Both the author and WORLD OIL are vitally concerned with getting the highest possible readership of an article. The author's greatest compensation is from the recognition of readers. Increased readership of an article, report or paper will heighten the author's prestige in the industry.

Writing is easy

Writing an article is not as difficult as it may seem. Get your facts assembled, organized them in a logical way and start writing, typing or dictating. There are a few standard patterns, a few do's, and don'ts, but they are easy to master.

A good article is a lot like a cooking recipe. It must tell all the ingredients and explain when and how to use each.

Outlines will help

Articles should be presented in an orderly and logical way. The easiest way to organize an article is to prepare an outline of key thoughts. Once a good outline has been prepared, adding flesh to the skeleton is comparatively easy. Outlines also promote clarity and eliminate repetition of thoughts. Every author will find that outlines will help him write better articles and speed up the actual writing.

Perhaps the most common and easiest outline pattern to follow is a slight variation of the case history. Start with a summary of the results or accomplishments and their importance. Follow with a statement of the problem or objective, then discuss the method of solution, and finally narrate the development.

Three steps to high readership

Increased readership of an article can be achieved by close attention to:

1. The title of the article, which must attract the reader's attention and arouse interest.
2. The opening paragraph or introduction (called a "lead" by professional writers), which must increase the reader's interest.
3. The remainder of the article, which must elaborate on and explain the promises made by the title and opening paragraphs.

Use Short, Active Titles

The title, or head, is the showcase, the interest arouser, which must capture the fast moving attention of the reader.

A good title sells the story to the reader. Stress reader benefits, such as reduced costs, more efficient operation, fewer hazards, more production, solving a problem, etc.

Heads should not be long. Say it fast and say it well. Heads must be truthful. Do not distort the facts that are in the story.

Use of such words as "new, better, improved," along with "ways, methods, developments, techniques" have reader appeal.

Title or head writing is a special skill, and non-professional writers are not expected to meet all requirements. However, editors like to see an author's own quick interpretation of what is in the article.

Too long: Elevated mud pumps increase service life of belt drives and reduce bearing wear.

Label head: Elevated mud pumps.

Preferred head: Elevated mud pumps will cut maintenance costs.

Start With the Conclusion

Plunge into the heart of the subject at the beginning. Give the reader the meat of the story before less essential details spoil his appetite. Here is the place for the conclusion, which all too often is placed at the end of the article or report by non-professional writers.

By all means, don't start with a detailed summary of development. You are writing an article, not history. Be brief, quickly summarize all the benefits and key points for the reader. The rest of the article will explain in detail the claims made in the starting paragraphs and head. More than one sentence is preferred to a single, complicated opener. Short sentences and simple words speed reading and improve clarity.

Here again, as in the head, stress such benefits as reduced costs, faster drilling, more production, solving of a problem, fewer hazards, more income, etc.

This is the most important part of the article. A good "lead" will do more to increase the readership of an article than anything else.

Remember that audiences at meetings are pinned to their seats by good manners, but magazine readers are not. Readers can be rid of you by flipping a page. The first few paragraphs must whet the interest and curiosity of the reader to get him to read the rest of the article.

A good "lead" or introduction answers most, if not all, of the following questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? The order in which these questions are answered will be determined by their relative importance in each article. In technical articles, What, Why and How are usually the most important.

A poor lead:

Extremely difficult problems of production, which have been encountered by the AAA Oil Company in the development of its International lease in the Wildcat Canyon field of Timbuctoo's coastal region have resulted in the application of interesting deep well pumping techniques which have proven successful in the handling of heavy crude being produced from the field's fractured shale and chert reservoir.

(This lead makes an attempt to get the required information before the reader in a hurry, but it is lost in a maze of words.)

This is better:

Unique pumping practices are solving AAA Oil Company's problem of handling heavy crude in Timbuctoo's Wildcat Canyon field. Prompted by the increased demand for heavy crude, AAA went into this coastal field to try to step up production.

The effort has been successful. The techniques sued are likely to influence production practices in areas with similar problems.

(This lead gets the point of the "unique pumping practices" to the reader in a hurry. Who? ... AAA Oil Company. What? ... The problem of handling heavy crude. When? ... The time element is relatively unimportant, but the second lead, with its present tense, suggests immediacy. Why? ... The problem is important because there is a demand for heavy crude. Where? ... Timbuctoo. How? ... Use of unique pumping practices. If the reader's appetite has been sufficiently whetted, he will read on to find out about these pumping practices.)

Body of the article

After the reader's interest has been attracted by the head and whetted by the lead, give the supporting facts. This is the body of the article. Start with the important things, fading off to the less important. This is where the use of an outline will prove especially helpful.

The body of the article is merely the details and explanations that support claims made in the opening paragraph or two.

Use plain English

Straightforward, plain English, with no attempt at the creation of a "literary gem" is desirable. Literary gems often come from such efforts.

Remember to use short sentences and simple words. They speed reading and improve clarity. Long, involved sentences and paragraphs will cause readers to flip the page.

Use common, everyday terminology instead of technical terms and acronyms. You will expand your readership by doing so. Write to express, not to impress.

Style, spelling and punctuation

This is not intended as a textbook on style, spelling or punctuation. A casual inspection of WORLD OIL will reveal many of our style standards. However, the non-staff author should not be too concerned with style problems. That will be taken care of by the editors. But consistency is important.

If you hit a blind spot on spelling, refer to a dictionary. There will be cases in which words unique to the oil business are used. Over the years, WORLD OIL has adopted standardized spelling for most of these and will handle them in the editing process.

If the principles of short words and short sentences are followed, punctuation will fall into place. It is primarily in the long and involved sentences that punctuation becomes a pitfall.

WORLD OIL's style on capitalization is "up." In other words, when in doubt about whether to capitalize a word, use the upper case or capital letter.

Be Brief, But Tell the Story

WORLD OIL places no arbitrary limit on the length of an article. Three pages in the magazine may be too much to devote to one topic; six pages would not adequately cover another.

However, brevity is highly desirable in these days of great competition for time. All articles should be stripped of ornamentation and padding. They should be long enough to tell the story completely, short enough to tell it fast. Leave out all non-essentials.

Avoid writing down to readers. Don't dwell on facts that they probably know. Also, it is sometimes desirable to avoid tracing the path toward which a conclusion is reached. For instance, a table showing the results of mathematical computations of interest to a reader may be more desirable than a recitation of countless formulas that are of no particular interest.