Capturing useful ideas as they occur is a writer’s secret weapon for incorporating current interest, color, novelty, and, originality into a project. Since we can’t anticipate what we are assigned, anything that we see or hear in daily life could conceivably turn out to be useful.

How can we maximize our chances of gleaning usable ideas from our environment? How can we recognize, take note of, and retain, successfully, potentially useful information? These are skills worth cultivating. We’ll examine some approaches.

The first strategy is to ensure our minimum daily requirement of nutritionally dense nourishment for our brains. By exposing ourselves to intellectually stimulating sources, we increase our chances of capturing relevant ideas. Similarly, we should go light on the empty calories of media and activities.

To accomplish this we need to be proactive about our media exposure. We can use the time we spend at work, or, if that is distracting, then when we are doing chores. At the risk of sounding biased, the choice between top 40 pop music, or an article on lip gloss, on the one hand, and a piece about an author, statesperson, or scientist on the other, seems clear. Unless your field of writing IS, in fact, the review, critique, and analysis of top 40 popular music, isn’t a serious interview or news program more likely to contain usable notions? Read the rest of this entry »

Hey, guys! We continue our “Blast fro the Past” article series.

If you have missed the second part, you can check it out right here.

We are still working on some new implementations for you, preparing for the high season, so we haven’t had the chance to compose new articles for you. That’s why in an effort to reintroduce new users to our blog, we are posting our previous entries published on our blog more than 6 months ago. Those articles contain a lot of useful freelance writing tips, which are universal and will never get old.

So here we go – another 3 great articles posted on our blog last year Read the rest of this entry »

As freelancers, we theoretically have discretion in how we allocate our time, which is our most precious resource.

If we do not manage time effectively, we may well end up paying the firm or the client for the privilege of writing for them. In order to avoid this, it is vital to keep the amount of time we spend on any one job to a minimum, while still producing the kind of incisive and powerful prose our clients deserve.

For a non-technologically oriented writer, several very low-tech tools can help us accomplish this.

The first tool may be exclusively internal, but can be visible as well. It is crucial that everyone around us treat our work with the same seriousness that it holds for our clients. You need to regard your obligations as equal to the most demanding office job. This holds true even if you type in bunny slippers, or, shorts and a t-shirt. Everyone in your extended circle of friends and family needs to support you in order for you to be even slightly successful.

A loving but oblivious family can sabotage you decisively. Embracing the attitude that you are an important crafter of a needed product will go far towards encouraging others to treat you accordingly. Those around us will take us no more seriously than we take ourselves. How can one embody this? It could take varied forms. Read the rest of this entry »

Hey, everyone!

We, at the ResearchWritingCenter.com, are so excited, because we can finally announce the contest winners for our Research & Writing Contest!

It’s been a pretty challenging contest, with tons of great submissions!

The freelancers, who offered us their work, proved to have extensive freelancing experience, which was reflected in their essays!

Some of them were off-topic, and we couldn’t let them through, but it’s worth mentioning that those essays were also great!

We can finally announce 5 contest winners (we will only include their first names, in order to maintain privacy): Read the rest of this entry »

Self-education is a must for any freelance writer. Since there won’t be any teachers or exams, you are personally responsible for your continuing education, and its results.

It’s an enormous responsibility, because your progress in expanding your educational base has direct impact on your future freelancing success.
 
If you decided to make a career of freelance writing, then you need to accept that this is one of your main tools for advancement. You simply cannot make progress with learning something new.

You are your own CEO, manager, and supervisor, and no one will push you if you do not push yourself. What can you do to facilitate your self-education? What steps should you follow? Let’s take a look! Read the rest of this entry »