The Copyeditor's Desk

Learn Feature Article Writing, Get Published, and Improve Your Blog Content

This fall Paradise Valley Community College will offer a fully online course that will improve your skills as a blog writer and show you how to write winning feature articles for magazines and newspapers.

Many people use professional-level writing skills to generate the sidestream income to help pay off debt and build savings. And some have parlayed freelance writing experience into full-time jobs as magazine or newspaper editors.

In just eight weeks—October 18 through December 10—the course will explain how to structure, write, and market salable copy for commercial venues.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Types of feature articles
• How to structure an effective article
• Generating story ideas
• Finding markets that will buy from you
• Selling to magazines and newspapers
• Finding sources
• How to interview
• Checking facts
• The language and style of popular media
• How to edit your own writing
• Working with editors
• Legal and business aspects of writing for pay

When you write a blog post, you’re often writing one of the several types of feature article. This is why some of the most engaging bloggers around are former or continuing magazine or newspaper writers and editors, such as this one and this one. If content is king, writing skill is the prime minister.

The course is offered for three credits through Paradise Valley Community College, in Phoenix, Arizona. PVCC is a fully accredited campus of the Maricopa County Community College District, and the course, which comes out of the English department, should transfer to many university English, creative writing, and journalism programs.

So, I invite you to join me in this little adventure. It should be a lot of fun, and it’s a great way to learn more about the craft of writing. If your blog is monetized or you use writing in other aspects of employment, the cost should be deductible.

The easiest way to sign up is over the telephone. Dial 602-787-7000 and register for English 235, Magazine Article Writing, Section 58235. The class runs from October 18 through December 10, 2010.

Because of state and county budget cutbacks, the Registrar’s office is open during the summer from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. PDT, Monday through Thursday; it’s closed on Fridays. Sometimes there’s a wait to get through to a registration worker, but eventually you will reach a human being.

—Victoria Hay
Director
The Copyeditor’s Desk, Inc.

Images: Vogue Magazine, February 15, 1917. Public Domain. Sunset Magazine, February 1911. Public Domain.

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The Copyeditor’s Desk is a partnership of two experienced editors who offer editing, proofreading, and indexing services to publishers and authors of book-length works. We also will assist with scholarly articles and with business documents.

Victoria Hay, Ph.D., has been the editor of Arizona State University’s Office for Scholarly Journals, where she oversaw preproduction services for six scholarly journals, ranging in subject matter from mathematical biosciences to medieval and Renaissance history. Her editorial track record includes innumerable trade and scholarly books and stints as business editor for Phoenix magazine and associate editor at Arizona Highways magazine, and she has published three books of her own, through Columbia University Press, Folger Shakespeare Library, and William Morrow.

Tina Minchella is managing editor of Management and Organization Review. At the Office for Scholarly Journals, performed as managing editor for Letras Femeninas and Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering. While completing her master’s degree in history, Tina enrolled in Arizona State University’s nationally renowned Scholarly Publishing Program. She has edited scholarly and trade books, plays, and many scholarly articles in the sciences and humanities.

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