Sports Writing 104 | How to improve your writing quality?

1. Introduction: Are you ready to improve your writing skills? Editing is not just the process of checking for simple errors like capitalization spelling punctuation, but can also include fact checking and reviewing for form and flow. Editing is an ongoing process. There is no specific end, and that's part of what makes it so difficult to edit as there is potentially no end to this process. Self editing requires you to think critically about the editing and writing process because it's never going to be perfect. You just want to get it as good as you can. Given the time restraints, editing is a difficult job as it takes time and effort, and it is so tempting to just hit publish when writing online articles you want to finish writing piece. So it seems easy to skip the final edit like many people skip the post workout stretch at the gym, even though they know it's important. That's why, in this class we're gonna learn ways to edit and improve the quality of your writing. We'll be talking about the most common errors I see so that you can learn to avoid them. I'll provide you with some editing tips and even a checklist so that you can feel confident about checking your work or others work in the future. We'll look at some simple S CEO tips you can incorporate into your articles as well as touch on the importance of practice. Finally, will have a bonus interview with Jay, the national Content head at Sports Kita, to discuss common errors he sees from writers as well as other advice for budding sports writers and sports. Kita is a sports entertainment platform with other 15 million unique users on 4000 sportswriters, and so it's a great target that you could potentially right for in the future. So the prerequisites for this course are a basic understanding of English spelling and grammar. Obviously, cause we're learning how to become sports writers. And just to be aware that this is the fourth course in the how to become a sports writer, Siri's. So I definitely recommend you at least watch sports writing one a one before doing this course and last but not least whom I will. My name is Nicky Parsons. I'll be your instructor for this class on improving your writing quality. So my background in sports I'm a pundit on the local TV chat show here in Barcelona the week in football, where we talk about our local teams, which means Barcelona, Gerona on Espanol. I also participate on the 19 in football vlogs on YouTube. We have over 70,000 subscribers. I'm basically we do little flogs from inside the stadium s so you get a fan's point of view off the match, which is really fun. And, of course, any excuse to go to camp no is definitely up my street. But of course I have a very strong background in sports writing. I'm the editor and senior sports writer at Lonegan News UK. I also contribute, as a freelance writes it to its round, and it's whites and other sports things. On top of this is I have a mobile app here in Barcelona, where we help people find a bar to watch football. So I hope you'll join us for this skill share. Class editing is a really critical part of the writing process, and this class is not just interesting, but it's gonna be really applicable to your daily freelance writing work 2. Your Project: your project in this class is to share any sports article you've read that could be improved with the editing tips or seo tips that we've talked about in this class. This could be an article from a well known author, an author that is just starting out, or even one of your own. Past articles focus on constructive criticism How could it be improved? Give specific examples of how you could reward a headline, a specific sentence or an entire paragraph to make it better. The delivery herbal is to share an article in your gallery and include a your L to the complete article, a screenshot, all of the section in the article that could be improved and a brief description off what could be improved and how you would change it. 3. Most common writing errors: in this lesson, we're gonna talk about some of the most common errors that I see when I'm the editor of La Liga News UK. Now these mistakes, Dr Editors crazy. Now why is it important to submit high quality articles even though you know they're going to be reviewed later on by an editor? Well, it's because you incentivize the editors to publish more of your articles and give you more topics to write on. I've had writers where we knew their work wasn't up to scratch, so their work got left until we had edited everything else because we knew it was gonna take so much time to edit this piece. Now, in our case, that living in his UK, we have a trial period of five articles for new writers, and this is literally to ensure that if we accept someone as a writer, that we can actually use their work in a timely manner because sometimes looking at a writer's portfolio isn't everything, because it might have been heavily edited. So what are the most common errors that we see so that you know and you're aware of them when you're editing your articles so that you could make sure to remove these airs. Well, the 1st 1 is basic spelling errors. Now I'm not talking about, definitely, instead of definitely, or a Cassie on instead of occasion, I'm usually talking about player or club names, and this is super simple stuff. And if I see Athletico Madrid instead of Athletico mother it one more time, I might just rage quit editing altogether. So bear it in mind. Um, it's so important to you and your brand is a writer that you check your work and double check names. If you're not sure, there's no shame in taking an extra 10 seconds to quickly Google someone's name. So when I refer to basic spelling errors, it is literally player or club names. Make sure you double check your articles for this and the second most common air again. Our basic grammatical errors on this is about when to use ah there or there or its versus. It's so check apostrophes and all kinds of stuff there. What's your singular versus plural and think I have to explain anything more than that. Just make sure you have things singular when they need to be when they're only referring Toa One person or thing too many Commons is the next one. So, for example, many times you come across a sentence that is just never ending, right keeps going on and on and on. And then the writer keeps breaking it up with commas, but not just ending the sentence and starting a new one. So just too many commas or you could also interpret this as breakdown long sentences on the last one is really vague pronoun reference. I'm sure you've seen this a lot when editing other people's articles. So what is the pronoun? A pronoun is a part of speech that can replace a noun. So it that this which now oftentimes, when you edit it's clear that you don't know who the pronoun insert is referring to. So you might have several mounds you're referencing. So if someone says it or that, or he or she might not be obvious, which which subjects they're talking about. So, for example, in a sentence you could say the referee and the player were arguing. But in the end, he was wrong. Well, who is that he referring to is the referee is the player because from this context, we can tell now if you're unsure by what I meant by any of those grammatical errors they just mentioned. I do suggest you take the time to do maybe another enemy course on English grammar or English writing. In general, I don't want to jump too much into this kind of nitty gritty of grammar because you do have to have a basic level to be in this course, really, And I also think it's kind of a boring task. But if you want to start earning money with your writing, you need to understand these basic grammatical concepts. Otherwise, when editors look at your portfolio, if they haven't been edited well by some other editor, they're going to see giant red flags so you can have all the inside gossip on the breaking news you want. But if you can't portray it coherently, nobody is going to publish it. And in the next lesson, we're gonna take a look at some basic editing tips to help you locate problem areas. In your article 4. Editing tips & tricks: in this lesson will explore with nine top tips to help spot writing errors before you hit. Publish number one Proof Read out loud. If this sounds obvious, it's because it is The physical act of reading your piece out loud will help you to catch basic grammatical errors. It will also help you to hear how the peace flows. Is your message coming across, or is it being lost in a sea of pointless words? I think that university writing experiences have disadvantaged money writers In an attempt to get the peace up to the word limit, Students often have to fluff the content with additional unnecessary words. And this habit flows over into sports writing and paid freelance articles later in life. No publisher hopes that the article will fill the computer screen. They wanted to clearly communicate a story, bring value entertained, etcetera. So proof read out loud to eliminate silly errors, remove the fluff and communicate clearly. Tip to leave it alone and come back in a few hours. This reminds me of doing a sudoku puzzle. Sometimes you're so focused on what you're doing that you just need to step back for a moment and then when you return, you solve the problem. In a second now, similarly with writing, I find sometimes that I write a really long piece, but it's just not working all together. It's a bit confusing. I'm jumping around with my points. But after having a quick break, I realized how to reorganize all the different arguments to give the article a winning formula. If you're doing a match report, you usually have to send the article quickly as the content is time sensitive. But definitely for feature piece. You should sleep on it and come back another day to prepare the final draft. If you proof, read it in the same moment that you wrote it. You're in that space and you've done your research, so everything is top of mind. However, if you've taken that space away from the peace, maybe you'll return to it later and find the article doesn't make sense because you forgot to include a critical argument in the moment of writing. You were considering this fact you were thinking about it, but you never actually remembered to include it in the piece. So the article is lacking some context. Tip three. Ask a friend for a critique. A neutral pair of eyes can help ensure that you are universally understood what might make sense to you by not make sense to someone else who doesn't know the jargon you've used throughout the piece by adding a quick explanation during the first reference of these words. You've just guaranteed more people will continue reading. And obviously it's not just that that you would ask a friend for critique, but maybe your friend has a great point that could be added into the argument of the peace . Friends don't just have to correct for style, form and flow. Use their knowledge to enhance your content. Now, if you're too afraid to ask a friend or family member for review, take advantage of the forums in this course and our medium publication. It's little students who want to offer advice and share and critique each other's articles . Tip for Use Graham Early Now I'm obsessed with grammar Lee. I used to write my blood posts in a word document. Take advantage of spell check before coughing and pasting toe web or WordPress usually. But now, with the simple grew chrome extension, I can directly write emails medium articles, any Web content and use Graham early as I go. The one downside have for this tool is it depends on which country you're writing for. So I write for both US and UK audiences, whereas Graham Early really only connects to American spelling to just be aware. So sometimes I have to check if he suggestion is correct for UK audience, depending on the site and writing for. But at any rate, it's hardly a red flag. It's just something to note if you're looking for other writing tools not just for proof reading, but soon proved check outwards and content. Lee and I will link all these tools in the resource is of this lecture. Five breakdown long sentences. We already talked briefly about this in the last lecture, but that was with never ending sentences that were grammatically incorrect. But there are also many long sentences that are grammatically correct. But if they contain too many ideas, then you can lose. The readers focus. So if they don't provide a break as in short sentences to provide a break to the reader, then readers can get stuck they could lose interest on. Perhaps they get bored enough that they click on another article. Tip six. Review Syntax So review the article, specifically looking at punctuation, commas, use of quotes, etcetera and really double check. But this basic stuff is well, Rin Tip seven is ensure you use the same tents. Have you ever read an article where it suddenly changes tenses on you? And you're not sure if the writer is talking about past, present or future? Well, this happens a lot, so check the your article begins in one tense, and it stays in that tents until the end of the article. And, of course, if it needs to go back for a flashback or talking about the future that it comes back to the original text tense at some point tip. Eight. Remove redundant words. This goes back to our previous comment on removing the fluff from your articles. Don't pad the article with unnecessary words that can confuse, bore or distracts the reader. All link in the resource is of this lesson. Ah, great article listing a lot of popular redundancies in the English language, such as going for a brief moment or disappearing from sight. There are a lot of phrases in this list. I have unnecessary words, and the final tip is acts the adverbs. So what is an adverb? While the Oxford Dictionary defines it as a word or phrase, the modifies or qualifies an adjective, verb or other adverb or word group expressing a relation of place time, circumstance, manner caused, degree eccentric Ieave? It's those pesky L Y words like gently, really, wildly crazily think ending and L Y is usually an adverb. Now, adverbs. We can your copy because these excess words are not really descriptive. So rather than saying Marcello runs quickly, say he sprints the locker room door didn't shut noisily. It banged shut. So find a more powerful verb to replace the week verb and weak l Y adverb combo. So to recap, the top tips for editing our proof read out loud, leave it alone and come back later. Ask a friend for critique. Use Graham Early breakdown, Long sentences Review your syntax. Check your using the same tents throughout the article, remove redundant words and acts. The adverbs 5. Practice makes perfect (almost): Ultimately, if you want to improve in sports writing, it will take a lot of practice. I know plenty of mistakes along the way, but keep flexing these riding muscles and stay in shape. Now. Not only will practice help you improve the quality of your writing, but it will also improve the speed of which you write articles. Healthy right faster, which is a treat highly valued in sports writing, especially when writing match report too late or submitting in that report, you late might mean that you've passed. The deadline on this report is no longer relevant. So, of course, if you're writing a feature piece or book, then of course, take your time. There's no rush with these kind of pieces normally, and Douglas Adams says, I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by. But remember, if you're writing on current news or time sensitive topics, then you really want to crank out that quality content without rushing, but without pondering on every word. Now, when I first started writing match reports, they would take me a little over an hour to write on. This is just for a very basic somehow report without that much analysis now, I usually write them in around 20 minutes. But that's because practice has enabled me to learn what type of valuable content to take note soldering much on also what information I can prepare before the game to help speed up the whole writing process afterwards. Now this time might be different for you. But again, just practice your writing muscles and you will decrease the amount of time that you take to write reports. Regardless of whether that's more time than I take or less time than I take. Practice has also helped my level of understanding of the game, because with each article right, I solidified my knowledge of the team off the current players off the state of the league. Now, even though I considered myself a huge sports fan before I got into writing, I found after writing things down in an article which I know people are gonna read. In fact, check that I really double check my information, and I feel that my own personal accumulated knowledge now has a lot of credibility and weight, so practice helps you to improve your writing quality right faster on accumulate a wealth of knowledge. So now if your editor ever ask you to write an article on less than inspiring content, just take it as an opportunity to learn and improve. 6. Simple SEO tips: as we were writing articles for digital consumption, it's important to consider S E O. So what is ECM? Well, it stands for search engine optimization, and the idea is really the one people search for topics in Google or Yahoo that they're going to see your results high up in the rankings on the results page. So I believe that S CEO nowadays is just such an extensive topic that it really could just get coolest one its own. So in today's lesson, I'm just gonna focus on some easy tips to incorporate that you can start right away, Teoh use. But saying that I do really think that I might create, of course, in the future that is just focused on a CEO for Ryan Nassib for sports writing because it's really interesting topic. It's also important to know that many writers, many companies and content creators nowadays think about Seo before they even start writing articles like they do their keyword research. And then they write an article in order to maximize the number of keywords and all this kind of stuff. So we won't really focus on this in this lesson or in this course, but definitely. When you become a more advanced sports writer. After finishing, you may want to continue your education with doing some kind of S E O course, because I think he would really find value in it. But again, today we're gonna focus on to super simple tips that you can incorporate into your writing . So one of the fastest and easiest ways to get more hits on your article is to use Google trends to compare some of your keywords. Uses a lot when I'm doing editing work politicans UK because it's really important for us to know which version of a team where a player name is more popular at any given time. For example, same writing an article on the Premier League football soccer team Man United. Who's fooling is Manchester United? Which terms should I use in the article Man United or Manchester United? On the surface, this doesn't sound like a big difference, right? You just you. Maybe the shorter version would get searched more often, but let's like back this up with since statistics. So if I go into Google trends, just a free website for a link in the resource is and they used to compare feature to see the difference between these two on. I'll take the geography of the UK because for us, the UK is the most important jumper feed from other Guinness UK. Andi, I'll use the date range and over the last day and I told you the following. So from most of the day there's definitely a lead by man united over my just united. So using the former would get us more hits, but maybe not a huge increase. However, from 6 to 7 PM, the difference is much greater and they're significantly more searches using the term united. Since there's no really great insight that I could potentially anticipate publishing my article a specific time and using a specific term or if I'm about to hit publish, I could just have a look at what's happening right now. The second simplest s you tip is to streamline your slug. Now you're all slug is the exact address of a specific page or post on your site. So, for example, in your bloke posts, you're using the medium dot com website. But the slug is everything that comes after that directs everyone to your specific article on this website. So whenever possible, if you're writing on your own website or client website, you want to try and customize and streamline this slug. You want to make sure that the keywords in the smoke are the ones visitors will use in search engines on. That's the key word that you want to run for the key words that you want for. Many bloggers are given additional thoughts to this look many times. It's also often automatically generated by their content management platform, for example, by WordPress, and I just generated automatically. But this is really important, and it's really one of basic C should keep in mind. You want to get rid of any extraneous words like the or on. And instead of keep only a few of your most valuable keywords, you can use step one beforehand as well. And you could even use the Google compare feature to see which keywords were best for you. There's also Google keyword planner, which is being Google AdWords, but I guess probably global trends over the most valuable for most of you in the course. Also remember that you want to stand out, so there's a lot of big fish competitors out there using the same keywords as you. Well, good luck trying to outrank them by playing the same game. So there are just so many SDO tips out there. It's hard to know where to start sometimes. So just start with these two simple S CEO tips and you will definitely see an uptick in your article These 7. Expert interview: Jayanth Muraleedharan, National Content Head @ Sportskeeda: All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. We have Jay who's the national content head at Sports Kita. Thank you so much. Thank you. So can you just tell us a little bit of who you are and what you do for a living? Okay, so, uh, I'm Janet more literal. If it's a very difficult to pronounce, you can call me T. I served as the national content headed sportske. Anadarko sportscenter dot com is an old school, so Oh, you know, content platform that is open for all to kind of contribute. Whoever owns to write about foods, whether hasn't begin about sports can contribute to SportsCenter. I get what a school that does in a big I just take it to what I do at SportsCenter. Uh, but only speaking I have are or specific rules SportsCenter. One is an internal facing room, and the other one is an extension every single. Now that Internet facing rule I worked use leaving my content teams across various sports like cricket, football, Formula One, tennis, e sports, basketball, NB, NFL and Olympics, sports and everything else. So I sit down in the teens, I get them guidance in terms of auto guidance and direction or work with them are stepping . Is the content people the kind of country that we need to do? Ah ah, at that position, content acquisition and are defined site Wade contain guidelines. Are we sure that what we do is in line with the industry standards and or the industry is doing right now and see if we can push the bottle that, uh, no when it comes to what I do in terms of next to the single Oh, I work on building relationships, but you know, you're sporting bodies. Say, for instance, your football color. Our athletes are agents, federations, journalists and content creators. As such, I also worked you sleep, prance off regulation teens and you know, sponsors and advertising agencies who would like to create hunting for their brands are on our platform and, you know, telling the right kind of audiences. So that's that's That's, in essence, what do exports. So they give students an idea of kind of the size of sports. Kato, you tell us anywhere of how many hits the websites, cattle, how many members you are in the maybe the core team. Not just writers, but maybe, uh, actual thousands sports, kiddo. We get about anywhere between 1,000,002 million and 1/2 solve visits. That be Ah, across the group. The content team is very small. What we have is, you know, the core team is made up off or rather, we have attacked in. We have a quantitative. We haven't s your team. Digital marketing brand solution seems and so on and so forth. Oh, what I do is I handed the content side of the business. And what I have the team that I worked with our family, you know, content managers and digital marketing grace. What they do is ah, Gordon, acquire content, speak to writers, create content. Ince's see what news is breaking, where and how we can you notably the news, our end home. It gets shared on social media channels like without facebook and soon. So that's essentially what the court contending does. We are a team of about 2025 people across. You know, each one comes where they don't specially your specialization that are journalists with us . We have social media experts. We have video. Are, you know, content creators And we also have our on authentication ship guys who you know, kind of work on acquisitions. And, uh, you know, uh, syndication, condoms, indications aspects. So that's that's the goal 14 that we have. And this is like a cross, you know, sports like cricket, football. And although you know, the laundry list you because there's so many sports on your talking about strategic actions , is there specific sports that you have? Maybe e sports because it's so upcoming That are kind of strategic sports that you want to get writers for? Yes. So I see we are always on the lookout for a better, brighter and, you know, more dynamic talent in terms of and things before, you know, evolved from being a small block to off black country. And we also have it used, Ah, video capabilities. Now on our you know, black, so are, in essence, and not just looking at our content creators who are fighters. I'm also looking at quarter creators. Who can you forecasts who can do blog's, who can do interesting animated billions and you know our reviews and so on and so forth. So it's it's I'm trying to provide on all in old solution off for sports content. In that sense, uh, soon, Yeah, so and it kind of becomes difficult when your time to start off with an up and coming sport like eastwards because the sport itself are in the category itself, isn't it's very nation states. So it's it's very difficult to find. Ah, you know, guys were good with, you know, writing content or even creating content for its sports. So that's the first step off it is to find the right kind of talent and cummings them to get a look like food and then give them the audience for it. Okay, well, it sounds like a locked of work. So it's very interesting to know that more about your journey, how you may be caressed in your career until this point. Okay, so I had a very unconventional start. I mean, what I do all right now and where I started, you seem like, you know, do never lies that do meet, right. So and started out as, uh So I was 19. When I start off in my career and attack time, I don't think I had a clarity of what I wanted to do any. Nobody has any clarity of what they want to do in life of the Stopfel. You know, at a young age jokes, you know, 18 1920 years And what I didn't know. So I was, like, really fuelers as the water wanted to do. What I waas care about was the fact that I was a curious cape and I had a creative intonation towards, you know, stuff. And so I thought advertising was a place I had to be. So I joined on advertising agency and about 12 years of being advertising as a writer, I kind of figured that my 40 waas content marketing and because I doubled around a lot with restrictive part of marketing, and that's when us what's gonna happen. I was always interested in sports. Oh, content marketing kind of fit the, you know, profiled exports was looking for in terms of somebody to come in and eat the content demands such and that's our SportsCenter happened. So it's it's it's been a very up and down with ain't done kind for Germany, but here I am. And how long have you actually being with sports? Kato. I've been That's put together for about a year now. Okay. Cool. Yeah. Um, so maybe going back to Sports kit in writing. Um, So as sports get, it claims to have over 1000 writers contributing to the site, which is a huge number. How do you keep the writers engaged with the platform? Okay, so see, the thing is, of what a lot of people are thinks puts, Peter is a sports Web state. And if you ask me, I would say that it's unfair to consequence of a saint because what it is at its heart is a platform much like Twitter or a Facebook or YouTube. But you've spoken to all its a the market thick black from its transferring. And it provides, like, you know, any equal opportunity for whether it is a school. You know, kid bonding to put their opinions. Are brand wanted to connect with their fans are an athlete or a club that wants to talk to their fans. So it's it's literally it's it's ah, it's a black phone for even to express their opinions when it comes to sports on And, uh, you know, be doing center wiser writers by our you know we have a model. Where are the writers? Do you get to learn from what the right at the Pentagon, but profuse their articles get. But what I feel that kind of, I just like to engage with the black who moved and the, you know, the monetary offering that they have is is literally just saying that they have a space to kind of put their opinions out, you know? So the tears are the opener to illustrate even Wrightsville and has something on June Stay put, you know, C and at the end of the day are that's that's all that we won't be wanted Police pair Pierre Berbizier suspected, and where we can share opinions but can only like minded individuals. So it's really more of a community than it is just a site. It's a conversation. It's not one way. Yes, you stole my thought. So it's not just about putting your opinions out there, right. So as someone's writer puts their opinion as an article or video on SportsCenter, what happens is the same article get shared on a social black from so the B Take the conversation to social and the fans start interacting. Billy Article Link on Social. There is a band that happening so there are views flying left, right center. This is not right. I don't agree with this insulin. So it's more off a sounding board off sorts for, you know, beans. I mean, nobody said that anybody's opinion. This is right or wrong, but there is always, you know, healthy debate. That happens. And that's what is important when it comes to sports as a zone in this. That's great. No, I really like that concept. You so, um, in terms of maybe I know that you guys do more where, he said, with podcasts, videos, all this kind of stuff. But focusing on on writing for the students, the editors ever kind of offer assistance to people who have maybe just started writing because, he said, people from school Children age could contribute to the pot full. Is there any way of helping people improve their writing skills? The first I believe that, you know, darling, uh, is something that is in growing. It's it's something that comes out when people start exploring. I mean, it doesn't it's not necessary that somebody becomes a good writer. Only after, say, 20. If I create 30 or whatever it's important to, you know, sport talented, a very young age and nurturing on that's what is issue what we group when it comes to schoolchildren fighting well, we get to know that it's a school in a kid or a young kid writing just the way it is being written, work time in looking at because they didn't really at it. And the kind of opinions that are coming are you can, you know, get a feeding off who My greater is A and, uh And the thing is, yes. I mean, of course, that my editors are I wouldn't really call the Mary Does Day. I really consider them or, you know, more off site more raters and main doors than editors. In that sense, because my editors are my last line of defense against your eyeballs, background are wrong facts tall claims could be it's uh huh and so on. Anything that is, that is also the problem of feet news that has bean, you know, coming up in our, you know, the digital world when we speak off it and it is a huge problem. So it is kind of It's a huge responsibility in that sense of. And we had to publish from Waters that we brew new there. I mean, anybody can create a feat profiling and put out a feat news. And what is How do we, you know, figure out whether it's authentic or not, and so on. So it's always the editors who are become become my last line of defense to kind of ensure that mountain that is going orders through it does not feel it kills. It is authentic. And it is, you know, Bell research in that sense, you know, and what's good about being a black woman and being open to everyone? We tend to follow A. Certain guidelines and standards are to ensure that our audience finds are haunted, interesting, engaging and and most importantly, custody because if my audience uses that trust factor there that they haven't SportsCenter , it doesn't matter. If I have 1000 acres of 10,008 they're not going to come in, so it becomes very many essential toe have, ah, strong editorial king that always keeps in check in terms of who's writing and warty put out and every out see how they run a lot of articles on a daily basis that are sent back for, you know, connections are on any, does give their traditions and done so 40 thinkers, right? And there is a bit of banter between the writer and director, also because it's it's a water for being into the end of the day. Eso but then be came to send it back requests aerators to meet the corrections based on our sedition, because we need to insure identical on them that people don't be stand by and, um, for the writers. Because so the weekend submit high quality content that the editor site moderators, mentors, however you want to call them can properly approve it. Do you have any suggestions as to We'll be what common errors you see so that we can prevent that from even getting to them. Maybe it's like you say, checking your fax to make sure there's no fake news in there. Maybe it's type O. I don't know. What you see is the biggest problem when people submit articles. OK, so I ended articles myself do. It's not my you know, it doesn't fall under what I do for a living and such I can't relate, you know, ended a lot of particles through the day because at some level, it it gives me a break. From what? I It's more like a therapy for me in terms of what I do it. So, uh, editing and publishing articles Also, I in indulge myself. Ah, because, uh, one it gives me the clarity as to who is writing for me. I get to know the writers personally on. And secondly, I knew personally as to what is the kind of content that I'm putting. So I'm always on the, you know, editing dash. We're looking at the article's coming in, you know, rejecting articles in that sense that a lot of our because they be rejected and you know, But then when we reject B l writers by its being rejected and saw some off the common a rose are, you know, like I say are bad grammar equals badly constructed, you know, sentences. Uh, I think that does not lend itself to a good reading experience for my readers. Off to letters at another one off, say, for instance, somebody says, Oh, you know, Ronaldo scores 2.67 goals every game. Now it can be due going 67 It can be 1.35 And there is no way that kind off, you know, really checking other. You have to both back to other sources. See if that is capable, because someday was what happens is writers are tangle kind of working certain things to make that point, you know, kind of bid more evidence or strengthen their opinions. Plagiarism and copied content is another woman issue here that are You know, I don't know why that happens. Ah, but a lot of writers tend to, like, you know, copy content from other websites and then, like, you know, sneakily at a couple of paragraphs from a guardian Laura articles lack off proper formatting is another. In that sense, having a good introduction, good body and a good conclusion to any article is is essential. So those are certain things that we look for when we publish. Not is the context being set right in the first couple of sentences and then moon who what are the writer actually wants to country? And the most important of all is or rather it It's not a very recurring problem, but one off I feel it is one of the most important problems is the lack of original for So that is something that I really urge right those toe work on. I mean giving faxes easy building Your case based on facts is easy. But then, are you trying to convey an original talk based on the, you know story? That building is something that is very essential for wanting to be engaging and interesting. Now, that's really important because especially there's so much content on sports and so many people trying to write about sports, it's root, you know, everyone thinks they can actually, you really need to think about it. It's like you say it's not just regurgitating facts. It's composing the Phillips. Um, so maybe just what other advice would you have for any budding sports writer? Anyone who wants to come into this industry? Oh, yes. Oh, I would have to go back in a bigger, little deeper in terms of my own experience as a writer toe. Not specifically a sports rated, but that is one end off from what I've seen in the past one year. Oh, first ed ways that I would give to any budding sports writer is could be social first. Ah, you know, start young. Create a brand for yourself on admitted or AFI's book Engaged. Your fans are engaging experts on social media. Your indulge in a bank to get to know the pulse of what the audience is thinking off, you know, and that's where you kind of put your opinions out and learned to Pakistan. That's and the more you, you know, indulgent of banker more. You talk to people. The more your doctor fans, millions, experts is, is how you kind of, you know, form your own opinion. It's It's so I will first, and people shouldn't think twice over. And especially young writers should not think twice about putting themselves out there. Uh, we need to get on the social bandwagon and creatinine for themselves. The second thing would be to create something work on creating something unique. It can be a blogger. It can be a poor cast. It can be a calling that they continuously write something. They need tohave, something that the audience will identify them. It it doesn't serve a sports writer to write a news article today of future such a column tomorrow and again. Go back and use the next day, and I mean they get lost in the clutter they have to standard. We have to create a new shirt and cells, and as a fall off the diet is finding a focus. Syria, I mean, first chooses food that is, that you're stronger and then try to build on. You know where you can build your expertise within that sport, it say, For instance, tickets, football, then gettinto specifics like you know, we need your expertise on this distance club you'd asked manually. Chelsea on. Then again, dig deeper and again build some most, you know, expertise. As you grew more expertise around, say, for instance, there are, you know, your program or your canceled policies and so on. So the more you build in expertise around a particular topic, and beautiful goes around that in due course of time you tend to become the go to person. Then ever the issue are, another topic comes up, and that's that's what sportswriters need to kind of build up. Oh, experimenting with black phones is another one of the world around us is this constitutes engine every name You have new platforms coming up. You currently have Instagram TV, which is like the social talk right now. So it is in Borden for, you know, barging sports writer journalist whether it is a kind of experiment with these blackens and see how they can leverage it to their at one teach because constantly exploring and you know, where you kind of straight cool that since they are you, it's very easy to get caught up in this thing saying OK, fine. I'm a writer. I need to write for a website. I need right for a blogger and soul. But the who was in the next couple of years you can become instagram PP celebrity with, like 34 million followers for a single person. Right? So that's something that people need to work on kids need towards on these days. Mm. One. Another thing on just adding more and more visceral action items for you guys. Students, you have to take notes of all of these. Uh, wanting is toe another. The most important thing is to put your audience about yourself. You know, uh, the thing is I understand who you're writing for a get Julian? Were organs getting moved Their aspirations get to know what moves them importance piles than anyone can write off. Well written article. Anyone can write a great article, but if nobody is going to read it, then what's the point of it? Really, of well written content that nobody wants to engage with. Nobody engages with. Still, just so it's just that of the main objective are learned to take yourself out of the equation. Or no one wants to listen to a Fanboys and accept probably the fans themselves. S O N e Sports writer must first of learn to become trust, wordy on and be reliable to give unbiased. Are, you know, content. Providing great contenders is the first in four moves. Job off a sportswriter, forming opinions as the audience is predicated. Don't try to push your opinions on them. Still objective. Get out of the way and let them on their opinions. Uh, and finally, dumb be original. Copying is easy stealing Azizi stealing somebody's thoughts, stealing companies, ideas, opinions is easy. You would have read it on a video. Might have read it in the log. You might have read it in the comments section off Reddick, but learn toe, you know, formula opinions. It's easy to get every little copying these days because there is just you would flatter. But there is. There is no equal into working hard and working hard on your own ideas, because the more you work on that, the better you get. I think these are really, really great ideas and comments on, and actually, we talk a lot about some of this stuff, like importance of having a social media engaging, being original, Um, old of this kind of stuff, right? I think this one's actually best part of the whole conversation would have just these you spell thing, all the ideas, you know. Thank you. Do you have any last comment or less wording? I don't have a last minute that such. I mean, I kind of I kind of put everything I had to say in, like, I think I summarized it in the last question that you asked s So it kind of I came from my own experience. Like I said and what I've learned over the years and what I would like and visa, you know, I would call them pulled a wisdom that I keep throwing around the word on a daily basis to my content team also and keep telling them how to work on these things. So, yeah, perfect. Well, thank you so much for your time for the students. I'm going to put his James Jay's email in the bottom of this lesson. So if you have any full of questions, feel free to reach out directly on. Definitely. If you want to write for sports Kita, it's very easy because you have to do is just up and stuff like that. That's about it and already does me, you know, not accept your article. Keep trying improving, making sure your thoughts original and you'll get there. So thank you so much. Thank you so much. 8. Conclusion: congratulations on completing the most boring class in the Siri's editing. Convened for straight singly, painful at times. But you've come through it. Great job. I better not see any of these errors on your writing in the future. Last but not least, I just want to thank you for taking this course of really appreciate it. I suggest you follow my skill share profile to stay up to date with all the classes in the series. We're releasing a new one every Saturday. So the next skill shirt class we have for you guys, which is gonna be on Saturday, April 27th is sports writing 105 Get professional on enhance your digital refugees and in that course will be looking at the 80 20 rule will be looking at how to create a network on Twitter on linked in how to optimize your linked in profile, how to rank your linked in profile and how to search for riding opportunities on social media. So I hope to see you there. Thanks again for taking the course, and I hope to see you very soon.