Column Advice

I am freaking out right now and need some solid adivce. I have to get a column ready for a job interview/application that is due today. I want to obviously make a good enough impression to get the freelance gig.

I have written columns before, but this one matters because it will make or break me getting a job. I know that some of you have written columns before. Is there any advice you can offer up asap for me?

Thank you ever so much!

 

Did you just learn of your homework assignment? Geez.
Be yourself. If you try to write something that isn't you, they'll figure it out soon enough.

 

yeah, I did learn but I want to make sure I have all the do's and don'ts checked off.

 

1) Write about something you know. And for which you have some passion.

2) Write to support a single, strong idea or argument.

3) Write a clear, purposeful lede introducing that idea or argument.

4) Support that idea or argument with several pieces of evidence.

5) Write a clean, declarative ending that synthesizes your ideas and arguments, and echoes and recalls your lede.

 

Check your spelling 50 times, and have someone else check it as well.
Avoid using 'I' as if your life depends on it.
Don't try to be funny or clever unless you are really, REALLY funny and clever.

 

dude, the more i read your stuff, the more solid you are. clutch post.

 

Write on a local topic if at all possible.

And the five-point checklist was perfect. Avoiding "I" is critically important, as is prooofreading.

 

Thanks all of you for the opinions. I am not freaking out anymore. I value all the advice given.

 

Good luck. And thanks, T_P.

 

that pretty much sums it up, although I think even some of us who write columns don't follow it enough sometimes.

 

Best advice I ever got in that regard: Make sure it's a column, not a feature posing as a column.

Good luck.

 

Wow. I don't know about that one. Some of Rick Reilly's best "columns" are features. He had one recently about a father-son boxing trainer tandem working out of a building about to be taken over by eminent domain in San Diego. He took a stance, but it was more feature than column.