I have a very long article I'm about to publish

1. 0

   mariexotoniposted 10 years ago

   I have a very long article I'm about to publish
   
   It's 2300 words and looks scary.. How can I make my article look more readable without taking the meat out of it?

   replyreport
2. 61

   Clare Rubelposted 10 years ago

   Hi Marie;
   This is my recommendation: Take out as many articles, pronouns, conjunctions and prepositions as you can. This is the first step when "editing" your piece. This is the modern way  to write. (Ref. "Long Ridge Writers Group, Coursework) Make it works so that your message is clear. My auntie said, "Use clarity and brevity." - English Professor, Freelance Journalist, San Francisco, CA. Step two; Go from there.
   Article-- "the", "a", "an", (and sometimes) "some". (Wiki)
   Pronoun--substitutes for a noun, i.e., he, she, they, etc. (wiki)
   Conjunction--part of speech that connects two words, sentences, phrases or clauses, i.e., "and', "but", "although", "however", etc. (I use these too much; have to edit them OUT!)
   Marie, once you've done this, your piece will be much shorter, maybe 2000 wds. The only other recommendation is to find one (1) word that replaces five words, e.g., "I wanted to go to the store,  but I didn't have enough money to buy what I wanted." Try, "I planned to shop but noticed I was shot on funds." Only five fewer words, but it adds up!
   Practice this. You'll become very good at keeping word-count down.
   Remember tho, always write from the heart; stream of consciousness. Use ALL the words you can think of to say. This is great. Editing is it's own animal, so do the above, but only after the fact.
   L. Clare

   replyreport
3. 88

   Cardisaposted 10 years ago

   Hi Marie. Don't be scared. ) We have people who have published longer hubs than that. The secret to publishing long hubs here on HP is not the editing but the formatting of the hub.
   
   1) Use multiple capsules with subheadings
   2) Break up the hub using photos and videos
   3) Add a table if necessary
   4) Use right side text capsules so you have text also on the right side (make them blue for visual effect)
   
   I would suggest using one of the pre-formatted templates which HP already has. This way you just add your text and images and delete the ones which you haven't used.
   
   This hub is over 2000 words:
   http://cardisa.hubpages.com/hub/Facts-A … hould-Know

   replyreport
4. 90

   Greensleeves Hubsposted 10 years ago

   Both Cardisa's and Clare's answers contain good advice. Particularly I agree that breaking up the text with photos, different coloured text capsules, maps etc makes the page much more visually enticing. 1000 words of text without breaks looks more daunting to visitors than 5000 words with photos, graphs, dividers and sub-headings.
   
   Remember also, although a long article may put off HubPage members who visit just out of curiosity without a really deep interest in your article, in the long term your main goal must be to attract the much larger community who search on Google or Yahoo or Bing etc. These are people who have a genuine interest in the subjects they are searching for and they would much rather come across an in-depth comprehensive article than waste their time visiting an incomplete piece which contributes little. That's not to say that short hubs are bad - it's simply to say that hubs should be as long as they need to be to say everything you want to say and to cover the subject fully.  Making your page the best of its type on the web is a far better goal than making your hub short enough for casual visitors to read.
   
   For what it's worth, almost none of my pages are under 1,000 words and many are more than 3,000. The longest is about 10,000. It takes a long time to write them and maybe I could have built up a bigger following more quickly with lots of short hubs, but I want to build a good reputation on the web for quality, authoritative and genuinely useful pages. That hopefully will pay dividends long term. Alun.

   replyreport
   1. 88

      Cardisaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I totally agree with this. The primary objective is not to gain followers here but to attract external readers who are searching for answers. Don't worry about the quantity but rather the quality. Make the hub look as enticing as possible.

      replyreport