How do you write articles fast on unknown topics?

I can write a personal blog post in 30 minutes (1000 words). I could probably write a longer email in the same time. But I can`t write a 500 word article in 30 minutes - a task that seems to be done much faster by almost anyone on IM forums. What did I do wrong?

A few days ago I decided to do a 30 day challenge to get started with IM. I chose article writing as the main focus of my challenge, a task that didn`t sound too difficult. I was wrong. Two 500 word articles a day are tough. I began to cheat after two days (instead of writing original articles, I began to rewrite articles. Still takes me nearly 30 minutes to rewrite a single article). What I found out: It`s actually more work to rewrite articles than to write original articles. The time difference results from the research time for original articles.

To get back on track I decided to research and write a completely original article on a random topic. I chose to use the first question on Yahoo Answer as the topic for my main article. The first question was: How do I choose a jump bike?

I didn`t even know what a jump bike was. I hit up ezinearticles, wikipedia and google to find an answer. The problem: I first had to find out what dirt jumping was. And so on.

Took me over twenty minutes just to read a few articles on dirt jumping and I couldn`t find an answer to the question "How do you actually choose a dirt jump bike"?

I felt desperate and wanted to give up. It`s impossible for me to write this stupid article, I should do something else. Well, I knew that quitting isn`t an option, so I began to write the article even before I`ve found a clear answer. In the end, the article didn`t even provide an answer to the question. I just talked about dirt jumping and the different bikes used.

Word count: 440 words.
Time it took me to research and write the article: 56 minutes.
Quality: Mediocre. It`s readable, but due to my lack of knowledge I had to rewrite some technical facts from other articles (which resulted in some awkward sentences). How should I produce a decent sentence when I don`t understand the difference between slick, semi-slick and treaded tires or can`t even tell what the hell 48-spoke rims are good for.

When you look at the products out there on article writing (Article Speed Writing, Jason Fladlien`s 7 Minute Articles, etc.) and forum posts it seems common write an article on an unknown topic in 15 minutes or less. I don`t even want to talk about the 7 minutes that Jason Fladlien mentioned; I would be happy to write a decent article on an unknown topic in twenty minutes.

As most here are more experienced in any IM topic than I am, I guess that most are also better article writers than I am. How did you learn to become a good article writer?

Oh, some statistics for this post:
Word count: 515 words.
Time: 17 minutes (I guess I need to work on my typing speed.)

BTW, I'm not writing for AC, but I just figured out that most article writers can be found here; especially fast writers.

this is exactly how I do it. Takes me like 5-10 min http://thebestspinner.com/help/replace-words/

This has worked great for me.

Yeah I'm in the same boat. I can write a pretty decent article if it's a topic I'm interested in. But I don't really like to write. I need a lot of articles for one of my blogs, but I never keep up on it because it is so uninteresting to me. I can outsource it to article writers because I'm not satisfied with the results.

At least you're able to keep yourself going on it. I am terrible about procrastinating on the writing.

1. Research unknown subject. (google it, use wiki, etc)

2. prepare opening statement. (first paragraph of article)

3. take three researched articles on subject and scan through them, jot down key points or type them in notepad. (outline)

4. Fill in the blanks between outline points with things you remember from researched articles.

5. Proofread the article you just finished.

6. Do a quick closing statement, and you're done.

10 minutes or less, once you get the hang of it. Remember: 3/4 of "original" content isn't original, just paraphrased.

I have a different approach to the problem of writing. First of all, I treat writing as a kind of manufacturing job. This means that you are actually producing something specific or tangible.

Once you accept my premise, what you need to do is figure out what type of writing you are doing. For example, you can classify a piece of writing as either about a person, thing, place, event, process, etc. If it's about a person, you will be writing about the qualities of that person (e.g., face, habits, first impression, etc.). If it's a thing, you will write about the qualities of that thing (e.g, visual, cost, etc.). If a place, somewhat similar to writing about a person or thing. If an event, write about a sequence of actions or people who are present. If a process, the steps and sequence of doing something.

From what I observed, writing about ideas or concepts is the most difficult because they are not visual. For this type of writing, you need metaphors or literary devices.

If you want to practice writing, I suggest practicing on writing news stories because you need to conform to the 5W's (i.e., who, what, where, when, why). Incidentally, news writing will be applicable to most types of writing that deal with tangibles (i.e., person, place, thing).

What you need to keep in mind is that certain types of words belong to certain pieces / types of writing. It is like manufacturing a car, you can only put car parts into a car and nothing else. So, writing about nuclear energy when writing about a Toyota or Porsche is inappropriate.

The problem of writing fast is now a matter of readily finding or having instant access to the right parts for certain pieces of writing.

Article writing is fairly easy once you get the hang of it. Once you write enough articles, you'll know what to write with minimal research. I'll simplify it for you a little.

Before you begin writing an article, there are a few things you should keep in mind. They help in reducing the over all time/article.

First and foremost, decide on the purpose of the article. Is it a sales article? Is it an article that is to be used for link building? Is it actually supposed to be informative?

One of the major mistakes writers make in the beginning of their writing days is that they pick a topic and start writing without actually deciding on what it's for. If you can narrow this down..you already have an advantage. Also, since the purpose of the article is now clear, you can approach the topic accordingly.

Secondly, decide on the word count. this is fairly obvious for there is no point in picking up an article unless you know the exact word count. When you know the word count and the purpose of the article, you can ensure that the article goes in the right direction and still stays within the word count. Also, lets say it's a 500 word article. The firs and the last 100 words are "designated" for the introduction and the closing paragraphs, so you are effectively left with a 300 word article.

Thirdly, your target audience matters. We are marketers, the content we produce is not supposed to be "loved", it's supposed to be "good and to the point". Get it straight in your mind as to who you are targeting to ensure better success and easier writing experience.

Also, an important point is the medium on which you are trying to publish your article. For instance, there is a huge difference in the quality of the articles on associated content, ezine and go articles. Keep the guidelines of the site in mind along with basic grammar and you should be fine.


Finally, keyword optimization. I don't think I need to elaborate on this point but your main focus should be your primary keyword. Once you have achieved the required keyword density for the primary keyword, it is then that you start thinking about the secondary keyword.


If you follow all these steps/tricks/whateverP), not only will you get better conversions, but you will successfully turn the article writing task to a mere "fill in the blanks" kind of task for yourself.



Now. I have a question. Why did you care about dirt jumping? I thought your keyword was jump bike. Focus on that. When someone is looking for a jump bike, you expect them to know a little about dirt jumping. Providing too much information does not make a whole world of difference, it only increases your work load. Concentrate on what's needed and what's not.

I hope this helps.

theconjurer


edit: I almost forgot proof reading. Do not proofread every article immediately after writing it. Write articles in batches of 5-10 and then proofread all of them together after taking a break.

I would like to create a small report (7-15 pages long) on topics I don't know much about... What are you guys steps for doing this? Any advice appreciated.

i just search up any topic on googles blog search because those SERPS's are usually the ones with the good content so i type like site:blogspot.com (keyword) if i am lazy and don't care much i just rewrite an article or use quick article pro it scrapes content from the web about any keyword you type in then i gather sentences all together to connect with each other and makke sense. I think spinning is faster then writing about something you dont know in 500-1000 words.

i just search up any topic on googles blog search because those SERPS's are usually the ones with the good content so i type like site:blogspot.com (keyword) if i am lazy and don't care much i just rewrite an article or use quick article pro it scrapes content from the web about any keyword you type in then i gather all the sentences and connect them together with each other to make a paragraph that makes sense in conclusion a 500-1000 word article (20-40 min).

i can see you are a decent typer...if you can write 515 words in 17 minutes then i think you can rewrite 515 words article in at least 20 minutes...keep up the good work

I just bought Dragon naturally speaking (dictation - voice to text - do a search) and it is really good but needs alot of training and it gets it right about 80% of the time for me and I have a perfect british London accent. So I'm going to persevere as you are supposed to be able to talk 3x faster than a trained typist, I would estimate this software could be about 1x to 2x as fast in reality.

This software is also shared here on this form, but I didn't want to chance viruses and trojans and it is a little big for virustotal, weighing in at over 1GB. Well, the standard version can be had for as little as 40 Bucks.

Hope this helps.

DAve

With research on the topic,it takes me 30 min to write an article.I always look for a niche and write atleast 5 articles at the same time so that the ideas on that topic are produced more instantly and thus the article is completed in less time.

Do you free write it based on the objectives then plug in the primary/secondary keyword afterward?

withing my research about a topic i take notes of the best content that i found then i organise them into paragraphs before starting my article.

It's like pulling teeth the first time you do it. I remember way back in the mists of time I had to write some content about different stock market techniques. To this day I couldn't honestly tell you a single thing about Bollinger bands. It took forever and I was an absolute bear to deal with while I was doing it. Some topics will leave you feeling like this, but the one tip I have is to read three, four, five articles on your target topic and absorb the salient points. In your conclusion paragraph, bring it to bed with "So, based on the facts/information/specifications, my advice/conclusion is...". And practice until you're sick to the back teeth.

What are the tips friend, i need that.