your article. This is still related to point number 2 above. You need to arrange your discussion in such a way so that the readers can follow the flow of your ideas from start to end. At the end of reading your article, the readers satisfactorily understand the core topic that you present through your article.

Deciding the primary and main ideas of the article

In writing an article, most people usually pick a topic that they master because it is not funny to try writing a topic that you have no idea about. For example, if you want to write about SEO, you need to be sure if you are knowledgeable enough about that specific topic. However, this should not discourage you from writing a topic that is new to you. Writing can be a good learning practice. By writing a new topic, you require yourself to explore that topic by reading texts about that topic and having intense discussions with knowledgeable people. If you are a blogger and you find it difficult to pick a topic, you can find ideas in the top three article types to write on your blog.

Whether you are going to write a topic that you have mastered or one that is new to you, you need to pick a topic. The topic that you write about is your primary idea. It is the primary idea that is described in your title but how your title sounds do not necessarily in line with your primary idea. In this point, the title of your article is not important yet but the primary idea is. You can entitle your article after you finish writing the article.

The primary idea needs to be distinguished from the main ideas. The main ideas are the crucial points that you will need to discuss in your article. In other words, the main ideas are extracts from the primary idea. Let’s say that the main ideas are what the readers need to understand if they are about to understand the primary idea.

The closest example of how main ideas are extracted from a primary idea is in this article. The primary idea of this article is the three stages in writing professionally. Take a closer look at the primary idea, it consists of three main ideas: prewriting, writing, and revision. These main ideas are further broken down into several points of discussion. At this point, you can see that the prewriting is broken down into three sub-numbered points that we are discussing right now.

The importance of having these points is to avoid being "wild" in writing your article. When you are discussing one point, you can hold yourself from discussing another point. Each point of discussion has its block. It is in the respective block you discuss everything you think can contribute to the readers' understanding of each point.

The term main idea is also found in the paragraph section with a similar meaning. However, they are different in their scope as we will see in the next section.

Good practice in the prewriting stage is by writing the primary idea, it can be in word or phrase, and then listing several relevant words or phrases around the primary idea. You may have been familiar with the word web. A word web is helpful to find the words or terms (ideas) relevant to the primary idea. Further, you can eliminate several words or terms if they are potentially out of topic. By doing so, you can exclude several unnecessary points from your discussion so that your article has a good focus.

Deciding the starting and ending point of discussion

Not knowing where to start writing is one of the common difficulties in writing while ending a discussion is also another one. However, you can always see how professional writers started and ended their discussion by reading their articles. This is, for me, is the best way to learn starting and ending a discussion.

Some professional writers started their discussion by introducing or defining the terms and ended the discussion by drawing a conclusion. Some other professional writers creatively introduce the problems that they discussed in their article and then followed by an elaboration of the problem like the causes and the solution. However, almost all professional writers conclude at the end of their discussion.

We don't start an article but we start a point of discussion. Of course, we have several introductory paragraphs as the starting point of the article but the real starting point is in each block or point of discussion. It means that if you have three blocks or sections in your article, you will have three starting points and three ending points in your article. How you start the discussion in each section must not be necessarily identical. You can use your linguistic creativity to create a different pattern of discussion in each section. Nevertheless, it is recommended that you end the discussion in each section with a conclusion. The conclusion will remind the reader of what they just have learned from your article.

Deciding on the organization of ideas

We have seen how to start and end a discussion and now we are going to see what discussion should open your article. As you can see, your article has several points of discussion. You may want to consider starting the discussion from a general point to a specific point. In fact, this is the best way to organize your idea, from general to specific. If you don't specify your ideas, your discussion will likely be endless because the specific-to-general pattern tends to widen your discussion and this will lead you to difficulty ending your article.

Another side of the general-to-specific pattern is it enables you to consider what point the readers should understand before they read another point. An article should be written linearly so that the readers will not need to jump from one page to another page and return to the other page just to understand your ideas. For example, you may want to introduce or define a term without using the term in your elaboration. By doing so, you don’t require your readers to jump here and there in your article.

Those are the three important ideas to ensure before you start writing your article. First, you need to pick a topic and break it down into main ideas. Then, you need to organize them in a general-to-specific pattern. And then, you start discussing each point of the discussion by introducing the ideas and end the discussion by drawing a conclusion (this will be elaborated in the second stage below). This paragraph, for example, is a concluding paragraph of this section.

Read Also: A Guide to Bibliography and Referencing

Writing Stage

It is easier to write an article if you have a plan that we just discussed previously. If you plan your article that way, all you need to do in the writing stage is to discuss each point. In this stage, I want to focus on the development of your point of discussion.

There are at least four elements in your point of discussion that should be taken into account if you want to write your article professionally.

1. Developing and chaining paragraph
2. Giving and elaborating examples
3. Quoting from external sources
4. Using figures if necessary

Let’s take a closer look at each element that usually accompany an article written by professional writers.

Developing and chaining paragraph

The body of each point of discussion (or section) consists of three parts: introductory paragraph, content paragraphs, and concluding paragraph. Some authors mentioned that the concluding paragraph is only required if the content is long.

Your main ideas are described in the paragraphs. Each paragraph, further, has its main idea called a topical sentence. And in writing a good paragraph, you need to know only one rule of a paragraph, that is, there is only one main idea in each paragraph.

What you see from a paragraph is the ideas but there is only one main idea in that paragraph. What makes a long paragraph is the supporting ideas. Supporting ideas are ideas elaborating or explaining the main idea. The main idea is what you want the reader to understand and the supporting ideas are the sentences that explaining your main idea (the underlined sentence is the main idea of this paragraph while the rests are the supporting ideas).

It is a good practice to start your paragraph by stating your main idea or topical sentence. Then, you can continue explaining the main idea by using supporting ideas or supporting details. I said it is good to do so because you don’t have to return to your main idea but focus on the explanation. For example, if the main idea is “it is a good practice to start your paragraph by stating your main idea or topical sentence”, now I just need to explain why I said so.

You can use as many supporting details as possible in your paragraph as long as it does not force you to out of topic (remember that the main idea is described in a topical sentence). If you feel forced to jump to a different topic in a paragraph, revise your paragraph. That is how a professional writer develops his paragraph.

The paragraphs in your article in each section must be chained. In linguistics, the element that chains your paragraphs is known as the transition signal. Many transition signals can be used to chain paragraphs but I will not go in that deep. I just want to mention several transition signals commonly used or found in articles written by professional writers.

Transition signals are the elements of the text that signal the transition of an idea. These transition signals are used to chain paragraphs by marking the turning point so that the readers can detect the turning point of the idea and prepare themselves to acquire the idea that comes next.

Your paragraphs may contain ideas supporting or contradicting each other. To chain these paragraphs, you need to use proper transition signals. There are three common transition signals used to mark a turning point: no-signal, therefore, and nevertheless or however.

“No-signal” means that there is no explicit transition signal used to mark the turning point. You can see that most of the paragraphs don’t have words like however, nevertheless, therefore, that’s why, and so on. This means that those paragraphs contain different main ideas and it is safe to turn from one to the next without a sign.

“Therefore” is a common transition signal used to mark a continuation of the idea described in the previous paragraph. People usually use therefore to describe the cause and effect, reason, or conclusion. You can check the use of this transition signal in professional articles you have to learn more about it.

“Nevertheless or however” is a common transition signal used to mark a break between contradicting ideas. It can be used to mark the advantages and disadvantages, the pros and cons, the differences between ideas, and so on.

Be advised that these transition signals are not necessarily located at the very beginning of the paragraph. Sometimes, you may find these words in the middle of the paragraph because professional writers also use them to chain the sentences in a paragraph. However, it does not mean that there is more than one main idea in a paragraph that uses these transition signals. These transition signals, if used as sentence chains, are parts of the supporting idea.

Giving and elaborating examples

Examples of anything that you describe in your article play important roles to show how the ideas you present in your article work in the real world. Articles ranging from grammar to philosophy have examples. Even in this article, you can find the phrase “for example” used several times.

The examples given in your article should be elaborated. Some knowledgeable readers can relate the examples and your explanation or definition without your elaboration. However, since you can’t predict the level of your readers, elaborating your examples (although briefly) is quite important while knowledgeable readers can skip that part.

Moreover, the examples and elaboration will develop your article. Without them, your article will be short. Of course, if you are required to write an article in a limited size, you can skip this part or condition your elaboration to a certain length so that it suits the limit.

Quoting from external sources

Perhaps, you are familiar with scientific articles. In scientific articles, you can find that the writers quote passages in a certain length from the external sources, the other related literature, we usually call this referencing. They quote external sources written by experts in the respective topic not only to enrich their content but also to strengthen their idea. They quote the experts to legitimate their idea as if they say “I am not the only one who said that”.

Quoting from external sources is optional in writing a non-scientific article. However, having them in your article can enrich and develop your content. Since you quote someone in your article, you will need to add some paragraphs to relate the idea you quote and your original idea. In this article, you cannot see names but it does not mean that I don't quote from external sources. If you search the word "authors" in this article, you can find that I quote from external sources. I deliberately don't mention the name because I don't intend to put a reference at the end of this article. This is not a scientific article so I am not required to do so.

Using figures if necessary

Figures like pictures, tables, statistics, or diagrams are sometimes necessary to present visual information to the readers. The figures will help the readers to see the pattern of something that you describe in your article.

Figures are like examples; they need explanation. Some authors stated that each figure should be named and the name of the figure should come first before the figure itself. By doing so, we will help the readers to know what the figure is about.

The position of the figures should be after the paragraph that mentions the figure. For example, you may write in the paragraph "as can be seen in the diagram below" and the diagram comes after the paragraph. In the next paragraph, you may want to add "the diagram above shows us that…" when you start explaining the figure you are displaying.

By having these four elements in your article in each point or section, you have developed your article professionally. Remember that you must develop your paragraphs by adding supporting details and have your paragraphs chained by using transition signals properly. Give some examples and elaborate on them. Quote from external sources and use figures when needed.

Read also: Four Basic Exercises to Improve Writing Skill

Revision Stage

As you completed develop your main ideas, you just have your first draft. The first draft and rough draft are synonymous. It means that you should not submit your first draft for publication even in your own blog.

The last stage in writing an article professionally is to refine your article known as revision. There are at least two important points to refine in this stage: the form and the content. The form covers your vocabulary and grammar and the content covers your ideas which you described in paragraphs.

Form refinement

To refine the form of your article, you can try to find if your article contains grammatical mistakes or inappropriate vocabulary. Fortunately, today, we have several programs created to search and correct grammatical mistakes in our article (e.g. Grammarly) especially if you write your article in English.

By using Grammarly, you don't have to worry about grammatical mistakes. Grammarly will suggest you refine your grammar in your article. Grammarly does not force you to follow its suggestion because you may have used some non-English words that Grammarly detects as a mistake. Grammarly works based on English so you must pay attention before applying any suggestions that Grammarly provides.

Content refinement

Content refinement focuses on the idea organization. You need to reread your article to find if some points need to be elaborated or eliminated. You will also find if some paragraphs need to be relocated so that it strengthens the relevance among the ideas.

In the worst case, you may need to rewrite your article. After rereading your first draft, you may find that your article has gone too far and partial revision is not available. At that point, you will need to make a total revision to your article. Your first draft then becomes "notes" so that you can remember what you are going to write about.

If you want to write an article professionally, you need to go through these three stages. All professional writers write their articles in these three stages. I hope this article can help you to write your professional article without using any article spinner because it is big plagiarism that all writers like us must avoid.