When your work gets published, you may find that it differs considerably from what you submitted. Are you making the same mistakes over again? Most of the time, editors are too busy to offer you detailed feedback, so here are a few pet hates that you can eliminate from your writing before you’ve even filed.<\/p>\n
Wrong format?<\/strong><\/p>\n And compare it with what is on the website or in the magazine. If what you\u2019ve submitted is in a completely different format that just shows that you haven\u2019t looked at other articles.<\/p>\n Over the word count?<\/strong><\/p>\n You may think you\u2019re being helpful giving the editor too many words \u2013 like you\u2019re keen and doing over the amount of work required \u2013 it\u2019s not true. By not being able to edit your own work you create much more work for an editor and it also makes you look unprofessional. If something is double the word count they\u2019ve set that\u2019s a huge problem for them and sadly, they are often heavy-handed editing it. You may think they\u2019ve slashed your favourite paragraph, but if there are too many words, they probably just want to cut it down as efficiently as possible.<\/p>\n Too personal?<\/strong><\/p>\n If there are lots of personal anecdotes and overuse of the word \u2018I\u2019, this could be one of the first things to change. You might be really interested in this old family story that your mum and dad always laugh at, but if it\u2019s long-winded, doesn\u2019t get to the point, and isn\u2019t relevant to readers, it\u2019s likely to be cut.<\/p>\n Too wordy?<\/strong><\/p>\n You might have thumbed the thesaurus and crammed your article full of intellectual phrases, but simple, concise phrases work best for a wider audience. Lots of websites have articles written to a set reading age. If your vocabulary has been changed, try using simpler words in future while keeping your personality in the piece. It\u2019s not always bad; the challenge of doing so will make you more versatile and ultimately a better writer.<\/p>\n Have the opening and closing paragraphs been re-written?<\/strong><\/p>\n Web editors now have to think about SEO (search engine optimized), which means that the article appears higher in a search engine. Words and phrases have to be added in, but if you\u2019re a writer, you\u2019re not really expected to know about this, though it is a plus. Look carefully at your standfirst compared to theirs: are there any words added in? Are all the standfirsts on the website written to the same style? Look at what makes a stronger standfirst, as it will really help you when pitching ideas to editors too.<\/p>\n It\u2019s worth keeping all of this in mind for next time. If you\u2019re still at a loss as to why your article\u2019s been changed, send a polite email to the editor to ask for a rundown of the changes, and ask for any advice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When your work gets published, you may find that it differs considerably from what you submitted. Are you making the same mistakes over again? \t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":47,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8,11,17],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-freelance-writing","tag-getting-started","tag-journalism-life","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clippings.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clippings.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clippings.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clippings.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clippings.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.clippings.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":156,"href":"https:\/\/www.clippings.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions\/156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clippings.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clippings.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clippings.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clippings.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}