Make Supportable Claims in Your Work – And Support Them!

No one likes a deadbeat dad.

And no one likes a deadbeat writer, either.
 
Even the opinionated piece, in most cases, requires that you support you claim. Even if just for credibility, writing with integrity means making claims that are valid and proving that they are so, with evidence.

• Avoid the empirical

If you are tempted to write something for which you couldn’t provide evidence if you wanted to, then you probably shouldn’t write it. A credible writer makes a claim that means something. If it cannot be proven, it is just filler content.

• Show evidence of expertise – yours or the product of research

Rather than using empty adjectives or trite, lifeless phrases, write with knowledgeable diction. Your words all work to describe your subjection. Your diction needs to show that you are the expert, or have consulted the expert, about the writing’s subject matter.

Naturally, this will lead to supporting those claims.

• Reference credible sources that provide facts that serve as evidence to support your claims.

Often, the amateur writer will think nothing of this concept, especially in content writing. However, a professional writer understands that this concept extends far beyond the research paper.

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My Freelance Writing Journey Thus Far

Ahh, the freelance writing journey. These past two years have been wow-mazing. By this, I mean that I have hit every end of the spectrum. The colossal success and equally colossal…setback. No failures.

I have managed to try out everything I desired thanks to my gloriously compassionate and genuinely supportive husband. I have learned that I want to write about everything.

Except not really. I feel like I had been searching hard for niches because I needed the liveliness of the fiction I thought I needed to write, the relevance of the finance writing, the personable nature of the lifestyle writing, the helping-people-with-their-dreams feel of real estate writing.

However, I am primarily a business writer. A small business writer. My love is for the small business with, eh…balls? Yes, balls. I mean, why not be totally honest. In my freelance writing journey I have found that I want the small client that is always thinking big.

I am reminded of so many of the writers I admire and their niche passions and the ferocity of their writing. It tells me that I need to carve out this love I have for small business. I think that I want to write mostly how-to and authority content. We’ll see as I further progress in my journey.

What I have found is that I am thinking about my writing business, my career, as one of the charts I see in Money Magazine all the time that relates your age to your current investments’ risk.

So, now, my question is, how will I mix my upfront and passive income? The income of ghostwriting versus what I will see upfront?

For now, I am about to start my bachelor’s degree in internet marketing at Full Sail University. I completed my FAFSA and somehow I am actually going to get some dough. Really! I know that the web field is for me. Now, with so many writers that I consider my mentors, I have to mention Yolander Prinzel. Sheer genius, this chick. What an enigmatic personality! Who wouldn’t hire a writer like her? Anyhow, at a prior blog, she described the components of her 2009 business plan and it made more since to me the way she worded it. I need to mix that and the business plan advice of Jenn Mattern in her Web Writer’s Guide to get to it.

So where am I in my freelance writing journey? Just taking another step toward my success!

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Hello and Welcome

Welcome to Jessie Heekin’s Blog. Jessie Heekin? Well, that’s me…

I began my writing career in 2007, but I began writing much earlier. I, like many people, didn’t know that freelance writing was a viable (even lucrative) career. Then I left my accounting degree plan and signed up for a career school certificate course, determined to earn my stripes!

And I have (can’t you tell–just started a sentence with a conjunction)!

Freelance writing is a scam like this picture is serious.

Here at my blog, I am about stealing your money. Just kidding. Actually, my blog is how I connect with clients and network with colleagues in the self-employed publishing and online media industry. I am just poking around here at my WordPress blog, but you’ll notice some great additions to my blogroll within the next few hours.

Thanks for visiting my blog. I look forward to dispensing freelance writing advice to all eyes that will read it.