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It's Time To Start That "Swipe" File

by: David B. Silva

Just as great fiction is an art, so is great copywriting. Beneath the art, however, there's a foundation of basic knowledge and skills. The craft that goes into your writing.

Craft comes first. Art follows.

You learn the craft of writing by educating yourself, by the actual process of writing (the doing), and by reading incessantly. Every successful writer will tell you that reading has been and still is the cornerstone of developing his craft.

Reading presents you with a written illustration of what works and what doesn't, of what you like as a writer and what you don't. It helps you understand the possibilities, and offers practical instruction of how the rules of your craft are used.

Most writers, when they start out, mimic their favorite authors. I have a friend who became incredibly adept at writing like Stephen King. For several years, everything I wrote had a Ray Bradbury flavor.

Eventually, we developed our own styles, which were richer for having first gone through this mimic stage.

The point is this: part of any effective learning process is to mimic what has been successful before you.

This is true of copywriting, too. And it's the reason you need to start a "swipe" file if you want to become a successful copywriter.

What is a "swipe" file? It's exactly what it sounds like ... a file of great copywriting examples that you've collected, studied, and can access whenever you're in need of a little inspiration. These are not examples meant to be plagiarized. You aren't copying work here; you're adapting it to your own copywriting needs.

For example ... suppose you're writing a sales letter for an Internet site that sells an expensive men's wristwatch and you're in need of a great headline. You search through your "swipe" file and find a sales letter for The Oxford Club (actually taken from my own "swipe" file) with the headline: A Man's Right To Wealth. How To Master Every Situation And Prosper On A Grand Scale.

You toy around with it and come up with this: A Man's Right To Elegance. How To Impress In Every Situation With A Watch That Does Far More Than Keep Accurate Time.

See how a good "swipe" file can help?

You can use it to adapt opening sentences. Or the layout of a sales letter. Or the guarantee you or your client offers. Even the pace or the emotional "tug" of a piece.

By using your "swipe" file, your creative juices are instantly flowing. There's no blank page. You already have something to work with. And as any good writer will tell you, it's easier to edit than it is to write.

So where do you get the material for your "swipe" file?

The quickest and easiest source is the Internet. Start checking out website sales letters. Print them out. Good or bad (even the bad ones can inspire your work). Study them. And keep them close by in a handy file.

The other great source is from mailing lists. If you're already on a few lists, then start filing those pitches away when they arrive instead of tossing them out. If you're not on a list, try purchasing a product or asking for a catalog. It won't be long before you're on a number of lists and your "swipe" file is growing exponentially.

Two good places to get started are: Publisher's Clearing House, 101 Channel Drive, Port Washington, NY 11050; and Nightingale-Conant, 7300 N. Leigh Avenue, Chicago, IL 60648.

Try them both. Try any others that come to mind, as well. Just start building your "swipe" today!

About The Author

Copyright 2003. All rights reserved. David B. Silva is a professional writer, editor and publisher. For a FREE mini-course on the best way to make writing that novel faster and easier, Click Here ==> mailto:easyway@thesuccessfulwriter.com?subject=TRAArticle
dbsilva@thesuccessfulwriter.com

This article was posted on August 20, 2003

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Writing Help for College Students
by: Tamara Owen

Your literature professor has asked you to write a 7-page essay comparing Medieval and Renaissance poetry; your economics professor wants 15 pages on how globalization is affecting the economy in three different countries; and your mathematics professor has forgotten this is a mathematics class, and wants 5 pages on the quadratic formula. And you have been staring at the computer screen for over an hour wondering how on earth you are going to do all of this in the next four days.

This is an all-too-familiar scene to many students. Many students learn of these large assignments at the beginning of the semester when they receive their class syllabi, and immediately forget about them because November seems like years away. Other students are busy with extracurricular sports, trying to adjust to being away from home for the first time, and other events and issues. Still other students are quite frankly terrified of the writing process, believing the blank page to be worse than their worst nightmare, and so these assignments get shoved aside to remain untouched until the last minute.

It is an interesting fact of college life that all students, regardless of major or discipline, are asked to write about their subject matter -- often quite extensively. While it is certainly important that all individuals be literate, and know how to read and write in a variety of capacities, styles, and genres, it is also the case that not everyone has to be a professional academic writer (www.korepetycje.com/join_us.html). Engineers need to know how to design bridges or better towel racks; pilots need to be able to take off and land safely and smoothly; and physicians need to be able to diagnose illnesses and injuries and to prescribe the correct medical interventions. None of these people needs to know how to write a term paper.

What, then, are the options for the poor student struggling in the first paragraph? What will happen to the student who is a prodigy on the piano but is facing failure because she cannot write 10 pages on Beethoven? What will happen to the next Frank Lloyd Wright who is stuck in his psychology seminar, unable to write a series of vignettes portraying various mental illnesses?

There are a few options. Most college campuses have writing labs, where many students are helped with researching and writing their papers. Many students form study groups, where they help each other through the tough assignments. Some students write their custom essays and term papers (see: http://www.korepetycje.com/indexam.html) and then pay an editor to polish them. Still others turn to professional writing services for assistance with their assignments. This is where services such as CustomPapers.com come in. We have a large staff of professional writers who specialize in writing papers about a wide variety of disciplines ranging from economics to ecology, marketing to Mozart, Hemingway to heart murmurs. We can also assist students with related projects, such as PowerPoint Presentations. In the many years of our existence, we have found tremendous success helping students with assignments of all sizes, all levels of difficulty, and all subjects.

Regardless of what type of help you choose, the important thing is that you get through college as quickly and effectively as possible. College is a step leading up to the rest of your life -- don't let a term paper be the skateboard in your path.

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