What is a Good Article?

In this article I would like to answer the question by describing the process of writing an article and in that way indirectly describe what an article is. That is of course according to me.

The process of writing an article should always begin by figuring out if the question or topic is one that the writer is actually competent to write about. This meaning that if you don’t know anything about the subject then the result will follow from that. And that doesn’t satisfy neither you nor the potential reader.

Next step will be to determine the audience. Who is going to read this article? What should I consider regarding this audience? That is: my language, my writing style, the way I compose my article etc. Basically you must determine whether the general reader is a University professor or just a teenager who need some information for a paper at school. There is of course a huge difference in what kind of language the teenager would be able to comprehend and what language the professor would be able to read.

At this point you haven’t even started writing. And you still might need to make a few notes on the subjects. If you do so you can also arrange the different parts of your article or in other words plan the composition. This way the article will become a complete text and not just a bunch of different thoughts that doesn’t fit together.

Now you write the text. It could be with a small introduction like in this article where you determine how you are going to answer the question. Then follows the main text and at the end you conclude your point.

So having written the text it is time to read it again, check spelling and maybe adjust a few lines.

And just about now the article is ready to be published.

So according to me an article is a well written text where I as a reader feels that the author is speaking to me directly. I am not distracted by bad language or spelling and the point the author is trying to make is clear.