Writing "Perfect" Advice.

Since I came on Minti, I've had one little personal goal:  to write one piece of advice that received a perfect score of 5 in the first 10 votes.  I've finally achieved that goal - the first 16 votes scored 5.  This achievement has not changed my rank or given me any awards.  It has not made me any new friends.  It has not received the largest number of votes or comments, and I seriously doubt it ever will.  It has not effected me in any way other than to satisfy my sense of self-achievement; 16 very different people from different parts of the world thought that the advice I wrote was "perfect".  Oh, and it deprived me of a couple of hours of sleep.  The only reason why I even set out to achieve that goal is purely because writing is something I have spent many years learning to do.  It seems I've got it figured out - well, for the most part.  So, what have I learned along the way, and what advice can I give to others so they can improve their own advice articles?

Added side note:  Writing is not something that comes naturally, you have to learn how to do it.  If you read this and are still thinking that you can't do it, then go and join the Group, Writing Great Advice Articles, find my posts there, and learn more about how.

Writing style is important.

Your article needs to be easy to read and well presented.  You need to space it out nicely and you should use a new paragraph for each new subject in the article.  You need to avoid complex terminology, and if you do use it, you need to explain what it means.  Your readership (those that are reading your advice) don't want to be reading something that looks like a page from a 3rd year university textbook, grabbing out their dictionaries every few seconds, and struggling to figure out how each piece of information relates to the other pieces of information in the article.

Introduction and Conclusion.

The introduction is the most important paragraph of any article.  It is this very first paragraph that will make the reader decide whether to keep reading, or leave and find something else to read.  The introduction can contain the reasons why you wrote it, why the reader should read it, and most importantly, what the article is about.

If the article reads as a list of information (like this one) a conclusion may not be necessary.  However, if it reads like a story, it will need a closing paragraph that sums up the meaning and purpose of the article.  With a well written article, the reader can read the first and last paragraph only and know whether or not it is relevant to them or someone they know, without needing to read the rest of it.  The bulk of the article should contain the details that make it relevant.

Consistancy is important.

If the advice starts out talking about breastfeeding, changes to the subject of childbirth somewhere in the middle, and finishes with recommendations about changing nappies, the reader is left wondering exactly what the advice was really about.  Pick one subject and stick to it.  You can write about the other things in more advice articles later.

Punctuation, spelling and grammar do matter.

The members of Minti are more interested in the content of an advice article, and are quite willing to forgive some errors.  What makes these things important is simple readability.  If your spelling is way out all through the article, the reader won't understand many of the words, and will have to spend time trying to decipher what you have written.  Take any page of writing and remove all the punctuation and then try to read it.  It is quite difficult to do.  Grammar isn't usually such a problem for most people as our understanding of grammer comes to us as we learn to talk, so we already understand it ,we just take it for granted.  The general rule of thumb is, write it as you would say it.

It must contain good advice.

Your article should be providing information that people need to know.  Just writing about an experience you had does not qualify as advice, unless you explain what you learned from it, and actually tell the reader what you would recommend they do if ever they were in a similar situation. 

Keep it simple and concise.

The reader does not want to read through a 10,000 word story to end up walking away with a measly piece of advice that says something that could be summarized into one paragraph.  If you have a long story that would well suit what would be otherwise short advice because it emphasizes the need to follow that advice, put the advice in the beginning of the article as an introduction, then go on to tell the story.  That way, the reader has the important information at the start, and if they become tired of reading the story, they can skip the end of it and still walk away with the most important information they need.  Also, avoid repeating yourself.  You don't need to say the same thing multiple times.  Readers don't want to read the same stuff over and over again.  Even if it is worded differently, going over the same subject over and over and over again....  It's annoying isn't it?  That's why you shouldn't do it.

It must be relevant.

Minti is about parenting.  There's a lot of issues about what is relevant and what isn't, I even wrote a seperate advice on that topic.  What I'm writing now is not parenting advice, but it is relevant.  Without this advice on Minti, many members might not learn some of the tricks to writing good advice.  Consequently, the advice they write might rank poorly, and then people searching the web looking for advice won't read it because of it's ranking.  This makes what I'm writing now relevant to the members of Minti, as it helps with regards to members using this site to it's best potential - and being able to do that helps millions of people find information on how to be better parents.  Whatever your advice is about, you need to make it apply to the needs of the majority of the membership in regards to bettering their chances to improve their parenting skills.

Make it interesting.

A title that will capture people's attention and is relevant to the advice will go a long way towards getting people to look at your article in the first place.  An interesting introduction will keep them reading.  If the content is interesting people will not only read it, but will recommend it to others.  Bare in mind that what you find interesting is not necessarily appealing to others, and vice versa.  People love reading personal stories from the experience of others, especially when the story has a little twist in it that makes it unique.

Do your research.

If you have advice regarding a personal experience, try to keep an open mind and be aware that your experience is not the only way that things can happen.  If you can give the alternative options to your reader in your advice and explain why you would recommend one option over another, it may save the reader some of the hassle of having to research the other alternatives themselves, and they will appreciate that.  If you are writing about something that is based on knowledge rather than experience, make sure you are correct with what you write.  It would be quite embarassing to write a piece of advice that is totally misinformed and have heaps of members contribute comments that are contradictory - and providing researched information and links - to prove you wrong.

It needs to be worth reading.

One or two sentences may express very good advice, but the readers need to know why you think that advice is worth following.  If you can't at least write a decent paragraph about the topic, you may as well just make it a comment somewhere on the site, or combine several small bits of advice into one article.  Advice is meant to contain information, not ask for it.  If you can't do enough research on something to write about it, then suggest the article to someone who can.  It's not who writes it that is important, it is the fact that the information is available on the site that ultimately matters.  I've given advice ideas to other members, and I have been asked by a member to write a specific article on a topic as well.  Sometimes the best thing to share with others is a simple idea.  It might not increase your ranking, but it will definatley increase your reputation among the membership as being a valuable contributor behind the scenes.

Complete and comprehensive.

People appreciate being able to find what they need to know all in one location.  Having to read 30 articles to find out one small thing is time consuming and frustrating.  If you can summarize all the necessary information about a topic into one article, your readers will not only appreciate it, but will give out the link to your article to everyone else they encounter that needs the information it provides.  Be careful of continuations.  Some information needs to be broken up into parts simply because there is just too much of it for one article.  When doing this, divide it by subject.  For example:  an article about activities for children could potentially become the size of a set of encyclopedias.  You could divide this into activites for children of different age groups, so long as each age group had enough information to warrent it's own article.

Be Unique.

If you can come up with a topic that no one else has written about, you have an easy niche to fill.  If you can write an article better or in a unique way to what has already been written, you are doing well.  However, if you find that what you are writing is just another run of the same stuff that dozens of people have written before you, it might be better to find another subject if you can't find a way to make your article stand out from the crowd.  If other articles specialize and go into great detail about some of the subjects that your article talks about, you might do well to keep your information about that subject brief and general, refer and link the other articles, and concentrate on detailing the things the other articles didn't mention.  This stops you from repeating things that have already been said and allows people to use your article as the primary link to all the information on that subject.

Edit, edit, edit.

When you write an article, don't publish it straight away.  Save it as a draft, come back to it later with a fresh mind and proofread it.  Fix any mistakes you have noticed.  Is there anything you should add to it?  Is there something you should leave out?  Can you re-word anything to make your intentions clearer?  Save it again and repeat this process until you are completely happy that you have done the best you can.  Before publishing it, have a friend or relative read what you have written and give you some feedback on it.  You might be a better writer than they are, but they can give you a reader's opinion, and that is what you need to pay attention to.  They may also notice things that you didn't, such as mistakes, or a piece of information that you need to put in.  Never let them just say that it is simply good or bad.  Encourage them to point out what it is about it that is good or bad so that you can learn where your strengths and weaknesses with writing are.

For more information...

Some people can never get too much information about a topic.  You can save them a lot of searching by linking other sources of information that you recommend reading, about related topics, underneath yours.  If also helps those that didn't find what they were looking for in your advice to hopefully find it in related articles or on external sites.  Your effort to help your readers by doing this will be greatly appreciated, even if no one ever expresses it.