Where is it going…

I often come up with ideas for articles that I get so excited about I drop everything to write. My enthusiasm carries me from paragraph to paragraph. I feel like I’m introducing incredible brand new ideas waiting to be soaked up by anyone who reads them.

One thousand words and I’m just about done. I hit a roadblock. I have nothing else to say, but it feels incomplete. Hmmm. What to do? Recap: What should you take out of this? And I proceed with bullets of the points I made.

What is wrong with this?

There is nothing wrong with recapping at the end of an article. It’s the reason why you recap that can get you in trouble. Here’s a rule of thumb, if your article needs to be recapped, throw it out.

Sometimes when I’m writing an article, I feel like I have so much to say that I just go on and on from one topic to the next. It has no focus or main idea. Think back to English class with the thesis. Now that you’ve “advanced” in writing, you don’t have to specify a thesis, right? You don’t have to write at the top Thesis…, but you always need to keep in mind what the main point is you’re trying to make.

Whether you realize it or not, every good article has an introduction paragraph and a conclusion paragraph. Both should mention the main topic or topics. The body should explain the topic in more detail. If there are too many topics to fit in one introduction paragraph, or they don’t relate enough to be generalized, then you need to fix it until it flows.

What should you take out of this? You tell me.

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