Visiting Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference was a great experience — I saw old friends and met some new ones. I also spent quite a bit of time answering questions from writers of many different publications.
[ad#Google Adsense 300×250 in story]After almost 20 years in this business, I guess I’m sort of a veteran Mac guy. To be honest, I didn’t mind the questions. I know some people like to keep everything to themselves, but I figure if someone asks for help, I should do my best to give them what they need.
Here is some of the advice I gave.
Don’t be afraid to take a stand on a topic; Be honest with yourself and your readers; if you are wrong, admit the mistake and move on; Don’t write link bait; write about things you enjoy; and put some personality in your writing.
When it comes right down to it, I write for my readers and so should you. Those people may enjoy my style of writing, the topics I choose to write about or the honesty and humor that comes through in my stories.
For instance, some people really enjoy the stories I write about RIM and how bad they are doing. The fact is, when I started writing those in February, nobody was writing bad things about them. They were the darlings of the media, the ones that were going to dethrone Apple.
But I went ahead and wrote those stories anyway.
The reason I did it and continue to do it is simple — I believe what I’m writing is true. It’s easy to write something if you believe it is the truth.
Over the years, I’ve made mistakes in stories and still do. Some were bigger than others. Mistakes may even make you look stupid. When that happens, you have two choices — stand by your story or admit your mistake.
I always try to take the high road and admit my mistake. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong.
That’s not the same as caving in on an opinion. If you have an opinion, you have to stand up for that. I guarantee that not everyone will agree with what you write, but if you back up your opinion with historical fact or can draw a picture with your words, you will have as many people agree with you as those that don’t.
We all see link bait around the Internet. People hate it. Simple as that. If you become known for writing link bait, it will hurt your reputation.
One of the most important things is to write about things you enjoy. I love the Mac, iPad, iPod, and iPhone, so it makes it easy to sit here for 18 hours a day working on The Loop.
I also enjoy creating music, so I’ll often post stories about the best ways to create music or playing guitar through my Mac or iPad. Not everyone will enjoy those, but I do, so I write them.
If you can go to bed at night and you’re happy with what you’ve written, you’ve had a good day. Don’t worry about pageviews or recognition, those will come as more people read what you write.
i always thought you were writing more for you 😛
That too 🙂
I find The Loop to be very honest, it is always more fun to read a story where you can get a sense of what the author thinks and you get that here. That makes it more than just news, if that makes sense. That’s what I enjoy the most about this site.
Thanks Daniel, thanks exactly what I hope to get across to readers.
I like you, Jim. 🙂
I like reading The Loop very much. If I’ve ever had a problem with the content, it’s because I wanted a longer article about one subject or another.
I think 1 costly mistake made by new writers is they want to please everyone; writing what they think their readers want to hear (ex. RIM, the darling of Canada) and in the process becoming a crude regurgitate of mainstream thought.
Jim never took that road resulting in an ironclad credibility when presenting facts or opinions.
Plus, he’s a fellow Canuck AND what joy to see when he does slip up and gets his ass kicked by The Beard :p
Noted is that many tech writers use the plural pronoun to represent one company as in, “Today Apple released…, and they released it on time.” Apple is a single entity, not two or more. It even has one designation on the stock market as well as one logo.
So, when writing about one company, the pronoun should be singular as in, “Today Apple released…, and it released it on time.”
But, on the other hand, if the subject at Apple is Tim Cook and Steve Jobs, then the pronoun is plural even though Apple is singular as in, “Today Apple’s Tim Cook and Steve Jobe released…, and they released it on time.”
I think that if a writer (it’s usually a tech writer, often pretentious) who does not lay the foundation to clearly show that the subject is a plurality, then stay with the singular pronoun; It’s safer.
Good advice. Thanks Jim.
If you are British however, this would not be correct. I think Americans (and I am one) need to be taught that not every country follows their grammar rules. Could it be that the people you think should be following American grammar conventions are actually following their own country’s language customs?
I suspect more literate Americans understand this than do literate British. Americans are constantly being scolded, upbraided, and otherwise lectured on this topic. No literate American thinks otherwise. But it’s not possible to learn all the intricacies not only of your language but also of every regional variation. It’s too hard. But in my experience, you’re more likely to see inflexibility from a literate Brit and a literate Yank.
Subliterate Americans don’t know that lesson, to be sure (any more than a subliterate Brit). But the problem isn’t that they haven’t been taught. It’s that they haven’t learned. And they failed to learn that lesson while they were on their way toward failing to learn all the other lessons about literacy. Teach the latter and they’ll learn the former.
I stopped writing for Macworld about two years ago because I got tired of re-writing my articles to accommodate their “fact-checking.” In other words, they didn’t want me to have a personality or opinion – essentially they just wanted someone to re-write press-releases. It’s too bad, cause Macworld has some great people, but the site & magazine are just horrible.
I guess what I’m getting at is that if I wanted to read FACTS, I would go direct to the source. I visit blogs like this to get OPINIONS, or commentary on the facts. It’s what makes a site different from others.
Great article, Jim!
You’ve got some great tips in this article. I’m a writer but wish I knew how to get the more interested
You have so really good tips in this article
Good tips indeed, Jim. But someone has to say this: Here we have a helpful article on how to be a technology writer. And what kind of comments do we have?
“…. how to get the more interested”
“… so really good tips”
“press-releases”
Jim, you should add tip #1: learn English.
I use American English but I think that even British English should use singular/singular, not singular/plural. I have often seen something like this, for example: “Apple said in a statement…. They further clarified that….? Why “they?”
Apple is not they. I think that the plurality of Apple employees needs to be first established in the article itself, not automatically assumed to be a plurality simply because more than one person works there.
Apple is likely not more than one so it is very likely not “they.”
I always read the loop with great interest!
Jim writes more good articles than most – for a Canadian, eh? 🙂
More tips for good writin’ y’all.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_3_18?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=write+good+english&x=0&y=0&sprefix=write+good+english