by Karon Brandt

Created on: March 26, 2009

As a freelance writer, you may write for all kinds of formats - magazines, newspapers, and websites. You write for all kinds of audiences - young adults, mostly males, mostly females, teenagers, car buffs, etc. You have to write a particular length and point of view to suit an editor or publication.

1. Writing for Helium. What does Helium want in their articles? Helium is, mainly, a fact-based article directory. Readers come to find quality, tightly-written, chunks of information on topics of importance to them. In Helium's tested readership, web readers want articles in the 400- to 1500-word range.

2. No-Noes on Helium. Helium welcomes writers aged 13 and up. This is a family-oriented site. Guidelines are almost self-evident: no plagiarism, no self-promotion, no adult or profane language, no off-topic or spam articles, no writing in all caps.

3. Proper Formatting. Helium offers a professional-looking, high-gloss layout similar to that of top magazines. Helium's standardized formatting calls for left-aligned, proper paragraphing without indentations, with a blank space between paragraphs for easy web browsing.

Take your time to produce a quality article. If you write in a word processing program, you won't take the chance of losing your hard work to a computer glitch. Copy/paste onto Helium's "Write now" page from your Word program's "plain text" formatting. Always "preview" your work on Helium before publishing. Bold script, underlines, italics, bullets, and some other markings will not transfer into Helium's format. Double-check the overall appearance before you press the "publish" button.

4. Write in plain English, please. Professionalism includes using proper English, grammar, spelling and punctuation. This is not a blog site or chat room; do not use slang or abbreviations like "u" for "you." An article must stand-alone as a complete work centered on one topic; no "to-be-continued" articles allowed.

Although Helium welcomes creative writers, and rewards their works with badges and pocket change, it is the "meatier," knowledge articles that draw people back to Helium. Helium rewards its fact-based article writers with blue stars of achievement and peer recognition, upfront pay, and a fair share of ad revenues.

5. By definition, an article is a non-fictional literary composition. The Second Edition of the Scott, Foresman Handbook for writers further clarifies the make-up of an article. It should use moderately informal language, short- to medium-length paragraphs,

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