[Matthew Sherborne]

Research For Your Article

If you’ve decided to write about something you don’t know that much about, or that you need actual facts for, you need to do a little research. Let’s go through the actual steps you’ll be taking to research and write an article.

First of all, set the timer and allow yourself no more than 25 minutes of research time. Be sure you have your blank outline handy to start filling in information.

Stay focused. Don’t allow yourself to get sidetracked on the internet!

You’re not researching for your personal enjoyment. You’re doing it to get paid. The internet is huge and the possibility of getting sidetracked is too. If you find yourself detouring from your original plan, bookmark those pages and come back to them in your free time.

It’s important that you gather as much information in as little amount of time as possible. Remember that it’s your goal to complete the article in an hour, including research time.

Let’s say the topic of your article is “how to avoid skin cancer.”

You already know staying out of the sun, wearing hats, wearing sunscreen, and applying sunscreen regularly are key to avoiding sun damage. That can be one of the paragraphs. However, to get paid more, try providing a little more than every-day information in your article.

You want your information to be reliable, so go to the reliable sources. Go ahead and search “skin cancer.”

Click on the advanced search seen in the image below to narrow down your search and save time.




Since you want to find the most accurate and substantial information, try looking at reputable .Org or .Gov domains. .Org usually stands for a non-profit organization and .Gov is maintained by the U.S. Government. These sites are often a good source of information.

There are disadvantages to using some .Orgs. For instance, a popular website, Wikipedia.org, can be edited by anyone. For this reason, not all information found on the site is accurate.

Be smart about your searches - choose websites that offer some sort of proof about their accuracy and are up to date.

You can see below, I’ve added the key phrase “skin cancer” and entered “.org” to display results from.Org domains only.



The Skin Cancer Foundation is our first result. Since it’s a foundation, the information will be dependable. The page has been updated at the time of this writing which means it’s a reliable source of information. This is a great sign. We’ll gather most of our main points from this website.

The Skin Cancer Foundation has a pretty extensive site. Allow yourself less than 5 minutes to browse its pages.

As you’re browsing the website, look for concepts:

·that have enough information to write about (at least 4 key points for a 400-word article, and more than 8 for a 1000-word article) ·that are not common knowledge ·choose only 3 concepts to write about (you can always add more later)

It’s important that you don’t have your outline concepts set in stone. Instead, look for the 3 concepts that all tie in together and have the most information.

After browsing the site for a few minutes, you decide the prevention section has the most information that applies to preventing skin cancer.

Within 5 minutes, your first two concepts are easy to locate. Focusing on prevention, you notice there’s a lot of information about the quality of clothing. That can be the first concept.

The next topic that has the most information is how to choose the right SPF. You select that as your second concept. There’s not an obvious choice for a third concept.

You could go with “what to ask your dermatologist” (which isn’t really prevention) or the generic “other tips to stay skin-healthy.”

Make a quick decision and move on! The generic option seems like a good route since the tips aren’t too common. Now write the 3 concepts in your outline.

Here are the three concepts you’ve chosen:

Concept #1 - about sunscreens

Concept #2 - types of covers - clothing options

Concept #3 - other tips to stay skin-healthy

Now you’re ready to add the key points to each concept. Go back to the section about sunscreens. To extract information quickly, read one paragraph at a time and summarize it in a few words.

Make sure you’ve put it in your own words. Once you’ve reworded the information, it’s legally yours. Write those phrases in your key points.

Remember, you don’t need them to be sentences right now. Write as many short phrases as possible. Once the outline’s filled out, you’ll move on to adding the filler words that make a sentence a sentence. The more key points you have, the easier it will be to write.

This is an example of expanding on the concept “sunscreens” with key points.