Six Tips on writing for NCN

By: Lin O’Hara
We are always happy to publish interesting articles and stories from NCN readers.

If you’d like to write for Newcastle Community News but would like some help getting started, you might find our Super Six Tips for Writers useful:

Articles for NCN can be about almost anything:

memories of your childhood or Newcastle’s past

interviews with interesting people

opinions on news or issues affecting you and your community

anything you think other readers might enjoy

Keep it simple! Remember the golden rules:

Don’t use a long word if a short one will do (for example, ‘purchase’ and ‘sufficient’ sound pompous, but ‘buy’ and ‘enough’ are fine)

Don’t use several words if one will do (for example, ‘near’ is better than ‘in the proximity of’, and ‘most’ is better than ‘the majority of’)

Keep it snappy! It’s OK to use an occasional long sentence, but short ones are easier to read and understand.

Short paragraphs look a lot less off-putting than long ones. If your paragraph is more than six lines, have another look and see if you can split it in half. If you can’t split it because it’s all one sentence — your sentence is too long!

Stick to the point. If you’re writing about one thing and you get sidetracked into another subject — stop! The second subject might make another interesting article, but don’t try to combine it with the one you are writing.

If your article is very long and you can’t shorten it, try:

asking someone else to read it and suggest cuts you could make

putting in some sub-headings. That way, people who don’t like reading long articles might skim through the sub-headings and stop to read the bits that grab their attention.

This information is supplied by Newcastle Literacy Trust. The Trust works to promote literacy for the achievement and enjoyment of everyone who lives and works in Newcastle. We also support the raising of literacy standards across the community.