Please help me talk to my writers

...there's no middle way here. I took a cursory look at the first link you posted here. Correct me if I am wrong, but if the intention of the piece is to explain the concept to a layman, the article falls flat on its face.

The writer has made no effort to maintain the flow of the article. Rather he/she has filled up some useless words in between the core concepts. It may look good on paper or online as the case may be, but there is some inherent flaw in the article...it fails to grab my interest.

I can understand your situation, but you need to have an editor or you need to be firm with whoever is managing these writers for you.....Tell them in clear words "put up...or shut up"

My 2 cents

 

Wow -- I reviewed all of the posts in this thread again and I must say that some of them were very insightful. Plus, one person responded privately with more useful insight.

This will all help me, not just with this writer and this writing agency, but in my future dealing with future contract writers and agencies. I have seen these same patterns before, but have never been able to explain exactly what I have seen. Thanks everyone!

 

Hi,

here are my 5 cents...

I have only looked at the first paragraph of the first link. Sorry, your writer is not writing as a technical writer. To be a technical writer you need to be able to

• get to the point.
• "build" the knowledge in the subject by adding the blocks in the proper order.

Let's work over the example:

Your writer said:

The broadcast address is simply the IP address that is set up to allow the flow of information from one source to all work stations that are part of a particular subnet, rather than just to one physical destination or work station.
The whole idea behind a subnet is to allow for easy interaction between all segments or with specific segments as needed. What the broadcast address does is create a situation where data can be transmitted via the network to those who need the information, while not providing that data to persons who have no use for it. As an example, you could use a broadcast address to communicate the latest quarterly financial data to your board of directors while not transmitting the information to any other portion of your company.

The real information in the paragraph is:

The broadcast address is a generic IP address used in subnets. It redirects information to a specific list of IP addresses.

From there you can add examples. But you need to define what you are talking about first.

The article is written as a big filler: are you paying by a certain amount of words? If that is the case, cut it. Tell the writer to be as clear as possible, even if the article has 300 words instead of 600. If after that, he/she keeps writing in the same way, change the writer.

Hope it helps...

Sandra.

 

Hello Will,

I am a content writer and am looking for work.

As you have mentioned that you are looking for tips on "how to deal with writers", I would like to suggest that you give your writers some links after every topic that the writer might need to research. This way you can clearly express what you need and in what format.

Also, you can keep ready formats/styles of articles on your website (pdf's possibly) and make it available for them to download.

This way a writer knows exactly what you are looking for.

Also mention the requirements clearly in BOLD with number of words, deadline, style of writing and writing domain separately while you offer the work to your writers. The way you put your work towards your writers will make it time effective for you to generate great amount of quality content without any hiccups.

If you can have a voice chat with your writer through gtalk, yahoo, skype or any other medium, please do to resolve your problems/challenges/queries. Ask your writer to have a microphone with headphones installed on their personal computer's.

I would suggest you give client feedback and quality score after each and every article so that the writer becomes well aware of his writing skills. You must review each article yourself and must have good amount of communication with your writers. Rapport building is a must.

I would suggest that you visit about dot com and look for tips. It's an extensive site with really good amount of content.

Networking with other hungry-for-content buyers/readers can help you understand the dynamics of good content. If there is any content that has become unusable, you make sure that they have understood exactly what is being asked out of them in order to save valuable time and effort, not to forget the costs involved in getting work done.

I hope this was really helpful to you.

For any further queries or if you are looking forward to requesting any authentic work from me, I will be very happy to assist you further.

I will available on google talk almost 24/7 minus sleeping hours and lunch time.

Please mention your contact details if you are looking forward to working with me.

Regards,
Ronak.

 

Hello Will,

I am a content writer and am looking for work.

As you have mentioned that you are looking for tips on "how to deal with writers", I would like to suggest that you give your writers some links after every topic that the writer might need to research. This way you can clearly express what you need and in what format.

Also, you can keep ready formats/styles of articles on your website (pdf's possibly) and make it available for them to download.

This way a writer knows exactly what you are looking for.

Also mention the requirements clearly in BOLD with number of words, deadline, style of writing and writing domain separately while you offer the work to your writers. The way you put your work towards your writers will make it time effective for you to generate great amount of quality content without any hiccups.

If you can have a voice chat with your writer through gtalk, yahoo, skype or any other medium, please do to resolve your problems/challenges/queries. Ask your writer to have a microphone with headphones installed on their personal computer's.

I would suggest you give client feedback and quality score after each and every article so that the writer becomes well aware of his writing skills. You must review each article yourself and must have good amount of communication with your writers. Rapport building is a must.

I would suggest that you visit about dot com and looking for tips. It's an extensive site with really good amount of content.

Networking with other hungry-for-content buyers/readers can help you understand the dynamics of good content. If there is any content that has become unusable, you make sure that they have understood exactly what is being asked out of them in order to save valuable time and effort, not to forget the costs involved in getting work done.

I hope this was really helpful to you.

For any further queries or if you are looking forward to requesting any authentic work from me, I will be very happy to assist you further.

I will available on google talk almost 24/7 minus sleeping hours and lunch time.

Please mention your contact details if you are looking forward to working with me.

Regards,
Ronak.
universalmagician@gmail.com
universalmagician@yahoo.co.in

 

A double post for emphasis!

Ronak has some good advice. I lost one possible on-going job because the buyer didn't have a site up yet, so I couldn't look at it for an appropriate style, couldn't tell me who the target audience was or what style would be appropriate (e.g. a folksy, chatty description of a festival, a guidebook sort of thing with lots of facts, or a travel-article sort of thing). He wanted links, but didn't know what sort (other articles on his site? source material? a festival website? did he want links to take people away from his site?) My impression was that he wanted someone else to decide what his site would be like. I wasn't willing to do that for what he was willing to pay. I wasn't willing to do that at all, actually.

In your first link, the author has used a sort of chatty, "this is the way I would talk to you in person" style. Did you indicate that's what you wanted in any way? Maybe you got what you asked for.

 

Have you told them: Look at Wikipedia, that's what I want!

That might work.

 

Dear Will,

I suggest you make a list of book titles with author names and ISBN #'s included in the list. Ask your writers to enroll into a library nearby. It's pretty cheap to enroll into a public library and certain titles can also be found in e-book format. In fact, most titles are found in e-book format these days. Send download links to your writers. It would make a big difference in the quality and authenticity of your content.

You will never ever have to think about getting unusable content from your writers as they will slowly become experts by reading those titles. Technical writing entails lot of research and a writer has to look for answers on the internet. The internet is filled with quality and defective content. A writer might get contradictory answers for the same question. So, It becomes essential for you to provide the source of content that has to be explained in a simpler manner.

Also, creating a yahoo/google group is really a fun idea. It will help you drastically improve your success ratio because you will able to communicate with your writers and explain everything in detail. No need to explain individually to every writer when you can make everyone understand the requirements at one shot.

If anyone is looking for a writer, I will be glad to help you out. Just email me at .

Regards,
Ronak Shah.

 

ronak, If you're paying a few dollars per article, you definitely don't have the right to be demanding that writers read books and ebooks first. The people that take on that kind of work usually write them quickly, and in bulk... they're not going to commit that kind of time and absolutely shouldn't be asked to.

 

Jennifer:

The exception to that is the writers who want to write dozens of articles on the same topic. For example, they might read a book on Poker and write dozens of articles from what they learned in that book.

Of course, you said "a few dollars" and I'm seeing this from the "10 dollars per 500 words" authors, so I am not really disagreeing.

On the lower end, some of these writers are really just "rewriters", which is legally questionable.

 

That's true, but it's something they would generally do before deciding what niches to write in... not something where a client could say "I'm going to pay you $5 per article - just picking a random amount there - to write a dozen articles on this subject, and I expect you to take the time to read one or more books on that subject first, which you won't be compensated for." Frankly though, if a client has to tell the writer to read up on a subject, they likely don't have the right writer, and if someone who is working for a few dollars per article actually agreed to that, it wouldn't show much for their business sense.

Anyway, like you said, rewriters are definitely a large portion of the "bulk articles on any topic" market, and those are the least likely to actually want to learn about a niche to begin with unfortunately.

 

Jennifer:

Being a creative writer yourself,

what would you prefer?

Rewrite content without improving technical knowledge?

or

Write technical content creatively by adding valuable tips and examples to your writing that are found nowhere, by reading a few books and becoming a master about the subject?

One must deliver added value to what they offer. Being a writer myself, I generally do not ask writers to read full books. Yes, its true that people do not have much time to read the books completely but the one's who are really interested in pursuing a career wont mind reading a full book. Remember, Master's can only deliver master work and to become a master, one must constantly upgrade one's own awareness.

Most Importantly, I prefer writers who write by reading, or the correct word is: REFERRING from a comprehensive book on the subject rather than rewriting from the internet library. What I meant is referring (just like the OXFORD dictionary), not reading a (bible/master) book entirely though sometimes you must do that if it helps you in writing about it in the future.

Will's basic problem is: He finds writers using fillers to fill content and selling it off to him that has no credible value. They just don't understand that their work speaks for themselves.

I guess, if I am not mistaken, Will has not designed the style of writing answers for his writers.

He must include a style or rather, a format:

Like (just a rough idea):

Introduction to the topic/ Certain Definitions (Jargon's especially):

Clarification of the problem/question: the problem here is... blah blah blah.. confirm the problem.

Resolution/achievement of a suitable result through a specific procedure:

Conclusion, if needed:

One can split the whole answers into three or four paragraphs which makes it look smarter and clear.

Generally, the writers guidelines is the key to getting the work done in the right manner and adherence to writers guidelines will mean getting results. So, If there is a problem in the result of the work, then it would mean that the directions are not proper.

Regards,
Ronak Shah.
Creative/Copy/Content/Technical Writer.

 

I don't think anyone becomes a "master" of a subject by reading a few books, and if that's how they're learning, they're certainly not able to offer tips that are original and "found nowhere." If I hired a technical writer, they'd have to have direct education or experience related to the specific subject matter, to be able to honestly write completely original, and reputable, content as opposed to based on simple research.

As for reading books, you're saying sort of what I was trying to get at... if they want to be a qualified writer on a subject, it's the writer's job to educate themselves in some way. They should read books, take courses, or whatever they want, and on their own time. They should also have complete control over the methods of how they're learning (client's shouldn't be dictating requirements as to exactly what books must be read before writing articles for them, aside from them being something like a book review).

Preparing guidelines or an outline like you suggested is probably a good idea as far as communication, especially in a case where someone might hire multiple writers while looking for some kind of consistency.

 

Jennifer:

Finding people who are experienced in networking and willing to write about the subject are not many, especially when we talk about very good writers. you will get lot of writers who will fill content just for the heck of it but is that really worth it?

When we write about a topic, we look forward to content that is relevant and informative, not unusable like will and many other content buyers want. We research about it and what I mean to say is to constantly upgrade yourself, you must refer comprehensive books to be able to write informative, eye catching content that triggers a relationship with the reader.

You are right, one cannot become a master by just reading books but yeah, you learned most things in school from a book. I mean: books make a huge difference to writers. They give them words, they offer them style and vocabulary, they offer them understanding.

Havent you heard of this saying:

"Books are a writer's best friends just like diamonds are for a woman"



Books give valuable advice and critical information and if you are looking for someone who's got experience into the field and willing to write about it, you've hit jackpot. Experience counts much more than books, I agree with you.

Hope Will is watching over and thinking duh.. I guess, I will have to make my writers specialize a particular subject and just try and make them focus only on those topics.

or may be he will scream one day: I got that right ;-)

Best Wishes,
Ronak.

 

In all technical fields, someone who is technically knowledgeable and also able to write clearly and coherently is a rare bird. Quite a few people make their living teaching technical writing to engineers and programmers. Getting a clear, direct document is like pulling teeth. The examples that were originally posted are kind of typical, with the meat buried somewhere in among the other stuff.

If you want to hire someone with technical knowledge who can write, you have to compensate that person for the time spent acquiring that knowledge and learning to present it clearly. No one is going to keep current on a topic if they are going to get paid at the same rates they would get for a blog entry on their trip to Yosemite.

 

same blunder again buddy:

I said referring and - not - reading full books..

read it fully only when you wanna make a career out of the same..

 

Some writers can't be coached to success. Skimming those articles, I get the impression that whoever wrote them has an awful lot to learn. It's as much as what has been left out, as it is about what the writer has provided. You would have to be a writer or an editor yourself to see it. If you're not, that's as it should be.

If you want better writing, pay the going rates for better work, and provide a style guide. Don't set yourself up to provide writing tuition, because if you have to do that on articles of this quality, you might as well just rewrite them yourself.

 

I completely agree with her. Format is very much important. It covers the major aspect of writing a piece of article.

 

But you also said "You will never ever have to think about getting unusable content from your writers as they will slowly become experts by reading those titles," which is why the issue came up in the first place.

 

Your writers could benefit from simple syntax lessons, as well as trying to write in a more conversational style. Basic writing techniques such as having an introduction, body and conclusion and trying to make it personal, as if the article is for someone inparticular, could also help. Maybe show them some examples of some well-written articles so they can see the style that you would prefer.