ifs Young Business Writer of the Year – Handy Hints & Tips
We are naturally keen for you to have the greatest chance of success in our annual ifs Young Business Writer of the Year competition so have put together a few useful hints and tips on how to succeed. Some of these may seem obvious but you would be surprised just how many entries ignore these basic points!
- Do not leave writing your article until the last minute. Set aside some time to research your article properly as well as time to write a draft.
- Do not waffle and do not repeat the same facts twice.
- Make sure it's relevant. Do not get sidetracked, stick to the subject matter given in the article heading.
- Check and double check that your facts are accurate. Just because your friends, parents or teachers tell you something is correct does not mean that it is – always try and verify any facts or statistics with a reliable source (Wikipedia does not count!)
- Pay attention to the lay out of your article, have a look at the business and personal finance pages of some national newspapers, how are they formatted? Are images used?
- Pay particular attention to spelling and grammar. Use your computers spell checker but do not rely solely on this as it will not pick up incorrect usage of words such as to/too/two and their/there/they're etc.
- Remember this is NOT an essay writing competition, you are writing an article. Again, look at the business and personal finance sections of national newspapers and magazines to give you an idea as to writing style and structure.
- Do not exceed the stated maximum number of words (1,000).
- Before submitting your article, read it through at least twice. Be ruthless, edit out any unnecessary words, phrases or paragraphs.
- Finally, get a friend to check through your article. They might spot any mistakes that you have missed.
