Review of Best Practices: Writing Good Knols

Writing articles is easy if you know the subject matter and you have a good command of the language. However, writing good articles is a completely different beast entirely.

The most important thing I've learnt about writing good articles is keeping true to the intended purpose of the article and the target audience. Are you trying to share knowledge? Are you trying to sell something? Are you debating a point? Are you writing for 8 year olds?

Whatever the purpose is or who the reader is, try to guide the reader from the start to the end. You don't have to hold their hand, but you should at least give them an indication of (i) what the article is about, (ii) where you're heading and (ii) how you arrive at the conclusions.

Some useful things to remember when you're writing:

1. Include a summary at the beginning of the article that is enticing and captures a reader's attention.
2. Provide great titles and sub-titles, so potential readers become eventual readers.
3. Use an active voice because your articles are manifestations of your opinions.
4. Keep things brief and succint and try to convey as much information as possible without obfuscating the message with unnecessary detail.
5. Proof read your article as there's nothing more distracting than a misspelt word or bad grammar.

Good luck fellow Knol writers. Let's try to make this a great community which fosters the sharing of information. Google has done the easy part by providing this Web site. The hard part is up to us in our ability to create relevant and accurate content with our peers as co-authors or reviewers.