Writing a Good Content or Article or a Non-Fiction Book
Writing a good article or content is directly linked to the reputation of the author and indirectly to that of the publisher. As a responsible writer, one must adhere to some essential criteria, which I shall discuss in this article.
Compilation of Data
Creating the Outline
Before starting, what you need to have is a list of headlines that will give you an idea about what information to include. You can browse a couple of websites across the internet to justify what is already available and then select your own set of headlines, which will make your article different, unique, and valuable and help people to gain the right knowledge.
Collection of Data
Next is an excellent collection of data w.r.t the headlines. It is an excellent idea to write from your experience. But you may still need the help of good books and papers. Your headlines now tell you what you need to study. If you aspire to be a good writer and, of course, a responsible one, then you must select good sources for data collection. Such good sources can be books by excellent and accountable authors. Your list of headlines further suggests the books or papers or topics that you may need to study.
Find ‘Good Books’ to Refer?
You may not always purchase these books as you may find the topic you are looking for at “Google Book Preview,” or websites like “Scribd.” You may sometimes even see the books for download. If you want to know about a list of sites where you can download valuable books, please write to us.
What Sites are Decent for Procuring Information?
Additionally, scientific journals, blogs by responsible publishers or authors can also serve as a useful source of information. Referring to websites by anyone and everyone is never a right choice and may lead to misinformation. So, you must choose sites with verified and dedicated authors. A few such examples are mentioned below:
National Center for Biotechnology Information
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
So, after you have decided on the books, papers, and websites to study, you can make a word file or text document copying, or I must rather say compiling all the content into it. This document may, of course, be way more significant than your article. You must also make a note of all the sources and website links simultaneously and include them in a ‘list of references.’ It is imperative as it may be required in case you are challenged by a reader regarding the information you have brought forward.
You may Require Additional References!
Now, you must study the document and understand it clearly. If something is not bright, you should consult additional sources or watch a video or animation on that topic on YouTube or any such site. While choosing the video or source for additional or supporting information you must again be careful about the author/ creator of the video, animation, or cause or whatever. You can still take note of the links in your list of references.
When you are writing a novel or a story especially from your imagination, you do not require to compile data or the headings, instead, you may think of the chapters and proceed along with the natural flow of thoughts.
Make Your Own Composition
Now that you are fully prepared, you should write your article in another document absolutely based on your understanding of your own composition.
Plagiarism is Unacceptable
The most crucial factor that has to be taken care of while writing content is “plagiarism,” or copied content or scraped content. If you are copying something directly from another source, this is a copied or plagiarized content. It does not matter whether you have scraped a few sentences or an entire paragraph; plagiarised is plagiarised.
As in this digital age, every piece of information is digitalized in one way or the other; plagiarised content will be easily detected by the publishers as we use professional plagiarism checkers. It sometimes might happen that a few of your own sentences have somehow matched with something already published. This is not strange.
However, if you wish to depict a ‘theory,’ or similar stuff where you need to use the original text, you may copy the original content but with ‘citations.’ It is better to place such things as a ‘quote.’
If you are presenting an entire book or major portions of a book written by someone else in a modified, translated, illustrated or any other form, you must either obtain written permission from its creator or writer or else make sure that the work is evidently in the public domain. Also, in both the cases, you must not depict yourself as the author but mandatorily mention the original author as the ‘author’ and identify yourself as the modifier/ illustrator/ translator/ editor/ etc.
I would here cite a quote from WiseOldSayings Website by the famous English novelist Anthony Horowitz.
“Writers who copy or plagiarise others are dreaming in another man’s sleep.”
Paraphrased content is never a Good Option Either!
Now, here is a catch- you may remove the plagiarism by shuffling the words or introducing a few new words. This will, though, initially bypass the plagiarism checker but will be caught later during advanced checks and manual editing. More seriously, the websites from where the information has been scraped or Google itself may complain about it. This will also bring down your reputation and the passion of the readers.
Once the publisher comes to know about scraped content, it will severely impact your reputation. Besides, a reader browsing across different websites may also come to realize scraped content and submit a negative review. In the worst-case scenario, the writer may receive a copyright violation notice from the original creator. Just try to imagine how would you feel if you find extracts from your creations being displayed in someone else’s name in a plagiarised form or just by paraphrasing the words and sentences.
If you are writing on the go, i.e., say you have opened up a couple of websites and books and directly copying the sentences and editing them, then you are at a huge risk for developing scraped or paraphrased content. Such content is of inferior value. And say you have used an automated tool to rephrase the scraped content then “boom,” that is another paraphrasing. You must always use your own intelligence and composition.
Table-1. Plagiarised, Paraphrased, and Genuine- the Difference!
Below is a practical example of plagiarised, scraped, and genuine content.
| ORIGINAL CONTENT
(From Source) |
PLAGIARISED
(No Value) |
Paraphrased
(Poor-Value) |
| Nowadays, patch chips are designed based on Silicon on sapphire (SOS) technique, unlike the traditional technique of Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS). It reduces the frequency degradation and provides faster signal transduction between the substrate and channels.
|
Patch Chips are widely used these days. They are based on Silicon on sapphire (SOS) technique, unlike the traditional technique of Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS). SOS is known for its capability to minimize frequency loss and provide faster signal transduction between the substrate and channels. | Patch Chips are designed these days on ‘Silicon on Sapphire or SOS formula.’
Previously, they were based upon Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technique. It makes the signal transduction faster among the substrate and channels by reducing frequency loss. |
Genuine (High Value):
SOS (Silicon on Sapphire) is a relatively new technology over CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semi-Conductor). It facilitates efficient signaling between the substrate and channels owing to its capacity to reduce ‘frequency degradation.’ This is the reason they are preferably used in making ‘Patch Chips.’
#If you have found and used an excellent paraphrasing software or application that gives you high value content, you must always keep in mind that the software/ application would give more or less the same result for the same content to multiple users.
Read More about Scraped Content from Google Support
Read More about Paraphrased Content from Google Support
How to Check for Plagiarism?
You can use a paid professional tool or some free tools in combination. Free tools are not more than 55% reliable at all times, so you must use them in combination. As a fact, the paid tools are not 100% reliable too. Thus, the combination of options is always better. The following free options in combinations should be enough for a writer. The free tools may have a limitation on the number of searches per day or the number of words you can enter at a time; so, you may require to perform the test in installments. They may require you to register as well.
| Plagiarism Checker | Algorithm | Comments |
| Pre Post SEO | Sentence-Based Search Algorithm | Good results for plagiarism as well as paraphrased content |
| Edubirdie | Phrase and Word-Based Search Algorithm | Good results but word-based search results make it tricky for the user to detect the real plagiarised texts |
| Small SEO Tools | Sentence-Based Search Algorithm | Popular but basic results |
| Quetext | Sentence-Based Search Algorithm | Basic results |
Please note that submitting your creation to an unreliable website or app may result in theft of your content. We do not comment on the reliability of the above tools. However, in the paid category, tools like Grammarly, Pro Writing Aid, etc. can be relied upon.
In the paid category, the plagiarism checker in Grammarly performed much better than the others, such as Pro Writing Aid. The paid tools seemed to have an ‘intelligent phrase-based’ search algorithm.
| Plagiarism Checker | Algorithm | Comments |
| Grammarly | Sentence-Based Search Algorithm | Better results for plagiarism as well as paraphrased content |
| Pro Writing Aid | Sentence-Based Search Algorithm | Good results |
| Copyscape | Sentence-Based Search Algorithm | Fine Results |
But amongst all the tools discussed, including the paid ones, only Pre-Post SEO was able to detect paraphrased content adequately.
Accidental Plagiarism
It may sometimes happen such that some of your own sentences that are simple in nature matches with other source or sources and are tagged as plagiarised. These sentences or combinations of phrases are so simple that naturally many writers have used them. You may retain this type of plagiarised sentences but after making sure that the total plagiarism of the entire script excluding quotations is less than 5 percent. However if entire sentences or major portions of paragraphs or complex and creative short sentences are plagiarised, they must be altered.
Content Theft
With increasing incidences of content theft, you must be cautious not to share your manuscript or submit it to unreliable sources for any reason. Your manuscript is only to be submitted to a good publisher for publishing or review.
Also, you must not post more than 5% of your content to social media or blogging or any other sites other than your own. Additionally, you must note that if more than 10% of your content is available online then there can be certain restriction on the listing, sale and advertising of your book on platforms like Amazon Kindle, Amazon Print, Google Play Books, and many more.
Changing Paragraph & Creating Headings
The next thing to take care of in your article is to prevent the article from looking bloated. This will allure the reader. It is the key to ‘engaging content.’ In this regard, you must create sufficient headlines (headings and sub-headings). The headings or sub-headings must be in bold with only the first letter of the important words in the capital.
You must also change the paragraph very often. I suggest changing the paragraph before every 100 words and a headline every 250 words.
While changing the paragraph is fine but consistent headings may not be necessary for a book.
Content Quality & Grammar Check
To write good content, your composition has to be good. I will mention some tips which are prerequisites to a beautiful composition but missed by many.
# Write in an easy and simple language using some stylish but not tough ‘words.’
# Always keep a watch on the use of tense and preposition.
# Keep the use of passive voice to the minimum.
# Avoid too lengthy sentences as much as possible.
# Try not to use too many articles and determiners in a single sentence.
# Do not repeat a word too much. Instead, use its synonyms in rotation. This may not be possible for scientific or technical writing.
# If you are writing a book or precisely a novel, use direct speech or stuff within the double inverted commas as much as possible. This may not be required for an article.
You must always check your script or content for basic grammatical errors and spellings before submitting them. While you can proofread your script multiple times, the better way is to use a free or paid good grammar checking tool. However, you ought to have a decent knowledge of grammar as all these tools show you false positive and nonsense suggestions at times, which you have to realize yourself.
Lastly, you must manually revise the entire content at least two to three times.
Fast Track>> There are many free and paid or mixed grammar editing tools out there. Grammarly is a paid tool with a free version. The free version allows all basic grammar editing.
Fast Track Info
If you have included the name of a scientist or philosopher who may not be that popular or included a term that may not be clear under the topic you are writing, then you must consist of fast track info on that ‘person,’ or ‘term.’ Fast track info must not be plagiarised or scraped.
Setting a Subject or Key-phrase
You must set one subject or key-phrase before starting to write. Your first paragraph must be focussed on this subject or key-phrase. The Key-Phrase for this write up is: “writing a good article.”
A key phrase may not be necessary while writing for a book or novel where you can set a ‘theme’ or a ‘central idea’ instead.
Inserting and Using Images, Charts, and Tables
Charts and tables should not be copied. They can be created easily in a word processing application such as ‘Microsoft Word.’ The tables and charts used in this article have been created using the same.
We understand that as a writer, we may not possess photography or drawing or graphic designing skill or time for the same. So, I will not suggest using your own images. But you should not use copyrighted material. Doing so may land you in a legal issue. What you can do is use a royalty-free image. Many websites offer royalty-free images for free. A few of them have been mentioned below.
Centre for Disease Control and Prevention
I understand that you may not always find all that you exactly require. But this is a bitter truth which you have to digest.
If you wish to use an audio or music or a video in your article, the process is the same as images.
You must note that whenever you use royalty-free work, image, music, or a video or whatever, you have to provide credits to the creator. We suggest maintaining a list of all the links to such stuff used along with the list of references.
The difference when you are writing a book!
If you are writing a book, you have another option that is to obtain written permission from the creator to use a copyrighted work. Also, you may use stuff or extracts from things in the ‘public domain.’ But this option is not suitable for articles.
Fast Track>> The public domain consists of all the work with expired copyright. It would be controversial to use a work which is not in the public domain but has an expired copyright or a work which does not have an official copyright at all or its date of first publishing is unknown.
If a work does not have official copyright, you may still land into trouble upon using it if the owner has proof of ‘ownership,’ or ‘publishing.’
Image Credits:
Main Image: Pexels@Pixabay
© 2020, Mage Orange Publication.
Copyright reserved with the respective authors, co-authors & contributors. All ‘Publishing Rights’ reserved with ‘Mage Orange Publication & Technologies.’
The above content is an ‘extract’ from the ‘Mage Orange Publishing & Digital Marketing Magazine 2020.’ Any part of this article cannot be published, reproduced, or copied in any form whatsoever, without the permission of the publisher.
