This week I was asked to proof­read and “jazz up” a newslet­ter arti­cle about a local fish­ing club in Mil­ton Keynes.  

Now, I don’t know a lot about fish (unless they come with chips or stared in find­ing Nemo) and my fish­ing vocab­u­lary isn’t that great (reely), how­ev­er, writ­ing about top­ics that I (pre­vi­ous­ly) knew noth­ing about excites me more than anything…just don’t tell Ben and Jer­ry! 

So here I am, to share my top tips for writ­ing about some­one else’s sub­ject matter.

1. Get Excited

Under­stand­ing why the writer is excit­ed about the con­tent is the best way to get excit­ed about it your­self. Use their pas­sion, enthu­si­asm and joy to fuel you and your writ­ing up. Read­ers sense the author’s feel­ings towards the sub­ject so leave the “I don’t real­ly want to” at the door and greet your blank page with “I can’t wait to get this writ­ing par­ty started!”

2. Research

Even when pre­sent­ed with near­ly-fin­ished copy to proof­read and spruce up, always do your research. Not only does this help you to spot any errors but it also enables you to add lit­tle bits of val­ue and con­tent where nec­es­sary (did you know that the com­mon carp can live up to 38 years!)

3. Stay Updated

If you will be reg­u­lar­ly pro­duc­ing arti­cles, blogs, social media posts and oth­er con­tent on your new top­ic, make it famil­iar by stay­ing up-to-date with the lat­est news and trends. This is eas­i­ly achieved through Google Alerts and oth­er rel­e­vant newslet­ters. Before I start­ed writ­ing for Expand­ly, I thought mul­ti­chan­nel sell­ing was some­thing that Sky did. Now I received dai­ly emails that enable me to pro­duce bi-week­ly blogs and dai­ly social media posts, as well as inspir­ing me to cre­ate my own con­tent ideas with­out the require­ment for con­stant input.  

4. Ask

Last week, some­one said to me that it was “eas­i­er to make a coat, than to mend one” and hav­ing made and mend­ed coats I com­plete­ly agree lit­er­al­ly but sym­bol­i­cal­ly, I like both. I love writ­ing copy from scratch and equal­ly I love proof­read­ing con­tent and work­ing with the writer to enhance it. If you have a ques­tion about your new top­ic, ask the expert to explain — they won’t mind and you prob­a­bly won’t be able to sush them up!

5. Instruct An Expert 

Writ­ing about oth­er people’s inter­ests, hob­bies, indus­tries and quirks makes some peo­ple reach for the pen, key­board or quill and oth­ers stare at a blank page for hours. Out­sourc­ing your proof­read­ing and con­tent writ­ing to a con­tent writer means that you can car­ry on your day with what you’re good at, safe in the knowl­edge that you will receive a pro­fes­sion­al, researched and well-writ­ten arti­cle by the end of it.   

A Way With Words is a pro­fes­sion­al con­tent writ­ing ser­vice based in Mil­ton Keynes, offer­ing busi­ness, per­son­al and inter­nal con­tent writ­ing, through a vari­ety of chan­nels and on a vari­ety of top­ics (includ­ing fish!)