by Rachelle de Bretagne

Created on: May 05, 2009   Last Updated: June 14, 2009

What many writers fail to recognize is that every aspect of journalism can be seen in a positive light as a lesson to help them to improve their experience and effective writing skills. Even the most disappointing rejection has a positive side to it, and learning to use these negative aspects to advantage helps a writer to grow and learn to become more effective.

*Knowing your market.
*Writing to editorial guidelines.
*Understanding rejections.
*Targeting magazines or newspapers.
*Learning to write from different angles.
*Learning to keep to deadlines.

Knowing your market.

As a journalist, knowing your market helps you to become more effective as a writer. Many send work to editors without having taken a great deal of notice of what that publication has already published and accepted. The mistaken belief that your work will fit a market without researching that market is a fundamental mistake, and one which may stem the success of your professional writing. A market is unlikely to bend to individual style, and reading the publications to which you intend to submit is the first way to understand how your writing fits with the proforma already established by the publication in question.

Knowing the market also allows you extra knowledge as a journalist, since it means that you will also know the public or readers that this kind of publication attracts. Your work can become more effective with this knowledge, since you can gage the style of writing to the publication in question more easily and produce work suitable to the market in question.

Age range of readers, background of readers and the style of the publication all come into play and without considering these when writing an article or series, the journalist may fail to produce items which are of marketable value to a publication.

Writing to editorial guidelines.

How often do students fail examinations simply because they did not read the questions correctly? A similar dilemma faces the journalist who is not aware of a publication's guidelines. The editorial guidelines of a publication are vital to the success of the writing performed. Reading this helps the journalist to know which areas to avoid, and how to emphasize areas which are seen as relevant to the publication. It may be the greatest writing on earth, but if it fails to adhere to editorial guidelines, the work will be ineffective and unacceptable. This includes format, style, presentation and word count. These are all essentials when

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