[Loki309]

Hey everyone, if you don't know me I am Tyson aka Loki309. I am a professional Radio Broadcaster with a great deal of training in news writing, and creative titling. I am here to lend my hand to help out those who are in need, and provide some more information for everyone on writing news posts, submitting a previously written news article, and titling your posts (both news posts and regular posts). Let's dive in!

The key for writing an interesting news post, titling a new post that contains a news item, or even just a regular thread, lies solely within the person writing it. You have to ask yourself three questions.

1. Am I writing a news story, or an opinionated column, blog, or discussion thread?

2. Do I have all the facts and information correct (only applies if your writing a news story, but even if its an opinionated column blog or discussion thread you may want to ask this)

3. How loyal to the topic am I?

You may be questioning the third question. The reason why its said to ask this is because the more loyal to the subject you are, the easier and more interesting you can make your post, title, or news story. As a big Jeff Gordon fan, I will have an easier time writing something about him than I will writing something about Tony Stewart. I will be more comfortable in writing, more apt to look of facts and counter points from outside sources, and do research on something that I may not understand or believe is true. Now I will do all of that if I am writing about Tony Stewart just so I am prepared to debate my stance on him. But it will not be as easy as if I were talking about Jeff Gordon.

Also the more loyal to the subject you are the more likely you are to create an interesting, fluid post that everyone will read, comprehend, and enjoy without ranting. Even people who hate what your talking about will be drawn in and will read up on it if you are loyal enough to a topic. Readers can sense that, and know that you are passionate in what your talking about.

Once you have the answer to your three questions, its time to write your post. Now for those of you who are writing your own stories based on what you read in the news this first section will be aimed at you. Following that will be a section on rewording, or copying a few lines from a news story you will be linking too. And the final step will be titling the post properly.

News writing:

In writing a news story, you want to make sure you have all the facts and information, strong sources that are site-able, and that you don't directly steal from another article. Here is a 6 step list of how to construct your story.

1. Brainstorm it out: Brainstorming can help you double check your information, make sure you have all the points you want to include in your story, and give you a head start on outlining the story. After you finish getting the brain storm down, write numbers by the most important parts, and anything that involves chronological information, and move on to the next phase.

2. Outline: Those numbers you wrote by the cells of your brainstorm, translate them into key phrases you will want to use in your story. Make sure you translate them clear enough to yourself so you can convey them from your outline to your story.

3. Write your first draft: All you have to do here is elaborate on your outline, and put it in a paragraph form.

4. Read > Edit > Reread/edit: You want to read the story at least two total times. However more is fine. Read through one complete time and leave some sort of indication on a section you may want to change. After the first complete go through, edit sections you marked. On the next read through edit as you go along. If you feel you need to repeat this step do so.

5. Check for proper grammar, spelling, typical English errors: Pretty self explanatory.

6. Post your final draft on GTG forums: Self explanatory.

After that all you have left to do will be to sit back and watch how your writing is received.

Creating a News Post from an existing news story:

This area can be done 1 of three ways.

1. Copying the complete story and linking it in the post as to have given the author proper credit.
2. Copy a small portion of it, and directing the reader to the full story.
3. Providing a self written synopsis of the article with a link to the full story.

As for number 1 I personally I don't like posting an entire news article unless it is a very small one. If you are going to do this, try to break the article up into decent paragraphs.

For number 2 try to pick the first paragraph or 2, those usually set up the article and are in place to wet the pallet of the reader. Post those along with a link to the article.

And for number 3, follow the above steps for writing your own news story.

Titles for you new post:

Whether its a news story your posting about, a poll, or just a general discussion topic, titles are the biggest way of pulling someone in to read what you have to say, and stick around for further discussion. To create a title that catches someones eye you have to do three things.

1. Pick out the tid-bits of information in the topic/article.

2. Find an appropriate catch phrase based on the important information of the topic/article.

3. Arrange the information of the topic/article paste it with a catch phrase, and arrange it so that it makes sense.

The easiest way to explain this is through interactive learning. I have a sports story that I want to use and post a news article on, its about Shawn Johnson getting a gold medal on the Balance Beam in the Olympics, the story is here FOX Sports on MSN - Olympics - U.S. gymnast Johnson gets gold on beam. What I am going to do now is skim the article a few times and find important information in the article. Now this isn't the perfect article because a lot of the article isn't about Shawn Johnson, but its the first one I picked. Just imagine the article is fully about Shawn Johnson, and the rest of it is about her training, and where she grew up and what it took for her to compete.

What I found was, Shawn Johnson has been getting silver all through out the Olympics, she is 16, had a headache the day of the competition.

Possible titles you could chose would be,

16 Year Old Johnson Gets a Gold
Runner Up Wins One!
Headache not stopping Johnson hunting for gold.

Those are some good titles. Not exactly eye popping though. So lets give it some creative flair!

Silver Shawn Johnson Walks Out With Gold!
Balancing Beam The Trick! Johnson Gets Gold!
Minor Headache, Major Gold for Shawn Johnson!

Hows that look? More catchy right? A little creativity and now more people are looking at the article, even if they don't like Shawn Johnson, or the Olympics. The other thing is the first 3 titles contain key information that the search engines are picking up on. The three more creative titles also contain the same information, but when it shows up on the search engine the person seeing it will notice that its catchy. Bringing the new person to the community who will hopefully stick around.

Being creative with the titles is simple, just experiment with what information you see in the article. Other tips you may want to consider in writing a title.

1. Don't stretch it. A Title supports a good piece of writing, stretching the truth on the the title to much is the same as writing a lie.

2. Make up new nicknames that could be supported by the article.

3. Experiment with a few different titles, and if you can't pick one ask a friend which they like better.

4. Don't use any bad, or borderline language to describe someone or the news story. While people might like topics that can be a little borderline, titles that are that way can turn people off, and can even be deleted here on GTG forums.

5. Don't post a false title.

6. Realize there is no limit to the titles you can come up with. But their is a limit to the information in the article that you can use for the title.

7. Don't use a lot of filler words like, and the is was. Also try to make it so the title make sense. While we don't need to be 100% grammatically correct, it helps if the reader knows what your saying the article is about.

8. Show the readers your flamboyant with punctuation. Give it the old ! or ? or !!! But try to stick away from ( ) < > . or anything like that. Also along these ways, realize that @ and at are the same thing, but some people may not get the hint that @ = At.

That wraps up everything I can say that would help you out in your endeavors to keep your friends and peers up to date, while helping GTG forums bring in new members. Please be advised that these are in no way, shape, or form the 100% perfect way for you to create news, titles, or threads. This is the way that works for me. You may find different routes, but this is the standard guide for writing. Also, if you have any questions or comments, or if I can be of any assistance send me a PM and I will do my best to assist you. If you are looking for title ideas, please link me the article, and what you have come up with for titles. Thanks for reading.