Please critique my first article

The link be dead, mate.

Oopps! Cheers Brandon. Missed out ("). Link should work fine now.

@Ross, sorry, where should it be posted? I thought writing your own article (not spinning) in effect is my own words, my mistake.

Oh great Monkey God of the Bayou...

Why do you forsake us so?

Won't you deliver unto us an ARTICLE WRITING subforum... so that your long-suffering subjects in the realm of Copywriting might please you greater?

We humbly sacrifice yet another article critique in your honor...

Please... Monkey God... your humble copywriting brethren beseech you.

; )

Thank God you said it Brian...'cause really...I'M SO SICK OF THESE ARTICLE-WRITING BOZOS posting on our beloved copywriting forum. Where's the gatekeeper?

And why, for that matter, are you encouraging these guys Collette hmmm? They are scum (yes I'm joking...but really..c'mon...this is NOT the "I get $5 per" article-writing section. This is for grown-ups only (insert a friggin smiley if you must).

"Articlebase where it was approved" - geeze must be a really good read then.

Thanks Collette for the constructive criticism. Thanks Brian for bringing up the fact that (repeatedly I guess) "ARTICLE-WRITING BOZOS" (like me in this case) post in a forum that's not the correct forum because as yet the correct forum doesn't exist.

Some of you copywriting folk are sensitive / touchy little tinkabells aren't you? Collette, you are excluded from that last sentence, because "weak and misguided though my article was" you saw an attempt at something and offered advice on 'wot I rote'. That to me is 'Warrior Forum Member Spirit' so don't let other 'copywriting bozo's' put you down or get you down for trying to help 'newbies'.

So while this threads going would anyone like to chime in for me and other non omnipotent forum members & state what copywriting IS and why writing your own article has nothing to do with it? Maybe then article writing will get it's own forum as sarcastic comments to the Warrior forum 'monkey gods of the bayou' don't seem to be heard. I'm sure Admin hasn't really forsaken you 'Copywriters of the Warrior Forum'. Just try asking admin nicely if they wouldn't mind starting an article writing forum for us 'article writing bozos'.

Good job I'm English and brought up on a diet of Monty Python humour or else I could have been a little tinkabell myself and got offended. No more to add to the last bit or else I'd be talking politics and well that's same sh**, different party so no need for original copywriting there!

Peace to you all, 'live long & prosper'.

Interesting concept though...If it was approved by articlebase, then no need to critique it. Spin it carefully towards ezinearticles now. I think I'm late in this thread, pardon me

Take care,

Bernard St-Pierre
Marketing Consultant
Copywriter/Teacher

This is the Sticky up above. In other words - it has the nod from Allen Says, the owner and is WF policy.
There you go - "This section is intended for discussion about copywriting" NOT articles - no matter if there was a half-baked effort to sell something in the article. SEO sells something too. You want that lot to come over here too? I don't.

Here's some of the most solid advice on writing content that I've ever received. I pulled this directly from the notes I've taken on Eben Pagan's Guru Blueprint Program. Follow these 4 simple guidelines and I know you'll kick some ass in the future...

What do you need to include to give people a clear idea/concept?

Introduce your idea:

 You must talk about what you're gonna talk about.

 Then you talk about it and give the conceptual and practical action steps

 Wrap up, summarize, and get the other person into action

It's easy to forget that the person we're talking to doesn't have all of our experience and they don't have an on ramp to the ideas that were given to them. And so if we just toss them in the random puzzle pieces, they're trying to put them together blindly without seeing the cover of the box.

When we give an intro, we say what we're gonna talk about and why it's important to listen, then we give some theory and then give some action steps, then summarize and get the person to take action, that's when our communication is complete.

The 4 Learning Styles

There are 4 different ways people learn and 4 different ways people teach and when we use all 4 of these, we dramatically decrease the possibility of misunderstanding and dramatically increase the chance that the other person fully gets what we're trying to communicate to them.

The easiest way to understand these 4 learning style is to think of them as asking a question. Here they are...

1. Why?

Why do I need to learn this? You need to get them excited to learn. Tell them what's in it for them if they learn what you're about to teach. You also need to tell them what they're going to avoid if they learn it.

You need to use both pain AND pleasure.

Example: If you use what I'm about to teach you, you will lose weight. If you don't use what I'm about to teach you, you will not lose weight and if fact you will probably gain more.

For the why learning style, they can't hear you until you've connected up what you're about to teach them with the benefit or the result that they want. So always explain, the outcome, the result, the benefit that the person about to embark on this journey will get.

And also explain the pain and the frustration, the fear that they're going to avoid if they learn what you're teaching them.

2. What?

These are the theoretical types. They want to know what they're going to learn. They want the concept and the theory.

This type of learner loves to know the history, the science behind what you're teaching. If you can talk about a study that was done about the topic you're discussing, they'll love it.

You can also explain the history of how you figured out exactly how the system works. If you can, show them a map of how all the pieces fit together. You want to zoom out and give them a conceptual view.

The example for a weight loss product would be explaining how the body puts fat on and how it sheds fat; the science behind it.

3. How?

And they need a recipe. They want specific action steps in order to learn.

Each of the action step involved... 1, 2, 3...

4. What If?

What if I go out and do it? What will happen? This one is where they see themselves using it and the result that comes from using it and that's how they learn. And ultimately come to understand once they've used it in the real world.

Everyone needs to do this.

So at the end of your content you would summarize and say, "Here's what to go and do, right now to get started! As you're taking action, here's what to watch for to determine if it's working, here's what to watch for that tells you it's not working."

Eben even goes through this process when putting together a 30 second video. He considers it that important.

Thanks for the writing advice inbetween the general chit chat. I've requested a sub forum in Articles for article reviews via a support ticket. Included a link to this thread as a reason why.

I've read the 3 'Articles' stickys. Whats needed is a basic all in one guide to writing an article. Obviously I wouldn't be able to tell a good guide from a bad one so if you know of a post that could be used as a sticky that would be great.

RE: Comedy.... I'm still a big fan of Robin Williams live, seen 2 shows from the 80's years ago & he could easily give the current UK comedians a good run for their money. Also wish HBO would release more of great 90's comedy Dream On on dvd. OK then! I'll leave you all to your copywriting discussion!

What?! An article writer got in here? Again? How in the wide, wide world of sports did THAT happen?

We're lucky an event like that didn't disrupt the space-time continuum or cause armageddon!

For cryin' out loud, will you people please keep the door locked? And, whatever you do, keep those guys away from the flux capacitor!

John

P.S. Can't we all just get along?

So much battling! Maybe that's the real reason this is called the warrior's forum

All the same, I agree with ya Johnny.