Tips for Authors 1.0 – In the beginning was the text

1.) Before starting – Work Instructions do not bite!

Each text creation job on clickworker.com has a detailed Work Instruction attached, which summarises all the details relevant for a successful completion of the tasks. Before beginning a task, it is very important to read the instructions carefully. They provide the necessary information, but can also give some preliminary indications on the style of the text required.

Please ask yourself the following questions when reading the Work Instructions:

How long should the created text be? What is the target audience?
How should the reader be addressed?
Should the keywords be included/searched/tagged?
What is the required text content?
Is any special formatting required?

When all these questions are clarified, the time limit for delivering the job must also be considered. The text can only be stored correctly when the text has been created within the specified deadline.

2.) Getting the balance right is important 

Everyone knows that text creation is hard work. For this reason, writing texts “on the fly” does not bring much success. Preparation is crucial. A good research, a clearly outlined daily workload and regular breaks result in better structured texts and much easier work. Fatigue can lead to mistakes. Whoever accepts work orders or assessments must understand that these will be reviewed later. Careless mistakes, which with a bit more care would have been easily identified, often result in a rejection of the text.

3.) My issue, your issue, no issue at all!

Words do not flow from the heart with every text. At least, if one supposes that not every writer has a preference for gazebos, jazz music, support stockings, old coins and construction trade fairs meals. However, there is no need to worry. Nobody is forced to accept any personally unsuitable issues. If in doubt, it might be better to skip the task. In this manner, the task is free for another Clickworker, who may be more interested in the subject area, or have more experience in this specific topic. In any case, before starting a job, always ask yourself whether the keywords can be inserted into text in accordance with the indications. Adding them later is normally time-consuming and the quality of the text can then suffer. (If you have any technical problems with the indications, please send a short email indicating the #Workitems to help@clickworker.com.)

4.) How do you say that? – Style and Expression

Unless explicitly required, colloquial or too general expressions should be avoided in text creation tasks. This not only ruins the style of the text, but in the worst case can even result in the texts being considered as unsuitable and rejected.

Using abbreviations, or too many foreign words, tend to create more confusion than well-written texts. The golden rule here is: “Clarify or Delete!”

– Double negatives do not always negatively influence the readability of a text. –

The example shows that clear and concise formulations do have some advantages over double negatives and complex sentences. However, it is hard to make a general statement on the maximal recommended length of sentences. Since the texts to be created on clickworker.com are normally targeted for an audience of the World Wide Web, you can really take the rule of thumb of “Short and sweet rather than long and unintelligible” to heart.

6.) Correcting from back to front – spelling and grammar.

The work does not stop when the issue has been successfully overcome. It does help to review the text very carefully to avoid annoying rejections.

When reviewing a text for correct spelling and to find any hidden typos faster, a good method is to reread the text from back to front. With the actual content not so much in the foreground, any inverted letters can be seen immediately.

In addition, any grammatical and stylistic errors become clearer if you read the text out loud.

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