You have done it! You have finally followed your dream and become a professional writer. Since you have made a decision to pursue this career, you must be aware that you are writing for someone else now, and that is different than writing for yourself. You must be able to captivate your readers from the very beginning or no one will ever read your work. How can your writing be its very best? You must realize three things when you are writing: you will be paid for your work, instructions are important, and every essay or article should be your very best.

Of course you realize that you will be paid for article writing.

It almost seems silly to start with this point; however, when you think about it, why would someone want to pay for an article that was poorly written? Whether you are writing an article for a blog, a magazine, or an advertisement, someone will be expecting you to engage your reader from the beginning. Research your topic until you feel as if you can talk about it without looking at the sources. People trust experts, and it is your job to become the expert. Your writing should reflect a confidence in your knowledge and put the reader at ease that the information they are getting is up-to-date and accurate.
If you are working on academic articles and essays, you should also do adequate research to complete the work. Essay writing is different because instead of selling a customer on a product or service, you are presenting information on a specific topic. This means that you should pay particular attention to the exact directions as the customer has given them to you. Look for interesting and unique aspects to the topic that others may have not presented before. It is exciting to read new ideas and unusual bits of information, but remember at the same time to only present accurate facts and details. Don’t be so busy being different that you forget to pay attention to the facts and accepted truths of your topic.
Finally, remember that while you may write many articles for many different people, your customer often only orders one at a time. You should make sure that your writing is fresh, well-written, and interesting, even if you have already done many articles on this particular topic in the past. If you treat each writing assignment as if it were the first time you have written on this subject, you will start to look for new ways to approach the subject. Don’t be afraid to use your thesaurus. It will help you to keep from using the same old tired words and phrases; however, don’t get so concerned with using fancy words that your reader won’t understand what you write. People won’t take the time to go grab a dictionary when they are reading. Write things you would want to read: interesting, lively, and informative; your readers will enjoy it, too.