Emilie Ackerman

When it comes to writing articles or blogs there are certain things we need to pay attention to make sure our writing pieces are engaging. Some of these things include grammatical errors, telling the complete story, and the importance of the use of images.

Through reading articles and conducting peer reviews of classmates, something that stood out to me was how headlines and a lack of information can be misleading to the reader. When I peer reviewed Will’s self-introduction blog I realized the importance of storytelling when it comes to writing. Connecting your personal story to dreams you had as a kid to how you are applying those goals now is a great way to draw in your readers. This is definitely something I will incorporate into my own that I had not done with mine. In his blog, he specifically told a story of how he dreamed of working in video production in sports and how he is working to make this dream into a reality today.

Something else I noticed when conducting these peer reviews is how important it is to put yourself in the reader’s shoes to make sure they understand what you are talking about in the article. For example, if you write an article about an event but do not know the context behind it, then the reader will be lost and will most likely click away to a different article. Today, attention spans are short so it is also important to include a captivating introduction to make the reader want to continue reading.

These lessons are not only helpful for writing articles but for social media content as well. Even for short captions and visuals on social media, You always have to think about how you will draw the viewer in to interact with your content.

As someone who is currently interning at Girls’ Life Magazine as an Editorial and Social Media Intern, learning about these important elements of writing was incredibly helpful for me as I can apply them to the articles I write for the magazine. As an intern, I write articles on entertainment, lifestyle, beauty and more. For example if I am posting about a beauty trend, I would make sure the the graphic is colorful and eye-catching and then write a caption that encourages interaction like “Which look would you try this fall?” With this knowledge, I will now pay closer attention to the voice, headlines, and flow of my writing to make sure my pieces are engaging from start to finish.